Samaras Meets with Troika (VIDEO)

Prime minister Antonis Samaras on Friday met and held talks with the representatives Troika, who briefed the PM on their talks so far with various government ministers on the course of the Greek fiscal adjustment program. Press reports said that specific measures being mulled by the government were not discussed during the Samara's 90-minute meeting with EC Director for the member states' economies Matthias Mors, ECB division chief Klaus Masuch and IMF European Department deputy director Poul Thomsen, as well as the IMF's permanent representative in Athens.

London’s Militarised Olympic Games Conjures Up Orwell’s 1984

By Finian Cunningham

The London Olympics are fast taking on the appearance and tone of a full-scale land, sea and air military operation rather than an international sporting event. With surface-to-air missiles stationed on top of residential apartment blocks, Royal Navy battleships on alert and Royal Air Force fighter jets and helicopters patrolling the skies over Britain’s capital there is a foreboding sense of a nation at war instead of an occasion of internationalist fraternity that the ancient Games are supposed to embody.

The Games begin in just under two weeks. The latest development is the announcement by Britain’s Ministry of Defence that 3,500 extra troops are to be deployed to ensure security at the 30 venues hosting sporting events. This is in addition to the 13,500 military personnel already assigned to protect members of the public and sports teams from the risk of terrorist attack.

British General Sir Nick Parker, overseeing the security arrangements, has said that one of the contingencies being planned for is dealing with a “9/11 type event”.

The total troop deployment in and around London represents 7,000 more personnel than is currently on British operations in Afghanistan.

This figure is in addition to the 10,000 extra police officers and a division of 10,000 private security guards. It was the disclosure that G45, the private security firm with the Olympics contract, could not fulfill its manpower requirements to cover the Games that prompted the latest enlisting of additional soldiers.

HMS Ocean

The militarization of the Olympics was conveyed inadvertently by a spokesman for the Ministry of Defence when he said: “Many of the people whom the public will meet at the point of entry to any Olympic event will now be a serving member of the armed forces.”

Boris Johnson, the maverick Mayor of London, said in a statement: “The mayor takes the issue of Olympics security extremely seriously, and having the finest and bravest service men and woman in the world at our disposal during the Games should be a source of great comfort.”

The Royal Navy’s largest battleship, HMS Ocean, will be moored on the Thames at Greenwich, providing a logistical command centre during the event. It will  also provide a base for Lynx helicopters manned with snipers to make round-the-clock sorties over the capital.

Royal Marines on patrol boats and inflatable dinghies are also assigned on the iconic river that snakes its way through London’s historic landmarks.

The RAF will also be patrolling the skies over the capital with Puma helicopters and Typhoon fighter jets operating out of RAF Northolt in West London and Ilford in East London.

Puma Helicopters

But the most controversial deployment has been the installation of surface-to-air missile batteries in residential apartment blocks in the impoverished, rundown East End of London. Residents recently lost a court battle to prevent the Rapier SAM batteries being installed.
 

The mainly working-class local communities objected to the militarization of their neighbourhoods. They also questioned the safety for residents in the event of the weapons being used to bring down aircraft suspected of carrying out terror attacks. One local man said: “What’s going to happen if our houses get showered with debris?”

The military invasion of poor neighbourhoods for the four-week duration of Olympics has served to rankle already ill feeling towards the colossal spectacle. East London areas such as Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest lie in the shadow of some of the purpose-built venues.

The staging of the Olympics, including the massive security operation, is reckoned to come to a total cost between $20 and $40 billion, much of which will be footed by the taxpayer. This is at time of swingeing austerity cuts by the British government amounting to a total of $140 billion axed from public spending.

Typhoon fighter Je

Socially deprived communities in London’s East End have borne the brunt of government cutbacks required to balance Treasury books thrown into disarray from lavishing billions of dollars on bailing out corrupt private banks. 

With unemployment and deprivation being felt keenly in areas like London’s East End, not many of the residents there will be able to afford the admission to the Olympics, with tickets fetching as much as $3,000.

