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Miners on strike take pictures near barricades of burning tyres on the A-6 motorway, on the second day of a strike to protest the government's spending cuts in the mining sector, in El Montico, near Oviedo, northern Spain, May 24, 2012. Spain's economy is contracting for the second time since late 2009 and four years of stagnation and recession have pushed unemployment above 24 percent, the highest rate in the European Union. REUTERS/Eloy Alonso

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Members of the U.S. Army Old Guard place a flag at each of the over 220,000 graves of fallen U.S. military service members buried at Arlington National Cemetery, May 24, 2012. Memorial Day will be commemorated this weekend across the United States. REUTERS/Jason Reed (UNITED STATES - Tags: MILITARY)

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Members of the U.S. Navy Blue Angels fly over the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan as part of the 25th annual Fleet Week celebration in New York, May 23, 2012. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz (UNITED STATES - Tags: MILITARY ANNIVERSARY TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY)

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Students show emotions at the 2012 Joplin High School commencement ceremony inside the Leggett and Plant Athletic Center at Missouri Southern State University in Joplin, Missouri, May 21, 2012. REUTERS/Larry Downing (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS EDUCATION)

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Protests, pollution hurt Games "interest": survey

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MILAN | Mon Aug 4, 2008 2:33am EDT

MILAN (Reuters) - Concerns about China's human rights record and its polluted air have dampened public interest around the world in the Beijing Olympics, a research group said.

The survey by Sport+Markt -- based on 1,000 telephone interviews with people aged between 16 and 69 per country -- showed the level of "interest" in the Olympics had decreased across the world over the last four years.

"The event in Tibet this spring as well as protests regarding the torch relay was a worldwide negative campaign for the Olympics in Beijing," Hartmut Zastrow, executive director at Sport+Markt, said in a note released on Friday.

In Britain, enthusiasm for the Games slumped to about a third from 52 percent compared to the Athens Games four years ago.

"Interest" in the Games also dropped in Germany (58 percent), France (45 percent), Spain (40 percent) and Italy (56 percent) as well as Japan, China, Russia and the United States.

(Reporting by Antonella Ciancio; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

(For more stories visit our multimedia website "Road to Beijing" here; and see our blog at blogs.reuters.com/china)
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