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/ 9 September 2006
Muttiah Muralitharan has said one of the reasons for his recent fine form has been the way he coped with the abuse he received from crowds during Sri Lanka’s tour of Australia earlier this year. The off-spinner, whose controversial action twice saw him no-balled for throwing in Australia during in the 1990s, has taken 46 wickets in his last five Test matches.
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/ 9 September 2006
England rugby star Jonny Wilkinson could be facing life on the sidelines again after twisting his knee in Newcastle’s dramatic victory over Worcester at Kingston Park on Friday. Wilkinson was helped from the field early in the second half after being caught under a teammate at the bottom of a ruck.
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/ 8 September 2006
Crude oil prices reversed their slide on Friday after dropping below a barrel on a United States inventory report showing that higher refinery production was helping boost gasoline and distillate inventories. Light, sweet crude for October delivery gained 10 cents to ,42 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange by midday in Europe.
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/ 7 September 2006
Penguin is turning to publishing’s past to help usher the industry into the modern era, releasing a novel in serial form to create a buzz online before the complete work is released next year. Gordon Dahlquist’s fantastical gothic mystery Glass Books of the Dream Eaters will be sent to buyers in 10 weekly paperback instalments.
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/ 7 September 2006
British Prime Minister Tony Blair pledged on Thursday to quit within a year, but declined to give an exact date to mutineers in his Labour Party who want a speedy change of leader to revive its fortunes. Blair’s statement came in a tumultuous week that saw his authority crumbling in the face of party revolts after nearly a decade in power.
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/ 7 September 2006
British Prime Minister Tony Blair will step down early in May next year after a revolt by disenchanted supporters campaigning for him to end almost 10 years in office, British media reported on Thursday. Asked to comment on the reports, a spokesperson for Blair’s office said: ”People should not get ahead of themselves and should wait to hear if or what the prime minister has to say.”
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/ 6 September 2006
Tony Blair will be replaced as British Prime Minister by the end of July 2007, newspapers reported on Wednesday, signalling the start of a leadership battle that some fear may paralyse government for months. Finance Minister Gordon Brown is widely expected to succeed Blair as leader of the Labour Party and the country.
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/ 5 September 2006
World oil prices moved in different directions on Tuesday when trading was resumed in New York crude. New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in October, tumbled 83 cents to ,36 per barrel in electronic deals before the official opening of the United States market.
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/ 5 September 2006
A new generation of small green companies is emerging with radical but proven ideas to revolutionise engineering and create anything from intelligent fridges to colossal wind turbines moored at sea. The designers hope their projects will transform energy supplies and cut carbon emissions in the next 20 years.
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/ 5 September 2006
As the entry of Bulgaria and Romania into the European Union edges closer, the condescension towards Eastern Europeans and their countries of origin grows. The double standards could not be more glaring. Bulgaria and Romania are routinely portrayed as backward, mafia-ridden hellholes that will infect the rest of the continent.
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/ 4 September 2006
Pakistan have been told off by the International Cricket Council (ICC) for repeatedly making public comments about the events surrounding the final Test against England. Malcolm Speed, the ICC’s chief executive, has issued a final warning to the Pakistan team and management to stop issuing comments related to the controversial events.
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/ 4 September 2006
Eight British Muslims were remanded in custody on Monday after appearing in court in connection with a suspected plot to blow up transatlantic airliners. The men, aged between 19 and 28, appeared at London’s Old Bailey central criminal court via video link from Belmarsh maximum security prison in south-east London.
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/ 4 September 2006
Renault’s world champion Fernando Alonso says he is looking for a ”special” victory in front of Ferrari’s home crowd at Monza in Italy next weekend. ”This year I have won in Silverstone, in Monaco, in Spain — and for sure, I want to win Monza too,” the Spaniard said in a team preview on Monday for the last European race of the Formula One season.
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/ 4 September 2006
World Cup winners Italy better finish their long lap of honour before Wednesday. Otherwise they may not make it to Euro 2008. Held 1-1 at home by Lithuania on Saturday, the lacklustre Italians play in France less than two months after the two sides met in the World Cup final.
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/ 4 September 2006
Former world featherweight boxing champion ”Prince” Naseem Hamed was released early from jail on Monday after serving only a few weeks of a 15-month sentence for dangerous driving and seriously injuring another motorist. Briton Hamed was sentenced in May after his Mercedes sports car collided head-on with another car.
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/ 4 September 2006
Every morning a mild-mannered British servant catches his commuter train to London, whips open his laptop and helps change the way people travel around the world. Mark Smith is the man behind <i>The Man in Seat</i>, an independent website that’s riding a wave of global popularity as more and more travellers give up on chaotic air travel and embrace the romance of railways.
