|  |  |  | | | | | The Guardian World News | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Justin Verlander strikes out 11 Oakland Athletics batters as the Detroit Tigers win game one of the American League Division Series.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Perhaps it was a lonely childhood that fostered the director's extraordinary visual imagination. Famed for films like Edward Scissorhands and Beetlejuice, the acclaimed director is also renowned for a ghoulish aesthetic. And his new film, about a boy who brings his dead dog back to life, is no exception Tim Burton's gothic office in Belsize Park in north London belonged a century ago to Arthur Rackham, the celebrated illustrator of Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland and The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm. In the upstairs studio room of the house, one restless and teeming imagination has been seamlessly replaced by another. "Rackham apparently used to have all his fairy models hung from these spars," Burton tells me, nodding toward the exposed beams above his head. In the mullioned light of large leaded windows, which look out on a rambling walled garden that seems to come from another age altogether, you could half believe some wisp of them hangs there still. "People definitely believe they hear strange things here at night," Burton suggests, "but it's a good vibe." The director bought this suitably spirited work space not long after he moved to London a decade ago. It is half a mile up the road from the pair of adjoining mews houses he shares with his partner, Helena Bonham Carter and their two young children. It would be hard to have magicked up a better stage for his own lucrative daydreams; the gory mannequins and wide-eyed prostheses and scattered sketches and artwork and storyboards that inhabit corners of his room, remnants and cast-offs from Corpse Bride and Edward Scissorhands and The Nightmare Before Christmas and Sleepy Hollow all seem perfectly at home here. And so, sitting in the middle of it all, wild-haired in the autumn sunlight, does their creator. Burton is, famously, not the most garrulous of men. His generous visual gifts come at the expense of much in the way of verbal pyrotechnics. Which is to say you don't have to chat to him for very long to understand why Bonham Carter likes to call him "a home for abandoned sentences". (He tends to return the compliment by sometimes making affectionately snide remarks about her talkativeness; in this, and most other ways, they seem to make a perfect pair). Burton is not so much vague in conversation as fleeting. Immediately a phrase half conveys its sense, he is already articulating its caveats or some further association. He's a dot-to-dot talker, happy for you to do the grunt work of making connections. When Johnny Depp, the third point of that celebrated creative triangle, first met Burton, to discuss Edward Scissorhands, his initial thought about the director was "get some sleep". Burton seemed to the actor "a pale, frail-looking, sad-eyed man with hair that expressed much more than last night's pillow struggle". Thoughts were as likely articulated with frenzied movements of the hands, "the way he waves them around in the air uncontrollably, nervously tapping on the table", or with sudden stares "eyes wide and glaring out of nowhere, curious, eyes that have seen it all". They got on, Depp recalls, because they could stumble through and intuitively fill in the holes of each other's stilted syntax. It's probably always a bit that way, you imagine, but particularly when Burton is asked to explain the genesis of some of his ideas or, worse, relate them to events of his past or present. He does his best, in good faith, but makes it clear he'd much sooner let his films tell his story. At least his latest, Frankenweenie, makes a good place to start. In some senses Frankenweenie is the film Burton has been making all his life. A beautiful and big-hearted stop-motion animation in black and white, about a boy in a bland and sinister American suburb who brings his beloved pet dog back to life, it was the first film Burton ever properly imagined. He did a short version of it 28 years ago, when he was working as an animator at the Disney studios soon after he left college in California. It was not released back then because Disney considered it too macabre a tale; soon afterwards Burton was let go by the studio. That he has returned to Disney to make it now – after grossing for the empire more than a billion dollars with his last film, Alice, the 12th highest-earning film of all time – no doubt feels a little like a score finally settled. Burton laughs when I suggest as much, but he doesn't deny he's enjoyed getting his own way in the end. "Frankenweenie means a lot to me," he says of the film that will open the London film festival this week. "The thing about it was, first time around in the early 1980s, it came at a strange moment in Disney's history. They didn't know what they were doing really at the time. There was a whole group of really talented people not being allowed to do very much. It was a bit Shakespearean as these older guys from Snow White days were clinging on to power. I wasn't a very good animator, at least not in their tradition, so I had the opportunity to be left on my own for a year or two in a room and just draw." At first, that felt like Burton's dream come true. He had grown up, unhappily, as a near neighbour to the Disney studio in the Los Angeles suburb of Burbank. Watching movies, particularly horror movies, and working out how he might make them, had been his entire adolescent life. "It was amazing to be 21 and paid to be drawing all day, but then after a couple of years I got the feeling I wouldn't go anywhere. Eventually they gave me a little bit of money to do that stop-motion film Vincent [based on his own infatution with the films of Vincent Price] and after that I did something with Frankenweenie…" There were plans to show the latter film back then on a double bill with Pinocchio, but the test screenings seemed to convince the corporation's market researchers that children would be traumatised. It was suggested that Burton think a bit more about happy endings, which of course sounded like fighting talk. "After a couple of years I felt like Rapunzel trapped in the tower and nothing I did ever saw the light of day," he says. "But some people at Warner Bros saw the short Vincent and that was how I got to do Pee-wee's Big Adventure." That film made more than $40m, after which Burton never looked back (or had to worry about saccharine endings again). The jump to directing live action from animation also, he says, had the happy consequence of forcing him to speak to other people. "I think up to that point people thought I was a deaf mute or something. It would be fair to say I wasn't a big speaker, back then…" He trails off. I'm interested in where the story itself, Frankenweenie, came from. All of Burton's work, with its ghoulish archetypes, feels loosely autobiographical at least in a psychological sense, but this story, a moving and ultimately triumphant piece about a lonely childhood, haunted by death, feels particularly intimate and personal. What made him want to return to it? "For me it's always been a memory type of piece," he says. "Everything in it is based on somebody I knew or a composite of some people, and all the places and emotions and kid politics are very real to me. It was a way to apply every memory and every feeling you had and put it in one place." One of the curious things about going back to the story, he says, is that while it was always rooted in ideas of his own childhood, "as you get older you perhaps see a wider picture of those things". He's added the context of feral classmates, who steal the Frankenstein experiment with nightmarish consequences, and an inspirational science teacher, Mr Ryzkruski, again based on his late friend and mentor Vincent Price. Burton's accounts of his own growing up have generally been fairly circumspect, though he has never left much doubt that his career has been in part an imaginative retort to the emotional privations of those years. (The detail that tends to surface is the strange fairy-tale fact that his parents bricked up the windows of his bedroom, leaving only a small chink of light for him to see out of, and leading him to identify with those Edgar Allan Poe heroes who were buried alive). His father had been a professional baseball player before Burton was born, and was a travel agent afterwards. He seems to have been a role model his son had no wish to live up to. Burton claims also not to have got on with his mother to the extent that, by the age of 12, he had moved out to live with his grandmother, and by 16 he was in an apartment of his own, later working to put himself through college at CalArts. Having been forced to grow up fast, he subsequently seemed to want to protect his childlike imagination against all comers. In the past he has said, somewhat oddly: "I've had therapy but I've never discussed my parents." Is this film, in which the boy Victor refuses his father's exhortations to play ball and hides in the attic with his born-again dog, another form of catharsis? "Loosely," he says. "But the parents in the film are more a wish fulfilment really. It's a more positive situation in a way. My parents suffered from that ideal of a perfect nuclear family. They found that a difficult pressure, I think..." His dog was always more reliable? "Well, I had a dog, but it didn't look like the dog in the film. The way I drew Sparky, it was like a heart. A kind of lump of heart. And that was the emotion of it. A dog can be your first love, and I was that way. Unconditional. You don't get it often with people. You don't get it with all animals. But my dog had that soulful quality and it got distemper, which meant it was not going to live for long – though in the end it survived for longer. And I guess at the time I was watching Frankenstein, so all that love and life and death stuff was kind of stewing from the beginning." Death never seems to have been far from Burton's adult thoughts – his defining characters tend to relish their dance with mortality – but was that his first experience of that feeling? "Certainly with the dog there was a powerful spectre of death looming, I guess," he says. "But then I got it from the movies. Pretty much every film I loved had a bit of that, Dracula and so on. The thing about parents I don't understand is how they forget about how important those issues are for children. In those old Disney movies there is death and horror all the time. Children need that, I believe. It's how they understand the world." It was back then, in his bricked-up bedroom, that Burton started to take the idea of animation literally. Like Victor in Frankenweenie, he wanted to bring things to life. He lived near a cemetery and would go there and wonder about the scary guy who dug graves. Looking back, he suggests it is a little alarming how solitary he felt. Despite all of his success, the sense of being an outsider has stayed with him – along with its antidote. "I started to do stop-motion when I was a kid. You take a Super 8 and make some models, and move, click, move, click. All that. I love all forms of animation, but there is something unique and special to stop-motion: it's more real and the set is lit like a set. But I think it's also a kind of lonely and dark thing to want to do." The film seems in thrall to that lost innocence in a way: is that something he is always trying to recapture? "People say I am stuck in childhood," he says, "but it's not that. I remember seeing a Matisse retrospective, and you could see he started out one way, and then he tried something different, and then he seemed to spend his whole life trying to get back to the first thing. The surprise. It's something like the fact that you only get to see the strangeness of life once, in a truly fresh way. I think the films are sometimes a kind of symbol for that. I often wonder about it, but I don't analyse it too much..." Burton's moment of transcendence came one day when he was an art student, and he decided not to try to draw how he had been taught to draw, in life classes, how other people did it, but just to do what came naturally to him. "I remember it very clearly. It was a kind of drug experience. It was as if it unlocked a chemical inside me and after that I started drawing in this slightly mind-blowing, freeing way for me." His films still all start in his sketch pad; it's fascinating to see how his initial line drawings of the Penguin in the Batman films, or Augustus Gloop in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, or the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland, survive to define the look of the multi-million-dollar finished products. He generally carries a pencil and paper with him, though he has to be a little more covert in his activities these days, for fear of being caught in the act of creation by paparazzi or fans with iPhones. "I used to be able to just go to the mall and draw whoever I wanted, but that's not so easy now. I will sit in a dark corner of a bar more likely and get a sketch book out, you know. Sometimes when I am around I see someone, a character, and I will go back and draw if that seems a good thing to do. But the kind of act itself is important. It is a good way of calming down. I am not a big technology person. I don't go on the internet really much at all. Drawing is like a zen thing; it's private, which in this day and age is harder to come by." He and Bonham Carter seem to make a determined effort not to suffer too gated a life. I live a mile or two away from them and have a few times seen one or other of them out shopping or in a cafe or walking on nearby Primrose Hill with their son and daughter, suitably shock-haired and windswept. Burton came to parenthood pretty late in life, at 45, but he seems to relish "the surprising little creatures", Billy, aged nine, and Nell, five. "We took our daughter to school for the first time today, which went well," he says, with the relief of someone who has experienced the opposite. "When I first took my boy, all the other kids walked in and we had to prise his hands off us, like bend each one of his fingers back, and then off the gate, and he was screaming like we were murdering him. You have a bit more respect for parents when you become one... and we are lucky to have a lot of help and all that." He and Bonham Carter famously have the capacity to retreat to their own space within the relationship, retaining their separate parts of the linked houses, which are currently being renovated. They like to joke about the circumstance. "He always visits, which is really touching. He's always coming over," says Helena of Tim. "Having two houses means we can get out of each other's hair, which, let's face it, we've both got a lot of," says Tim of Helena. Burton sometimes does a lot of his thinking at night, he suggests, so it's good to wander. He has to find space for his extended family, as it were. Elsewhere he has noted: "I treat my films like mutated children… they may have flaws, they may have weird problems, but I still love them." That love was perhaps tested most severely on Alice, which employed every digital animation technology available to create its surreal look. Burton winces just slightly when I ask him about it. "I had never done anything like Alice before," he says. "It was like working back to front. I don't think I will do anything in that way again. Usually there are at least a couple of people in the frame when you are working to give you something to go on. But, with Alice, everything had to be done completely separately." The world of computer graphics is scarily boundless, he suggests, for a director. "You can sort of do anything, though there are some elements of limitation. I didn't use any one specific technique. It was sort of amazing that anything came out at all." The corporeal nature of Frankenweenie has been a necessary relief. "It's great that you can pick up the puppets and touch them," he says with feeling. "It's like an old movie, doing your water reflections with mirrors, doing one frame at a time. I liked the idea of going back to that, it does re-energise the spirit." There have been periods in his career when Burton looked like being sucked into the big-budget machinery of Hollywood like Veruca Salt into Willy Wonka's inventions. That he has resisted and lived to tell the tale says something about that spirit, which you guess can be both wildly combative and mischievous. As he gets older, he says, he tends to feel less rather than more responsible. "It's even more important I guess to kind of do things you care about," he says. And then he shakes my hand and goes off to have his photograph taken next to the fake tombstones in his garden. Frankenweenie is released nationwide on 17 October. It opens the 56th BFI London film festival at a gala screening on Wednesday
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Rolling report: Oakland Athletics visit Detroit Tigers for ALDS Game 1
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Number of cases now 64 in outbreak traced to products sent out by unaccredited pharmaceutical compounding company An outbreak of meningitis linked to contaminated steroid shots prepared by a Massachusetts pharmacy has now resulted in seven deaths, officials said Saturday as they confirmed that the illness had spread to more states. The total number of cases of the rare form of fungal meningitis is now 64, with Minnesota and Ohio added to the list of states affected. Since the outbreak was traced to products sent out by an unaccredited pharmaceutical compounding company with a history of health violations, medical clinics across the eastern USA have been making contact with patients given the injection. In the past 24 hours, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has added two people to the number of fatalities. The total number of cases has jumped by 17 from Friday's figure of 47. The updated figures comes amid growing concern over why clinics from as far away as Florida and Tennessee chose to buy in bulk from a pharmacy that had not applied for accreditation form a professional body and had a checkered health and safety record. The outbreak has been traced to the New England Compounding Center, which from premises in Framingham, Massachusetts sent out as many as 17,000 doses of contaminated steroid injections. Investigators from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) who were sent to the company found a fungal contaminate in a sealed vial of the steroid methylprednisolone acetate. They also found a "foreign material" in another, opened container. Tests are being conducted to determine if the contaminants match the one that has led to recent cases of meningitis. The Guardian has made repeated calls to the homes of the owner of New England Compounding Center and its president. All have gone unanswered. The company's website had been taken down. A history of failings at the company has emerged, with complaints having reportedly been made against it as long ago as 2002 and as recently as this year. A 2006 warning letter from the FDA to company owner Barry Cadden cited a string of health and safety violations, including the misbranding of drugs and the copying of FDA-approved, commercially available products. Investigators expressed special concern over the company's practice of splitting up an injectable drug, Avastin, into multiple doses to be sold on. Such a practice could lead to "potential microbial contamination", the letter stated. The FDA also noted that Avastin is approved only for use in treatment of colorectal cancers. New England Compounding Center was marketing the drug to ophthalmologists, despite it having "no approved indications for use in the eye". "Your firm is distributing an unapproved new drug," Mr Cadden was warned. Compounding pharmacists have long been on the radar of federal regulators. In a 2007 document, the FDA said it was scrutinising the industry "mainly because of instances where compounded drugs have endangered public health". Pharmacists have long mixed or altered ingredients to tailor to the needs of individual patients. "In its traditional form, pharmacy compounding is a vital service that helps many people, including those who are allergic to inactive ingredients in FDA-approved medicines, and others who need medications that are not available commercially," Kathleen Anderson, the then-deputy director of the FDA's division of new drugs and labelling compliance, stated in the 2007 public-health information document. However, the compounds produced are not FDA-approved and poor practice can lead to contamination. In March 2006, three patients died due to contaminated solutions used to paralyse the heart during open-heart surgery. In 2005, at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Washington DC, two people were blinded by bacteria in a batch of drugs used during cataract operations. Last year, nine patients at hospitals in Alabama died after receiving intravenous nutritional supplements that were infected with a lethal bacteria. The supplements had been prepared by a pharmacy compounder in Birmingham. Defenders of the practice have suggested that rogue operators are to blame and that regulators and the clinics affected could also be at fault. David Miller, executive vice president and CEO of the International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists, said the New England Compounding Center was not accredited, and had been guilty of past health violations. He also said that the quantity of doses prepared by the company seemed to put it at odds with the industry at large "There were more than 17,000 doses put together by the pharmacy," he said. "How is it possible they had 17,000 individual doses – it looks like there were working with the drug manufacturers. If that was how it was being done, that is in contrast to traditional compounding." Miller added: "It doesn't make sense, we do not know why there are buying from this pharmacist – was it price? What due-diligence did the clinics do to make sure it was licensed and accredited – which it was not." Only one of the clinics affected in the outbreak returned Guardian phone calls made to enquire why they bought drugs from compounders, rather than from bigger pharmaceutical companies. A representative of Greenspring Surgery Centre in Maryland – which is contacting patients it knows to have been given steroids from the Massacusetts firm – said it bought from compounders "because sometimes there are formulations of medications that are unavailable commercially. This is a commercial product. But whether you buy it from a large or a small company, they all have the same standards that have to be met." Asked if there was a cost consideration the spokesman, who declined to be identified, said: "Sometimes there is, sometimes there isn't. In this case there wasn't, it was actually an availability issue and an issue of having the right medication, the right dosage. "There has a scarcity of multiple medications over the last couple of years and that has created a need to reach out to multiple suppliers." The comment seems to contradict the view of International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists, which represents more than 2,700 compounding pharmacists across the US. Miller told the Guardian: "In all the states affected there are compounders who could have provided the drug."