June 20, 2012 7:35 pm
Source: www.ft.com
New £20m supermarket to bring 400 jobs and 'reignite' Barrhead - Stv.tv
A new £20m supermarket will bring 400 new jobs to Barrhead.
Asda plan on opening the store on the banks of the River Leven near Church Street and Main Street.
A planning application has now been submitted to the council before work gets under way.
200 jobs will be created during the construction process and a further 200 in the shop once it has opened.
The construction on a council-owned site is the latest development to try and reignite the town. The supermarket will put £800,000 into integrating the shop into the town centre including improvements to the green areas at the front and back of the site.
Lisa Rooke, from Asda, said: "We are pleased to be announcing our proposals for a new store in Barrhead and are keen to hear what the local community thinks of our plans. Our proposals would enable us to make a significant investment in the town, regenerating a currently redundant site, and generating up to 200 new jobs for local people.
"We are looking forward to consulting and working with the local community as our proposals progress and will be undertaking a programme of community engagement in the coming weeks."
East Renfrewshire Council have welcomed the news, saying it is "excellent news" for the area.
Cllr Tony Buchanan said: "I am delighted with today's announcement that confirms the Asda plan to open a new supermarket in Barrhead. This signifies a £20m investment in Barrhead, jobs for local people and significant improvements in town centre streetscape.
"This is excellent news for local people and particularly for young people seeking employment in the town. Over the next few years we can expect to see a real transformation in Barrhead town centre, with the £3.8 million extension to Barrhead Sports Centre already announced and a number of investments across the town.
"My colleagues and I look forward to working with Asda over the coming months and fully support their commitment to working closely with the local community and local businesses to make sure that their plans are well communicated and supported."
People who read this story also read
- Rangers crisis: Glasgow businessmen claim they are interested in takeover
- Crane collapses killing one worker in Glasgow city centre
- Homeless man 'mugged then thrown into river to drown'
- Police officer caused taxi driver's death in careless driving collision
- Boulders placed across busy road could have led to serious injury
Source: news.stv.tv
Vladimir Putin to attend London Olympics - Daily Telegraph
The visit would be Putin's first UK trip since he attended the G8 summit in Gleneagles in 2005.
Putin was invited on a state visit to Britain by Tony Blair in 2003, but relations between the two countries have soured since the 2006 murder of Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian spy who died from poisoning by radioactive polonium. Many of Putin's foes have also received asylum in Great Britain.
Russia has refused to extradite Andrei Lugovoy, an ex-KGB bodyguard Britain wants to prosecute for Litvinenko's murder. The incident sent ties between the countries plunging to a post-Cold War low and led to tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions.
A number of British politicians including former Europe minister Denis MacShane have said Putin should not be welcome at the Olympic Games because of human rights abuses in Russia.
Mr Cameron visited Moscow last year, ending a four-year period during which Putin has had no high-level contact with British officials. On Monday, Mr Cameron had to wait for Mr Putin who was late after an extended meeting with US President Barack Obama.
"The Prime Minister kindly agreed to wait and used the pause to work with documents," Mr Peskov said. He said the two leaders exchanged jokes about euro 2012.
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
Asda workers net £14,000 from Sharesave scheme - Daily Telegraph
Employees who saved the maximum amount of £250 a month will receive £14,008, which is a gain of £5,008 on their original investment of £9,000. Those saving £50 a month will get £2,808, £1,008 more than their original investment of £1,800.
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
Top Summer Holiday Destinations in 2012 - msnbc.com
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM — A number of people are preparing to go on holiday this summer. As low cost airlines make it easier to see the world more than ever before, there are a vast number of prime locations which are now easily accessible.
Asda Finance reveals the top summer destinations for 2012.
Turkey
Over the last decade, Turkey has captured the hearts of European and international tourists. It has now become a highly sought after holiday destination which offers sun, sea and culture at reasonable prices. The southern regions of the country are particularly popular with tourists offering a gold coastline with a range of high quality accommodation.
Spain
Spain is the most popular holiday destination for families, according to one travel operator. (i)Spain has something to offer all holidaymakers; from extreme party paradise islands such as Ibiza, to family fun in Barcelona and relaxing retirement properties in Alicante.
Majorca is also a popular hot spot for British tourists. The island is easily accessible and bustling with summer holiday activities.
Portugal
Portugal is another popular holiday destination for British tourists. There are a number of fantastic places to visit within the country, from the cultural capital of Lisbon to the sunny shores of Algarve.
