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Britain's much-trumpeted Olympic legacy following the 2012 Games could amount to little more than the regeneration of a small pocket of east London. With just two years to go before the £9bn Olympic Games become the focus of world attention, questions are being asked about whether they will be able to persuade a nation of couch potatoes to put down the remote and pull on their trainers or trunks.

Despite venue and stadium construction being on budget and ahead of schedule, officials have admitted that there is a "big gap" in plans to increase nationwide participation on the back of the event. Promises of an Olympic legacy were central to London's winning the bid in 2005. The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Jeremy Hunt, said yesterday that there was no specific funding set aside for the Games to be used as a catalyst for a surge in sports participation.

Experts are warning that the London Olympics could repeat the failings of previous hosts who didn't manage to use the event to stimulate interest in sport, and were left with a collection of white-elephant venues. UK sports organisations say looming spending cuts mean that substantial new investment in facilities and coaches is doubtful.

"We have always had real concerns about the lack of a legacy for the whole country. There's no budget for it, so that has been one of the problems we've been keen to put right as soon as we possibly can," Mr Hunt said. He blamed Labour for failing to set aside Olympic legacy funding, while creating the current economic deficit, which means additional cash is now unavailable. The former Olympics minister, Tessa Jowell, yesterday dismissed the claim: "It is not a matter of opinion whether this legacy was funded or not. The figures clearly show that it was and that funding was set to continue," she said.

Labour planned to invest £780m in school sports from 2008-11, in an attempt to get all schoolchildren doing five hours of sport a week, and get two million more people physically active by 2012, she added. Funding for community sport had trebled since 1997, while elite sport was to receive £550m by 2012. She blamed the Government's "lack of ambition" for the threat hanging over the legacy. "By ending free swimming and dropping the bold target for two million more people to be physically active by 2012, they are placing the legacy in danger, in clear contradiction to everything the Olympics should mean for our country," she warned.

Now the Government says it intends to change the rules governing sports Lottery funding to permit up to £10m to be spent on an Olympics-style school sports competition – potentially involving 24,000 primary and secondary schools. The National Lottery is already providing £2.2bn of the £9.3bn total Olympic budget.

But Mr Hunt, who has drawn up plans for 40 per cent cuts at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, refuses to rule out further raids on the Olympics budget when the results of the Comprehensive Spending Review are unveiled in October.

Last week, the Olympic Delivery Agency reported on progress on building work on venues, but there are mounting concerns that the huge financial outlay will fail to have a lasting impact outside London. Targets to increase numbers of people regularly playing sport are to be abandoned, swimming initiatives scrapped and new sports facilities shelved."The truth is we would like to do a lot more with sport than we are able to because of the severe restraint on resources," Mr Hunt said.

"If all we have is 16 days of fantastic TV entertainment for the Olympics and 12 days of fantastic entertainment of the Paralympics, it would be difficult to argue that it was money well spent. We have to make it do much more than that. It is London hosting the Games, but it is the whole country that's paying for them," he said.

Claims of belt-tightening were undermined last week after it was revealed that seven ODA directors were in line for bonuses of £48,000 on top of pay packets worth up to £372,000.

Charlie Tims, of the think-tank Demos, who has closely examined the London bid, was sceptical about the legacy plans. "Free access to swimming pools for under-16s and over-65s has been shelved. I suspect other things will be too. I don't really understand why they're doing some of these cultural things as I can't see how they're going to have a real impact. Inspiring people to be more active and expecting it to happen is unrealistic; it hasn't happened in other host countries," he said.

One Australian study found little change in participation in the wake of big sporting events, with many Olympic sports showing a decline. While all host cities, governments, and sporting governing bodies claim that increased grass-roots participation in sports is an anticipated legacy of the Olympic Games in order to "muster public support" and "justify the expenditure of public funds", such claims should be exposed to rigorous testing, the report's authors said.

Sport England remains optimistic that participation will increase. "No other host has achieved this and we know we're up for a challenge," a spokesman said. "We are investing money in sport, we are making sure people have a good experience, because that's the only way to make sure they keep coming back." But critics say Sport England's efforts will be undermined by the Education Secretary Michael Gove's decision to cut the Building Schools for the Future programme. Besides hitting 700 school projects, this will also affect dozens of swimming pools and sports halls.

