30th January 2012

Dear Ms Alexander

I wholeheartedly congratulate you on your decision to resign from the Commission for a Sustainable London 2012. As far as I am aware you are only the second person involved with London 2012 who has had the integrity, courage and conviction to take such a morally justifiable action.

By Mike Wells 11th January 2012, edited 29th December 2011Campaigners Against Dow

A recent sponsorship deal has seen the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games accept money from Dow Chemical. Dow will provide a fabric "wrap" which will be placed around London's Olympic stadium.

According to Britain's Guardian newspaper the wrap's purpose is to reduce wind inside the stadium.  But, as the metaphor says ...

Ted Jeory, one of the few journalists to pick up on the radioactive contamination of the London Olympic Park, has reported that London 2012 is seriously concerned at the head of steam building up in India over the deal which allowed Dow to sponsor the Olympic stadium. 'Senior sources', not just 'sources', are reported as saying the deal was a 'mistake' which it seems they are finding it difficult to wriggle out of.

Bizarrely, Transport Secretary Philip Hammond has had a go at Coca Cola, Olympic sponsors for 85 years, for deciding to bus their employees and guests to Stratford. Others have condemned them for breaking the 'Olympic Spirit'!

Regarding London's Olympic Overload, @matthewBeard reports that Greenwich is upping the stakes on ORN fines by applying for the right to charge £1000, while other Boroughs are also seeking higher fees for recovering towed-away vehicles, taking their charges over the £500 in place at present.

Another friend of the Olympics, 2012 Official Network Infrastructure partner Cisco joins the list of corporate dishonour, the murderous, the destructive, the obscene and the toxic. Cisco is being sued by three named Chinese political prisoners, Du Daobin, Zhou Yuanzhi, Liu Xianbin, and ten unnamed others and in a second case by the Human Rights Law Foundation. The prisoners' lawyer, Daniel Ward, said "Cisco has, for years now, knowingly aided and abetted the Chinese Communist Party's ongoing efforts to stifle the free speech and discourse of its citizenry."

London 2012 faces another boycott call. This time it's against Atos, Paralympics sponsors. whose Healthcare division runs the government's programme of assessing people's capacity for work, a programme which has faced constant criticism, including from the House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee.

The Bhopal Medical Appeal has issued a statement following the announcement by LOCOG that Dow Chemical are to provide the London Olympic Stadium ‘wrap’. It emphasises that its concern is not the 1984 gas disaster but the contamination of drinking water by chemicals from toxic waste dumps in and around the United Carbide site.