REFILE-London leading destination city in 2012-study - Reuters UK
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By Peter Myers
LONDON, June 11 (Reuters) - The home of this summer's Olympic Games and the Diamond Jubilee celebrations for Britain's Queen Elizabeth is also the world's top destination this year, according to an index released by global credit card company MasterCard on Monday.
MasterCard's "Worldwide Index of Global Destination Cities" predicted that London will see 16.9 million people arrive by air compared with a million less for second place city Paris and airmiles ahead of New York at 13th place with 7.6 million arrivals.
The index also said that London, for the second year running, will attract the highest international visitor spend at $21.1 million, just ahead of New York at $19.4 million.
"London offers better value for money than New York," MasterCard Worldwide's global economic advisor Yuwa Hedrick-Wong told Reuters.
The queen's diamond jubilee saw London fill with visitors from abroad and around Britain for four days of celebrations at the start of June and the Olympics which will take place at venues in and around London from July 27 to August 12 is expected to pull in visitors from all over the planet.
"As our fantastic Diamond Jubilee celebrations demonstrated, London knows how to throw a party and, as we prepare to host the greatest Games the world has ever seen, it is no surprise our capital is the top choice for tourists," London Mayor Boris Johnson said in a statement along with Mastercard's index.
Well established international destination Bangkok was the other big winner in the index at third place with 12.2 million visitors who will spend $19.3 million.
"Bangkok's advantage is that it's a very tolerant culture," Hedrick-Wong told Reuters. "That explains its durability, especially attracting Europeans and Americans. I cannot imagine Western visitors doing the same thing in Malaysia, even China."
The Index, which encompasses 132 of the world's most important cities, is being marketed as a new map for understanding global connectivity.
Businesses and investors might find the Index's list of city growth rates of more interest than current rankings. Brazilian and Chinese cities also featured highly in the survey for both visitor numbers and spend.
"The growth patterns show how important cities are," says Hedrick-Wong, "and they're popping up from everywhere. They take on some really important local or regional significance overnight because of a new development."
Expect to hear much more about Recife and Belo Horizonte in Brazil, and Chengdu, Harbin, Xian and Guangzhou in China.
Using information gleaned from 87 airlines, national tourism boards, the United Nations and other global agencies, the MasterCard Index offers an optimistic overall forecast.
Total visitor numbers and cross-border spending will increase by 5.7 percent and 10.6 percent respectively for the top 20 destination cities in 2012.
The result is a bright spot in a period of slow world economic output, a persistent euro zone crisis and increased uncertainty in the financial sector.
"The growing need and desire to travel, especially by air, are set to expand in spite of the ups and downs of the business cycles," MasterCard's report said.
In a survey also out on Monday, by Mercer, London was ranked the 25th most expensive city in the world and the most expensive city for expatriates. (Editing by Paul Casciato)
London 2012 Olympics: Tom Daley confirmed in Britain's Olympic diving squad - Daily Telegraph
He said: “I can’t wait to see the home crowd. There’ll be 17,500 people all behind us wanting us to do well and I can’t wait to hear the noise they’ll make.
“A home Games is a once in a lifetime opportunity and I really can’t wait to get onto those boards at the Aquatics Centre again.”
But Gladding's attempt to compete in the 10m individual in her first Olympics, just 18 months after she almost died following an accident at a diving competition in Russia, could be under threat.
Reports suggest her place is set to come under appeal from 10 metre platform rival Tonia Couch.
Couch, who will go to London in the platform synchro, and her coach Andy Banks have revealed their anger at the decision after being overlooked by a British Diving selection panel headed by controversial performance director Alexei Evangulov.
She had beaten Gladding into third place at the British Gas Diving Championships - which doubled as the Olympic qualifiers - at the weekend and was last night in tears after being informed of the decision.
But British Diving were still to receive official notification of an appeal, with Couch, who reached the 2008 Olympic final, having 48 hours to lodge any complaint.
Banks made public their dissatisfaction today, though, saying: "I feel, quite strongly, that she [Couch] has demonstrated over the course of this year that she is still the UK's premier platform diver - she has been since 2008."
