Μόνιμη Διεξαγωγή των Ολυμπιακών Αγώνων στην Ελλάδα
Η Ελλάδα διοργάνωσε τον Αύγουστο του 2004 τους τελειότερους και ασφαλέστερους Ολυμπιακούς Αγώνες όλων των εποχών, κάτι για το οποίο ο ελληνικός λαός επιβαρύνθηκε με πολλά δισεκατομμύρια Ευρώ. Στη διάρκεια της διοργάνωσης διεξήχθησαν κάποια αγωνίσματα στίβου μέσα στο Αρχαίο Στάδιο της Ολυμπίας, κάτι το οποίο έγινε για πρώτη φορά στην νεότερη ιστορία των Ολυμπιακών Αγώνων και προσέλκυσε χιλιάδες Έλληνες και ξένους θεατές, ενώ ιδιαίτερα σημαντική ήταν και η διεξαγωγή του Μαραθωνίου Δρόμου πάνω στη Κλασσική Διαδρομή από τον Τύμβο του Μαραθώνα στο Παναθηναϊκό Στάδιο στο οποίο είχαν γίνει το 1896 οι πρώτοι Σύγχρονοι Ολυμπιακοί Αγώνες. Η σύνδεση της αρχαιότητας και της σημερινής εποχής μέσω της κορυφαίας αυτής αθλητικής εκδήλωσης ειρήνης και συναδέλφωσης των λαών ήταν απόλυτα επιτυχής και απέδειξε πόσο δίκιο είχε ο αείμνηστος Πρόεδρος της Ελληνικής Δημοκρατίας Κωνσταντίνος Καραμανλής όταν ζητούσε τη μόνιμη τέλεση των Ολυμπιακών Αγώνων στην Ελλάδα.
Με αφορμή τη καταπάτηση των ανθρωπίνων δικαιωμάτων στη Λαϊκή Δημοκρατία της Κίνας..
-Όπου η έννοια της Δημοκρατίας καταργείται...
-Όπου η πολιτιστική γενοκτονία του Θιβέτ έχει ξεσηκώσει ολόκληρο τον Πολιτισμένο Κόσμο...
-Όπου οι Αντιφρονούντες βασανίζονται και πεθαίνουν στις φυλακές...
- Όπου παράγονται και διακινούνται τα αναβολικά για τους Πρωταθλητές...καταργώντας την έννοια του "Ευ Αγωνίζεσθε".
-Όπου... Ποτέ μέχρι σήμερα δεν έχει γίνει στόχος η Ολυμπιακή Φλόγα...από την Αφή της...αλλά και από οποιοδήποτε σημείο του πλανήτη περνά...
Να διεξάγονται οι Ολυμπιακοί Αγώνες μόνιμα στη Χώρα που τους γέννησε!!!
OLYMPICS; 40 China Athletes Out of Olympics; 7 Tied to Drugs
Forty of China's 300 Olympic athletes have withdrawn from the Summer Games, seven of them rowers who failed blood tests at home indicating that they were using performance-enhancing drugs, Olympic officials said today.
Favored to become the host city for the 2008 Summer Games, Beijing is apparently being extremely careful to avoid another doping scandal like those that tarnished the accomplishments of its swimmers in recent years. There has also been skepticism about the stunning achievements of China's distance runners in the early 1990's.
It was not known whether the other 33 withdrawals were related to drugs, Sydney Olympic officials stressed. Milton Cockburn, a spokesman for the Sydney Olympic Organizing Committee, said the withdrawals came after a request that countries pare down their teams or find other housing because the 10,400 available beds could not accommodate every athlete in the Olympic village.
The withdrawal of the seven rowers appears to indicate that the implementation of blood-testing procedures for the first time at these Sydney Games is having some deterrent effect on athletes in endurance sports who may look to cheat by illicitly trying to increase their oxygen-carrying capacity.
The International Olympic Committee last week approved testing for erythropoietin, or EPO, a synthetic version of a naturally occurring hormone that stimulates the production of red blood cells and is believed to be widely used in such endurance sports as distance running, cycling, swimming and rowing.
''People are now convinced there is a test, that the I.O.C. is prepared to apply it and nobody wants to send athletes to the Games that are going to get caught and disgraced,'' said Dick Pound, an I.O.C. vice president from Montreal who is head of the World Anti-Doping Agency, created by the I.O.C. in the wake of the EPO scandal at the 1998 Tour de France.
Extensive drug use will certainly occur at the Sydney Games, I.O.C. officials concede, considering there will be no tests for such performance enhancers as human growth hormone, insulin growth hormone and artificial blood products. Steroid use is also so sophisticated that topical gels can be flushed from the system in a matter of hours. But the EPO test may deter cheaters and encourage athletes who do not cheat that the playing field is being made more level, Pound said.
''I don't want to be too superlative, but this is a terrific sign,'' Pound said in an interview this morning. ''You end up with a double benefit.''
The I.O.C. is conducting 2,100 out-of-competition tests in Sydney, including 300 tests for EPO. Unannounced, out-of-competition tests are considered the only reliable way to catch cheaters. The EPO test is a combination of a French urine test that can detect direct use of the drug for 2 or 3 days and an Australian blood test that detects indirect use of EPO. Privately, I.O.C. scientists say they are concerned about whether the tests will withstand legal scrutiny. But the test can be just as valuable if it discourages athletes from using EPO for fear they might be caught, Pound said.
