It can be annoying when the passenger in front of you moves his seat all the way back—but smacking him in the head isn’t the answer. That’s what happened when a fight broke out between the two passengers on a United Airlines flight to Ghana, convincing the pilot to…
Continue reading …Centuries from now historians will speculate about the ruins of a once-great city that line up perfectly for a semi-annual celestial occurrence. But for now, New Yorkers merely stand, agog for once, awestruck by “Manhattan-henge.” It’s the twice-annual happening when skyscrapers are lined up just right to reveal the setting…
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• Refresh this page for all the latest action • Ping your emails to barry.glendenning@guardian.co.uk • Check the French Open website • Follow Barry on Twitter First set: *Murray 4-5 Chela: After playing the losing shot of that last game, Murray looked down at his injured ankle, then looked at his “people” in the crowd, mutttered something and shrugged his shoulders. He doesn’t look to happy. He gives Chela tow set points, the first of which he wastes by sending a backhand from deep narrowly wide with half the court gaping. Murray saves the second, sprinting forward and sliding to hit an unlikely winner after Chela had tried to bamboozle him with a sweet drop shot. Murray then wins advantage before squandering it with another poor shot into the net. He wins the next two points to save a service game he looked certain to lose a couple of minutes ago. “Murray injured?” writes Gary Naylor. “Hmm … some players have excuses when they lose and some have reasons. Murray is probably one who has reasons, more often than not. The record book doesn’t differentiate between excuses and reasons though does it?” No, that would be the dictionary, I suppose. First set: Murray 3-5 Chela*: Chela goes 40-0, the second winner coming when a Murray return pitches up short, allowing the Argentinian to send the ball fizzing past the Scot into the corner. The pair exchange winners, making the score 40-15, then trade baseline shots. Chela drops one in the net to make it 40-30, but wins the next long, long baseline battle when Murray sends a loose shot into the net. He’s playing a lot of bad shots from the right-hand side of the court, which is obviously where Chela is trying to keep him penned. First set: *Murray 3-4 Chela: Murray returns to his seat under the umbrella having finally held his serve without first at the third time of asking. “When I was watching him play the other day, Murray appeared to be drinking ouzo (or possibly pastis, given he’s in France),” writes Louise Wright. “I reckon if you’re playing tennis on a dodgy ankle ouzo’ll numb the pain at least as effectively as pills. Is he still on that stuff or has he gone with orangey drink for this one?” First set: Murray 2-4 Chela* The ball travels back and forth across the net a few times and Murray shows guts and concentration to secure his first break and get back in the set. It’s the first game in the match in which he’s played well. First set: *Murray 1-4 Chela: Murray goes 15-40 down on his own serve, before pulling back two points to make it all square on deuce. He gives advantage to Chela with a wayward forehand down his right-hand side, and the Argentinian wins the game with a sublime passing shot with Murray standing helpless at the net. First set: Murray 1-3 Chela*: Chela is playing some solid tennis here. He goes 30-0 up, allows Murray to pull a point back to make it 30-15, but dodges a bullet when Murray hits another sloppy shot, slicing the ball wide and showing his first signs of frustration by administering a dose of corporal punishment to his own racket. Chela wins the next point to go 3-1 up. First set: *Murray 1-2 Chela The length of some of the rallies in these early games would suggest I might be here for a very long time. Despite his injured left ankle, Murray’s movement doesn’t seem particularly impaired and he’s moving about quite freely. On 30-30 in his second service game, he double-faults to give Chela his first break point, which he then saves, before sending a backhand from very deep to concede another break-point. Chela takes advantage of another sloppy Murray drop-shot to send the ball skimming down the line to give his opponent no chance. First set: Murray 1-1 Chela*: Chela holds his serve comfortably to level proceedings in a game I didn’t really see because I was trying to drum up a bit of support for this rolling report on Twitter. The Argentinian won to 15, charging to the net on the final point to smash a woeful attempted drop-shot by Murray. First set: *Murray 1-0 Chela: The BBC cut to the match which is already in progress. Andy Murray won the toss and elected to serve and is 40-30 up. He hits a forehand into the net to allow Chela even things up at deuce, but then wins the next two points to hold his first service game. Not long now: And already we have an email pointing out my shortcomings as a tennis commentator: “”Oopsie,” writes