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Member of House science committee says evolution, Big Bang theory and embryology are 'lies straight from the pit of hell' A Republican congressman who sits on the science committee of the House of Representatives has dismissed evolution, the Big Bang theory and embryology as "lies straight from the pit of hell". Paul Broun, who is running for re-election as Georgia representative this November unopposed by Democrats, made the comments during a speech at a baptist church last month. A videoclip of the event was posted on YouTube on Friday. In the clip, Broun, who is a doctor, says that "as a scientist" he has found data that shows the earth is no older than 9,000 years and was created in six days. Mainstream scientific thought holds that the earth is 4.5 billion years old, give or take the odd millennia. Broun also says that theories regarding the origins of the universe and evolution represent "lies to try and keep me and all the folk that were taught that from understanding that they need a saviour". In a statement to the Athens Banner-Herald, Meredith Griffanti, a spokeswoman for the Republican congressman, said: "Dr Broun was speaking off the record to a large church group about his personal beliefs regarding religious issues." But the comments may prove an embarrassment to some of his colleagues on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. The congressional body was already subjected to scrutiny over remarks made by another member, the Missouri House representative Todd Akin. Akin sparked outrage and ridicule this summer, after suggesting that it was "really rare" for rape to result in pregnancy. "If it is legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try and shut that whole thing down," the Missouri politician said, while trying to mount a defence of his no-exception anti-abortion stance. That comment saw the Republican receive a severe dressing down from party bigwigs, including the presidential candidate Mitt Romney, and calls for him to step aside in his forthcoming Senate race. Akin declined to do so.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Radical Islamist cleric speaks only once in court appearance in which he is granted the return of his artificial limbs Radical Islamist cleric Abu Hamza and four other terrorism suspects appeared in front of US judges on Saturday, having arrived on American soil in the middle of the night following extradition from Britain. Hamza, Khaled al-Fawwaz and Adel Abdul Bary all appeared in New York, in a downtown-Manhattan courtroom; Babar Ahmad and Syed Talha Ahsan were put in front of a judge in New Haven, Connecticut. Hamza, who has gained notoriety as a firebrand preacher with hooks for hands, had his prosthetic limbs confiscated by the Bureau of Prisons. He appeared in front of Judge Frank Maas with his bare stumps on display as he was read his rights. He then listened to a long list of terror charges filed against him, ranging from kidnapping in Yemen to supplying the Taliban. Hamza's lawyer, Sabrina Shroff, asked the court to return her client's medical devices as soon as possible as he could not bathe without them. "Otherwise he will not be able to function in a civilised manner," she told the judge, who then granted that they be returned. Hamza wore simple blue prison garb and was unshackled during the court appearance. He seemed calm when in court and anxious only when discussing his medical needs with his lawyer. He spoke to the judge only once, saying "I do" when asked if he could affirm the details of a financial affidavit he had filled out. Earlier, al-Fawwaz and Abdul Bary, dressed in similar prison clothes and seeming calm but serious, both pleaded not guilty to a similarly lengthy list of terror charges. In Connecticut, Ahmad and Ahsan likewise pleaded their innocence. The men were deported on Friday night, aboard two planes which left a military airbase in Suffolk, UK, after the high court rejected their final appeals earlier in the day. They touched down in the US around 2.30am on Saturday. Abu Hamza faces 11 charges in the US, relating to hostage taking, conspiracy to establish a militant training camp and calling for holy war in Afghanistan. His lawyers argued he was not fit to be deported on health grounds but UK judges rejected his appeal, paving the way for his immediate removal from the UK. The British prime minister, David Cameron, has expressed his delight that Hamza had finally been deported from Britain. "Like the rest of the public I'm sick to the back teeth of people who come here, threaten our country, who stay at vast expense to the taxpayer and we can't get rid of them," he said. "I'm delighted on this occasion we've managed to send this person off to a country where he will face justice." Cameron said the government must consider ways of stopping similar cases occurring. The high court also threw out challenges by Babar Ahmad, Syed Ahsan, Khaled al-Fawwaz and Adel Abdul Bary after ruling they did not show "new and compelling" reasons to stay in the UK. Speaking after the US-bound flights had taken off the British home secretary, Theresa May, said: "I am pleased the decision of the court today meant that these men, who used every available opportunity to frustrate and delay the extradition process over many years, could finally be removed. "This government has co-operated fully with the courts and pressed at every stage to ensure this happened. We have worked tirelessly, alongside the US authorities, the police and the prison service, to put plans in place so that tonight these men could be handed over within hours of the court's decision. It is right that these men, who are all accused of very serious offences, will finally face justice." After three days of legal argument, Sir John Thomas, president of the Queen's Bench division, and Mr Justice Ouseley lifted injunctions that had been preventing the men's removal. The decision is the culmination of an eight-year legal battle that has strained the government's constitutional relationship with the European court of human rights in Strasbourg and frustrated politicians as well as the lord chief justice. The cases have involved appeals through the hierarchy of British and European courts, then back to the royal courts of justice in London. Delivering judgement, Thomas said: "All of these claimants have long ago exhausted the [legal] procedures in the UK. There's an overwhelming public interest in the proper functioning of the extradition arrangements in the US. It's important to recognise the finality of these proceedings." Thomas said extradition proceedings should take months not years and that the process had been "disfigured" by protracted delays. He said there was "no appeal from our decision and the home secretary will be free" to extradite them. Four of the five suspects had claimed that harsh prison conditions in the high-security unit of ADX Florence jail in Colorado, where they may be imprisoned, would breach their human rights. It was said Abu Hamza would not have to spend too long at the facility, because of his many medical conditions. The 54-year-old Hamza, who was jailed for seven years for soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred, has been fighting extradition since 2004. His lawyers opposed deportation on the grounds that he was suffering memory loss and depression and was unfit to plead. They sought permission for the former imam at Finsbury Park mosque in north London to be given an MRI scan to assess his medical condition. Ahmad, 37, a computer expert, and Ahsan, 33, are accused of raising funds for terrorism through a website. Lawyers for the two men challenged the director of public prosecutions' decision not to charge them with offences allegedly committed in the UK. Fawwaz, who is alleged to have been an aide to Osama bin Laden in the 1990s, was seeking disclosure of an 800-page British secret service document relating to the debriefing of another suspect which, his lawyers maintain, would undermine the charges against him. Bary, 52, is also said to have worked closely with Bin Laden. His barrister argued that conditions in US high-security jails would breach his rights under the European convention on human rights – a claim already dismissed by the Strasbourg court. Bary and Fawwaz are wanted in relation to the bombings of US embassies in east Africa in 1998. Hamza will next appear in a New York courtroom on Tuesday for a pretrial hearing.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Santi Cazorla was the star turn as Arsenal came from behind to win easily at Upton Park Welcome to a repeat of the 1980 FA Cup final. But Trevor Brooking's headed winner at Wembley only carries so much currency for the modern Hammer. And West Ham United's recent record against The Arsenal isn't much to shout about. They've not beaten their big-city neighbours since 2007. Since then, Arsenal have won six league games and an FA Cup tie, and drawn the other two fixtures. Still, that 2006/07 season was something to remember for the Hammers, featuring their first league double over Arsenal since 1964/65: two 1-0 victories and one touchline brouhaha between a gloating Alan Pardew and a thoroughly piqued Arsene Wenger. Whoever wins today, it'd be lovely to see another childish shoving match between two grown adults by the dugouts, especially as Wenger and Sam Allardyce have a history of mutual seething resentment which stretches back to the modern West Ham boss's days at Bolton Wanderers. Or, to say that again using the pious and wholly disingenuous language expected of football journalists by football fans, let's hope we don't see another childish shoving match between two grown adults by the dugouts! With no love lost between clubs, fans and managers, this promises to be a cracker. Both teams have started the season solidly, West Ham especially, Allardyce's newly promoted side settling back into the Premier League with ease. This is their first match against one of the big guns, though, but at least they've timed it well, Arsenal coming off the back of a home defeat to Chelsea. So this could be nip and tuck. Gervinho is three goals from three shots, while Per Mertesacker is expected to return to shore up Arsenal's defence. But West Ham have only lost once in their last 16 league games, and they could throw Andy Carroll into the mix, a player who's caused the Gunners more than enough heartache in the past. It is on! Kick off: 5.30pm. West Ham United, who welcome back the big man: Jaaskelainen, Demel, Collins, Reid, McCartney, Noble, Diame, Vaz Te, Nolan, Jarvis, Carroll.
Subs: Henderson, Tomkins, Cole, Maiga, Taylor, Benayoun, O'Neil. Arsenal, who recall Per Mertesacker, Aaron Ramsey and Olivier Giroud: Mannone, Jenkinson, Mertesacker, Vermaelen, Gibbs, Ramsey, Cazorla, Arteta, Gervinho, Giroud, Podolski.
Subs: Martinez, Koscielny, Andre Santos, Walcott, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Coquelin, Arshavin. Referee: Phil Dowd (Staffordshire) The teams are out! They trot onto the Boleyn Ground pitch, an event soundtracked by that version of I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles with the jaunty bassline that's somewhere between Relax by Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Rock DJ by Robbie Williams. I know. West Ham are dressed in their trademark claret and blue, Arsenal in their familiar yellow away shirts. As the managers enter the scene themselves, they shake hands warmly. There goes hopes of that touchline brouhaha! A pre-match round of applause for the recently departed John Bond, who won the FA Cup as a player with West Ham United in 1964. Here's the great man in his pomp, taking over at Manchester City...
Save it for later, though, yes? You'll not concentrate on the football if you click on it now.
And we're off! Arsenal are on the front foot almost immediately. Podolski has a whack within 30 seconds, and then a minute or so later Giroud is fizzing a low, hard shot towards the bottom-right corner. Jaaskelainen is forced to get down and turn the ball around the post for a corner kick. The set piece is cleared upfield by Carroll. The Big Man's back. 3 min: West Ham are struggling to get the ball at present. Arsenal have turned up and they're swaggering about like a cut-price Barcelona. It's a very confident start. And it's already silenced the home crowd. Not totally, but the blistering volume at kick off has decreased somewhat. 6 min: Arsenal are pinging it around in the sweetest fashion. Podolski skips down the left and fires a low cross into the centre. Cazorla hammers a shot straight at goal. Jaaskelainen, wrong footed by the speed of Arsenal's football, appears to be diving out of the way, but Collins slides in to deflect the ball out brilliantly. The corner's a waste of time. "Just so you know, I don't think you're pious or disingenuous," writes Simon McMahon. "Even if I knew what they are. I'm reminded of an interview I once saw with the young Muhammad Ali being asked before a fight, 'You're being rather truculent, aren't you?' to which he replied immediately with a glint in his eye, 'If that's good, I'm that.'" 8 min: Big Sam's Soccer would be a crude and reductive way to describe this: a long hoof down the middle, with Carroll getting eyebrows on the ball, which flies through to Mannone. Not exactly an aesthete's dream, but it's the first time West Ham have shown up in Arsenal's half, so it's a start. 10 min: This is far prettier, though: Vaz Te looks to release Nolan down the inside-right channel with a cute back heel. It doesn't quite come off. It's almost as though Big Sam's teams aren't quite as one-dimensional as suggested by lazy journalis... ah hold on, Arsenal have had 73% possession so far. 12 min: A saucy sashay down the left by Ramsey, who tricks his way to the byline with a couple of adroit spins. He dinks a delicious ball into the middle, but there's nobody in yellow there. Lazy Arsenal team-mates, how could you! 15 min: West Ham simply can't get the ball, although at least Arsenal aren't doing much with it at present. "Is it my imagination or has Big Sam let the grass at Upton Park grow, John Beck style, to slow Arsenal's passing game?" wonders our very own Sean Ingle, who has obviously recently purchased a high-definition television set. I can't tell. But could he be so cynical? It's not doing West Ham much good, if he has. Maybe he needs to ramp it up with some other old-school Beck tactics. Maybe he should throw a cold bucket of water over Andy Carroll at half time. And before he goes out on the town in the evening, come to that. 17 min: Arsenal step it up a bit. Cazorla slides a ball down the inside-right channel for Jenkinson. Collins, not for the first time, slides in to deflect the resulting cutback away for a corner. From which Collins is forced to hack behind again. After a mild scramble, the ball finds the feet of Giroud. The French striker takes one touch and, from the edge of the area, looks for the top left corner. Carroll is on hand to head behind for a third corner. And the big man clears the resulting set piece! Carroll and Colllins have been throwing themselves into the line of fire with great regularity here. But West Ham can't keep on like this. 21 min: GOAL!!! West Ham United 1-0 Arsenal. So they decide to give it to Diame, and see what he can do instead. And what he can do is this: pick up the ball down the left with Jenkinson and Ramsey sandwiching him; slip the ball past Ramsey, leaving the two defenders in his wake with a deft on-a-sixpence turn inside; and curl a powerful shot into the top-right corner from a tightening angle! That is a simply amazing finish, a beautiful piece of skill - and, let's face it, somewhat against the run of play. Wow. 22 min: Diame is booked for celebrating his goal with the crowd. For the love of God, these diktats are wholly preposterous. 24 min: Arsenal don't know what's hit them. They've been on the front foot for the vast majority of this match, and find themselves trailing. This state of affairs has gone down well with the paying public; Upton Park really is bubbling now. 25 min: Arsenal ping it around awhile, and then Ramsey lashes a frustrated shot miles right of goal. Jaaskelainen waves it out of play. On the touchline, Arsene Wenger stands frowning, with both hands on his hips. This pose is semaphore for EFFING EFF. 28 min: Diame wants to watch himself. He's late on Arteta, who's sent spinning up into the air by a late challenge. That's a booking any day, and the goalscorer should be walking. Perhaps the referee Phil Dowd realises the celebration booking was a total nonsense, and that it's karmic payback time. Mertesacker certainly doesn't see it that way, and enters into a full and frank exchange of views with the whistler. As does Arsene Wenger on the touchline, his debating partner the fourth official. Grown men getting involved in this here. 31 min: Corner for West Ham, who have put a stop to Arsenal's gallop, down the right. It's sent into the middle of the Arsenal area. Carroll wins the header, and blasts a powerful effort towards the top right. Mannone claims. 32 min: Noble swings a cross into the area from the left. Carroll goes up for the header, and clatters Mannone to the floor. Free kick. Goalkeepers are over-protected, but that's a fair decision, Mannone - who is big and honest - taking a proper clatter to his jaw. No malice on Carroll's part, though. West Ham's early inferiority complex has totally evaporated. Arsenal aren't showing half the composure they were before the goal. 35 min: Arsenal pin West Ham back for the first time in a few minutes. Gibbs clips a cross in from the left. Mertesacker flicks it on, and Giroud is this close to connecting with his head, coming in at the far post. But not quite, and the ball flies out of play. 36 min: Reid is booked for running into Cazorla. That's a wee bit harsh, issued for nothing more than a coming together. 39 min: The passes aren't quite sticking for Arsenal now. Podolski is gifted possession in the middle of the West Ham half. He slides the ball down the left for Ramsey, who, forcing it somewhat, sprays a Hollywood Ball towards the right wing for Jenkinson. But it's well off target, heading towards Mexico, and a chance to advance on the Hammers area is spurned. 41 min: GOAL!!! West Ham United 1-1 Arsenal. Finally, joy for Olivier Giroud! He starts a move which sees Podolski skitter down the left. The German swings a ball towards the near post, allowing the Frenchman to slide in and guide an unstoppable shot into the bottom left. His drought is over! And on the balance of this half's play, that's the least Arsenal deserve. 43 min: The passes are sticking again for Arsenal. Funny thing, confidence, eh. 44 min: Jaaskelainen uses up a year and a day to take a goal kick. A strong suggestion that West Ham have decided to steady their ship and get in level at half time. 45 min: Corner for Arsenal down the left, Podolski and Cazorla having busied themselves. The ball's swung into the area, and headed out. Ramsey sends in a piledriver, but his effort is easily blocked and cleared. West Ham try to relieve the pressure with a sortie upfield. Noble looks to skip past Gervinho down the left, but is upended. Booking for the Arsenal player. There's just enough time for Noble to swing a free kick into the area from the left. From which ... 45 min +2: ... Carroll wins a header at the far post, sending the ball across the face of goal to the unmarked Nolan. Who somehow screws an awful effort well wide right. That could easily have been a second West Ham goal. HALF TIME: West Ham United 1-1 Arsenal. The teams go in for their half-time buckets of ice-cold water. If Sam Allardyce really is doing the John Beck tribute-act thing Sean Ingle was suggesting earlier on. HALF-TIME ENTERTAINMENT inspired by the management techniques of Sam Allardyce John Beck:
Yet another example of Tiswas knocking Swap Shop into a hat which is cocked.
