LONDON, May 29 (Reuters) – Not far from the Olympic Park, a pub called The Grapes leans over the River Thames like “a faint-hearted diver who has paused so long on the brink that he will never go in at all.”

It is hardly the image of sporting prowess but the place, conjured by Charles Dickens, underpins important historical context for the 2012 Games and a reality that endures.

The characters who visited this tavern “of dropsical appearance” in the 1860s novel “Our Mutual Friend”, lived in the parts of London where 2012 will be staged, and included archetypes like the people in “The adventures of Oliver Twist” - young innocents and scoundrels living rough lives.

A few streets from the pub, beneath the docklands railway, Dickens scholar Tony Williams shows a reporter a trim terrace of whitewashed houses.

This part of London – Limehouse – was where Dickens’ godfather, who made rigging for ships, had a home. When Charles came to visit he called in on a nearby lead mill that employed mainly women – poisoning some – a children’s hospital, and various households.

Such places today are within sight of the pyramid-topped tower of London’s financial powerhouse Canary Wharf, and attract valuations comparable to the financial district of Manhattan.

That puts them out of reach of most people, especially residents of the boroughs that are hosting the Games. Here, up to one in two children live in poverty, according to local council data.

LONDON (Reuters) – At the start of the 20th century, inventors Thomas Alva Edison and Nikola Tesla clashed in the “war of the currents.” To highlight the dangers of his rival’s system, Edison even electrocuted an elephant. The animal died in vain; it was Tesla’s system and not Edison’s that took off. But today, helped by technological advances and the need to conserve energy, Edison may finally get his revenge.

The American inventor, who made the incandescent light bulb viable for the mass market, also built the world’s first electrical distribution system, in New York, using “direct current” electricity. DC’s disadvantage was that it couldn’t carry power beyond a few blocks. His Serbian-born rival Tesla, who at one stage worked with Edison, figured out how to send “alternating current” through transformers to enable it to step up the voltage for transmission over longer distances.

Edison was a fiercely competitive businessman. Besides staging electrocutions of animals to discredit Tesla’s competing system, he proposed AC be used to power the first execution by electric chair.

But his system was less scalable, and it was to prove one of the worst investments made by financier J. Pierpont Morgan. New York’s dominant banker installed it in his Madison Avenue home in the late 19th century, only to find it hard to control. It singed his carpets and tapestries.

So from the late 1800s, AC became the accepted form to carry electricity in mains systems. For most of the last century, the power that has reached the sockets in our homes and businesses is alternating current.

Now DC is making a comeback, becoming a promising money-spinner in renewable or high-security energy projects. From data centers to long-distance power lines and backup power supplies, direct current is proving useful in thousands of projects worldwide.

“Everyone says it’s going to take at least 50 years,” says Peter Asmus, a senior analyst at Boulder, Colorado-based Pike Research, a market research and consulting firm in global clean technology. But “the role of DC will increase, and AC will decrease.”

LONDON, Dec 20 (Reuters) – At the start of the 20th century, inventors Thomas Alva Edison and Nikola Tesla clashed in the “war of the currents”. To highlight the dangers of his rival’s system, Edison even electrocuted an elephant. The animal died in vain; it was Tesla’s system and not Edison’s that took off. But today, helped by technological advances and the need to conserve energy, Edison may finally get his revenge.

The American inventor, who made the incandescent light bulb viable for the mass market, also built the world’s first electrical distribution system, in New York, using “direct current” electricity. DC’s disadvantage was that it couldn’t carry power beyond a few blocks. His Serbian-born rival Tesla, who at one stage worked with Edison, figured out how to send “alternating current” through transformers to enable it to step up the voltage for transmission over longer distances.

Edison was a fiercely competitive businessman. Besides staging electrocutions of animals to discredit Tesla’s competing system, he proposed AC be used to power the first execution by electric chair.

But his system was less scalable, and it was to prove one of the worst investments made by financier J. Pierpont Morgan. New York’s dominant banker installed it in his Madison Avenue home in the late 19th century, only to find it hard to control. It singed his carpets and tapestries.

So from the late 1800s, AC became the accepted form to carry electricity in mains systems. For most of the last century, the power that has reached the sockets in our homes and businesses is alternating current.

Now DC is making a comeback, becoming a promising money-spinner in renewable or high-security energy projects. From data centers to long-distance power lines and backup power supplies, direct current is proving useful in thousands of projects worldwide.

