3 Bomb blasts in Athens !

[toulairene]

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/05/12/1084289728150.html
Anyone know why Australia has upgraded their travel warning for going to athens? Surely it doesnt need to be upgraded, paranoia again, oh well i should have enjoyed it while it lasted, i knew that once they had seen the olympic stadium that they would start on the security, if athens was any more seccure the city would probably have to close down, i think its going to be safe and terrorists usually target events that are not expected but it should be fine and i think the government should be trying to promote athens rather then treating it as a war zone.

 

[bunsen burner]

WTF are you on?

Originally posted by toulairene
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/05/12/1084289728150.html
Anyone know why Australia has upgraded their travel warning for going to athens?

Err, because some bombs went off there recently.

i knew that once they had seen the olympic stadium that they would start on the security,

persecution complex.

if athens was any more seccure the city would probably have to close down,

How can you say this when bombs went off recently?

 

[toulairene]

hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Yeah right, upgrade security an extra level, johnny will have to do better then that, i dont see any other countries upgrading their travel warnings other then the usual suspects, seriously this is ridiculous, try promoting the event rather then tarnishing it. I dont blame the athens organisers for getting ****ed off over this.
Obviously johnny hoWARd doesnt trust the security measures in place.

Tourists travel to athens all year long and nothing ever happends, to think that something may happen when security will be so tight is just stupid. Like he cares, hes not even attending the games.

This is turning into obssesion. Well the terrorists are winning thats for sure. Greece really doesnt care but i dont remember travel warning about sydney, anyway no matter what he says if people want to enjoy the olympics they will go to athens relaxed knowing that they are in safe hands.

 

[Supertiger]

when i started reading this thread a while back i too thought the greeks wouldnt make it...but somehow it all seems to be coming together. Ive seen plenty of pictures of finished stadia...the pictures presented earlier i think with titles such as "more dirt" clearly show infrastructure which is well advanced...it seems however that landscaping was an issue here...inthe context of the games ... landscaping isnt a big issue. I get the feeling that the greeks will actually make it...whatever we say as Australians ... the Olympic stadium in Athens will be imposing...the roof will look like the effect of two tidal waves colliding...i admit i think it will be breathtaking. We wont be able to compete with the greeks on cultural image. The Acropolis, Museums, The Beaches, the entertainment...I think thats where theyll have it over us for sure.

Howver what saddens me most is that as Australians we got too caught up with Juan Antonio Samaranch and what he said about the best ever games. We seem to want to protect that mantle even to the point where we are dishonest about whats happening in Athens at the moment. It seems to me too many journalists in this country are bagging the greeks in a delirious and alarming fashion.

I can tell you that from net reports over in europe in places like Spain and France and Italy...Australian paranoia about the Athens games is giving them the ****z. The olympic world is starting to get seriously fedup with News Corporation and other Australian- American- British press and with Australia in general. The constant attacks are actually helping the greeks. People will actually feel for them. Australia cant win this battle in my opinion. Why- because in the Olympic family the greeks hold major sway. How do you think they actually won the right to host the games against the Italians etc.

For my part i wish them the best. The Olympics are terrific. I hope the greeks do a better job than us...and i hope the chinese do a better job than the greeks...Its about always improving.

 

[evade28]

Originally posted by Supertiger
Juan Antonio Samaranch and what he said about the best ever games. We seem to want to protect that mantle even to the point where we are dishonest about whats happening in Athens at the moment.

WE? Speak for yourself. i wouldn't really care if it is better than Sydney, good for them if it is, but they've made it hard for themselves by being so far behind schedule and scrapping this and that to get it finished in time.

 

[Supertiger]

when you say scrapping...i assume you mean the pool roof? because nothing else has been scrapped as far as i know. And in relation to the pool roof...my information is that the pool was never meant to have a roof. In the innitial bid document - no roof was in the plans. Do you know when the roof became a requirement? Well Ill tell you...the roof became a requirement in November 2003 at the insistance of FINA. Some 5 years after the plans were released for the pool FINA changed there minds...they wanted a roof and do you know when they requested a roof...It was November 2003 just 11 months before the opening of the games.

