LONDON (Reuters) – Olympic chief Jacques Rogge on Wednesday praised London’s 2012 Games delivery team for being on time and within budget as the two-year countdown to the event gets under way.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) President also complimented Rio de Janeiro for the city’s initial preparatory work for the 2016 Games and expressed his hopes that an African country could soon win the right to host an Olympics.

Rogge was speaking at the London announcement of the IOC’s sponsorship tie-up with U.S. multi-national consumer giants Procter & Gamble (P&G).

“We are very pleased because they (London) are on time and on budget and they have developed also very well the vision that lies behind the Games. It is to bring sport to the population, not only in the U.K. but around the world,” he told Reuters TV.

The former Olympic yachting competitor believes London’s bid is particularly impressive because of its commitment to the welfare of individual athletes.

He said: “I think the whole setting of the Olympic village — next to the Olympic Stadium, the swimming pool, the velodrome — is going to be something unique because there are very few distances for the athletes in the Olympic village.

“The whole philosophy of the organizing committee in London is embedded with the welfare of the athlete.”

LONDON, July 28 (Reuters) – Olympic chief Jacques Rogge on Wednesday praised London’s 2012 Games delivery team for being on time and within budget as the two-year countdown to the event gets under way.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) President also complimented Rio de Janeiro for the city’s initial preparatory work for the 2016 Games and expressed his hopes that an African country could soon win the right to host an Olympics.

Rogge was speaking at the London announcement of the IOC’s sponsorship tie-up with U.S. multi-national consumer giants Procter & Gamble (P&G).

“We are very pleased because they (London) are on time and on budget and they have developed also very well the vision that lies behind the Games. It is to bring sport to the population, not only in the U.K. but around the world,” he told Reuters TV.

The former Olympic yachting competitor believes London’s bid is particularly impressive because of its commitment to the welfare of individual athletes.

He said: “I think the whole setting of the Olympic village – next to the Olympic Stadium, the swimming pool, the velodrome – is going to be something unique because there are very few distances for the athletes in the Olympic village.

“The whole philosophy of the organising committee in London is embedded with the welfare of the athlete.”

LONDON (Reuters) – Modern festival-goers who dread ending up with a dead mobile phone battery after days stuck in a muddy field with no electric plug power points may now have a solution — power boots.

Mobile phone company European Telco Orange has introduced a phone charging prototype — a set of thermoelectric gumboots or Wellington boots with a ‘power generating sole’ that converts heat from the wearer’s feet into electrical power to charge battery-powered hand-helds.

The boot was designed by Dave Pain, managing director at GotWind, a renewable energy company.

Pain said the boot uses the Seebeck effect, named after physicist Thomas Johann Seebeck, in which a circuit made of two dissimilar metals conducts electricity if the two places where they connect are held at different temperatures. “In the sole of the Wellington boot there’s a thermocouple and if you apply heat to one side of the thermocouple and cold to the other side it generates an electrical charge,” Pain told Reuters Television.

“That electrical charge we then pass through to a battery which you’ll find in the heel of the boot for storage of the electrical power for later use to charge your mobile phone.”

These thermocouples are connected electrically, forming an array of multiple thermocouples (thermopile). They are then sandwiched between two thin ceramic wafers.

When the heat from the foot is applied on the top side of the ceramic wafer and cold is applied on the opposite side, from the cold of the ground, electricity is generated.

LONDON (Reuters) – And now for something completely different.

Their ideas include wheezes like 99p coins for use in shoe shops, their candidates have daft names like R.U. Seerious (Derbyshire mid) and their clothes often look more like fancy dress than serious, vote-catching gear.

Arguably the only non-mainstream party to be fondly regarded by all voters, they are the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, who are fielding 45 candidates across the country.

Their manifesto, launched in a pub in east London this week, calls for buildings to be fitted with air conditioning units facing outward to combat global warming and a demand that all politicians be permanently painted the colour of the party they represent.

The party is particularly proud of its new transport policy. At its hub is a scheme to encourage floating bicycles to be driven across the Thames to reduce both traffic congestion and public transport overcrowding.

Knigel Knapp, the Loonies’ Shadow Minister for Big Fibs and Blatant Lies, launched the policy on the Thames in front of the Houses of Parliament with fellow candidate Chris Rogers.

Also known as Lord Offa of the Dykes, Rogers is standing in in a parliamentary seat in Wales.

LONDON, March 19 (Reuters) – A three-day strike by many of British Airways’ cabin crews will go ahead after union talks with management collapsed, leaving the ruling Labour government with a major headache weeks before a general election.

The strike begins on Saturday and is likely to disrupt travel plans for thousands. It risks embarrassing Prime Minister Gordon Brown because the Unite union organising the action is Labour’s biggest single financial backer.

Brown, who had earlier called the strike “unjustified and deplorable”, demanded that it be called off at once.

Meanwhile railway signal workers added to the government’s problems by voting to strike over job cuts and changes to working practices, raising the threat of a first national rail strike in 16 years. They did not name a date. [ID:nLDE62I10X]

Labour, which is trailing in opinion surveys ahead of an election widely expected to be called for May 6, has strong union ties that go back to its foundation in 1900. Unite’s political director is Charlie Whelan, Brown’s former spokesman.

Opposition Conservative leader David Cameron has accused Brown of failing to stand up to Unite and compared the situation to the 1970s, which saw periods of severe industrial unrest under Labour.

His party have launched a billboard campaign entitled “Cash Gordon”, featuring a picture of Brown clutching a fistful of union-supplied bank notes behind his back.

LONDON, March 18 (Reuters) – British Airways <BAY.L> (BA) and the Unite union have resumed talks to try to avert a weekend strike by cabin crew that would embarrass the ruling Labour government weeks before an election.

