London stocks slide on warning over Greek euro exit - YAHOO!
London stocks sank at the start of trading on Wednesday, mirroring heavy falls elsewhere, after Greece's former prime minister warned there was a risk that his country might leave the eurozone.
The benchmark FTSE 100 index dived 1.25 percent to 5,335.92 points, Frankfurt's DAX 30 recoiled 1.29 percent to 6,352.43 points and in Paris the CAC 40 shed 1.26 percent to 3,050.20.
Lucas Papademos' comments came ahead of a European summit aimed at addressing Athens' debt crisis and tempered optimism after France and Germany said they would do whatever it takes to keep Greece in the bloc.
European leaders will later in the day meet in Brussels to discuss solutions to the Greek crisis as the country prepares to hold a second general election on June 17.
Analysts fear a likely victory for anti-austerity parties will see Athens renege on its bailout terms and eventually leave the euro, which could have a knock-on effect for other troubled economies such as Spain and Italy.
Papademos, who stepped down this month, said in an interview with Dow Jones Newswires published Tuesday: "The risk of Greece leaving the euro is real."
He added that preparations were being made in case Greece exits the 17-nation currency union.
London 2012 Olympics: whinging Australian men's hockey coach Ric Charlesworth complains about schedule - Daily Telegraph
Charlesworth, who led the Australian women's team to gold at the Atlanta and Sydney Olympics before taking over as coach of the Kookaburras in 2009, also pointed to the fact that the top seeds in the women's tournament, the Dutch, had no 8.30am starts.
"It's not that they are number one, again it's just that it's not equally shared when some teams have to play three early matches and others none," he said.
Meanwhile, Hockey Australia chief Mark Anderson reflected Charlesworth's dissatisfaction with the schedule.
"When you look at the schedule it is patently unfair in our opinion," he said. "None of the teams want to play in this early morning time slot.
"We have been scheduled to play at this time on three occasions. The world ranked number two, three and four teams do not have any matches scheduled for this time. The fifth and sixth ranked teams feature once.
"Out of the 12 teams in the competition, only six teams play at this time and Australia features three times. We are not looking for an unfair advantage, we just want to compete on a level playing field."
The criticisms are the latest in a growing list and come after the team played the test event at the Riverbank Arena on the Olympic Park and Charlesworth criticised the surface of the new pitch.
“The pitch is an issue: you make more mistakes than you would like and it brings down the standard of the game," he raged at the time, in early May, despite the fact that most of his key players had praised the surface.
"The ball bobbles a fair bit," he continued, "and it doesn’t reward skill. We have been playing on the one [blue pitch] in Perth for three months and it started off good and then it went bad and now it’s getting better.”
London 2012: Heathrow Airport in numbers - BBC News
Heathrow in numbers - how the UK's biggest airport is getting ready for the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Some 500,000 people will be flying into London for the Olympics and Paralympics this summer.
That includes 100,000 athletes, 20,000 members of the media and 150 heads of state. Most of them will arrive via Heathrow.
It will be the start and finish line for the bulk of visitors, giving the country's biggest airport its busiest day ever.
That day will be Monday 13 August, the day after the closing ceremony and the day 65% of visitors are planning to leave.
Some 203,000 bags will be squeezed on to the baggage system - that's 35% more than on a normal day and about 13,000 more than it is designed to handle.
Of those bags, 15,000 will be oversized - full of canoes, javelins, bikes and poles for the pole vault. There will also be more than 980 firearms to check, plus ammunition.
'Heavily-congested skies'A special temporary terminal is being built just for the "Games family" - athletes and coaches to you and me.
It will be open for three days, snuggled between terminals four and five, and will boast 31 check-in desks and seven security lanes.
Meanwhile, hundreds of extra border staff - they will not give an exact figure - will be on hand to try to keep passport queues down.
Sixteen mobile teams of 10 guards each will be available to target trouble spots if, or should that be when, the queues build up.
It is not just Heathrow of course.
Air traffic control is facing its biggest ever challenge, coping with heavily-congested skies, the threat of a terror attack and possible bad weather. Twenty-five controllers are practising in the simulator every day.
In all, 400 have been specially trained over the past four years to deal with the extra workload.
Any rogue planes should be spotted within two to three minutes, after which military controllers take over that zone and a decision is made whether or not to scramble fast jets.
Extra plane?The Paralympics is a third of the size of the main event but it is still a huge challenge.
“Start Quote
End QuoteThe Chinese team are arriving on 27 different planes and they'll probably need an extra plane at the end to carry all their medals”
Heathrow will have to deal with a month's worth of wheelchair users in just a week - about 1,800 in total.
Thirteen new scissor lifts and 100 new ramps have been deployed to load and unload wheelchairs while there are six new powered stair climbers to move large electric wheelchairs.
Two-hundred extra staff will welcome the Paralympians and help with the biggest challenge of all - making sure every athlete is reunited quickly with their chair.
As one Paralympian put it, you wouldn't expect able-bodied athletes to leave the plane in someone else's trainers would you?
The Chinese team are arriving on 27 different planes and they'll probably need an extra plane at the end to carry all their medals. I made that last bit up.
Finally, 1,000 local volunteers will greet athletes off the plane, help with their luggage and welcome them to London.
Then a few weeks later, as the Olympic flame dies, those volunteers will wave them off again as they head for home.
One thousand people will be standing there waving goodbye at planes, so if you happen to be going on holiday that day, you might want to wave back.
London 2012: Remaining Olympic tickets released for general sale - BBC News
Around 500,000 tickets for events at the London 2012 Olympic Games have been released for general sale, organisers Locog have said.
There are some £20 tickets left for sports such as volleyball, table tennis, weightlifting, taekwondo, boxing and fencing.
But several sports have sold out, and there are only higher-priced tickets left for most medal events.
The tickets went on sale at 11:00 BST, with a 24-hour window for purchases.
Their availability can already be viewed on the 2012 ticketing website.
Organisers Locog say there is a good number of tickets at the cost of £45 to £450 in sports including archery, badminton, basketball, beach volleyball, canoe sprint, diving, handball and hockey.
Only a limited number of tickets are available in race walk, mountain biking, artistic gymnastics and rowing.
Up to four tickets can be purchased per session, and up to four sessions in one transaction, for all available sports apart from football - where more tickets are available to encourage groups to attend.
'Delivered on promise'All tickets have been sold in some sports, including athletics, cycling, equestrianism, rhythmic gymnastics and swimming as well as the opening and closing ceremonies.
Locog commercial director Chris Townsend said: "Our priority has been to get as many people who missed out in the sales process last year to the Games.
"We have delivered on our promise and now another 150,000 people have successfully purchased up to four tickets each."
He warned: "Wednesday's sale is a live sale, and, like other high demand events including pop concerts, we expect the website to be very busy and customers may well be held in queues for over 30 minutes at peak times".
The online ticketing system sparked criticism last year after it crashed under high demand.
In some cases, the system reportedly informed potential buyers they had secured tickets, who were later told that they had failed.
Meanwhile, plans have been unveiled for a 10,000-spectator area with a giant screen showing live events in the Olympic Park during the Games.
"Park Live" will be open from early morning until late evening for fans without tickets for the sport venues.
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