I feel so sorry for the greeks. the swimming pool roof was never their fault...the truth is you cant after 5 years and just 11 months before a games tell the organises...'**** we forgotto tell you to stick a roof on" You cant just tear down the whole swimming complex and start again 11 months from the games. thats the fact...but it seems that was never said by the dishonest Australian journalists who reported it again as another disaster!

 

[Booze Hound]

In the months before most Olympic games that I can recall (quite a few ) you get these 'storie' that things won't be ready in time. They were even there before IMHO the best Games I have seen (Barcelona).

They always make it.

 

[toulairene]

Greece had the option for the pool roof but they decided against it. At the start i didnt care about the olympics, but since all of the paranoia by the media many greeks are determined to make these games the best ever. Personally i think its 50/50, i dont care if the olympics arent better than sydney especially since im aussie, the main thing is that people enjoy themselves and that the games dont get overshadowed by security. I mean why would john howard come out and tell our public to be careful of going to soccer matches in the olympics, theres no hooligans at the olympics, its all respect.

last week channel 9 accidently showed footage of completed work in athens and then the cameras went off it and ray martin said " we will come back to that story later" and then later on they showed pictures of ancient ruins and dirt all over athens. Why couldnt they show the good stuff? i just dont understand. I should have taped it, they showed the completed velodrome for 5 seconds and then they say that they made an error and will return back to the story.

Greece doesnt have anything against australians, they are just fed up with the american and australian media. Even that report from athens last week on channel 7 news where the reporter jumped over some fence and then claimed that the security was a joke, how can the public believe something like that, isnt it obvious that the greeks let him in because he is a journalist to do that report. That man should have been kicked out after what he said.

Theres no doubt that they will make it, I swear on this, i watched the greek news last nigh and they show live footage of the olympic stadium at night and they speak to construction workers, they said that everything was finished except for the roof and the marathon path. They were honest, they said that the marathon path wont be completed until 2 weeks before the olympics, but they said that the rest is finished, and after that they proved it, they showed pics of the veledrome, shooting grounds, shotput in olympia,the boxing areas,weightlifting and the swimming pools and they were all done. The point is they were honest, unlike the media here. In greece now, hosting the best olympics ever is the last thing on their minds, they just cant wait for it to come and go safely so then the media can just get off their backs. In saying that the critics have made them very determined and my uncle is working on the site as i type this up and he is busting his gut 6 days a week on that stadium to get it ready, the way they are going there will be no problem because they are speeding through it now.

I just think that the negativity should stop and more positives should be mentioned because right now most reports coming from the athens olympic commitee are positive.

 

[toulairene]

Thanks for the posts supertiger and booze hound, its good to know that our general public is starting to understand the true picture.I wasted heaps of energy defending athens on here mainly because i had seen the true footage and thought thay were hard done by. I mean most of the people i speak to dont understand the fuss but now its slowly sweeping across australia that these media reports shown lately are false. I wonder if channel 9 is going to come out and apologise for showing footage from 3 months ago of the olympic stadium on 60 minutes two weeks back, it is just so obvious, their is no way that athens could make such progress in a week and a half regardless of how fast they are going. Actually when 60 minutes showed that report, the arches that were moved over the stadium this week were hardly recognisable, thats how outdated it was and thats why greek-australians were outraged and complained to channel 9.

I think they should apologise for making a mockery out of greece when it was clear that the olympic stadium looked far different to what was shown.

Lets hope that the media just drops it from now on and start reporting on all the finished stadia in athens. Even better report on news that affects us as aussies.

 

[slyolddog]

Another day, another bomb in Athens

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,9550086%5E1702,00.html

This one aimed at a British Bank

 

[toulairene]

well not that serious, it was a device which was found and small explosions, lets see the media reaction to this, i would not worry about that, basically that bank in athens gets targeted every year by those greek lefties. Again it wouldn't be olympic related.
If you look that bank up in athens you would see that its been a target for a while.

 

[toulairene]

same thing happened in march to a u.s bank but it was hardly mentioned, these things happen all the time in greece but certainly not olympic related.

 

[otaku]

Originally posted by toulairene
well not that serious, it was a device which was found and small explosions, lets see the media reaction to this, i would not worry about that, basically that bank in athens gets targeted every year by those greek lefties. Again it wouldn't be olympic related.
If you look that bank up in athens you would see that its been a target for a while.

and this is after a $1 billion security upgrade???

oh dear me.