Italy
Italy is bursting with culture and great cuisine. From the historic Vatican City to the romantic city of Venice, there is a lot to see and do.
Milan is typically considered the fashion capital of the country, attracting some of the world's most prestigious designers and clothing shops, making the city ideal for a summer shopping trip.
When travelling overseas it could be worth considering taking out travel insurance before you go.
Notes to editors
(i)Association of British Travel Associations (ABTA) 2011 report Fiesta for families - Spain tops UK families' getaway choices. http://www.abta.com/about/news/view/424.
About Asda Travel Insurance
Asda Travel Insurance is sold and underwritten by ACE European Group Ltd, a leading global insurer protecting over 7 million people in the UK.
-- Unlimited medical expenses -- 20% online discount -- Single Trip or Annual Holiday Insurance -- A choice of 3 cover levels -- Worldwide or European Travel Insurance
Asda Financial Services Ltd is an Introducer Appointed Representative of ACE European Group Ltd. This means that Asda Travel Insurance policies are sold, administered and underwritten by ACE European Group Ltd who is Authorised and Regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA), reference number FRN 202803. Full details can be found on the FSA's Register by visiting www.fsa.gov.uk/register/home.do or by contacting the FSA on 0845 606 1234.
© Marketwire 2012
Source: www.msnbc.msn.com
Try Ascot - in London - The Sun
A London restaurant is running its very own day at the races on Sunday June 23.
The Plough Bar and Kitchen in Clapham, will show all the races on a big screen, from 2.30-5.30pm
So dust off your best suit, fasten your fascinators and jockey for a prime position to watch the dramatic climax, the Diamond Jubilee Stakes, through a pair of Veuve Clicquot sunglasses - free with every bottle of bubbly bought.
Call 020 7585 1844, email ploughevents@youngs.co.uk, or see theploughstjohnshill.co.uk.
ADD mystery to a camping trip by booking one of the new Wild Comfort mobile camping sites in Devon – whose locations are kept secret.
The luxury sites pop up at various locations in the South Hams and exact addresses are only given when booking.
But they are all close to beaches and rivers, the wilds of Dartmoor and the charming towns of Totnes, Kingsbridge, Dartmouth and Salcombe.
They are made up of five sleeping tents, one living room tent, kitchen and hot showers – and you can ask for the kitchen to be stocked on arrival. Prices are from £650 for eight people for one week with short breaks also available from £500. See oneoffplaces.co.uk.
BRITS driving abroad show a worrying lack of regard for road safety.
Twenty-seven per cent are less concerned about breaking speed limits, and 18 per cent take drink-driving less seriously than at home, according to an AXA poll.
And only 49 per cent slap a GB sticker on their vehicle abroad, even though it is required.
IF you need vaccines when abroad. it pays to shop around for the best deal.
There were some large differences in prices at clinics nationwide, when
the appointment and administration fees were added in, research by Airport Parking & Hotels (APH.com) found.
Across the seven clinics surveyed, Doctor Today was the dearest – charging £105 for the cholera inoculation and £63 for rabies.
In contrast, Well-Travelled Clinics charges £30.95 and £61.99 respectively.
The Hospital for Tropical Diseases had the cheapest rabies vaccine of those polled, at just £42.
For a full list of costs see aph.com/travelvaccines.
VISITORS to London will soon be able to get wi-fi while on the Tube.
London Underground have teamed up with Virgin Media to get 120 stations connected by the end of the year.
The first batch of stations are set to get online in July and include Oxford Circus, Camden Town, London Bridge and King’s Cross.
DESPITE the best efforts of the various UK tourist boards this year, it seems as though the days of the staycation could be over.
Research by M&S Money reveals staying in the UK can be 25 per cent more expensive than going abroad.
The cost of a week in London, for those wanting to celebrate the Jubilee and the Olympics in the capital, will set Brits back £1,631, compared with an average £1,298 for a sunny holiday overseas.
Stats from online travel agent On The Beach back up the findings – they have seen a massive increase in bookings for this summer with Spain again leading the way.
Tenerife topped the list of destinations with a year-on-year boost in bookings of 60 per cent, closely followed by Majorca which has increased by 90 per cent.
With hoteliers in Greece slashing prices by some 15 per cent and the low rate of the euro, bookings to the crisis-torn country have risen by 55 per cent. Alistair Daly, marketing director at On The Beach said: “With Britain focusing on the Queen’s Jubilee and the Olympics the UK will be saturated with tourists.