Given the juxtaposition of this glitzy event and its garish corporate sponsorship alongside the sprawling grim poverty for many Londoners – amid the backdrop of full-scale military operations and surveillance – there is an eerie sense of George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984.

Rapier SAM Battery to be installed on residential apartment blocks in London's East End

Orwell’s classic story of an authoritarian police state was set mainly in London, which had become the capital of Airstrip One, a province of the American super-state, Oceania. The impoverished majority of the populace, the “proles”, had to content themselves with seedy pubs and the faint hope of winning a weekly lottery, while the “inner circle” lorded over the masses.

The proles were kept in their place of servitude by emergency powers and a permanent state of war. There is also more than a suspicion in Orwell’s 1984 that the supposed state of war and incoming attacks from anonymous enemies were a contrivance by the elite to instill fear in the masses.

The Ministry of Truth rising over the slums of Airstrip One.
Copyright eryq.org

With the British government’s lead participation in America’s "global  war on terror” (commonly referred to as GWOT) and evidence that British intelligence colluded in the so-called 7/7 London underground terror bombings in 2005, Orwell’s 1984 looks increasingly like life imitating art.

The novel was published in 1949, one year after the last Olympics were staged in London. Those Games were held in the aftermath of World War II when much of London’s skyline would have still shown the devastation of the German Luftwaffe’s Blitzkrieg.

In 2012, London will also resemble a war zone, owing to the spurious “war on terror” that the British government and its American allies have embarked on in the pursuit of domestic and foreign dominance.

Finian Cunningham is Global Research’s Middle East and East Africa Correspondent
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Greek FM Slams FYROM Announcement

The Greek foreign ministry issued a statement this week responding to an announcement by the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski's office after his meeting in Skopje earlier in the day with United Nations SG Ban Ki-moon. "Greece has repeatedly and effectively showed its readiness for the finding of a solution to the (fYRoM's) name issue, in the framework of negotiations, as defined by UN Security Council resolutions and as underlined by the Hague International Court," the statement of the Greek foreign ministry noted. "Mr. Gruevski welcomed the formation of the new Greek government with insulting attacks and unfounded accusations. Our side does not enter in the logic of artificial crises which Mr. Gruevski is trying to provoke for internal reasons. We say the self-evident: that for achieving a solution, the government of Greece is searching for a reliable and sincere interlocutor. This is what Skopje ought to prove by acts," the statement added. (AMNA)

German Tourists Arrested For Thefts, Break-ins

Two German nationals, aged 20 and 21, were arrested during a police investigation into 10 different cases of thefts and break-ins reported in and around the city of Rethymno, Crete. Acting on a tip-off, police arrested the two men after finding three laptops, three digital cameras, a video camera, a mobile phone, gold jewelry and other items hidden in their suitcase and backpack. The Greek state news agency said that  the tools used for break-ins were found in their hotel room. During questioning it was established that they had broken into four rooms of the hotel they were staying at.  The personal items they had stolen were later identified by their owners, police said. The two also reportedly confessed to other six thefts targeting hotel personnel from whom they had stolen mobiles phones, cash and personal effects. Both suspects will be led before a prosecutor on Thursday.

Ancient Shipwrecks Found Off Makronissos

Archaeologists have found and documented six well-preserved ancient shipwrecks in the sea region between the isle of Makronissos and the extreme southeast coast of Attica prefecture. The discovery was made during an underwater reconnaissance research mission in the southern Evoikos Gulf, which took place in June and July.

Four shipwrecks were spotted in depths ranging from 37 metres to 47 metres around Makronissos, and two were found off the coasts of the harbour town of Lavrio.

The findings in the Makronissos shipwrecks are all ancient amphorae from North Africa, Sicily and Rhodes, dated between 2nd century BC and 4th century AD. Findings in one of the shipwrecks off the coasts of Lavrio showed that the vessel's cargo was construction materials dated between the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, while the second vessel carried Hellenistic era amphorae.

The latest discoveries are added to the 18 already documented south Evoikos shipwrecks, indicating that the region was a major sea lane in antiquity, linking north and south Aegean. The study and specific locations are expected to shed new light on maritime routes and trafficking of goods during antiquity. (AMNA)