Probably the best compliment that can be paid to Manchester United is that their reserves play with the style and panache we have come to expect of the first team. They made this an ignominious night for Leeds United, dismantling the Championship side with so little difficulty that it was easy to forget sometimes that Sir Alex Ferguson had given his first XI the night off. Michael Owen scored two of the goals for a team rippling with confidence. Ryan Giggs scored the other and for Leeds the final whistle must have had the effect of smelling salts. In truth, it had become apparent much earlier that there would not even be a hint of an upset. Ferguson’s team had scored all their goals by half-time and even if they sometimes give the impression they do not entirely cherish the Carling Cup at Old Trafford, this still represented an evening of huge satisfaction for a team who began with no recognised centre-halves and four centre-forwards. Even by Ferguson’s standards of experimentation, it was an eccentric selection. Michael Carrick, a midfielder once likened to Glenn Hoddle, made an unorthodox centre-half. He was partnered by Ezekiel Fryers, a youth-academy graduate making his first-team debut 11 days after turning 19. Fryers, tipped by Rio Ferdinand to play for England in the 2018 World Cup, is normally a left-back. Mame Biram Diouf and Federico Macheda, two reserve strikers, started as wingers. Antonio Valencia, signed as Cristiano Ronaldo’s replacement on the wing, was at right-back. Ben Amos, the third-choice goalkeeper, was a virtual spectator for long spells, having been promoted ahead of David de Gea and Anders Lindegaard. The seven substitutes were aged 18 to 20, including five players with no first-team experience. This was a team that ought to have been vulnerable – but Leeds never even sought to investigate. Faced by such a makeshift team, it was peculiar in the extreme that Leeds were so passive, as if forgetting they had beaten these opponents in the FA Cup two seasons ago. They began the game encouragingly, with Dimitar Berbatov of all people having to make two important clearances from inside the six-yard area. But the Leeds challenge quickly tailed off. The disappointment for their manager, Simon Grayson, was that they seemed not to want to find out if Carrick and Fryers were susceptible. The gulf between the clubs was apparent from the start. Ferguson’s team may have had a makeover, but they played with the confidence and fluency that has been evident in five Premier League matches that have brought 21 goals and maximum points. They knocked the ball around with an ease that was infuriating for Grayson and by half-time the match had become an exercise in damage-limitation for Leeds. A lot is made of the crowd’s hostility on these occasions but Ferguson had enough players with big-game experience for his team to play with a seen-it-all-before air. Berbatov was prominently involved. Giggs was magnificent in his 45 minutes before he made way for a debutant, Paul Pogba. As for Owen, this was the best way possible to demonstrate why he believes he should have more time on the pitch. The first goal stemmed from a flowing move on the right, Giggs linking with Berbatov before Park Ji-sung turned the ball into Owen’s path. The striker’s first touch took him inside Tom Lees; the second was a left-footed shot through the defender’s legs and just inside the post. The shot was scuffed and a little fortuitous but Owen’s second goal could hardly have been struck more cleanly. It was something of a rarity, too – an Owen goal from outside the penalty area. Again, it originated on the right. Diouf, an enthusiastic runner, crossed. Owen took one touch before driving a brilliant shot into the top corner. Leeds’s big night was turning into an ordeal. In first-half stoppage-time Giggs ran at Aidan White, slipped the ball through his legs and continued into the penalty area. His shot flicked off Luciano Becchio to deceive the goalkeeper, Andy Lonergan, for 3-0. Leeds were probably fortunate that, with the game effectively won, their opponents did not play with the same urgency after the interval. Even so, Fryers must have been wondering whether it will always be this easy and Carrick coasted through the game like an old hand at this defensive lark. It was as if the players in white did not fully comprehend the significance of the fixture. Or maybe they did, and simply did not have the nerve to attack their opponents. All that could be said for certain was that it was difficult to go through the Leeds team and identify one player who had stood out for the right reasons. Carling Cup 2011-12 Leeds United Manchester United Daniel Taylor guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Taylor Armstrong certainly isn’t heeding that advice about not speaking ill of the dead: In an interview airing tonight on ET and obtained by the AP , the Real Housewife details the abuse she says she received at the hands of estranged husband Russell, who killed himself last month. Once, “he…
Continue reading …