 

[toulairene]

uhm again not olympic related, yes 1 billion spent on the olympics.
Stop thinking negative it is harmless, when the same thing happends next year i bet it doesnt get a mention cos american and british banks always get targeted. So the american bank got targeted in march, i didnt hear any complaining again. Its funny how you jump all over the bad things and say nothing about the good things.

Not serious at all and wont bother the olympics.

 

[otaku]

Originally posted by toulairene
uhm again not olympic related, yes 1 billion spent on the olympics.
Stop thinking negative it is harmless, when the same thing happends next year i bet it doesnt get a mention cos american and british banks always get targeted. So the american bank got targeted in march, i didnt hear any complaining again. Its funny how you jump all over the bad things and say nothing about the good things.

Not serious at all and wont bother the olympics.

point is:

if they can plant a small bomb, whats to stop them planting a big one??

That is what the $1Billion was supposed to prevent.

Cant een get that right, can they?

 

[toulairene]

The only dear me should be reserved for john howard, he is causing panic for no reason and was rightly told by the greeks and the ioc to put a sock in it.

Completely isolated event, i mentioned a few days ago, bomb scares occur all the time in greece and it never gets a mention but the paranoia is coming in again.

Anyway i hope people do over do it with this because the more bad press athens gets, the more likely they are to stick up all their critics.

So when someone gets murdered in melbourne in 2006, people are going to come on and say that the commonwealth games are in trouble lol.

Athens in 2004 looks like being a beauty, like the ioc said, nothing more can be done on security. The olympic stadium is the best ever when the roof comes on and may only be rivled by beijing which also looks nice.

Again the media will milk this for all its worth but everyone in greece is use to it by now. If the explosion was targeting an olympic site then yes i would be worried as well. The point is american and british banks in greece have been targeted in athens for many years and this year has been the least amount of times. November 17 always targeted foreign banks but they are different to al qaeda because they only target government officials and not the public. Anyway they are gone now and this is just another case of youngsters running a muck in greece because they aren't happy with schools, NOTHING TO DO WITH OLYMPICS JUST TO MAKE IT CLEAR.

 

[toulairene]

Otaku, the point is they dont want to plant a big bomb, they dont want to hurt masses of people, they use small bombs so they can make a point to the government, they wouldnt bomb the olympics because it simply doesnt interest them and they dont want to harm the general public, targets of this are officials and leaders. Thats why the olympics will not be harmed. Greeks have been doing this for years. In 97 when athens had the world athletics championships there were banks targeted but the actuall event was fine,why? because bombs in greece and the olympics are not related and the government is downplaying it and rightly so.

The thing about terrorism in greece is that the public is never targeted, attacks are almost done in a gangland style way, for eg you can have 300 americans in a place in athens and they wont be targeted because the anarchists in greece dont see the need to kill innocent people, however if a government official comes to town then it becomes duck season, why? because they blame the big heads for their problems, actually al qaeda should learn something from that instead of killing people for no reason. Thats why the olympics have nothing to do with this. Major events in greece have never been targeted and i can assure that if a bomb in greece occurs, it will be far from olympic venues.

 

[toulairene]

Things are fine in athens, this wont even make the pages there because everyone is use to it, the same thing happened when i was in athens in 1990, remember they only use small bombs to make a point and to limit damage, they wouldnt dare target the olympics, not even officials, when the olympics are on there will be a pause and then when the games are done they will go back to scaring the living hell out off british and american targets.

Anyway i still think that last weeks one's were worse because police stations are not usually targeted but a bank is very common in greece which confirms its not olympic related.

 

[otaku]

Originally posted by toulairene
Otaku, the point is they dont want to plant a big bomb, they dont want to hurt masses of people, they use small bombs so they can make a point to the government, they wouldnt bomb the olympics because it simply doesnt interest them and they dont want to harm the general public, targets of this are officials and leaders. Thats why the olympics will not be harmed. Greeks have been doing this for years. In 97 when athens had the world athletics championships there were banks targeted but the actuall event was fine,why? because bombs in greece and the olympics are not related and the government is downplaying it and rightly so.

