Now it‘s the Russians' turn to ask ‘when is a monopoly not a monopoly?’ When it’s a Visa for the Olympics, stupid!

To keep up with issues of justice and human rights around Sochi 2014 join the recently created Sochi Watch page on Facebook.

Inflation is a feature of Olympic Games. Not just in cost. Sochi’s Organising Committee chairman, Dmitry Chernyshenko, predicts a 17% rise in tv viewing figures to a total of 3.4billion viewers for the 2014 Winter Olympics.

NoSochi2014 is a campaign by Circassians living outside Russia, who want to draw attention to the genocide perpetrated against their people 150 years ago. Sochi happens to be the capital of their former homeland, Circassia, so its choice as the location for the 2014 Winter Olympics is a source of further pain as no recognition is given to Circassia or to what occurred a century and a half ago. On the contrary the Sochi Olympics is seen as providing an opportunity for the Russian state to create a new reality and simply paint the Circassians out of history.

Baron de Coubertin deliberately devised the Olympics as a cult. Sochi has added a new element - fertility. The head of the Sochi organising committee, Dmitri Chernyshenko, has claimed an explosion in the birth rate is down to the Olympics! "The spike in babies shows the power of the Olympics" he says.

The IOC has said ‘there are no real burning issues’at Sochi for the 2014 Winter Olympics. So no worries about evictions and environmental damage?

The grim tale of Olympic evictions continues at Sochi. The IOC has praised Sochi’s preparations. Jean-Claude Killy said “We have organised Olympic Games all over the world – Norway, Japan, Italy… But I have never seen anything like what I saw in Sochi. I believe that after the Olympics, Sochi’s former history will seem pre-history. The city will turn into one of the world’s best resorts.”

The dismal record of mega event evictions, media manipulation, lying and overspends continues. Sochi is striving hard to compete with Delhi and Beijing as the most brutal event in recent years.

Stories of environmental disasters continue to surface with a new report that Sochi lacks sites to dispose of garbage and construction waste. At the moment waste is dumped on a site which frequently sees blazes and the waste is said to be polluting the Pitkha River, which runs into the Black Sea. Environmentalists are also protesting at development plans which threaten the landscape of parts of the North Caucasus which are protected as natural UNESCO World Heritage Sites.