Organisation calls for local pay deals as it claims cost of employing staff is rising by 2.4% a year despite pay freeze Leaders of 1.5 million NHS staff are poised for confrontation with health service employers and ministers over proposed pay and pensions changes that unions claim would seriously damage their incomes. The NHS already faces the prospect of more than 500,000 staff taking industrial action on 30 November as part of the national day of action against government plans to overhaul public sector pensions. A series of ballots in coming weeks is expected to see paramedics, radiographers, physiotherapists, chiropodists and a host of non-clinical staff such as cooks and cleaners participating in as yet unspecified action. NHS staff, most of whom are experiencing a two-year freeze on their pay, are furious that ministers are seeking to compel them to work longer and contribute more for ultimately smaller pensions. Unions such as Unison, Unite and the GMB have pledged to ballot their members, although the British Medical Association, Royal College of Nursing and Royal College of Midwives are reluctant to do so. But the organisation NHS Employers has increased the prospect of another money wrangle by declaring that the NHS salary bill is unsustainable and that local pay deals are needed to bring down costs. It claims that, despite the pay freeze for all NHS staff earning over £21,000, the cost to its members – such as hospital and mental health trusts – of employing staff is rising by 2.4% a year. The continuation right to annual pay
Continue reading …
Organisation calls for local pay deals as it claims cost of employing staff is rising by 2.4% a year despite pay freeze Leaders of 1.5 million NHS staff are poised for confrontation with health service employers and ministers over proposed pay and pensions changes that unions claim would seriously damage their incomes. The NHS already faces the prospect of more than 500,000 staff taking industrial action on 30 November as part of the national day of action against government plans to overhaul public sector pensions. A series of ballots in coming weeks is expected to see paramedics, radiographers, physiotherapists, chiropodists and a host of non-clinical staff such as cooks and cleaners participating in as yet unspecified action. NHS staff, most of whom are experiencing a two-year freeze on their pay, are furious that ministers are seeking to compel them to work longer and contribute more for ultimately smaller pensions. Unions such as Unison, Unite and the GMB have pledged to ballot their members, although the British Medical Association, Royal College of Nursing and Royal College of Midwives are reluctant to do so. But the organisation NHS Employers has increased the prospect of another money wrangle by declaring that the NHS salary bill is unsustainable and that local pay deals are needed to bring down costs. It claims that, despite the pay freeze for all NHS staff earning over £21,000, the cost to its members – such as hospital and mental health trusts – of employing staff is rising by 2.4% a year. The continuation right to annual pay
Continue reading …
Scotland Yard forced into abrupt climbdown over attempt to make Guardian reporters reveal phone hacking sources The Metropolitan police dropped its attempt to order the Guardian to reveal confidential sources for stories relating to the phone-hacking scandal. After an intervention by the Crown Prosecution Service, Scotland Yard was forced into an abrupt climbdown following a wave of outrage over the Met’s attempt to make Guardian reporters reveal confidential sources for articles disclosing that the murdered teenager Milly Dowler’s phone was hacked on behalf of the News of the World. They claimed that the paper’s reporter, Amelia Hill, could have incited a source to break the Official Secrets Act and broken the act herself. At an Old Bailey hearing scheduled for this Friday, the Met had been due to apply for a production order to obtain all the material which the Guardian holds that would disclose sources for the newspaper’s coverage of the phone-hacking inquiry this year. The statement put out by the Met announcing its retreat left open the possibility that the production order could be applied for again, but the Guardian’s lawyers have been told that the police have dropped the application. A senior Yard source said: “It’s off the agenda.” The police application was formally being made under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act but with an assertion that Hill had committed an offence under the Official Secrets Act by inciting an officer from Operation Weeting – the Met’s investigation into phone hacking – to reveal information. The Yard source said: “There will be some hard reflection. This was a decision made in good faith, but with no appreciation for the wider consequences. Obviously the last thing we want to do is to get into a big fight with the media. We do not want to interfere with journalists. In hindsight the view is that certain things that should have been done, were