And we're off again! Yes we are, yes we are. No changes. West Ham get proceedings under way once more. 47 min: An early corner for West Ham, the ball clanking off Jenkinson's head from a throw. Noble hoicks the set piece into the six-yard box. Mannone slaps the ball away, and is upended for his trouble. Free kick. 49 min: Giroud tries to release Ramsey into the area with a reverse ball from a position down the right with his back to goal, but overcooks what would have been a very elaborate dink. "John Beck left Kettering Town last week," reports Richard Woods. "Today KTFC could only field 10 players, none of whom apparently have been paid. They lost 7-0 at home to Bashley and it looks like it might be the end for a great club. Sad times." Indeed. Wouldn't it be nice if the Premier League chucked them a few quid, seeing Kettering were at the forefront of shirt sponsorship, one of the fancy money-making ideas the big clubs benefit from today? 52 min: Good work from Jarvis down the left earns West Ham a corner. It's wasted, and Arsenal flood upfield through Cazorla and Podolski. The ball ends up at the feet of Gibbs, who with team-mates waiting in the middle, clanks a hopeless cross into the stand from the left. 55 min: Diame showcases his dancing feet all along the edge of the Arsenal D. He flicks a ball to Nolan into the area down the inside-left channel, but the midfielder's offside. In a subsequent melee, several players not hearing the whistle, Carroll manages to miss a gaping goal from six yards. It matters not, but still. 57 min: Gibbs is replaced by Andre Santos. Meanwhile anyone interested in John Beck's cold showers can bone up, as his players were perhaps unable to, from around the 2m30s mark here. Thanks again to a nostalgic Sean Ingle, who is perhaps pining for his early twenties tonight. 60 min: Vaz Te chases after a loose ball down the right. He clatters into Mannone, accidentally kicking the keeper in the head. Mannone, who gathers the ball, will be OK. But the West Ham striker looks in some pain, landing awkwardly. It looks as though he might have broken a wrist, writes Dr Murray the inept quack. Poor lad's jiggered his arm one way or the other, anyway, and he holds it gingerly as he is escorted off in very real pain. 63 min: A couple of changes. The departed Vaz Te is replaced by Taylor. Meanwhile Arsenal swap Gervinho for Walcott. 64 min: That wasn't the longest of injury stoppages, but long enough to take a bit of the sting out of this game. "Kettering Town ought to go and ask for a few bob from Uncle Peter Coates at Stoke," suggests Alec McAulay. "We will always be in their debt for the wonderful, wonderful John Ritchie." 65 min: A scramble in the West Ham area, instigated by a scuffed Podolski shot from the edge of the D. The ball hits Cazorla, then is backheeled towards the bottom-left corner by Walcott, a very clever idea. It's slightly off target, but Giroud chases the loose ball up. Jaaskelainen is covering the angle well, though, and Giroud can't convert a difficult chance. 67 min: Hoof! Carroll's under it, on the edge of the Arsenal box. He should score, having beaten the advancing Mannone to it, but can't get his header on target, looping it over the keeper and wide right of goal. He holds his head in his hands. Not a gilt-edged invitation to score, but a miss nonetheless. 68 min: Cazorla dances and diddles down the inside-right channel. Upon reaching the edge of the area, and with the West Ham defence in tatters, he shanks an awful effort wide right. "Does Sean Ingle have an Exchange bet on references in a 2012 MBM to John Beck and will he and Mrs Ingle be sunning themselves in a Harry-style Vegas Bungalow next weekend?" wonders Jason Frew, who is probably not too far from the truth. Say it ain't so, Seanie! 69 min: Nolan is sprung clear down the inside-right channel. He's offside, but not flagged, and free into the area! But he pauses, checks, faffs about, and fannies it. He doesn't even get a shot away. He had two team-mates in the centre, too! What a textbook example of ungrateful equine dentistry! Meanwhile here's news on Vaz Te: a dislocated right shoulder. 72 min: Ramsey goes down the left, then checks to enter the area. He's clipped on the back of the ankle by Taylor, and goes over. Arsenal scream for a penalty - but it's not given! If it makes Arsene Wenger, tapdancing in the irate style on the touchline, feel any better, the foul was just outside the area, so shouldn't have been a penalty. It's not going to make him feel any better, though, is it. 73 min: Tomkins replaces Demel. 76 min: GOAL!!! West Ham United 1-2 Arsenal. Arsenal, fuelled by injustice at not getting their penalty/free kick, force a couple of corners. Nothing doing. West Ham push upfield, but Diame loses the ball, and the Gunners come straight back at them. Giroud strokes a lovely sliderule pass down the inside right channel, splitting West Ham's defence in two. Walcott tears clear, reaches the edge of the area, and curls a delicious shout into the bottom right. 77 min: Walcott is booked for celebrating. A happiness infringement. For goodness sake, that football's come to this. 78 min: Jarvis, working in from the left, finds Nolan just inside the Arsenal box. He's got space, but with only Mannone to beat, balloons his shot over. That really should have been the equaliser. 81 min: Mertesacker turns on a sixpence in the West Ham area and hammers a first-time curler towards the bottom right. This is what German international defenders do. A fine effort, and one that's only just deflected away for a corner. Nothing comes from the set piece. 82 min: Diame is replaced by Carlton Cole, who only has eight minutes to score the sort of goal the man he's replacing managed in the first half. He's going to need more than eight minutes, isn't he. 83 min: GOAL!!! West Ham United 1-3 Arsenal. What a goal this is. Walcott bundles the ball in from the right. It breaks to Cazorla, 25 yards out, just to the left of goal. The Spanish international hammers a first-time blooter straight into the top right with his left peg. That is an immense finish. What a player. And what a performance by Arsenal, who thoroughly deserve to win this game. 84 min: Giroud tries to curl one into the top left from 30 yards. It's like this now. 85 min: Koscielny replaces Podolski. 87 min: Taylor is booked for a clumsy slide on Arteta. Andre Santos was involved in there too, three men clattering into each other with clumsiness very much the top note. "When have Arsenal last scored from a corner?" asks Lucian Stanescu, unhappy that Santi Cazorla hasn't also lassoed the moon. "I like them and would love them to keep on playing beautifully and winning, but their corners seems to never bring anything, do they?" No idea, I've not been paying attention. It's either last week, or sometime during March 1993. In fairness, it's not their signature move. And who scores from corners in modern professional football anyway? 90 min: Taylor has a whack from distance, forcing Mannone to scramble down at his left-hand post to save. The keeper was behind it all the way, and the loose ball is cleared. 90 min +1: There will be five added minutes. This is the first of them, and it nearly saw Arsenal's fourth goal. But Giroud, released into the area down the left by Cazorla, humps the ball straight at Jaaskelainen. 90 min +4: Cazorla's pass to release Giroud, by the way, was exquisite: a reverse ball, played diagonally along strict geometric lines, cutting out three defenders and landing right at the striker's feet. Giroud wants a skelp on the Aris for missing that, because there's a pass that deserved everything. FULL TIME: West Ham United 1-3 Arsenal. And that's that. West Ham were outplayed and outclassed for most of that, Arsenal deserved victors. The Gunners leap above their hosts in the Premier League table, to fifth spot. But West Ham, still in eighth, can take heart from at least giving Arsene Wenger's side a scare, and a decent game in the first half. It was easy to forget they've just been promoted, which is to their credit. And credit to both managers, who didn't get involved in a pitchside riot, and shook hands warmly at the end. Still, Santi Cazorla, eh? Santi Cazorla!
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The reclusive and glamorous designer's first collection of womenswear for Yves Saint Laurent not only fell flat but saw him engaged in an unseemly catwalk spat. Has he lost his magic touch? As actress Salma Hayek gushed before Hedi Slimane's womenswear show for Yves Saint Laurent last week, smoothing down the black net gown into which she had been poured: "I think everyone is super-excited. He made this dress for me. It's not bad, no?" But this turned out to be the high point. Because at Paris fashion week the most eagerly awaited debut of the fashion calendar fell flat. And Slimane got caught up in a childish spat with influential fashion writer Cathy Horyn. She called him self-important. He used the words "average and provincial". The fashion world looked on with horror and barely disguised delight. Slimane's first collection for Yves Saint Laurent was seen elsewhere as "underwhelming and lacking the frisson of the unexpected". Worse, the global fashion pack felt snubbed by the master. One newspaper reported that "glum-looking indie kids in black drainpipes [Slimane's friends] got to see the clothes from the front row" while fashion writers stood at the back. The website the Business of Fashion said the game was up the moment you heard "the somewhat muted applause and hushed voices after the show". But things really kicked off when the review came in from Cathy Horyn of the New York Times, who had been banned from the show. "The lack of professional courtesy smacked of ignorance or arrogance," she wrote, having reviewed the collection from digital images. "Nice but frozen." "The clothes "lacked a new fashion spirit." And the killer blow: "I had the impression from the clothes of someone disconnected from fashion of the past several years." Slimane has been working as a photographer in Los Angeles for five years. On Twitter, where Slimane goes by the rather unfortunate name @hedislimanetwit, the designer hit back: "What is 'silly nonsense' to me is Catty Horyn still singing her tired bias tune." Then he posted an open letter online. "Miss Horyn is a schoolyard bully and also a little bit of a stand-up comedian. Insiders argue she is an average writer, and a bit provincial, but I disagree, she did some great things." He goes on: "As far as I'm concerned, she will never get a seat at Saint Laurent but might get 2 for 1 at Dior. She should rejoice. I don't mind critics [critiques], but they have to come from a fashion critic, not a publicist in disguise. I am quite mesmerised she did get away with it for so many years." This spat comes at a time when the industry is savouring the battle between Hedi Slimane at Yves Saint Laurent and Raf Simons at Christian Dior, rivals in their first year of a new job. This is a huge moment in fashion history as two of the biggest houses have welcomed two controversial new talents at the same time. Dior hasn't had a new designer for 12 years, Yves Saint Laurent for eight. Their press offices have been working overtime to increase the mystique surrounding their high-profile new recruits. Raf Simons at Dior, whose show was rapturously received ahead of Slimane's, is being closely scrutinised, first, because he's stepping into the disgraced John Galliano's shoes, and, second, because this is a job that could have been Slimane's. Before Slimane quit designing for a few years he worked at Dior Homme for seven years. The two of them are fascinating to compare partly because of their similarities. Both are seen as mavericks, innovators and independent thinkers. Horyn puts her exclusion from Slimane's shows down to her positive reviews of his rival: "He felt (as best as I can tell) that I gave preference to Mr Simons in my coverage of the men's shows." Until now, Hedi Slimane, who was born in Paris in 1968 to an Italian mother and Tunisian father, has been regarded as a sort of demigod in the fashion world. He is seen as a rock star type with a passing resemblance to James Dean. For his sixth birthday, he received a copy of the David Bowie album David Live. He has said that glam rock is "the most significant creative influence for the future in both design and photography". He made clothes for himself from the age of 16 and studied art history, photography and political science in Paris, thinking of becoming a photographer or a journalist. After a brief stint as an assistant at Louis Vuitton, he began his "proper" career at Yves Saint Laurent menswear in 1996, moving to Dior Homme in 2000. He is often likened to Tom Ford, a creative branding genius who happens to have applied himself to fashion but can drift in and out of things as he pleases, picking and choosing pet projects. As a photographer during his "years off", he took acclaimed portraits of Amy Winehouse, Lady Gaga, Gisele Bündchen, Robert De Niro and Kate Moss. His artistic vision has been described as "sculptural", which is supposedly why he moves easily between photography and clothing design. But Slimane's return to fashion with this womenswear debut has been blighted by a PR faux pas. Fashion reporters attending the show last week received emails explaining that the fashion house must be referred to as "the house of Yves Saint Laurent". But credits for the collection should cite "Saint Laurent by Hedi Slimane." Furthermore: "Saint Laurent Paris is used in the logo but not when spoken or written about the collection." What? The design house says this is a return to its original roots. Instead, it feels like Patsy from Ab Fab took over." Slimane has become more reclusive since his return to fashion and will only be interviewed by email, hence the excitement over his rare tweets. He gave no interviews in connection with the latest collection, which was also seen as insulting. In his menswear days, he was given to interesting pronouncements, however. "People always want an explanation about everything and I cannot give it to them. Because I don't know myself. 'Why did you do a pair of pants like that?' I have no idea. I'm not going to have a 20-minute political discussion about the necessity for slashed, painted leather jeans. Basically, I don't know more than you." At Dior Homme, he attracted as many female fans as male, with Madonna and Nicole Kidman as well as David Bowie, Tom Cruise, Jack White and Mick Jagger among his clients. One early coup was Brad Pitt's wedding suit. Dior Homme's sales increased by 41% the following year. During his menswear's heyday, Tom Kalenderian, executive vice president at Barneys in New York, said of Slimane's style: "It's extraordinarily modern and right for our time. Hedi has carved a following and he continues to attract new customers as well." Slimane championed what became known as the new "skinny" aesthetic in men's fashion: black skinny jeans, skinny black ties, short-waisted jackets and close-fitted blazers. He was known for picking his male models from the streets, from rock concerts, from football games in the park. He has described his work as representing a fixation on the "transient age between childhood and adulthood". But his take on "fleeting, sepulchral beauty" has also been accused of vaunting "a certain prepubescent androgyny". He takes the androgyny accusation on the chin saying: "Hedi was and is still misspelled 'Heidi' and my perception of genders ended up slightly out of focus from an early age." At the height of Slimane's success in menswear, Cathy Horan wrote a review directly comparing him with Raf Simons. Horan explains: "Essentially I wrote that without Mr Simons's template of slim tailoring and street casting, there would not have been a Hedi Slimane – just as there would never have been a Raf Simons without Helmut Lang. Fashion develops a bit like a genetic line. Anyway, Mr Slimane insisted that he was the first to show the skinny suit. It was a silly debate. Who cares?" Someone obviously does. Slimane has always had a reputation as a perfectionist and a potential return to Dior following the exit of Galliano was reportedly abandoned after he insisted on all the company's shops being refitted according to his specifications. Last week's events will only enhance his image as an unpredictable character. Or, as one fashion editor put it, a "bitch". Slimane's carefully cultivated "cool" persona does slightly jar with the angry blog and tweets. But as he says: "Fashion somehow, for me, is purely and happily irrational." In any case, not all the reviews were bad. Fellow designer Diane Von Furstenberg, who is old enough to have seen the original Yves Saint Laurent the first time around, purred: "Beautiful. I thought it was pure Saint Laurent. And I recognised my youth." Or is that another barb, darling?
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Deaths occur hours after defence secretary Leon Panetta slams remarks made by Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai Insurgents in eastern Afghanistan killed two US soldiers on Saturday, hours after defence secretary Leon Panetta had criticised President Hamid Karzai for failing to recognise the sacrifice of Nato forces. The soldiers, who were members of a special-operations team, died in a fire-fight in Wardak province, south-west of Kabul. Their deaths bring the number of international troops killed in Afghanistan this year to 296, including at least 257 Americans. The development came amid a spat between Washington and Kabul over what is seen as failing US commitment to tackling terrorism in Pakistan. At a press conference on Thursday, Karzai criticised the the White House for concentrating on going after insurgents in his country, rather than militants based across the border. He accused the US of playing a "double game". Karzai also said Nato was not providing enough weapons for home-grown Afghan forces, suggesting that he might have to appeal to other countries, such as China and Russia, to get them. The comments drew an uncharacteristically angry response from Panetta. Speaking in Peru on Friday, the defence secretary said the Afghan president should be thanking allied troops rather than criticising them. "We have made progress in Afghanistan because there are men and women in uniform who have been willing to fight and die for Afghanistan's sovereignty," he told reporters. "Those lives were lost fighting the right enemy not the wrong enemy and I think it would be helpful if the president, every once in a while, expressed his thanks for the sacrifices that have been made by those who have fought and died for Afghanistan, rather than criticising them." More than 2,000 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since the conflict began in October 2001. Tensions between the two countries have worsened amid a spate of so-called "green on blue" attacks, in which members of Nato forces have been killed by insurgents posing as Afghan police or members of the home-trained security force. Panetta has indicated that this increase in insider attacks will not alter plans for US withdrawal from Afghanistan. American troops are due to be pulled out by the end of 2014, handing the responsibility for security to Afghan forces. However, it is thought that as many as 20,000 US personnel could remain past that date, to assist in training and counterterrorism efforts.
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• View the latest Premier League table in glorious technicolour 57 min: Gibbs is replaced by Andre Santos. Meanwhile anyone interested in John Beck's cold showers can bone up, as his players were perhaps unable to, from around the 2m30s mark here. Thanks again to a nostalgic Sean Ingle, who is perhaps pining for his early twenties tonight. 55 min: Diame showcases his dancing feet all along the edge of the Arsenal D. He flicks a ball to Nolan into the area down the inside-left channel, but the midfielder's offside. In a subsequent melee, several players not hearing the whistle, Carroll manages to miss a gaping goal from six yards. It matters not, but still. 52 min: Good work from Jarvis down the left earns West Ham a corner. It's wasted, and Arsenal flood upfield through Cazorla and Podolski. The ball ends up at the feet of Gibbs, who with team-mates waiting in the middle, clanks a hopeless cross into the stand from the left. 49 min: Giroud tries to release Ramsey into the area with a reverse ball from a position down the right with his back to goal, but overcooks what would have been a very elaborate dink. "John Beck left Kettering Town last week," reports Richard Woods. "Today KTFC could only field 10 players, none of whom apparently have been paid. They lost 7-0 at home to Bashley and it looks like it might be the end for a great club. Sad times." Indeed. Wouldn't it be nice if the Premier League chucked them a few quid, seeing Kettering were at the forefront of shirt sponsorship, one of the fancy money-making ideas the big clubs benefit from today? 47 min: An early corner for West Ham, the ball clanking off Jenkinson's head from a throw. Noble hoicks the set piece into the six-yard box. Mannone slaps the ball away, and is upended for his trouble. Free kick. And we're off again! Yes we are, yes we are. No changes. West Ham get proceedings under way once more. HALF-TIME ENTERTAINMENT inspired by the management techniques of Sam Allardyce John Beck:
Yet another example of Tiswas knocking Swap Shop into a hat which is cocked.