Couch used her Twitter page to say: "Picked 4 syncro but not for individual. I dived my socks off with a PB and came 2nd, had the best year yet not been picked for 2012 £gutted."
Gladding's selection had loomed as an emotional choice after she almost died in February last year following the freak accident at a diving competition in Russia.
The 30 year-old had to be dragged to safety from the bottom of the diving pool after hitting her head on the concrete 10m platform and plummeting unconscious into the water.
She said: "I have had many ups and downs to get to today's announcement.
"It has taken a lot but I am now fully back, ready and excited to put on my Team GB tracksuit.
"It really is a dream come true."
Couch will also focus on her partnership with Sarah Barrow in the 10m synchro. The pair became Britain's first women's European diving champions in Eindhoven last month and are expected to push for a podium place.
Rebecca Gallantree and Nick Robinson-Baker were picked for their second Olympics, while rising star Jack Laugher heads a list of four teenagers heading to their first Games along with Chris Mears, Hannah Starling and Alicia Blagg.
The Olympic diving events begin on July 29 before finishing with Daley's platform final on August 11.
The Great Britain Olympic Diving team:
Tom Daley – 10M Individual and 10M Synchronised
Peter Waterfield – 10M Individual and 10M Synchronised
Chris Mears – 3M Individual and 3M synchronised
Nick Robinson-Baker – 3M Synchronised
Jack Laugher – 3M individual
Alicia Blagg – 3M Synchronised
Rebecca Gallantree – 3M Synchronised
Hannah Starling – 3M Individual
Tonia Couch – 10M Synchronised
Sarah Barrow – 10M Synchronised
Stacie Powell – 10M Individual
Monique Gladding – 10M Individual
Silicon Valley Bank launches a full-service branch in London - San Jose Mercury News
London is an international destination with a financial center that rivals New York City. But it lacks what many of the city's leaders want most now as the world slogs through a prolonged economic slowdown: a startup culture.
Like so many other regions in the world, the United Kingdom wants to recreate Silicon Valley's ability to launch global technology companies that garner prestige, wealth and high-paying jobs for locals. Now it has one key ingredient to financing entrepreneurs: Silicon Valley Bank, which officially opened a full-service commercial bank in London on Monday.
Silicon Valley Bank, which recently was granted a banking license from the Financial Services Authority of the United Kingdom, said its British branch is essentially an entirely new bank on the other side of the Atlantic -- and represents the first time it is operating such an institution outside the United States. The new branch comes as the bank gears up to launch a joint venture in China with Shanghai Pudong Development Bank in coming months.
While the bank has long had offices in places like India and Israel, the hunger for nurturing innovation by developing and developed nations has never been greater, Silicon Valley Bank officials say.
The Santa Clara-based bank calls itself a financier of innovation. It makes million-dollar loans to technology startups while providing them other banking services and acting as a matchmaker between entrepreneurs and venture
capitalists. In the United States, more than half of all venture capital-backed technology and life-science companies work with the institution, according to Silicon Valley Bank. It has 1,500 employees and $20.8 billion in assets."Innovation is such a hot topic now," said Silicon Valley Bank CEO Greg Becker. "Almost every market is looking at that as being one of their cornerstones of growth. So we get a lot of support. The brand of Silicon Valley is incredibly powerful."
Much of Silicon Valley's international focus is on emerging markets -- including China, India and Brazil. But the bank sees opportunities in mature nations such as England, which has watched the rise of companies like Facebook and wondered why it can't have similar tech success stories. For Silicon Valley Bank, setting up a bank in London will give it access to the rest of Europe, said bank spokeswoman Carrie Merritt.
"In the U.K., there are five major banks -- like Barclays, Lloyds -- that have 90 percent market share of commercial and retail business," she said. "Nobody is focused on technology. Given what's going on in the banking crisis in Europe, they are not trying to get into new markets. We think it's a great opportunity for us to fill a void that already exists because banks don't usually work with companies at the (early) stage we do."
