OLYMPICS-Formula One, West Ham in race for Olympic Stadium - Reuters UK
LONDON, July 17 |
LONDON, July 17 (Reuters) - Motor racing group Formula One and football club West Ham United are among four bidders competing to take over the Olympic stadium after the games leave London, the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) said on Tuesday.
The LLDC said it was assessing proposals from the two, as well as from Leyton Orient Football Club and the UCFB College of Football Business, without saying when a decision was due.
The process to select a main tenant for the stadium in east London was extended by eight weeks in May after the LLDC said some parties had been discouraged from bidding because of unresolved issues including stadium naming rights.
"London is further ahead in planning legacy than any previous host Olympic city," LLDC chairman Daniel Moylan said in a statement.
There has been speculation that Formula One plans to use the stadium and neighbouring land to create a motor racing circuit.
Some local politicians fear the 80,000-seat venue could become a white elephant. A previous plan to sell the stadium to West Ham fell apart last October with the government citing "legal paralysis" after Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur, who had a bid turned down, challenged the decision.
The LLDC also said a bid to turn the 1 million square foot Olympic media centre into offices, research labs and a data centre was now the preferred choice.
A plan by the so-called iCity consortium is the favourite after the only other bidder withdrew last week and criticised the selection process.
The consortium is backed by data centre manager Infinity and property company Delancey. It plans to create more than 4,000 jobs.
The LLDC said it will name the residential developer selected to build the first neighbourhood of housing on the park next week. (Reporting by Brenda Goh; Editing by Tom Bill and Stephen Powell)
Senior BJP leader and RSS ideologue Bal Apte passes away - Times of India
Apte, 73, is survived by his wife and a daughter.
"Apte was admitted to our hospital on July 6 for a respiratory disorder. He died of chronic lung disease around 3 pm today," Medical Director of Hinduja Hospital Gustad Davar told PTI.
Apte, a prominent face of the Sangh in BJP, was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra twice in 2000 and 2006. He was denied party nomination earlier this year and replaced by Ajay Sancheti, considered close to BJP president Nitin Gadkari.
He was BJP vice president during 2002-2010 and was also a member of the party's Central Parliamentary Board. BJP's Tarun Vijay described him as an ideal RSS swyamsewak and legendary organiser for ABVP. Apte was for long associated with ABVP, the youth wing of RSS, and was also its president.
A lawyer by profession, Apte had been under detention from December 1975 to February 1977 under the stringent Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) during Emergency.
The then BJP president Rajnath Singh had constituted a committee under Apte to go into the reasons for the party's poor showing in 2009 Lok Sabha elections.
He was on the Governing Council of Shikshan Prasarak Mandali, an educational institution running 20 colleges and schools, for about two decades.
His funeral will take place at Dadar crematorium tomorrow morning, party sources said.
RSS to burn copy of Kashmir interlocutors report - New Kerala
Chandigarh, July 17 : The Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) will burn copies of the Jammu and Kashmir interlocutors' "dangerous" report across the country soon, a senior leader said here Tuesday.
RSS leader Indresh Kumar told media persons here that the RSS would soon decide a date to burn the copies of the report submitted by the three interlocutors to the central government.
"The interlocutors' report is extremely dangerous for the unity and integrity of the country. It will lead to division of the country," he alleged, terming the report as being against Kashmir's integration with India.
The report has recommended the setting up of a constitutional committee to review all central laws extended to the state and making permanent Article 370 of the constitution that grants the state a special status.
Indresh Kumar said the interlocutors had taken a line which will allow a third agency to mediate on the Kashmir issue which India will not tolerate.
He said that Pakistan had no right to the areas of Kashmir it currently occupies.
The report, "A New Compact with the People of Jammu and Kashmir", prepared by the three interlocutors - senior journalist Dileep Padgaonkar, academician Radha Kumar and former information commissioner M.M. Ansari - was made public early this month. (IANS)
Bruce Springsteen curfew 'not for health and safety' - BBC News
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has criticised promoter Live Nation for attributing the curtailment of Bruce Springsteen's Hyde Park concert on Saturday to "health and safety" issues.
Fans were left bemused when the Hard Rock Calling event was abruptly ended in order to meet a 22:30 BST curfew.
One of them was Kevin Myers, deputy chief executive of the HSE.
In a web posting, he said the promoter was "disingenuous" to give health and safety as the cue for ending the gig.
"The fans deserve the truth," he wrote on the HSE website. "There are no health and safety issues involved here.
"While public events may have licensing conditions dictating when they should end, this is not health and safety and it is disingenuous of Live Nation to say so."
A Springsteen fan who was a member of the audience on Saturday, Mr Myers goes on to suggest 'The Boss' knows something about the issue himself.
'Unfortunate'To support his argument, he invites readers to "look at the words of Factory from Darkness on the Edge of Town referring to the toll that factory work can take on the health of blue collar workers".
Springsteen's guitarist Steven Van Zandt was also angered by the concert's abrupt curtailment, using Twitter to express his dissatisfaction with "English cops".
According to Westminster Council, however, the decision to end the concert was made by organisers "to comply with their licence".
In a statement on the Hard Rock Calling website, Live Nation said it was "unfortunate" that the performance had been "stopped right at the very end".
It said a 22:30 BST curfew had been "laid down by the authorities in the interest of the public's health and safety".
Country trip Lady Antebellum supported Springsteen on Saturday and have added their voices to those bemoaning his enforced silencing.
"I'm sure there was definitely a reason," said singer Hillary Scott. "I hear they had a very strict curfew in Hyde Park."
McIlroy delighted attention has switched to Woods - ESPN.co.uk
Rory McIlroy is happily flying under the radar this week, believing the reduced attention on his game may help him challenge at the Open Championship.
McIlroy was the man of the moment ahead of the same tournament 12 months ago, having pocketed the 2011 US Open. His appearance at The Open back then was his first since that record-breaking feat, and pressure was on McIlroy to reproduce.
The scrutiny led to an anti-climactic 25th-place finish, and has since been followed by a series of poor performances from the 23-year-old. Four missed cuts in his last six tournaments is hardly major-winning form, but it has helped shift the pressure to the likes of Tiger Woods, Luke Donald and Lee Westwood.
McIlroy has courted far less coverage so far at Royal Lytham, and he admits it has helped him focus on his game ahead of Thursday's tee-off.
"It's been great," McIlroy said in a press conference. "It's been lovely just going about my business - definitely not the madness that was going on last year.
"It's nice. I've tried to keep it as low-key as possible and feel like I've done that pretty well. Obviously people still come up and want photos and stuff, but the commotion's definitely not as bad.
"The hype [of last year] and everything was so big that it maybe had a little bit to do with it, but at the end of the day I just didn't play well enough to figure in the tournament."
McIlroy's poor display at last year's Open prompted him to make one or two unfortunate comments, notably that he could not wait to get back to the US. It was seen by sections of the media as a sign the Northern Irishman was turning his back on his roots, but McIlroy puts it down to immaturity.
"Those comments were just pure frustration with having really high expectations going into it, coming off a major win," he said.
"Blaming the weather, blaming the draw, blaming my luck - that was just frustration. Looking back I just didn't handle the conditions as best I could have.
"That's something that I'm trying to do more of and to some degree at Portrush [in the Irish Open two weeks ago] I felt like I played well in the bad conditions. If it's like that again this week you're just going to have to knuckle down and focus and keep fighting."
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