Workers were on Thursday beginning to clear thousands of tons of mud and rock from a main road in Scotland, a day after two massive landslides left more than 50 people stranded. Motorists had to be winched to safety by helicopter after the landslides blocked two parts of the A85 motorway in central Scotland.
New York’s main oil contract climbed to a new record high point of per barrel on Wednesday, amid fears of disruption to supplies in Iraq and Russia and ahead of weekly estimates of United States oil inventories, analysts said. ”I think it is a matter of when and not if we reach ,” Investec analyst Bruce Evers said.
The life of a football manager in the English Premiership is frantic, pressured and apt to end in sometimes arbitrary dismissal. But now under-fire bosses can predict when they might face the sack — using the weather. A professor at Cambridge University has devised a complex theoretical model plotting the fates of club managers, based on similarly complex ones used by climate experts.
United States President George W Bush’s re-election prospects received a severe setback last week when government figures from Washington showed the United States economy was producing far fewer jobs than Wall Street had been expecting.
The 32 000 July increase in non-farm payrolls was almost 200 000 down on market predictions and led to a sharp sell-off in shares and the dollar.
A British archaeologist is set to reveal what he believes to be the location of John the Baptist’s cave to the west of Jerusalem, the Times reported on Monday. Shimon Gibson (45) has found a cave with a ritual baptism pool, rock carvings and pottery, which he linked to John the Baptist and his followers, the newspaper said.
Killer asteroids will essentially cease to be a threat within the next 30 years, according to a leading expert. Scientists are discovering near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) so fast that the chances of one hitting our planet with no warning is likely to become minute, said Dr Benny Peiser.
A burning rabbit has destroyed a 150-year-old cricket club in Britain after being set on fire accidentally in a bundle of branches by two groundsmen, firemen said on Friday. The men, working at Devizes Cricket Club ground in the west of England, saw the rabbit escape, trailing its burning tail with it.
London’s metropolitan police have for three years employed a serial burglar as a police constable, after the man simply lied about his past, The Daily Telegraph reported on Friday. The 34-year-old officer, who was patrolling the streets of Belgravia, one of the British capital’s most exclusive areas, has been suspended while investigations continue.
Oil prices were nudging record levels on global markets this week after Iraqi insurgents threatened to blow up the country’s key southern oilfields if the Americans launched a full-scale onslaught on the holy city of Najaf. Dealers shrugged off an earlier move by Saudi Arabia to calm global energy markets after Wednesday’s frenetic trading that saw fresh concerns about terrorism.
A leading British group opposed to science involving embryos reacted angrily on Wednesday after the government gave a research team permission to use human cloning for the purposes of medical research. ”It is very worrying indeed,” said Josephine Quintavalle, of the group Comment on Reproductive Ethics.
Licence granted for embryo cloning
Stripped-down news anchors posed outside the Houses of Parliament on Wednesday to launch the latest addition to Britain’s competitive news media — <i>Naked News</i>. The revealing format, in which anchors disrobe while reading a digest of news, sports and entertainment, is due to begin broadcasting on Monday.
Britain on Wednesday granted its first license allowing scientists to clone human embryos, more than three years after becoming the first nation to authorise the technique to produce stem cells for medical research. In January 2001, Britain became the first nation to authorise the cloning of human embryos.
Suave, English and debonair: a spy with a dated attitude to women and often in trouble with his superiors. No, the name’s not Bond, James Bond, but Ian Fleming, the creator of the Cold War’s archetypal secret agent. Fleming died 40 years ago on Thursday at the age of 56 after penning 14 Bond novels, which have sold more than 65-million copies worldwide and have been translated into at least 36 languages.
World oil prices hovered on Tuesday close to record high levels as concerns about supply disruptions lingered in the wake of a decision by Iraq to cease pumping crude from its southern oil fields. Brent North Sea crude oil for September fell 27 cents to ,29 per barrel in early afternoon trading in London, below Monday’s record high closing level of ,56.
It is a perennial complaint of shoppers that the consumer frenzy of Christmas begins earlier every year. Usually, however, even the most eager stores wait until the summer heatwave is over. But not Harrod’s, the famous London department store, which on Tuesday opened its Christmas department more than four months before the big day, with the city still enveloped in a fug of warm, humid weather.
The candidate has been anointed and he has accepted the challenge. The United States is now supposed to have an idea of what makes John Kerry tick and, in November, we shall see whether he has what it takes to do what Bill Clinton did and defeat an incumbent George W Bush. The next four years could be tough for the US and it would be fitting if Bush were left to clear up the almighty mess he has created.