“We’re at least talking. That’s the good news, but at the moment there’s only talks and certainly no breakthrough and no acceptable way forward for us but I’m still hopeful and optimistic and that’s why I’m going back (for more talks),” Unite joint general-secretary Tony Woodley told Sky News.

Woodley said cabin crew would call off the planned seven-day strike if management reinstated an offer which was withdrawn last week.

The dispute centres around cost-saving and specifically a reduction in the number of cabin crew staff on long-haul flights.

BA shares traded 1.25 percent higher on Thursday afternoon after the resumption of talks was confirmed.

Led by former pilot Willie Walsh, BA has taken a hard line with unions, arguing that cost cuts are essential when it faces a squeeze on business travel and competition from low-cost airlines. The timing of the stoppage is awkward for the ruling Labour government because Unite is its largest financial backer.

The opposition Conservatives, who lead in opinion polls in what is poised to be a close election, have seized on the dispute to say that Labour remains too close to its union paymasters.

LONDON, March 12 (Reuters) – Britain’s ambassador to China said on Friday that Beijing risks isolation if it fails to join international efforts to impose sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme.

Speaking via videolink from Beijing before a visit to the country by Foreign Secretary David Miliband, Sebastian Wood told a London briefing that Britain and China shared the same goals in preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

“It’s not in China’s interests to find itself isolated from permanent members of the Security Council or the E3+3. It would damage China internationally,” he said.

Iran’s recent announcement that it would further expand its nuclear programme has increased pressure from the United States and the E3+3 for tougher sanctions on Tehran.

The E3+3 was established specifically to deal with Iran’s disputed nuclear programme and consists of the five permanent Security Council members — the United States, China, Russia, France and Britain — plus Germany.

Tehran rejects Western charges that its nuclear programme is aimed at developing bombs and says it will only be used to generate electricity.

Wood said China shared Britain’s desire to prevent Iran becoming a nuclear power, but accepted the two countries favoured different approaches to resolve the issue.

LONDON, March 4 (Reuters) – Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir will eventually face justice in The Hague, according to the head of the International Criminal Court. Speaking on the first anniversary of the ICC issuing an arrest warrant for Bashir, its president Judge Sang-hyun Song dismissed criticism that the man wanted on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity has not been apprehended. "When arrest warrants were issued against Slobodan Milosevic and Charles Taylor, people laughed and said it was a joke, but it took less than three years to get them brought before the tribunal," Song said on a visit to London. Bashir has dismissed the ICC warrant and said any ruling by the court is worthless. "President Bashir will be brought to the Hague to face justice," Song insisted. The United Nations estimates seven years of violent conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region has left 300,000 dead. Scott Gration, the U.S. special envoy for Sudan, said justice for Darfur was essential to securing lasting peace in Sudan following a recent ceasefire and efforts to bring rebel groups into talks with the government. "We support efforts to ensure that President Bashir answers the questions that the ICC has posed and we support the process continuing as it’s outlined in the international system," he told reporters in Washington. ICC prosecutors say Bashir "masterminded and implemented" a plan to destroy three ethnic groups, the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa, using a campaign of murder, rape and deportation. It was the first warrant ever issued by the ICC for a sitting head of state. Speaking at an event in parliament organized by the Henry Jackson Society, a geopolitical think-tank, Song said the ICC was a deterrent to despots across the world. "Some at the U.N. have told me they have noticed a deterrent effect by the judicial actions we’ve taken. Perhaps the would-be perpetrators of atrocities fear us, and this is an indication of our progress," Song said. Song also praised U.S. President Barack Obama for adopting a more positive attitude to the ICC than his predecessor. "The U.S. government has ended its antagonistic stance toward the ICC and the key phrase that their officials use is having a ‘positive engagement’ with us," he said. The United States has yet to ratify the 1998 Rome Statute, which established the ICC and which has been signed by 60 countries. Former President George W. Bush expressed concern that lawsuits could potentially be initiated with the ICC against U.S. citizens abroad. (Additional reporting by Paul Eckert in Washington; editing by Stefano Ambrogi and Todd Eastham)

LONDON, March 4 (Reuters) – Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir will eventually face justice in The Hague, according to the head of the International Criminal Court. Speaking on the first anniversary of the ICC issuing an arrest warrant for Bashir, its president Judge Sang-hyun Song dismissed criticism that the man wanted on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity has not been apprehended. "When arrest warrants were issued against Slobodan Milosevic and Charles Taylor, people laughed and said it was a joke, but it took less than three years to get them brought before the tribunal," Song said on a visit to London. "President Bashir will be brought to the Hague to face justice." Bashir has dismissed the ICC warrant and said any ruling by the court is worthless. The United Nations believes that seven years of violent conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region has left 300,000 dead. ICC prosecutors say Bashir "masterminded and implemented" a plan to destroy three ethnic groups, the Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa, using a campaign of murder, rape, and deportation. It was the first warrant ever issued by the ICC for a sitting head of state. Speaking at the event in parliament organised by the Henry Jackson Society, a geopolitical think-tank, Song said the ICC was successfully acting as a deterrent to despots across the world. "Some at the U.N. have told me they have noticed a deterrent effect by the judicial actions we’ve taken. Perhaps the would-be perpetrators of atrocities fear us, and this is an indication of our progress," Song said. Song also praised U.S. President Barack Obama for adopting a more positive attitude to the ICC than his predecessor. "The U.S. government has ended its antagonistic stance towards the ICC and the key phrase that their officials use is having a ‘positive engagement’ with us," he said. The United States has yet to ratify the 1998 Rome Statute which established the ICC and which has been signed by 60 countries. Former President George W. Bush expressed concern that lawsuits could potentially be initiated against U.S. citizens abroad. (Editing by Stefano Ambrogi)