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/ 16 October 2007
A British explorer who was the first man to reach the North Pole solo announced plans on Tuesday to lead an expedition to measure the thickness of the Arctic ice caps. Pen Hadow (45), who reached the top of the world alone in 2003, will lead a three-person team.
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/ 16 October 2007
The price of gold leapt on Tuesday to the highest level since the start of 1980, winning support from runaway crude oil prices, traders said. On the London Bullion Market, gold prices surged as high as $767,09 per ounce. Gold prices jumped higher "on a combination of a weaker dollar, geopolitical concerns, positive investor sentiment and record high oil prices", said analysts.
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/ 16 October 2007
A ”perfect storm” of drought, conflict and rising costs has increased the ranks of the chronically hungry by millions of people, and forced aid workers to find and fund longer-term solutions to the food crisis. The United Nations says the number of hungry people worldwide rises by an average of four million each year.
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/ 16 October 2007
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Jake White would love to coach England if he leaves his job as South Africa boss, he said in an interview published on Tuesday. White praised the passion and talent of the England team which will take on his Springboks at the Stade de France in Paris on Saturday.
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/ 16 October 2007
Only 60% of HIV/Aids patients in Africa still take the drugs they need to stay alive two years after starting treatment, researchers reported, noting a grim reason many stopped: death. Of the patients found no longer to be taking the drugs after two years, 40% died and the rest missed scheduled appointments.
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/ 15 October 2007
The car carrying Princess Diana and her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, may have bumped into another large, dark-coloured car shortly before crashing, the inquest into their deaths heard on Monday. Witness accounts previously have talked about a white Fiat Uno or a similar small vehicle, but Jean-Claude Catheline and his wife, Annick, said they saw two dark cars travelling at speed.
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/ 15 October 2007
Northern Rock’s bosses face their toughest grilling since the British bank was engulfed in a funding crisis a month ago when lawmakers quiz them on Tuesday on their strategy and assessment of risk. Northern Rock CEO Adam Applegarth faces a Treasury Committee panel that last month accused the Bank of England of being asleep at the wheel during the crisis.
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/ 15 October 2007
Falling numbers of state dentists in England have led to some people taking extreme measures, including extracting their own teeth, according to a new study released on Monday. Others have used superglue to stick crowns back on, rather than stumping up for private treatment, said the study. One person spoke of carrying out 14 separate extractions on himself with pliers.
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/ 14 October 2007
Visitors to London’s Tate Modern gallery are encouraged to engage actively with a divisive new work — and some, it seems, are taking the request too literally. The new exhibit, <i>Shibboleth</i> by Colombian artist Doris Salcedo, consists of a 167m-long crack in the floor of the cavernous Turbine Hall.
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/ 12 October 2007
Britain’s Virgin Group, controlled by entrepreneur Richard Branson, is in talks to take over troubled bank Northern Rock, a person familiar with the matter said on Friday. The group could lead a consortium including Middle East and United States investors that would inject cash in exchange for a controlling stake.
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/ 11 October 2007
A 75-year-old British man and his 82-year-old sister have been given suspended prison sentences for disturbing their neighbours — including by playing French radio at top volume. Thomas and Mary Smith, from Wirral, near Liverpool, north-west England, were handed 14-day sentences suspended for 12 months.
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/ 11 October 2007
An asteroid is on a collision course with the earth and you have one hour left to live. What would you do in your last 60 minutes? Not surprisingly, the majority of Britons questioned in a survey — 54% — said they would like to spend it either with or on the phone to their loved ones. But the survey also revealed a strong hedonistic streak.
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/ 11 October 2007
Representatives from the world’s major professional tennis associations will meet in London on Friday to discuss the formation of an ”integrity unit” designed to keep the sport free of match-fixing. The meeting comes three days after 18th-ranked Andy Murray became the latest player to speak out about corruption in the sport.
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/ 10 October 2007
English cricketing legend Ian Botham was formally made a knight of the realm by Queen Elizabeth II on Wednesday in a ceremony at her official Buckingham Palace residence in central London. Botham, whose career has combined a rare talent on the cricket field with a flamboyant lifestyle off it, was rewarded for his services to sport and to charity in the Queen’s Birthday Honours.
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/ 10 October 2007
Brewers SABMiller and Molson Coors Brewing have agreed to combine their United States operations to create a business that will have annual sales of ,6-billion and be the second-biggest market player behind Anheuser-Busch. The venture, MillerCoors, will generate around -million of annual cost savings.
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/ 10 October 2007
Demands by African diamond producers are changing the more than a century-old way the diamond industry has operated. Their insistence that they secure a greater portion of the diamond value chain is driving the dramatic restructuring of worldwide rough-diamond supply channels, industry watchdog the World Diamond Centre said on Wednesday.
