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Leicester Mercury published Leicester City ready for Rams after return of feelgood factor
Leicester City assistant manager Craig Shakespeare said he can sense the "feelgood factor" has returned to the squad...
Leicester Mercury published Tragic Vinny Derrick 'may have been hit by a car'
A missing man whose remains were found beneath a motorway flyover could have been hit by a car, a postmortem examination has...
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Malae o Tiafau cleared
By Jasmine Netzler-Iose
Clerk of the Legislative Assembly, Fepuleai Atila Ropati said this was determined following a survey that ?identified some areas of the field are below sea level.? The issue was raised by the Ministry of Works, Transport and Infrastructure and the Ministry of Police.
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Five things learned from this week?s Champions League
Ger McCarthy
1. Zlatan Ibrahimovic defies his critics
The Swedish international striker polarises opinion despite a bulging trophy cabinet and multiple individual awards spanning a decade at the top of his profession. One criticism regularly levelled at the AC Milan striker is the fact he tends to go ‘missing’ during important matches, especially against English opponents. Ibrahimovic laid that ghost to rest on Wednesday night with a bullish individual display in the San Siro that tore the Arsenal defence asunder and helped the Rossoneri to a memorable 4-0 victory.
He set up Robinho with a sumptuous cross to head in Milan’s second goal before repeating the move to slip the Brazilian in for the Serie A side’s third and match clinching effort. The Swede then tricked Johan Djourou into conceding a late penalty and demonstrated his arrogant nature by ignoring Robinho’s chance for a hat trick before dispatching the penalty beyond Wojciech Szczesny.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic can no longer be accused of going missing in big matches and similar display in the forthcoming rounds could yet push AC Milan into Champions League contention.
2. APOEL remain in contention
A narrow 1-0 defeat away to Lyon in the Stade Gerland on Tuesday night may look a disappointing result on paper but APOEL will just be delighted to still be in with a fighting chance against the French side ahead of the second leg at the GSP Stadium in Nicosia.
Ivan Jovanovic’s squad travelled to Lyon with the intention of recording a 0-0 draw, as their one shot on target in the entire 90 minutes will testify. Yet APOEL will fancy their chances in the return fixture having already accounted for Zenit St. Petersburg and FC Porto en-route to topping Group G in the opening phase of the tournament.
One of the most prestigious and important nights in Cypriot club football could yet witness the continuing fairytale story of the 2012 Champions League tournament. APOEL possess the firepower and self-belief to progress should Remi Garde’s inconsistent Lyon fail to bring their ‘A-game’.
3. Arsenal’s darkest hour
Arsene Wenger’s honest assessment of his side’s performance following a 4-0 drubbing in the San Siro said it all “shocking”. Theo Walcott was completely anonymous and hauled off at the interval. Midfielders Mikel Arteta and Tomas Rosicky were overrun from the opening minutes and Arsenal’s perceived strongest back four floundered every time AC Milan attacked. Hard to believe that it is nearly a year ago that Arsenal were beating Barcelona at the Emirates Stadium yet not even the introduction of Thierry Henry could ignite the Gunners into any kind of response on Wednesday night.
Even an away goal might have offered the Premier League side a glimmer of hope for the second leg but instead the comments of former Milan and Italian national team Coach Arrigo Sacchi echoed many neutral and no doubt a few Gunners’ fans belief that this is “the worst Arsenal side in a decade”. This weekend’s FA Cup tie away to Sunderland offers the Arsenal players a chance to make up for their dismal Champions League showing. They certainly owe it to their fans, if not their manager, after Wednesday night’s sorry capitulation.
4. San Siro and Stadion Petrovskiy not up to scratch
BOTH AC Milan and Zenit St. Petersburg’s playing surfaces were in horrendous condition for the most important matches of each respective club’s season. Granted AC Milan’s pitch has never been of the highest quality but the Serie A club’s decision to relay both wing sections of the pitch left the surface resembling a bog and made for a poor spectacle. The state of the pitch reflected badly on UEFA who only passed the surface playable early on Tuesday morning.
Elsewhere in the Europe, the midweek sub-zero temperatures in Russia made the Stadion Petrovskiy playing surface looking like a green-tinted ice-rink. In fairness to Zenit St. Petersburg and Benfica, both clubs made light of the conditions and produced a five-goal thriller to warm the crowd. Yet the recent Six Nations debacle in France surely demonstrated that the time has come for UEFA to look at alternative / neutral venues for Eastern bloc countries when poor weather conditions are known to exist the week before a scheduled fixture.
5. Barcelona looks good even in second gear
Barca’s 3-1 result obtained away to Bayer Leverkusen on Valentine’s night was not unexpected but served as a reminder to the rest of the continent that Pep Guardiola’s side is capable of winning in second gear. Leverkusen fought doggedly for the opening 40 minutes and stretched their opponents on occasion without ever threatening Victor Valdes’ goal. Everything changed in the 41st minute once Alexis Sanchis netted Barcelona’s opener. The Bundesliga club were forced to attack (and even managed an equaliser) which allowed the Catalans’ sit back and pick off their opponents twice more on the counter before running out 3-1 winners.
Barcelona’s innate ability to patiently retain possession before quickening the pace to create holes in their opponents defence is taken for granted but remains one of the great spectacles of modern day football.
Worryingly for the remaining Champions League clubs, Barcelona were able to produce such a display on the back of a shock defeat to Osasuna and being 10 points adrift of Real Madrid in their domestic title race. Whoever wins the 2012 Champions League is most likely going to have to come up with a way to defeat the current title-holders.