HALF TIME: West Ham United 1-1 Arsenal. The teams go in for their half-time buckets of ice-cold water. If Sam Allardyce really is doing the John Beck tribute-act thing Sean Ingle was suggesting earlier on. 45 min +2: ... Carroll wins a header at the far post, sending the ball across the face of goal to the unmarked Nolan. Who somehow screws an awful effort well wide right. That could easily have been a second West Ham goal. 45 min: Corner for Arsenal down the left, Podolski and Cazorla having busied themselves. The ball's swung into the area, and headed out. Ramsey sends in a piledriver, but his effort is easily blocked and cleared. West Ham try to relieve the pressure with a sortie upfield. Noble looks to skip past Gervinho down the left, but is upended. Booking for the Arsenal player. There's just enough time for Noble to swing a free kick into the area from the left. From which ... 44 min: Jaaskelainen uses up a year and a day to take a goal kick. A strong suggestion that West Ham have decided to steady their ship and get in level at half time. 43 min: The passes are sticking again for Arsenal. Funny thing, confidence, eh. 41 min: GOAL!!! West Ham United 1-1 Arsenal. Finally, joy for Olivier Giroud! He starts a move which sees Podolski skitter down the left. The German swings a ball towards the near post, allowing the Frenchman to slide in and guide an unstoppable shot into the bottom left. His drought is over! And on the balance of this half's play, that's the least Arsenal deserve. 39 min: The passes aren't quite sticking for Arsenal now. Podolski is gifted possession in the middle of the West Ham half. He slides the ball down the left for Ramsey, who, forcing it somewhat, sprays a Hollywood Ball towards the right wing for Jenkinson. But it's well off target, heading towards Mexico, and a chance to advance on the Hammers area is spurned. 36 min: Reid is booked for running into Cazorla. That's a wee bit harsh, issued for nothing more than a coming together. 35 min: Arsenal pin West Ham back for the first time in a few minutes. Gibbs clips a cross in from the left. Mertesacker flicks it on, and Giroud is this close to connecting with his head, coming in at the far post. But not quite, and the ball flies out of play. 32 min: Noble swings a cross into the area from the left. Carroll goes up for the header, and clatters Mannone to the floor. Free kick. Goalkeepers are over-protected, but that's a fair decision, Mannone - who is big and honest - taking a proper clatter to his jaw. No malice on Carroll's part, though. West Ham's early inferiority complex has totally evaporated. Arsenal aren't showing half the composure they were before the goal. 31 min: Corner for West Ham, who have put a stop to Arsenal's gallop, down the right. It's sent into the middle of the Arsenal area. Carroll wins the header, and blasts a powerful effort towards the top right. Mannone claims. 28 min: Diame wants to watch himself. He's late on Arteta, who's sent spinning up into the air by a late challenge. That's a booking any day, and the goalscorer should be walking. Perhaps the referee Phil Dowd realises the celebration booking was a total nonsense, and that it's karmic payback time. Mertesacker certainly doesn't see it that way, and enters into a full and frank exchange of views with the whistler. As does Arsene Wenger on the touchline, his debating partner the fourth official. Grown men getting involved in this here. 25 min: Arsenal ping it around awhile, and then Ramsey lashes a frustrated shot miles right of goal. Jaaskelainen waves it out of play. On the touchline, Arsene Wenger stands frowning, with both hands on his hips. This pose is semaphore for EFFING EFF. 24 min: Arsenal don't know what's hit them. They've been on the front foot for the vast majority of this match, and find themselves trailing. This state of affairs has gone down well with the paying public; Upton Park really is bubbling now. 22 min: Diame is booked for celebrating his goal with the crowd. For the love of God, these diktats are wholly preposterous. 21 min: GOAL!!! West Ham United 1-0 Arsenal. So they decide to give it to Diame, and see what he can do instead. And what he can do is this: pick up the ball down the left with Jenkinson and Ramsey sandwiching him; slip the ball past Ramsey, leaving the two defenders in his wake with a deft on-a-sixpence turn inside; and curl a powerful shot into the top-right corner from a tightening angle! That is a simply amazing finish, a beautiful piece of skill - and, let's face it, somewhat against the run of play. Wow. 17 min: Arsenal step it up a bit. Cazorla slides a ball down the inside-right channel for Jenkinson. Collins, not for the first time, slides in to deflect the resulting cutback away for a corner. From which Collins is forced to hack behind again. After a mild scramble, the ball finds the feet of Giroud. The French striker takes one touch and, from the edge of the area, looks for the top left corner. Carroll is on hand to head behind for a third corner. And the big man clears the resulting set piece! Carroll and Colllins have been throwing themselves into the line of fire with great regularity here. But West Ham can't keep on like this. 15 min: West Ham simply can't get the ball, although at least Arsenal aren't doing much with it at present. "Is it my imagination or has Big Sam let the grass at Upton Park grow, John Beck style, to slow Arsenal's passing game?" wonders our very own Sean Ingle, who has obviously recently purchased a high-definition television set. I can't tell. But could he be so cynical? It's not doing West Ham much good, if he has. Maybe he needs to ramp it up with some other old-school Beck tactics. Maybe he should throw a cold bucket of water over Andy Carroll at half time. And before he goes out on the town in the evening, come to that. 12 min: A saucy sashay down the left by Ramsey, who tricks his way to the byline with a couple of adroit spins. He dinks a delicious ball into the middle, but there's nobody in yellow there. Lazy Arsenal team-mates, how could you! 10 min: This is far prettier, though: Vaz Te looks to release Nolan down the inside-right channel with a cute back heel. It doesn't quite come off. It's almost as though Big Sam's teams aren't quite as one-dimensional as suggested by lazy journalis... ah hold on, Arsenal have had 73% possession so far. 8 min: Big Sam's Soccer would be a crude and reductive way to describe this: a long hoof down the middle, with Carroll getting eyebrows on the ball, which flies through to Mannone. Not exactly an aesthete's dream, but it's the first time West Ham have shown up in Arsenal's half, so it's a start. 6 min: Arsenal are pinging it around in the sweetest fashion. Podolski skips down the left and fires a low cross into the centre. Cazorla hammers a shot straight at goal. Jaaskelainen, wrong footed by the speed of Arsenal's football, appears to be diving out of the way, but Collins slides in to deflect the ball out brilliantly. The corner's a waste of time. "Just so you know, I don't think you're pious or disingenuous," writes Simon McMahon. "Even if I knew what they are. I'm reminded of an interview I once saw with the young Muhammad Ali being asked before a fight, 'You're being rather truculent, aren't you?' to which he replied immediately with a glint in his eye, 'If that's good, I'm that.'" 3 min: West Ham are struggling to get the ball at present. Arsenal have turned up and they're swaggering about like a cut-price Barcelona. It's a very confident start. And it's already silenced the home crowd. Not totally, but the blistering volume at kick off has decreased somewhat. And we're off! Arsenal are on the front foot almost immediately. Podolski has a whack within 30 seconds, and then a minute or so later Giroud is fizzing a low, hard shot towards the bottom-right corner. Jaaskelainen is forced to get down and turn the ball around the post for a corner kick. The set piece is cleared upfield by Carroll. The Big Man's back. A pre-match round of applause for the recently departed John Bond, who won the FA Cup as a player with West Ham United in 1964. Here's the great man in his pomp, taking over at Manchester City...
Save it for later, though, yes? You'll not concentrate on the football if you click on it now.
The teams are out! They trot onto the Boleyn Ground pitch, an event soundtracked by that version of I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles with the jaunty bassline that's somewhere between Relax by Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Rock DJ by Robbie Williams. I know. West Ham are dressed in their trademark claret and blue, Arsenal in their familiar yellow away shirts. As the managers enter the scene themselves, they shake hands warmly. There goes hopes of that touchline brouhaha! Referee: Phil Dowd (Staffordshire) Arsenal, who recall Per Mertesacker, Aaron Ramsey and Olivier Giroud: Mannone, Jenkinson, Mertesacker, Vermaelen, Gibbs, Ramsey, Cazorla, Arteta, Gervinho, Giroud, Podolski.
Subs: Martinez, Koscielny, Andre Santos, Walcott, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Coquelin, Arshavin. West Ham United, who welcome back the big man: Jaaskelainen, Demel, Collins, Reid, McCartney, Noble, Diame, Vaz Te, Nolan, Jarvis, Carroll.
Subs: Henderson, Tomkins, Cole, Maiga, Taylor, Benayoun, O'Neil. Kick off: 5.30pm. With no love lost between clubs, fans and managers, this promises to be a cracker. Both teams have started the season solidly, West Ham especially, Allardyce's newly promoted side settling back into the Premier League with ease. This is their first match against one of the big guns, though, but at least they've timed it well, Arsenal coming off the back of a home defeat to Chelsea. So this could be nip and tuck. Gervinho is three goals from three shots, while Per Mertesacker is expected to return to shore up Arsenal's defence. But West Ham have only lost once in their last 16 league games, and they could throw Andy Carroll into the mix, a player who's caused the Gunners more than enough heartache in the past. It is on! Whoever wins today, it'd be lovely to see another childish shoving match between two grown adults by the dugouts, especially as Wenger and Sam Allardyce have a history of mutual seething resentment which stretches back to the modern West Ham boss's days at Bolton Wanderers. Or, to say that again using the pious and wholly disingenuous language expected of football journalists by football fans, let's hope we don't see another childish shoving match between two grown adults by the dugouts! They've not beaten their big-city neighbours since 2007. Since then, Arsenal have won six league games and an FA Cup tie, and drawn the other two fixtures. Still, that 2006/07 season was something to remember for the Hammers, featuring their first league double over Arsenal since 1964/65: two 1-0 victories and one touchline brouhaha between a gloating Alan Pardew and a thoroughly piqued Arsene Wenger. Welcome to a repeat of the 1980 FA Cup final. But Trevor Brooking's headed winner at Wembley only carries so much currency for the modern Hammer. And West Ham United's recent record against The Arsenal isn't much to shout about.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | US anti-war activists join thousands of Pakistanis in protest march to South Waziristan, despite Taliban threats Thousands of Pakistanis, joined by a group of US anti-war activists, headed toward Pakistan's militant-riddled tribal belt on Saturday, to protest US drone strikes – even as a Pakistani Taliban faction warned that suicide bombers would stop the demonstration. The motorcade march was led by Imran Khan, the former cricket star turned populist politician who heads the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party. Militants have dismissed Khan as a tool of the West despite his condemnations of the drone strikes, which have killed many Islamist insurgent leaders. Pakistanis in small towns and villages along the 250-mile route warmly welcomed the convoy, which included more than 150 vehicles. Footage broadcast on Pakistani television showed people showering rose petals on the motorcade. But by late Saturday, it appeared increasingly less likely the protesters would reach the South Waziristan tribal area, where they hoped to stage a major rally. Government officials had warned of dangers in South Waziristan, which is a frequent focus of drone strikes and was the scene of a 2009 Pakistani army offensive. Pakistani media reported authorities used shipping containers to block the main road leading into the region, where access has long been heavily restricted. In an interview with the private Dunya TV channel, Khan said he had reached another major town on the route, Dera Ismail Khan, and that he would consult with his party leaders on the situation. The protesters had planned to stay overnight in the Dera Ismail Khan area before heading to South Waziristan on Sunday. "We have come here for peace," Khan said. "I don't want to put the life of my guests in danger, but I would like to know the level of the threat." Around three dozen Americans from the US-based anti-war group CODEPINK joined the march. Foreigners are normally forbidden from entering Pakistan's tribal regions. The American protesters echoed Pakistani condemnations of the US drone strikes, saying that contrary to the claims of American officials, the strikes have terrorized peaceful tribes living along the Afghan border and killed many innocent civilians, not just Taliban and al-Qaida fighters. "I'm hoping that what [the protest] will show is that the Pakistani people and American people and even the people in the tribal areas want peace," said Joe Lombardo, a US activist from Delmar, New York. James Ricks, another American, said he was going along with the convoy despite the danger. "I am taking this risk because my government is committing international war crimes and we want to stop this," said Ricks, of Ithaca, New York. Khan, in brief chats with media at different stops, said government officials had tried to discourage people from joining the march. "Fearing this will be an historic rally, they [the government] have attempted to discourage people through scare tactics but you have seen the response," he said. "This will prove to be a historic event." Khan has seen his popularity surge in recent years in Pakistan, where the government, led by the Pakistan People's Party of Asif Ali Zardari, has disappointed many. The former cricketer, who captained Pakistan when they won the 1992 World Cup, had long had a reputation as a playboy. But in recent he has said he has grown stronger in his Muslim faith. He also has used attacks on the US drone program as a means of gaining public esteem in Pakistan. The main faction of the Pakistani Taliban, which is based in South Waziristan, issued a statement Friday calling Khan a "slave of the West" and saying that the militants "don't need any sympathy" from such "a secular and liberal person". The statement did not reveal anything about the militants' plans regarding the march, but added: "Imran Khan's so-called Peace March is not in sympathy for drone-hit Muslims. Instead, it's an attempt by him to increase his political stature." On Saturday, a statement from a Taliban faction said to be based in Pakistan's eastern Punjab province warned that militants would welcome the protesters with suicide bombings. "We ask the brave people of Waziristan not to side with the gang of Jews and Christians – otherwise their fate will be terrible," the Punjabi Taliban said in the statement. Khan iattacked the militant accusations. "We have no political aims but want to protect tribal people from drone attacks," he said. "They are whispering that Jews and Christians are coming. They should feel shame for this act." Earlier in the week, Khan alluded to the possibility that entering South Waziristan might not be possible. He said the demonstrators would go as far as they could, then stage a major rally wherever they decided to stop.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | President uses Twitter to say monthly total raised by '1,825,813 people' as attempt to contain debate damage goes on Barack Obama's re-election campaign was boosted by $181m in September, as supporters contributed to the largest one-month fundraising total of the president's campaign to date. Obama announced the figure in a tweet on Saturday morning, adding that more than 1.8 million people had donated, many for the first time in this or the last election cycle. The news comes after a roller-coaster week for the president, who disappointed many with a lacklustre performance in the first presidential debate against Mitt Romney, before Friday brought encouraging news on the jobs front. The figure for September donations to the Democrats and campaign groups loyal to Obama dwarfed that raised in August, by $67m. The Romney camp has yet to release its fund-raising total for the month. In his tweet Obama said: "Some amazing news this morning: 1,825,813 people came together to raise $181 million for this campaign in September." Of those who donated, more than 500,000 were new backers of the president, having not previously contributed to the 2008 or 2012 campaigns. A breakdown of the figures also showed that 98% of supporters had contributed $250 of less – an indication that Democrats are relying less on one-off big money donations from the super rich than their Republican rivals. The news comes as a boost to Obama as the election heads into its final month. It is also further indication of a creeping advantage in terms of advertising spend for the president over the coming weeks. Figures from the Federal Election Commission revealed that in August, Obama pulled ahead in terms of monthly donations, with $114m compared to $111m for Romney. Greater spending earlier in the race has depleted the Republican candidate's war-chest, undermining claims that he had a cash advantage. But those around Romney are expecting a spike in donations following what has been widely seen as a superior performance in the first presidential debate. Wednesday's head to head, which was broadcast to 67 million people, saw Romney's waning campaign seemingly brought back to life. A CNN poll of registered voters showed 67% respondents agreeing that the Republican challenger had taken the debate, with just 25% giving it to Obama. The Republican governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, described it as a "game-changing debate". Surveys since the debate suggest that it did result in a bump of support for Romney. But the bounce may be short-lived. Republicans had only a day to celebrate before economic news allowed Obama to make the running again. Friday's monthly job figures showed that the US had added 114,000 new jobs in September, in line with expectation. But a dramatic upwards revision of the previous month's data, from 96,000 to 142,000 new jobs, saw the headline unemployment rate fall to 7.8%, from 8.1% – the first dip below 8% since Obama took office in January 2009. Shrugging off the disappointment of the debate, on Friday the president issued a call for Americans to back his re-election bid. The job figures were "a reminder that this country has come too far to turn back now", he told supporters while on the stump in Virginia. Staying with the theme on Saturday, in his weekly radio address, Obama said the nation owed it to those still struggling to find work to back his plan for economic revival. "We're made too much progress to return to the policies that got us into this mess in the first place," he said, in a swipe at the blueprint that has been laid out by Romney and his running-mate, Paul Ryan. Romney is due to spend much of the weekend in Florida. On Friday evening, he tried to dismiss the positive job figures as he spoke to supporters in the state. "By any rational measure, it is crystal clear we are in the middle of a jobs crisis," he said, adding: "And from day one of my presidency, I will lead us out of this crisis."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Chelsea thumped Norwich, West Brom scraped past QPR, and lots of other stuff also happened Pre-match ponderings: Hello! And welcome to a gloriously sunny autumnal Saturday afternoon, packed with the kind of unbelievably exciting fixtures which make the Premier League the best league in the entire world, better in oh so many ways than all the other countries' leagues, such as Swansea v Reading, and West Brom v QPR. Oh. As it happens, this afternoon's four top-flight fixtures feature every single member of the current Premier League bottom three, and just 30% of the current Premier League top 10. But we won't let that bother us, and will instead put all our energy into getting excited about third-placed Everton, who are at Wigan, sixth-placed West Brom against Mark Hughes' bottom-of-the-pile Rangers, and table-topping Chelsea. The latter will be proving that the old "most competitive league in the world" canard isn't quite all it's cracked up to be by slamming a bootful of beauties past hapless Norwich (disclaimer: some assumptions were made in the preparation of this sentence), who shipped five at home to previously winless Liverpool last time out. All eyes on John Terry and Ashley Cole, if selected (and their Twitter accounts if not). But we're not only interested in the top flight, even if we are denied the chance to follow the fortunes of the new leaders of the Championship because Cardiff's visit to hopelessly-out-of-sorts Ipswich is today's televised late kick-off. They could find themselves second by then, if Leicester extend their four-game run of wins at home to Bristol City (and to be more accurate, they could find themselves fifth if they get seriously unlucky). Also interesting: Blackburn hosting fellow Maytime Premier League relegationees Wolves; third-place Brighton taking the division's best away record to Derby; and rock-bottom Peterborough, who lost their first seven league games but have won their last two – away from home and everything – hosting 17th-place Nottingham Forest knowing that a third win on the spin would see them overtake their opponents and (probably) saunter merrily clear of the bottom three. In League One, unbeaten table-toppers Tranmere – "If we play like we did in the second half at Scunthorpe, I don't think there's anyone in this league who can live with us," says Ronnie Moore – visit a Notts County side still in fourth but smarting after a nasty midweek defeat to second-placed Stevenage. "What you don't do after a defeat is get off the bus," said Keith Curle, and I for one have absolutely no idea what he means. And in League Two there'll be a bit of a mini-league involving four of the top five, with second-placed Port Vale visiting fourth-placed Exeter, and fifth-placed Cheltenham hosting third-placed Fleetwood. Gillingham, already five points clear, will gleefully watch them all take points off each other while they seek to extend their 100% away record at mid-table Oxford United. So, that's what I'm excited about today – well, that and my own team's inevitable victory over whichever hapless bunch of unfortunates are unlucky enough to be ordered into their fearsome arena. What have I missed? 2.21pm: This Blackburn-related news is just in from the Press Association: "Alan Shearer has admitted he is open to the possibility of taking up the vacant manager's role at Blackburn. The former Rovers striker, who had a short spell in management with Newcastle, spent four years at Ewood Park as a player. When asked about his interest in the job, the 42-year-old told BBC's Football Focus: "I've not spoken to the Blackburn owners. If they approached me I would speak to them."
2.28pm: Chelsea's team has been widely tweeted but not yet Press Associationed, so you'll have to make do with Swansea v Reading:
Swansea: Vorm, Rangel, Chico, Williams, Davies, Dyer, Britton, Michu, Ki, Routledge, Graham. Subs: Tremmel, Tate, Hernández, Shechter, Moore, De Guzman, Tiendalli.
Reading: McCarthy, Shorey, Mariappa, Gorkss, Cummings, McAnuff, Karacan, Tabb, Kebe, Pogrebnyak, Hunt. Subs: Stuart Taylor, Pearce, Le Fondre, McCleary, Robson-Kanu, Guthrie, Roberts.
Referee: Mike Dean (Wirral). 2.30pm: And here are some more teams. I'll post all the Premier League line-ups as I get them, but feel free to request others.
Wigan: Al Habsi, Ramis, Caldwell, Figueroa, Boyce, McCarthy, McArthur, Beausejour, Kone, Di Santo, Maloney. Subs: Pollitt, Jones, Watson, Gomez, McManaman, Boselli, Miyaichi.
Everton: Howard, Coleman, Jagielka, Heitinga, Baines, Mirallas, Neville, Osman, Pienaar, Fellaini, Jelavic. Subs: Mucha, Oviedo, Naismith, Distin, Gueye, Anichebe, Duffy.
Referee: Kevin Friend (Leicestershire). 2.35pm: The Chelsea team is in, and John Terry and Ashley Cole both start.
Chelsea: Cech, Ivanovic, Luíz, Terry, Cole, Mikel, Lampard, Mata, Oscar, Hazard, Torres. Subs: Turnbull, Romeu, Ramires, Moses, Cahill, Azpilicueta, Bertrand.
Norwich: Ruddy, Russell Martin, Barnett, Bassong, Garrido, Elliott Bennett, Howson, Hoolahan, Johnson, Tettey, Holt. Subs: Bunn, Turner, Snodgrass, Jackson, Pilkington, Morison, Ryan Bennett.
Referee: Anthony Taylor (Cheshire). 2.39pm: And to complete the Premier League pack, this is how the sides will line up at the Hawthorns:
West Brom: Foster, Tamas, McAuley, Olsson, Popov, Yacob, Mulumbu, Gera, Morrison, Odemwingie, Long. Subs: Luke Daniels, Rosenberg, Dorrans, Jara Reyes, Lukaku, Dawson, Fortuné.
QPR: Julio Cesar, Bosingwa, Ferdinand, Nelsen, Hill, Granero, Mbia, Wright-Phillips, Taarabt, Park, Zamora. Subs: Green, Traoré, Cissé, Mackie, Onuoha, Hoilett, Faurlin.
Referee: Mike Jones (Cheshire). 2.40pm: Manchester City have comprehensively beaten Sunderland 3-0 at the Etihad. Nothing now to distract us from those 3pm kick-offs. 2.53pm: Sky's Soccer Saturday panel are discussing unpopular managers. I'm mildly surprised to hear that the one manager who Matt Le Tissier played under but didn't like, was Glenn Hoddle. 2.56pm: Players are strolling onto pitches across the nation. We're moments from matchtime. 3.00pm: Let's play football! 3.03pm: Fernando Torres just broke the Norwich offside trap, with three minutes played, but delayed his shot, was forced wide, then had to check back and give the ball away. He should just have smacked it into the back of the net. 3.06pm: GOAL! West Brom 1 QPR 0! Lovely cross from Shane Long on the right wing, who pegged it past his full-back as if on a jet pack, and then curled the ball onto the head of James Morrison, who headed back across goal and in. Simple, and excellent. 3.07pm: "Ashley Cole, he tweets what he wants," sing the Chelsea fans. 3.11pm: GOALS! First, Chelsea 0 Norwich 1! A superbly controlled low volley from Holt from 15 yards out, from some other fella's knock-down. 3.12pm: Another goal! Wigan 1 Everton 0! This time it's a cross from the left which Arouna Koné nods in from two yards out. Was he offside? It certainly looked that way! 3.14pm: And another goal! Wigan 1 Everton 1! Another header from no distance out! Everton bring the ball towards the edge of Wigan's area but the player who attempts a curler to the far post falls over while he's doing it, and the ball is miscued onto the head of Jelavic, two yards beyond the far post, who nodded in. 3.16pm: And yet another goal! Chelsea 1 Norwich 1! And that's the goal of the day so far. Mata gets the ball on the right wing, towards the byline. He backheels to Ivanovic, whose excellent first-time cross is headed into the far corner by Fernando Torres. 3.23pm: GOAL! Chelsea 2 Norwich 1! Torres attempts to overhead kick a bouncing ball in the Norwich penalty area, and indeed succeeds in completing the overhead kick. But instead of flying into the back of the net the ball scoots away from goal, straight to the onrushing Frank Lampard, who lashes it in from 18 yards. 3.25pm: GOAL! West Brom 2 (Zoltan Gera 22) QPR 0! Must admit I totally missed that one, but Matt Le Tissier tells me it was a nasty miskicked clearance from Anton Ferdinand that Gera simply slotted in. 3.26pm: Another goal! Wigan 2 Everton 1! This time Koné is the provider, running down the right wing, cutting into the penalty area and then rolling the ball, alarmingly slowly, just about into the path of Franco Di Santo, who slams it into the roof of the net from 12 yards. 3.30pm: Bradley Johnson just injured two Chelsea players in the space of about a second, bashing into Mikel and then slashing away at Luíz, as if engaged in some kind of human skittles. Both the boys in blue roll around for a while, looking quite put out, before getting on with the game. No booking for Johnson, which seems like a stroke of luck for the lad. 3.32pm: GOAL! Chelsea 3 Norwich 1! Mata carries the ball 40 yards and then slices the Norwich defence entirely and convincingly apart with a delicious killer pass, and Eden Hazard passes it into the corner of the net. That was very nice. They could score 50 here. 3.34pm: GOAL! Swansea 0 Reading 1! Swansea pass the ball around their defence, as they do. Pok, pok, pok, pok, pok. It ends up with Vorm, and Reading closing him down, so he puts his foot through it. Big mistake. Ten seconds later, and without touching the ball again, the home side are behind, Pogrebnyak eventually poking it under the keeper and into the net. 3.35pm: GOAL! West Brom 2 QPR 1! That's a super goal! Granero hits the ball over the West Brom defence – or three of them, the left back being 10 yards further back – and Taarabt chests it down and volleys it emphatically into the net. Nicely done. 3.37pm: Crikey! So many Premier League goals, it really is the best league in the world. 3.40pm: Another chance for Chelsea. Oscar collects the ball a couple of yards outside the penalty area, and with a small army of Norwich defenders blocking his path. He casually skips his way through them, but his side-footed finish is equally casual and Ruddy saves. 3.44pm: Another chance at Stamford Bridge, but this one falls to Norwich. Not much to it, really – a looping cross from the left wing, Grant Holt unmarked in the middle, and his header bounces a yard wide. 3.46pm: And a chance at the Hawthorns, where Morrison (I think) is played clean through, but Julio Cesar saves! 3.47pm: GOAL! Swansea 0 Reading 2! A Reading player has a shot blocked, but the ball falls to another Reading player, whose shot is also blocked, but the ball falls to a third Reading player, whose shot is also blocked, and this time the ball loops to Noel Hunt who volleys home from eight yards. 3.53pm: Fun and games at Vicarage Road, where Matej Vydra was sent off just before half-time – but nobody knows why. Chris Kamara on Soccer Saturday had no idea, and Watford's official Twitter feed is reporting that the "crowd, journos and players [are] equally confused". They're 1-1 with Middlesbrough at the break. 3.57pm: "Greetings from Cairo," writes Simon Frank. "With Chelsea handing out a pounding today, are we to expect a 'Ruddy Hell' headline tomorrow?" Quite possibly, Simon – but it wouldn't be the first time we'd have seen it, I'm afraid. 4.01pm: Let's play football! 4.04pm: At Stamford Bridge, the first chance of the second half falls to Norwich, with Grant Holt again beating Terry in the air, but heading wide. 4.07pm: "Simon, why on earth are the Norwich crowd booing Cole?" asks Barry Praag. "Are they FA stooges!" There are any number of things that convince fans to boo an opposing player, some of them bizarrely trivial, but being Ashley Cole has got to be among the most compelling (for all that he's been a brilliant full-back). 4.09pm: Chelsea should have had a penalty there, as Barnett fairly cynically sticks out a leg to bring down Juan Mata, but the referee's not impressed. 4.11pm: More on the ghost red card at Vicarage Road. "Saw footage at HT with Chris Kamara, here at #watfordfc for Sky Sports," writes whoever writes Watford's official Twitter feed. "Kamara in absolutely no doubt that there was nothing in it at all." 4.13pm: Swansea hit the post! That was a not-very-good header that Alex McCarthy darn nearly flapped into the back of the net. In the end he merely flapped it onto the post, which was a stroke of luck. Having said that, I've just seen someone else on Twitter say the header was "brilliantly turned onto the post", so I could be being a tad harsh. 4.19pm: I may be making a bit of a big deal of this red card at Vicarage Road, which Kamara has now said on Sky Sports was "completely wrong", but a glance at the referee's stats for the season are illuminating – it's his eighth red card in 10 league games. Last season he produced six in 34 – what happened to him this summer? 4.30pm: Ryan Dunne points out that Norwich fans might have been convinced to boo Ashley Cole not just by yesterday's Anti-FA Twitter outburst, but by the section of Cheryl Cole's forthcoming autobiography serialised in today's Sun. This details his extramarital indiscretions – "Over the next few days I heard two more girls had come forward to say they'd had sex with Ashley. I didn't read the stories, but I knew one was saying it happened when Ashley and I were courting, and another said she slept with him a few months after our wedding." – and includes her yelling at her footballing then-husband: "I hope she was worth it. It's the end of your marriage. It's f***ed!" Incidentally, courting? Courting? Are you living in the 1950s, Cheryl? 4.31pm: GOAL! Swansea 1 Reading 2! Routledge's cross from just outside the right corner of the penalty area clips a defender's arse and skews to the far post, where Machu Pichu scores with a diving header. About time we had a Premier League goal, I must say. 4.34pm: GOAL! Chelsea 4 Norwich 1! Hazard's cross, Mata's hugely unconvincing attempt to control, Ivanovic's emphatic volley. Ruddy got both hands to it, but couldn't keep it out. 4.36pm: GOAL! Swansea 2 Reading 2! Reading give the ball away, Routledge plays a one-two, bursts into the penalty area, and scores at the near post with the outside of his right foot to complete Swansea's comeback. 4.39pm: Talking of comebacks, Crystal Palace were 2-0 down at home to Burnley after 40 minutes. They just made it 4-2. Nice. 4.41pm: Bakary Sako has put Wolves 1-0 up against Blackburn at Ewood Park. Quite a tasty strike, by all accounts. 4.43pm: GOAL! West Brom 3 QPR 1! Mulumbu passes the ball to Morrison on the edge of the area and then continues his run. Morrison plays a one-two with, um, someone else, gets into the box, and pulls the ball back for Mulumbu to score. 4.45pm: GOAL! Wigan 2 Everton 2! Everton's fifth penalty appeal is the first that the referee's agreed with. Leighton Baines, against his former club, makes no mistake from the spot, sending the ball flying into the top right corner of the goal (as he was looking at it). 4.49pm: Peeeeep! The final whistle has gone at Stamford Bridge, where Chelsea have beaten Norwich 4-1. And Reading have hit the bar at Swansea. 4.51pm: GOAL! West Brom 3 QPR 2! Another lovely goal, a decent spell of pressure ending with Esteban Granero receiving the ball from Park Ji-Sung, beating a couple of men with his turn and then chipping the ball into the near top corner of the net from just outside the penalty area. 4.54pm: Peeeep! West Brom have beaten QPR, though only just – the visitors' last chance coming from Granero's corner, which ended in a decent shooting chance being sent over the bar with the last kick of the game. Final score: 3-2. 4.56pm: Peeeep peeeep! All the Premier League matches are now over, with Swansea and Reading and Wigan and Everton all drawing 2-2. 5.00pm: In the Championship, Leicester go top, at least briefly, after beating Bristol City 2-0. Elsewhere Wolves won 1-0 at Blackburn, and Crystal Palace came back from 2-0 down to beat Burnley 4-3. In League One, leaders Tranmere have won 1-0 at Notts County, but League Two leaders Gillingham could only draw 0-0 at Oxford. At the other end, Barnet twice took the lead at Southend but still couldn't hold on, and drew 2-2. Meanwhile in the Scottish Third Division, Stirling Albion have beaten Rangers 1-0. 5.03pm: Meanwhile, the teams are in for the late kick-off at Arsenal. Follow the match live with Scott Murray here:
West Ham: Jaaskelainen, Demel, Collins, Reid, McCartney, Noble, Diamé, Vaz Te, Nolan, Jarvis, Carroll. Subs: Henderson, Tomkins, Cole, Maiga, Taylor, Benayoun, O'Neil.
Arsenal: Mannone, Jenkinson, Mertesacker, Vermaelen, Gibbs, Ramsey, Cazorla, Arteta, Gervinho, Giroud, Podolski. Subs: Martínez, Koscielny, André Santos, Walcott, Oxlade-Chamberlain,
Coquelin, Arshavin.
Referee: Phil Dowd (Staffordshire). 5.08pm: And with that, I'm off. Thanks for your company. Don't forget to check out the West Ham v Arsenal minute-by-minute, and I'll see you soon!
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Reports suggest unmanned aircraft was for intelligence gathering and did not come from Gaza Strip The Israeli air force has shot down a drone after it entered the south of the country, the military has confirmed. Troops are searching for the remains of the unmanned aircraft after it was intercepted and brought down over the Negev desert on Saturday morning. It was not clear where it came from although local reports suggested that it did not depart from the Gaza Strip. The drone was spotted above the Mediterranean Sea in the area of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip to the west of Israel, said a military spokeswoman, Avital Leibovich. It was escorted by air force jets once it crossed into Israeli air space and travelled around 35 miles east across Israel's southern Negev desert before being shot down. The Israel Defence Forces said their soldiers were examining the aircraft's flight path and were searching the area to locate debris and identify its origin. Local media reported that it appeared to be an intelligence gathering drone and was not carrying explosives. An IDF spokesman, Brigadier General Yoav Mordechai, described the interception as a full operational success and said the aircraft had been downed in accordance with a decision by the force's top leaders. In a statement, Israel's defence minister, Ehud Barak, congratulated the military, saying: "We view this incident of attempting to enter Israeli airspace very severely and we will consider our response later."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Police chief Fred Bordallo orders internal probe to find which officers frequented brothel at centre of scandal A big scandal has hit a small slice of paradise, as police in Guam are investigated as part of a sex-trafficking scandal. All officers on the tiny Pacific island, a US territory that is home to a major American naval base, will be interviewed as authorities attempt to uncover which of them frequented a brothel in which forced prostitution took place. The Pacific Daily News, a local newspaper on the island, reported that police chief Fred Bordallo had ordered an internal investigation of his entire department. Any officers who refused to participate, the newspaper said, would be subject to charges of obstructing justice. The scandal involves a brothel that was run out of a bar on Guam, The Blue House Lounge, in which young Micronesian women were kept against their will after being trafficked onto the island. They had been lured to Guam with the promise of work but then had their passports taken and been forced into becoming prostitutes. The owner of the bar, Song Ja Cha, 70, was found guilty last month and given a life sentence for sex trafficking. During her trial, allegations emerged that several unknown police officers had frequented the brothel at least three times a week. The investigation will be led by Lieutenant Lawrence Quichocho, a graduate of the FBI's famous training school at Quantico, Virginia.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Preliminary investigation finds death of special agent Nicholas Ivie was accidental, with only other colleagues involved A preliminary investigation has found that friendly fire was likely to blame in a shooting that killed one federal agent and wounded another on the Arizona-Mexico border, the FBI said Friday. The incident has re-ignited political debate over security on the border. "There are strong preliminary indications that the death of United States Border Patrol Agent Nicholas J Ivie and the injury to a second agent was the result of an accidental shooting incident involving only the agents," FBI Special Agent in Charge James L Turgal Jr said in a statement. Turgal did not elaborate on the agency's conclusions but said the FBI was using "all necessary investigative, forensic and analytical resources in the course of this investigation" into the incident, which occurred on Tuesday, about five miles north of the border near Bisbee. Ivie was shot and killed after he and two other agents responded to an alarm triggered by a sensor aimed at detecting smugglers and others entering the US illegally. One of the other agents was shot in the ankle and buttocks and was released from the hospital after surgery. The third agent was uninjured. The Cochise County Sheriff's Office, which is assisting the FBI, said federal investigators had used ballistic testing to determine the shootings were likely the result of so-called friendly fire among the agents. Jeffrey D Self, commander of Customs and Border Protection's Joint Field Command-Arizona, said investigators were making progress but noted that despite initial findings that the shootings appeared to have been accidental, it did not diminish the fact that Ivie "gave the ultimate sacrifice and died serving his country". "The fact is the work of the Border Patrol is dangerous," Self said, during a news conference in Tucson. While federal authorities declined to offer details of the shooting, George McCubbin, president of the National Border Patrol Council, said the three agents split up as they investigated the sensor alarm, noting that all three fired their weapons. "Coming in from different angles, that is more than likely how it ended up happening," McCubbin told The Arizona Republic. A Mexican law enforcement official said on Thursday that federal police had arrested two men who may have been connected to the shootings. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information, said it was unclear if there was strong evidence linking the men to the case. It was unclear on Friday whether the two men remained in custody or were still being considered part of the investigation. After a meeting of border governors Friday in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Arizona governor Jan Brewer stood by the criticism she leveled earlier this week in response to the shootings in which she said a political stalemate and the federal government's failures have left the border unsecured and Border Patrol agents in harm's way. "It's the federal government's responsibility to secure our border, and they need to do that, and then we can deal with all the other issues that have come about because our border hasn't been secured," said Brewer, who plans to attend Ivie's funeral on Monday in Sierra Vista. The Border Patrol could not immediately comment on the frequency of friendly fire shootings at the agency, but such incidents appeared to be extremely rare, if they've ever occurred at all. "I know of absolutely none in the past, and my past goes back to 1968," Kent Lundgren, chairman of the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers said, citing the year he joined the agency. "I'm not saying it never happened. I'm just saying I've never heard of it." Also on Friday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano traveled to Arizona to express her condolences to Ivie's family and meet with authorities. Ivie's death was the first fatal shooting of an agent since a firefight with Mexican bandits that killed the US Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010 and spawned congressional probes of a botched government gun-smuggling investigation. Terry's shooting was later linked to that "Fast and Furious" operation, which allowed people suspected of illegally buying guns for others to walk away from gun shops with weapons, rather than be arrested. Authorities intended to track the guns into Mexico. Two rifles found at the scene of Terry's shooting were bought by a member of the gun-smuggling ring being investigated. Critics of the operation say any shooting along the border will raise the specter that those illegal weapons are still being used. Twenty-six Border Patrol agents have died in the line of duty since 2002.
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• Click here for the latest live scores from across Europe 3.12pm: Another goal! Wigan 1 Everton 0! This time it's a cross from the left which Arouna Koné nods in from two yards out. Was he offside? It certainly looked that way! 3.11pm: GOALS! First, Chelsea 0 Norwich 1! A superbly controlled low volley from Holt from 15 yards out, from some other fella's knock-down. 3.07pm: "Ashley Cole, he tweets what he wants," sing the Chelsea fans. 3.06pm: GOAL! West Brom 1 QPR 0! Lovely cross from Shane Long on the right wing, who pegged it past his full-back as if on a jet pack, and then curled the ball onto the head of James Morrison, who headed back across goal and in. Simple, and excellent. 3.03pm: Fernando Torres just broke the Norwich offside trap, with three minutes played, but delayed his shot, was forced wide, then had to check back and give the ball away. He should just have smacked it into the back of the net. 3.00pm: Let's play football! 2.56pm: Players are strolling onto pitches across the nation. We're moments from matchtime. 2.53pm: Sky's Soccer Saturday panel are discussing unpopular managers. I'm mildly surprised to hear that the one manager who Matt Le Tissier played under but didn't like, was Glenn Hoddle. 2.40pm: Manchester City have comprehensively beaten Sunderland 3-0 at the Etihad. Nothing now to distract us from those 3pm kick-offs. 2.39pm: And to complete the Premier League pack, this is how the sides will line up at the Hawthorns:
West Brom: Foster, Tamas, McAuley, Olsson, Popov, Yacob, Mulumbu, Gera, Morrison, Odemwingie, Long. Subs: Luke Daniels, Rosenberg, Dorrans, Jara Reyes, Lukaku, Dawson, Fortuné.
QPR: Julio Cesar, Bosingwa, Ferdinand, Nelsen, Hill, Granero, Mbia, Wright-Phillips, Taarabt, Park, Zamora. Subs: Green, Traoré, Cissé, Mackie, Onuoha, Hoilett, Faurlin.
Referee: Mike Jones (Cheshire). 2.35pm: The Chelsea team is in, and John Terry and Ashley Cole both start.
Chelsea: Cech, Ivanovic, Luíz, Terry, Cole, Mikel, Lampard, Mata, Oscar, Hazard, Torres. Subs: Turnbull, Romeu, Ramires, Moses, Cahill, Azpilicueta, Bertrand.
Norwich: Ruddy, Russell Martin, Barnett, Bassong, Garrido, Elliott Bennett, Howson, Hoolahan, Johnson, Tettey, Holt. Subs: Bunn, Turner, Snodgrass, Jackson, Pilkington, Morison, Ryan Bennett.
Referee: Anthony Taylor (Cheshire). 2.30pm: And here are some more teams. I'll post all the Premier League line-ups as I get them, but feel free to request others.
Wigan: Al Habsi, Ramis, Caldwell, Figueroa, Boyce, McCarthy, McArthur, Beausejour, Kone, Di Santo, Maloney. Subs: Pollitt, Jones, Watson, Gomez, McManaman, Boselli, Miyaichi.
Everton: Howard, Coleman, Jagielka, Heitinga, Baines, Mirallas, Neville, Osman, Pienaar, Fellaini, Jelavic. Subs: Mucha, Oviedo, Naismith, Distin, Gueye, Anichebe, Duffy.
Referee: Kevin Friend (Leicestershire). 2.28pm: Chelsea's team has been widely tweeted but not yet Press Associationed, so you'll have to make do with Swansea v Reading:
Swansea: Vorm, Rangel, Chico, Williams, Davies, Dyer, Britton, Michu, Ki, Routledge, Graham. Subs: Tremmel, Tate, Hernández, Shechter, Moore, De Guzman, Tiendalli.
Reading: McCarthy, Shorey, Mariappa, Gorkss, Cummings, McAnuff, Karacan, Tabb, Kebe, Pogrebnyak, Hunt. Subs: Stuart Taylor, Pearce, Le Fondre, McCleary, Robson-Kanu, Guthrie, Roberts.
Referee: Mike Dean (Wirral). 2.21pm: This Blackburn-related news is just in from the Press Association: "Alan Shearer has admitted he is open to the possibility of taking up the vacant manager's role at Blackburn. The former Rovers striker, who had a short spell in management with Newcastle, spent four years at Ewood Park as a player. When asked about his interest in the job, the 42-year-old told BBC's Football Focus: "I've not spoken to the Blackburn owners. If they approached me I would speak to them."
Pre-match ponderings: Hello! And welcome to a gloriously sunny autumnal Saturday afternoon, packed with the kind of unbelievably exciting fixtures which make the Premier League the best league in the entire world, better in oh so many ways than all the other countries' leagues, such as Swansea v Reading, and West Brom v QPR. Oh. As it happens, this afternoon's four top-flight fixtures feature every single member of the current Premier League bottom three, and just 30% of the current Premier League top 10. But we won't let that bother us, and will instead put all our energy into getting excited about third-placed Everton, who are at Wigan, sixth-placed West Brom against Mark Hughes' bottom-of-the-pile Rangers, and table-topping Chelsea. The latter will be proving that the old "most competitive league in the world" canard isn't quite all it's cracked up to be by slamming a bootful of beauties past hapless Norwich (disclaimer: some assumptions were made in the preparation of this sentence), who shipped five at home to previously winless Liverpool last time out. All eyes on John Terry and Ashley Cole, if selected (and their Twitter accounts if not). But we're not only interested in the top flight, even if we are denied the chance to follow the fortunes of the new leaders of the Championship because Cardiff's visit to hopelessly-out-of-sorts Ipswich is today's televised late kick-off. They could find themselves second by then, if Leicester extend their four-game run of wins at home to Bristol City (and to be more accurate, they could find themselves fifth if they get seriously unlucky). Also interesting: Blackburn hosting fellow Maytime Premier League relegationees Wolves; third-place Brighton taking the division's best away record to Derby; and rock-bottom Peterborough, who lost their first seven league games but have won their last two – away from home and everything – hosting 17th-place Nottingham Forest knowing that a third win on the spin would see them overtake their opponents and (probably) saunter merrily clear of the bottom three. In League One, unbeaten table-toppers Tranmere – "If we play like we did in the second half at Scunthorpe, I don't think there's anyone in this league who can live with us," says Ronnie Moore – visit a Notts County side still in fourth but smarting after a nasty midweek defeat to second-placed Stevenage. "What you don't do after a defeat is get off the bus," said Keith Curle, and I for one have absolutely no idea what he means. And in League Two there'll be a bit of a mini-league involving four of the top five, with second-placed Port Vale visiting fourth-placed Exeter, and fifth-placed Cheltenham hosting third-placed Fleetwood. Gillingham, already five points clear, will gleefully watch them all take points off each other while they seek to extend their 100% away record at mid-table Oxford United. So, that's what I'm excited about today – well, that and my own team's inevitable victory over whichever hapless bunch of unfortunates are unlucky enough to be ordered into their fearsome arena. What have I missed?
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Impressive City saw off a poor Sunderland without too much fuss Welcome to Granadaland for FOOTBALL.
Simple, straightforward, say-what-you-see, does-what-it-says-on-the-goggle-box titling. Life would be so much simpler if television stations flagged up their fare in this no-nonsense, old-school manner. QUIZ. CELEBRITY TALKING PROGRAMME. EXPLOITATIVE AMATEUR SINGING. I'd watch. The practice could be rolled out to other walks of life. The supermarket, for example, where one could purchase GIN, GIN DILUTER and RAZOR. Don't worry, though, Samaritans, there'd be no danger of slipping into a blue funk, because the theme tune to FOOTBALL is by Herb Alpert.
The second stanza of that theme tune - The Magic Trumpet by Herb Alpert and his Tijuana Brass, go on, give it a whirl - is peppered by a jaunty xylophone trill. It's the sort of music perfect for footage of clumsy buffoons desperately trying to stay on their feet as they perambulate down a pavement covered in marbles while carrying two buckets filled with water. Oo-er, don't spill a drop! And it could quite easily have soundtracked Manchester City's travails last March, when they lost at Swansea City, only just beat Chelsea at home, drew at Stoke, and then dropped two more points at home to Sunderland. City scrambled a desperate point in that Sunderland game. The Black Cats were 3-1 up with five minutes to play, thanks to two goals from Seb Larsson and Nicklaus Bnedtner, but Mario Balotelli and Aleksandar Kolarov both scored in a 60-second blast, and the spoils were shared. At the time, it looked like the jig was nevertheless up for City - especially as Manchester United won at Blackburn Rovers a couple of days later to go five points clear, and Roberto Mancini's side were to capitulate at Arsenal the following weekend. It seemed like Sunderland - who had also picked City's pocket on New Year's Day with a late goal from Ji Dong-Won - had done as much as anyone to ensure the Premier League trophy stayed at Old Trafford. But no. That didn't happen, did it. Still, City will be wary of taking their opponents today for granted, and not just because Sunderland took them for four points last season. Martin O'Neill's side are unbeaten, with striker Steven Fletcher scoring goals for fun. City meanwhile have only won once in their last six matches, have let in 18 goals this season, and made a nine-course tasting menu of their last home match at the City of Manchester Stadium, a deserved 3-1 win over QPR, but one which wasn't quite as easy as it should have been. This, therefore, promises to be quite an event as the English champions look to get their (relatively) shaky start to the season back on track. The match kicks off at 12.45pm. Manchester City, who are without captain Vincent Kompany: Hart, Zabaleta, Richards, Lescott, Kolarov, Milner, Toure, Barry, Silva, Tevez, Balotelli.
Subs: Pantilimon, Nasri, Dzeko, Aguero, Rodwell, Clichy, Toure. Sunderland, starring former City winger Adam Johnson, make one change with Carlos Cuellar replacing Titus Bramble, effectively an extra man: Mignolet, Gardner, O'Shea, Cuellar, Rose, Johnson, Larsson, Colback, McClean, Sessegnon, Fletcher.
Subs: Westwood, Campbell, Kilgallon, Vaughan, Meyler, Bramble, Saha. Referee: Lee Probert (Wiltshire) Right here, right now, right here, right etc. The teams, soundtracked by the cutting-edge sounds of 1999, take to the stage. They shake hands, smile, and we'll be off in a wee minute or two. Anyway, MBMs don't have enough Golf Satire for my money. Golf Satire, anyone? "Ah Scott," sighs Roy Allen. "After the most wonderful sporting event imaginable last weekend, you're now back to mundane reality in the shape of diving, pouting, flouncing millionaires 'performing' in front of baying, seething mobs. (Actually, there are some similarities.) After 40+ years of dedication I'm on the verge of falling out of love with football. I seem to spend more time reading legal documents than match reports, assessing players on the basis of their morality rather than their footballing ability. Year by year the soapy suds of the Premier League get more and more depressing. Is this the game to pull me back from the brink of desertion?" Let's hope so. I could do with a five-goal thriller, and with the possible exception of Liverpool, City are the most unpredictable (read porous and currently a wee bit hapless) side in the league. Make us believe again, people. Make us believe. And we're off! City get the ball rolling, in front of a not-particularly-full-looking City of Manchester Stadium. Perhaps there's a big queue at the pie stand. Do people still queue at pie stands at football? With their rattles? And ration coupons? 2 min: A fairly shapeless beginning to the match, although it's worth noting that Sunderland have enjoyed as much possession as the champions so far. 3 min: Cuellar is booked, and rightly so, for a preposterous scythe from the side on Tevez, as the City striker looks to break into the area down the inside-left. That could so easily have been a red card. Studs were showing, and it was a full-pelt nonsense of a challenge. Clumsy, bordering on oafish. 5 min: GOAL!!! Manchester City 1-0 Sunderland. Aleksandar Kolarov had to wrestle the ball off Mario Balotelli - some things never change - in order to take the free kick. And how right was he to do so? Quite right. He curls a powerful effort around the left-hand side of the Sunderland wall, and into the top-left corner. It's not quite tight in the corner, but it would be harsh to criticise Mignolet, who did his best to get to the brilliant shot. What a start for City! 8 min: Toure flicks a pass wide left to Balotelli with the outside of his boot. It's this close to releasing the Italian along the wing, but the ball zips out of play. City are looking bright, and up for this. 10 min: Sunderland are looking sunny enough themselves, though. Fletcher and Sessegnon combine down the right. They cut back, and Larsson is upended 35 yards from goal. The ball's lumped witlessly into the area by Johnson, but the ball breaks to Sessegnon on the edge of the box, to the right of the D. The striker looks to stroke a Le Tissieresque lazy volley into the top left, but he overcooks it a wee bit. That's a great effort, though, and proof that Sunderland won't be lying down after their dismal start. 13 min: Sunderland force a corner down the left. To the sound of concern - i.e. silence - Larsson sends the ball towards the near post. McClean can't quite control. If he'd managed a softer touch, there'd have been trouble for City there. The ball flies out for a goal kick. "In your picture is Balotelli actually sticking his thumb on his chin and waggling his fingers while going 'Nah nah nee nah nah'?" asks Robin Hazelhurst. "Unbelievable. A grown man missing his nose by a good two inches from that range. Or is it just an Italian version of thumbing the nose? In other news I like the campaign for no-nonsense straight-talking, but I don't think 'Gin Diluter' should be allowed - isn't it just a euphemism for what should more accurately be called 'More Gin'?" More Gin? That's a high-quality, premium brand of gin. You can't be diluting that with Gin! Drink it straight, before like a single malt. 17 min: City can't quite get anything together at the moment. Balotelli takes it upon himself to shake things up, with a shimmy inside from the left, then a ludicrous piledriver from 35 yards which goes within 35 yards of the goal. To be fair, it was worth having a hack from there, because nothing else was happening, and it may wake up City's sleepy players and fans. 19 min: Yaya Toure decides to move with extreme prejudice down the left wing. He's not far from busting through three challenges and steaming clear, but he's eventually robbed of the ball and the move comes to naught. Signs however that City are picking up their game again. "What has happened to Cuellar?" wonders Mark Judd. "I recall watching him play for Rangers v Sporting Lisbon in the Europa League and it was virtually him against them. He had a magnificent game. Looking at him now, he does appear, as you say, oafish." Yeah, he was great for Rangers. To be fair, he's not played much since moving south, periods on the bench and the treatment table. I would say he should never have left Ibrox, but, well, y'know. 21 min: Tevez, on the edge of the area, slips a ball down the inside-right channel for Zabaleta, who finds himself one on one with Mignolet! The keeper Schmeichels himself well to parry the close-range shot. Tevez comes back at Sunderland down the inside-right, dragging a low shot right across the face of goal and out on the left. Zabaleta, level with the left-hand post, isn't far from connecting with the fizzer with his toe. But Sunderland survive. Credit also to Mario Balotelli, who contributed bugger all to that move, but appears to have shaken his team-mates out of their torpor with that daft nonsense on 17 minutes. 24 min: Gardner pushes his boot into Balotelli's face, just to the right of the Sunderland D. An accident, with the City striker looking to turn the defender in a cheeky fashion, but a free kick in a very dangerous position. Kolarov wins his second row with Balotelli, having earned the right to take the set piece with that goal a wee bit earlier. His effort, aimed towards the top left, is obvious and deflected out for a corner. "Perhaps next time there's a free kick, Balotelli should pull up his shirt to display the message 'Why not me?'" suggests Ben Bamford, apropos exactly this sort of incident. 25 min: City's corner comes to naught. "Football Scott, Football!" chirps Gary Naylor. "It's the best it's been for 25 years! Ask any Evertonian. Actually, there is a case for football being more interesting this season than for a while. The key is to just watch the games and ignore all the noise." All the noise? Ah, you'll miss us when the internet finally kills All Journalism. Won't you? No! Don't say that! 27 min: Sessegnon looks to release Johnson down the right - the winger is in acres - but his attempted Hollywood ball flies over San Francisco instead. Shame for Sunderland, as City's defence was looking threadbare there. 30 min: Milner earns himself a yard down the right. He zips the ball into the centre, where Gardner clears under intense pressure from Balotelli. Corner. From which Kolarov, at the edge of the area, flays a hopeless effort miles into the top-right corner of the stand behind the goal. Kolarov's shot happy today. He's turning into an ersatz Balotelli. 34 min: A long lull is broken when Tevez jumps on a poor pass inside by Gardner, advances on the Sunderland area, and takes a wild whack that's deflected out for a corner on the right. From which ... 35 min: ... the ball lands at Balotelli's feet on the edge of the area. The Ersatz Kolarov tries to guide the ball into the top right, but isn't too accurate. I hope you weren't expecting a goal. 37 min: City are beginning to turn the screw, though. A diagonal ball from the left finds Tevez, eight yards out level with the far post. He belabours the ball straight into the ground, instead of dispatching it into the unguarded left-hand side of the net, as was surely his intention. Sunderland clear. 38 min: A rare sortie for Sunderland. Fletcher, currently in the middle of a goal-happy spell and not to be taken lightly, takes the ball up down the inside-right channel and sends an effort goalwards. It's not much, to be honest. Hart is right behind it. He had enough time not only to throw a cap on the ball, but also to draw a smiley face on it. Maybe a couple of snaggled teeth, too. And a pipe. 41 min: Tevez skedaddles down the right and earns himself a corner. Milner and Silva exchange passes not once but twice. Eventually the ball's shuttled inside to Barry, who has a welt from the edge of the box, just to the right of goal. Which is exactly where his straight-as-an-arrow effort stays as it flies out of play. 43 min: From the centre circle, Yaya Toure arrows a low pass out wide left to Balotelli, who is in position to tear clear of the Sunderland back line. Problem is, he's already started doing so before his team-mate spotted him, and the chance to launch a dangerous mission on the Sunderland box is spurned, as he's foolishly caught offside. Sunderland have been distinctly unimpressive here. 45 min: Colback is the only Sunderland player who sounds a bit like a comedy scriptwriting technique. He's also the only Sunderland player who is constantly looking to break into the City half. He bombs down the middle with purpose, then finds Sessegnon down the right. The ball's worked back to Larsson, who curls a high ball into the area. McClean attempts to take the ball down, but only shanks the ball out wide to Sessegnon, who is caught miles offside. That's a whole load of description for not very much, but it's probably helpful in so much as it illustrates that Sunderland have actually turned up. Sean Boiling wishes to refer to minute 38 and Joe Hart sketching a face on the ball: "He's an Erstatz Tom Hanks. Wilson! WILSON!" HALF TIME: Manchester City 1-0 Sunderland. And that's that for the half, one aimless Tevez slash and another pointless Fletcher waft apart. City will probably consider themselves unlucky not to be two goals in front at least, on the balance of play, but they've not actually forced Mignolet into too much action, so for all that Sunderland have been poor, one goal is probably about right. HALF-TIME PROG-ROCK WIGOUT: Granada get rid of Herb Alpert, and introduce Elton Welsby. The slow decline of football coverage in the region begins. And we're off again! No changes to either side. City take an aeon to leave the tunnel, as Yaya Toure isn't ready. Sunderland have to mill around on the pitch for two or three minutes looking rather embarrassed. Or perhaps the red faces are a result of extreme irritation. Who knows. Once City are in situ, Sunderland get the ball rolling. Not much of an atmosphere at this particular moment, but the stands are at least full at the start of the half this time round. "For some reason it takes ages at the moment to get into the Etihad," explains Daniel Green. "I had the same problem on Wednesday." 47 min: Sunderland have started this half well. First Johnson goes on a purposeful meander down the right. Then Larsson sprays a ball from a central position to Fletcher on the left, just inside the area. The striker's first-time volley isn't on target, or strong enough, and charged down. Larsson screws the rebound miles wide left of goal from the edge of the box. "Elton Welsby," writes Ben Stanley. "Blimey. That takes me back. Did he ever sue Steve Coogan for breach of intellectual property?" 50 min: And now City come straight back at Sunderland. Yaya Toure cuts inside from the left and belts a rising shot straight at Mignolet. The keeper pushes the howitzer over the bar. From the corner on the right, Richards guides a weak header goalwards from eight yards, but the ball balloons back at him and he directs a shot towards the right-hand side of goal. Rose is on the line to head clear, quite brilliantly. This is a wonderful opening to the half. 52 min: I wonder if Martin O'Neill has spotted a kink in the City defence? Wouldn't take too much squinting, I suppose. Sessegnon, down the inside right, sends a diagonal ball to Fletcher, who has the better of Richards and powers a header towards the left-hand side of goal. It's a great effort, met majestically by Hart's dive, though the striker's flagged, correctly, for offside. Great football all round. 54 min: Johnson goes after a sliderule pass down the inside-right from Sessegnon. He looks like breaking clear into the area, but Kolarov sticks out a leg and guides the ball away from the winger. Sunderland are really testing City's back line here. 56 min: Kolarov flies down the left and zips a low ball straight through the Sunderland area. Balotelli, sliding in, is this close to extending his leg at the far post and toe-poking home. The crowd gasp in wonder mixed with mild frustration. And then applause, as Balotelli is replaced by Aguero. 58 min: The occasionally hapless Cuellar is at it again, conceding a needless corner down the right. From that corner, a bit of jazz noodling, and another corner eventually comes. And from that one, Richards towers to plant a header towards the top left. Mignolet leaps acrobatically to pluck the powerful effort from the air. This match doesn't have the feel of a 1-0 any more. 60 min: GOAL!!! Manchester City 2-0 Sunderland. And there you have it. Kolarov gains a yard down the left, chasing after a clever ball by Silva. He whips the ball to the near post, where Aguero sidefoots powerfully into the left-hand side of the net. Chalk one up for Roberto Mancini, for that's quite a substitution. 62 min: Sunderland respond to the goal instantly, albeit only in terms of rejigging their personnel. Rose is off; Vaughan comes on. 63 min: City have the confidence on now, and they're first to everything. Sunderland had done their bit to the fast opening of this half, but they're second to everything at present. 64 min: Silva is beginning to pull the strings, yanking Sunderland all over the shop. An exquisite flick down the inside-left channel releases Barry into the area, but O'Shea is over quickly to lump a no-messing clearance upfield before the City midfielder can fashion a shot from 12 yards. Great last-ditch defending, but what a clever little dink by Silva. 67 min: Silva diddles in from the right. It looks like he's shaping to shoot, but instead he plays a cute reverse pass down the right for Aguero, whose subsequent shot is deflected out for a corner. Silva undoes all his good work with a godawful corner. Still, it's hard to criticise the Spanish international, who has been outstanding today. 68 min: It's not been much of a return for Adam Johnson, who goes off to be replaced by Saha. Johnson is applauded for his efforts as an erstwhile City employee; the Sunderland striker is given the bird for his time at Old Trafford. 69 min: From the centre, Aguero slips a ball towards the right for Tevez, who scampers towards the box and unleashes a low shot just wide left of goal. 70 min: This is all City now, the home side rampant. Aguero once again releases Tevez, down the same channel. Tevez gets to the ball ahead of the outrushing Mignolet. He's too wide on the right to shoot, allowing the keeper to get back up and make his life difficult. Instead of trying an outrageous curler round the keeper, Tevez rolls the ball back to the edge of the area, where Silva shapes a sidefoot onto the crossbar. So unlucky. 72 min: A corner for Sunderland down the right. Fletcher meets it with his head, albeit in rather uncertain fashion. The ball's nevertheless looping towards the top left, but Hart manages to claw it out. The keeper is then clattered by Sessegnon. City escape themselves. 74 min: This is real end-to-end stuff, albeit with most of the action at one end. That's not really end-to-end, then, is it. Anyway, it's a corner to City now. From the right, Richards meets the ball ten yards out and crashes a header towards the left-hand top corner. Mignolet is right behind it to parry clear. The defender could easily have a brace, but Sunderland's last-ditch scrambling has been of a high quality. 75 min: Another corner for City. Richards, perhaps as a satirical gesture, now goes for goal with an overhead kick. Satire is so 1961, though. 77 min: Aguero dances down the inside-left channel on tippy-toes. If football's ever been working-class ballet, that was it right there. Amazing balance, strength and delicacy. The Darcey Bussell of soccer. He eventually flicks the ball forward to Tevez, who hesitates slightly as he enters the box ahead of O'Shea, who along with Cuellar manages to clear. 78 min: Yaya Toure tangles with Colback as he enters the Sunderland area from the left, and claims a penalty ... but no. Nope. 80 min: Fletcher has a frustrated slapshot straight at Hart from the edge of the area. He's scored in every match so far this season, and with a Scotland recall coming up, now look what's happening. Bah! 81 min: Colback is booked for a late clatter on Unidentified City Player. It didn't look like much, to be honest, and the City fans couldn't even be bothered to howl in outrage, but he's in the book. 83 min: Sessegnon is replaced by Campbell. 84 min: Gardner romps down the inside-right channel and sends a rising shot goalwards. Lescott gets his nut in the way, deflecting the ball wide right for a corner. From which nothing comes. Sunderland look spent, but apart from a couple of sorties at the start of this half, they've looked spent since the five-minute mark. 86 min: Tevez is replaced by Clichy. Kolarov comes in from the left and has two belts at goal. Both are charged down. The first, by Gardner, is a hand ball, but the player was so close, and with his back to goal, that a penalty would have been an absurd decision. The second goes out for a corner, from which nothing happens. 87 min: City are just stroking it around the back now, letting the clock run down. 88 min: City spring upfield all of a sudden through Kolarov, who is upended on the left-hand edge of the box by Gardner. That's a booking. Given the defender kicked Balotelli in the face earlier, you could argue he's lucky to be staying on. 89 min: GOAL!!! Manchester City 3-0 Sunderland. Milner hammers a rising, curling shot towards the goal. The ball takes a light brush off the top of the hapless Gardner's head, and flies between the confused Mignolet's hands and into the roof of the net. 90 min: Rodwell comes on for the superlative Silva. 90 min +1: There will be three added minutes of this. Aguero should have scored in this, the first of them, but after twisting, turning and procrastinating in space on the edge of the box, he hits his shot straight at Mignolet, who gets a fine, strong hand to stop the ball flying into the net. 90 min +2: Sunderland don't give up a chance during this minute, which is probably worthy of note. FULL TIME: Manchester City 3-0 Sunderland. And there you have it. The champions were superb today, certainly in the second half. Not at the top of their game by any means, but pretty damn good nevertheless. They're now a point behind leaders Chelsea, for a couple of hours at least. But that's exactly the sort of performance City needed, after a few erratic ones. As for Sunderland... well, it's the international break, so that's something, isn't it?
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Pope Benedict expected to pardon Paolo Gabriele after he was found guilty of stealing his private correspondence Pope Benedict's former butler, Paolo Gabriele, has been sentenced to 18 months' jail for stealing his employer's private correspondence. Gabriele made a last-minute plea before the Vatican court that he acted out of love for the pope and did not "feel like a thief". Reading out the sentence, which was lower than the three years demanded by the Vatican's prosecutor, judge Giuseppe Dalla Torre said the verdict took into account Gabriele's clean record, years of service and his regret for his actions. He described Gabriele's behaviour as "misguided". As the sentence was read out on Saturday, Gabriele – who was also ordered to pay costs – remained impassive. His lawyer, Cristiana Arru, said he would return to house arrest while the court decided whether he would actually be jailed. The pope is widely expected to step in and pardon his former aide. Arru described the verdict as a "good sentence". Gabriele, 46, told investigators that he felt like an "agent of the Holy Spirit" as he leaked sensitive documents from the papal apartment which lifted the lid on alleged corruption within the secretive city state, allegations about which he claimed the pontiff was kept in the dark. The letters were published by the Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi in his book Your Holiness, prompting an internal investigation which led to Vatican police raiding Gabriele's apartment on 23 May. "The thing I feel strongly inside me is the conviction of having reacted exclusively out of love, I would say visceral love, for the church of Christ and its living head," Gabriele told the court at the end of the hour-long hearing on Saturday. "If I have to repeat this: I don't feel like a thief." In her summing up Arru told the panel of three judges that Gabriele had only photocopied documents from the papal apartment and had not stolen originals, a claim challenged by the prosecutor, who told the court that original documents had been found among the more than 1,000 relevant documents in Gabriele's apartment. Prosecutor Nicola Picardi took pains to stress there was no proof Gabriele had accomplices, a view backed by Arru, even though Gabriele had said he was in touch with bishops, papal staff and an archbishop as he leaked the documents. "No one in the Vatican knew of Paolo Gabriele's archive in his house, which deserves to be in a library thanks to its size and subject matter," Picardi said.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Hugo Chávez promises to increase production and reduce dependence on US market by doubling crude exports to Asia While giant rallies in Caracas may be drawing the world's attention ahead of tomorrow's Venezuelan presidential election, the global significance of the vote can be found hundreds of miles to the east in the oil-soaked Orinoco Belt. According to studies, Venezuela has overtaken Saudi Arabia to become number one in the world for proven oil reserves, largely thanks to the heavy crude found in this vast alluvial plain. Whether this multi-trillion dollar asset is controlled by Hugo Chávez or the opposition challenger, Henrique Capriles, will influence which countries and companies are given the priority to exploit them and how much drivers around the world pay at the pump. According to a report this year by BP, Venezuela has reserves of 296.5bn barrels, about 10% more than Saudi Arabia and 18% of the global total. At the country's current levels of production, this would last about 100 years. If Chávez wins – as most polls suggest – he has promised to ramp up production and reduce his country's dependence on the US market by doubling crude exports to Asia. To further this goal, Venezuela plans to build a pipeline through Colombia to the Pacific which would reduce costs and transport times to China and other Asian markets. Capriles, who has mounted a strong challenge, says he would fire the oil minister, Rafael Ramírez, and rethink how crude is extracted and used. Until now Russian and Chinese companies have struck the biggest deals for future exploitation. "We have to revise every deal. I think they are agreements that are not functioning," he said. During the campaign, he has also said he would halt subsidised oil shipments to Cuba, Belarus, Nicaragua and Syria. Critics say he is a stalking horse for US interests. Both Chávez and Capriles are calling for more investment so that Venezuela can increase not only output but also the quality of oil through the use of upgrading technology. But the volatile mix of politics and oil has made it difficult to secure partners. In recent years Venezuelan oil production has fallen due to poor maintenance, low investment and the loss of key workers. Plans to open new fields have been repeatedly delayed. The state-owned oil company PDVSA says the holdups are over. Last week its joint venture with Russia's Rosneft and Lukoil pumped its first barrel. Another operation, with a Vietnamese firm, has also reportedly begun. Projects with Chevron of the US, Spain's Repsol and others are due to start early next year. But there are still many empty blocks. Officials said BP, Shell and several other multinationals appear to be waiting to see if the government will change today before committing to possible joint ventures in the two main areas for expansion, Carabobo and Junín. "There is a danger that British firms might miss out. In this country, oil and politics are intertwined. Many companies are waiting for the election result," said Osmel Molina, deputy manager of the Carabobo region. "They hope for higher profits if the political situation changes. That's why there is so much support for the opposition. They don't necessarily want to oust Chávez, but they do want a weak government so they can control the biggest oil resources in the world." Venezuela has an oil-dependent economy – PDVSA accounts for 95% of the country's export earnings. Domestically, the mix of populist politics, super-abundant oil and second-rate refining technology has left the country with a peculiar system in which the state sells crude for $100 (£61) a barrel, buys back petrol at $400, then sells it on to domestic drivers at such a discount that a full tank is cheaper than a cup of coffee. A gallon costs about 6p, leading to a lucrative cross-border petrol-smuggling business. Neither candidate has dared to commit to a raise. Oil rose to the centre of the political debate in 2003, when the sector was crippled by striking workers. The Chávez government, which had survived a coup attempt the previous year, sacked most of the management and many of the workers, saying that they were pawns in a US-backed effort to destabilise the country. The industry is now a bastion of government loyalists. Molina's office is decorated with portraits of Chávez and Simón Bolívar. Most of the staff wear red Chávez re-election campaign T-shirts. Four oilfields are named after battles of independence. Oil helps to explain why Chávez is vilified in the US. In 2000, a year after taking power, he made his first mark on global affairs with a tour of the Middle East to lobby key Opec members – Iraq, Iran, Libya, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia – to drive oil prices higher. Since then, the cost of Brent crude has risen from less than $20 a barrel to more than $100. Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi were among the leaders who joined Chávez to drive up prices. Molina believes it is no coincidence that they were deposed and killed: "There's a plan in place to control the global oil market. Anyone who tries to erode the monopoly ends up in conflict with the [US] empire." In the past, Molina said foreign oil firms were paying only 3% royalties to the government, but Chávez pushed this up to 16%. He also helped to raise the value of the output from the Orinoco Belt by relabelling it as valuable heavy crude instead of cheap bitumin or tar, as it had previously been priced. Some accuse the US and multinationals of trying to influence the presidential campaign. "Transnationals want control of the oil here. They want the submission of Latin America to supply the market needs of the US," said Nicmer Evans, a political science professor at the Central University of Venezuela. But the outside influence cuts both ways. Since 2007, the government has received $42.5bn in loans from the China Development Bank, with the biggest tranche coming in the year ahead of an election in which Chávez has increased public spending, the minimum wage and pensions. This is repaid largely through shipments of 430,000 barrels of crude a day to China in repayment. Russian president Vladimir Putin showed his support with the gift of a puppy to Chávez this month. But geopolitics is not the only factor at play in deciding who gets to exploit and use this pool of oil. Geography, market demand and refining technology are also help to explain why the US – despite Chávez's rhetoric – remains Venezuela's biggest customer. The scale of the required investment will also be a struggle for any single country. Chávez has said Venezuela should look to the country's Faja oil belt and promised to invest $130bn in the region to double national oil production to six billion barrels a day, pushing Venezuela past Iran as the world's second-biggest producer. The money is needed to upgrade wells, processing plants, refineries, docks, roads and housing. Dire maintenance has plagued the industry, most recently with a huge fire at the Amuay refinery. Local people say that the main road between Morichal and Maturin has been cut off at least twice in the past month, once because floods swept away a bridge and once because of a protest by nearby residents against power shortages.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Shelling marks fourth day of Turkish retaliation as cross-border attacks threaten to escalate into war Turkey returned fire after a mortar bomb shot from Syria landed in a field in southern Turkey on Saturday, the day after the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, warned Damascus his country would not shy away from war if provoked. It was the fourth day of Turkish strikes in retaliation for mortar bombs and shelling by Syrian forces that killed five Turkish civilians further east on Wednesday. The strikes and counter-strikes are the most serious cross-border violence in Syria's conflict, which began as a pro-democracy uprising but has evolved into a civil war with sectarian overtones. They highlight how the crisis could destabilise the region. Nato member Turkey, once an ally of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, but now a leading voice in calls for him to quit, has nearly 100,000 Syrian refugees in camps on its territory and has allowed rebel leaders sanctuary. Its armed forces are far larger than Syria's. Erdogan said on Friday his country did not want war but warned Syria not to make a "fatal mistake" by testing its resolve. Damascus has said its fire hit Turkey accidentally. The Hatay provincial governor's office said the round fired from Syria on Saturday hit empty land near the village of Guvecci in Yayladagi district, 50 metres inside Turkey, at 7am. "It is assessed that the shell was fired by Syrian Arab Republic security forces at opposition forces along the border," a statement on its website said. "There was no loss of life in the incident. The Guvecci border post retaliated in kind with four rounds from 81mm mortars." The Dogan news agency said another mortar round from Syria landed around 50 metres from an observation tower near Guvecci around 11am and smoke rose from the area. There were no immediate reports of casualties or retaliation but a response was expected. Dogan said the governor's office had warned people in the area not to go out on balconies or spend time in open places. It said the Red Crescent was offering psychological support to people in the area. There were two similar incidents in Hatay on Friday. "Those who attempt to test Turkey's deterrence, its decisiveness, its capacity, I say here they are making a fatal mistake," Erdogan said in a bellicose speech to a crowd in Istanbul on Friday afternoon. "We are not interested in war, but we're not far from war either. This nation has come to where it is today having gone through intercontinental wars," he said. Turkish artillery bombarded Syrian military targets on Wednesday and Thursday, killing several Syrian soldiers after Syria's initial fatal bombardment. The UN security council condemned the original Syrian attack and demanded that such violations of international law stop immediately, while Turkey's parliament authorised cross-border military action in the event of further aggression.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Shelling marks fourth day of Turkish retaliation as cross-border attacks threaten to escalate into war Turkey has returned fire after a mortar bomb shot from Syria landed in a field in southern Turkey. The exchange came the day after Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, warned Damascus that his country would not shy away from war if provoked. It was the fourth day of Turkish strikes in retaliation for mortar bombs and shelling by Syrian forces that killed five Turkish civilians further east on Wednesday. The strikes and counter-strikes are the most serious cross-border violence in Syria's conflict, which began as a pro-democracy uprising but has evolved into a civil war with sectarian overtones. They highlight how the crisis could destabilise the region. Nato member Turkey, once an ally of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, but now a leading voice in calls for him to quit, has nearly 100,000 Syrian refugees in camps on its territory and has allowed rebel leaders sanctuary. Its armed forces are far larger than Syria's. Erdogan said on Friday his country did not want war but warned Syria not to make a "fatal mistake" by testing its resolve. Damascus has said its fire hit Turkey accidentally. The Hatay provincial governor's office said the round fired from Syria on Saturday hit empty land near the village of Guvecci in Yayladagi district, 50 metres inside Turkey, at 7am. "It is assessed that the shell was fired by Syrian Arab Republic security forces at opposition forces along the border," a statement on its website said. "There was no loss of life in the incident. The Guvecci border post retaliated in kind with four rounds from 81mm mortars." The Dogan news agency said another mortar round from Syria landed around 50 metres from an observation tower near Guvecci around 11am and smoke rose from the area. There were no immediate reports of casualties or retaliation but a response was expected. Dogan said the governor's office had warned people in the area not to go out on balconies or spend time in open places. It said the Red Crescent was offering psychological support to people in the area. There were two similar incidents in Hatay on Friday. "Those who attempt to test Turkey's deterrence, its decisiveness, its capacity, I say here they are making a fatal mistake," Erdogan said in a bellicose speech to a crowd in Istanbul on Friday afternoon. "We are not interested in war, but we're not far from war either. This nation has come to where it is today having gone through intercontinental wars," he said. Turkish artillery bombarded Syrian military targets on Wednesday and Thursday, killing several Syrian soldiers after Syria's initial fatal bombardment. The UN security council condemned the original Syrian attack and demanded that such violations of international law stop immediately, while Turkey's parliament authorised cross-border military action in the event of further aggression.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Islamist cleric to face judge within 24 hours of landing in US after he and four other terrorism suspects are extradited from UK The Islamist cleric Abu Hamza is expected to appear in a US court on Saturday to face terrorism charges after he was extradited from Britain along with four other suspects. The men were deported on two planes which left a military airbase in Suffolk late on Friday night after the high court rejected their final appeals earlier in the day. Abu Hamza faces 11 charges in the US relating to hostage taking, conspiracy to establish a militant training camp and calling for holy war in Afghanistan. His lawyers argued he was not fit to be deported on health grounds but UK judges rejected his appeal, paving the way for his immediate removal from the UK. He is set to go before a judge at an open hearing within 24 hours of landing at an airport in New York. The high court also threw out challenges by Babar Ahmad, Syed Ahsan, Khaled al-Fawwaz and Adel Abdul Bary after ruling they did not show "new and compelling" reasons to stay in the UK. The US attorney general has confirmed the arrival of a flight carrying Babar Ahmad and Syed Talha Ahsan who are due before a court in Connecticut in connection with the alleged running of a pro-jihad website. Speaking after the US-bound flights had taken off, the home secretary, Teresa May, said: "I am pleased the decision of the court today meant that these men, who used every available opportunity to frustrate and delay the extradition process over many years, could finally be removed. "This government has co-operated fully with the courts and pressed at every stage to ensure this happened. We have worked tirelessly, alongside the US authorities, the police and the prison service, to put plans in place so that tonight these men could be handed over within hours of the court's decision. It is right that these men, who are all accused of very serious offences, will finally face justice." After three days of legal argument, Sir John Thomas, president of the Queen's Bench division, and Mr Justice Ouseley lifted injunctions that had been preventing the men's removal. The decision is the culmination of an eight-year legal battle that has strained the government's constitutional relationship with the European court of human rights in Strasbourg and frustrated politicians, as well as the lord chief justice. The cases have involved appeals through the hierarchy of British and European courts, then back to the royal courts of justice in London. Delivering judgment, Thomas said: "All of these claimants have long ago exhausted the [legal] procedures in the UK. There's an overwhelming public interest in the proper functioning of the extradition arrangements in the US. It's important to recognise the finality of these proceedings." Thomas said extradition proceedings should take months not years and the process had been "disfigured" by protracted delays. "There's no appeal from our decision and the home secretary will be free" to extradite them, he said. Thomas was scathing about the attempt to try to bring a private prosecution against Babar Ahmad and Talha Ahsan in Britain. "It's now far, far, far too late to raise it now," he said. The use of such a procedure amounted to an "abuse of process". He also suggested that reform of extradition procedures should be considered to stop them being dragging out. "There may well be a need to reconsider the inter-relationship of the statutory appeal scheme, the ability to reopen appeals and the role of judicial review." The US wants all five men to face al-Qaida-related terrorist charges in American courts. Police vehicles, including armoured vans, arrived at HMP Long Lartin, near Evesham, in Worcestershire, at around 6.30pm on Friday. After about an hour, the vehicles, understood to have Hamza and the other men inside, left the prison grounds. Under heavy security, they drove off at speed to RAF Mildenhall. Four of the five men had claimed that harsh prison conditions in the high-security unit of ADX Florence jail in Colorado, where they may eventually be imprisoned, would breach their human rights. It was said Abu Hamza would not have to spend too long at the facility because of his many medical conditions. The 54-year-old, who was jailed for seven years for soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred, has been fighting extradition since 2004. His lawyers opposed deportation on the grounds that he was suffering memory loss and depression and was unfit to plead. They sought permission for the former imam at Finsbury Park mosque in north London to be given an MRI scan to assess his medical condition. Ahmad, 37, a computer expert, and Ahsan, 33, are accused of raising funds for terrorism through a website. Lawyers for the two men challenged the director of public prosecutions' decision not to charge them with offences allegedly committed in the UK. Fawwaz, who is alleged to have been an aide to Osama bin Laden in the 1990s, was seeking disclosure of an 800-page MI6 document relating to the debriefing of another suspect which, his lawyers maintain, would undermine the charges against him. Bary, 52, is also said to have worked closely with Bin Laden. His barrister argued that conditions in US high-security jails would breach his rights under the European convention on human rights – a claim already dismissed by the Strasbourg court. Bary and Fawwaz are wanted in relation to the bombings of US embassies in east Africa in 1998. Protesters opposing deportation and supporting Ahmad and Ahsan gathered outside the royal courts of justice. Lines of police officers watched as they chanted: "British justice for British citizens" and waved "Stop extradition" placards. A few wore union flag T-shirts emblazoned with the motto: "Extradite me, I'm British". The US embassy in London welcomed the court's decision and noted that they had submitted the first extradition request 14 years ago: "These extraditions mark the end of a lengthy process of litigation through the UK courts and the European court of human rights." Its statement highlighted the Strasbourg court's finding that conditions in American maximum-security facilities did not violate European standards. After the ruling, Ahmad stated: "Today I have lost my eight-year-and-two-month battle against extradition to the US. I would like to thank all those over the years who supported me and my family: lawyers, politicians, journalists and members of the public from all walks of life. "By exposing the fallacy of the UK's extradition arrangements with the US, I leave with my head held high, having won the moral victory." His father, Ashfaq Ahmad, said: "After over 40 years of paying taxes in this country, I am appalled that the system has let me down in a manner more befitting of a third world country than one of the world's oldest democracies. "It seems that the Metropolitan police, the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] and even the court have all colluded to implement a predetermined decision which was made in Washington. "We will never abandon our struggle for justice and the truth will eventually emerge of what will be forever remembered as a shameful chapter in the history of Britain."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Islamist cleric to face judge within 24 hours of landing in US after he and four other terrorism suspects are extradited from UK The Islamist cleric Abu Hamza and four other terrorism suspects have arrived in the US after being extradited from Britain, US officials have confirmed. The US attorney's office in New York said Hamza, Khaled al-Fawwaz and Adel Abdul Bary were in New York City and were expected to appear in court later on Saturday. The US attorney's office in Connecticut said Babar Ahmad and Syed Talha Ahsan are scheduled to appear in US district court in New Haven, in connection with the alleged running of a pro-jihad website. The men were deported on two planes which left a military airbase in Suffolk late on Friday night after the high court rejected their final appeals earlier in the day. Abu Hamza faces 11 charges in the US relating to hostage taking, conspiracy to establish a militant training camp and calling for holy war in Afghanistan. His lawyers argued he was not fit to be deported on health grounds but UK judges rejected his appeal, paving the way for his immediate removal from the UK. The high court also threw out challenges by Babar Ahmad, Syed Ahsan, Khaled al-Fawwaz and Adel Abdul Bary after ruling they did not show "new and compelling" reasons to stay in the UK. Speaking after the US-bound flights had taken off, the home secretary, Theresa May, said: "I am pleased the decision of the court today meant that these men, who used every available opportunity to frustrate and delay the extradition process over many years, could finally be removed. "This government has co-operated fully with the courts and pressed at every stage to ensure this happened. We have worked tirelessly, alongside the US authorities, the police and the prison service, to put plans in place so that tonight these men could be handed over within hours of the court's decision. It is right that these men, who are all accused of very serious offences, will finally face justice." After three days of legal argument, Sir John Thomas, president of the Queen's Bench division, and Mr Justice Ouseley lifted injunctions that had been preventing the men's removal. The decision is the culmination of an eight-year legal battle that has strained the government's constitutional relationship with the European court of human rights in Strasbourg and frustrated politicians, as well as the lord chief justice. The cases have involved appeals through the hierarchy of British and European courts, then back to the royal courts of justice in London. Delivering judgment, Thomas said: "All of these claimants have long ago exhausted the [legal] procedures in the UK. There's an overwhelming public interest in the proper functioning of the extradition arrangements in the US. It's important to recognise the finality of these proceedings." Thomas said extradition proceedings should take months not years and the process had been "disfigured" by protracted delays. "There's no appeal from our decision and the home secretary will be free" to extradite them, he said. Thomas was scathing about the attempt to try to bring a private prosecution against Babar Ahmad and Talha Ahsan in Britain. "It's now far, far, far too late to raise it now," he said. The use of such a procedure amounted to an "abuse of process". He also suggested that reform of extradition procedures should be considered to stop them being dragging out. "There may well be a need to reconsider the inter-relationship of the statutory appeal scheme, the ability to reopen appeals and the role of judicial review." The US wants all five men to face al-Qaida-related terrorist charges in American courts. Police vehicles, including armoured vans, arrived at HMP Long Lartin, near Evesham, in Worcestershire, at around 6.30pm on Friday. After about an hour, the vehicles, understood to have Hamza and the other men inside, left the prison grounds. Under heavy security, they drove off at speed to RAF Mildenhall. Four of the five men had claimed that harsh prison conditions in the high-security unit of ADX Florence jail in Colorado, where they may eventually be imprisoned, would breach their human rights. It was said Abu Hamza would not have to spend too long at the facility because of his many medical conditions. The 54-year-old, who was jailed for seven years for soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred, has been fighting extradition since 2004. His lawyers opposed deportation on the grounds that he was suffering memory loss and depression and was unfit to plead. They sought permission for the former imam at Finsbury Park mosque in north London to be given an MRI scan to assess his medical condition. Ahmad, 37, a computer expert, and Ahsan, 33, are accused of raising funds for terrorism through a website. Lawyers for the two men challenged the director of public prosecutions' decision not to charge them with offences allegedly committed in the UK. Fawwaz, who is alleged to have been an aide to Osama bin Laden in the 1990s, was seeking disclosure of an 800-page MI6 document relating to the debriefing of another suspect which, his lawyers maintain, would undermine the charges against him. Bary, 52, is also said to have worked closely with Bin Laden. His barrister argued that conditions in US high-security jails would breach his rights under the European convention on human rights – a claim already dismissed by the Strasbourg court. Bary and Fawwaz are wanted in relation to the bombings of US embassies in east Africa in 1998. Protesters opposing deportation and supporting Ahmad and Ahsan gathered outside the royal courts of justice. Lines of police officers watched as they chanted: "British justice for British citizens" and waved "Stop extradition" placards. A few wore union flag T-shirts emblazoned with the motto: "Extradite me, I'm British". The US embassy in London welcomed the court's decision and noted that they had submitted the first extradition request 14 years ago: "These extraditions mark the end of a lengthy process of litigation through the UK courts and the European court of human rights." Its statement highlighted the Strasbourg court's finding that conditions in American maximum-security facilities did not violate European standards. After the ruling, Ahmad stated: "Today I have lost my eight-year-and-two-month battle against extradition to the US. I would like to thank all those over the years who supported me and my family: lawyers, politicians, journalists and members of the public from all walks of life. "By exposing the fallacy of the UK's extradition arrangements with the US, I leave with my head held high, having won the moral victory." His father, Ashfaq Ahmad, said: "After over 40 years of paying taxes in this country, I am appalled that the system has let me down in a manner more befitting of a third world country than one of the world's oldest democracies. "It seems that the Metropolitan police, the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] and even the court have all colluded to implement a predetermined decision which was made in Washington. "We will never abandon our struggle for justice and the truth will eventually emerge of what will be forever remembered as a shameful chapter in the history of Britain."
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