New York Rangers hockey player Derek Boogard, 28, was found dead in his Minneapolis apartment last night. Boogard, formerly a Minnesota Wild player, fought on the ice 54 times and amassed 255 penalty minutes, but the enforcer known as the “Boogey Man” will be remembered just as much for his…
Continue reading …Queen’s visit to Ireland could mark the start of a new era, says Gerry Adams
May 14, 2011 No Comment
Sinn Féin leader says Queen’s visit offers ‘unique opportunity’ for mutual respect and equality on both sides Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Féin, has said that the Queen’s visit to Ireland could mark moves towards a new and better relationship between the country and Britain. His remarks come as an unprecedented security operation gets under way in the Republic to protect the Queen from terrorist attacks or street disorder. The public will be kept back from the royal entourage as it passes along Dublin’s quays, north of the river Liffey and the city’s main thoroughfare, O’Connell Street. Adams, the Sinn Féin president, said the three-day royal tour could provide “a unique opportunity” for mutual respect and equality on both sides of the Irish Sea. His comments, in a column for the Irish Examiner , mark a change in his attitude to the historic visit. He said he had nothing against the Queen but he was opposed to the idea of monarchies in principle. He hoped the visit would hasten the day when a new and better relationship could be formed, but that would depend on what the Queen said. Adams maintained that the visit was troubling for many people and found suggestions that the state visit was an indication that Irish people had matured insulting and patronising. In March, the Sinn Féin president had described the visit as premature. His comments came as security forces on both sides of the border began a clampdown on republican dissidents who have vowed to disrupt the visit. In Northern Ireland, police arrested a man and a woman in Co
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Socialist presidential hopeful Dominique Strauss-Kahn sues a newspaper over claims about his lifestyle, as critics say his extravagance rules out his leftwing candidature The rumours of dangerous liaisons and sexual conquests have had little effect on his chances of occupying the highest office in the land. But the presidential ambitions of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, chief of the International Monetary Fund and the man French Socialists hope will be the next occupant of the Elysée Palace, may yet be dented by a new revelation: he likes, allegedly, to wear expensive suits. Even before he has officially thrown his hat into the election ring – as he is expected to do within weeks – Strauss-Kahn is fighting off a very French furore over assertions his tastes are too luxurious to lay claim to the left. Now Strauss-Kahn is suing a French newspaper that claimed staples of his lifestyle included luxury homes and sought-after works of art. In its report, France Soir also said he had worn several handmade suits ordered from US President Barack Obama’s tailor in Washington DC, a claim hotly denied. The tailor, a 75-year-old Frenchman from Marseille, sells suits for between £4,300 and £21,000. Last night, calls to Strauss-Kahn’s lawyer went unanswered. While the French are prepared to forgive their leaders’ sexual peccadilloes – including lovers and secret families – they are less forgiving of displays of wealth. Nicolas Sarkozy was nicknamed the “bling-bling president” after flashing his Rolex and holidaying on luxury yachts wearing Aviator sunglasses. Questions over Strauss-Kahn’s wealth were raised two weeks ago after he was pictured climbing into a friend’s £87,000 Porsche Panamera S outside his £3.5m Paris home alongside his heiress wife. The fallout from “Porsche-gate” seems to have proved more damaging to his popularity among voters than Strauss-Kahn’s reputation as a ‘”great seducer”. For months opinion polls have suggested that he is the only potential opposition candidate who might unseat Sarkozy in next year’s election, but after the France Soir reports François Hollande, the former Socialist party leader who is also seeking the party’s nomination as presidential candidate, leapt to within a few points of him. Hollande’s ex-wife Ségolène Royal, who lost to Sarkozy in 2007, is another Socialist contender to be leader, along with two other hopefuls. In its report on Thursday, the newspaper said that since Strauss-Kahn and his wealthy wife, Anne Sinclair, a former television presenter, had arrived in the US capital for his IMF job in 2007 they had lived a life of luxury. The couple was said to have bought a £2.5m home in the upmarket Washington district of Georgetown. Other reports revealed that Strauss-Kahn, who allegedly earns £22,000 net a month, also has an apartment in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, which he shares with his wife and which was bought for £2.2m in 1990, another apartment on the expensive Place des Vosges in the 4th arrondissement bought in 2007 for £3.4m, and a riad in Marrakech. That the Strauss-Kahns are wealthy has never been a secret. Sinclair is the granddaughter of Paul Rosenberg, a celebrated dealer of modern art, and has inherited part of his collection, which is said to include at least one Picasso. In many countries, such wealth would not necessarily be viewed as an impediment to a leftwing politician’s career. In France, however, the flashiness has appalled some observers. “Can one be leftwing and very rich?” asked Jean-Jacques Bourdin, a commentator on French radio station RMC. “If Sarkozy represented for many the ‘bling-bling’ right then Dominique Strauss-Kahn is, whether he likes it or not, a representative of the left ‘vroom vroom’. “He finds himself today in a very worrying situation for a future socialist presidential candidate. Because in the collective subconscious to be leftwing and to have lots of money… doesn’t always go together,” said Bourdin. However, supporters were quick to jump to Strauss-Kahn’s defence. Michèle Sabban, vice-president of the Île-de-France socialists, told journalists: “Dominique is staying true to himself. He admits his relationship with money and that’s good. Besides, have you ever seen a poor president?” Another supporter, local councillor Hussein Mokhtari, added: “So he has to eat sandwiches and drive a 2CV when he is head of the IMF and he is representing France?” Even political enemies such as Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the Left party and a rival presidential candidate, dismissed criticism of his wealth. “Being leftwing is a conviction, a commitment; never would a man of the left say to another ‘profit and shut up …’ I think someone who is rich can also be of the left depending on how his wealth was gained.” France Europe Nicolas Sarkozy Kim Willsher guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Glenn Beck’s recent pukefest —in which he mocked Meghan McCain’s nude appearance in a PSA for skin cancer by pretending to vomit at the very thought—earned him a tongue-lashing from Cindy McCain , Meghan herself , and now Bill O’Reilly. In an interview with Beck, O’Reilly started with a “warm-up topic,…
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Libyan dictator plans a gradual transition from autocratic rule, say officials, as ICC arrest warrant is prepared From his hiding place in Tripoli, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is desperately trying to pave a way for an exit from public life. Sources say the veteran autocrat’s grand plan is to retire to a godfather-like role in the nation he has ruled for more than 40 years and then allow institutions to grow that will eventually replace his hold on power. This, he hopes, will convince Nato to stop its two-month campaign of almost nightly air strikes, which have decimated Libya’s military and defences and reinforced a rebellion that is steadily eroding the country’s power base. Interviews with four regime members have confirmed that Gaddafi knows his time is up. “But he isn’t going to run away to Venezuela,” one official said. “He wants to move to the background and lead a dignified life. He himself has said he wants to be like the Japanese emperor, or Castro.” “He knows and we know that Libya doesn’t have a future through imposing his cult of personality on the people and the world,” said a second official. “There is no question that the country needs reforms, many reforms.” Over the past fortnight, as rebels who sacked the east of the country have also started to tip the balance in the loyalist stronghold of Misrata, Gaddafi has tried to usher in the first changing of the guard since he seized power in 1969. He has empowered tribal leaders to talk on national issues and given Libya’s low-profile prime minister an international stage. At his only public appearance, Gaddafi anointed them as arbitrators – a role officials say will increase through a gradual negotiated transition from autocratic rule. Nato jets again struck the Gaddafi compound in the heart of Tripoli overnight on Friday, hours after the dictator had appeared to taunt European leaders whom he is convinced are trying to assassinate him. “I am in a place where you cannot reach me,” he said in an audio recording. Gaddafi’s advisers say that he has reportedly become so wary of his apparent pursuers that he no longer trusts video cameras, fearing that they transmit a signal that could lead to his location. On the audio recording he condemned as “cowardly crusader aggression” a Nato strike on a guest house in the eastern city of Brega that killed 11 Muslim imams and wounded four more. Nine of the imams were buried amid angry scenes in Tripoli. Nato claims that the site it targeted in a pre-dawn raid on Friday was a “known command and control centre”. The Libyan government said it was a guest house where the imams were resting before leading a peace mission deep into rebel-held territory. They provided GPS co-ordinates in an attempt to prove that there were no military facilities near the site. However, Sky News spoke to former engineer Frek Landmeter, from the Netherlands, who said he built a bunker beneath the site in 1988. He provided GPS co-ordinates, which matched those given by the government and said the bunker was unusually large and at the time was considered a top-secret installation for the Libyan regime. Landmeter told Sky that the guest house bombed was not above the bunker entrance. He said it was next to it, but still covered the underground site. Meanwhile, an international arrest warrant for Gaddafi will be ready as early as tomorrow. The International Criminal Court has said it will also seek warrants for at least one of Gaddafi’s sons and his intelligence chief. Muammar Gaddafi Libya Middle East Africa Nato Martin Chulov guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Libyan rebels just can’t quite get what they want from the White House. A meeting between a delegation of rebels and US national security advisers yesterday ended with a statement from the US calling the Libyan Transitional National Council a “legitimate and credible interlocutor of the Libyan people”—but the…
Continue reading …American astronomers are searching for signs of alien life on 86 possible Earth-like planets deemed the likeliest to harbor life. The massive Green Bank radio telescope in rural West Virginia will home in on each of the 86—chosen from 1,235 possible planets located by NASA’s Kepler telescope—and…
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Kitchen cabinet aide says charging improves service and NHS should be shown ‘no mercy’ in drive for reform A senior adviser to David Cameron says the NHS could be improved by charging patients and will be transformed into a “state insurance provider, not a state deliverer” of care. Mark Britnell, who was appointed to a “kitchen cabinet” advising the prime minister on reforming the NHS, told a conference of executives from the private sector that future reforms would show “no mercy” to the NHS and offer a “big opportunity” to the for-profit sector. The revelations come on the eve of an important speech by the prime minister on the future of the NHS, during which he is expected to try to allay widespread fears that the reforms proposed in health secretary Andrew Lansley’s health and social care bill would lead to privatisation. It has been suggested that Cameron may even announce an extension to the “pause” in the progress of the bill until after the party conference season, amid growing tensions on the issue within the coalition government. Nick Clegg, has insisted that the Liberal Democrats will not support any reforms that allow the “profit motive to drive a coach and horses through the NHS”. Backbench Tory MPs, however, have called for the government to stick to the reforms and open the provision of services to the private sector. Britnell’s comments will inevitably raise the temperature of the debate. Britnell, a former director of commissioning for the NHS, who is now head of health at the accountancy giant KPMG, was invited to join a group of senior health policy experts, described by the respected Health Studies Journal as a “kitchen cabinet”, in Downing Street earlier this month. The group, which includes former NHS executives and the former Department of Health permanent secretary Lord Crisp, was assembled by Cameron’s new special adviser on health, Paul Bate. In unguarded comments at a conference in New York organised by the private equity company Apax, Britnell claimed that the next two years in the UK would provide a “big opportunity” for the for-profit sector, and that the NHS would ultimately end up as a financier of care similar to an insurance company rather than a provider of hospitals and staff. According to a glossy brochure summarising the conference held last October, Britnell told his audience: “GPs will have to aggregate purchasing power and there will be a big opportunity for those companies that can facilitate this process … In future, the NHS will be a state insurance provider, not a state deliverer.” He added: “The NHS will be shown no mercy and the best time to take advantage of this will be in the next couple of years.” Writing in the Health Studies Journal , Britnell also suggested that the NHS would be better served by breaking with the mantra that all services should be free at the point of delivery by allowing co-payment, where patients share the costs of care and drugs. “It appears that countries that have a mixed blend of public and private provision, co-payment and social insurance are possibly more capable of providing resilient healthcare
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Jennifer Mills-Westley the British woman killed in a supermarket in Tenerife had complained of harassment The British woman beheaded in a supermarket on the Spanish island of Tenerife was named as it emerged that she had complained of being harassed moments before she was attacked. Jennifer Mills-Westley, 60, from Norwich, was killed on Friday in a frenzied and unprovoked knife attack in the town of Arona, part of the Los Cristianos beach resort. Her daughter Sarah said: “Mum retired a number of years ago and was fully enjoying her retirement travelling between Tenerife and France where she spent time visiting her daughter and grandchildren, and her other daughter in Norfolk. She was full of life, generous of heart, would do anything for anyone. We now have to find a way of living without her love and light and we would ask at this difficult time for some privacy as we try to come to terms with our loss.” Spanish police identified the alleged killer as Deyan Valentinov Deyanov, 28, an unemployed Bulgarian. The attack began in a supermarket. Witnesses say the assailant grabbed a knife from inside a shop and stabbed the dead woman at least 14 times. He then decapitated her, carrying the severed head out into the street claiming to be “a prophet from God”. Local media reported that he left the supermarket shouting: “I am God’s avenger and I come to mete out justice.” It was initially believed the murder was a random incident. But a report on a British expat website said that Mills-Westley had reported Deyanov to a guard at the town’s social security office for threatening behaviour. Deyanov ranted at the security guard and was moved on. Several minutes later Mills-Westley left the office and entered the supermarket, which was next door. Minutes later the attack took place and the same security guard, named locally as Juan Antonio Hernandez Delgado, heard the commotion and chased the killer down the street before wrestling him to the ground. Further reports gave an impression of a disturbed individual. Locals said Deyanov had been known for threatening and often violent behaviour, once having punched a local shipowner who refused to tell him the time, smashing his teeth. Jose Alberto Gonzalez Reveron, mayor of Arona, said video footage “showed the man became enraged” inside the store. Christina Perez, a legal representative at a nearby court, said a group of lawyers had seen the man leave the shop. “They saw the man running out of the supermarket with the head in his hands. A security man from the complex ran after him and jumped on to him so he fell, and then he threw the head on to the road.” Mills-Westley’s former employer, Norfolk county council, offered its condolences, praising her work teaching road safety to youngsters. “Our deepest sympathies go to Jenny’s family and friends following this terrible news,” the authority said in a statement. “Jenny was a popular and well respected member of staff, who during her time with Norfolk county council worked as a road safety officer working with many schools and children to teach cycling safety training.” The Foreign Office has confirmed that consular officials are liaising with the authorities in Los Cristianos, which is home to a large British expat community. Spain Barry Neild guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …The name of the elite team that killed Osama bin Laden could soon be appearing on Disney snow globes if the company has its way. Disney submitted an application to trademark the name “Seal Team 6″ within 48 hours of the raid that killed bin Laden, Mediabistro reports. The trademark…
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