Lindsay Waero. “Andy didn’t play a gruelling five-setter yesterday. He played one set.” Gah! It’s been a while since I’ve written one of these – be gentle. Preamble: With an injured ankle that’s forced him on to a diet of pain-killing and anti-inflammatory pills so large we’re likely to hear him rattling as he walks on to court, No4 seed Andy Murray takes on unseeded Argentinian Juan Ignacio Cela in the quarter-final of the French Open this afternoon. Murray sustained his injury in his fourth round victory over Michael Berrer from Germany and has since hobbled his way to a heroic cvictory against Serbia’s Viktor Troicki, in which he came from two sets down to secure his quarter-final berth. His opponent today is an experienced journeyman has made the last eight in French Open for just the second time and has never progressed further than the last eight in one of the sport’s majors. His win-loss ratio this year is a fairly ordinary 17-12, but this is his best showing in a grand slam event since 2004, when he made the last eight of the US Open. Murray and Chela have met seven times previously, with the Scot having prevailed six times. But Chela is bound to fancy his chances of this afternoon, considering his opponent played a gruelling five-setter yesterday on an dodgy ankle. Interestingly, the bookies have priced up Chela at 5-1 to win this match, which may well be worth a speculative punt. French Open Tennis Andy Murray Barry Glendenning guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …A Dodgers fan who dropped his daughter when he saw a foul ball coming his way ended up catching nothing but an earful from stadium security. The little girl was unharmed—but she gave her dad an elbow in the ribs as he tried to pick her up again afterward….
Continue reading …Sarah Palin and Donald Trump gorged on pepperoni pizza and mutual admiration last evening in a Manhattan stop on a Palin bus tour looking more and more like a presidential campaign. “She didn’t ask me” to run with her, “but I’ll tell you, she’s a terrific woman,” Trump gushed as…
Continue reading …Lady Gaga’s new album Born This Way has zoomed to mega-hit status with sales of 1.11 million copies in its first week, making it the hottest-selling debut for an album since 50 Cent’s The Massacre in 1995, according to Billboard . Only 17 albums in the last 20 years have…
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First minister and justice secretary, Kenny MacAskill accused court of ‘intervening aggressively’ in Scottish legal system Alex Salmond has provoked a furious row with senior legal figures after he launched a series of attacks on the authority of the UK supreme court and the competence of its two Scottish judges. The first minister and his justice secretary, Kenny MacAskill, have accused the supreme court of “intervening aggressively” in Scotland’s independent legal system after it ruled that the Scottish legal system had twice breached the European convention on human rights in significant criminal cases. The Scottish cabinet decided on Monday to set up an expert legal group to urgently consider how Salmond’s government can block the supreme court from its oversight of criminal cases. As the same time it emerged that MacAskill wants to stop paying Scotland’s £500,000 annual share of the court’s running costs. Earlier this week, MacAskill said most supreme court judges’ only knowledge of Scotland was through attending the Edinburgh festival. Salmond intensified the row by criticising Scotland’s senior judge on the supreme court, Lord Hope, who is a former lord justice general, an appeal judge in the House of Lords and widely regarded as one of the Scotland’s finest lawyers. Speaking on Newsnight Scotland on Tuesday, he questioned why Hope had the individual authority, sitting as one of Scotland’s two judges on the supreme court, to overrule decisions made by, in one case, seven Scottish appeal court judges. “I don’t think it’s sensible, fair or reasonable in any jurisdiction where we’ve a situation where one judge is overruling the opinion of many judges in another court,” he said. “It boils down to the potential replacement of Scottish law by Lord Hope’s law. I don’t think that’s a satisfactory situation.” Senior legal figures are dismayed by the personalisation of the dispute, largely because Salmond will be aware that one of the two Scottish judges on the supreme court, Lord Rodger, is critically ill and unable to defend himself. One senior legal figure said he “deplored” the personal attacks. Rodger, a former lord advocate and former lord justice general, was too unwell to deliver the latest supreme court decision relevant to Scotland and has been temporarily replaced by another judge, Lord Clarke. There are doubts over whether Rodger will be well enough to return to the supreme court. The row has split the Scottish judiciary and legal profession; many senior judges, supported by the former Lord Advocate Elish Angiolini, have openly challenged the supreme court’s authority to overrule