Eu leaders met to discuss how much solidarity they were prepared to show with the weakest members of the eurozone. In the end, the you chose not to abandon them, but greece continues to have to make drastic cuts, leaving marks that are visible throughout the country, including a long one of the worlds most famous routes along one of the worlds most famous routes. At precisely 42,195 meters long, this is the route that has become the standard for all marathon runners. The course was inspired by a 2500year old myth, only today it is run on asphalt along with the capitals main roads. This is the bay where it said the legendary battle took place in 490 bc. It marked the first greek victory over the persians. According to legend, the athenian warriors gathered in a phalanx formation and managed to fight off a persian invasion. Then a messenger ran the 42 kilometer distance to athens with news of the victory. At the local museum, the marathons legacy is omnipresent. More modernday hellenistic heroes have also been demoralize here. For instance, marathon runner who won the first olympic marathon in 1896. Exactly like the car which they gave to the winner. At the eightkilometer mark, there are remnants. The last gis withdrew here in the 1890s. Andamerican sentiment has a long tradition in greece, and the countrys entry into nato was not without controversy, but today, the deputy mayor remembers the advantages to having a Foreign Military presence here. Many young people had jobs at the military base. Many americans lived outside and vented flats in town here. Sometimes there were even weddings, and some of our young women ended up going to america. At the 11kilometer mark, we find the vineyard of spiro scarlatina is, who says that this kind of grave was being made here as far back as the battle against the persians, but even a victorious past like that is of little avail to the winegrower this kind of grape. Wine used to be in National Temple in greece, but it has become a luxury. After how can people who have seen their wage cut by half still afford a glass of wine . But he is not ready to throw in the towel just yet. He hopes the marathon label might help his selection of wines find fans abroad. At a fruit and vegetable stand at the 18kilometer mark, we meet a 22yearold egyptian who fled to greece four years ago. Since then, he has held his uncle growing and selling vegetables. He also works in a tire workshop here, but there have been more and more racist attacks in athens, and now, he avoids the capital. I have not experienced any racism out here. It is quiet. Of course, for immigrants, life is not easy during a crisis. We have to work twice as hard as the greeks. At the 35th kilometer of the marathon route reaches athens our limits. The streets are lined with vacant shops. Signs of the economic demise. The classic marathon route and here, the venue of the first modern olympic games. The original messenger is said to of delivered his message of victory before collapsing and dying, but this fourtime winner of the classic marathon has completed the route and still has strength left. He explains the unexpected growth in popularity of his sport. Running is something that the greeks adopt as a hobby or as an activity in order to cope with their frustration with the crisis and all the things that make their everyday life worse. Many people in spain also spent most of the year struggling to find ways of coping with the Current Crisis affecting their country. The dire Economic Situation is costing more and more people their jobs. Already half of the young people in spain are unemployed. As a result, some spanish girls are even willing to risk their health to earn a little money on the side. It was not an easy decision, but anna has decided to become a paid a donor. She will help infertile women become mothers. In return, she will receive 750 euros per donation. That is a lot of money for the chemistry student. It is not a regular monthly income, but it is enough to help the family that urgently needs money. In my case, i needed to pay the Registration Fee so that i can keep working towards my masters degree. Donating eggs is legal, and an increasing number of women in spain are doing it, including here. The clinics pay up to 900 compensation and expenses for the examinations, hormone treatment, and egg extraction. Anna needs the money. Although she is 26, she is almost too old. This clinic is looking for even younger donors, and it has plenty of applicants to choose from. Every day, we get calls from two or three women who want to donate eggs. We now have a list of 200 donors, even though we do not have that many potential recipients. Donating eggs is a lucrative source of income. Although in spain it is illegal to sell them, donors receive money in the form of compensation. Four years ago, this professor was a member of spains committee on bioethics and reproductive medicine. The committee set the maximum donor compensation at 900 euros. I was one of the few people who was against that amount because i saw it as a financial incentive for potential donors, rather than just a payment for expenses. Michele, just six weeks old, was conceived in a laboratory from her fathers sperm and egg from an anonymous donor. Her parents had to pay the clinic 6000 euros for the procedure. They empathize with the donors possible motives. I was a student for a long time, too, and i did not have much money. Help is always welcome, no matter where it comes from. If you can make other people happy at the same time, one not . Esther rodriguez wants to