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Same here.Just tried it and it keeps starting and stopping as if it has to keep loading each frame separately.Frustrating!

Er..no.Last time anyone looked,Everest was still the highest peak on earth.I haven't heard that it has shrunk or that K2 has grown since they were last measured. The World's 14 Highest Mountain Peaks

Throughout China's long history,whether it was building the Great Wall or putting into practice Chairman Mao's insane political and economic policies down to constructing venues for the Olympic Games,human lives have always been expendable. Manpower has always been plentiful and cheap in China,individual human rights few to non-existent.The good of the State overrides ALL other concerns.Individuals only count insofar as they contribute to the good of the State or else they are tossed aside with almost casual indifference! T'was ever thus in China and will not likely change much in the forseeable future.China is not like the West and we should not lightly forget that! Something for us Westerners to bear in mind...the untold sufferings of the thousands of forgotten ordinary people who will have toiled away for meagre returns and,in many cases,have sacrificed their lives in order to raise the magnificent edifices that will form the backdrop to the glittering spectacle that will be the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008!!

I thought for a moment BOCOG and VANOC had swapped Games! I voted 'good' as everything seems to be running smoothly as far as I can tell! In fact I've voted the same way in all 3 polls and for much the same reason.

After trailing Beijing in the first three rounds of voting,Sydney finally won by just two votes in the fourth round! Incidentally this was the second lowest margin of victory for a winning city.Guess which one was the lowest..? Yep,Melbourne beat Buenos Aires by just one vote to win the 1956 Olympics! Too bad for the Chinese I guess...ahaha......!

At least we can see where we're going when we want to take a flight somewhere!!

Provide free plastic umbrellas for anyone who has a ticket to enter the stadium?

Not really,not unless Britain becomes a one-party,totalitarian dictatorship like China.Then it can spend as much money on the Olympics as it wants,chuck people out of their homes at a moment's notice to make way for the venues,order as much cheap,non-unionised labour as it needs,and do all this without having to worry a jot about public opinion or newspapers asking awkward questions!! London will have to do it the democratic way and that means learning from the likes of Sydney or Athens.They got there and so will London!

That's the problem in a nutshell isn't it? The IOC won't use the threat to strip Beijing of the Games and the Chinese know this all too well! I can understand the great difficulty the IOC would face if they tried to take the Games away to a large extent,but all the same,there's nothing to stop the IOC leadership raising its concerns with the Chinese leadership over these issues and adding its voice to any political pressure that governments may wish to apply.And it could add its concerns through its own official media outlets too! But all we seem to be getting are these mealy-mouthed and dismissive comments and it just adds up to an image of the IOC hypocritically burying their heads in the sand and cynically refusing to do anything ! And it gives plenty of ammunition to those who attacked the IOC for awarding the Games to Beijing in the first place on the spurious supposition that this will somehow automatically make them behave better and improve their Human Rights record because they would now be in the glare of the world's spotlight.Instead,the reverse seems to be happening! You would think that after the experiences of Berlin 1936 and Moscow 1980,the IOC would have wizened up by now and insisted on a sustained improvement in human rights record first before deciding to award the Games to a powerful,totalitarian dictatorship!

I don't know about anyone else,but I've begun to get the impression that Rogge and the IOC don't really intend to do much about this for all their talk and promises! Every time anybody,whether it is Amnesty International,Chinese Human Rights activists or even respected Olympians like Matthew Pinsent talking about possible abuse of child athletes,tries to warn the IOC leadership about what is or may be going on there,it seems to me that they are fobbed off with some dismissive remark by Rogge and/or one of his spokespersons and told not to exaggerate!! I have the grim feeling that the Chinese leadership are getting the same impression and are becoming increasingly bold in their crackdowns and repressions because they have concluded that on these issues that maybe the IOC is just a paper tiger!

Errr...I think I'll just stick with the 'Vin' thanks!

An update to the connection problems I've been experiencing.When it last happened two days ago,I finally received an online Crash Analysis report from Microsoft.It advised me to disable my Add-Ons which I proceeded to do.(You do this by clicking on the Tools Menu and then clicking on Manage Add-Ons). I proceeded to disable them all with the exception of an Anti-Virus programme and,so far,it seems to have done the trick at least so long as I use browsers other than AOL.Why the problem should have occurred mainly with THIS website or why AOL still gives me the odd problem,I have no idea! I am monitoring how it goes for the next few days and,if I don't experience further problems,I will try to isolate the offending Add-On by re-enabling them one by one until the problem starts again.If I can isolate the culprit,I will report it here and to Microsoft. I will report back further for the benefit of anyone else who may encounter this type of problem.

I'm not sure if they are related either.As I say,it started soon after I replaced my hard-drive and upgraded my processor and re-installed the AOL software a couple of weeks ago! I contacted an AOL technician the other day and when he went into this website he remarked on the number of adverts and pop-ups and implied that they might be the problem.He advised me to install an Ad-ware programme to block unwanted adverts and told me to re-set my web settings (I already employ a block on pop-ups).The technician said he would run the website on his own computer to see if it caused HIM any problems and he promised to get back to me if it did.He hasn't got back to me so far.At first,I thought his suggestions had cracked the prroblem for me but after a few hours,the same thing started happening again and even more frequently! At the moment,I am trying out the theory of NOT blocking the "Do you like Tony Blair?" advert that automatically comes up when I log on to the website.I've just minimized it out of site,rather than closing it as I normally do.So far so good....we can only see.I'll keep you posted (if the system will let me!)

Dear GB Moderator I am currently experiencing problems with staying on the website.I can access it okay but once I start searching and posting it keeps throwing me out and breaking the internet connection (I have AOL Broadband). I only seem to be experiencing the problem with THIS website. Everything else seems fine.I have anti-virus and anti-spyware programmes running and have run computer fixes galore and none of them indicate any problem with any connexion or software.I can't think what else to do! Has anybody else experienced this kind of problem with the website do you know and,if so,how did they tackle it? I recently replaced and upgraded my processor and have re-installed AOL software several times.But the same thing keeps happening. As a paid-up premium member,I will be grateful for any advice you can give me!! Thanks in anticipation. PS.I'd better keep this short before the system throws me out again!

It does seem to make a mockery of the IOC's avowed aim to put the interests of the athletes above all! I wonder what the reaction of the Athletes Commission (headed by Sergei Bubka?) has been to all this and how has Rogge managed to explain this decision to them??

"Hong Kong’s Health, Food and Welfare Secretary, York Chow, told a press conference that in the event of a bird flu outbreak, equestrian events being held in Hong Kong as part of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games could be cancelled." Where could they be held? Would Stockholm be prepared to help out again,like they did for Melbourne in 1956? Seems questions about a possible outbreak are now being asked by the Chinese themselves,not just in this forum?

On the face of it,I think Seoul would be most appropriate to step in as it would be keeping the games in Asia.But as it will be 20 years since Seoul last staged them,I wonder if the venues and facilities would all be up to scratch in time for a re-run? Plus,a massive bird-flu epidemic would most likely affect closely neighbouring Korea as much as China! That being the case I would opt for Sydney to step in as they would not be QUITE so recent as Athens,would probably still have all the venues and facilities available after just eight years,and the 2000 Games left such a pleasant memory for most people,especially the IOC.And Australia is situated far enough away from everybody else so it is the most likely to be free from any infection!