“Everyone says it’s going to take at least 50 years,” says Peter Asmus, a senior analyst at Boulder, Colorado-based Pike Research, a market research and consulting firm in global clean technology. But “the role of DC will increase, and AC will decrease.”

LONDON (Reuters) – Alberto Micalizzi, the economics professor whose hedge fund collapse is the subject of a Reuters investigation, based his company in London but registered its funds in the Cayman Islands, one of the world’s favorite places for the seriously wealthy to park their money. According to Nicholas Shaxson, a journalist and researcher for the Tax Justice Network, we ignore the Caymans and other financial playgrounds such as Jersey or Switzerland at our peril.

Shaxson’s book, “Treasure Islands,” published earlier this year, is a polemic that argues that the global web of 60 or so “secrecy jurisdictions” — including Delaware, Panama, Ireland, the City of London, the Netherlands, and Mauritius — hides several trillion dollars, a vast criminal economy, and plenty of repression.

Saddam Hussein, Silvio Berlusconi, Kim Jong-Il and Bono — as well as most multinationals, banks and hedge funds — have all made use of offshore havens, Shaxson says.

He argues that they foster a no-man’s land where the proceeds of crime are handled as easily as legitimate flows. In today’s offshore world, jurisdictions compete to lower the regulatory bar. One result: the rich get richer, and inequality increases.

Conspiracy theorists will enjoy “Treasure Islands.” Though its assertions about crime suffer from a lack of specific examples, the book raises serious questions about what Shaxson, a former Reuters journalist, calls “the great untold story about big finance and the supremely powerful weapon it has deployed in its battle to capture political power around the world.”

Besides evoking repressive insularity on the island of Jersey, Shaxson hones in on the Corporation of London, the “state within a state” that lies behind the City, as London’s financial center is known. The Corporation predates parliament and has sent its own representative — the ominously named “remembrancer” — to Britain’s lower house since 1571. His mission: to remind the monarch of their debt.

Political parties have abandoned pledges to abolish the Corporation, which runs funds including City Cash, “a private fund built up over the last eight centuries.” It will never give any account of its assets, “because as a City established from time immemorial which has never been in debt, we are not required to give any public accounting.” According to the book, a London journalist’s efforts to use Freedom of Information requests to learn more about the Corporation’s cash have been legally thwarted.

LONDON (Reuters) – At the turn of the millennium, journalists at News International’s tabloids often lunched at The Old Rose pub in Wapping. It may not have been the most charming hostelry in London but it was better than the mineral water culture of the corporate canteen at headquarters. Crime reporters from The Times and seasoned hands nostalgic for the camaraderie of Fleet Street would occasionally join the tabloid hacks for a pint of beer or a glass of wine or four.

Even then, two decades after Rupert Murdoch’s purchase of The Times, that’s about as close as reporters from his tabloids and quality newspaper would mix. When they were finished, say two people who used to work for the company, reporters for The Times would head to a building on one side of the road, the tabloid reporters the other.

Long before a phone hacking scandal closed Murdoch’s News of the World last week, journalists from The Times, its sister paper the Sunday Times, the Wall Street Journal and even one-time Murdoch target the Financial Times have worried about the influence of the man Britons call the “dirty digger”.

The concerns were always similar: is Murdoch a “fit and proper” owner of quality newspapers, and can a news empire that mixes sensationalist tabloids, TV stations and high-brow publications really work?

Those concerns are relevant again not just in Britain, where former Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Murdoch’s papers had used a “criminal underworld” to access his private information, but also in the United States, where three senators have called for an investigation into whether News Corp broke a U.S. law banning bribes to foreign officials.

“People were wary of Rupert Murdoch from a very early stage because the emphasis in his papers tended to be on scandal and gossip rather than on serious issues,” said Steven Barnett, Professor of Communications at the University of Westminster. “I think this latest scandal raises legitimate questions in America about whether there is a corporate culture which is more tolerant of rule-breaking.”

‘INCONTINENT IN BREACH OF PROMISE’

LONDON, July 14 (Reuters) – At the turn of the millennium, journalists at News International’s tabloids often lunched at The Old Rose pub in Wapping. It may not have been the most charming hostelry in London but it was better than the mineral water culture of the corporate canteen at headquarters. Crime reporters from The Times and seasoned hands nostalgic for the camaraderie of Fleet Street would occasionally join the tabloid hacks for a pint of beer or a glass of wine or four.