British experts are backing a massage oil that has a miraculous effect on women. Zestra, which is made of plant extracts, is said to rekindle arousal in women who have lost the ability to enjoy sex. Doctors have found it can even help women taking antidepressants and beta-blocker drugs or suffering from physical problems such as diabetes.
Oil prices resumed their upwards march on Thursday as supply fears persisted despite a lifeline for Russian energy giant Yukos and efforts by Opec to reassure markets it still has spare output capacity. Brent North Sea crude oil for September delivery rose 55 cents to ,25 a barrel in early trading in London.
The queen likes simple unspiced food and abhors waste to the extent of warming up leftovers, according to a BBC documentary to be broadcast next week. Celebrity chef Gary Rhodes spills the beans on life backstairs at Buckingham Palace, revealing details such as the ”traffic lights” on the corridors that turn to red when a royal approaches so that junior footmen can disappear into a handy closet.
Big Ben, the famous clock tower on Britain’s Houses of Parliament, could be surrounded by an electric fence as part of new security measures to shield it from terrorists and publicity-seeking protesters, a report said on Monday. Big Ben is considered a trophy target for terrorists, the Times newspaper said.
The quest for a full-flavoured decaffeinated coffee may be over: scientists report that they have found a naturally decaffeinated version of the world’s most popular coffee bean. Full-strength coffee can raise blood pressure, trigger palpitations and disrupt sleep, and decaffeinated now accounts for about 10% of the world market.
As the extent of the atrocities in Western Sudan becomes apparent, the scramble to find a quick-fix solution begins. The United States Congress unanimously voted to call the crisis ”genocide”. Logistically, it would need to be on a completely different scale from the United Kingdom’s recent endeavours in Sierra Leone and Kosovo. Any intervention would need unanimous international support.
After having spent 18 years in jail for a murder they never committed, two British men had their compensation payment for wrongful imprisonment cut by a quarter on Thursday on the grounds they did not have to pay for board and lodging during the time they were incarcerated.
Fears about terrorism returned to haunt Britain on Monday after police said they are investigating how secret police plans to prevent Heathrow airport from attack were found abandoned by a roadside. Also, a government minister advised the public to stock up on food and other emergency supplies in case of a terror attack.
The Sudanese government is directly responsible for crimes against humanity in its strife-torn western region of Darfur, including the widespread rape of women, rights group Amnesty International charged on Monday. Refugees from Darfur described a pattern of ”systematic and unlawful attacks” against civilians by both a government-sponsored Arab militia and the Sudanese military forces.
Sudan peace talks collapse
A year after the death of government weapons scientist David Kelly and two Iraq inquiries later, British Prime Minister Tony Blair is struggling to convince the public that his decision to oust Saddam Hussein by military means was right. The fallout for Blair from Kelly’s suicide has been immense.
Marks and Spencer shares tumbled on Thursday after the British tycoon Philip Green dropped his proposed takeover offer for the group, ratcheting up the pressure on its new management to deliver results. The billionaire retail magnate abandoned a third informal offer for the century-old British retailer late on Wednesday.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair was not responsible for failures of British intelligence about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction ahead of the war to oust Saddam Hussein, an official inquiry reported on Wednesday. Iraq most likely possessed no useable weapons of mass destruction before the conflict, the inquiry concluded.
British druid Merlin Michael Williams appeared in court on Tuesday charged with carrying a ceremonial sword while browsing through the aisles of a hardware store in Portsmouth. Williams maintains that the sword is used only for casting spells and other ritualistic purposes.
The latest cellphones come with a whole range of smart tricks, including the ability to catch viruses. They can pick up e-mail, access the Internet, play games, arrange your calendar — and now the latest ”smart phones” have moved another step closer to the PC; they, too, can pick up viruses. Recently, the first such cellphone virus was sent to anti-virus companies by a group of hackers.
Iraq’s interim President Sheikh Ghazi al-Yawar said in an interview published on Monday that the government will within ”a couple of days” offer an amnesty to insurgents who have fought United States-led forces but are ready to lay down their arms. Amnesty will not apply to ”murderers, rapists, and kidnappers”, Yawar said.
The British scientific establishment responded with anger on Monday to an attack by Prince Charles on nanotechnology — applied science involving tiny particles. Over the weekend the prince suggested using the technology in fertility treatment could lead to a disaster of the kind caused by the use of thalidomide.