In London, Silicon Valley Bank's behind-the-scenes role in cultivating startups is highly coveted. British Prime Minister David Cameron, in promoting efforts to create more of a tech economy for his country, has repeatedly singled out Silicon Valley Bank's role in England as a part of those efforts and has met with Silicon Valley Bank's team in London a number of times.
It's part of a campaign to beef up the city's small tech community that includes the government-backed Tech City located between the city's financial center and new Olympic park in the east, and the courting of valley companies such as Cisco Systems, Google, Facebook and Intel to set up operations there.
In a speech in Edinburgh last year, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt reportedly gave credit to Britain for its history of innovation -- but said the nation fails to commercialize its tech ideas. London hopes Tech City, also called Silicon Roundabout, changes that.
"Silicon Valley Bank is a very smart partner for London to seek," said Marguerite Gong Hancock, associate director of the Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. "They play this really integral role in helping build an entrepreneurial community from the finance piece."
Silicon Valley Bank opened an office in London in 2004 with a single representative. The London branch now has 45 employees.
Contact John Boudreau at 408-278-3496; follow him at Twitter.com/svwriter.
London Olympics 2012: get set for the gridlock games - Daily Telegraph
Yet even if there are no non-Olympic tourists at all (unlikely), and even if double the usual number of natives stay away from the office (less unlikely), almost half a million people will still need to converge on a small area of east London, including 300,000 spectators, 120,000 staff and volunteers, and 70,000 members of the “Games family” (competitors, sponsors, officials and media).
At peak capacity, the seven railway lines serving Stratford can handle 240,000 passengers an hour. That would be fine if Games demand was spread evenly through the day, and nobody else in London needed to use those services. But the demands of broadcasters mean that events in the most popular disciplines, such as athletics and swimming, tend to be scheduled in two blocks, one from roughly 10am to 1pm and the other from about 7pm to 10pm. So there will be sharp spikes in demand – and most people going to or from the Olympic Park will have to make at least one of their journeys in rush hour, just as the rest of the city is travelling, too. This is probably the moment to mention that the Underground has only had three entirely problem-free weekdays in the last year.
Even if it all works perfectly, the busiest stations will be swamped. At London Bridge, charts on the Games website show that you will have to queue for more than 30 minutes to board a Tube train during the morning and evening peaks, and up to 15 minutes even at 10.30pm. On the worst day, August 9, there will be six hours in total of half-hour-plus delays.
And don’t even think about driving: according to the TfL website, a journey from, say, Hammersmith (west) to St Paul’s (east) will take an extra 57 minutes. Some of the busiest roads in central London will be totally closed to normal traffic, including Whitehall, Constitution Hill and Birdcage Walk. Westminster Bridge will be one-way. The Mall, incredibly, will be off limits to everyone – including pedestrians and cyclists – for almost four months, starting this month and not reopening until the last day of September. It seems a high price to pay for beach volleyball.
Then there are the famous “Zil lanes” – 30 miles of Tarmac for the “Olympic family”, halving the capacity of key routes such as the Victoria Embankment, Knightsbridge and the Cromwell Road, and cutting Park Lane, the Westway and Euston and Marylebone Roads by a third. The Blackwall Tunnel southern approach, one of the busiest roads in London, will be partly shut throughout the morning rush hour, even though the only Olympic users will be a few hundred shooters and riders travelling from Stratford to Woolwich and Greenwich – and even they will be going the other way at the time.
Disruption is also happening far away from the Olympic sites: Russell Square, for instance, is being taken over as the media transport hub. Wanstead Flats has been commandeered as a police camp. A huge area of south-western suburbia will be closed over three days for the cycling. Thirty per cent of London’s road network will be affected in some way, often with restrictions that will stop you parking outside your own home or your customers parking outside your shop. Some firms nearest the Olympic Park are so worried about the effects on their recession-shrunk balance sheets that they believe the Games will put them out of business.
In the end, how these transport problems and restrictions go down will probably depend on how we feel about the Games themselves. The travel difficulties during the Jubilee went almost ignored: people put up with them because they loved the event and they love the Queen. The Olympics, so far, have often presented a much less likeable face: it seems improbable that a million people will line the streets to cheer the chief executives of McDonald’s and Coca-Cola as they sweep past in their Zil lanes.