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/ 3 September 2006
Shoaib Akhtar set up Pakistan’s seven-wicket win over England in the second one-day international at Lord’s in London on Saturday as the tourists went 1-0 up in the five-match series. Akhtar finished with four for 28 from his permitted eight overs, while his miserly new-ball partner Mohammad Asif took two for 10, also in eight overs.
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/ 2 September 2006
A British government minister may have thought he was keeping up with modern trends when he put a draft policy on the internet on Friday, but was soon left red-faced when hundreds of pranksters defaced it. More than 170 cyber-jokers trashed the document by adding in bizarre paragraphs for fun
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/ 1 September 2006
A new, deadly strain of tuberculosis (TB) has killed 52 of 53 people infected in the last year in South Africa, the World Health Organisation said on Friday, calling for improved measures to treat and diagnose the bacteria. The strain was discovered in KwaZulu-Natal, and is classified as extremely drug-resistant.
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/ 1 September 2006
Everton manager David Moyes is to sue his former protégé and England striker Wayne Rooney over comments made in the 20-year-old’s autobiography, his lawyer said on Friday. Rooney, who joined Manchester United in 2004 for a fee estimated at £25-million, made his first-team breakthrough under Moyes at Goodison Park as a teenager.
Jonny Wilkinson, who has not played for England since clinching the 2003 World Cup with a last-minute drop goal, has changed his distinctive kicking style in a bid to stay injury-free this season. The 27-year-old Newcastle player insists he has identified what was causing him to break down during every attempted comeback and reckons it will no longer be a problem.
Kevin Pietersen says heartbreaking racial quotas forced him into making the biggest decision of his life, to quit his native South Africa and move to England. The batsman said his starring role in last summer’s Ashes’ triumph only happened when racial discrimination resulted in him being left out of the KwaZulu-Natal side because of the colour of his skin.
Two-time defending champion Chelsea beat Blackburn 2-0 on Sunday in the English Premier League, winning on Frank Lampard’s 50th-minute penalty and a late goal from substitute Didier Drogba. Unlike the Blues of the last two seasons, Chelsea looked unconvincing — particularly in the first half.
The recent flow of news from around the world suggests that the balance of world economic power may finally be swinging away from the United States towards Japan and Europe, which have lagged behind for many years. In the past three years the world economy has put in its fastest growth spurt for decades.
Premiership footballers are storing stem cells from their newborn babies to use in case of their own career-threatening sports injuries, according to a report on Sunday. They are freezing cells taken from the umbilical cord blood of their babies as a possible future cure for cartilage and ligament problems, the Sunday Times newspaper reported.
Madonna feels responsible for the children of the world and has found herself a ”big, big project” to help orphans in Malawi. Gwyneth Paltrow declares ”I am African” in a new advertisement for a charity working in Africa. The continent has long been a favourite destination for celebrity campaigners, going back to 1954 when Danny Kaye became Unicef’s goodwill ambassador.
In a break with the past, the youthful leader of Britain’s main opposition Conservative Party on Sunday renounced Margaret Thatcher’s sympathetic stance on apartheid-era South Africa. She famously branded Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress as ”terrorists”.
Liverpool picked up its first Premier League victory of the season on Saturday, beating West Ham 2-1 on first-half goals from Daniel Agger and Peter Crouch. Liverpool opened last weekend with a disappointing 1-1 draw at newly promoted Sheffield United.
Revelations that umpire Darrell Hair asked cricket’s governing body the International Cricket Council (ICC) for a 000 pay-off to defuse the ball-tampering row with Pakistan dominated Britain’s newspapers on Saturday. Copies of the e-mails in which Hair made the request to the ICC’s umpires and referees manager, Doug Cowie, were reprinted while ex-pros and pundits gave their views.
Childhood allergies are on the rise around the world, including in many developing countries where asthma, eczema and hay fever are emerging as important public health problems, scientists said on Friday. Asthma, in particular, is responsible for millions of children missing school, ending up in hospital or even dying.
Archaeologists from a television team will celebrate the 80th birthday of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth by digging up the manicured lawns and gardens at three of her palaces to trace their history. At Windsor Castle they hope to unearth Edward III’s Round Table building which they believe lies under the Queen’s ceremonial lawn.
They didn’t quite chant ”David who?” on the terraces as England banged home four goals to cruise to a comfortable victory against Greece. But just how long can David Beckham retain his celebrity status when the English side no longer seems in need of ”that bendy thing” England’s former captain used to do so well with the ball?