Even then, two decades after Rupert Murdoch’s purchase of The Times, that’s about as close as reporters from his tabloids and quality newspaper would mix. When they were finished, say two people who used to work for the company, reporters for The Times would head to a building on one side of the road, the tabloid reporters the other.

Long before a phone hacking scandal closed Murdoch’s News of the World last week, journalists from The Times, its sister paper the Sunday Times, the Wall Street Journal and even one-time Murdoch target the Financial Times have worried about the influence of the man Britons call the “dirty digger”.

The concerns were always similar: is Murdoch a “fit and proper” owner of quality newspapers, and can a news empire that mixes sensationalist tabloids, TV stations and high-brow publications really work?

Those concerns are relevant again not just in Britain, where former Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Murdoch’s papers had used a “criminal underworld” to access his private information, but also in the United States, where three senators have called for an investigation into whether News Corp broke a U.S. law banning bribes to foreign officials.

“People were wary of Rupert Murdoch from a very early stage because the emphasis in his papers tended to be on scandal and gossip rather than on serious issues,” said Steven Barnett, Professor of Communications at the University of Westminster. “I think this latest scandal raises legitimate questions in America about whether there is a corporate culture which is more tolerant of rule-breaking.”

‘INCONTINENT IN BREACH OF PROMISE’

LONDON (Reuters) – “Let me declare my vested interests up front,” Rupert Murdoch said in a 2010 speech praising Margaret Thatcher’s years as Prime Minister. “I speak as more than an admirer of Margaret Thatcher. I speak as a person grateful for the opportunities this nation has given me — and the opportunities she has created for every other individual in Britain.”

Australian-born Murdoch did not mention the opportunities he has given Britain’s politicians. It’s become a rite of passage for leaders of Britain’s main political parties to cosy up to Murdoch while in opposition, in the hope that his newspapers help them win power. Thatcher, Tony Blair and David Cameron all received the Murdoch stamp of approval before they took office.

But his sway over politicians, and their fear of his newspapers, can never be the same again. The phone-hacking scandal engulfing the News of the World has cost the tabloid’s staff their jobs and could end Murdoch’s plans to buy the chunk of satellite television group BSkyB he doesn’t already own. A former Murdoch employee and adviser to Prime Minister David Cameron is under arrest. There could be more arrests — especially if reports that staff at Murdoch’s News Corp deleted emails wanted by police are true.

More profoundly, though, the mess is exposing the corruption at the heart of the British establishment.

“The truth is, we have all been in this together — the press, politicians and leaders of all parties — and yes, that includes me,” an agitated Prime Minister Cameron told a news conference on Friday, as he announced a raft of inquiries to show that “the music has stopped” on cosy relationships between Murdoch’s media and the country’s leadership.

“The relationship needs to be different in the future.”

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LONDON (Reuters) – “Let me declare my vested interests up front,” Rupert Murdoch said in a 2010 speech praising Margaret Thatcher’s years as Prime Minister. “I speak as more than an admirer of Margaret Thatcher. I speak as a person grateful for the opportunities this nation has given me — and the opportunities she has created for every other individual in Britain.”

Australian-born Murdoch did not mention the opportunities he has given Britain’s politicians. It’s become a rite of passage for leaders of Britain’s main political parties to cozy up to Murdoch while in opposition, in the hope that his newspapers help them win power. Thatcher, Tony Blair and David Cameron all received the Murdoch stamp of approval before they took office.

But his sway over Britain’s politicians, and their fear of his newspapers, can never be the same again. The phone-hacking scandal engulfing the News of the World has cost the tabloid’s staff their jobs and could end Murdoch’s plans to buy the chunk of satellite television group BSkyB he doesn’t already own. A former Murdoch employee and adviser to Prime Minister David Cameron is under arrest. There could be more arrests — especially if reports that staff at Murdoch’s News Corp deleted emails wanted by police are true.

More profoundly, though, the mess is exposing the corruption at the heart of the British establishment.

“The truth is, we have all been in this together — the press, politicians and leaders of all parties — and yes, that includes me,” an agitated Prime Minister Cameron told a news conference on Friday, as he announced a raft of inquiries to show that “the music has stopped” on cozy relationships between Murdoch’s media and the country’s leadership.

“The relationship needs to be different in the future.”

CLOSE LINKS