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Archive for the ‘news’ Category

Blog: I’ve rarely seen anything worse

Former England striker Trevor Brooking says Kevin Keegan faces a tough task reforming his side from one which produced one of the worst performances in living memory to championship contenders.

England’s performance at Wembley was one of the poorest I can remember.

I’d even go so far as to say that over the two legs Scotland were the better team.

But if you are looking at who might do better at Euro 2000 you’ve got to say it would be England.

Not in their current shape, though. Playing like this they will get beaten by most teams.

Kevin Keegan has been in an awkward position in that he came into the job in the middle of the qualification campaign and had no time to experiment.

Now he has six months to sort things out.

is a big test for him. He has got the motivational skills but he faces some tough tactical decisions.

He needs to find a formula to get the best out of his young talent. At the moment you are looking a group of individuals who are not playing as a team.

Keegan’s number one priority is to decide on a system that suits his players.

If he is going to persist playing 4-4-2 he needs at least two left-sided players. At the moment England are having problems finding just one.

It’s not a question of picking your best players and then swapping round systems to suit them. England won the World Cup in 1966 by picking a system, actually one without wingers, and sticking to it.

That might mean picking one or two players who on paper are not as talented as others.

Craig Brown made two changes to his side for the second leg – he brought in Neil McCann and Callum Davidson.

Both are natually left footed but neither are first choices for their clubs.

They may not be as talented as one or two others but they gave Scotland great width and shape.

With Graeme Le Saux injured, the only two left-sided players Keegan had were Steve Guppy and Steve Froggatt and I would have certainly played one of them at Wembley.

Blog: International stars

French actress Eva Green, who played love interest Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale, won the Orange rising star award voted for by the British public.

“It’s a real honour because I’m French and it’s an English award. I have just moved here and have had the most amazing welcome,” she said.

Whitaker, who has also won Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards for The Last King of Scotland, said: “This means a lot because to be embraced by another shore is a special thing.

I try to think of myself as a citizen of the planet,” he added.

Greengrass’s United 93 depicts one of the 11 September 2001 plane hijackings.

Accepting his award, the film-maker said: “I firmly believe that cinema must deal with the way the world is and the dangers there are. We need it very much now.”

The Spanish-language dark fairytale Pan’s Labyrinth won three Baftas including the award for best foreign language film.

Former US reality TV show contestant Jennifer Hudson added the best supporting actress prize to her considerable collection for her performance in the musical Dreamgirls.

Peter Morgan and Jeremy Brock’s script for The Last King of Scotland won the best adapted screenplay honour.

The award for special achievement by a British director in their first feature film went to Andrea Arnold for the Glasgow-set drama Red Road.

The best animated feature film Bafta was awarded to Happy Feet.

Westenra and Terfel up for Brits

Welsh bass baritone Bryn Terfel and teenage singer Hayley Westenra lead the nominations for the fifth classical Brit awards next month.
Violinists Nigel Kennedy and Vanessa Mae, and the world’s first opera band Amici Forever will join the ceremony on 26 May at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
TV news presenter Katie Derham returns for a fourth year to host the ceremony.
New Zealand-born Westenra, 17, has two nominations, as does Terfel – including one for male artist of the year.
Also receiving two nominations is composer and conductor John Rutter, whose Distant Land album is nominated for contemporary music award and ensemble/orchestral album of the year.
Five of the awards will be voted for by The Classical Brit awards voting academy, which includes the media, members of the Musicians Union, promoters, industry executives and orchestra leaders.
Listeners of Classic FM will be invited to vote for the album of the yea

Classical Brits glory for Terfel

Welsh bass baritone Bryn Terfel won the prizes for best album and male artist at this year’s Classical Brit awards.
Italian opera star Cecilia Bartoli was named best female artist at the event, held at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
British conductor Sir Simon Rattle won orchestral album of the year for his recording of Beethoven’s Symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic.
The awards, in their fifth year, are billed as the orchestral and operatic answer to the pop and rock Brits.
Terfel won the best album award – the night’s biggest prize – for Bryn, which has sold more than 300,000copies in the UK since it was released last year.
Mezzo soprano Bartoli beat New Zealand-born teenager Hayley Westenra to win her award, while Terfel triumphed over violinist Nigel Kennedy in the male category.
Another violinist, 29-year-old Daniel Hope, was named best young British classical performer.
The contemporary music award went to US composer Philip Glass for his soundtrack to the film The Hours.
Russia’s Maxim Vengerov won the critics’ award for his recording of Benjamin Britten’s Violin Concerto and William Walton’s Viola Concerto, conducted by his friend and mentor Mstislav Rostropovich.
Guests at the ceremony – hosted by ITV news presenter Katie Derham for the fourth year running – included former boy soprano Aled Jones, actor Nigel Havers and musical star Elaine Paige.
The event, which will be broadcast on ITV1 on Sunday, featured performances from Westenra, Kennedy, fellow violinist Vanessa-Mae and Welsh soprano Katherine Jenkins

North Korea ‘may return to talks’

North Korea says it may be willing to return to six-party international talks on its nuclear weapons programme, state media have reported.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is said to have made the announcement to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao before he left Pyongyang after a three-day visit.
But Mr Kim said the return would be dependent on the progress of its planned bilateral talks with the US.
The US says it remains ready to engage with North Korea.
Highlighting the urgency of restarting talks, a South Korean source said the North appeared to be in the final stages of restoring the nuclear programme at Yongbyon that it had shut down before abandoning the six-party process.
“We have obtained indications that point to restoration work being in the final stages,” Reuters news agency quoted the source as saying.
“The work to restore nuclear facilities at Yongbyon has been ongoing since early this year.”