Matthew Sinclair, of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "The question to ask is: what kind of legacy and at what cost exactly? There's scarcely enough money anyway, especially for a major investment such as this. It is an imposition on taxpayers. They have struggled with finding private-sector investment, and I think that's just one thing that shows this has no long-term value. Will we wake up with the hangover of a financial headache, as so many other places have? It's a strain on Lottery funding, it's a burden on the Greater London Authority and central government. Will these Games be remembered as leaving a legacy, or as a financial burden?"

driver from www.independent.co.uk

A couple was taken in to custody yesterday after police found the corpses of eight newborn babies buried in their garden in a village in northern France, a judicial official said. The official added that the couple, in their mid-40s, were the parents of the dead babies, and that the corpses were found on two different parts of the property in Villers-au-Tertre, not far from the city of Lille.

The official was not authorised to be publicly identified because the investigation is under way.

No other information was immediately available. The prosecutor for the Nord region is planning a news conference later today.

France has seen a string of cases in recent years of mothers killing their newborns and saving and hiding the corpses. In one case, Celine Lesage acknowledged in court in March that she killed six of her babies, whose corpses were found in plastic bags in her basement in north-west France. Another Frenchwoman, Véronique Courjault, was convicted last year of murdering three of her newborn children. Her husband discovered two of the corpses in a freezer while they lived in South Korea. Psychiatrists testified that she suffered from a condition known as "pregnancy denial".

driver from www.independent.co.uk

In its three years on the air, The Big Bang Theory has already survived the writers' strike and three timeslot changes. So how do the show's producers feel about leading off a new Thursday night comedy block this fall?

"It's almost like we're re-launching the show," co-creator and executive producer Chuck Lorre said at the Television Critics Association fall TV previews. "It feels like a do-over in a way."

CBS added just five new prime-time series to its fall lineup, but Big Bang's move after three seasons on Monday has been one of the most talked-about changes to the network's schedule. CBS made the decision to provide a solid lead-in to new fall comedy S#*! My Dad Says.

The Big Bang Theory brings a sing-a-long to Comic-Con

"It's an amazing opportunity... I think it's a smart and exciting move CBS is making," co-creator and executive producer Bill Prady said. "We're delighted that they found the confidence in the show to think they could do that."

Despite vote of confidence from CBS, Emmy voters failed to recognize the series with a best comedy series nomination. (Jim Parsons did, however, grab a nod for best actor in a comedy.)

"I find that the way shows get grouped in the Emmys is odd because we all don't do the same thing. I am a huge, huge fan of Glee ... [but] I don't think they do the same thing we do so I'm a little confused by that," Prady said. "I don't necessarily know if we should be competing against them."

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Season 4 also marks a big change for Sheldon, as he embarks on his first romantic relationship with Amy Farrah Fowler (Mayim Bialik), who was introduced he end of Season 3. "I never thought I'd stumble onto a character he could communicate with," Parsons said. Lorre said it would be a "very specific... unique relationship."

Although a possible reconciliation for Penny and Leonard is still very unclear, things may be looking up for Wolowitz (Simon Helberg), thanks to the return of Melissa Rauch as Bernadette. "When she comes back, we're going to have the ability to talk about what happened," Prady said.

And as for what happens when it comes time for those pesky contract negotiations? "I'm doing next season for free, I don't know about you guys," Kaley Cuoco joked. "I think it will all be fine in the end."

driver from www.tvguide.com

Four of the world's 10 largest freshwater fish species — including a catfish that can reach 10 feet long — are threatened with extinction if hydropower dams planned on Asia's Mekong River go ahead, the World Wildlife Fund warned in a report Tuesday.

Of particular concern is the Mekong giant catfish, which is already listed as critically endangered.

"A fish the size of a Mekong giant catfish cannot swim across a large barrier (like a dam) ... to reach its spawning grounds upstream," Dekila Chungyalpa, WWF's Greater Mekong Program director, said in a statement. Such dams, he said, "will lead to the collapse of the wild population of this iconic species."

The catfish are thought to migrate from the Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia up the Mekong River to spawn in northern Thailand and Laos, WWF said.

The three other freshwater fish species profiled in the WWF report are:

* The Mekong giant stingray, which can be as long as half a bus. Fishermen have claimed to have seen stingrays that weigh more than 1,100 pounds, but none that large has ever been caught;
* The so-called dog-eating catfish, given that nickname by fishermen who have caught it using dog meat as bait; and
* The giant barb, Cambodia's national fish.

At over 600 pounds, the dog-eating catfish and the giant barb, which is part of the carp family, tie for fifth place on the global top ten, WWF said.