Olympic organisers protest that sponsors who support the Games must be cherished. But that doesn’t seem to apply to the biggest sponsors of all: the taxpayers of Britain. Even the transport system itself is feasting from the buffet at our expense. Those striking busmen, demanding £750 extra for the favour of turning up to work during the Games, are just the latest in a line of greedy Tube, rail and Docklands Light Railway staff collecting bribes simply for doing their jobs.
The usual history of the Olympics is that the worries beforehand die down as people get caught up in the excitement. If Britain is winning lots of golds, if the sun is shining and there are things to go to for those without tickets, Londoners probably will decide to roll with the punches and take extra holiday. So the real key figures in how the capital is seen to manage may not be the hapless, fluorescent-jacketed transport officials, but Rebecca Adlington, Chris Hoy and all Britain’s other medal hopes. No pressure then, guys.
Vauxhall Targets Company Car Drivers With New Mokka Tech Line SUV - The Auto Chanel
LUTON, UNITED KINGDOM – June 11, 2012: Hot on the heels of Vauxhall’s recent pricing announcement for the Mokka SUV, is news that there will be a fourth trim line aimed at company car drivers, called Tech Line and costing 15,995.
Available from today, Mokka Tech Line offers company car drivers exceptional levels of standard spec, combined with low P11D prices and attractive benefit-in-kind charges. Tech Line models can already be found in the Astra and Insignia model ranges.
The Mokka Tech Line will enter the growing sub-compact SUV B-segment, but despite its compact 4.28 metre length can accommodate five adults in comfort. Its key rival will be the Nissan Qashqai although some customers may well view the Mokka as a competitor to the Juke and the Skoda Yeti. Like all Vauxhall passenger cars, the Mokka comes with Lifetime Warranty.
The Mokka comes with very generous levels of standard equipment, including the Navi 600 satellite navigation system, DMB (Digital Media Broadcast) radio,, Bluetooth and USB connectivity, 18 inch alloy wheels and cruise control. This is on top of air conditioning, Descent Control System, aux-in and a multi-function trip computer.
Three engines, ranging in power from 115 to 140PS, will be available from launch. The 1.6-litre petrol produces 115PS and 155Nm of torque, and with its standard Start/Stop system delivers a combined 43.5mpg. With 140PS, the 1.4-litre turbo is the Mokka’s most powerful petrol engine and brings with it standard four-wheel drive and sub-150g CO2 emissions.
The Mokka has a choice of two diesel models, both of which use Vauxhall’s 1.7 CDTi 130PS engine, with CO2 emissions as low as 124g/km. In front-wheel drive form, the 1.7 CDTi is available with a six-speed manual or six-speed automatic transmission, and with all-wheel drive the Mokka comes with the six-speed manual only. Like the petrol-powered cars, all manual models have Vauxhall’s fuel-saving Start/Stop system as standard.
“The Mokka takes its design cues from larger SUVs and integrates them into a compact, yet modern form,” said Duncan Aldred, Vauxhall’s Chairman and Managing Director. “We are now growing a compelling and diverse range of products that appeal both to retail and fleet customers, and the Mokka will complement this perfectly.”
“An array of eye-catching standard features paired with exceptional P11D values make the new Mokka Tech Line really stand out from the competition,” said James Taylor, Fleet Sales Director. “Mokka expands our Tech Line range aimed at fleet customers after its launch earlier this year with Astra and Insignia.”
Front- or four-wheel drive transmissions
The Mokka has been designed to perform efficiently in urban environments, but with the ability to be driven off-road when the need arises. Both front-wheel drive and four-wheel drive models are available, with the AWD system being fully adaptive. When the vehicle’s being driven on smooth, dry surfaces all drive is sent to the front wheels for maximum efficiency. But when the road surface is slippery, as much as 50 per cent of the drive automatically and seamlessly is diverted to the rear axle. The entire AWD system weighs just 65kgs, benefitting handling and fuel economy.