‘Not racist’

And, asked about a quote attributed to him in which he equated six million deaths in the Holocaust with the flat earth theory he replied that “European law” stopped him explaining.
“I can’t tell you why I used to say those things anymore than I can tell you why I have changed my mind,” he said.
Mr Straw replied: “There is not law here that stops you explaining yourself.”
The justice secretary said when anybody put a specific quotation to Mr Griffin he tried to “wriggle out of it”.
Conservative frontbencher Baroness Warsi said Mr Griffin was “a thoroughly deceptive man”.
Asked whether immigration policy had fuelled the BNP, Mr Straw said he did not think it had and said he thought the BNP had been boosted by discontent with the main parties over issues like expenses.
But Baroness Warsi said politicians had a responsibility to take on the BNP on the issue of immigration: “Many people who vote for the BNP are not racist and therefore what we have to do is go out and say to these people as mainstream political parties we are prepared to listen.”
Mr Griffin blamed the “political elite” for imposin

Secrets of frog killer laid bare

Scientists have unravelled the mechanism by which the fungal disease chytridiomycosis kills its victims.
The fungus is steadily spreading through populations of frogs and other amphibians worldwide, and has sent some species extinct in just a few years.
Researchers now report in the journal Science that the fungus kills by changing the animals’ electrolyte balance, resulting in cardiac arrest.
The finding is described as a “key step” in understanding the epidemic.
Karen Lips, one of the world authorities on the spread of chytridiomycosis, said the research was “compelling”.
They’ve done an incredible amount of work, been very thorough, and I don’t think anybody will have problems with this.
“We suspected something like this all along, but it’s great to know this is in fact what is happening,” the University of Maryland professor told BBC News.

Spotting a war crime

It is not always easy to spot a war crime.
The displacement of civilians from their homes by an enemy army is not necessarily a war crime.
It can be argued that the displacement is being carried out for the protection of the civilians.
It only becomes a war crime if the expulsions can be proven to be part of campaign of ethnic cleansing or designed as a mass punishment of civilians.
Equally, is it a war crime for the air force of one country to bomb an enemy’s television station because of the propaganda in the broadcasts?
Under the Geneva Conventions, this is not a war crime. Just about all aspects of a state’s infrastructure – roads, bridges, power stations, factories – become legitimate targets if they might be put to military use.
Such attacks only become war crimes if the extent of collateral damage to civilians and civilian interests resulting from the attack would be excessive compared to the military advantage gained from the attack.
Genocide is defined by the tribunal as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.
But the law on war crimes is continually evolving.
In February 2001, the tribunal in The Hague delivered a ruling that made mass systematic rape and sexual enslavement in a time of war a crime against humanity.
Mass rape, or rape used as a tool of war, was then elevated from being a violation of the customs of war to one of the most heinous war crimes of all – second only to genocide.

Reform agenda

The new president said on his first day in office that France needed to bring in more reforms quickly.
There is a demand for change. Never have the risks of inertia been so great for France as they are now in this world in flux where everyone across the world is trying to change quicker than the others, where any delay can be fatal,” he said.
Shortly afterwards, the pair put on their jogging kits and went for a brisk run around the Bois de Boulogne.
The BBC’s Caroline Wyatt, in Paris, says all this is a new and very different style for France, whose heads of state here have traditionally been patrician, somewhat remote figures.
It is clear that Mr Sarkozy and Mr Fillon are serious about getting this nation moving again, she says, beginning by setting their own personal example.
Mr Fillon’s renowned conciliatory skills will be much needed as prime minister if he is to succeed in a post often described as a poisoned chalice, says the BBC’s Alasdair Sandford in Paris.
Mr Fillon will lead the UMP party into parliamentary elections in June.
Opinion polls suggest the party will gain a majority, giving Mr Sarkozy and Mr Fillon the scope to push ahead with reforms

Alaska controversy

There are still some close contests to come, with the Democrats intent on moving into staunch Republican territory.
Votes are still being counted in Alaska – one of the Democrat’s most surprising target states, whose Senate delegation has been solidly Republican since 1981.
Incumbent Republican Senator Ted Stevens has been a dominant figure in Alaskan politics since 1968, when he first won his seat.
But he was convicted in October of lying about gifts he had received, and was already facing a tough re-election battle against the Democratic Mayor of Anchorage, Mark Begich.
A recount is expected in Minnesota, and Georgia is preparing for a run-off after neither candidate received the necessary number of votes to be declared overall winner.
There was some positive news for the Republicans, with voters in Kentucky and Mississippi returning their candidates despite determined efforts by Democrat rivals.
Meanwhile, voters in 11 states also elected governors, and in 36 states there were 153 proposals to be decided upon.
Voters in Colorado and South Dakota rejected initiatives that could have led to abortion bans. Washington became the second US state to allow people with terminal illnesses the option of doctor-assisted suicide, while Nebraska outlawed affirmative action.
Most controversially, voters in California approved a constitutional amendment that would limit marriage to heterosexual couples. Thousands of gay couples have wed in the state since a court ruled in May that gay marriages could go ahead.