not done, and that is regrettable.” The Guardian’s editor-in-chief, Alan Rusbridger, said: “We greatly welcome the Met’s decision to withdraw this ill-judged order. Threatening reporters with the Official Secrets Act was a sinister new device to get round the protection of journalists’ confidential sources. We would have fought this assault on public interest journalism all the way. We’re happy that good sense has prevailed.” Many lawyers had expressed astonishment at the police resorting to the Official Secret Act. Their surprise was reinforced on Monday when the director of public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC, revealed that the Crown Prosecution Service had not been contacted by officers before the application was made. Neil O’May, the Guardian’s solicitor, said: “This was always a misconceived application for source material. Journalists’ sources are protected in law. For the Metropolitan police to turn on the very newspaper which exposed the failings of the previous police inquiries and reported on hacking by the News of the World was always doomed to failure. The Metropolitan police need to control the officers who are involved in these sensitive areas.” In a statement , the CPS said: “[On] Monday the Metropolitan police asked the CPS for advice in relation to seeking a production order against Guardian Newspapers. “The CPS has asked that more information be provided to its lawyers and has said that more time will be needed fully to consider the matter. As a result the scheduled court hearing will not go ahead on Friday. The [Metropolitan Police] will consider what application, if any, it will make in due course, once it has received advice from the CPS.” The Met said in a statement: “The Metropolitan police’s directorate of professional standards consulted the Crown Prosecution Service about the alleged leaking of information by a police officer from Operation Weeting. “The CPS has today asked that more information be provided to its lawyers and for appropriate time to consider the matter. In addition the MPS has taken further legal advice this afternoon and as a result has decided not to pursue, at this time, the application for production orders scheduled for hearing on Friday 23 September. We have agreed with the CPS that we will work jointly with them in considering the next steps. “This decision does not mean that the investigation has been concluded. This investigation, led by the DPS – not Operation Weeting, has always been about establishing whether a police officer has leaked information, and gathering any evidence that proves or disproves that. Despite recent media reports there was no intention to target journalists or disregard journalists’ obligations to protect their sources. “It is not acceptable for police officers to leak information about any investigation, let alone one as sensitive and high profile as Operation Weeting. “Notwithstanding the decision made this afternoon it should be noted that the application for production orders was made under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE), NOT the Official Secrets Act (OSA). “The Official Secrets Act was only mentioned in the application in relation to possible offences in connection with the officer from Operation Weeting, who was arrested on August 18 2011 on suspicion of misconduct in a public office relating to unauthorised disclosure of information. He remains on bail and is suspended. “Separately, the MPS remains committed to the phone hacking investigation under Operation Weeting.”The picture painted by insiders in the Met is that a relatively junior officer took the decision to take on the Guardian without consulting his superiors, setting off a calamitous chain of events that saw the Met condemned for an attempted assault on press freedom. Police sources said the senior investigating officer who was inquiring into whether a member of the Weeting team had leaked information, had on his own, taken the decision to seek the production order. The senior source said that not even Deputy Assistant Commissioner Mark Simmons had been told about the decision in advance. Simmons is the head of professionalism issues at Scotland Yard and is seen as a rising star within the force. The senior source said: “There was not a lot of happy people at our place over the weekend because it was a decision made by the SIO. There was no referral upwards, and you would have thought on something as sensitive as this there would have been.” Simmons and the incoming commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe, did discuss the issue, as the criticism grew, but the source said the commissioner had left it to Simmons to take the decision, and that there was no instruction or directive. The Met stressed that Hogan-Howe, despite being in charge of professional standards as deputy commissioner, was not involved in the original decision to seek a production order. Simmons took the decision to review the application by the SIO. Geoffrey Robertson QC said: “This is a victory for common sense and