them. As a result, the UK government is planning to tighten up its rules and make its role in judging human rights law clearer. Some lawyers also believe that Salmond is attacking the court because he fears it could overrule controversial Holyrood legislation, including the independence referendum bill, in the future. The Law Society of Scotland has asked for a full audit of all Scottish legislation to ensure it abides by human rights law. The expert review set up by the Scottish government is due to urgently produce proposals for debate by the Scottish parliament this month. Salmond told Newsnight it could recommend that the supreme court only take criminal cases if given leave by a Scottish court or set up a Scottish human rights court. Salmond said: “The big difference between the Strasbourg court and what the supreme court is doing, is Strasbourg can’t strike down convictions. The Strasbourg court doesn’t open cell doors and allow people to walk free. “And it certainly doesn’t do it without a proper examination of the degree of protections, and checks and balances within the Scottish judicial system.” Lord Colin Boyd QC, a former Lord Advocate under the last Labour coalition government in Edinburgh and a legal adviser to the current UK government, said the supreme court had a clear and necessary role to protect fundamental legal rights. He said the Scottish government was pursuing a nationalist agenda. “I’m proud of the Scottish system as a Scottish lawyer, but legal systems have to grow and develop and serve the people; they’re not there as totems for nationalists. We have to abide by the highest international standards and if that means that notions of civil and human rights come from elsewhere, my view is that it enriches Scottish law, rather than diminishes it,” he said. “It would be better as a country, and that is the legislature, the government and the courts, if we ensured that we actually have a modern legal system that is fit for purpose.” Mike Dailly, a leading defence lawyer from Govan Law Centre in Glasgow, said it appeared that Salmond was “just trying to pick a fight.” He added: “I think it’s deplorable that Scottish justice ministers have chosen to threaten the supreme court with the withdrawal of funding. What must international observers be thinking when they see a Scottish justice minister threatening a court of law? Salmond shamed Scotland with his unprecedented personal attack on Lord Hope last night, and undermined the rule of law.” The controversy centres around the supreme court’s power, given to it when it was set up in 2009, to rule solely on whether a Scottish criminal court had breach the European convention on human rights or had failed to uphold a defendant’s human rights. It has no power to rule on the crimes or laws passed by the Scottish parliament, unless they breach the convention, and has only ruled on two Scottish criminal cases: the Nat Fraser murder conviction and Scotland’s failure to give defendants in police custody fair access to a lawyer. From 1999, this power was previously held by the privy council under the Scotland Act 1998, but very rarely used. The supreme court has only twice ruled on Scottish criminal issues, but the Scottish government claims that power directly challenges the historic independence and autonomy of Scots law.[The supreme court’s supporters argue that these powers already exist at the European court of human rights in Strasbourg, but that court has no Scottish judges and is far slower than the supreme court. They add that both Hope and Rodger also rule on English legal cases. Salmond argues that no other European country has two “foreign” appeal courts overseeing its legal system. The row exploded after the supreme court ruled last week that the Scottish courts had breached Fraser’s human rights and denied him a fair trial, because significant evidence had been withheld at his trial. In a judgment written and given by Lord Hope, the Scottish courts were told to either quash the conviction or stage a fresh trial. In a previous case, the so-called Cadder judgment, the supreme court found that Scotland had breached the human rights of tens of thousands of suspects by allowing police to question them for up to six hours without a defence lawyer. Although that ruling had been widely predicted by senior lawyers, the Scottish government was forced to enact emergency legislation to change the law and prevent compensation payments worth hundreds of millions of pounds. Nearly 3,500 convictions were affected. http://www.supremecourt.gov.uk/about/index.html http://www.supremecourt.gov.uk/about/biographies.html Scotland Alex Salmond UK supreme court Human rights Severin Carrell guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Poking fun at American fears about Venezuela’s ties with Iran and irked by new sanctions, Hugo Chavez claimed to have missiles pointed at the US. “Here they are,” he said, holding up a picture of windmills along the country’s coast. “They are pointing directly at Washington.” Chavez had previously quipped…