help other people become parents. The 22yearold mother of three children recently donated eggs. For her, it is not about the money. I would not want to see the baby, although i would like to know it is doing well. In the end, it has got my genes. It is nice to know the mother will be just as happy as i am with my children. Only the clinic knows weather esthers eggs have been successfully fertilized. The files are confidential. That is a problem because legally, no more than six children may be conceived from the eggs of a single donor. Up until now, there has been no way of monitoring that. As long as is known nationwide database, it is difficult to check weather the rule is being kept. Theres no accurate way of knowing how many children have been conceived from the eggs of the same donor. You cannot tell exactly what has gone on. Anna is preparing to make her first donation. It will mean she may already have biological offspring before she becomes a mother herself. My partner and i need to be financially stable first before we decide to have kids. We love children, but at the moment, it is not possible. If one day anna has her own children, they may already have older siblings from a genetic point of view, but they will never know about each other. Armenians do not have it easy, either. Employment prospects in the small country in the caucuses are low, prompting people to leave the country in search of jobs elsewhere, so how do you make young armenians believe in a future in their own country . One idea is to give them lessons in something in which armenians are the true champions. They may be only seven, but they already know how to topple a king. These second graders are learning to play chess. It is a required subject at this school. Chess is great because it trains your mind. It will make us very clever. Then it todays lesson is about checkmate in one move. Younger children can Pay Attention only for short periods, so easy tasks are best says this math teacher who has taken an advanced course in teaching chess to children. Chess trains logical thinking. It teaches how to make decisions, chains memory, strengthens willpower, motivates children swim, and teaches them how to deal with the feet. It is the only school subjects that can do all this. Chess was added to the Primary School curriculum last year. The program started with second graders and later will be expanded to older students. For armenians, chess is in our blood. We have Great Respect for the game. That is why we did not have any trouble when we made chess compulsory in schools. We are all crazy about chess here. Armenia is a small country in the southern caucasus, nestled between larger and more powerful neighbors. But when it comes to chess, armenia is world class. It is a national obsession. This chess grandmaster is the founder of a Chess Academy for children. He also initiated the project to bring just to the schools. To help make his idea a reality, he trained many schoolteachers and wrote textbooks on chests. Textbooks on chess. It is an honest game. The children learn how to play honestly, how to win with honesty and how to lose. That is very important in life. He says armenia should encourages young people to think big and achieve. Most of the parents who bring their children to the school agreed. They say chess is part of their hope for a better future. Today, the School Second graders are not learning chest. They are learning about history. They are visiting a memorial dedicated to what our media calls the genocide that took place in the Ottoman Empire in 1915. Although turkey refutes this, the mass murder is an unresolved, for armenia and is an important part of its national identity. Even Young Children have been taught about it. The turks committed genocide against the armenians. We are here to remember the victims. We remember so it will never happen again. It is a difficult subject for Young Children, but the School Director says that until turkey acknowledges that the deportations and massacres were genocide, the memory needs to be kept alive. The children need to know their own history. They have to love their country, and that means understanding our history. Armenia is a country with a difficult history, but it is also a country that takes pride in its traditions, and chess is part of that. Armenia hopes it can export the idea of its chess program. They have already had inquiries from other countries interested in the project. After all, every country needs logical, curious young minds, not just armenia. In september, armenia became world champions of chess in turkey. What is a heroic deed and what is treason . Different countries have different answers. German soldiers who helped end the atrocities during world war ii by fleeing the nazi army had to wait almost 50 years before they were rehabilitated, and irish war veterans have had to wait even longer. These guys have seen a lot. Philip fought with the british army against nazi germany. He took part in the allied invasion of normandy, a bloody battle that claimed thousands of lives. Then he, you know, left ireland to go fight in the war because he just got married. He wanted to make a difference. When he came back, he suffered. He still had a wife and seven children. Grandchildren as he got older. Just what you would want to be as a man, i suppose. He wants justice for his grandfather, but time is running out. Philip is over 90 years old. He never shows off his medals for bravery. Even today, nearly 70 years later, he is afraid of the irish authorities. He deserted the irish army to