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2012 Olympic Park gets go ahead

no body in particular | 10.09.2004 08:24 | Culture | London | World

The Olympic Park, crucial to London's 2012 bid, has been given the go-ahead.

Four east London boroughs gave planning permission for the 500-acre park, in the Lower Lea Valley, on Thursday.

Tower Hamlets, Newham, Hackney and Waltham Forest planning committees backed the plan at a meeting at City Hall on London's South Bank.

The park would include the Olympic Stadium - where the opening and closing ceremonies would take place - as well as the Olympic Village.

An aquatic centre, velodrome and BMX track, three sports halls, the hockey stadium and accommodation for 17,800 competitors and officials would also be part of the park.

Situated near to the proposed Olympic transport hub in Stratford, the complex would have easy access to the Dome, in Greenwich, and the ExCel centre in Docklands, where other events would be held.

Paris, Madrid, New York and Moscow are also on the shortlist of cities competing to host the 2012 games.

The application for planning permission was made by the London Development Agency - the Mayor's agency for promoting business, economic and cultural growth.

Sebastian Coe, chairman of London 2012, the company bidding to bring the Games to the capital, said: "This decision sends a clear message to the International Olympic Committee that we are ahead of the game, and serious about winning.

"If we win the right to host the Games next July, work could begin the very next day.

"Today's decision is an important step in turning a dream into a reality."

as plagarised from bbc.


no body in particular

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Business as Usual

10.09.2004 10:17

Beijing 2008 Olympics hosting must be for the purpose of opening up the Chinese market. Hence the new BAT multi-million pound cigarette factory that is currenlty being built over there. It can't be for their human rights record! Note next story re. petiton. If locking up the homeless and killing construction workers was a big feature of the Greek games, the mind boggles at what is going to happen in China in preparation for their turn at hosting.

Fuck the bid up or sabotage the construction alla roadraging?

Barbara cassani eat my shorts


Boycott Beijing Site

10.09.2004 10:22

A New Wave of Repression Justified by the Olympics

While a wide majority of International Olympic Committee (IOC) members were voting, on July 13, 2001, to attribute the 2008 Summer Olympics to Beijing, Chinese police received an order to step up their executions of delinquents and intensify repression against "subversive Internet users". IOC members, encouraged by their president, Juan Antonio Samaranch, who personally supported China's bid, paid no attention to the repeated calls against the Beijing bid....

read more on Boycott Beijing website


 http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=174

Boycott Hackney?