The Chinese rowers, who included Zhang Xiuyun, a gold medalist in the women's single scull at a World Cup race in Zurich, Switzerland, last June, were presumably subjected in China to a hematocrit test that showed high red-blood cell counts, an indirect measure of the use of EPO, Pound said.
Liu Jianyong, secretary general of the Chinese rowing federation, said the rowers had withdrawn to ''protect their health'' -- a euphemism often used in drug cases.
China has publicly stated its determination to conduct more vigilant drug-testing procedures after being embarrassed repeatedly in recent years. Unlike the former East Germany, which operated a state-sponsored system of doping, China's doping appears to be conducted largely by individual coaches, according to American coaches and drug experts. Its female swimmers and distance runners have been far less dominant since the mid-1990's.
More than 30 Chinese swimmers were caught using drugs in the last decade, including 7 at the 1994 Asian Games. One swimmer, Yuan Yuan, was caught with 13 vials of human growth hormone, a steroid, in her luggage at the 1998 world swimming championships in Perth, Australia, and four other Chinese women tested positive. Two months ago, another female swimmer, Wu Yanyan, the world champion in the 200-meter individual medley, failed a drug test at the Chinese national championships and was banned for four years.
There were reports today in China that athletes coached by Ma Junren, the controversial Chinese whose distance runners set startling records in 1993 on a supposed regimen of running a marathon a day and eating diets of turtle soup and worm fungus, might also have been caught cheating by domestic tests, but I.O.C. officials said they could not confirm the reports. ''It might be the 2008 bid, but probably the real impetus was the real embarrassment in 1998,'' Pound said of the Chinese clean-up. ''They were embarrassed and fell on their sword and said, 'We're going to clean it up.' ''
And...
Selling drugs in China
The impending anabolic steroid jamboree in China brings with it the moral conundrum of whether we should provide any sort of support for a repugnant totalitarian regime. There is no freedom of speech in China. Even the mighty Google has bowed to the yoke of censorship. Oliver Wendell Homes (Junior), a great American judge, is well known for his statement that freedom of speech must on occasions be limited and should not, for example, extend to the right to shout “fire” in a crowded theatre. As Christopher Hitchens points out, the context in which the statement was made (Schenck v United States) is not well known and is disturbing.
Orac, at Respectful Insolence, monitors Holocaust Deniers such as David Irving, the Nazi apologist. Despite being a talented writer (and he is) Irving has forfeited his right to be called an “historian”. But has he forfeited his right to freedom of speech? He has in Austria but not, as yet, in the UK. Nor should he, crazy though he is. (full history of Irving here)
Should Wagner be played and listened to in Israel? Daniel Barenboim says “yes” and who better to make a judgement? Should we take part in the Chinese Olympic Games? I believe we should not and was particularly appalled at the attempt to prevent our athletes from voicing their own reservations. All too reminiscent of the way the English cricket selectors behaved initially over Basil D’Oivera.
I was too young to take part in the Peter Hain led UK fight against apartheid but I have not the slightest doubt – and Nelson Mandela is on record as agreeing with this - that the sporting ban made a significant contribution to the overthrow of the South African racist regime. It is inconceivable that that regime would ever have been awarded the Olympic Games. Now, fear of China’s economic power means we turn a blind eye to Tiananmen Square just as, in 1936, we turned a blind eye to the Nazis.
Our athletes should not go to China.
But should our businessmen? That is more difficult. Anthony Cox at Black Triangle discusses the involvement of the multi-national pharmaceutical companies in China. Inch thick, knee deep they are in there with Google. Will they use their influence to try to effect change from inside? I fear that as always for Big Pharma the profit motive will be supreme. And yet, for all my reservations about drug industry excess, I am sure they should be there. I cannot see a realistic alternative.
++++++++++
The second part of Christopher Hitchens’ address to the University of Toronto is here. He makes use of the quote we looked at last week from A Man From all Seasons in Abuse of Process but, oddly for Hitchens, misplaces it in the play. Not a serious problem. The point is still good.
I'm not saying it does. But I'm also not saying it doesnt. Because it does. And I just said it.
Officials crackdown on steroids in China
Beijing -- U.S. and international authorities are eying several Chinese firms distributing performance enhancing drugs over the Internet
Officials with the Chinese Food and Drug Administration say they are cracking down on companies accused of exporting performance enhancing drugs, such as steroids and human growth hormone, in response to pressure from the United States and international sporting officials, The Washington Post said Wednesday.
The issue emerges just eight months before the start of the summer Olympics in Beijing. There is confusion over FDA regulations that some say are vague and open to exploitation.
Chinese pharmaceutical companies may only distribute the drugs to licensed customers, but chemical factories that manufacture precursors and raw materials do not fall under that legislation, creating a loophole, the Post said.
A U.S. pharmaceutical company used Chinese raw materials to manufacture designer steroids used by athletes in the 2000 Summer Games and the 2003 track and field World Championship.
Δείτε και αυτό...
Zheng Xiaoyu, the former head of China's food and drug administration, was recently convicted of taking bribes and approving drugs that were not tested, which officials say resulted in the deaths of a number of people. In America, that would get you tossed in a white-collar prison.
Zheng was accused of dereliction of duty and accepting £430,000 in bribes and gifts to approve drug licences for hundreds of products, some of which turned out to be fake.
One antibiotic alone was responsible for 10 deaths.
If the sentence is upheld, he is most likely to be given a lethal injection, which has replaced the firing squad for most executions in Beijing. And..