Darrell Hair on Tuesday dropped his claim for racial discrimination against the International Cricket Council after securing a deal that could lead to the Australian resuming his career as a Test-match umpire next year. A statement said that Hair ”unconditionally” withdrew his allegation of race discrimination by world cricket’s governing body.
All tennis players are aware that some men’s matches are fixed, British star Andy Murray said amid rising concern from tennis officials and betting companies. ”It is pretty disappointing for all the players, but everyone knows that it goes on,” Murray told BBC radio in a report made available ahead of Tuesday night’s broadcast.
Britain is to cut the number of its troops in Iraq to 2 500 by next spring, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Monday, in a long-expected statement. ”We plan for next spring to reduce force numbers in southern Iraq to a figure of 2 500,” he told parliament’s lower House of Commons.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown warned on Monday that neither he nor any other senior British government minister will attend a Europe-Africa summit if Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is there. Previously Brown had said he would boycott the December summit, but it has been unclear if Britain could be represented at a lower level.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Monday said he took ”full responsibility” for the decision not to call an early election, but rejected claims he had run scared from a possible defeat. Brown told an often rowdy news conference that he had instead opted to wait and take a long-term approach before going to the polls.
The global credit squeeze is a "serious crisis" that is not over yet and will have an impact on government budgets, International Monetary Fund (IMF) outgoing head Rodrigo Rato said in an interview published on Monday. IMF managing director Rato said: "Policymakers should not think that the problems will stay at the desk of the bankers."
Manchester United finally found their goal-scoring touch on Saturday with a 4-0 win over Wigan that lifted them top of the Premier League for the first time this season. Cristiano Ronaldo got two goals and Wayne Rooney and Carlos Tevez also scored to give United 20 points — one more than Arsenal, who hosts Sunderland on Sunday.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown ruled out an early election on Saturday in what the opposition Conservatives called a humiliating retreat after polls showed his lead over them had evaporated. Brown, who took over from Tony Blair three months ago, had allowed his Labour Party to fan speculation in recent weeks that he would hold an early election.
Protests against Burma’s bloody crackdown on dissenters took place in cities around the world on Saturday, with thousands demonstrating in London and smaller gatherings held in Sydney, Stockholm, Bangkok, Paris and elsewhere. The coordinated displays of public condemnation followed the violent crackdown by Burma’s junta on thousands of activists in late September.
Condemning Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is counterproductive and international powers should instead put their weight behind regional diplomatic efforts to unseat him, Tanzania’s president said on Friday. Jakaya Kikwete insisted the diplomatic approach favoured by African leaders ”will pay dividends”.
A 27-year-old Celtic fan who invaded the pitch and slapped AC Milan goalkeeper Dida at the end of a Champions League match on Wednesday made himself known to the club on Thursday and was given a life ban. The unnamed individual was also handed over to the police, who were detaining him in custody in Glasgow, Celtic said in a statement on their website.
AC Milan and Liverpool were upset in the Champions League on Wednesday, and Chelsea won 2-1 at Valencia with a late goal from Didier Drogba. Defending champion Milan lost at Celtic 2-1 after a 90th-minute goal from Scott McDonald. After the goal, a fan ran onto the field and made contact with Milan goalkeeper Dida.
It may never be known if Princess Diana was pregnant when she died with her lover, Dodi al-Fayed, in a high-speed Paris car crash, the inquest into their deaths was told on Wednesday. Dodi’s father, Harrods luxury storeowner Mohamed al-Fayed, says the couple were killed in 1997 by Britain’s security services on the orders of Queen Elizabeth’s husband, Diana’s former father-in-law.
A mystery over the unexplained appearance of a string of gargoyle-style stone faces in northern England was solved on Tuesday, when the artist behind them was named. The sculptures, which all have a carved symbol that apparently spells ”paradox” and a riddle, have been left outside homes and businesses.
A Thai chef cooked up fears of a chemical attack in London when fumes from his eye-wateringly hot chilli sauce led to the emergency services being called out. Chalemchai Tangjariyapoon, who works at the Thai Cottage restaurant in Soho, was dry-frying bird’s eye chillies as he prepared a huge batch of nam prik pao.
An inquest into the death of Princess Diana finally opened on Tuesday, 10 years after she and Dodi al-Fayed were killed in a Paris car crash, with her lover’s father still convinced the two were victims of an establishment plot. Mohamed al-Fayed, owner of London’s luxury Harrods store, fought a long legal battle to have the inquest heard by a judge and jury.