The Asian Paralympic Committee (APC) recently announced that the return of the Asian Youth Para Games would take place next year from 8 to 15 September 2009 in Tokyo, Japan.

Six months ago, Miga, Quatchi and Sumi were introduced as the official mascots of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. The three friends have since travelled the country, met with celebrities, taken hundreds of photos and are now ready to expand their interactive website.

From 28 to 30 April, the National Paralympic Committee (NPC) of Azerbaijan launched the Organizational Development Initiative (ODI) at the initial ODI planning workshop.

From 2 to 6 June, the annual SportAccord Conference was held in Athens, Greece.

An agreement was recently signed between WGBH and the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) to produce ‘Paralympics 2008’, the Official Film of the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games.

Today, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Board accepted Chicago (USA), Madrid (Spain), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) and Tokyo (Japan)* as Candidate Cities to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2016. The cities were accepted from a total of seven Applicant Cities, which also included Baku (Azerbaijan), Doha (Qatar) and Prague (Czech Republic)*.

Today, Caja Madrid released a special VISA credit card supporting the Paralympic Movement in Spain and in particular the current preparation of athletes that will participate in the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games.

The Finnish Paralympic Committee hosted the fourth National Paralympic Day on 21 May in the city centre of Helsinki.

The Beijing Capital International Airport (BCIA) will undergo reconstruction in order to make the airport more accessible to athletes, teams and spectators arriving in the run-up to the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games in September.