Following a three-day security conference where 350 people attended from Interpol, and Europol the Olympic family’s 202 national Olympic committee’s and sponsors for the Games, most official delegates gave the thumbs-up to Athens security plans. Greece will be employing 70,000 people to help with security.
According to the BBC citing Greece’s Public Order Minister George Voulgarakis, Greece will shoot down any aircraft trying to target the Olympic Games. He said any such plane “won’t reach its target”. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is helping with air and sea security, including deploying AWAC radar surveillance aircraft.
There are still thousands of hotel rooms in Athens available for Olympic visitors, including accommodations as low as $120 per night. Athens organizers have leased cruise ships and created a private home rental program, but there have been sluggish bookings over the spring resulting in empty rooms. Concerns over construction delays and security as well as a delayed promotion program have hurt bookings all year and forced prices down. Prices for available hotel rooms range from $109 to $835 per night. There are also cabins available on the cruise ships Queen Mary 2, Rotterdam, Aida Aura and the Oosterdam.
More all-day and all-night pharmacies will be operating in central Athens, Piraeus and in areas near Olympic venues during the Games from August 2 until September 4 due to an agreement between Athens 2004 and representatives of the country’s pharmaceutical sector.
Giorgos Souflias, Greece’s new public works minister, questioned Thursday whether Athens should have been awarded the Games because of the amount of work needed to host them. He told a Parliamentary committee on the Olympics that work began too late in Athens. He said the first year went by without anything being done, but added he was confident Athens would be ready for the Games because the preparations are coming along quickly.
And finally, those having tickets for the main Olympic stadium can now rest assured that the 75,000 seats for the main Olympic Stadium will be delivered as promised by a Greek contractor that replaced an Australian company. Ten thousand seats will be ready for an Olympic test event June 10 and the rest will be in place by mid July. Aktor, Greece’s largest construction company, was awarded the contract because organizers said they were worried that the Australian-designed seats could be too readily removed and hurled around spectators.
