Last April one year, Carol Sharp picked up the phone in Edinburgh and put a call through to her daughter Lynsey in the United States.

Jacques Rogge has confirmed he will run for another term as president of the International Olympic Committee.

China’s ruling Communist Party, reeling from a corruption epidemic that has seen senior party chiefs jailed around the country, warned today that the fight against graft was a long way from being solved.

The scene: Beijing. The time: The 2008 Summer Olympics. You are a policeman and your city is swarming with millions of foreigners – most of whom can’t speak a word of Chinese.

Granting Beijing the right to host the 2008 Summer Olympics would be a ‘‘wonderful thing,’’ News Corporation magnate Rupert Murdoch has said.