Why after the lesson learned from the riot of December
2008, Greek police still fight street rioters with tear gas and not trying some
alternative ways of control measures such as using water cannons? Is it because the government has spent money
for politicians’ armored cars to protect themselves from occasional personal attacks
and therefore there was no budget allocated for purchasing crowd control
vehicles such as water cannons to disperse anarchists / looters and protect
downtown business?
Last
night's destruction in downtown Athens is predictable and simply pours salt
on the already wounded economy. A
neo-classical building home to the Attikon cinema dating from 1870 was also
among the 45+ buildings burned. I think
water cannons should have come to disperse the potential looters after an
initial warning from the police, sending fire trucks to put off the fires after buildings
are set ablaze is a step too late.
New austerity measures are too harsh with its
effectiveness to be evaluated in a few months, so far it causes recession and hardship
on honest people who have paid enough shares of the tax burden, crime rate
soared, plus many homeless
people sought refuge under recent severe weather conditions. On the contrast, did
the IMF, part of the Troika, pay tax on its vehicles used in Athens?
Recently Balkan
states are freezing, northern Greece has more snow than usual, and Pyrgos Ilias in the west Peloponnesos
Greece was flooded, one Taiwanese Greek's home was affected by the flood in
that region. We pray that the bad
weather will soon end.
Upcoming events:
The 2012 Athens Tourism Symposium, the
international scientific congress on current trends in tourism management and
tourism policy, will open at the Athens Ledra Marriott Hotel (115 Syngrou) on
Feb 15 &16, 2012.
The “Tourism
and Gastronomy in the Spotlight” event will also open at the Athens Ledra
Marriott Hotel (115 Syngrou) on Feb 15 &16, 2012.
Some links:
Fire protection
engineering is a field of study that we need to have in Greek universities.
A very
interesting bird wiki site: videos, photos, and sounds at the Internet Bird Collection.
