The atmosphere in London is pretty eerie at the moment. The eyes of the world seemed to be on London a month ago. What with the Wimbledon tennis championships, the G8 summit, Live8 and then winning the honour of hosting the 2012 Olympics, there was a feeling of euphoria, mixed in with some cynicism (most of my lab colleagues aren’t students and so have to pay council tax, which will be raised to pay for the Olympics). The next day, however, there were a series of fatal bombings on parts of the London public transport system, and since then there have been further failed bomb attempts. There are now almost daily security alerts and evacuations in North London. Over the past month I’ve been cycling around the city and my daily life hasn’t been too disrupted, but on the way to work (Hammersmith Hospital) today I passed a street that had been cordoned off my police. I didn’t stop to wait, but I’ve just heard that it seems armed forces have cornered one of the suspected bombers there. It’s only five minutes away from work and ten minutes from home. Initially it was thought that the 7/7 attacks were the work of a small cell within the UK working independently, but now it seems they were part of a much larger network, with arrests already being made as far away as Egypt and Pakistan. Strange times.
Check out the BBC News site for more details.
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