The thing about terrorism in greece is that the public is never targeted, attacks are almost done in a gangland style way, for eg you can have 300 americans in a place in athens and they wont be targeted because the anarchists in greece dont see the need to kill innocent people, however if a government official comes to town then it becomes duck season, why? because they blame the big heads for their problems, actually al qaeda should learn something from that instead of killing people for no reason. Thats why the olympics have nothing to do with this. Major events in greece have never been targeted and i can assure that if a bomb in greece occurs, it will be far from olympic venues.

not the point.

If these crackpot little scuzz buckets can plant bombs, whats stopping someone who is well organised from planting a big bomb aimed at the innocent public

I am not saying they will be greek, just that this shows it can happen

 

[toulairene]

it wont be other people. all these attacks are from greeks, foreigners are being watched like hawks in athens right now. Greece has never been attacked by foreigners and with so much spending its not going to start now either. Major point here is thats its not serious and the general public should not be alarmed by it because it occurs frequently. Lets hope the news in a few hours time doesnt blow it out of proportion and start with it first cos its really not that worthy of headlike making news, if it is then i would expect the media to show bombs in greece next year as well and in the future.

Ioc said they are happy with the security, olympics will be fine however the stupid dumb ass greeks who are lets face it playing games should really stop this because they are giving the media the opportunity to get all over greece, they should settle down for now and then after the olympics they can play their cat and mouse games with the cops and the american and british banks.

But big picture here is that these attacks are based on uni fees or something like that rather then the olympics.

Olympics will remain untouched.

 

[toulairene]

btw the bomb was defused so they are doing their job, right? only damage caused was minor material stuff, i mean you here of work place accidents worse then this. These morons are just playing games, they have to realise that its not funny at this time due to the olympics. Then again thats how they will make the government listen to them.

"Gas containers have been used in several minor attacks in Athens over the past years, which were generally attributed to anarchists or far-left extremists". That was from the news.com site that reported the incident. Really this has been going on for years. Note "minor attacks"

also from that article

"Responsibility for these attacks, which are believed to have been carried out by individuals rather than structured groups, has rarely been claimed"

See individuals, young school kids are doing this, these attacks have gotten to the point where it has become boring old news in greece. Their is just no link to this having to do with the olympics, its linked to similar attacks on similar banks in greece over the past 12 years, i just have to make that clear before people start getting really scared and jump all over the athens organisers.

 

[toulairene]

Does anyone believe me? lol. No really no major harm with this, but if your not greek then its okay to feel worried but im just trying to assure any people going to athens that their is nothing to be concerned about.

I guess i was right about all the stadiums when i said they would be ready easily, thats only because i watched true reports direct from athens when others on here were going with the aussie media which iswrong, watching the latest on the greek news, the bomb was just mentioned at the end, btw there was another bomb in northern greece today but people would not care about that because its far from athens.

Simply if they (media) try and turn this into a major problem then you know they are against athens, a bomb of this scale should only be reported and thats it, i bet they do a live cross to athens where they talk to some reporter and this is what he will say
" well greece has been shocked by another bomb scare and the country is struggling to keep up with the latest bomb threats, this comes a week after a bomb which ripped through a police station only last week and security seems to be poor in the city at the moment,ucan see i have just gone through this door without any security watching me, greece has to get their act together "lol.

I mean seriously, they were wrong about the stadiums which are pretty much all finished, the ioc basically said that the media was full of it, they told john howard that they were dissapointed in him, point im trying to make here is, i hope my fellow aussies dont read to much into this cos they have been proved wrong before and they will try and turn this into something very serious.

But im sure we all know now what the media down here is up to so i wont have to mention it again.

 

[toulairene]

The part im going to enjoy most about these olympics is the closing ceremony, no more juan antonio samaranch to say " i declare these olypics the best ever" thank god that wont happen again. This way their will be no rivalry between athens and china, Even if they are the best olympics ever, please ioc keep it to yourself which im sure they will.

Its good to see that they let the world know that greece will be ready, it has slowed down the media for a day or two which is good.

 

[bunsen burner]

Enjoy talking to yourself, Tooloftheyear? Now that the shenanigans has finished I don't think anyone is really interested.

 

[bunsen burner]

Toolarine:

What's this?


http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/13/1084289817258.html