Performance-enhancing drugs banned in Olympic sport are being produced and sold in large quantities in China, close to the sites where the Games will be staged this summer.
Human growth hormone (HGH), regarded as the drug of choice for athletes, poses the greatest threat to the Beijing Games being drug-free because it is difficult to detect unless tested for within 24 hours of being taken.
Marion Jones was stripped of her Olympic medals after she admitted injecting human growth hormone
Despite an attempt by the Chinese government to restrict its unlicensed manufacture, and a complete ban on its export, it took The Sunday Telegraph a little over a day to buy a week's supply - and then to find another company willing to dispatch much larger quantities to Britain.
China is the world's biggest manufacturer and supplier of anabolic steroids such as Stanozolol, and of HGH, which increases muscle growth, burns off body fat quickly and speeds up the healing of injuries.
Last year, Marion Jones, the American former Olympic gold medallist, became the most high-profile athlete to admit to injecting HGH when she pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators about her drug-taking activities.
Others, including a Chinese swimmer and her coach, caught red-handed at Sydney Airport in 1998, have been discovered with the drug in their possession. With the Olympics approaching, China's role as a major producer of HGH is under increased scrutiny.
"Any country that is seen to be producing designer steroids and other substances that enhance performance is a concern," said Andy Parkinson, of UK Sport's drug-free unit. "We don't want the worldwide trafficking of these substances."
In November, China's own food and drug watchdog, the SFDA, promised to stop export of the drugs, which are legal in China.
advertisement
However, last week The Sunday Telegraph contacted MaMaCF Imp & Exp Co Ltd, which until recently operated from an office in a housing development called Olympic Gardens, near the site of the Olympic village in Beijing. The clampdown forced it to relocate late last year to Qingdao, a port in eastern China's Shandong province - the venue for the Olympic sailing regatta.
A company representative named Mr Sun said it was still in the business of supplying HGH to buyers around the world, despite the SFDA's ban. "It's no problem to send samples, or even big quantities to the UK by courier," he said. "We've done it many times. We have lots of clients in the UK and USA."
The hormone is a controlled drug in Britain and its import is restricted. But Mr Sun said: "You don't need to worry. UK customs aren't strict at all. We describe these items on the customs form as healthcare products. If they get seized, we'll refund you."
Mr Sun offered to sell his company's HGH at 140 yuan (£9.90) per vial, each vial containing enough for five doses.
"I'll give you a cheaper price when you place a big order," he said.
Like many HGH suppliers in China, MaMaCF sells a counterfeit version of Jintropin, the most popular HGH product in China.
"I guarantee it is good quality. If you don't believe me, just try a sample," Mr Sun said.
He had no qualms about supplying a drug that athletes could use to cheat in the Beijing Olympics.
"I can't control what happens to the HGH once it has passed UK customs," he said.
"It's up to the people who buy it to decide what they do with it. I know there are dealers in the UK who pass it on, but it's not my job to worry about athletes who use drugs."
Nor is there anything to prevent someone from travelling to China and buying the hormone to take home.
After telephoning an agent in Beijing, The Sunday Telegraph met a Mr Jiang, who arrived by bicycle with boxes of HGH vials. Made by a properly licensed company in southern China's Guangdong province, his HGH was genuine.
"I know of people who take a kilo of it overseas to sell, but I don't know where they go to," he said, before charging 1,000 yuan (£70) for 10 vials - about two ounces - of the hormone.
The SFDA watchdog refused an interview request to discuss its efforts to stop the illegal export of HGH and steroids.
Asked if athletes were using the hormone in Britain, Mr Parkinson said: "It would be naive to believe that British athletes are different from other athletes. A few might take this shortcut to success, particularly with the pressure of 2012 and the chance to compete in their home country."
Some Chinese companies also export anabolic steroids like Stanozolol, which boosts muscle growth and is similarly banned by sporting authorities. The Shanxi Quanxin Bio-Tech Co Ltd, in northern China's Shanxi province, agreed to send small quantities of the drug to Britain.
"If clients overseas ask us to send less than a kilo, we will do it. But if the steroids get seized by Chinese customs, we won't refund your money," said a Miss Zhang.
Some companies list their products as raw materials to avoid the Chinese official scrutiny. Others circumvent restrictions by selling their products to local buyers, who send them overseas illicitly.
"We can sell a kilo or less to an individual in China without informing the SFDA," said Miss Zhang. "It's not our business what the buyers then do with the steroids. We don't take any responsibility for that."
Last month, Sir Matthew Pinsent, four-time Olympic rowing gold medal winner, demonstrated for a television film how easy it was to buy the hormone in Britain and lamented the absence of an effective test for it.
"The present test on HGH fielded by the authorities will only detect it up to one day after injection," he wrote in a linked newspaper article.
"That's it. One day. To date, although the test has been in use since 2004, it has caught the sum total of zero. No one."
The casual visitor to any of China's big cities could be forgiven for thinking this was a country without a serious drug problem - streets full of people who look either too smart and law-abiding, or simply not wealthy enough to be users of proscribed drugs.
Yet in a leafy backstreet in one of Beijing's quieter residential areas there is a reminder of how deceptive appearances can be.
At least 100 people are reported to have been executed for drug trafficking in 1999
Outside the Chaoyang district court is a noticeboard with details of forthcoming criminal trials; a quick look one day recently revealed that about a third of some 25 cases listed were of people accused of drug dealing.
While the Chinese authorities paid limited attention to the return of the drugs trade amid the breakneck economic reforms of the 1980s, the problem has now become hard to ignore.
