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Sources

London 2012 Gets No Medals For Its Dreadful Marketing

FRANCE TV INFO (France), BBC NEWS, THE GUARDIAN (UK), LOS ANGELES TIMES (USA)

Worldcrunch

"Is this the worst marketing in the world?" asks France TV Info. Every Olympic Games has to have their official clip, logo, mascot and anthem, says the French TV news channel, but the choices made by London 2012 are just terrible.

• An animated clip that triggers epileptic seizures:

Charity Epilepsy Action, reports the BBC, has received calls from people who have suffered fits after watching the official animated clip. "This concerns a short piece of animation which we used as part of the logo launch event, and not the actual logo", said a London 2012 spokeswoman. She explained the incriminated section showed a "diver diving into a pool which had a multi-colour ripple effect".

Epilepsy Action said the images could affect the 23,000 people in the UK who have photosensitive epilepsy. The section of the clip has since been removed, but the original footage can be seen on You Tube (CAUTION: not for the faint-hearted -- or people suffering from epilepsy, obviously).

• A logo that is racist and obscene (and also too expensive):

Is it a broken swastika... or Lisa Simpson engaging in sex with Bart Simpson? There are multiple interpretations to London 2012's jagged logo. Iranian Olympic Committee President Mohammad Aliabadi wrote to his International Olympic Committee counterpart Jacques Rogge to complain about the fact that the logo can be seen as spelling out the word "Zion," which he considered "totally revolting."

The logo, designed by Wolff Ollins cost 400,000 pounds ($623,000). When the BBC website asked its readers to rate the design, 9.51% gave it a gold medal, 4.87% silver, 5.9% bronze and 79.69% a "wooden spoon."

• Mascots that are ugly and scary:

Wenlock and Mandeville are the Games' very kitschy mascots. They are supposedly made from droplets of steel (see video below) used to build the Olympic stadium, writes The Guardian -- but seriously, says the newspaper, these one-eyed aliens are the stuff of nightmares. What are they supposed to be?

• A dreadful anthem:

Muse had perhaps one of the more thankless tasks in crafting a song for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, says the Los Angeles Times: writing a song that represents the host country and doesn't embarrass it. What's more, the lyrics have to be easily translatable for the entire globe, and it should play OK on TV.

The result, writes the newspaper? Dreadful! Singer Matthew Bellamy doesn't even sound like he's having any fun, twisting his vocals into all sorts of strained contortions as he sings of staying alive and wreaking vengeance. This isn't a song for the Olympics as much as it's a song for "The Hunger Games."

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FOCUS: Russia-Ukraine War

Bucha To Bakhmut, Mariupol To Maryinka: Our Brutal Introduction To Ukraine's 'Hero Cities'

The world has come to know Ukraine’s geography through decisive battles and unspeakable war crimes in places like Mariupol, Bucha and now Bakhmut. We zoom in on what these places mean for the war, in both strategic and symbolic terms.

Bucha To Bakhmut, Mariupol To Maryinka: Our Brutal Introduction To Ukraine's 'Hero Cities'

Ukrainian soldiers preparing a tank for combat on the Bakhmut front.

Before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Bakhmut, an eastern city of just over 70,000, was known across the region for its sparkling wine and salt mines – and around the world, it was barely known at all.

Through cruel coincidences of fate and geography, the names of places like Bakhmut have become iconic as they appear in newspaper headlines, day after day.

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Now, Bakhmut joins the annals of history alongside places like Iwo Jima, Gallipoli or Falluja that appeared on the map in pitched battles. Or like Aleppo — introduced to many around the world as the site of atrocities during the Syrian Civil War, though known to both history and food buffs for its UNESCO-recognized ancient souk and thousands of years of multicultural culinary wonders.

Over the past 15 months, the world has come to know Ukrainian geography, often in the most tragic circumstances. Just a few weeks after Russia's full-scale invasion in Feb. 2022, the Ukrainian government recognized 14 cities, including Kherson, Mariupol, Bucha and Irpin, as “Hero Cities” – a distinction dating back to World War II, when the Soviet Union recognized cities like Kyiv and Stalingrad (present-day Volgograd) for their residents’ bravery and determination in the face of the Nazi invasion.

After more than a year of full-scale war and as Ukraine's long-awaited counterattack nears, we look at some of the places that have become the site of crucial battles in the ongoing conflict, forever seared into posterity:

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