Mokka Tech Line brings wide range of new tech to sub-compact SUV segment
A variety of state-of-the-art driver-assistance systems will be available in the Mokka. The Vauxhall Front Camera – first seen in the latest Insignia, and also the new Zafira Tourer – gives drivers access to Lane Departure Warning, Traffic Sign Recognition, Forward Collision Alert, as well as a rear-view camera, which works with park-assist sensors front and rear.
Reinforcing its role as a recreational car for families, the Mokka also has the option of Vauxhall’s latest generation FlexFix rear bicycle carrier. The carrier is fully integrated into the rear bumper, and slides out like a drawer to accept up to three bicycles at a time. The system even allows easy access to the tailgate/cargo area when the bikes are on the carrier.
Standard on all Mokkas is a comprehensive package of safety systems, including Electronic Stability Control, Traction Control, Hill Start Assist and Hill Descent Control, providing drivers with reassurance, no matter if they’re on or off-road. HDC is an excellent ally when a driver is descending a steep hill, when it determines and limits the speed of the vehicle, meaning that the brakes need not be applied.
Adding further still to the Mokka’s comprehensive safety armoury is Vauxhall’s Advanced Adaptive Forward Lighting (AFL+). This technology automatically adapts the Mokka’s lighting to suit its driving environment, whether it be motorway, country, urban, adverse weather, increased full beam, or cornering beam. The system is also equipped with High Beam Assist, which adjusts the high beams automatically so that oncoming traffic isn’t dazzled.
Bold SUV design combined with generous functionality
Muscular and attractive, the Mokka incorporates Vauxhall’s signature ‘blade’ on the body side, sweeping towards the rear. The Mokka’s stance is reinforced by its higher ground clearance as well as a 1540mm track and 18-inch wheels on most models.
Inside, the Mokka has 19 storage locations, 60:40 split rear seats, and an all-up load space of 1,372 litres with the rear seats folded down.
British team play integral role in RHD chassis development
Gerry Baker, Vauxhall’s manager of vehicle dynamics based at Millbrook, has been involved with Mokka chassis development from an early stage. “Early prototype cars were tested in the UK during 2011, to establish if bespoke damper settings were required for cars sold in Britain,” said Gerry.
“We’ve also been evaluating an RHD steering tune for the car, which is important, given the unique road conditions British drivers have to deal with. Finally, a large part of the Mokka’s durability testing has been carried out at Millbrook, here in the UK.”
There’s been great emphasis on the Mokka’s dynamic performance, both on- and off-road, The front MacPherson suspension has been fitted with side-load compensation springs to improve damper reliability and consistency. At the rear, a U-section compound crank is mounted ahead of the rear wheels, angled to suit either FWD or AWD set-ups, and ensuring that both on- and off-road dynamics are not compromised.
Vauxhall has adopted a state-of-the-art Electric Power Steering (EPS) system for Mokka, which provides more speed sensitive assistance for drivers, no matter what model they opt for. The specific settings for the steering will be tuned to suit the UK market.
Mokka launches later this year
Customers can order the Mokka Tech Line from today and first cars will arrive in UK showrooms in November this year.
London Hit by Flooding Following Heavy Rain - lbc.co.uk
Monday 11th June 2012
London Fire Brigade had already dealt with more than thirty cases of flooding by early afternoon after some areas saw the average rainfall for the whole of June fall in just 12 hours.
The number is more than double the usual daily calll outs for flood related reasons.
The brigade says it has 15 tonnes of sand ready to be sent out from its distribution centre in Croydon in the event of serious flooding.
The Environment Agency has issued 11 flood alerts for London while the Met Office has issued an Amber warning - the second highest possible - with surface water flooding, localised river flooding and very difficult driving conditions likely.
The flooding caused difficulties for drivers and trains in and around the capital this morning.
Head of road policy at the AA - Paul Watters - has been telling LBC 97.3 it is unpredictable.
"The trouble is with flooding is it can be clear in one place and very deep water in the next, which causes major gridlock," he explained.
"Also drivers braking down, of course, which adds to the problem. We certainly did know about it, we certainly did have the authorities ready for but the system can't cope. It's just like snow in a way."
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