'Designer drugs'
Official figures say 57,000 people were arrested last year for drug trafficking or drug production, up eight percent from a year earlier, and at least 100 people are reported to have been executed for drug trafficking in 1999.
China is facing a surge of drugs from across its borders
The scale of the crimes is growing too. In March a court in Huizhou in southern Guangdong province sentenced four people to death and eight others to prison for manufacturing one and a half tonnes of 'ice'.
Yang Fengrui, head of the narcotics squad in China's police ministry, said recently that seizures of the designer drug increased tenfold last year - and police believe the 16 tonnes they got their hands on may be only the tip of this particular 'iceberg'.
Mr Yang also said that the drug, never detected in China until 1997, has now been found in two thirds of the country's provinces.
The spread of ice (also known as methamphetamine) can be partly explained by the fact that China is the world's largest natural source of ephedrine, from which the drug is derived.
But China is also facing a surge of drugs from across its borders, both from Central Asia, and from the south-west - where Yunnan province borders the notorious Golden Triangle region of Burma and Laos.
Chinese police have in recent years begun tentative cooperation with neighbouring governments, as well as with international anti-drug agencies. But drugs continue to flow into the country, either for shipment to markets in Asia and the west, or for Chinese consumers - last year five tons of heroin were seized, while ecstasy and other designer drugs are also spreading.
Tough punishment
Police say if foreign sources are not cut off, China will be unable to solve its drug trafficking problem.
Sympathy for drug addicts is still limited
The number of registered drug addicts in China is 680,000 - almost three quarters of them users of heroin. That may not seem much for a country with close to 1.3 billion people. But that figure represents a 15% increase during 1999 alone; and the true number of addicts is widely acknowledged to be far higher - not least because many drug users were too scared of being treated as a criminal to register for treatment.
In recent years officials have finally begun to offer rehabilitation rather than outright punishment, but sympathy for drug addicts is still limited.
The challenge for China now is that drug use has spread out of remote ethnic minority areas in the south-west and a few big coastal cities, into wider society.
Intravenous drug use is officially listed as the main cause of the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS in China; while drugs of various types have found markets in the night clubs of the big city, and among disaffected young people in many areas of the country. Drug rehabilitation centres are planned in 742 counties around the country over the next two years
There have also been public information campaigns, with posters and exhibitions.
But despite increased official concern, experts still doubt whether the authorities have the resources to keep up with the rapid spread of drugs.
If they are to succeed they will also have to stamp out the collusion of local officials in drug trafficking in some areas, as well as the return of the cultivation of opium poppies, for which more than 4,000 people were punished last year.
China, US Ink Deal on Some Drugs
China and the U.S. signed an agreement Tuesday that could improve the safety of some usually used drugs in the U.S., including Lipitor, Viagra, a flu drug called oseltamivir, and an antibiotic used for eye infections called gentamicin sulfate.
A recent Associated Press story notes that "The global pharmaceutical industry increasingly uses drugs either made or containing ingredients sourced in China."
The agreement was one of several signed as part of the Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT)meeting that just ended. The JCCT meets twice each year. The agreement, according the Forbes, will see China register producers of drugs and medical devices and "ensure they meet US safety standards and notify the US when safety problems surface."
While the new agreement may be a small step in the right direction, healthcare blogger Barbara Duck points out that "the accord covers only a tiny fraction of the pharmaceutical ingredients being marketed worldwide by thousands of unlicensed chemical companies. "
Another Blogosphere resident, Ellroon, was more cynical: "This should last about two minutes. "
Under the agreement, U.S. food and drug inspectors will gain increased access to Chinese facilities where the drugs in questions are actually being produced. A working group of U.S. and Chinese officials is supposed to meet with 120 days to develop a plan to implement the new agreement.
Execution of young chinesse drug dealers,btw don't expect to see the last picture because of explicit graphics bann
Hundreds of pro-Tibetan protesters have disrupted the Paris relay of the Beijing Olympic torch overnight (Australian time), clashing with police and twice forcing torchbearers to extinguish the flame and take refuge on a bus.
French athlete Stephane Diagana had carried the torch just 200 metres from the start of the relay at the Eiffel Tower when scuffles broke out between police and campaigners protesting China's crackdown in Tibet.
The flame was taken on and off a bus, extinguished and then relit before carrying on its planned 28-kilometre route protected by a phalanx of motorcycle police, jogging firemen, and police on rollerblades.
But it had not got much further along the banks of the River Seine when another group of protesters tried to grab and extinguish the flame - prevented only by a rapid police intervention.
At least five people, including a local politician wielding a fire extinguisher, were arrested along the route.
Some activists managed to evade security measures to climb up inside the Eiffel Tower and unfurl a flag with the five Olympic rings turned into handcuffs. They then chained themselves to the monument, 75 metres off the ground.
Across the River Seine on Human Rights Square, hundreds of pro-Tibetans booed and jeered as the torch set off on its relay.
They carried banners with messages such as "Tiananmen 1989 - Lhasa 2008" and "For a bloody world welcome to the Olympics made in China."
The Paris protest came a day after rowdy protests on the torch's London leg, where its progress through the city was disrupted several times by protesters and where it also had to be briefly put on a bus for security.
International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge called on China to peacefully end unrest in Tibet, piling further pressure on the nation's communist rulers ahead of the Beijing Games in August.
"Violence for whatever reason is not compatible with the values of the torch relay or the Olympic Games," he said at a meeting of National Olympic Committee heads in Beijing.