Follow Ger on Twitter: @germccarthy74
Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/WH09YfBFwzo/post.aspx
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England riots: almost 1,000 people jailed so far, figures show
Average sentence of 14.2 months is four times the average jail term handed down by the courts for similar offences in 2010
Almost 1,000 people have been sent to prison for an average of 14 months for their part in last summer's riots, according to Ministry of Justice figures published on Thursday.
The official figures show that 1,483 people had been found guilty and sentenced by the courts by 1 February for riot-related offences. This represents 55% of the 2,710 people brought before the courts so far.
The MoJ figures confirm the punitive approach that the courts have taken towards rioters with the 945 offenders who have been jailed given an average of 14.2 months. This is four times the average sentence length of 3.7 months handed down by the courts for similar offences in 2010.
The most common offences with which rioters were charged were burglary (49%), violent disorder (21%), theft (16%), robbery (2%) and criminal damage (2%).
The vast majority of cases involved disturbances that took place in London. A total of 1,896 of the 2,710 people have so far appeared in London courts. A further 301 have been in the West Midlands, 240 in Manchester, 92 in Merseyside, and 64 in Nottingham.
The majority of those brought before the courts have been under the age of 20 with 27% juveniles under 18. This is a younger age profile than is normally seen by the courts for similar offences.
The overwhelming majority were male ? 89% ? and 41% of defendants whose ethnicity is known were white. A further 39% were black, 6% were Asian and 12% from a mixed race background.
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/uk/2012/feb/23/almost-1000-jailed-riot-related-offences
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Boris Johnson urges transparency over Olympic Games ticket allocation
London mayor acknowledged public concern and vowed to pressure committee to release a detailed breakdown
London mayor Boris Johnson has vowed to put pressure on London 2012 organisers to be more transparent over how tickets have been allocated, particularly for blue riband events.
The London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Locog) was criticised last week by a London Assembly committee for refusing to release a detailed breakdown of which tickets had been sold at each price point.
About 75% of the total of 8.8m tickets have been made available for sale to the British public, but for the most high-profile events in the main stadium and the velodrome the proportion will be much lower. For the 100m final, about 29,000 tickets are expected to be sold to the British public of the 80,000 capacity, which will be reduced to 74,000 at games-time owing to the erection of big screens at either end of the stadium.
"I fully share the desire of the assembly for transparency and we will be raising this at the Olympic board," said Johnson.
"What Locog say is that they don't want to release the details until the issuing of the tickets is complete. I can see a certain logic in that. But I certainly feel Londoners and the whole country want to see fairness and transparency," he added.
A Locog spokeswoman said: "We are committed to providing a full breakdown of ticket sales, and believe the best time to do this is once we have completed the final sales process ? we still have nearly 4m Olympic and Paralympic tickets to sell and our priority is to get those into the hands of sports fans. We are firmly committed to providing 75% of the total number of Olympic tickets to the British public, and if we can deliver more than this, we will."
Locog argues that the overall numbers available remain fluid, pointing to a recent reduction in capacity for the equestrian cross country in Greenwich park from 75,000 to 50,000 and an increase in the capacity on Box Hill for the cycling road race to 15,000.
Dee Doocey, the Liberal Democrat London Assembly Olympic spokesperson, said she was "delighted" that Johnson backed its calls. She added, however, that if the information was not released until after all tickets were sold it would be too late to intervene if the distribution was unfair.
"We need to know now how many tickets have been sold for each event, and at what price. If this information is not provided until all the tickets are sold it will be too late to do anything about it," she said.
"Locog excuses for not publishing information are indefensible from an organisation that only exists because of a huge investment of public money."
The final batch of 1.3m tickets across all sports will go on sale in April. About 20,000 prospective purchasers who missed out last June in the second phase of sales, despite believing they had purchased tickets will have first refusal for 24 hours.
The remaining million people who applied in the first round ballot and failed to secure a ticket will then be given five days to apply, although Locog has yet to decide when tickets will be released over that time. The process will then be opened to all comers, but only tickets to the men's and women's football are likely to remain by that stage.
ends
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/politics/2012/feb/22/boris-johnson-olympics-ticket-allocation
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Jonathan sends revised budget to N/Assembly
PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan has formally sought the approval of the National Assembly for a downward review of the 2012 budget by N101bn. The president had on December 13 last year presented a budget proposal of N4.749tr to a joint session of the National Assembly for the 2012 fiscal year. �
But in his letter yesterday to the leadership of both chambers of the National Assembly, Jonathan said it was necessary to review the 2012 budget and the 2012-2014 Medium Term Expenditure Framework owing to the effects of the partial removal of petroleum subsidy on government revenue and expenditure� items.�
The new proposals show that instead of the N4.749tr earlier proposed for the 2012 fiscal year, Jonathan is seeking the issuance of N4.648tr from the nation?s consolidated revenue account, making a difference of N101bn.
The capital expenditure component of the budget is now N1.284 trillion as against the N1.319tr earlier proposed.
In the same vein, the recurrent (non-debt) expenditure, which was initially put at N2.471tr has not been reduced to N2.432 trillion; while statutory transfers is now put at N372.6 billion as against the N397.9bn initially proposed.
Apart from seeking approval for the provision of N888bn as subsidy on petroleum for the 2012 fiscal year, Jonathan also sought approval for N180bn as part of the funds required for the implementation of the Subsidy Re-investment Empowerment (SURE) Programme on assumption of $90 per barrel of crude oil in the international market since Nigeria imports 90 percent of the fuel for local consumption.
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