fight for the british, and he was sent to prison when he returned. The trauma has remained with him. This is the first time his family has let anyone film him. Strangers and even more so a video camera make him nervous. He is still nervous at this stage. I would want to see an apology, maybe, a thank you, a pardon for the paranoia he has gone through, the suffering wondering if a knock on the door means you get punished again and again. Patrick started a petition to pardon the veterans. Among the signatories, former president of the european parliament. Only ordinary soldiers were punished. Officers who had done the same work quietly reintegrated into the irish forces after the war, a blatant injustice, according to paddy reid, whose father was among the first to desert. He spent four years in india fighting the japanese and was highly decorated. His father, in reality a war hero, was suddenly treated as an outcast in ireland, so the family was cast into poverty. The Big Companies locally, the transport companies, shipping companies he was on the list. I am the oldest in my family, and my early memories of growing up were not enough food, no money coming in. He was not able to work. He just could not get a job. What was known as the starvation order had almost 5000 names on it. Anyone on it would not be given a job. Ireland had gained independence from britain to be with tickets before. It did not want its men fighting for the former colonial overlords. For centuries, the irish had rebelled against british rule. Today, relations between ireland and england have improved. For many, the pardoning of the onetime deserters is a further step in the right direction, and advocates of the pardon stress that deserters actually left the war for the right reasons while their own actually joined the war for the right reasons while their own country remained neutral. There are also some who oppose the pardon, claiming it would not be in Irelands National interests. States have to look after their own interests. They have to think of the people who did not desert, who did their duty by the state. To honor deserters is to insult the people who did not desert. Harry is one who did not desert. As a member of the irish merchant navy, he was captured by German Forces and sent to a concentration camp. He experienced many horrors, but he survived. Today, he says only one thing matters reconciliation, and that includes the deserters. It is very hard for us to understand. Because, i mean, the irish are always known for they like to fight, and that was a fight for the irish. I hope they get their pardon very soon. Now, the Irish Government has officially apologize, and the defense minister has pledged to pardon all deserters this year. At last, after 67 years, philip fairing to no longer needs to be afraid. The bill is expected to go through the Irish Parliament soon. Some called pigeons fly in rats. Others think of pigeons as the symbol of the peace movement. In any case, the capital of pigeons is in turkey where on the syrian border, the tradition of pigeon breeding dates back more than 700 years. It is a clock in the morning. Time to open up the furniture shop. Before doing that, he had to the roof, just as he does every morning. The 56yearold is expected by 45 pigeons ready for their routine morning flight. His neighbor is also tending to his birds. There is a dovecote on nearly every roof in the district. He has set up security cameras to protect his precious creatures. They are his pride and joy. Many wear adornments on their feet and feathers. The neck and head should be slim. The plumage should be strong and evenly patterned, and the birds posture should be graceful. When i am was my birds, and the headache or and the pain disappears in an instant. It is like being in another world. I do not notice what is happening in the city below. I become absorbed in this atmosphere. This is home to predominantly kurds and arabs, and it seems most of them have caught pigeon fever. Many shops in the city hosts auctions every evening. Bidding starts at about two euros, but the finest birds can fetch thousands. The goods are carefully inspected, and much tea is consumed. The sign lets punters no exchanges are out. He is no gambler and is not convinced by the birds on offer tonight. The most i have ever paid for a bird is about 400 euros. The most expensive birds are the ones that can fly abroad and back. Thousands of kilometers from here to germany or holland, for example. But pidgeon breeding in turkey is not always a peaceful pastime. Knives or pistils are drawn during fights over the best birds. That is what brought on the shootings that the end of april, a fight which left one dead and two injured. There are around 10,000 pigeon breeders here alone. The citys bazar bazaar revolves around this pastime. It is where arif purchases jewelry for his beloved creatures. Evening has fallen, and he is back with his birds. They need to be fed. And he can enjoy some peace and quiet high above the city. From up here, the birds can soar serenely over the rooftops. And theyre the perfect symbol for his multicultural city. Love animals knows no religion or creed. This hobby is shared by kurds, turks, and arabs. From pierce said this to feats of light, no where else are people so passionate about pigeons as in turkey. That brings us to the end of this last edition of european journal in 2012. Until next year, happy new year from all of us in brussels. Bye for now. Captioned by the national captioning institute
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