Beijing has faced international criticism over its crackdown on protests in Tibet that began on March 10 and later spread to other areas of China with Tibetan populations.
Exiled Tibetan leaders say more than 150 people have been killed in the unrest, triggered by what Tibetans say has been nearly 60 years of repression under Chinese rule.
China insists its security forces have killed no one while trying to quell the protests. However it says Tibetan "rioters" have killed 20 people.
- AFP
It was billed by the Chinese authorities as “the harmonious journey,” but the Paris leg of the 2008 Olympic torch relay Monday is not going according to script, with protests, arrests and scuffles between pro-Tibet demonstrators and security officials disrupting the flame’s passage through the French capital.
Three times in the course of its 28-kilometer route through the City of Lights, the Olympic flame was extinguished by security officials due to the unprecedented number of demonstrations, forcing authorities to put the torch on a bus for security reasons.
A planned ceremony at the city’s grand City Hall, to mark the torch’s passage through Paris was cancelled, according to the office of the Paris mayor.
"The Chinese officials decided they would not stop here because they were upset by Parisian citizens expressing their support for human rights. It is their responsibility," Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë told reporters.
Reporting from City Hall, FRANCE 24's Lanah Kammourieh said activists had hung a large Tibetan flag over the building and clashes had broken out between pro and anti-Chinese protesters.
The relay was finally cut short, with the torch reaching the Charlety stadium, on the southern edge of Paris, by bus.
'Demonstrations every few meters'
Scuffles broke out shortly after the relay set off from the EiffelTower Monday morning, with “demonstrations every few meters” according to FRANCE 24’s Nicolas Germain, reporting from along the relay route.
“Pro-Tibet demonstrators have been coming out and shouting ‘Free Tibet,’” he added. “The procession is being halted regularly, with demonstrators lying down in the street and police coming to remove them.”
Germain also reported seeing clashes between the police and protesters. Police arrested four people, including two pro-Tibet protesters, for trying to hinder the progress of the torch, according to AFP.
Moments after the relay kicked off at the Eiffel Tower, Sylvain Garel, a Paris city councillor from the Green Party, tried to grab the torch from former world 400-meters hurdles champion Stephane Diagana, shouting, “Free Tibet, Chinese troops out of Tibet.” He was pulled aside before he could reach the torch.
On the Eiffel Tower itself, activists succeeded in hanging a 4-metre-wide black flag from the lower platform. The flag featured handcuffs in place of the Olympic rings.
Security personnel on horseback, roller blades and on foot
The French authorities were taking extensive measures to protect the Olympic torch from protesters as it makes its way through Paris on Monday on the last leg of its European tour.
Thousands of security personnel had been mobilized – in helicopters, on horseback, roller blades and on foot – in an effort to avoid the kind of scenes seen in London on Sunday, when protesters repeatedly tried to extinguish the torch.
The torch was to be carried by 80 runners in relay on a 28 kilometer route through the French capital from the Eiffel Tower to the Charlety stadium in southern Paris. As it is carried along the banks of the Seine, the flame will be flanked by 100 police on roller blades and 100 jogging firemen, as well as police motorcyclists and 16 security vehicles.
“All those who wish to express themselves can express themselves,” French Sports Junior Minister Bernard Laporte told reporters. “But I don't want there to be any incidents surrounding the torch, because that would be lack of respect for the values it represents”.
An obstacle race
The torch arrived in the French capital late Sunday, after a chaotic trip through London, where it came close to being extinguished by two pro-Tibet activists.
"Free Tibet, Free Tibet" slogans resonated as protestors rallied through the streets with banners and their faces painted in the colours of the Tibetan flag.
British police arrested at least 35 people, including a demonstrator who tried to seize the flame from one of the torchbearers.
Chinese media slammed protests organized by "Tibetan separatists" in London, after it initially censored some reports on the protests.
“Chinese media are trying to play down the significance of the protests,” reports FRANCE 24’s Henry Morton from Beijing. “Domestically it’s still about giving the Olympics a positive spin and playing down any sort of international criticism despite growing calls for a boycott of, at the very least, the opening ceremony of the Olympics.”
Call for peace
The Olympics organizing committee in Beijing strongly condemned the protests. “Members of the organizing committee have strongly condemned the attempt to extinguish the flame and disrupting the relay in London, calling it acts of sabotage,” reports Morton.
International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge voiced concern Monday, and called for a rapid, peaceful resolution of the Tibet crisis. "The torch relay has been targeted," the IOC chief said in a speech in Beijing, admitting the torch relay had been a focus of protests and that the Tibet crisis was casting a shadow over the lead-up to the Games in August.
“Events in Tibet have triggered a wave of protests among governments, media, and non- government organizations,” Rogge added.
Chinese 'spy' arrests by U.S. fuels Olympics row after Spielberg's call for boycott
Jewish and Israeli athletes have a responsibility to help ensure that the world does not make the same mistake.
BY PETER GANONG AND DANIEL HEMEL
In the summer of 1936, a year after the enactment of the Nuremberg Laws, the world turned a blind eye to Nazi Germany’s genocidal intentions as Hitler hosted the Olympics in Berlin. With next summer’s games set to take place in Beijing.