Continue reading …Air-rage fight over reclining seat forces United Airlines flight to return home
June 1, 2011 No Comment
F-16 fighter jets escort Ghana-bound US aircraft back to Dulles airport after fight between two passengers It is a minor annoyance familiar to air passengers: you take your seat in the cramped cabin, only to have your knees bashed when the person in front reclines his or her chair. At worst, it usually leads to little more than an exchange of words, but the passengers on a flight from Washington DC discovered just how things can escalate, when a fist fight broke out between two men, forcing the plane to return to Dulles airport, escorted by F-16 fighter jets. As the 144 passengers on the United Airlines jet bound for Ghana from Washington on Sunday settled in for the overnight flight tempers boiled over when one man reclined his seat into the lap of the other. According to witnesses a fight broke out not long after the 10:44pm takeoff, forcing a flight attendant and another passenger to jump in between the men. The pilot took the decision to return to Dulles, because of fears about terrorism, it is believed. The plane was escorted by a pair of F-16 fighter jets, and was forced to circle Dulles for 25 minutes to burn off fuel and decrease its weight – jets can take off with a full tank, but not land. Audio transmissions, which can be heard on the Washington Post website, reveal the two US air force fighters took off from Andrews airbase at 11.03pm, just as the airliner re-entered Washington DC airspace. On the recordings, the pilot of Flight 990 is heard telling the control tower that an assault had taken place. Asked about the passenger who had hit the person in front, the pilot replied: “The passenger is not secured at this time; the passenger has settled down, though, but an assault has taken place, but at this time he is not secured.” Police met the flight at the gate but charges were not pressed, said the Washington airports authority. The unruly passengers are likely to have cost the airline a significant amount of money, and delayed the flight until Tuesday. It is not known if the two men were aboard that flight, or more pertinently, where they were sat. Air transport United States Ghana Alexandra Topping guardian.co.uk
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Christiana Figueres tells carbon trading conference that the current limit of a 2C temperature rise is ‘not enough’ The world should be aiming to limit global warming to just 1.5C instead of the weaker current target of 2C, the United Nations’ climate chief said on Wednesday. Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, told an audience of carbon traders: “Two degrees is not enough – we should be thinking of 1.5C. If we are not headed to 1.5 we are in big, big trouble.” She said she had the support of the group of about 40 small island states – many of which are in danger of disappearing as sea levels rise – as well as most African countries and other least developed countries. Figueres said estimates from the International Energy Agency, revealed by the Guardian , that showed a record rise in carbon emissions from energy last year strengthened the case for urgent action on greenhouse gases. However, her remarks are likely to cause consternation among developed country governments. The question of whether the world should aim for a 2C limit, which scientists say marks the point beyond which the effects of climate change become catastrophic and irreversible, or a more stringent 1.5C limit, which would provide greater safety, is a sore point in the long-running UN negotiations. At the 2009 summit in Copenhagen , the reopening of the debate over the 2C limit was one of the worst sources of conflict, setting developed countries against a large section of the developing world. That conflict was widely regarded as one of the key factors in derailing the summit, which ended in a partial agreement amid scenes of chaos and recriminations . At last year’s follow-up conference in Cancún, Mexico, countries compromised by opting for a 2C target while asking for a review of the science to show whether the target should be tougher. Figueres was speaking on Wednesday in Barcelona, at a Guardian-chaired conference at Carbon Expo , the annual conference of the International Emissions Trading Association. Another indication of how difficult it will be to reach Figueres’ target came from the World Bank, which unveiled research showing that the market in carbon credits under the 1997 Kyoto protocol collapsed last year. Only $1.5bn of Kyoto-based credits were issued, which the bank said was nowhere near enough to help developing countries cut emissions and deal with the effects of climate change. The carbon markets are supposed to be one of the key ways of reaching the world’s target of halving emissions by 2050. Climate change Global climate talks Emissions trading Fiona Harvey guardian.co.uk
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