The Hackney Citizen reports:

Only one Hackney apprentice on Olympics site: MP Diane Abbott slams low numbers of opportunities for local people

After discovering that only one apprentice working on the Olympics site comes from Hackney, local MP Diane Abbott has called on the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) to address the low numbers of apprentices on the Olympic site as a matter of urgency.

Three Games, three eviction stories. In September 2009 Planning Theory and Practice Magazine published, in its Interface section, three articles on displacement caused by three different mega-events, the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, the 2012 Summer Olympics in London and the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. The publication is attached.

Olympic Sized Lies and 2012 London Sized Lies:- A leaflet about the 2012 London Olympics

Dee Doocey, London-wide Lib-Dem London Assembly member, is chair of the Economic Development, Culture, Sport & Tourism Committee - the "lead committee scrutinising the Olympic Games".

Flagged up on nogameschicago.com, stablemate of the popular Londonist blog the Chicagoist asks:

Is Chicago Ready to Host the Olympics?

By Andrew Jennings, Sunday 21 June, 2009

Swiss bagman Jean-Marie Weber who admitted in court last year that he paid $100 million in kickbacks to sports officials in return for lucrative marketing contracts was at it again in Lausanne last week, schmoozing wannabee Olympic 2016 hosts Chicago, Rio, Madrid and Tokyo.

Christopher Rodrigues, chairman of tourism promotion agency VisitBritain, admitted in an interview in India's Economic Times that 2012 Olympics would drive tourists away from London.

In contrast to the bizarre claims of 'putting London on the map' all too familiar from the Olympics boosters, he points out that "London is reasonably well known" and is "already on the map".

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.