This time the Jews are not the victims. Rather, China’s victims are the 1.2 million Tibetans who have died as a result of Beijing’s invasion of the previously independent Buddhist nation. They are the untold thousands of dissidents and prisoners of conscience who will be kept out of view in modern-day gulags while the world’s attention is focused on the action inside Beijing’s ultra-modern sporting arenas. They are the 200,000 or more Darfuris who reportedly have been killed as a result of the genocidal campaign waged by the Beijing-backed Sudanese regime.
HITLER’S GAMES
China’s state oil company owns the largest stake in the consortium that is developing Sudan’s petroleum industry, and China buys about four-fifths of all Sudanese oil exports. An estimated 70 percent of the oil profits in Sudan are spent on a military that lays waste to Darfuri villages.
To stand by idly while the blood of others is shed would be un-Jewish.
One Jewish luminary who isn’t staying silent is Steven Spielberg, who has threatened to resign as artistic adviser to the games unless China changes course in Darfur. His demand, he explained in a letter to Chinese leader Hu Jintao, stems from his “personal commitment to do all I can to oppose genocide.”
Unfortunately, other Jewish leaders don’t seem to share that commitment. The president of the Israeli Olympic Committee, Zvi Varshaviak, said last month that in light of its experience, Israel “will continue to act towards keeping politics outside of sport in general and the Olympic Games specifically.”
Would Varshaviak also have remained silent in light of the Jewish experience at Berlin?
We are not proposing a boycott. Olympic boycotts have been tried before — Israel, the United States and five dozen other countries stayed away from the 1980 Moscow Games to protest the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. But this time a boycott might shift attention away from Beijing when the goal instead should be to cast a spotlight squarely on China — on its human rights abuses and its support for genocide.
Indeed, human rights activists across the globe have teamed up to brand Beijing 2008 “the Genocide Olympics.” The Genocide Olympics campaign is a “nightmare” for the Chinese hosts and their corporate sponsors, according to BusinessWeek magazine. But that nightmare pales in comparison to the daily nightmare of Darfuris, Tibetans and the democracy activists in Chinese prisons.
If the numbers from 2004 are any guide, more than 60 Jewish athletes — about half from Israel — will participate a year from now in the Beijing Games. They can play an important role in the Genocide Olympics effort.
Regardless of whether they are dressed in the blue-and-white uniform of Israel, the blue and red of the U.S, or the blue and yellow of Australia, they can wear the green wristbands that have become the symbol of the Save Darfur movement worldwide. When television cameras zoom in on Jewish athletes, the green bands will be a reminder of the ruthlessness of the Beijing regime. And the bands will be a powerful sign that on the most important human rights issues facing the world today, Jews will not remain on the sidelines.
When Jewish sports stars take their place among athletes from the 200-plus nations at the Games, they should also join ranks with the activists who have signed on to the Olympic Dream for Darfur Campaign — a list that includes Ira Newble of the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team, Ruth Messinger of the American Jewish World Service and the actress Mia Farrow.
Organizers of the campaign recently lit an alternative Olympic torch near the Chad-Darfur border and are carrying it to locations of past mass murders across the world — including a Holocaust site in Germany — en route to its final destination in China.
Seventy-two years after Berlin, Jewish athletes from Israel and around the world will have the opportunity to speak out for justice in the same circumstances under which other nations were all too willing to stay silent. If Jewish athletes take the lead, next year’s Olympic flame will shed light on the bloodshed that Beijing has carried on in darkness.
THE WHOLE WORLD WAS WATCHING
Peter Ganong is an intern at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem and a third-year economics student at Harvard, where he has advocated for Darfur on campus. Daniel Hemel is a first-year international relations student at Oxford.
Chinese 'spy' arrests by U.S. fuels Olympics row after Spielberg's call for boycott
Boycott: Steven Spielberg quit his Beijing job
The row over China's staging of the Olympics threatened to turn into a full-scale diplomatic crisis today.
Beijing urged America to stop its "Cold War thinking" in a statement that followed the arrest by the US of four Chinese men suspected of spying on American military and space programmes.
It accused U.S. critics of "ulterior motives".
Calls for a boycott of the Games were triggered when Hollywood director Steven Spielberg announced he was quitting as an adviser to the Games over China's refusal to punish Sudan for mass killings in Darfur.
But in its first response to fresh criticism of its policies on the genocide in Darfur, Beijing broke its silence to declare the Olympics would go ahead as planned and be a "great success".
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao was inundated with questions about the boycott at a news conference today.
He said: "It is understandable if some people do not understand the Chinese government policy on Darfur but I am afraid that some people may have ulterior motives, and this we cannot accept."
The Chinese embassy in Washington also said that it was "irresponsible and unfair" to link the Olympics to foreign policy issues while a state newspaper went further and said that it was a "clumsy trick" to link sport to politics.
China, which has lucrative oil contracts with Sudan, has blocked UN attempts to stop the murders of women and children in the east African region.
Scroll down for more...
Row: Beijing urged the U.S. to stop its 'Coldwar thinking' ahead of Olypmics this summer
Some 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been driven from their homes in more than four years of conflict in Sudan's western region of Darfur, according to estimates by international experts.
But Jin Canrong, an international relations expert at the People's University of China in Beijing, said: "Whoever uses this humanitarian issue to criticise China and put pressure on China gains something of a halo.
"The West has seized on China's tremendous emphasis on the Olympic Games to criticise China."
And Beijing's Olympic organising committee said the government was making "unremitting effortsî to resolve the Darfur crisis.
"Linking the Darfur issue to the Olympic Games will not help to resolve this issue and is not in line with the Olympic spirit that separates sports from politics," the committee said in a statement.
Scroll down for more...
