David Beckham has been recalled to England’s squad for their forthcoming matches against Brazil and Estonia. Beckham’s international career looked to be over when he was dropped by England coach Steve McClaren following last year’s World Cup, but the Real Madrid midfielder has earned a surprise return.
Nearly a year after being dropped from the national team, David Beckham looks set to return to the England squad as coach Steve McClaren scrambles to boost his side’s chances of qualifying for the 2008 European Championship. Beckham could be named on Saturday in McClaren’s squad to play Brazil in a friendly at Wembley next Friday.
In a corner room of Britain’s Royal Courts of Justice, law lords this week handed victory to David over Goliath. It may not be the last bout in a struggle by residents to return to Diego Garcia, a remote island in the Chagos archipelago turned into a strategic United States military base, but it certainly brought that prospect closer.
Rising numbers of women in Britain are seeking state-funded cosmetic surgery on their genitals, doctors said on Friday. Writing in the British Medical Journal, they said the number of ”labial reductions” carried out in National Health Service hospitals had doubled to 800 a year over five years.
A homeless pensioner who has slept rough in one of London’s plushest beauty spots since 1986 was celebrating on Thursday after winning ownership of his plot of land, turning him into an instant millionaire. Harry Hallowes (71) secured ownership to an 800 square-metre plot in Hampstead Heath after a two-year legal battle with developers.
Insurer Old Mutual posted a 5% rise in first-quarter operating profit, at the higher end of expectations, but said it still expected exchange rates and infrastructure costs to hold back growth this year. South Africa’s largest insurer said on Thursday operating profit on an IFRS basis was £398-million.
Liverpool’s 2-1 defeat by AC Milan in the Champions League final was due to a controversial opening goal that came off the arm of striker Filippo Inzaghi, British media reported on Thursday. Inzaghi, who also scored a fine second goal for Milan in the 82nd minute, ran into the path of Andrea Pirlo’s free kick to send the ball past goalkeeper Pepe Reina.
The leader of the San Bushmen met British lawmakers in London on Wednesday in a bid to drum up support for his people’s struggle to return to their land in the Kalahari desert in Botswana. Roy Sesana met members of the newly formed cross-party parliamentary group on tribal peoples.
Fears stoked by the post-9/11 ”war on terror” are increasingly dividing the world, Amnesty International said on Wednesday, while rapping rights abuses from China to Darfur and Russia to the Middle East. The gap between Muslims and non-Muslims notably deepened, fuelled by discriminatory counter-terrorism strategies in Western countries, warned the rights group.
British prosecutors accused a former KGB agent on Tuesday of murdering dissident Alexander Litvinenko with radioactive polonium and sought his extradition, throwing London and Moscow on to a diplomatic collision course. The Crown Prosecution Service said it wanted to bring suspect Andrei Lugovoy before a British court.
British prosecutors will charge former KGB agent Andrei Lugovoy with the murder of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, who died in London last year after being poisoned with radioactive polonium. The Crown Prosecution Service said on Tuesday there was enough evidence to charge Lugovoy and seek his extradition from Russia.
England’s new coach Peter Moores tried to play down the prospect of South Africa pace great Allan Donald joining his backroom staff after seeing the home side’s fast bowlers struggle during the drawn first Test against West Indies at Lord’s. England’s quicks struggled to make much of an impression against a West Indies side ranked a lowly eighth in the world Test rankings.
England and West Indies drew the first Test at Lord’s on Monday as the weather had the final say in the opening encounter of a four-match series. West Indies finished the fifth day on 89 without loss, 312 runs short of their victory target of 401, but having comfortably avoided any prospect of defeat during a last day where rain and bad light meant only 20 overs were bowled.
After weaving his magic with best-selling books and blockbuster films, Harry Potter is hoping to cast a spell over stamp collectors. JK Rowling’s schoolboy wizard will feature on seven first-class stamps. They go on sale on July 17, four days before the publication of the seventh and final book: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
Bayern Munich midfielder Owen Hargreaves will join Manchester United for about £17,5-million, according to reports on Monday. Minor details of the deal remain to be thrashed out, but Hargreaves is believed to be already looking for a house in the Manchester area, before joining up with his teammates on July 2.
Kevin Pietersen’s dashing 109 put England in a position to win the first Test against West Indies at Lord’s. At the close of Sunday’s fourth day, the tourists were seven without loss in their second innings, needing a further 394 on Monday’s final day to reach their victory target of 401.
