Prime Minister Julia Gillard will attend the Anzac Day dawn service at Gallipoli later this month.

Ms Gillard will travel to Turkey for the 97th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings on April 25.

Ms Gillard will also hold talks with the Turkish prime minister on a range of international issues.

Before travelling to Turkey she will visit Singapore, where she will meet the country's prime minister for talks on bilateral and regional cooperation, trade, investment and defence.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-04-16/gillard-to-attend-gallipoli-dawn-service/3952468

Surface-to-air missiles could be stationed on the rooftop of an apartment block in east London as part of Britain's air defences for the Olympics, the country's military confirmed on Sunday.

About 700 people living at the building in Bow - about 3.2km from London's Olympic Stadium - have been contacted and warned that the weapons and about 10 troops are likely to be based at the site for about two months.

In a leaflet sent to residents, the ministry said the venue offered an uncluttered "view of the surrounding areas and the entire sky above the Olympic park".

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/sport/olympics-2012/olympics-security-surfacetoair-missiles-could-be-stationed-on-the-rooftop-of-apartment-block-20120430-1xtj1.html#ixzz1tTBsaXcm

PLEASE NOTE: The Olympics are a PRIVATE ENTERPRISE... OK? I'm glad our PM isn't going...

The modern world, right? Not really. It's the old world, still cranking along. Hasn't changed much since the 18th century, except for a brief blip of sentiment - sometimes genuine, sometimes sanctimonious - in the late 19th century.

Read Jerry White's vast and utterly absorbing new book, London in the Eighteenth Century, and you'll see what I mean.

Vast gulf between rich and poor, growing larger. London inching out of control. The French terrifying the hell out of everyone by espousing revolution in 1789. The poor pissed out of their skulls on illegalised drugs (gin). The rich skinning everyone they could get their teeth into.

Fear of corruption, sickness, violence, the mob, the Foreigner, incursions specified and unspecified. Fear of them. 'Security forces' garrisoned through London, lined up against the people in the "Wilkes and Liberty" riots, the anti-Catholic Gordon Riots, and various riots which never came about.

Researchers have succeeded in taking a stunning image of a newly synthesised molecule called olympicene.

The molecule - just over a billionth of a metre across - gets its name because its five linked rings resemble the Olympic symbol.

It was first made by collaborators at the University of Warwick in the UK.

They teamed up with IBM researchers, who in 2009 pioneered the technique of single-molecule imaging with its non-contact atomic force microscopy.

The team, based at IBM Research Zurich, announced its first successwith a molecule called pentacene, five linked hexagonal rings of carbon all in a line.

But it was Professor Graham Richards CBE, former head of Oxford University's chemistry department and member of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) council, who first conceived of the idea to create a more Olympic-themed molecule along the same lines.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18206015

Meanwhile the Pommy olympics athletes are being coached by correspondence:

Increased Sports Performance Bonus, 24 April 2012By Tagnutt Mandeville - See all my reviews

This review is from: Veet for Men Hair Removal Gel Creme 200 ml (Personal Care)
As a highly competitive amateur athlete, I have long been aware of the benefits of a highly polished scrotum pole and hair-free saddle-bags, especially when going for the `longer look' as displayed by Linford in his famous lunchbox.
Previously I had used the old-school method of a cutthroat razor, but as you can imagine, this was a tricky and delicate operation, and to make matters worse, it was difficult to get into a comfortable position in the chair at my local Barbers. Anyway, I am quite hairy down there and my snippet valve looks like Brian May's plughole so eventually the Barber said he could no longer perform the task for me. He also said that looking up my whizzer every Saturday at 11:30 put him off his lunch, as he usually has toad-in-the-hole followed by chocolate-coated donuts as a Saturday treat.
He did not want to leave me in the lurch and said that he had read some excellent reviews on Amazon about Veet for men and suggested I give it try.
read more: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/cdp/member-reviews/AEPIWRMVTGDKD/ref=cm_cr_dp_auth_rev?ie=UTF8&sort_by=MostRecentReview

see ton at top...

ORGANISERS of the London Olympics are vowing to wage a battle against online sharing of images from the Games.

In a strongly worded warning to all ticket-holders, the organisers appear to ban all social sharing of images online. ''Images, video and sound recordings of the Games taken by a ticket-holder cannot be used for any purpose other than for private and domestic purposes and a ticket-holder may not license, broadcast or publish video and/or sound recordings, including on social networking websites and the internet more generally.''

The news has sparked a storm of protest online, especially by photographers, and comes after reports that some British photographers have been warned off by security staff for photographing the Olympic village from public places.

A hitlist of 30 international websites and 970 individuals, many linked to serious organised crime, are being targeted by police investigating the multimillion-pound black market in sports tickets in the runup to the Olympics.

One man is being hunted in Belgium for attempting to sell large quantities of Olympic tickets, and the Metropolitan police are liaising with the US national Olympic committee over several unauthorised sites attempting to sell seats illegally.

In the UK, known touts have tried to breach the official website selling Olympic tickets. About 100 attempted to buy seats in order to sell them on illegally, it is understood, but were identified and failed to do so.

In a separate case, an international ticketing company has been summonsed to appear before magistrates next month charged with the illegal sale of Olympic tickets.

With 38 days to go until the Games opening ceremony, the scale of the challenge facing the police charged with deterring, intercepting and bringing to justice criminals who make millions out of illegal ticket sales is huge and stretches across international boundaries.

DS Nick Downing, who is leading the British police's fight against organised crime exploiting the Games, said the Met's operation, known as Podium, was robust and innovative but would not be able to stop every ticketing scam.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/jun/19/olympic-tickets-police-black-market

The olympics have turned into a circus in which the hosting country foots most of the bills for a "private commercial venture"... So the sponsors and the TV rights reign supreme. I wish the competitors the best... May the best athlete wins without cheating...

Now a coalition of environmental, health and advocacy groups have said Rio Tinto are endangering the health of Salt Lake City citizens by flouting emission standards set by the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The coalition alleges that the totality of Rio Tinto's operations in Utah are contributing to making Salt Lake City one of the worst cities in the country for acute air pollution. Rio Tinto maintains it has received permission to expand its operations with all the necessary approvals from the state of Utah.

As the official mining and metals provider for the games, sponsor Rio Tinto is contractually bound to the London Organising Committee's Sustainable Sourcing Code, a set of guidelines that hold suppliers to rigorous environmental and ethical standards. This code essentially contains the blueprint for the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) to make good on its promise to deliver the "greenest games ever". It says that should any legitimate grievance come to the attention of LOCOG, it will make every effort to investigate claims made about its sponsors.  

The plaintiffs allege that while Olympians compete in stadiums throughout the city of London, Utah's children are struggling to breathe under the intensely polluted air in Salt Lake City. According to Dr Brian Moench, a physician involved in the lawsuit, getting Rio Tinto to reduce their emissions is one way to ameliorate health problems linked to excessive pollution in the valley. 

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/peopleandpower/2012/06/201262075757520106.html