As reported by london2012.com, the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) has announced the completion of its fifth venue, the International Broadcast Centre (IBC), on the 2012 London Olympic Park. The new centre will form part of the Main Media Complex, a 24-hour media hub which also includes the Main Press Centre (MPC). The complex will cater for over 20,000 broadcasters, photographers and print journalists, bringing the Games to an estimated four billion people across the world. The complex will also have a catering village and a multi-storey car park connects the two main venues together via a structure which includes a conference room for up to 700 people. The broadcasting centre has been designed by Allies and Morrison to be as flexible as possible to accommodate a range of potential tenants and uses after the games. The steel frame of the IBC is 275 meters long, 104 meters wide, 21 meters tall and big enough to house five jumbo jets. After the Games, the IBC has been designed to accommodate a range of potential tenants with hopes that major technology companies will move in.

St Paul's Cathedral, one of Britain's most spectacular buildings, has been fully restored to its glory as a 15-year renovation finally came to an end, reported news.yahoo.com. For the first time for years, Londoners were able to see the historic building without the hindrance of scaffolding. St Paul's, which sits atop Ludgate Hill, the highest point in the City of London financial district, is the capital's architectural centrepiece and dominated the skyline before the era of tower blocks. The US$ 58 million restoration project, one of the largest ever undertaken in Britain, has been completed in time to mark the giant cathedral's 300th anniversary. What has been the first comprehensive restoration of the cathedral began in summer 1996. Work has included landscaping the South Churchyard gardens, restoring the Grand Organ and adding wheelchair access to the crypt and Whispering and South Triforium Galleries. Throughout, the bells peeled and services were uninterrupted. The smoke and filth of three centuries of London pollution had left the exterior blackened and damaged, but this has now been completely cleaned. More than 150,000 blocks of Portland stone were restored. Designed by Christopher Wren and built in grey Portland limestone, like many of London's most significant buildings, the Renaissance-style cathedral took 36 years to complete. It replaced the previous St Paul's, built by the Normans, which was gutted in the 1666 Great Fire of London. Construction of this great building was completed in 1711. The funerals of wartime heroes the Duke of Wellington, Horatio Nelson and Winston Churchill took place there, as did the 1981 wedding of Prince Charles and Diana Spencer.

As reported by news agency Reuters, the building of the 12,000-seat basketball arena for the London 2012 Olympics has been completed. The temporary stadium took 15 months to build and is the fourth venue at the Olympic Park to be finished, with a test event to be held there in August. The 115 meters long and 35 meters high, the white-clad arena is one of the largest temporary venues ever used for an Olympic Games and will be dismantled afterwards to be reused elsewhere. Building began in October 2009, with work to erect the 1,000-tonne steel frame starting in March 2010. The venue, completed on budget (US$ 69 billion), will hold the Olympic Park's first test event when six top men's teams (Britain, Australia, China, Croatia, France and Serbia) play in an International Invitational tournament from August 16-21. Other Olympic Park venues already finished are the main stadium, the velodrome and the handball arena.

According to Arabian business, Britain's rich are selling up and moving out of central London, replaced by super-wealthy buyers from regions such as the Middle East, China, and India, new research found. Real estate consultancy Savills said foreign buyers inject some US$6 billion into London property each year, the bulk of which - US$ 4.4 billion - is used to snap up homes in billionaire markets such as Mayfair, Kensington, and Chelsea. The biggest spenders in the capital come from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, putting down US$ 10.3 million on average. Buyers from the Middle East and North Africa are among the biggest spenders on high-end property, holding a 10 percent share of prime central London real estate and with an average spend of US$ 6.7 million, Savills said. By value, MENA homeowners hold 13 percent of London's most expensive property. Indian buyers, who make up nine percent of all buyers, spend US$ 5.7 million while Chinese, widely tipped as the next group to arrive in force, spending US$ 3.7 million on average. The British spend, on average, US$ 2.5 million on prime London property, Savills said. As reported by Arabian business, UK owners are disinvesting and moving out of the central areas, taking their equity with them. Central London is becoming more international as these (foreign) buyers tend to hold their stock for longer than their UK counterparts. For example One Hyde Park, the UK's priciest real estate project, has sold nearly a quarter of its apartments to wealthy Arab buyers. Between 20-25 percent of sales were to Middle East buyers, with the cheapest apartment in the development costing US$ 9.2 million.

According to Daily Mail, the most expensive country house in the UK has gone up for sale for US$ 122 million. Updown Court has 103 rooms, five swimming pools, two penthouse apartments and a helipad. It stands in 234,7 thousand square meters of grounds. The enigmatic owner behind Updown is bricklayer's son-turned-property developer supremo Leslie Allen-Vercoe, 67. His company Rhymer Investments purchased it in 2002 out of receivership for US$ 32.8 million - and has since spent at least US$ 49 billion on renovation work. Now, an Irish bank has requested a drive to sell the mansion with a new price tag which reflects the vast sums ploughed into it. The neo-classical California-style mansion was built in 2002 on the site of an earlier property which was owned during the 1970s by Prince Sami Gayed of Egypt. The original Updown Court was built in 1924 and had been left as a shell after it had been damaged by fire in the Great Storm of 1987 - when a tree apparently fell and ruptured the gas main. It was subsequently acquired by two investors who themselves were bankrupted and Mr Vercoe then stepped in. The house, which has 24 bedrooms and 23 bathrooms, has been built with some of the world's rarest materials - mainly Italian marble. Visitors approach the mansion, which is 30 miles from Central London, along a heated marble driveway. The mansion has a 50-seat cinema, a two-lane bowling alley, a gymnasium, a squash court, a flood-lit tennis court, a lake, a wine cellar for 3,000 bottles and a 'panic room'. Neighbors include Sir Elton John and Queen guitarist Brian May.