Parade of Nations (three of four)_ China-Spain

We continue to list 2012 London Olympics athletes who were flag-bearers for their respective countries on Friday with a look at those participating in sports ranging from men's basketball to women's judo.

Here is the latest list:

China: Yi Jianlian (pictured below, men's basketball)

Finland: Hanna-Maria Seppala (pictured, center, swimming)

Jordan: Nadin Dawani (women's judo)

Kenya: Jason Dunford (pictured above, men's swimming)

Libya: Sofyan el Gidi (men's swimming)

Malaysia: Pandelela Rinong (women's diving)

Russia: Maria Sharapova (tennis)

Spain: Paul Gasol (men's basketball)

Things We Learned on Google Today- Kharkiv is Ukraine's Secnd Largest City

Hmm....Google is not always correct about everything. When I asked Google who was the Ukraine's most famous athlete. It/They responded with Anna Kournikova, the retired RUSSIAN tennis starlett who is more known for her off-the-court life as she was in a relationship with some pop star (yaaaaawn!).

Of course, another hot Russian female tennis player has been making more headlines lately and that is Maria Sharapova who lost yesterday in the Wimbledon women's tennis championship to Petra Kvitova from the Czech Republic. Sharapova is also engaged to some Serbian NBA player (yaaaaaaaawn again!).

But, Google did tell us that Kharkiv, not Odessa (which is actually the fourth largest Ukrainian city) is the country's second largest city. It ranks behind Kiev, but ahead of the industrial city of Dnipropetrovsk, which may have the longest name for any major city in Europe.

Kharkiv has 1.46 million people, and it is known for its metro system and Freedom Square. It is also sister cities with Cincinnati, Ohio, which is best known for its baseball team (ironically called the Reds, forgive the Cold War humor) and for being the setting of a 1970s sitcom set in a radio station which Ukrainians are probably not too familiar with.

The city also has The Annuciation Cathedral, which is one of the largest Orthodox cathedrals in the world. Kharkiv also has many Bronze artificats, and it is the hometown of weightlifter Igor Rybak.

Since the city was occupied by Nazi forces in World War II, there is some dark history in Kharkiv as 300,000 of the city's Jewish resident were killed during the Holocaust.

The city is in the northern part of the Ukraine. I wonder if there chicken is as good as the chicken in Kiev....well, we couldn't resist!

This is actually the fourth in our series on profiles of former Soviet Republics. The other three were Uzbekistan, Russia and Kygystan, which is arguably the hardest country in the world to spell!

Things We Learned on NPR Last Week-Problems with the Other Neighbor

Greece is making international headlines due to its financial crisis which has caused riots on the streets. Though the events are not quite as violent or dramatic, as the fall-out from the Arab Spring in Syria, Yemen and Libya, the government in Athens is undoubtedly overwhelmed at the moment.

For centuries upon centuries, Greece's main rival has always been Turkey, my late father's country. I once wore a t-shirt from the Turkish resort of Kusadasi while visiting the Greek island of Rhodes as a teenager in 1985, and yes, the locals noticed!

But, at the moment, Greece seems to having even more of a rift with Macedonia, a former Yugoslav republic that is now its own independent, small nation.

As the always brilliant NPR show "The World" (which we should perhaps listen to more often) reported last week, Macedonia unveiled a towering 92-foot statue of Alexander the Great in the capital city of Skopje. The problem is that the Greeks consider Alexander the Great, who was ironically an inspiration to Sultan Suleyman the Magnificient, as their national hero.

The radio series also said in its report that there are already plenty of tensions between Skopje and Athens as Greece has repeatedly tried to block Macedonia's entrance into the European Union.

All of this brings us to the reason why we chose Karagiozis, a Greek version of the Turkish shadow puppet Karagoz, as our image to go with this entry.

As it turns out, both Turkey and Greece have many cultural overlaps. And, the Greek shadow-puppeteer Sotris Haridimos currently has a traveling Karagiozis roadshow in Greece, which an American travel writer saw in Athens and reported on for his travel blog.

Like Karagoz, his Greek counterpart represents the plight of the average person. And, given Greece's domestic turoil, and Turkey's struggles with an overwhelming influx of refugees from Syria, it seems that both countries are a bit overwhelmed these days. And, very few tourists visiting the resort town of Bodrum, Turkey, and the Greek island of Kos, a mere three miles off Bodrum's coast, are concerned about any of this.

SIDEBAR: It is official. The Wimbledon women's final will be between Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic and Russian superstar Maria Sharapova. If we had John McEnroe's email, we'd ask him who he likes on this one. But, then again, I may say something to tick him off, and that would be like an eruption of Mount Pinatubo.

Quote of the Week-Italian Playwright Dario Fo

Today, we continue quoting famous Italians this month (and, we will add one in July) by quipping playwright Dario Fo (b. 1926) who is best-known for his play "Accidental Death of an Anarchist" (1970). Interestingly enough, the play had its American debut at the famed Washington, D.C., playhouse Arena Stage. The theatre is now performing the Tennessee Williams classic "The Glass Menagerie."

Fo's plays deal with themes, such as Italy's dealings with organized crime, the Catholic church's political stance on abortion and the Middle East.

Here is the quote from the playwright who also penned "Trumpets and Rasberries" (1981):

"Comedy makes the subversion of the existing state of affairs possible."

We first heard about Fo through a Jeopardy question, of all things.

SIDEBAR: This will give us a good preparation for our upcoming People with Long Names List, Part Two, which we hope to post within the next few weeks.

We have recently become more interested in tennis after watching an HBO documentary on the rivalry between John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg between the years 1979-1982.

So, here are the results of today's women's quarterfinals tennis matches from Wimbledon.

For starters, Victoria Azarenka of Belarus beat the Austrian Tamira Paszek. The Russian tennis goddess Maria Sharapova destroyed Slovakian Dominika Cibulkova. In a close match, Sabine Lisicki of Germany won over Marion Bartoli.

And, finally, it a match between two eastern Europeans with long, difficult games, the Czech star Petra Kvitova edged Bulgarian Tsetana Pironkova.

We certainly hope we got the results right, and perhaps more importantly spelled all these names correctly!