freedom of speech. Had the police continued with this ill-considered action journalists might have been forced to disobey a court order so as to protect their source. “Putting journalists into that dilemma and possibly in jail would only bring discredit on police and the law. It should now be accepted that journalists are entitled to protect their sources of information otherwise that information will dry up and there will be less public interest information such as the hacking of Milly Dowler’s phone.” The Met’s move had been condemned by all Britain’s major newspapers, including the Times and Sunday Times, and the Daily Mail’s columnist Richard Littlejohn. The Yard pursued its action against the Guardian without consulting the CPS, until Monday, or the attorney-general Dominic Grieve. Phone hacking The Guardian Metropolitan police Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers Police Owen Bowcott Vikram Dodd guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Scotland Yard forced into abrupt climbdown over attempt to make Guardian reporters reveal phone hacking sources The Metropolitan police dropped its attempt to order the Guardian to reveal confidential sources for stories relating to the phone-hacking scandal. After an intervention by the Crown Prosecution Service, Scotland Yard was forced into an abrupt climbdown following a wave of outrage over the Met’s attempt to make Guardian reporters reveal confidential sources for articles disclosing that the murdered teenager Milly Dowler’s phone was hacked on behalf of the News of the World. They claimed that the paper’s reporter, Amelia Hill, could have incited a source to break the Official Secrets Act and broken the act herself. At an Old Bailey hearing scheduled for this Friday, the Met had been due to apply for a production order to obtain all the material which the Guardian holds that would disclose sources for the newspaper’s coverage of the phone-hacking inquiry this year. The statement put out by the Met announcing its retreat left open the possibility that the production order could be applied for again, but the Guardian’s lawyers have been told that the police have dropped the application. A senior Yard source said: “It’s off the agenda.” The police application was formally being made under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act but with an assertion that Hill had committed an offence under the Official Secrets Act by inciting an officer from Operation Weeting – the Met’s investigation into phone hacking – to reveal information. The Yard source said: “There will be some hard reflection. This was a decision made in good faith, but with no appreciation for the wider consequences. Obviously the last thing we want to do is to get into a big fight with the media. We do not want to interfere with journalists. In hindsight the view is that certain things that should have been done, were not done, and that is regrettable.” The Guardian’s editor-in-chief, Alan Rusbridger, said: “We greatly welcome the Met’s decision to withdraw this ill-judged order. Threatening reporters with the Official Secrets Act was a sinister new device to get round the protection of journalists’ confidential sources. We would have fought this assault on public interest journalism all the way. We’re happy that good sense has prevailed.” Many lawyers had expressed astonishment at the police resorting to the Official Secret Act. Their surprise was reinforced on Monday when the director of public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC, revealed that the Crown Prosecution Service had not been contacted by officers before the application was made. Neil O’May, the Guardian’s solicitor, said: “This was always a misconceived application for source material. Journalists’ sources are protected in law. For the Metropolitan police to turn on the very newspaper which exposed the failings of the previous police inquiries and reported on hacking by the News of the World was always doomed to failure. The Metropolitan police need to control the officers who are involved in these sensitive areas.” In a statement , the CPS said: “[On] Monday the Metropolitan police asked the CPS for advice in relation to seeking a production order against Guardian Newspapers. “The CPS has asked that more information be provided to its lawyers and has said that more time will be needed fully to consider the matter. As a result the scheduled court hearing will not go ahead on Friday. The [Metropolitan Police] will consider what application, if any, it will make in due course, once it has received advice from the CPS.” The Met said in a statement: “The Metropolitan police’s directorate of professional standards consulted the Crown Prosecution Service about the alleged leaking of information by a police officer from Operation Weeting. “The CPS has today asked that more information be provided to its lawyers and for appropriate time to consider the matter. In addition the MPS has taken further legal advice this afternoon and as a result has decided not to pursue, at