Salman Butt and Yasir Hameed hit half centuries and Pakistan beat World Cup runner-up Sri Lanka by 98 runs on Sunday to claim the three-match Warid Cup series. Pakistan posted imposing 313 for nine in the allotted 50 overs, and then dismissed Sri Lanka for 215 in 39.5 overs to take a 2-0 lead in the series.
The Cutty Sark, a London landmark and the world’s last surviving 19th century tea clipper, was severely damaged in a blaze on Monday. Flames and black smoke shot high into the sky above the dry dock on the banks of the River Thames where the boat has stood as a major tourist attraction for more than 50 years.
British fire crews are battling a blaze on the Cutty Sark, the famous 19th-century tea clipper moored as a tourist attraction in south-east London, a fire service spokesperson said on Monday. Television pictures showed the ship well ablaze with flames leaping high into the air.
Ryan Giggs claimed Manchester United had been harshly treated in the FA Cup final after his extra-time effort was ruled not to have crossed the line. Sir Alex Ferguson’s side missed out on the double after Didier Drogba’s goal five minutes from the end clinched Chelsea’s 1-0 victory at Wembley on Saturday.
Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Denesh Ramdin ensured West Indies avoided the follow-on against England in the first Test at Lord’s on Saturday. But just when it looked the pair would both reach the close unbeaten, wicket-keeper Ramdin was caught by a diving Paul Collingwood at third slip off Durham teammate Liam Plunkett for 60.
Didier Drogba’s 33rd goal of the season, four minutes from the end of extra time, was enough to secure the FA Cup for Chelsea in the first final at the new Wembley on Saturday. Drogba’s goal count this season also includes the winner in the League Cup final against Arsenal in February.
Matt Prior became the first England wicket-keeper to score a century on Test debut as the hosts piled up 553-5 on the second day of the first Test against West Indies at Lord’s on Friday. Prior (25) was one of four England centurions in the innings with Alastair Cook (105), Paul Collingwood (111) and Ian Bell (109 not out) also reaching three figures.
A British golf club has lifted an 88-year-old rule banning Germans and Austrians from playing on its course, newspapers reported on Saturday. Filton Golf Club near Bristol in south-west England imposed the law after nine of its members were killed in World War I, with teed-off survivors vowing that the enemy should never be allowed on the course.
British police are hunting a blue-throated Amazon parrot called Chelsea that screeches when anyone mentions Manchester United. The bird was stolen from its owner’s garden this week. The family pet, which is tame and able to tell people its name, was taken from a home in the English Midlands on Tuesday night.
The FA Cup final, one of the landmark events in the global sporting year, finally returns home to Wembley Stadium on Saturday after a seven-year absence. Although a few matches have been played there, the stadium officially opens its doors for the first time when Manchester United meet Chelsea in the final for the second time in 13 years.
The last little piles of sawdust have been swept away, the builders have being paid off and the two biggest acts in the country have been lined up for the grand reopening. Few places did football as theatre as well as the old Wembley but now, finally, an FA Cup final between Chelsea and Manchester United offers the new arena the opportunity to start establishing its own tradition.
Alastair Cook’s fifth Test hundred in 15 matches was the cornerstone of England’s 200-3 against West Indies at Lord’s on Thursday. Cook was 102 not out when bad light ended play on the first day of the first Test of a four-match series. He’d been in for over four hours after England lost the toss in bowler-friendly conditions.
Iraq is on the brink of disintegration, British experts warned on Thursday in one of the most dramatic studies on the developments in the Middle Eastern country. The report, from the foreign policy think tank Chatham House, said the government in Iraq was nearly powerless in the face of not one but ”many civil wars and insurgencies”.
Finance Minister Gordon Brown became Britain’s prime minister-in-waiting Thursday as the ruling Labour party said he was the only candidate to succeed its outgoing leader, Tony Blair. But Brown faces a six-week wait before actually taking over at 10 Downing Street, when his long-time ally-turned-rival Blair stands down at the end of June.
English champions Manchester United and Chelsea, the team they deposed, square off in a much-anticipated FA Cup Final on Saturday at the new Wembley Stadium, as both teams look to end their season on a domestic high having fallen agonisingly short in Europe.
Britain-based brewer SABMiller said on Thursday that net profit climbed by almost 15% during its fiscal year, but gains were limited by a disappointing performance in North America. SABMiller said that net profit increased by 14,5% to $1,649-billion in the year to March 31 from the same period 12 months earlier, according to an official earnings release.