Avram Grant believes Chelsea were a fading force before he took over and led his team to within touching distance of a Premier League and Champions League double. When Grant replaced Jose Mourinho as Chelsea manager in September, the Israeli claims he found a club in danger of imploding.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown is looking to make popular concessions in a bid to win back support for his beleaguered Labour government after its drubbing in last week’s local elections. Labour ministers and backbenchers continued to voice support for the prime minister despite the worst local election results for the party in 40 years.
Everton missed the chance to confirm a place in next season’s UEFA Cup when they were beaten 1-0 by Arsenal in the Premier League on Sunday. Nicklas Bendtner headed the only goal after 77 minutes at the Emirates stadium against a stubborn Everton side who needed just a draw to guarantee finishing fifth.
Traditionally on May Day the fool plays at pratfalls and buffoonery around local morris dancers, brandishing his fool’s bauble, an inflated pig’s bladder on a stick, with which he bewitches and controls the crowds. To the uninitiated it looks like chaos, but for his own safety the fool must know the dances as well as anyone.
Britain’s Labour Party suffered its worst local election defeat on record and lost control of London on Friday, forcing Prime Minister Gordon Brown to rethink his strategy to avoid losing the next national poll. Conservative Boris Johnson, a journalist-turned-lawmaker prone to gaffes, wrested the prized post of London mayor from Labour’s maverick Ken Livingstone.
Senior Labour figures said on Friday the party needed to re-engage with voters after it suffered a drubbing in local elections while delighted Tories said they were on course to win the next general election. Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Labour Party was on course to lose around 200 council seats — around a quarter of the party’s councillors.
Madeleine McCann’s parents said on Thursday they believe their daughter is still alive, a year after she disappeared while on holiday in Portugal. In an interview with the BBC, Kate and Gerry McCann said they thought she may have been abducted from their holiday apartment in Praia da Luz on the Algarve last May.
Ahead of talks in London with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma on Wednesday refused to condemn Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe over the ongoing failure to publish presidential election results and widespread post-election violence.
Nationalist protests against the French supermarket chain Carrefour spread across China on Sunday, with thousands demonstrating outside stores over the West’s stance on Tibet. The authorities appeared to be trying to damp down the protests, with the official media urging citizens to be ”calm” and ”rational”.
Texas billionaire Allen Stanford has offered to put up -million for England to play five Twenty20 games against his West Indies All-Star team. England and Wales Cricket Board chairperson Giles Clarke had said on Thursday the prospect of England taking part in a winner-takes-all -million match in the West Indies was ”very likely”.
Anti-China protesters draped in Tibetan flags disrupted the Olympic torch relay through London on Sunday, billed as a journey of harmony and peace. Scores of Chinese officials in blue suits and British police on foot and bicycles guarded the celebrities and athletes carrying the torch, but demonstrators repeatedly broke through their security cordon.
Zimbabwean police have arrested a New York Times correspondent who was covering the country’s election, the newspaper said on Thursday. ”We do not know where he is being held, or what, if any, charges have been made against him,” the newspaper’s executive editor, Bill Keller, said in a statement.
Fifteen potential sites for new ”eco-towns” across England have been published in a drive to tackle a national housing shortage while minimising damage to the environment. Each site would provide between 5 000 and 15 000 low carbon emission homes in the first new towns since the 1960s.
Prospects for a run-off in Zimbabwe’s election appeared to increase on Wednesday after state media said President Robert Mugabe had failed to win a majority for the first time in nearly three decades. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, however, insisted on Tuesday that he would win an outright majority from last Saturday’s election.
South African Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu on Wednesday proposed sending an international peacekeeping force to Zimbabwe in the wake of the unresolved presidential elections. Tutu told the BBC he favoured ”a mixed force of Africans and others” to protect human rights in the beleaguered African country.
Zimbabwe’s opposition was in contact with senior military and intelligence officials on Tuesday night to persuade them to respect the results of the election as pressure grew on Robert Mugabe, the President, to recognise defeat. Sources in the opposition Movement for Democratic Change said the contacts were aimed at winning the security establishment’s support.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and the Zimbabwe government both denied on Tuesday that they were in talks to arrange the resignation of President Robert Mugabe. At a news conference on Tuesday evening, Tsvangirai confirmed, however, for the first time personally that his party had won the elections.