this time, the application for production orders scheduled for hearing on Friday 23 September. We have agreed with the CPS that we will work jointly with them in considering the next steps. “This decision does not mean that the investigation has been concluded. This investigation, led by the DPS – not Operation Weeting, has always been about establishing whether a police officer has leaked information, and gathering any evidence that proves or disproves that. Despite recent media reports there was no intention to target journalists or disregard journalists’ obligations to protect their sources. “It is not acceptable for police officers to leak information about any investigation, let alone one as sensitive and high profile as Operation Weeting. “Notwithstanding the decision made this afternoon it should be noted that the application for production orders was made under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE), NOT the Official Secrets Act (OSA). “The Official Secrets Act was only mentioned in the application in relation to possible offences in connection with the officer from Operation Weeting, who was arrested on August 18 2011 on suspicion of misconduct in a public office relating to unauthorised disclosure of information. He remains on bail and is suspended. “Separately, the MPS remains committed to the phone hacking investigation under Operation Weeting.”The picture painted by insiders in the Met is that a relatively junior officer took the decision to take on the Guardian without consulting his superiors, setting off a calamitous chain of events that saw the Met condemned for an attempted assault on press freedom. Police sources said the senior investigating officer who was inquiring into whether a member of the Weeting team had leaked information, had on his own, taken the decision to seek the production order. The senior source said that not even Deputy Assistant Commissioner Mark Simmons had been told about the decision in advance. Simmons is the head of professionalism issues at Scotland Yard and is seen as a rising star within the force. The senior source said: “There was not a lot of happy people at our place over the weekend because it was a decision made by the SIO. There was no referral upwards, and you would have thought on something as sensitive as this there would have been.” Simmons and the incoming commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe, did discuss the issue, as the criticism grew, but the source said the commissioner had left it to Simmons to take the decision, and that there was no instruction or directive. The Met stressed that Hogan-Howe, despite being in charge of professional standards as deputy commissioner, was not involved in the original decision to seek a production order. Simmons took the decision to review the application by the SIO. Geoffrey Robertson QC said: “This is a victory for common sense and freedom of speech. Had the police continued with this ill-considered action journalists might have been forced to disobey a court order so as to protect their source. “Putting journalists into that dilemma and possibly in jail would only bring discredit on police and the law. It should now be accepted that journalists are entitled to protect their sources of information otherwise that information will dry up and there will be less public interest information such as the hacking of Milly Dowler’s phone.” The Met’s move had been condemned by all Britain’s major newspapers, including the Times and Sunday Times, and the Daily Mail’s columnist Richard Littlejohn. The Yard pursued its action against the Guardian without consulting the CPS, until Monday, or the attorney-general Dominic Grieve. Phone hacking The Guardian Metropolitan police Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers Police Owen Bowcott Vikram Dodd guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …If you live in West Hollywood and PETA has not yet convinced you to go fur-free … you may soon have little choice. The City Council is considering banning the sale of any clothing or attire made of animal hair, wool, or fur. (Of course, you could still pop over…
Continue reading …You thought the birther controversy was over, what with President Obama releasing his long-form Certificate of Live Birth ? Well, think again. Arizona’s fiery Sheriff Joe Arpaio has a secret five-member Cold Case Posse looking into the authenticity of said birth certificate, World Net Daily reports. Sheriff Joe explains that…
Continue reading …Troy Davis will die tomorrow. Georgia’s pardons board today rejected a last-ditch plea for clemency for the death row inmate, despite calls from the likes of Pope Benedict, Amnesty International, and Jimmy Carter for his sentence to be commuted. The panel announced its decision after hearing hours of testimony from…
Continue reading …
