SYDNEY, Australia (JTA) — Organizers of the next Olympic Games are making plans to accommodate observant Jewish athletes.

The games are slated to take place here in September 2000.

The Sydney Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games has agreed to provide accommodations in the Olympic village for a rabbi over Shabbat and the Jewish New Year, said Sandy Hollway, chief executive officer of the committee.

Hollway, in a letter sent earlier this month to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, said services would be conducted at an interfaith center in the Olympic village and kosher food would be available. The closing ceremonies of the games are slated to take place on Rosh Hashanah.

"For the very first time Jewish members of the Olympic family will be catered for within the Olympic village," said Amanda Gordon, vice president of the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies.

French paper blasted for Nazi comments

PARIS (JTA) — French Jewish groups, politicians and anti-racism activists blasted a far-right newspaper for calling for Nazi-era police roundups and concentration camps to rid France of illegal immigrants.

CRIF, the umbrella group of secular French Jewish organizations, said the publication's front-page editorial was a provocation for people who had lost relatives in the Holocaust.

Argentine bus driverdenies anti-Semitism

BUENOS AIRES (JTA) — An Argentine bus driver accused this week of trying to throw a Jewish youth off his bus issued a public apology and denied he was anti-Semitic.

Witnesses said the driver said, "No Jews get on my bus," before hitting the youth and pulling off his skullcap.

The head of Argentina's anti-racism unit said he helped obtain the apology to prevent the driver from losing his job.

Attacks against Jews not rising, Britain says

LONDON (JTA) — Britain earlier this month denied allegations by Israel's official anti-Semitism monitoring panel that there had been a marked rise in attacks on British Jews.

The panel, led by cabinet Secretary Danny Naveh, had reported in June that street attacks on British Jews were part of a global increase in violent anti-Semitism linked to Israel's jubilee.