Scores of detainees were injured on Saturday when a six-storey police building collapsed in the Angolan capital Luanda. Angolan police chief Ambrosio de Lemos said the cause of the collapse of the National Criminal Investigation Department building was so far unknown but no ”external factor” was involved.
Zimbabwe state media predicted on Friday a crushing victory for President Robert Mugabe in weekend elections as his two main challengers made fresh allegations that the result may be rigged. Citing an eve of poll survey by university researchers, the Herald said Mugabe was set to win 57% of the votes.
British Airways cancelled a fifth of flights from its new ,6-billion terminal five (T5) at Heathrow on Friday as the chaos from its shambolic opening spilled into a second day. The airline said it was dropping the short-haul flights to ”create more capacity” as it tried to get back on top of the mess left by Thursday’s opening.
Al-Jazeera English, the global news channel launched as a sibling to the Arab-language service, has suffered its most high-profile defections yet amid growing unease among staff about its future. Steve Clark, a former senior executive at ITN and Sky News and a driving force behind the launch of al-Jazeera English, resigned at the end of last week.
China ramped up security on Thursday to quell a Tibetan uprising as it expressed concern over British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s planned meeting with the Dalai Lama. Huge military convoys were seen heading towards Tibet, while a build-up of troops took place in nearby provinces after a week of violent protests against China’s rule of the region.
British film director Anthony Minghella, who won an Oscar for The English Patient, died in a London hospital on Tuesday after a short illness, his agent said. He was 54. Minghella died from complications following surgery last week for cancer of the tonsils and neck, agent Leslee Dart said.
Wales coach Warren Gatland will take his strongest available side to South Africa for two Tests against the world champions in June after guiding his team to the Six Nations grand slam in his first season in charge. In recent years, Six Nations sides have rested leading players when travelling to the Southern Hemisphere in the off-season.
China flooded the streets of Lhasa with riot police on Saturday as the international community urged an end to the bloodshed in Tibet that has already claimed at least 10 — possibly dozens more — lives. Thousands of protesters smashed government offices in Xiahe after marching through the streets chanting support for the Dalai Lama.
If you have just blown the budget on a new high-definition TV, look away now. Japanese broadcasters and the BBC are working on a system 33 times more detailed than the best sets on the market. The BBC plans to use the technology, named Super Hi-Vision, to screen coverage of the 2012 Olympics on big screens in city centres across Britain.
The FA Cup will boast one Premier League side in the last four after Cardiff City continued a weekend of shocks by beating Middlesbrough 2-0 on Sunday. First-half goals from Peter Whittingham and Roger Johnson handed the Championship (second division) side a deserved win at the Riverside.
United States Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton questioned each other’s sincerity and leadership on national security and the economy on Friday as they geared up for the next tests in a gruelling struggle for the White House. Clinton told audiences in Wyoming it was time to end the Iraq war that she backed in 2002.
The Kenyan government sanctioned violence following last December’s disputed presidential elections, the BBC alleged on Wednesday, but Nairobi strongly denied the claims. The BBC quoted sources alleging that meetings were held at the official residence of President Mwai Kibaki between a banned militia group and high-ranking government figures.
Northern Ireland’s largest Protestant party scrambled on Wednesday to secure a seamless transfer of power after its firebrand leader, Ian Paisley, announced his departure, drawing tributes from all sides. Paisley said on Tuesday he would step down as Democratic Unionist Party head in May.
Britain said on Tuesday it would support a ban on a tour next year by the Zimbabwe cricket team in protest at President Robert Mugabe’s rule, but the decision was up to the sport’s authorities. The BBC’s Inside Sport said the government was looking at several options to stop next year’s tour.
The British government has no plans for a blanket ban on sportsmen from Zimbabwe, Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s spokesperson said on Tuesday, rebuffing a report from the BBC. The spokesperson said Downing Street had been ”surprised” by the report suggesting that Britain was considering such a ban.