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Sabado, Marso 31, 2012
South Wales Evening Post commented Parents' joy as independent school's future is secured
PARENTS of children at Swansea's only independent secondary school have welcomed a deal securing its future.
Westley accuses four of his Preston players of leaking team news
? Manager says Sheffield Wednesday were given heads-up
? 'This dressing room is fighting against itself' he adds
The Preston manager, Graham Westley, has accused four of his players of deliberately leaking tactical information before their 2-0 League One defeat to Sheffield Wednesday.
Westley, who replaced the sacked Phil Brown in January, has been the target of growing criticism for overseeing a dire run of results, with only one win in their last 11 games leaving them 16th, only six points above the relegation zone.
Speaking after the defeat at Hillsborough, Westley said: "This squad's got a lot of losing ways installed in it, and there's no better example of that than what Wednesday's bench told me during the second half. I have to work on the basis that their bench wouldn't lie, and they said that four players of ours yesterday, at five o'clock, revealed our team to them.
"Does it surprise me? When you've got a number of agendas within a club ? and I've said since I've been here that that's the case ? this sort of thing happens. And it's not the first time that something's happened here that's surprised me.
"This dressing room is fighting against itself. There are 35-odd players in the squad and they will be very disappointed that some are working against their team-mates.
"It's a difficult place at the moment ? But at times it pays to let people know the type of stuff that goes on in a losing environment. It's my job to put a stop to it."
Westley's claim has the potential to prompt a Football League investigation should officials believe the apparent leak harmed the competition's integrity.
Westley, 44, had previously hinted at the problems behind the scenes after being abused by Preston's fans during last Tuesday's 3-1 home defeat by Brentford ? suggesting he was planning to sell those players who were reacting badly to his methods.
"When you have a new regime coming in people do react ? I have listened to lads saying they are getting fitter and stronger and I don't understand why anybody would react against that, but there are players that do. When you have got that sort of split you are working towards the summer where you can change it. People who don't want to be here can move on."
guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/apr/01/westley-preston-sheffield-wednesday
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Westley accuses four of his Preston players of leaking team news
? Manager says Sheffield Wednesday were given heads-up
? 'This dressing room is fighting against itself' he adds
The Preston manager, Graham Westley, has accused four of his players of deliberately leaking tactical information before their 2-0 League One defeat to Sheffield Wednesday.
Westley, who replaced the sacked Phil Brown in January, has been the target of growing criticism for overseeing a dire run of results, with only one win in their last 11 games leaving them 16th, only six points above the relegation zone.
Speaking after the defeat at Hillsborough, Westley said: "This squad's got a lot of losing ways installed in it, and there's no better example of that than what Wednesday's bench told me during the second half. I have to work on the basis that their bench wouldn't lie, and they said that four players of ours yesterday, at five o'clock, revealed our team to them.
"Does it surprise me? When you've got a number of agendas within a club ? and I've said since I've been here that that's the case ? this sort of thing happens. And it's not the first time that something's happened here that's surprised me.
"This dressing room is fighting against itself. There are 35-odd players in the squad and they will be very disappointed that some are working against their team-mates.
"It's a difficult place at the moment ? But at times it pays to let people know the type of stuff that goes on in a losing environment. It's my job to put a stop to it."
Westley's claim has the potential to prompt a Football League investigation should officials believe the apparent leak harmed the competition's integrity.
Westley, 44, had previously hinted at the problems behind the scenes after being abused by Preston's fans during last Tuesday's 3-1 home defeat by Brentford ? suggesting he was planning to sell those players who were reacting badly to his methods.
"When you have a new regime coming in people do react ? I have listened to lads saying they are getting fitter and stronger and I don't understand why anybody would react against that, but there are players that do. When you have got that sort of split you are working towards the summer where you can change it. People who don't want to be here can move on."
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/apr/01/westley-preston-sheffield-wednesday
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Everest pioneer's Olympic medal heads to summit
UK climber Kenton Cool will fulfil vow to take medic Arthur Wakefield's Olympic medal to Himalayas 90 years after tragic prior expedition
British mountaineer Kenton Cool was sitting in the check-in lounge at Gatwick airport last Thursday with a locked waterproof box that, if all goes according to plan, will not leave his side until he reaches Everest's summit for a 10th time this spring.
The box contains the Olympic medal awarded to Arthur Wakefield, a medic on the unsuccessful 1922 Everest expedition that ended in tragedy when an avalanche killed seven porters.
If Cool succeeds in climbing the world's highest mountain again, he will have honoured a pledge by Lieutenant Colonel Edward Lisle Strutt, deputy leader of the pioneering 1922 expedition, made to Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who awarded the climbers medals at the 1924 Winter Olympics in Chamonix. Strutt promised to return to Everest and take a medal to the summit, something he never managed.
The attraction of Everest to Cool remains undimmed even if he is ambivalent about aspects of its commercialisation. A professional mountain guide who has climbed Everest more times than any other UK climber, Cool was also the first Briton to ski down an 8,000m peak.
"I still really like Everest. I enjoy working with my Sherpa friends. I get to see people at base camp ? friends like American climbers who I never see except there. It feels a bit like escapism."
Cool is pragmatic, too. The high prices paid by clients to climb on Everest and the media attention that surrounds every Everest season has allowed him the freedom to be more selective about what he does in his own climbing and what guiding he does in a gruelling profession.
"When I first met my wife Jazz a few years ago she was clever about it and asked me where I saw myself in five, 10 years. I said I wanted to be climbing. When we got to 20 years, she said: 'You'll be crippled by then [by the punishing strain of guiding].'"
In some respects it is remarkable that Cool has done as much as he has. In 1996, he suffered a serious accident in Snowdonia, shattering the bones in his heels and damaging his ankles, which forced him to take a year out of the sport. He still has metal in his limbs, finds running difficult and struggles, he says, with an awkward gait. Despite that he will run one of the relays with the Olympic torch in London on 23 July.
After his recovery, Cool was recruited as an Everest lead guide after an ascent of a new route on Annapurna III ? which saw his team nominated for the Piolet d'Or mountaineering award.
In an interview last year he recalled reaching the world's highest point for the first time. "The first client was just behind me, so I had five minutes at the top to savour the moment. It was a great sunny day so I sat there trying to pick out all the other nearby mountains. It was a mind-blowing moment."
This year he will be climbing only with a cameraman to record the ascent with the Olympic medal. "I didn't guide during my ascent last year either. I went up to prove that you could make a 3G call from the summit. With no clients it felt very free. I did the whole round trip in 23 days. It was wonderful."
As well as Everest, Cool has guided the polar explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes up the north face of the Eiger.
What has been less easy, he admits, has been taking leave of his wife Jazz and 22-month-old daughter Saffron. "That was very difficult. I think for the wives and girlfriends who stay behind it is much harder. When you are on the mountain you have to be on top of your game to make sure that no one gets injured."
Two years ago, one of his clients, Bonita Norris, 22, fell close to the summit and lost the feeling in her legs, necessitating a gruelling rescue.
He is not sure he is finished with Everest yet. Next year marks the 60th anniversary since the first ascent by Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary, and Cool would like to be involved with that.
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/01/everest-pioneer-olympic-medal-1922
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Sledging a blight on the game
By John Fogarty
It was the D’Unbelievables character Timmy Ryan who, in comically addressing the fictional Glengooly U13 hurling team, epitomised the GAA’s indifference to sledging.
“The standard of name-calling in this team is diabolical,” declared Jon Kenny’s roguish mentor. “There is no point in going up to your man and calling him a sissy, sticking your tongue out and running away.
“No, you go hard into him, lads, so the referee can see you but can't hear you. Then you start, lads, you insult his mother, insult his grandmother, you insult his sisters, you insult every single seed and breed of them.
“You insult the s**** out of his family, annihilate him, lambaste him. You make sure that man hits you. When he hits you, you hit the ground, he gets the line, we get the free. Fifteen men down to 14.”
The words sledging, a term founded in cricket, and trash-talking are recent addition to the GAA vernacular.
Before, the act of verbally abusing an opponent was regarded as hopping a ball or busting a player’s carraigs. It was nothing.
In a country where euphemistic expressions like The Emergency and The Troubles were spawned, it's hardly surprising that we for so long couldn’t – or wouldn’t – find an appropriate term in our lexicon to describe it.
However, with GAA director general Páraic Duffy mentioning both sledging and trash-talking as issues for the Association at inter-county level over the weekend, there is no doubt they are now recognised for what they are: a blight on the game.
Whether they are here to stay, it’s up to the players. Just one working day after Duffy spoke to the GPA chief executive Dessie Farrell about the matter which raised its ugly head once again in Portlaoise last Sunday week, the official players body had drafted a letter to sent to its members.
As Colm O’Connor reports today in the Irish Examiner, part of the letter reads: "While recognising the realities of contact sport and that verbal clashes will occur between players from time to time, the use of abuse or ‘sledging’ is unacceptable and is particularly harmful to the reputation of our games.
“We would urge all players to shun this behaviour and respect their opponents. As role models for hurling and football members need to be mindful of the impact of their actions and words on the pitch, particularly in regard to their influence on younger people."
Ironcially, Farrell was part of a Dublin panel in the mid-Noughties that were notorious for their verbal warfare.
Personally, Farrell was not known much for such jousting himself but the likes of Paul Casey were.
Speaking back in 2006, he defended his gamesmanship. “I've been on the receiving end of it as well, but you do what you can to get a psychological edge over your opponent.
“It's all about getting that little advantage over him whether it be by outplaying him or having a word or two.”
That may sound almost forgivable but then what extremes did they go to?
There’s the story of how one county routinely found out the names of its opponents’ wives and girlfriends and constantly reminded them of the fact during games.
Pretty condemnable stuff, really, but things have got decidedly worse of late.
Although it seemed that way, Armagh’s statement released last week citing the chanting of God Save The Queen and their players being racially abused wasn’t specifically directed at Laois.
Their grievances extended beyond last Sunday week. After separate incidents in Tralee, Portlaoise and Croke Park over the last two months in which the Armagh and Crossmaglen teams were involved, county officials had reached the end of their tether and were moved to issue the press release.
It was badly worded and, as a result, the purpose of it was defeated – Armagh in private apologised to Laois. But as Duffy said, they had reason to put finger to keyboard.
Armagh have been on both sides of the sledging fence, of course. In 2006, Paul Hearty was made to pay for his ridiculing of Kieran Donaghy when the Kerry full-forward struck that second-half goal, Donaghy famously giving his “how do you like them for apples?” taunt to Hearty lying on the ground.
In Ulster in 2008, Steven McDonnell recalled being verbally abused by Fermanagh goalkeeper Ronan Gallagher for the entirety of the game. In the replay, McDonnell found the net and took great pleasure in rubbing Gallagher’s face in it.
But therein lies the problem. Sledging is an act of cowardice but it has the power to bring everyone down to its base level.
If a word isn’t matched with a word, it is, as Timmy Ryan hopes, met with a fist or a leg. Tomás Ó Sé has been on the end of a number of verbals over the last three seasons. That he has lashed out on occasions doesn’t make his actions any way condonable but he didn’t instigate any of those incidents. Yet the “sledger” walks free.
As long as that continues, the GAA has a problem. As long as this misguided belief that once a player crosses the white line anything bar extreme violence goes, the GAA has a problem.
The GPA sure has a job on its hands to tackle the potty mouths of some players.
Going by the verbals exchanged between DCU’s Dublin players and Kildare’s first-team members in last month’s O’Byrne Cup final, the Croke Park field will play host to a cacophony of insults only a sailor would be proud of should the counties meet this summer.
Have no doubt, other keen rivalries will generate the same offensive slabber.
It’s sad, really, because sledging is primarily a preserve of the weak.
Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/ftaXs5BePQY/post.aspx
Sapolu signs with Japan
By Niccola Hazelman-Siona
Controversial Manu Samoa centre, Eliota Fuimaono - Sapolu, is back on island and has announced he has signed a new contract. Sapolu made headlines for his outburst towards the International Rugby Board (IRB) following Manu Samoa?s disappointing Rugby World Cup (RWC) Campaign.
In Samoa for a short holiday to visit family, Sapolu said he has put last years? events behind him and is moving forward. ?I think it?s time to move on, I think everyone should, we all learnt some valuable lessons and now it?s time to let go.?
And in doing so Sapolu has now signed a two year contract with Coca-Cola West Red Sparks in Fukuoka Japan.
?It?s time for a change, I?ve been in England too long; I just needed a change of everything?
Pakistan cricket betting scandal Aston villa Noel Coward Stan Collymore Ethical and green living Children
Her Highness tells of ?dear friend?
By Lanuola Tusani Tupufia 
The Masiofo, Her Highness FilifiliaEfi yesterday shared a story about a ?dear friend? who has inspired her and touched many lives in Samoa.
Speaking during the commemoration of the Inaugural World Down?s Syndrome Day, Her Highness Filifilia spoke about Nathan Keil, one of the many Samoans suffering fromthegenetic condition. Her Highness Filifilia said she was not familiar with the clinical side of Down?s syndrome and she wasn?t going to pretend she understood it.
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Independent committee deems Fifa's current procedures 'insufficient'
? Sepp Blatter set up committee and is open to reform
? Reactions to corruption allegations 'clearly unconvincing'
The Fifa president, Sepp Blatter, has announced further moves towards reform of his organisation while being subjected to uncompromising criticism of its failure to clean up the corruption scandals of the recent past.
The independent governance committee (IGC) of world football's governing body, set up by Blatter and chaired by Professor Mark Pieth of the Basel Institute, said in a report that it had received documents and held a hearing with Fifa to understand how the organisation dealt with past misconduct.
Allegations made against senior Fifa executives have included bribe-taking, executive committee members seeking favours in return for World Cup votes and profiteering from TV rights and other commercial activities, allegedly linked, in the case of the former executive committee member Jack Warner, to supporting Blatter himself for the presidency.
"Clearly the existing procedures are ? insufficient," the IGC report concluded. "This has led to unsatisfactory reactions to persistent allegations. In particular the IGC has identified a lack of proactive and systematic investigation of allegations. In some instances allegations were insufficiently investigated and, where sanctions were imposed, they are at times insufficient and clearly unconvincing."
That verdict was followed by recommended reforms for the future: to set up a separate investigating arm to bring cases to a judicial "chamber" which will hear charges. Fifa clarified that the chairmen of both these bodies will be chosen by its congress of 209 football associations in May, from a list of candidates nominated by Pieth.
Speaking after the senior decision-making executive committee had met in Zurich, Blatter said it had resolved to implement that reform, along with an enhanced audit committee to increase scrutiny of Fifa's huge income flows. Pieth told the Guardian earlier this year that his committee would wait for Fifa's response to this report before deciding whether to call for an active investigation into past corruption allegations. When Blatter was asked how he intends to deal with past allegations, he did not say there are any plans to investigate.
That appears to leave the onus on Pieth's committee, which has yet to gain solid credibility and the confidence of the football public, to decide whether to push for investigations. In its report it said only that any allegations from the past should be investigated and dealt with by the new investigative and "adjudicatory" ethics bodies.
"Whereas the ? rules will not be [retrospective]," the report said, "procedures and organisational measures will be applicable to past behaviour."
Blatter reported that Fifa's executive committee had agreed to "further discuss" the other reforms recommended by Pieth's committee, principally "a new code of ethics" to set rules for the organisation, and changing its internal structures to ensure compliance with those rules.
Fifa simultaneously released its financial figures for 2010-11 which reinforced the need for the organisation to be clean and more transparent. Although the period covered was three years before the next World Cup, in Brazil in 2014, sales of some of the TV rights have been concluded for that tournament and for the 2018 World Cup in Russia. That, and $348m for 2014 marketing rights, took Fifa's income last year to $1.07bn.
Fifa spent $1.034bn, saying 75% of that was invested in football, including $183m, 18% of its expenditure, on development projects. That left the organisation, based in Zurich where it is classed as a sporting association exempt from taxes, with a profit of $36m.
Fifa disclosed that its 24-man executive committee, finance committee and an unspecified number of senior management were paid between them $29.5m, and $2.1m in pension contributions. Blatter declined to identify who, including himself, was paid what.
guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/mar/30/independent-committee-fifa
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Leicester Mercury commented Leicester City are coming to get you Posh, warns Nigel Pearson
Nigel Pearson believes Leicester City can pick off the Posh on the counter-attack at London Road this afternoon.
| |
Shrien Dewani: judges halt extradition on mental health ground
Judges say it would be 'unjust and oppressive' for businessman to be sent to South Africa to face trial over his wife's murder
The extradition to South Africa of British businessman Shrien Dewani, accused of arranging the contract killing of his bride, Anni, during their honeymoon, has been temporarily halted on grounds of his mental health.
Two senior high court judges said it would be "unjust and oppressive" for him to be sent to South Africa until he recovered.
But, they added, it was plainly in the interests of justice that he was extradited as soon as he was fit.
Dewani, 32, a care home owner from Bristol, who denies any involvement in his wife's death, has been diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and severe depression. His lawyers have argued that his health and his life would be at risk if he were extradited.
Dewani's Swedish-born wife, Anni, 28, was shot when a taxi the couple were travelling in was hijacked at night in the Gugulethu township on the outskirts of Cape Town in November 2010. Dewani and the taxi driver were forcibly ejected from the car, which was then driven off. She was found dead in the back of the abandoned vehicle the following day with a bullet wound to her neck.
Taxi driver Zola Tongo has admitted his part in the crime, and claimed in a plea agreement with South African prosecutors that Dewani ordered the carjacking and paid for a hit on his wife.
Dewani's extradition was ordered by District Judge Howard Riddle in August, and the British home secretary, Theresa May, has signed extradition papers.
But, Sir John Thomas, president of the Queen's Bench Division, and Mr Justice Ouseley, have accepted Dewani's appeal against immediate extradition, and ordered that the case be sent back to Westminster magistrates court for a further hearing.
In a statement, Dewani's family said: "The Dewani family are grateful that the high court has upheld the appeal and blocked any attempt to extradite Shrien to South Africa now.
"Shrien is innocent and is determined to return to South Africa to clear his name and seek justice for his wife Anni.
"The high court has confirmed that extradition now would be 'unjust and oppressive'. The matter is still before the courts and so it would be inappropriate to comment further."
Members of Anni's family, including her father, Vimod Hindocha, packed into court three at the royal courts of justice for the one-minute hearing as the judgment was handed down.
Outside court, her sister Ami Denborg said the family now wanted Dewani to get better so he could return to South Africa.
"It would be oppressive to send him back if his health is not good, but we are happy as a family to hear that the court has decided that it is in the interests of justice that he will go back to South Africa.
"The court has rejected his appeal on human rights.
"I feel, we feel, that there are a lot of delays and it is very painful for us. But we want to get to the truth about what happened to our sister Anni.
"We just want him to get better now so he can finally go to South Africa to tell us what happened. We just want to know the truth because this is all about our dearest little sister who was murdered."
The judges said key factors they had taken into account included Dewani's unfitness to plead, increased prospects of a speedier recovery if he remained in the UK, and the lack of clear certainty over what would happen to him if he was returned to South Africa in his present condition. The risk of suicide was also considered, "to a much lesser degree".
In their ruling, the judges noted that Dewani's depression and PTSD had worsened after his arrest on 7 December 2010. On 20 February 2011 he took an overdose. He was admitted to the Bristol Royal Infirmary, and told the staff in the A&E department that he did not want to live, but denied to others that this was a suicide attempt.
The senior district judge, at his extradition hearing, had found it was a deliberate overdose to avoid engaging the extradition proceedings, said the judges.
He was discharged, as a condition of his bail, to the Priory Hospital as an inpatient. In April 2011 there was further deterioration in his condition, and he developed psychotic symptoms. His bail was varied so that he resided at a medium secure psychiatric unit.
Sir John Thomas said prison conditions in South Africa were not a basis on which to halt the extradition, and "his mental illness apart, it is plainly in the interests of justice that the appellant be tried in South Africa as soon as he is fit to be tried",
He added: "Thus balancing his unfitness to plead, the risk of a deterioration in the appellant's condition, the increased prospects of a speedier recovery if he remains here and, to a much lesser degree, the risk of suicide and the lack of clear certainty as to what would happen to the appellant if returned in his present condition, we consider that on the evidence before the senior district judge it would be unjust and oppressive to order his extradition.
"Despite the highest respect in which we hold decisions of the senior district judge, we consider that he erred and should have exercised his power under s.91(3)(b) and ordered that the extradition hearing should be adjourned.
"As a result, the high court has remitted the case back to Westminster magistrates' court for a further hearing."
Tongo has been jailed in South Africa for 18 years for his part in Anni's murder. Two other suspects, Mziwamadoda Qwabe and Xolile Mngeni, who deny involvement, are awaiting trial in Cape Town.
guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/30/shrien-dewani-extradition-halted
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'Better fundamentals' lift JSE
The JSE continued its positive trend, with investors “focusing on better fundamentals that are still out there”.
|||The JSE continued its positive trend into Friday midday, with investors “focusing on better fundamentals that are still out there”, according to local trader Ferdi Heyneke, portfolio manager at Afrifocus Securities.
At 12:04 local time, the JSE all-share index was 0.70% firmer at 33,718.93 points. Resources were 1.60% higher, gold miners added 0.86%, and financials rose 0.47%.
Banks were 0.27% higher, while industrials lifted 0.23%. Platinum shares were flat (0.08%).
The rand was trading at 7.66 to the US dollar, from 7.75 at the JSE's close on Thursday. Gold was quoted at US$1,664 a troy ounce from US$1,652.36/oz at the JSE's previous close, while platinum was at $1,639/oz, from $1,628.20/oz from the previous session.
Heyneke said there was “very strong buying” in the market, including in industrials, banking, and retailers.
Dow futures were also higher, he said.
European stock markets rose on Friday, amid growing hopes that eurozone finance ministers will be able to make some progress in lifting the clout of the region's rescue fund at the latest euro group meeting, while strong economic data out of France added further support, Dow Jones Newswires reported.
The benchmark Stoxx 600 index was higher by 0.4% at 261.82. London's FTSE 100 was up 0.3% at 5,756.69, Frankfurt's DAX was higher by 0.7% at 6,922.17 while Paris's CAC-40 was 0.8% higher at 3,406.48.
Hopes grew on Friday that eurozone finance ministers would approve combining the eurozone's two bailout funds at a meeting in Copenhagen scheduled for later on Friday.
On the JSE, Anglo American (AGL) rose R6.67, or 2.36%, to R289.66, while BHP Billiton (BIL) lifted R4.78, or 2.07%, to R236.25 and Sasol (SOL) gained R4.10, or 1.11%, to R373.25.
Among gold stocks, Gold Fields (GFI) was up R1.52, or 1.45%, to R106, and DRD Gold (DRD) was 16 cents, or 2.89%, higher at R5.69.
Impala Platinum (IMP) was 50 cents lower at R153.88. Lonmin (LON), however, garnered R2.65, or 2.08%, to R130.05, and Aquarius (AQP) lifted 61 cents, or 3.48%, R18.16.
Among industrials, Barloworld (BAW) added R1.69, or 1.73%, to R99.60. Tiger Brands (TBS) was R4.38, or 1.66%, better off at R268.88, while PPC (PPC) rose 54 cents, or 1.67%, to R32.89.
Altron (ATN) was 34 cents, or 1.39%, down at R24.06.
Mobile services provider MTN Group (MTN) said on Thursday it would oppose a claim filed against it by the Turkish mobile phone operator Turkcell Iletisim AS (Turkcell) in the US federal courts.
The South African group said that while the claim had not been served on MTN, it understood that a claim had now been filed by Turkcell in the US courts against MTN and its wholly owned subsidiary, MTN International (Mauritius) Limited, in which Turkcell was claiming no less than US$4.2 billion, plus interest and punitive, consequential and other damages in connection with the award of the second GSM licence in Iran to Irancell.
MTN Group (MTN) shed R2.78, or 2.02%, to R134.62.
Financial services saw Nedbank (NED) fall R3.63, or 2.14%, to R165.85, while Standard Bank (SBK) lifted 79 cents to R111.13. First Rand (FSR) was six cents in the black at R24.06.
Standard & Poor's has revised the outlooks of two of the country's major banks - Standard Bank and FirstRand Bank - to negative from stable.
JD Group (JDG) added 98 cents, or 2.03%, to R49.23, while Mr Price (MPC) gained R1.44, or 1.55%, to R94.26. - I-Net Bridge
Source: http://www.iol.co.za/better-fundamentals-lift-jse-1.1267484
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Biyernes, Marso 30, 2012
Murray through to final in Miami
? Nadal pulls out before semi-final with a knee injury
? Murray has played only seven sets en route to the final
Andy Murray went through to the final of the Miami Masters after his semi-final opponent, Rafael Nadal, withdrew from the match because of a knee injury. Nadal pulled out two hours before the match was scheduled to start because of a left knee injury that had bothered him in recent matches.
It was Murray's second walkover of the tournament, one of the most prestigious outside the grand slam championships. The Scot, ranked No4 in the world, reached the fourth round after his third- round opponent, Milos Raonic, withdrew with an ankle injury.
Nadal, the six-time French Open champion, remains hopeful that the knee injury will not affect his plans for the clay-court season and expects to be fit for the Monte Carlo Masters which begins on 16 April.
The Spaniard has been hampered by knee problems throughout his career and his left knee has troubled him since the Indian Wells tournament. He lost there to Roger Federer in the semi-finals two weeks ago. The world No2 said the injury has been getting worse and extensive treatment on Thursday failed to help but he is optimistic he will be out only briefly.
"I started to have problems on the knee before Indian Wells," Nadal said. "But that problem [was] not limiting me to play at 100%. So I played in Indian Wells with the normal conditions, playing in good shape physically. Here [it] is different.
"It looks like it's nothing really different than happened a few times in the past. Hopefully with a few days off and with the right treatment, I will be in the right conditions to start to practise on the clay. I know what to do to get better quick and that's what we're going to try."
Knee problems prevented Nadal from playing at Wimbledon in 2009 ? the only major tournament he has missed since 2006 ? and forced him to retire from a quarter-final match against Murray at the Australian Open in 2010. Nadal did not play in any tournaments in February. Even then, he said, his left knee bothered him a bit while training at home in Spain.
"I try my best in every moment, with pain or without pain," he said. "But when I see the situation is done and I cannot, I cannot. I am very sorry for the fans. I'm very sorry for the tournament. I'm very sorry for everybody who was ready to watch the match on the television, for television, for everybody. I don't have pleasure. I feel very sad to have to go out before a beautiful match for me ? semi-finals against Andy."
Murray has played only seven sets in the tournament in Miami and will face the world No1 Novak Djokovic in Sunday's final. "I don't really know how I'm going to feel," he said, "but I'll definitely be fresh."
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I want to be alone: the rise and rise of solo living
The number of people living alone has skyrocketed. What is driving the phenomenon? And solo dwellers Colm T�ib�n, Alex Zane, Carmen Calli and others reflect on life as a singleton
Human societies, at all times and places, have organised themselves around the will to live with others, not alone. But not any more. During the past half-century, our species has embarked on a remarkable social experiment. For the first time in human history, great numbers of people ? at all ages, in all places, of every political persuasion ? have begun settling down as singletons. Until the second half of the last century, most of us married young and parted only at death. If death came early, we remarried quickly; if late, we moved in with family, or they with us. Now we marry later. We divorce, and stay single for years or decades. We survive our spouses, and do everything we can to avoid moving in with others ? including our children. We cycle in and out of different living arrangements: alone, together, together, alone.
Numbers never tell the whole story, but in this case the statistics are startling. According to the market research firm Euromonitor International, the number of people living alone globally is skyrocketing, rising from about 153 million in 1996 to 277 million in 2011 ? a 55% increase in 15 years. In the UK, 34% of households have one person living in them and in the US it's 27% ? roughly one in every seven adults.
Contemporary solo dwellers in the US are primarily women: about 18 million, compared with 14 million men. The majority, more than 16 million, are middle-aged adults between the ages of 35 and 64. The elderly account for about 11 million of the total. Young adults between 18 and 34 number more than 5 million, compared with 500,000 in 1950, making them the fastest-growing segment of the solo-dwelling population. Unlike their predecessors, people who live alone today cluster together in metropolitan areas.
Sweden has more solo dwellers than anywhere else in the world, with 47% of households having one resident; followed by Norway at 40%. In Scandinavian countries their welfare states protect most citizens from the more difficult aspects of living alone. In Japan, where social life has historically been organised around the family, about 30% of all households have a single dweller, and the rate is far higher in urban areas. The Netherlands and Germany share a greater proportion of one-person households than the UK. And the nations with the fastest growth in one-person households? China, India and Brazil.
But despite the worldwide prevalence, living alone isn't really discussed, or understood. We aspire to get our own places as young adults, but fret about whether it's all right to stay that way, even if we enjoy it. We worry about friends and family members who haven't found the right match, even if they insist that they're OK on their own. We struggle to support elderly parents and grandparents who find themselves living alone after losing a spouse, but we are puzzled if they tell us they prefer to remain alone.
In all of these situations, living alone is something that each person, or family, experiences as the most private of matters, when in fact it is an increasingly common condition.
When there is a public debate about the rise of living alone, commentators present it as a sign of fragmentation. In fact, the reality of this great social experiment is far more interesting ? and far less isolating ? than these conversations would have us believe. The rise of living alone has been a transformative social experience. It changes the way we understand ourselves and our most intimate relationships. It shapes the way we build our cities and develop our economies.
So what is driving it? The wealth generated by economic development and the social security provided by modern welfare states have enabled the spike. One reason that more people live alone than ever before is that they can afford to. Yet there are a great many things that we can afford to do but choose not to, which means the economic explanation is just one piece of the puzzle.
In addition to economic prosperity, the rise stems from the cultural change that �mile Durkheim, a founding figure in sociology in the late 19th century, called the cult of the individual. According to Durkheim, this cult grew out of the transition from traditional rural communities to modern industrial cities. Now the cult of the individual has intensified far beyond what Durkheim envisioned. Not long ago, someone who was dissatisfied with their spouse and wanted a divorce had to justify that decision. Today if someone is not fulfilled by their marriage, they have to justify staying in it, because there is cultural pressure to be good to one's self.
Another driving force is the communications revolution, which has allowed people to experience the pleasures of social life even when they're living alone. And people are living longer than ever before ? or, more specifically, because women often outlive their spouses by decades, rather than years ? and so ageing alone has become an increasingly common experience.
Although each person who develops the capacity to live alone finds it an intensely personal experience, my research suggests that some elements are widely shared. Today, young solitaires actively reframe living alone as a mark of distinction and success. They use it as a way to invest time in their personal and professional growth. Such investments in the self are necessary, they say, because contemporary families are fragile, as are most jobs, and in the end each of us must be able to depend on ourselves. On the one hand, strengthening the self means undertaking solitary projects and learning to enjoy one's own company. But on the other it means making great efforts to be social: building up a strong network of friends and work contacts.
Living alone and being alone are hardly the same, yet the two are routinely conflated. In fact, there's little evidence that the rise of living alone is responsible for making us lonely. Research shows that it's the quality, not the quantity of social interactions that best predicts loneliness. What matters is not whether we live alone, but whether we feel alone. There's ample support for this conclusion outside the laboratory. As divorced or separated people often say, there's nothing lonelier than living with the wrong person.
There is also good evidence that people who never marry are no less content than those who do. According to research, they are significantly happier and less lonely than people who are widowed or divorced.
In theory, the rise of living alone could lead to any number of outcomes, from the decline of community to a more socially active citizenry, from rampant isolation to a more robust public life. I began my exploration of singleton societies with an eye for their most dangerous and disturbing features, including selfishness, loneliness and the horrors of getting sick or dying alone. I found some measure of all of these things. On balance, however, I came away convinced that the problems related to living alone should not define the condition, because the great majority of those who go solo have a more rich and varied experience.
Sometimes they feel lonely, anxious and uncertain about whether they would be happier in another arrangement. But so do those who are married or live with others. The rise of living alone has produced significant social benefits, too. Young and middle-aged solos have helped to revitalise cities, because they are more likely to spend money, socialise and participate in public life.
Despite fears that living alone may be environmentally unsustainable, solos tend to live in apartments rather than in big houses, and in relatively green cities rather than in car-dependent suburbs. There's good reason to believe that people who live alone in cities consume less energy than if they coupled up and decamped to pursue a single-family home.
Ultimately, it's too early to say how any particular society will respond to either the problems or the opportunities generated by this extraordinary social transformation. After all, our experiment with living alone is still in its earliest stages, and we are just beginning to understand how it affects our own lives, as well as those of our families, communities and cities.
? Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise And Surprising Appeal Of Living Alone, by Eric Kinenberg, is published by Penguin Press at �21.
Colm Toibin, 56
No one told me when I was small that I could live like this. No one told me that by the age of 56 I would know all of the gay bars in New York city, most of the Irish ones and a good number of other bars, such as they are, in between. And that I would be content on a Friday and Saturday night at around 10 o'clock merely to feel that those bars were all still there, still full of people calling for more, while all I wanted was to be alone in bed with a book.
No one ever told me that I would be most happy in my life when I modelled myself on a nun who runs her own cloister and is alone in it, not bothered by the chatter of other nuns, or by the demands of reverend mother.
On Saturday I wake at six and relishing the day ahead. I teach on Mondays and Tuesdays; I have to reread a novel for each class and take notes on it. Nothing makes me happier than the thought of this. I often lie there until the seven o'clock news comes on, grinning at the thought of the day ahead.
All day I will read and take notes. The worst-case scenario is that I might need another book, and this involves lot of decision-making and self-consultation. It might end in a five-minute walk to the university library. But normally I go nowhere except to the fridge if I am hungry to see what's there, or to the sofa to lie down if my back is tired, or to the rocking chair if I feel a need to rock.
Normally there's not much in the fridge. In the kitchen there is an oven I have never opened. And there are pots and pans whose purpose may be decorative for all I know. But I know where all my notebooks are. They are all over the apartment. That is the best part. I can leave them where I like and no one touches them or wants to put them away anywhere. No one sighs about books and notebooks piled up. All of the notebooks have stories half-written in them, or stray sentences in search of a home, or musings that are none of anyone's business. If I like, I can go to one of them and add some paragraphs. I don't have to excuse myself, explain myself, or put on a distracted writer's look in order to get down to work. Or worry that someone has, in my absence, opened one of my notebooks and found that they don't like the tone of what is written there.
No one told me when I was small that there would come a time in my life where people would be judged by the quantity and quality of take-out menus for local restaurants. And that I could, without consulting anyone, at any time, make a phone call, order some food, and it would soon arrive at my door.
And then there is music when night falls. I can put on whatever I like, follow dark obsessions without worrying about depressing anyone else, or cheering them up for that matter. There is no one to question my sanity, my taste in music, or say: "That again? Not that again. Did we not hear that yesterday?"
And then there is the small question of alcohol. No one told me when I was a teenager that there would come a time when I would not bother drinking. No one told me that when Saturday night came, I would long to talk to no one and wish to go to bed early, and that my only moment of pure and capricious pleasure would be taking a book to bed that was not for class the next week. Otherwise, my life as a nun is a lesson to others, a pure example of good example. It has its rewards in the morning when I wake in silence with a clear head, ready for more.
Colm T�ib�n is an author.
Carmen Callil, 73
I have never given much thought to living alone, because it wasn't something I decided upon, it happened to me naturally. What with a childhood amid a vast family, then the convent, I was rarely alone. I shared a bedroom with my sister, life with my brothers and mother. One set of grandparents lived next door, the others across the road. Many aunts, uncles and cousins were only a yell away. The convent was black with nuns, its dormitories and classrooms packed with other girls. I left home when I was 21.
Almost immediately, I fell in love with a man who was, vaguely, married. An open marriage, it would be called today. For a decade or so, I wanted to be available for him, so I moved into a bedsit above a salt beef bar in St John's Wood. That was 1964. I was 26, and I have lived alone since.
I very much liked being in love and repeated it all too frequently. But I also hated it. I have a photograph of myself aged two, in a pram outside Melbourne zoo. My chubby legs are battling to get out: the look of struggle on my baby face is tremendous. That is how I felt each time I fell in love and spent extended periods with the beloved object. Often it was boredom: hours spent doing what the beloved object wanted, rather than pursuing the thousand things juggling in my own head. When I was in love and thought of marriage, I always came to feel like that child in the pram.
Tussling with this incapacity came to an abrupt end once I started to work. I had been raised to think of work as a prelude to husband, children, home. Once I started Virago, in 1972, and then, from 1982, working at Chatto, too, boredom vanished, and the days and years fled by.
What do I like about living alone? The greatest blessing is the number of friendships you can indulge in, the number of people you can love. I love to hear their stories, follow their lives. This can become frenetic but you can always cross through a night in the diary with BED in capital letters and there is no one to say nay to that. I wouldn't have minded having the children I could have had, but I have insufficient self-esteem to need any duplication of myself in the world. In truth, I have fretted more about my friends, my work and about understanding what is going on in the world than I ever have about failing to "wax fat and multiply", as the Catholic marriage service instructs.
Living alone means freedom, never being bored, going to bed at eight if I feel like it, feeding myself as I like, thinking, pottering and yelling at the radio without feeling a fool. I am never lonely as long as I am at home. I can decorate my house to suit my eccentricities ? not everyone wants to live with 200 jugs and thousands of books. Every object in my home reminds me of one loved person or another. Knowing all my friends are dotted around, going about their business but available at the end of a phone is enough.
There are, and have been, great tediums. Men ? Auberon Waugh and Lord Longford spring to mind ? have occasionally insisted to my face that I was lesbian. I felt this to be an insult to women who are lesbians as well as to myself. I hate getting invitations addressed to "Carmen Callil & Friend" and am often tempted to bring my dog.
But there is so much to do, and to think about, and so many friends to love. They are my rock. If I am in trouble, they help me, and I don't ? and never have ? worried about dying alone, because everyone does.
Carmen Callil is a publisher and author, and founder of Virago Press.
Alex Zane, 33
Having lived alone for the past six years, sharing my home with anything bigger than a cat is not something I enjoy.
This doesn't make me an oddball. I'm not Norman Bates, wandering around my flat dressed as my mother ? I just like the fact that if I wanted to, I could.
Living alone provides me with the time I need to recharge, and to let loose the aspects of my personality best labelled "Not For Public Consumption". When Superman needs a break from saving the planet, some time to himself, where does he go? His Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic Circle. I have what I like to call my Flat of Solitude in north London. I'm not comparing my average day to the conquests of the last son of Krypton, but he has a public image to keep up, and that I can relate to.
"Me" is the very best part of living alone. It's not about selfishness, just knowing what you like and doing what you want without having to take another person into account. OK, that sounds selfish, but if you're going to be selfish, it's probably best to do it on your own, so no one knows.
My solitude is not total. I have a girlfriend, and we've been together for a length of time that makes people wonder why we don't share a home. The truth is, she stays with me often. She has a drawer. She knows where I keep the sugar. I know to put the toilet seat down. She knows which of the three remotes actually turns on the TV. I know she checks my internet history.
It's a well-oiled machine. And although it has yet to be spoken out loud, I'm aware eventually a change will come. A change that will involve me no longer eating packets of microwavable rice and soy sauce for every meal. The spectre of co-habitation is looming on the horizon.
There are, of course, some things that I won't miss about solo living. There are moments of melancholy, the silence can be quite over-powering, and if I've spent three days holed up in my flat, when I finally emerge the first conversation I have with another human can be an awkward affair, like learning to speak all over again: "I? OK? you, yourself, well?"
But there's one thing that dwarfs all the other downsides to living by myself, one thing I'll be happy to leave behind. It's to do with my Wii. I try to shake the feeling, but I can't. Ultimately, there is no more tragic image than a man standing in the middle of his living room, alone, in his boxer shorts, pretending to ski jump.
Alex Zane is a DJ and television presenter.
Esther Rantzen, 71
I am living alone for the first time at the age of 71. Until now, most of the changes that arrived with age were mercifully gradual ? the need to turn the television volume a bit higher, say, and the first few grey hairs ? but this change has been huge, sudden and, for me, cataclysmic.
All my life I have been surrounded by people. As a child, I grew up in an extended family. At college, I lived and worked in a lively and energetic community. Moving into a flat with a flatmate, starting a family, having a bath or going to bed at night, I had company and conversation. Now, for the first time, I come home to an empty, silent flat, nobody to shout a cheerful hello to, no one to listen to the stories of my day. It's been nine months on my own and a difficult adjustment. But I'm getting there.
My life has followed a pattern familiar to most of us as we grow older. You lose a partner; in my case my beloved husband Desmond Wilcox died. Children leave home and create their own lives; my older daughter, Emily is taking a mature student's degree; Joshua, the doctor, works in the West Country; Rebecca, the TV reporter, lives with her husband and they are expecting their first baby.
I mustn't nag them to spend more time with me. So instead I have found ways of making aloneness feel less lonely. Downsizing from my family home to a flat was a help. Not only are there no more empty bedrooms, but given far less space, the pictures and ornaments that mean the most to me are always in my eyeline. The print my mother gave me is on my bedroom wall, instead of downstairs in my old study, so it greets me as soon as I wake. The vase my best friend gave me is on my table instead of being stashed away in a cupboard.
Getting to sleep by yourself is a problem, but I decided not to have a bedroom television. I tried it for a while and although Newsnight was the perfect cure for insomnia, I loathed waking up at dawn with the screen blaring at me. So I fall asleep to Classic radio, which accompanies my dreams with decent music.
I understand why an American survey of more than 300,000 old people found that loneliness is as bad for your health as smoking. You may have spent a lifetime looking after your family; now that they don't need you, it seems pointless to look after yourself. Cooking for one seems too much effort ? I can't muster the energy or enthusiasm to make hot food for myself. Cheese and biscuits and fruit fill the gaps.
Although I am getting used to living on my own, I still think it's not natural. We humans are herd animals. If it were left to me, I'd make us all live in longhouses, like the ones in Nepal, with all the generations packed in together. We've evolved to depend upon each other, we need each other, especially the old. If I were a stone age woman aged 70, I'd never survive on my own. Without the warmth and protection of the tribe around me, the first cold winter would finish me off. But then, if I were a stone age woman, I'd be without the flu jabs and dental bridgework that enable me to boast that 70 is the new 50.
There are mornings when I potter around contentedly at my own pace, watching the sunrise as I sip my orange juice, happy not to have anyone else cluttering up the flat, using up the last tea bag or loo roll without replacing it. Pretty soon there'll be another cataclysm in my life, the arrival of a grandchild. Some claim that then I'll look back on these days alone with nostalgia. Rubbish. I can't wait.
? Esther Rantzen is planning to create a helpline for older people, The Silver Line, to combat the effects of isolation and loneliness.
Sloane Crosley, 33
Good friends, a couple, are being kicked out of their apartment this month. Decent apartments can be hard to come by in Manhattan, so it's all hands on deck, trying to help with the search.
"I might know of something," I emailed the male contingent of the pair. "What's your budget?"
"We're paying $4,400 now," he shot back.
What a pad one could get for that price!
I sat back from my computer and bristled. Ah, the power of two. There's nothing quite like it. Especially when it comes to paying utility bills, parenting, cooking elaborate meals, purchasing a grown-up bed, jumping rope and lifting heavy machinery. The world favours pairs. Who wants to waste the wood building an ark for singletons? Even the word "singleton", to the American ear at least, reads as particularly insulting. We never use it and thus it sticks out in conversation. Perhaps it's bothersome due to its resemblance to the word "simpleton", which we do use.
I live alone. I have also lived with significant (and sometimes not-so-significant) others for brief periods of time. Truth be told, I was fine either way. There are profound perks and drawbacks to both, too numerous on both sides to list in earnest.
I hope to one day co-sign a lease with another person but, well, it doesn't plague me that I have yet to do so. Put it this way: I've never had to violently tug at my own pillow at 2am to get myself to stop snoring.
In the past, I have not seen the state of my habitation and the state of my love life as connected. This is the nature of being relatively young and living in an urban environment where expensive rental fees can make or break relationships. Cohabitation seems a greater leap in cities because it's all the harder to extract oneself if things turn sour. It's what keeps otherwise functional adults living with their mothers.
The thing is, I am newly single this. For this week (and several more after it, I suspect), living alone feels freshly related to being alone. On top of which, I own a cat. On top of which, I like to eat spoonfuls of almond butter over my sink, put this gross Swedish hair balm in my hair before bed and sleep in old cocktail dresses. None of this was any different when I was romantically teamed with another human, yet suddenly these micro-activities bode poorly as an advertisement for my life.
When I was coupled socially, no one seemed to notice that I was unattached residentially. Two people go out to dinner together, meet each other at shows, take vacations, and suddenly living across town from each other isn't such a big deal. But the building blocks of our daily existence were always separate. He never paid my rent and I never paid his. He was never subject to awkward conversations with my superintendent regarding clogged drains. I was never subject to the etiquette question of tipping his doorman around the holidays. Though most of my friends, attached and not, are in the exact same living situation, society still quietly damns the single-household dweller to one of two diagnoses:
1) Hyper control: I live alone because I am inflexible, intolerant, likely a mysophobic glove-wearer and so stringent about my own schedule that I leave no room for a roommate, lover or a mysterious Italian boarder who happens to moonlight as a DJ.
2) Complete lack of control: with no one to bounce off, my weird behaviours have gone unchecked and my body unshowered. I am socially awkward out in the world while my home is infested with vermin and the crackling sound of broken dreams.
Who among us has not experienced elements of both states? And what does that mean for the future? I wouldn't mind if things were different, but they're not and, truly, I have always enjoyed my space. I love turning the key in the door at the end of the day, being able to decompress, knowing where I left the remote control to the television. I am partial to hot water. I like being able to come home late and collapse into bed without worrying about waking anyone with my drunken shoe removal.
This is not a matter of statistics or trends; it's my life. There is no advertisement for it. Funnily, that's one of the better selling points imaginable: once you realise you're not obligated to persuade others about your existence, it becomes a lot easier to exist.
Sloane Crosley is an author.
Peter Hobbs, 38
Even when I've lived with others, I have always been protective of my solitude. I have always needed time to retreat to my own company, and to be alone with my thoughts. It takes me a long while to adjust to sharing living space, to become accustomed to different patterns of noise and movement and sleep.
My first prolonged experience of living alone came in my 20s, when I was suffering from a long illness. As soon as I was able to cope, I moved to live by myself. It was terribly isolating in many ways ? I was unable to work or go out ? but I wasn't comfortable with company. Illness is a foreign land, and you go always alone. Sometimes I'd go for days or weeks without speaking to anyone, except for brief interactions at supermarket checkouts (in recent years, of course, I would even have been able to find automated checkouts).
It's not an accident that it was during this time I began to write. Gradually, the emptiness of the afternoons began to fill with ideas, and the most pleasurable part of those unhappy days was when I sat down with my thoughts and formed stories, giving myself over to my imagination. Since then, I've always written better when I've lived alone. The mind roams more freely in empty rooms, and the days can spill into evening, and then night, without interruption. Even now I find it hard to write if I know there's someone else in the same building, no matter if they're sitting quietly behind a distant closed door, minding their own business.
Of course the solitude of those years was largely enforced, rather than having been chosen, and though it may have suited my nature, it was a devastatingly lonely time. Something of the pattern of those days has stayed with me, but I try now to monitor my tendencies towards solitude. I'm careful to protect a degree of isolation in my life, but I do not think I will always want to live alone.
I have friends who will live alone for the rest of their lives. They live alone because of choice, or because a partner has died, or because they're so accustomed to solitary living that they're no longer willing to make the compromises necessary for sharing with others. Most of them are content, or at least reconciled to it, but it's clear to me that the happiest of them are those who have arranged their lives so they can spend a great deal of time with as many people as possible.
We're social animals. I think of the way families and friends gather round at times of grief. The way many of us live today can cause the threaded connections of kith and kin to separate and thin, almost to disappear. Yet they reassert themselves in crises. For those who desire it, living alone is a tremendous luxury. But it is a luxury enabled by an existence within technologically advanced, relatively wealthy societies, which insulate us even from the need for others.
Eric Klinenberg is convincing about the hows and whys of the rise in solitary living. The set of circumstances he describes has provided many of us with an extraordinary freedom. I just wonder how fragile they are, and what it might take for us to rediscover how much we need other people.
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/mar/30/the-rise-of-solo-living
France anti-terrorism raids net 19 suspects, say police
Toulouse, scene of shootings by Mohamed Merah, among cities in dawn commando swoops on suspected Islamist militants
French police commandos have arrested 19 people in dawn raids across France as part of what the government described as a crackdown on suspected Islamist militants.
The swoop came amid tension following a spate of killings in southern France by Mohamed Merah, a 23-year-old from Toulouse who claimed inspiration from al-Qaida. Seven were killed in Merah's shooting spree, including children at a Jewish school. He was shot dead by police last week after a 32-hour siege at his apartment.
The arrests around Paris, Toulouse, Marseille, Nantes and Lyon were not directly related to the Merah case and the interior ministry said there was no known link between the Toulouse gunman and those detained.
But the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, had ordered a crackdown on radical Islamists following public outrage at the Merah killings. Sarkozy confirmed the arrests on a morning radio appearance and said similar operations would follow to get rid of "people who have no business in this country".
The president compared the "traumatism" that France had suffered from the Toulouse shootings to the "traumatism" experienced in the US and New York after 11 September 2001.
Sarkozy officially suspended his bruising battle for re-election at the time of the shooting and one poll showed 70% of French people approved of his stance in the aftermath of the killings. Now back on the campaign trail, he has stressed the importance of security and the fight against terrorism.
The raids were filmed by TV crews and shown on breakfast news, with anti-terrorist squads knocking down doors and shouting "police", smashing windows and taking away suspects handcuffed with their faces covered.
The interior minister, Claude Gueant, dismissed suggestions the raids had been carried out in response to charges that the intelligence services had failed to monitor and track down Merah quickly enough. Asked if the raids were a media stunt, he said the arrests were a "judicial decision" by the French legal system and involved suspects who claimed "an extremist radical ideology, an ideology of combat".
He said five rifles, three Kalashnikovs, four handguns and a bulletproof vest were seized. Police sources said several of those arrested were believed to be close to the radical Islamist group Forsane Alizza ("Knights of Pride"), banned in France in February after Gueant accused it of preparing its supporters for armed struggle. The interior ministry said the group's leader, Mohammed Achamlane, had been arrested in Nantes.
Founded in 2010, Forsane Alizza came to prominence after calling that year for a boycott of McDonald's in Limoges, accusing the American fast-food chain of serving Israel. Achamlane told the daily Lib�ration in January that the group could not exclude launching an armed struggle "if Islamophobia continues to intensify day by day".
The government is keen to show it is cracking down on what it called radical Islamism. This week several international Muslim clerics, of Palestinian, Egyptian and Saudi origin, were banned from entering France.
Marine Le Pen, of the extreme-right Front National, seized on the dawn raids to continue her attacks on immigration and accuse the government of closing its eyes to what she said were extremists in the poor suburbs of all French big towns.
"Of course there's a clear link between the rise of fundamentalism in our country and immigration," she said.
Religious leaders have warned the public against scapegoating or wrongly equating Islam with terrorism after the Merah case.
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/30/france-raids-terror-suspects-toulouse
Niclas Alexandersson Blackburn Rovers Julio Arca Christmas and New Year Lake District Financial sector
Head Coach announced for Netball Samoa
March 26, Apia Park; Netball Samoa (NS) has announced the Head Coach for the National Team. New Zealand born, from a family of thirteen children, Marcia Hardcastle is the new Head Coach for Netball Samoa. She has taken over the reins from Linda Vagana, who contributed greatly to NS during her time as coach.
Marcia a family orientated person, has been married for fourty-one years with four children. Netball and her seven grand-children are two of her greatest passions. ?I appreciate that year after year, my whanau (family) allow me to engross myself in the sport I love.?
US healthcare Redrow Property Energy efficiency Stephen Carr France
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