LONDON (Reuters) – The Church of England paved the way on Thursday for a final vote on women bishops to go ahead in July, but supporters angry at last-minute concessions to traditionalists who favour an all-male clergy immediately threatened to scupper it.

After more than a decade of bitter wrangling, traditionalists and liberals appeared no closer to finding a workable blueprint this week with the opposing sides predicting future chaos or departures from the Anglican mother church.

A rare decision by bishops on Monday to make two amendments to accommodate Anglo-Catholics and conservative evangelicals, seems to have stoked tempers still further.

The consecration of women, along with homosexual bishops and same-sex marriages, is among the most divisive issues facing the 77 million members of the Anglican Communion around the world.

Other Anglican provinces already have women bishops, including the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

The next Archbishop of Canterbury, spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion, will inherit these problems when he takes over from the outgoing Rowan Williams next year.

Coincidentally, a group called the Crown Nominations Commission met on Thursday for the first time in a long process to choose the next archbishop.

LONDON (Reuters) – Private security guards manning venues at July and August’s London Olympics have been warned against over-zealous behaviour that might alienate sports fans, the firm in charge of training said on Thursday.

The opening day of a major event can be tense, as the start of the Olympic torch relay demonstrated this week when a police security team escorting the runners grabbed a spectator they thought was trying to reach the torchbearer and pushed him into a hedge.

Mark Hamilton, the man leading G4S’s Olympic security team which will operate airport-style searches and screening at venues, said guards were being encouraged to engage with spectators.

“I think it is very relevant not to over-react to situations that arise on the first day – to make sure they are properly assessed and that the communications process is working in the way it should so that the decisions are made at the right time and people act in the right way,” the managing director told reporters.

He said guards had to be thorough but it should not be an “onerous experience” for fans.

He suggested guards may have acted over-the-top when stopping photographers taking pictures from a public path of a vehicle checking area in the Olympic Park.

“There’s no doubt that’s a lesson learnt, not to overly criticise the workforce and the guards involved because they are operating under a regime where hostile reconnaissance is something they have to be aware of,” he said.

LONDON, May 24 (Reuters) – Private security guards manning venues at July and August’s London Olympics have been warned against over-zealous behaviour that might alienate sports fans, the firm in charge of training said on Thursday.

The opening day of a major event can be tense, as the start of the Olympic torch relay demonstrated this week when a police security team escorting the runners grabbed a spectator they thought was trying to reach the torchbearer and pushed him into a hedge.

Mark Hamilton, the man leading G4S’s Olympic security team which will operate airport-style searches and screening at venues, said guards were being encouraged to engage with spectators.

“I think it is very relevant not to over-react to situations that arise on the first day – to make sure they are properly assessed and that the communications process is working in the way it should so that the decisions are made at the right time and people act in the right way,” the managing director told reporters.

He said guards had to be thorough but it should not be an “onerous experience” for fans.

He suggested guards may have acted over-the-top when stopping photographers taking pictures from a public path of a vehicle checking area in the Olympic Park.

“There’s no doubt that’s a lesson learnt, not to overly criticise the workforce and the guards involved because they are operating under a regime where hostile reconnaissance is something they have to be aware of,” he said.

LONDON (Reuters) – British police, on the eve of the Olympic torch’s arrival in the UK, warned activists not to spoil the nationwide relay for the tens of thousands of people expected to turn out to watch and cheer.

The flame is due to arrive at the most southwesterly point of Britain on Friday before it embarks on an 8,000-mile, 8,000-person journey around the country.

London organisers deliberately chose a lower profile relay than the ambitious international route for the 2008 Beijing Olympics after violent demonstrations against China’s human rights record and its Tibet policy.

Some protesters hurled themselves into the path of the relay in London and campaigners tried to grab the torch or put out the flame.

Assistant Commissioner Chris Allison, national Olympic security coordinator, said he did not think Britain would see such disturbances.

“I sincerely hope we are not going to see those things … I don’t think we are going to get protests like that, I sincerely hope we don’t,” he told Reuters on Thursday.

“I hope the focus of the whole country will be allowing these 8,000 people who deserve the opportunity to carry the torch to be allowed do it.”

LONDON, May 17 (Reuters) – British police, on the eve of the Olympic torch’s arrival in the UK, warned activists not to spoil the nationwide relay for the tens of thousands of people expected to turn out to watch and cheer.

The flame is due to arrive at the most southwesterly point of Britain on Friday before it embarks on an 8,000-mile, 8,000-person journey around the country.

London organisers deliberately chose a lower profile relay than the ambitious international route for the 2008 Beijing Olympics after violent demonstrations against China’s human rights record and its Tibet policy.

Some protesters hurled themselves into the path of the relay in London and campaigners tried to grab the torch or put out the flame.