Suicide bomber with hidden explosives has killed Hamid Karzai’s chief peace envoy in the heart of Kabul Hopes for a peaceful end to the 10-year war in Afghanistan were in tatters after a suicide bomber with explosives concealed in his turban killed Hamid Karzai’s chief peace envoy. The assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani by men posing as leading Taliban envoys looked certain to tip the country even deeper into crisis. Rabbani was a former president of Afghanistan, respected religious scholar and chairman of the country’s high peace council. The explosion in the heart of Kabul’s diplomatic district kills off a peace process that was already on life support. It also deprives President Karzai of an important ally who had flown into Kabul specifically to meet the men claiming to be Taliban envoys and emboldens his enemies who are implacably opposed to the idea of powersharing with armed insurgents. “This absolutely shows that peace with the Taliban is dead,” said Ahmed Wali Massoud, the brother of a famous anti-Taliban guerrilla leader who was killed by suicide bombers days before the terrorist attacks of September 11. “It doesn’t work, it won’t work,” he added. The high peace council, a body set up last year by Karzai, has been trying to get talks off the ground against an increasingly inauspicious background. Insurgent groups have stepped up their attacks, not least launching spectacular assaults in the Afghan capital and assassinating key Karzai allies. And a set of secret talks mediated by the German government with a senior Taliban official has already collapsed. Last week Rabbani led a conference of provincial governors and officials in the southern city of Kandahar to develop policies for reintegrating insurgents who want to give up the fight. Not surprisingly a meeting with two men claiming to be senior Taliban officials was the first thing on Rabbani’s agenda after flying back to Kabul from a subsequent trip to Dubai. According to an aide to Rabbani they said they represented the Quetta Shura, the Taliban’s governing body, and had an important message to deliver. Not only were the visitors deemed too important to search thoroughly, inspecting a turban is still generally seen as disrespectful, even though there have been three other cases this year of the headgear used to conceal bombs. The aide said that when Rabbani entered the room one of them approached him, hugging him tight and placing his head on his victim’s chest. Shopkeepers nearby heard a muffled bang from inside the building, which was still loud enough to set off the “duck and cover” alarms at the US embassy a short distance away. The former president was killed instantly while four others in the room were injured, including Masoom Stanekzai, a highly-regarded technocrat who runs the day-to-day operations of the peace council and had brought the men to Rabbani’s house. The second man was also seriously injured. His turban was burning when he was found, according to an official from the country’s interior ministry. He was taken to hospital, where strenuous efforts were made to keep him alive in the hope he would help investigators with their enquiries. On hearing the news Karzai scrapped plans to participate at the United Nations general assembly and announced that he would immediately return from New York to Kabul. Rabbani’s killing is also looks set to exacerbate already acute ethnic tensions in the country. A Tajik and former warlord from northern Afghanistan who fought against the Taliban, Rabbani was a controversial choice as a point man on reconciliation issues. But although many observers argued that the Taliban would never take a man with his background seriously, his appointment was also designed to appease northern, non-Pashtun Afghans who were deeply suspicious of any peace deals. Haroun Mir, a political analyst with a background in northern mujahideen groups, said the death would “increase the ethnic and geographic divide” in Afghanistan. “There were voices in the north that were critical of the peace process, but because of Rabbani’s involvement, and because he was so respected, they kept quiet. These more critical voices will not now remain quiet.” Abdullah Abdullah, the country’s leading opposition figure, said the death of Rabbani showed the insurgents were trying to wipe out the political figures who ruled the country before the emergence of the Taliban in the 1990s. “We should recognise and know our enemy from lower ranks up to the top officials of the country because by any means, by any way, they are trying to kill us and eliminate all high ranking officials and jihadi leaders.” Former intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh, a northerner who has warned in the past that the north might be forced to rearm if a Karzai cut a “deal” with the Taliban, once again warned of the risk of “civil unrest”. “The killing of Rabbani who had devoted his life to serving Afghanistan and to peace once again reminds us that reconciliation cannot be possible from a position of weakness but strength only,” he said. “It is time for us to unite for change and for defeat of the Taliban.” Afghanistan Taliban Global terrorism Middle East Jon Boone guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …