What do a Dutch oven, a honeybee, and an eight-round M1911 pistol have in common? All three appear on the 25-item list of Utah state symbols. The M1911 semi-automatic pistol became a state identifier this week after Gov. Gary Herbert signed the measure into law, making Utah the first state…
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Yann Arthus-Bertrand isn’t just an aerial photographer: he’s on a mission to save mankind by teaching us to love our beautiful planet. To many, he is France’s answer to Al Gore, but why do some think he’s an “enormous idiot”? In 2005, while filming the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, Yann Arthus-Bertrand fell to earth in a helicopter accident. On the way down, he says, he had no fear of dying, but he was filled with thoughts of “home”. When he discovered he’d survived, this feeling crystallised into two separate imperatives. He had an urgent need to phone his wife: “I’m alive!” he announced breathlessly. “Why are you phoning me at three in the morning to tell me that?” she wondered, unamused. And he had a longing for a glass of wine. “Wine is France, it is alive, it is love! I
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Ramzan Kadyrov hopes former international players and Ruud Gullit as coach can help improve his country’s image Russian football – and international sport – is about to be confronted with one of its most unlikely success stories. FC Terek Grozny, the newly energised team based in the troubled Caucasus republic of Chechnya, is hoping a slew of high-profile international acquisitions will help it make waves in the Russian premier league, which kicked off last weekend. The ambitions of Ramzan Kadyrov, the republic’s leader, however, do not stop there. He is optimistic that the club’s footballing glory will help the world forget about his country’s bloody past. Chief among the names crucial to Terek’s success is Ruud Gullit, the Dutch football legend who signed on for an 18-month contract as coach earlier this year. “The team has started to play more offensively,” said club spokesman Kazbek Khadzhiyev. “Gullit likes discipline on the pitch, and for every player to know what he has to do.” Last week, in spite of a putting up a decent fight, Terek lost its season opener against league champions Zenit St Petersburg 1-0. But Gullit’s role is seen as key. “I’d like to believe that I can bring joy into the lives of the Chechen people through football,” the former Dutch national team captain told Soviet Sport . “Of course, I won’t deny that I’m getting lots of money from Terek.” The money is new. Last year, Kadyrov enlisted the help – and plentiful funds – of Bulat Chagayev, a wealthy Chechen based in Switzerland, who is now club vice-president. Yet Kadyrov would rather not talk about the money. For him, football is a natural outgrowth of the “stability” he has brought to Chechnya, a republic ravaged by two separatist wars since the fall of the Soviet Union. Grozny is rebuilt. But there is an eerie calm – and ubiquitous posters praising Kadyrov and his father, Akhmad Kadyrov, the former leader killed at a stadium bombing in May 2004. Kadyrov rules the republic with an iron fist, regularly leading so-called “anti-terrorist operations” against the families of men suspected of having joined the continuing Islamist opposition that violently opposes his rule. He is also known for his expensive tastes, with a fleet of luxury cars, a private zoo and a collection of gold-plated guns among his many possessions. Now that he has turned his attention to football, he is going all out. “He hasn’t missed one match,” his spokesman, Alvi Kerimov, said. “And he trains every day – even if he works until midnight, he’ll go and play football anyway.” Kadyrov is not content with spectating. The world got to witness his skills on 9 March, when he captained a team of Chechen ragtag players in a friendly against a team featuring stars from Brazil’s 2002 World Cup winning line-up, including Romário, Cafu and Dunga. Now Terek is focused on acquisitions, club spokesman Kazbek Khadzhiyev said, with Gullit expected to start acting on a wish-list this summer. In this, the club is already learning the hard way that it cannot always get its own way. Recent talks with Diego Forlan of Atletico Madrid fell apart, Khadzhiyev said, because the Uruguayan player’s price was too high. Terek looks likely to have competition for players from the Premier League Club of Dagestan, the volatile republic that lies to the east of Chechnya. FC Anzhi Makhachkala was bought in January by Suleiman Kerimov, a Dagestani estimated to be worth $7.8bn by Forbes, making him the 19th richest man in Russia and 118th richest in the world. He has already brought in two major names – former Real Madrid defender Roberto Carlos (whose two-and-a-half year contract is a reported €10m) and one-time Chelsea midfielder Mbark Boussoufa (for reportedly the same sum). Carlos made his debut with Anzhi earlier this month – in Grozny, where the game was held because the Dagestani capital was deemed too dangerous. Terek’s men are undeterred by security fears. Maurício, a 22-year-old Brazilian midfielder, said: “We have no problems in Grozny.” Yet, he admits, players don’t live or train in the Chechen capital, and are based instead in the once fashionable spa town of Kislovodsk, 150 miles west. “When we’re in Grozny, we don’t go around town,” he said in heavily accented Russian. On 9 May, Kadyrov will open a new stadium which is named after his father – officially it is known as the A. A. Kadyrov Republican Football Club Terek Grozny. Invitations to the opening of the 30,000-seat stadium are said to have gone out to Fifa head Sepp Blatter and Uefa chief Michel Platini – Kadyrov wants to hold a match when Russia hosts the World Cup in 2018 – although the Foreign Office and the US State Department advise against travel to Chechnya or the other Caucasus republics. “I do not understand those people who say that Kadyrov is trying to show, through football, that Chechnya is stable,” said Kerimov. “We play football in Chechnya because it is stable.” Not so the manager’s job, however. Gullit’s predecessor, Victor Munoz, lasted less than a month before he quit. Chechnya Miriam Elder guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Sad news from Germany: Knut, the world’s most famous polar bear, is dead. The 4-year-old bear was found in his enclosure this morning, though the cause of death isn’t known. Knut became an international sensation after being abandoned by his mother at the Berlin Zoo, then raised by human keepers….
Continue reading …President Obama’s speech yesterday justifying military action against Libya was “disturbingly empty,” writes Andrew Sullivan at his Daily Dish blog in the Atlantic . Notice he didn’t try to explain why we’re moving against Tripoli but not allies Bahrain or Yemen? That’s “because, one suspects, there is no rational reconciliation to…
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US politician refuses to rule out standing in 2012 presidential race during trip aimed at boosting foreign policy credentials Sarah Palin, the controversial conservative US politician, fuelled speculation that she is preparing for a presidential bid in 2012 by refusing to rule out her candidacy in a high-profile appearance in Delhi. In a question and answer session following a speech entitled “My Vision for America”, Palin, the former governor of Alaska and Republican vice-presidential candidate in 2008, said she had yet to make up her mind about running. “I don’t think there needs to be a rush to get out there as a declared candidate. It’s a life-changing decision,” Palin told Aroon Purie, editor in chief of India Today magazine, citing her concern about potential effects on her family. Palin, who described herself as “a busy mom”, has only ever made a handful of trips abroad and has limited public appearances to Fox television and statements to social networking sites. During the 2008 campaign, she revealed a deep ignorance of international affairs, famously saying that Russia could be seen from Alaska. An on-air slip that confused North and South Korea last year didn’t help matters. Political analysts in the US and India have said that Palin is seeking to bolster shaky foreign policy credentials before a new campaign. From India, the mother of five will fly to Israel. Palin had been invited to India to deliver the keynote speech at a conference organised by a domestic media group. Her usual fee for a similar appearance is reported to be up to $100,000. She travelled with her husband Todd. In her speech, she described how India was following America’s “rags to riches story” thanks to a pioneering spirit, free markets and the universal dream of individual liberty. She criticised President Barack Obama’s “dithering” over recent violence in Libya and the Middle East. In a speech carefully worked to appeal to a local audience as well as public opinion at home, Palin told her audience that the US and India shared many things, including religious tolerance, democratic traditions, a common struggle for freedom from the British empire, a commitment to “see terrorism defeated” and a concern over the rise of China. “It is the largest democracies, not the world’s largest autocracy, [who] will lead the next century,” Palin said. “I want peace on earth. That peacefulness and that prosperity comes with more freedoms.” Palin’s trip follows only three months after the brief but highly successful tour of India by Obama, who won over audiences with repeated references to how India was “no longer an emerging power but had emerged”. Palin, too, praised India’s dynamism, stressing the similarities between people in Alaska and India’s Andhra Pradesh state. Before Palin’s speech, Professor Mahesh Rangarajan of Delhi University said the US politician had “nothing to offer India”. “It’s more about what India has to offer her. She is a very effective communicator who will no doubt try to reach out to India as an emerging power. But we’ve had a series of presidents here who have already done that,” Rangarajan told the Observer . President George Bush visited in 2007 and overcame the legacy of decades of mutual suspicion to conclude a landmark civil nuclear deal. However, Palin’s repeated attacks on the “central planning” of economies, the “top-down way of making decisions” and her insistence on the importance of empowering individuals and entrepreneurs will strike a chord in an India still suffering from an inefficient and often corrupt bureaucracy. “She was very good. She’s very American but a lot of what she says makes sense here too,” said one major industrialist at the conference. Palin joined speakers ranging from feminist thinker and writer Germaine Greer to Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan at the conference. On Monday, Palin is scheduled to meet the rightwing Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu. She has consistently supported many of the Israeli government’s more controversial policies. Sarah Palin US elections 2012 Republicans Tea Party movement India United States US politics US foreign policy Jason Burke guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …A UCLA student fears for her safety and has decided to leave school after posting the now infamous “Asians in the Library” video, the Los Angeles Times reports. ( Click to see the video, which quickly went viral.) Alexandra Wallace’s inflammatory remarks about Asian students—at one point she…
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Ministers are said to be withholding survey results that undermine health secretary’s case for urgent radical reforms Ministers have been accused of “burying good news” about the NHS because it will undermine their case for sweeping reforms, after it emerged that they are withholding unpublished polling data that shows record levels of satisfaction with healthcare. The Observer has learned that the polling organisation Ipsos MORI submitted the results last autumn to the Department of Health for inclusion in a government survey of public perceptions of the NHS. The data, commissioned by the department, shows that more members of the public than ever believe the NHS is doing a good job – a finding contrary to health secretary Andrew Lansley’s insistence that it is falling short and needs urgent change. The department has had the findings for six months, but has yet to make them public – the most recent information on its website relates to 2007. The decision to “sit on” the positive information has fuelled a row over the way in which the government is rooting out negative statistics about the NHS to justify reforms. Under the plans – rejected by the Liberal Democrats at their spring conference last weekend and opposed by a small band of Tory MPs, as well as by the Labour party – GPs will be handed control of £80bn of the NHS budget, tiers of management will be swept away and the private sector will play a greater role. The department was unable to say yesterday when it would publish the new data, but sources confirmed that the information shows public satisfaction at a record level. In January, John Appleby, chief economist at the King’s Fund thinktank, questioned the way in which ministers were unfavourably comparing the NHS with France. Appleby’s article for the British Medical Journal attracted support from several academics and doctors. Professor Raj Bhopal, of the University of Edinburgh, said: “Justifying NHS reforms by picking a few statistics that cast doubts on the UK’s renowned healthcare system is worrying, but choosing statistics that are widely questioned reminds me of previous government briefings that led to dodgy dossiers.” Labour’s health spokesman, John Healey, said that it was clear the department did not want to put out good news because it would embarrass ministers trying to stem criticism of the Lansley plans. Shirley Williams, the Lib Dem peer, said she was angry that the department had “cherry-picked” information – much of it from 2006 – before the extra billions poured into the health service by Labour had begun to take effect. In its 2007 public perception survey, also compiled from Ipsos MORI data, the department reported satisfaction levels at 63%. Then, last December, the British Social Attitudes survey found satisfaction at a record high of 64%. NHS Andrew Lansley Healthcare industry Doctors Health Toby Helm guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …French military jets have begun patrols over the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, the first tangible sign of the promised no-fly zone, reports the BBC . French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced the move after an international summit in Paris. Earlier, Moammar Gadhafi reversed himself and said he wouldn’t abide by the UN…
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• US announces Operation Odyssey Dawn is under way • More than 100 Tomahawk missiles fired on Libyan targets • British and French forces in action over Libya • Read our latest news story on the military action 9.30pm: Libya’s state television is reporting that Muammar Gaddafi will shortly make an address to the people of Libya “on the Crusader’s aggression”. State television is even running the message on screen in English, to make sure the message gets across. 9.15pm: Good evening and welcome to our continuing live coverage as coaliton forces launch military action against Libya. You can read our earlier live blog here . This is a summary of the events so far. • Western planes are leading air strikes against Muammar Gaddafi’s military as world leaders ordered the biggest intervention in the Arab world since allied forces invaded Iraq in 2003 . The Pentagon announced that the action, codenamed Operation Odyessey Dawn, was under way. • British and US forces have fired more than 110 Tomahawk missiles at targets in Libya. The Pentagon said the aim of the operation was to take out the Libyan air defence systems in order that piloted aircraft could enforce the UN-mandated no-fly zone. • Al-Jazeera is reporting that Libya’s rebel military council has been co-ordinating with international forces to identify the locations of Gadaffi’s forces. Earlier in the day, the rebels lost their only aircraft when it was shot down over Benghazi, possibly by their own side. • In Tripoli, Libyans loyal to Gaddafi scorned the UN resolution and blamed al-Qaida for the rebellion in their country. Ian Black, our Middle East editor, who is in the Libyan capital, says in this report that “patriotic songs boomed out from giant loudspeakers mounted in the centre of Tripoli’s Green Square.” Read the Guardian’s previous live blog of today’s events here. Arab and Middle East protests Middle East United States Barack Obama Muammar Gaddafi David Cameron Military Richard Adams guardian.co.uk
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