Assistant Commissioner Chris Allison, national Olympic security coordinator, said he did not think Britain would see such disturbances.

“I sincerely hope we are not going to see those things … I don’t think we are going to get protests like that, I sincerely hope we don’t,” he told Reuters on Thursday.

“I hope the focus of the whole country will be allowing these 8,000 people who deserve the opportunity to carry the torch to be allowed do it.”

LONDON (Reuters) – Turner prize-winning artist Anish Kapoor said on Friday that Britons would grow to love his spiralling red tower on London’s Olympic Park, just as people had come to appreciate other structures initially loathed, including the Eiffel Tower.

The 115-metre tall structure, higher than London’s Big Ben and New York’s Statue of Liberty has divided opinion, with some describing it as resembling a carnival slide or a water pipe.

But the artist, dressed in a blue labourer’s style suit with zips on the legs, told reporters the tower, consisting of giant entwined steel lattice figures of eight, would win over the public.

“I think controversy is okay, it’s part of the deal whether you like it or not,” he said.

When asked whether he thought it was beautiful, he said “yes”.

“It’s awkward, it has its elbows sticking out.”

He said it was experimental and unsettling, and “I think that unsettling is part of this curious word ‘beauty.’”

ABOARD HMS OCEAN, GREENWICH, England, May 4 (Reuters) - B ritain’s biggest warship narrowly escaped a spot of trouble on Friday when it just scraped through a tight gap on the Thames river on its way to join a pre-Olympics exercise in London.

It was always going to be a squeeze for the 35-metre wide helicopter carrier HMS Ocean to safely sail through one of the 61-metre gaps in the moveable flood barriers which lie downstream on the Thames from the centre of the British capital.

As it approached the Thames Barrier, the wind appeared to push her sideways towards one of the 20-metre tall steel gates, passing within a hair’s breadth with the help of three tugboats.

HMS Ocean is taking part in an eight-day exercise codenamed Olympic Guardian, which will test land, sea and air operations for a safe Games this summer in what will be Britain’s biggest peacetime security operation.

The warship, which last year operated off the Libyan coast, will act as a launch pad for eight Lynx helicopters and snipers.

Its appearance on the waterway which cuts through the heart of London is a rare sight for residents and some commentators have criticised the military operation, saying the deployment of Typhoon fighter jets and ground-based air defence systems is over-the-top.

High velocity missiles may be placed on the rooftops of apartment blocks, including next to the Olympic Park in east London, during the Games which begin on July 27.

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s military launched a charm offensive on Thursday to calm residents’ fears over plans to put missile batteries on their rooftops to protect this summer’s Olympics from a possible 9/11-style attack.

“We want the focus to be on (Jamaican sprinter) Usain Bolt this summer and not us,” said Air Vice-Marshal Stuart Atha, speaking at a cadet centre near Blackheath Common in southeast London, one of six potential sites for the anti-aircraft weapons.

An eight-day military exercise codenamed Olympic Guardian, began this week to test operations for a safe Games in July in what will be Britain’s biggest peacetime security operation.

Missiles could be placed on a disused water tower in an apartment complex in Bow, next to the Olympic Park in east London, after defense chiefs decided against putting them inside the Games complex.

“We’re trying to demilitarize this and let the sport do the talking,” said Colonel Jon Campbell, commander of joint ground based air defense.

Some residents in the red-brick development of 700 flats in Bow have said they fear the missiles could make them a terrorist target and questioned the wisdom of shooting down an aircraft over a built-up area.

One high-profile critic at the apartments said he was even being evicted after raising concerns about the missiles in television and newspaper interviews.

LONDON (Reuters) – Fighter jets flew into a base in northwest London on Wednesday, the first time they will be stationed in the capital since World War Two, at the start of a week of military exercises to test out security ahead of the Olympic Games in July.

Codenamed “Olympic Guardian” and involving airmen, soldiers and sailors, the exercises are aimed at reassuring Britons and foreign visitors that everything possible is being done to keep them safe during the games.

Military chiefs insist the manoeuvres, between May 2 and 10, are necessary contingency measures for what will be Britain’s biggest peacetime security operation.

But some have described the security, which includes a plan to place surface-to-air missiles on a residential block next to the Olympic Park in east London, as “Olympic madness”.

“Yet again there has been a complete overreaction which in fact will put ordinary people at greater risk than any extremely unlikely external attack,” one letter in the left-leaning Guardian newspaper said.

Anti-war protesters have accused the Ministry of Defence of creating a climate of fear.

Typhoon jets, stationed at the Royal Air Force’s RAF.L Northolt airbase in northwest London, will fly over London, and pilots will test procedures for intercepting any aircraft which breach the restricted airspace imposed around the Games.