Dams would also reduce sediment flowing to the Mekong River Delta, increasing the delta's vulnerability to sea level rise, WWF added.

"The Lower Mekong is currently free-flowing but the clock is ticking," Chungyalpa said. "We have a rare opportunity to conserve these freshwater giants and ensure the livelihoods of millions of people who live along the Mekong mainstream."

The Mekong originates in the Tibetan Plateau and flows to southeast Asia through Yunnan, China. It is the lifeblood for 65 million people in six countries — Cambodia, China, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar and Vietnam.

driver from www.msnbc.msn.com

First,we can help destroy the false impression that science and engineering have caused the current world troubles.On the contrary, science and engineering have made vast contributions to better living for more people.

Second,we can identify the many areas in which science and technology, more considerably used,can be of greater service in the future than in the past to improve the quality of life.While we can make many speeches, and pass many laws,the quality of our environment will be improved only

through better knowledge and better application of that knowledge.

Third,we can recognize that much of the dissatisfaction we suffer today results from our very successes of former years.We have been so greatly suc¬cessful in attaining material goals that we are deeply dissatisfied that we cannot attain other goals more rapidly.We have achieved a better life for most people,but we,are unhappy that we have not spread it to all people.We have reduced many sources of environmental disasters, but we are unhappy that we have not conquered all of them.lt is our raised expectation rather than our failures which now cause our distress.

Granted that many of our current problems must be cured more by so¬cial, political, and economic instruments than by science and technology,yet science and technology must still be the tools to make further advances in such things as clean air,clean water,better transportation,better housing, better medical care,more adequate welfare programs,purer food,conserva¬tion of resources, and many other areas.

We do not realize that waving good-bye is the way to summon a person from the Philippines to one's side, or that in Italy and some Latin-American countries, curling the finger to oneself is a sign of farewell.

Those private citizens who sent packages to our troops occupying Germany after World War II and marked them GIFT to escape duty payments did not bother to find out that "Gift" means poison in German. Moreover, we like to think of ourselves as friendly, yet we prefer to be at least 3 feet or an arm's length away from others. Latins and Middle Easterners like to come closer and touch, which makes Americans uncomfortable.

Our linguistic (inW-tW) and cultural blindness and the casualness with which we take notice of the developed tastes, gestures, customs and languages of other countries, are losing us friends, business and respect in the world.

Even here in the United States, we make few concessions to the needs of foreign visitors. There are no information signs in four languages on our public buildings or monuments; we do not have multilingual(&T;n$l) guided tours. Very few restaurant menus have translations, and multilingual waiters, bank clerks and policemen are rare. Our transportation systems have maps in English only and often we ourselves have difficulty understanding them. When we go abroad, we tend to cluster in hotels and restaurants where English is spoken. The attitudes and information we pick up are conditioned by those natives usually the richer who speak English. Our business dealings, as well as the nation's diplomacy, are conducted through interpreters.

For many years, America and Americans could get by with cultural blindness and linguistic ignorance. After all, America was the most powerful country of the free world, the distributor of needed funds and goods.

But all that is past. American dollars no longer buy all good things, and we are slowly beginning to realize that our proper role in the world is changing. A 1979 Harris poll reported that 55 percent of Americans want this country to play a more significant role in world affairs; we want to have a hand in the important decisions of the next century, even though it may not always be the upper hand.

Heads nodded in agreement when he said, "High school English teachers are not doing their obs. " He described the inadequacies of his students, all high school graduates who can use anguage only at a grade 9 level. I was unable to determine from his answers to my questions low this grade 9 level had been established.

My topic is not standards nor its decline (F^&). What the speaker was really saying is hat he is no longer young; he has been teaching for sixteen years, and is able to think and speak like a mature adult.

My point is that the frequent complaint of one generation about the one immediately ollowing it is inevitable. It is also human nature to look for the reasons for our dissatisfaction. 3efore English became a school subject in the late nineteenth century, it was difficult to find he target of the blame for language deficiencies (Afe F& ). But since then, English teachers lave been under constant attack.

The complainers think they have hit upon an original idea. As their own command of the anguage improves, they notice that young people do not have this same ability. Unaware that heir own ability has developed through the years, they assume the new generation of young seople must be hopeless in this respect. To the eyes and ears of sensitive adults the language )f the young always seems inadequate.