Darfur crisis: China has stopped the UN stepping in to halt the genocide in the Sudan
The Chinese embassy in Washington said: "As the Darfur issue is neither an internal issue of China, nor is it caused by China, it is completely unfair for certain organisations and individuals to link the two as one," the embassy said.
A string of Nobel Laureates, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, today published a letter to Chinese President Hu Jintao, calling on him to stop the tragedy of Darfur.
Olympics minister Tessa Jowell stepped into the row for the first time, declaring that it was "a great pity".
She said that while there were "wholly unacceptable" aspects to Chinese foreign policy, the world had known for the last seven years that Beijing would host the Olympics.
She said: "Most progressive governments accept that there are wholly unacceptable aspects of Chinese policy but that did not stop the International Olympics Committee (IOC) awarding them the Games.
"A call for a boycott doesn't serve any purpose and it would be a great pity. This doesn't mean, however, we should be distracted from the urgency of Darfur."
In a separate embarassment to the Chinese, the British Olympic Association has decided to allow athletes to wear anti-pollution masks.
The US has decided not to "offendî its hosts by allowing such masks, but the BOA says it was to give a "competitive advantageî to British medal hopefuls.
Beijing is often choked by smog and certain events may have to be postponed if levels become too high.
China - the up and coming economic power of the world - do not support them, please please buy products manufactured in your own country - domestic products. Do not buy Chinese Products. Why?
See for yourself the cruelty they inflict on animals on a daily basis, deliberately drawing out pain and torture to increase the "flavour" of the meat.
China do not have any laws in place to protect animals in any shape or form - animals are nothing more than food - hells bells they eat their pets for heavens sakes!
When you have finished please click on the link and sign the petition to boycott China - the more signatures China gets the more likely their government will take note and make some changes......
Select your dog, skin it while it is alive or semi concious, then take a blow torch and burn the outside with it to seal the meat.
When that is done start chopping it up ready for the pot or for sell off in bits
Nothing goes to waste - the fur from the dog, cat, rabbit racoon goes into the fur trade and ends up as a trim on a hood of a jacket that winds up in your local shops. Hell even hair bands dyed different colours like blue are cat fur!
This array of food includes what looks a skinned rabbit or cat. Now cats die terribly too, they get put alive and fully concious into a pot of boiling water and get boiled while alive - to loosen the fur, the alive part is the torture part to increase flavour. The Chinese include lizards, snakes, scorpions, bugs, beetles anything that moves - gets eaten alive or dead depending on what ridiculous notion takes them. These notions usually come down to improving their pathetic manhoods!
Cat selection is done with a pole with wire on the end, the noose is put around the neck and the cat dragged out kicking and crying.
The animals can spend hours or days lying jam packed in tiny cages on top of one another without food or water, watching other cats and dogs being tortured and killed in front of them - the smell of fear, pain and death constantly in their nostrils.
Rabbit below - skinned alive, it still holds its head up and waits for death - a pot of boiling water as if skinning alive was not enough!
Raccoon below - skinned alive - it lies there raises its head, still blinking, it turns around looks at its body (as if to say omg what happened to me, where is my fur!) then drops its head down in shock and continues to breathe for a further 10 or so minutes before finally god takes its soul and sets it free from pain.
The tiger below - sits chained on a very short chain - unable to move all day, so that tourists can pose next to it for a photo. the tiger has had three of its most important teeth removed, (the teeth it uses for tearing meat) why? So that should he bite a tourist the damage will not be too severe!
Below - Stunned Pigs trussed to a motor cycle going to the market where they will be burned with a blow torch to remove the bits of hair off their bodies - whilst still alive! Why? It increases the flavour of the meat you know! If you must know...by the time they reach the "shop" the stun that has kept them quiet for the bike ride has worn off and they are revived at the shop.
Below - Chickens still alive tied to a motorcycle - how many? Sheesh you guess! these terrified chicken piled on one another go to the market to be hung by a wire placed around their feet, and plucking begins - then the throat is slit and the animal chopped up.
Do I really have to go on? Please join the boycott of goods made in China. hit China where it hurts in the financial pocket. Lets make the Chinese government sit up and take notice that their "customers" object to their treatment of animals. Force them to make changes, sign the petition please.
China - the up and coming economic power of the world - do not support them, please please buy products manufactured in your own country - domestic products. Do not buy Chinese Products.
Why?
See for yourself the cruelty they inflict on animals on a daily basis, deliberately drawing out pain and torture to increase the "flavour" of the meat.
China do not have any laws in place to protect animals in any shape or form - animals are nothing more than food - hells bells they eat their pets for heavens sakes!
When you have finished please click on the link and sign the petition to boycott China - the more signatures China gets the more likely their government will take note and make some changes......
Select your dog, skin it while it is alive or semi concious, then take a blow torch and burn the outside with it to seal the meat.
When that is done start chopping it up ready for the pot or for sell off in bits
Nothing goes to waste - the fur from the dog, cat, rabbit racoon goes into the fur trade and ends up as a trim on a hood of a jacket that winds up in your local shops. Hell even hair bands dyed different colours like blue are cat fur!
This array of food includes what looks a skinned rabbit or cat. Now cats die terribly too, they get put alive and fully concious into a pot of boiling water and get boiled while alive - to loosen the fur, the alive part is the torture part to increase flavour. The Chinese include lizards, snakes, scorpions, bugs, beetles anything that moves - gets eaten alive or dead depending on what ridiculous notion takes them. These notions usually come down to improving their pathetic manhoods!
