Free Republic

8 Years Later, Athens Olympic Venues in Decay There's still one group that loves the training pool for athletes at the former Olympic village in Athens' northern fringe. Frogs. They appear to delight in sitting on debris that floats on the half-filled pool's murky waters. The athletes village itself has fared somewhat better, turned into housing for workers. Eight years after the 2004 Athens Games, many of the Olympic venues Greece built at great expense remain abandoned or rarely used. They are the focus of great public anger as the country struggles through a fifth year of recession and nearly...

The long-dreaded 2004 Olympics in Greece will be the ultimate crossroads for sports and politics in this new and vicious century. The recent photos of cruelty at the Abu Grahaib all-american prison in Baghdad have taken care of that. Yes, sir. We have taken the bull by the horns on this one, sports fans. These horrifying digital snapshots of the American dream in action on foreign soil are worse than anything even I could have expected. I have been in this business a long time and I have seen many staggering things, but this one is over the line. Now...

Millions of holidaymakers going to Greece this summer have been warned they could be jailed for buying pirated CDs after a buyer was imprisoned. A man was jailed for three months by an Athens court for buying illegal CDs in the country's first case of its kind. He had been arrested as he bought two CDs from a vendor in Athens last week, said the International Federation of the Phonographic Industries (IFPI). The group gave a clear warning it would target buyers of counterfeit CDs. IFPI spokesman Ion Stamboulis said: "This is not a symbolic measure. We are determined to...

The Olympic Movement is constipated. The Games of Summer have become a megaton gorilla, too difficult to handle, feed and understand, too unwieldy, far too unpredictable, dangerous and expensive to keep, and far, far too tainted by advancements in chemistry. And so? Unnecessary. Nice knowing you, ring boys. If the Olympics go away, the world will go on, and the hypocritical purists who have permanently stained what once was sportdom's last chapel will go away, too. The idealistic idea of the Games has been ravaged by time, greed, money, power, terror, corruption, politics and drugs. The Games are drugged out...

Fear of a hostile reaction has led US officials to warn its participants in the Games against overtly patriotic displaysBy Simon Hart in New York (Filed: 16/05/2004) American athletes have been warned not to wave the US flag during their medal celebrations at this summer's Olympic Games in Athens for fear of provoking crowd hostility and harming the country's already battered public image. The spectacle of victorious athletes grabbing a national flag and parading it around the stadium is a familiar part of international sporting competition, but US Olympic officials have ordered their 550-strong team to exercise restraint and avoid...

In an online registry of the world's nations, organizers of the Olympic Games in Greece have omitted listing Israel's capital. Instead of Jerusalem, the entry for "capital" has an asterisk that corresponds to a footnote reading: "Please visit the official United Nations website for further information regarding the capital of Israel." A few months ago, the website listed Jerusalem as the capital of "Palestine," while leaving the entry for Israel's capital blank, the Jerusalem Post reported. That prompted a protest from Israel, resulting in a compromise in which both the Israeli and Palestinian capitals would be omitted from the register....

Athens Olympic 2004 Website says that Israel's capital is Tel-Aviv. General Information: Continent: Europe Official Name: State of Israel Capital: Tel Aviv Area: 20,770 sq km Population: 6,116,533 Currency: New Israeli Shekel (ILS) Languages: Hebrew (official), Arabic, English Government: Parliamentary democracy Official website: http://www.info.gov.il/eng/mainpage.asp In addition, it lists the continent Israel is on as Europe, so when someone goes to see what is in Asia, you do not find Israel on the list, but a ficticious country known as "Palestine." Click here to view Israel's entry that shows Tel Aviv as Israel's capital, and shows Israel as being in EuropeClick...

Nov. 21, 2003 Wiesenthal Center: Greece not fighting anti-Semitism By TOM TUGEND A travel advisory urging "extreme caution" for travelers to Greece has been issued by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, in light of the nation's failure to take steps curbing growing anti-Semitism and hate propaganda. Citing a series of anti-Jewish acts, articles and statements in Greece, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the center's associate dean, warned, "Failing a dramatic change in attitude and policy, the current atmosphere of hate and vilification can only escalate and could also poison the environment leading up to the 2004 Olympic Games." Cooper noted that meetings with...

Terror experts fear Athens Games are 'peach of a target' Greece has not grasped scale of possible threat, they say Helena Smith in Athens and Richard Norton-Taylor Saturday August 16, 2003 The Guardian (UK) MI5 and Scotland Yard are advising the Greek authorities on how to protect the 2004 Athens Olympic Games amid concern that the local police are struggling to grasp the scale of threat posed by al-Qaida and other terrorist groups, the Guardian has learned. The Briton who has been appointed chief security consultant for the games admits he has "a very tough job" because the world has...

ATHENS, Greece ? They are called kompoloi, or worry beads. They have been a part of Greek culture for centuries. They are strands of 15 or 20 beads loosely strung on a chain that Greek men rub incessantly with their fingers and flip into their palm, creating a click-clacking sound as the beads smack together. "In moments of nervousness, confusion, impasse and vexation," a Web site devoted to worry beads explains, "(they) can give calm and peacefulness." You hear a lot of click-clacking around Athens these days. The Olympic Games return to Greece one year from today, or are supposed...