Black market allegations plague Olympic officials
The International Olympic Committee has launched an investigation into allegations that Olympic officials and agents are selling tickets to the London Games on the black market.
The IOC called an emergency meeting of its executive board Saturday, after The Sunday Times newspaper in the United Kingdom presented a dossier of evidence on 27 officials controlling the tickets for 54 countries.
The newspaper said several thousand tickets to the best events — including the men’s 100-meter track final — had been put up for sale by national Olympic committees from their official ticket quotas.
The IOC said it had “ordered an immediate inquiry and referred the allegations to its independent Ethics Commission,” and would also consider changing how it distributes tickets among member countries.
JAPAN’S PREMIER ORDERS 2 REACTORS RESTARTED
Brushing aside widespread public opposition to avoid electric power shortages, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has ordered the reactivation of two nuclear reactors at a plant in western Japan, making it the nation’s first plant to go back online since the crisis last year in Fukushima.
The decision to restart the Ohi nuclear plant ends the temporary freeze of Japan’s nuclear power industry, when all 50 of the country’s functional reactors were idled after the triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Despite Noda’s vows to strengthen the Ohi plant against the same sort of earthquake and tsunami that knocked out the Fukushima plant in March 2011, the Japanese people have remained deeply divided on the safety of nuclear power.
EX-BP ENGINEER TO FACE TRIAL IN FEBRUARY
BP
A former engineer charged with destroying evidence sought for a U.S probe of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill will face a Feb. 25 trial, a judge said.
Kurt Mix, who worked on internal BP efforts to estimate the amount of oil leaking from the well, was charged with two counts of obstruction of justice for allegedly deleting text message strings from his mobile phone. Mix has pleaded not guilty.
U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval in New Orleans set the trial date at a scheduling conference with lawyers for the United States, BP and Mix. The judge also directed the government to “provide all non-expert and expert” evidence to Mix by June 29.
SETTLEMENT TALKS SOUGHT IN F1 BRIBERY CASE
The former Bayerische Landesbank executive on trial for allegedly soliciting bribes to facilitate the 2005 sale of Formula One racing is holding talks with prosecutors to resolve the case.
Judges in Munich have postponed closing arguments in the trial against Gerhard Gribkowsky to give both sides time for the talks, Margarete Noetzel, a spokeswoman for the court, said in an e-mailed statement. Gribkowsky’s lawyers sought the negotiations, she said.
Gribkowsky, who managed Munich-based BayernLB’s interest in Formula One as the bank’s chief risk officer, was charged with accepting bribes, breach of trust and tax evasion. Prosecutors said at a trial that started in October that he received $44 million to facilitate the sale of the bank’s 47 percent stake to CVC Capital Partners.
Boeing said its second X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle has landed in California after a 469-day mission by the U.S. Air Force to test the capabilities of reusable unmanned vehicles for future space missions.
The pilotless spacecraft, which was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, on March 5, 2011, landed on a runway at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Boeing said in a statement.
“With OTV-1, we proved that unmanned space vehicles can be sent into orbit and safely recovered,” Paul Rusnock, Boeing vice president of Government Space Systems, said in the statement. “With OTV-2, we tested the vehicle design even further by extending the 220-day mission duration of the first vehicle, and testing additional capabilities.”
Microsoft, the world’s largest software maker, has reportedly agreed to purchase Yammer, operator of a social network for businesses, for $1.2 billion.
The deal is expected to be announced by the end of June. A deal for Yammer would follow other recent enterprise software purchases centered around social media. Salesforce.com gained social-marketing tools through its $745 million purchase of Buddy Media earlier this month, and Oracle recently bought two companies that analyze data on social-media sites — Vitrue and Collective Intellect.
BOEING’S OTV COMPLETES 469-DAY MISSION
ITALY CAN OVERCOME CRISIS ON ITS OWN: MONTI
Italy will overcome the economic crisis on its own without seeking outside aid, Prime Minister Mario Monti said.
“We will make it on our own and we are making it, and not by ceding our sovereignty or under the heel of a troika,” he said, referring to the collective name given to the European Union, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank.
Police clashed with protesters as Monti spoke at a conference in Bologna, hours after tens of thousands of Italians demonstrated in Rome against his economic policies.
MICROSOFT SAID TO BE BUYING YAMMER FOR $1.2B