Olympics open in grand style

Last Modified: 08 Aug 2008
By: Alex Thomson, Samira Ahmed

Greetings All from Beijing and, well, follow that, London...

Say what you will, the party doesn't half know how to party. Any bird attempting to return to Beijing's nest tonight would have got the shock of its life and third degree burns. Fireworks of volcanic scale not just there but across this vast city as the communist games burst into action.

Jaw-dropping pageants of cunningly edited Chinese history and culture (don't mention the cultural revolution or Japanese invasion of course) with occasional reminders of who is in charge of the show from the goose-stepping flag-bearing military. No question about it, a show to make you gasp, flags of all nations carried by competing countries and spectators, except Tibetan colours of course, they would be banned. You would be arrested for even trying it, as were four western pro-Tibet campaigners, just outside the Olympic zone, who tried to raise the issue. A public holiday here with around 10,000 people getting married because the 8 August 2008 date is auspicious, that is more pink taffeta than you can shake a bird's nest at. What does this opening extravaganza mean? A mammoth festival of sporting endeavour, a junket for international leaders, wives, kids and their entourages and a vast marketing opportunity for global retail branding. And the lesson for the UK Olympics? The obvious point, don't even think about attempting this kind of screamingly costly extravaganza to open your Olympics. This is the totalitarian school of choreography. You cannot afford it. You could not do it and we are probably rather grateful for all that. So, bring on the Morris dancers and a display of binge-drinking perhaps (non-synchronised). Cheers, Alex

"This is the totalitarian school of choreography."
Alex Thompson

Samira here in London. The programme leads on the escalating tensions over fighting in the breakaway South Ossetian region of Georgia. Is all out war with Russia close?

Claim and counter-claim are flying. A South Ossetian minister says more than 1,000 people were killed by Georgia's overnight shelling of the rebel capital and surrounding villages; Georgia says it was forced to take action after Russian tanks had crossed the Georgian border.

And Russia says it was forced to send in its military to South Ossetia to defend people it regards as its citizens and also to protect troops it had stationed there as peacekeepers, 10 of whom have reportedly been killed.

It is a very nasty brew. The Georgian president, Mikhail Saakashvili has in the past half hour confirmed that his forces have shot down two Russian planes, insisting that his forces have been acting in self-defence against a Russian incursion into their territory.

"If we get attacked, a democracy has to protect itself," he's said.

And the Russian foreign minister has further inflamed the situation by claiming he has had reports that some of the Georgian military's alleged action in the region is "ethnic cleansing".

Britain and the USA have called on all parties for an immediate ceasefire. We are hoping to have an interview with the Georgian president shortly.

Figures out this morning show there has been a sharp rise in the number of people losing their homes as mortgage lenders repossess houses from people who cannot meet their payments.

Almost 19,000 properties were repossessed in the past six months, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders, that is a 48 per cent rise. One hundred and fifty-five thousand more home owners are in arrears on their payments.

All this as the Royal Bank of Scotland publishes record half year losses of £691m blamed on sub-prime lending.

The housing minister, Caroline Flint, could offer nothing more than the promise that the government is considering a "range of options", including the possibility of changes to stamp duty on house sales.

Fears of a flood of 90s style repossessions are awakened, but is a comparison right? Katie Razzall reports.

And Lucy Manning has more on the strange, and I really do mean strange, tale of Bernann McKinney, the former Hollywood beauty queen who paid $50,000 to the South Korean laboratory that successfully cloned cloned five puppies from her beloved and now deceased dog Booger.