Since this concern about the decline and fall of the English language is not perceived as a jeneration phenomenon but rather as something new and peculiar to today's young people, it laturally follows that today's English teachers cannot be doing their jobs. Otherwise, young seople would not commit offenses against the language.

We didn't always live on Mango Street. Before that we lived on Loomis on the third floor, and before that we lived on Keeler. Before Keeler it was Paulina, and before that I can't remember. But what I remember most is moving a lot. Each time it seemed there'd be one more of us. By the time we got to Mango Street we were six—Mama, Papa, Carlos, Kiki, my sister Nenny and me.

The house on Mango Street is ours, and we don't have to pay rent to anybody, or share the yard with the people down-stairs, or be careful not to make too much noise, and there

isn't a landlord banging on the ceiling with a broom. But even so, it's not the house we'd thought we'd get.

We had to leave the flat on Loomis quick. The water pipes broke and the landlord wouldn't fix them because the house was too old. We had to leave fast. We were using the washroom next door and carrying water over in empty milk gallons. That's why Mama and Papa looked for a house, and that's why we moved into the house on Mango Street, far away, on the other side of town.

But such services cost money. We pay for them through taxes. What would happen if everyone in the city stops paying taxes? The water supply would stop, the street might not get cleaned, and there would be no police force to protect persons and property. More than three fourths of the money spent by our government is used for this purpose.

The next largest amount of public money goes to teaching and libraries. Public money is used to pay the teachers and other public officials. Years ago the government made money from the sale of public lands. But most of the best public lands has now been sold. The money raised was used to help pay the cost of government. There are still some public lands that contain oil, coal, gas, and other natural products. They could be sold, but we want to save them for future year. So we all must pay our share for the services that make our lives comfortable.

When he's thirsty, sometimes he gulps down a nice tall glass of 30%-fat heavy cream. For breakfast he'll have all the bacon and eggs he wants—but no toast. What is missing from his diet? Fruits, vegetables and all but 50g of carbohydrates a day. "The best thing, really, is fried pork," he says.

As sure as a yo-yo goes down, then right back up, there will always be new diets. There will always be people willing to offer glowing testimonials to add to the bottom line of the estimated $ 35 billion—in the U.S. alone—diet industry. Niedenthal says that not only has he lost 12 kg in 18 months on his counterintuitive diet regime, " I have much more energy and my complexion has improved." As for his cholesterol levels, well, he hasn't had them checked yet.

The diet that Niedenthal follows, the "Optimal Nourishment" plan, was developed by a Pole named Jan Kwasniewski, a doctor whose books are sold on street corners. Optimal Nourishment also resembles a version of the extreme low-carbohydrate mania now sweeping the United States; rumor has it that television star Jennifer Aniston owes her new skinny frame to it. Several current best sellers including a new edition of the Diet Revolution by Dr. Robert C. Atkins of the 1970s and a new book called Sugar Busters' by some very clever businessmen and a doctor.

The idea behind Sugar Busters' is that anything that raises insulin levels, such as sugar, potatoes, com, white rice, bread from refined flour, fresh fruits or milk, is bad for you. This notion originally came from the writings of France's favorite diet writer, Michel Montignac. The French may have obesity levels of only around 8%, (three times lower than Americans,) but as their love of anti-cellulite creams reveals, they are not immune from a belief in the miracle cure, and Montignac has benefited handsomely. A former employee of a pharmaceutical firm, he has written 11 books which have sold 9 million copies in 28 countries, espousing the Montignac Method: consume those carbohydrates that reduce the glucose in the blood. " If you're overweight it's not that you eat too much but that you don't eat well," Montignac says. " It's complete nonsense today to say that in order to lose weight one has to do sports."

But perhaps not as nonsensical as some of the other weird stuff out there. hi Britain there's a new product called "X-Fat" that is derived from shellfish and allegedly keeps fat from being absorbed by the body. Some Germans have taken to drinking cider vinegar neat. And the truly desperate can always munch on Matricur, a sponge that, when swallowed, swells to 18 times its size and fills up the stomach. After about eight hours, the spongy protein ball, made of cow skin, is digested.

Not surprisingly, all of this makes nutrition experts despair. "If those fads worked, there wouldn't be a billion-dollar diet industry," says Bettye Travis, president of the board of directors of the U. S. National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance. " People would lose their excess weight and that would be it." British dietician Lyndel Costain agrees. "As the slimming industry's profits get bigger," she notes ominously, "so do our waistlines."