“Our data shows that Brits have chosen to avoid these crowds and take advantage of the reduction on family holidays and guarantee themselves a bit of sun.
“Staycations have taken a back seat in 2012.”
A NEW travel tribe is on the rise – OATs, or Old Age Travellers.
Gatwick Airport polled 1,000 travellers over the age of 70 and found 56 per cent were travelling more now than they did when they were younger.
The airport has now launched a search to find Britain’s oldest traveller.
If you think that’s you, or want to nominate someone, email proof of date of birth, a photo and a line about a favourite travel experience to ukoldesttraveller@gatwick-airport.com before June 29.
Source: www.thesun.co.uk
London 2012: Liam Phillips wants Olympic medal despite crash - BBC News
BMX rider Liam Phillips believes he can still win an Olympic medal at London 2012 despite breaking his collarbone at last month's World Championships.
Phillips, 23, was officially named to Team GB last week despite major surgery after the crash three weeks ago.
"There are seven weeks until the first day of the competition, I should have quite a lot of time," said Phillips.
"I should be in fine form. I put myself in the bracket of five or six riders looking to go there and medal."
Phillips on his broken collarbone
"It's quite strange - it's not like any injury I've had in the past. I've had it plated and the collarbone feels normal. You go to pick up your bag of shopping and then remember your collarbone is still broken, so you have to be careful doing general day-to-day things. But it's allowed me to continue my training as planned, sleep well and doing everything that's expected this close to an Olympic Games."
Somerset's Phillips sustained the second collarbone break of his career on day two of the World Championships in Birmingham, having won time trial silver the previous night.
"For the first 15 minutes or so after I crashed, I was keeping my fingers crossed that it was just a broken collarbone - which does sound rather strange now," he told BBC Sport.
"But I understand that a collarbone can be healed. I had surgery and it was plated, which means I can get back to training almost immediately.
"I've been focusing on the London Olympics for a very long time. An injury 10 weeks out isn't ideal, but I've done so much work over the last few years that I'm not going to let an injury ruin it."
Phillips is currently ranked 48th in the world having spent most of 2011 inside the Manchester velodrome rather than on the BMX circuit.
He made the switch to track cycling in part because it eliminated many of the injury risks, but returned to BMX later that year.
"I do feel cursed [with injuries] but I race BMX bikes. I'm not going to look for any pity from anybody else," he said.
"Training with the track team was fantastic, spending seven months with some of the best riders in the world, but I missed the BMX.
"I overlooked the buzz I get from riding my bike each day and I soon learnt I was going to miss it more than I could ever have imagined."
Having made his comeback, Phillips looked to be in excellent shape at the World Championships inside Birmingham's National Indoor Arena at the end of May, but the crash wiped out his chances of a second medal - and of sampling the home atmosphere.
"That was the frustrating thing, it was a massive race in the UK and that's not something we get to experience very often," he said.
"It was surreal, it was fantastic to be there and have the crowd on your side. I'm looking forward to experiencing that again in London, seeing as I didn't get to experience too much at the World Championships."
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
Assange risks arrest in London if he leaves Ecuador embassy asylum - The Guardian
Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, faces immediate arrest the moment he leaves the Ecuadorean embassy in central London, even if he is granted political asylum, police and British government officials have indicated.
He spent his first full day confined to the small Ecuadorean embassy in Knightsbridge on Monday, unable to move as his lawyers, diplomats and government officials grappled with the implications of his request for political asylum to avoid extradition to Sweden.
His surprise move on Tuesday evening has left some of Assange's most prominent supporters facing the loss of up to £240,000 in bail money provided to secure his freedom when he first faced extradition proceedings. Supporters including the activist Jemima Khan, film director Ken Loach and publisher Felix Dennis posted cash security of £200,000 with Westminster magistrates court with a further £40,000 as promised sureties when Assange was freed in December 2010.
Assange's gambit came after he lost the last of his many appeals against removal to Sweden to be questioned over sex crime accusations, for which he has been on police bail since December 2010.
He had been driven by what he called "really terrible choices" to make the last-ditch move, his New-York-based lawyer told the Guardian, believing it highly likely that the US intends to seek his onward extradition from Sweden on espionage charges over the WikiLeaks cable releases. "What he was facing was never seeing the light of day for the next 40 years," said Michael Ratner, of the Centre for Constitutional Rights, which represents the WikiLeaks founder in the US.