Cat selection is done with a pole with wire on the end, the noose is put around the neck and the cat dragged out kicking and crying.
The animals can spend hours or days lying jam packed in tiny cages on top of one another without food or water, watching other cats and dogs being tortured and killed in front of them - the smell of fear, pain and death constantly in their nostrils.
Rabbit below - skinned alive, it still holds its head up and waits for death - a pot of boiling water as if skinning alive was not enough!
Raccoon below - skinned alive - it lies there raises its head, still blinking, it turns around looks at its body (as if to say omg what happened to me, where is my fur!) then drops its head down in shock and continues to breathe for a further 10 or so minutes before finally god takes its soul and sets it free from pain.
The tiger below - sits chained on a very short chain - unable to move all day, so that tourists can pose next to it for a photo. the tiger has had three of its most important teeth removed, (the teeth it uses for tearing meat) why? So that should he bite a tourist the damage will not be too severe!
Below - Stunned Pigs trussed to a motor cycle going to the market where they will be burned with a blow torch to remove the bits of hair off their bodies - whilst still alive! Why? It increases the flavour of the meat you know! If you must know...by the time they reach the "shop" the stun that has kept them quiet for the bike ride has worn off and they are revived at the shop.
Below - Chickens still alive tied to a motorcycle - how many? Sheesh you guess! these terrified chicken piled on one another go to the market to be hung by a wire placed around their feet, and plucking begins - then the throat is slit and the animal chopped up.
Do I really have to go on? Please join the boycott of goods made in China. hit China where it hurts in the financial pocket. Lets make the Chinese government sit up and take notice that their "customers" object to their treatment of animals. Force them to make changes, sign the petition please.
China - the up and coming economic power of the world - do not support them, please please buy products manufactured in your own country - domestic products. Do not buy Chinese Products.
Why?
See for yourself the cruelty they inflict on animals on a daily basis, deliberately drawing out pain and torture to increase the "flavour" of the meat.
China do not have any laws in place to protect animals in any shape or form - animals are nothing more than food - hells bells they eat their pets for heavens sakes!
When you have finished please click on the link and sign the petition to boycott China - the more signatures China gets the more likely their government will take note and make some changes......
Select your dog, skin it while it is alive or semi concious, then take a blow torch and burn the outside with it to seal the meat.
When that is done start chopping it up ready for the pot or for sell off in bits
Nothing goes to waste - the fur from the dog, cat, rabbit racoon goes into the fur trade and ends up as a trim on a hood of a jacket that winds up in your local shops. Hell even hair bands dyed different colours like blue are cat fur!
This array of food includes what looks a skinned rabbit or cat. Now cats die terribly too, they get put alive and fully concious into a pot of boiling water and get boiled while alive - to loosen the fur, the alive part is the torture part to increase flavour. The Chinese include lizards, snakes, scorpions, bugs, beetles anything that moves - gets eaten alive or dead depending on what ridiculous notion takes them. These notions usually come down to improving their pathetic manhoods!
Cat selection is done with a pole with wire on the end, the noose is put around the neck and the cat dragged out kicking and crying.
The animals can spend hours or days lying jam packed in tiny cages on top of one another without food or water, watching other cats and dogs being tortured and killed in front of them - the smell of fear, pain and death constantly in their nostrils.
Rabbit below - skinned alive, it still holds its head up and waits for death - a pot of boiling water as if skinning alive was not enough!
Raccoon below - skinned alive - it lies there raises its head, still blinking, it turns around looks at its body (as if to say omg what happened to me, where is my fur!) then drops its head down in shock and continues to breathe for a further 10 or so minutes before finally god takes its soul and sets it free from pain.
The tiger below - sits chained on a very short chain - unable to move all day, so that tourists can pose next to it for a photo. the tiger has had three of its most important teeth removed, (the teeth it uses for tearing meat) why? So that should he bite a tourist the damage will not be too severe!
Below - Stunned Pigs trussed to a motor cycle going to the market where they will be burned with a blow torch to remove the bits of hair off their bodies - whilst still alive! Why? It increases the flavour of the meat you know! If you must know...by the time they reach the "shop" the stun that has kept them quiet for the bike ride has worn off and they are revived at the shop.
Below - Chickens still alive tied to a motorcycle - how many? Sheesh you guess! these terrified chicken piled on one another go to the market to be hung by a wire placed around their feet, and plucking begins - then the throat is slit and the animal chopped up.
Do I really have to go on? Please join the boycott of goods made in China. hit China where it hurts in the financial pocket. Lets make the Chinese government sit up and take notice that their "customers" object to their treatment of animals. Force them to make changes, sign the petition please.
Tibetan Youth Congress activists shout slogans as they carry the Tibet Independence Torch in Dharmsala, India, Tuesday, March 25, 2008. Nearly 50 Tibetan exiles began the torch relay Tuesday that will take the symbolic Olympic flame from northern India through cities on five continents before ending in Tibet the day of the games' opening ceremonies in Beijing, organizers said. (AP Photo/Gurinder Osan)
__________________
Tibetan Youth Congress activists shout slogans as they carry the Tibet Independence Torch in Dharmsala, India, Tuesday, March 25, 2008. Nearly 50 Tibetan exiles began the torch relay Tuesday that will take the symbolic Olympic flame from northern India through cities on five continents before ending in Tibet the day of the games' opening ceremonies in Beijing, organizers said. (AP Photo/Gurinder Osan)