In Beijing it was Tibet and Human Rights. In London it may be Women in Sport and Palestinian Rights.

Women's rights campaigners are threatening protests against Saudi Arabia at London 2012 if they don't include women in their team and Palestinian artists, trade unionists, teachers, writers, film-makers and non-governmental organisations have called for a ban on Israel participating at London 2012, see the Games Monitor Discussion Group for recent press articles.

A sizeable proportion of the Games' massive budget has been spent dredging waterways, to help move materials to the Olympic site. The plan was for up to a thousand tonnes a day to go by barge. But the amount of business so far is only a trickle compared with what was promised.

As reported by Crain’s Chicago Business reporter, Greg Hinz:

Olympic chief admits errors, but promises full disclosure

Professor Bent Flyvbjerg took up his post as Chair of Major Programme Management at the Said Business School at Oxford University on April 1st 2009.

“In a landmark study, ....[he] analysed over 250 major transport infrastructure projects and found that 90% went over budget — and that the benefits averaged only half of those promised. This was so consistent that Flyvbjerg concluded it amounts to “strategic misrepresentation”, and that the culprits are politicians and bureaucrats competing for scarce public resources or seeking to get a suspect project off the ground to make political capital.“

Over the past few years various Parliamentary and Greater London Assembly Committees have produced reports on different aspects of the 2012 Olympics. One aspect they have not considered is what happened to those evicted to make way for the great project. However, some witnesses, like the Mayor of Newham, have taken the opportunity to heap undeserved praise on themselves for their handling of the evictions when appearing before the House of Commons Select Committee. So in the summer of 2008 I decided to write to the Chair of the House of Commons Select Committee tracking the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, in other words, the Olympics. He passed my letter to the Clerk of the Committee who invited me to send in information to the Committee. It would then be up to the members of the committee to respond and, if they felt inclined, to ask some questions.

Flagged up recently on our newsgroup was an article on the opendalston blog on the financial difficulties facing developers Barratts, contractors for the so-called Dalston Olympic Transport Interchange and numerous building projects around Stratford High St.