The attraction for Sky is Ally Pally's a great site for outside broadcasts. There is prestige attached to it - one in the eye for the BBC."The three developers shortlisted last month are due to submit detailed proposals by the end of April. "They have been talking about a TV studio and broadcasting museum. The BSkyB option was discussed at a meeting of the development steering committee last Monday, according to a source close to the council leader Toby Harris, who refused to confirm or deny the satellite network was involved: "The council has approached a large number of organisations about the possibility of their involvement in the future development of the palace. Details are confidential," he said.BSkyB said Chris Mackenzie, its general manager who would oversee such a scheme, had not talked to Haringey.However, the source claimed the council has held meetings with BSkyB representatives.

The council, seeking to avoid the full debt, is under pressure from Sir Nicholas Lyall, the Attorney General, to show it has managed the palace affairs prudently.Haringey has run the building and 220-acre park at Muswell Hill through a charitable trust since taking it over from the Greater London Council in 1980. Although BSkyB has denied it is directly involved in talks. It is understood that Haringey council, trustee of the palace, wants to include the satellite network in any final deal with one of three different consortia with which it is negotiating. Any deal would be worth several million pounds and is said to involve BSkyB building a television studio. The move would provide BSkyB with a prestigious broadcasting site and generate enormous publicity for any future development at the palace, which would benefit Haringey.The council is anxious to proceed with a money- spinning private development to make the 123-year-old Ally Pally commercially viable, helping to clear its pounds 55m debt, the largest deficit facing any local authority in the country.Haringey has shortlisted three developers and the Independent understands that a BSkyB initiative would complement whichever scheme is selected on 10 May.However, any development needs parliamentary approval and, to reach that stage, liability for the debt - at present spiralling at pounds 16,000 a day - must be settled.

Predictions made in the 1950s that TB would be eradicated from developed countries and there would be great progress in the Third World in controlling it, were horribly and devastatingly wrong.". BSkyB, the satellite network, is believed to be involved in secret talks which could lead to it being part of a takeover deal for the debt-ridden Alexandra Palace, the birthplace of BBC television, in north London. Will we see more? If we let our guard down, then yes we will," he said.Better surveillance, improved diagnostic testing and more powerful drugs, were urgently needed, Dr Moore-Gillon said. "We need greater public, professional, and political awareness. "Cases of multi- drug-resistant TB occur in scores, not thousands or hundreds of thousands. The frightening extent of the spread of TB has yet to be understood by many leaders.