The Swedish lawyer representing the Australian's two alleged victims said the latest attempt to avoid extradition was "a tragedy for the women". Claes Borgström said the women were "frustrated" and "disappointed".
"The tragedy is that he doesn't take his responsibility. He should have come to Sweden," Borgström added. Assange has not been charged in Sweden and denies the allegations.
The Foreign Office has confirmed that the first-floor embassy – consisting of the ambassador's office and some other small rooms, one of which Assange is said to be occupying – is diplomatic territory and that while there Assange is "beyond the reach of police". But officials are adamant that even if Ecuador grants him asylum or a diplomatic passport, he faces immediate arrest the moment he steps out of the front door for breaching his bail conditions.
Even taking Ecuadorean nationality would not help, officials stressed, as he could not claim asylum in what would be then his own embassy. He is understood to have surrendered his own Australian passport to British authorities.
Metropolitan police officers attended the embassy , after confirming that an arrest warrant had been issued for breach of the Bail Act.
Anna Alban, the Ecuadorean ambassador, said she had met Foreign Office officials, and she explained "that the decision on Mr Assange's application would be assessed by the department of foreign affairs in Quito and would take into account Ecuador's long and well established tradition in supporting human rights."
Her government would be seeking "a just and fair solution to this situation", she said.
Ricardo Patino, Ecuador's foreign minister, said on Tuesday that the WikiLeaks founder had written to the country's president, Rafael Correa, to ask for asylum. Assange interviewed him last month for his TV show The World Tomorrow, broadcast on the Russian state-sponsored channel Russia Today, in which the president told him: "Welcome to the club of the persecuted."
Ecuador is the only country to have expelled its US ambassador over the WikiLeaks cable revelations. It was during the filming of this interview that an offer of asylum was made, the Associated Press reported, quoting a woman who had been present during the interview but had spoken on condition of anonymity. It did not say whether the offer was personally made by Correa.
Ratner said Assange's move had been prompted purely by his fears of future prosecution in the US rwhere a secret grand jury has been empanelled into the WikiLeaks founder, ather than a desire to avoid the Swedish accusations. "Had the US come forward and said, 'We will not prosecute Julian Assange, I think he would be in Sweden tomorrow to deal with the allegations of the sex crimes. It was not about that at all. It was only about the US."
Marianne Ny, the Swedish prosecutor who had secured Assange's extradition in the supreme court in London, is following developments closely, said her spokeswoman, Britta von Schoultz. Ny will not comment on Assange's decision to seek asylum at the Ecuadorean embassy until he is returned to Sweden. "It is solely a case for the British authorities to handle," Von Schoultz said. "When it becomes a case for the Swedish prosecutor, she will comment on the case."
A leading criminal lawyer said those supporters who had stood bail for Assange would have to persuade the courts why they should not forfeit their money. Oliver Lewis, partner at Powell Spencer and Partners Solicitors, said: "There would have to be a pretty good reason … Usually the court says thank you very much, you have lost your money."
Vaughan Smith, the founder of the Frontline Club, was asked to offer surety of £20,000, and was unclear whether he would forfeit it. "The money is important because it relates to the welfare of my wife and children, but they don't feel they are at risk of being sent to America," he said. "I remain a supporter and it is important we recognise [Assange] is a western dissident. There are a lot of people who believe the work he did at Wikileaks was in the public interest.""
Khan confirmed on Twitter that she had also posted bail money for Assange. "I had expected him to face the allegations," she said. "I am as surprised as anyone by this."In his asylum request, Assange accused the Australian government of making an "effective declaration of abandonment", refusing to make interventions on his behalf to the Swedish or US authorities.
At a press conference, Julia Gillard, the Australian prime minister, said: "Mr Assange's decisions and choices are a matter for Mr Assange We, our officials, our consular officials, will be in contact with him and also with Ecuador in London about this, but his decisions in relation to this matter are for him to make.."But the Australian Green party attacked its government's response as "feeble", saying it amounted to "malign indifference".During Correa's six years in office, his administration has continued to welcome foreign refugees, of which more than 95% have fled the protracted civil war in Colombia. On Monday, António Guterres, the UN high commissioner for refugees, commended Ecuador for being an "example of solidarity" by receiving Latin America's largest refugee population.
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
No comments:
Post a Comment