The Nasdaq Stock Market said on Wednesday it had increased its stake in the London Stock Exchange to 22,7%. The United States operator said in a statement released here that it had paid £128,4-million (,2-million) for an additional 10,3-million shares in the LSE, Europe’s biggest stock exchange.
A year ago, Rafa Benitez was preparing his Liverpool team for the Champions League final. Alan Pardew’s West Ham were playing in the promotion play-offs. Now they come face-to-face in the FA Cup final. However, Benitez refuses to accept his team are favourites, even though the Reds finished the season with 11 wins in a row.
Police in London said on Wednesday they have arrested a 37-year-old man after a girl, aged 11, gave birth to a baby boy. The young girl, reportedly from an African country, went into labour at Hillingdon Hospital in West London on May 5. She and her baby have since been taken into the care of Hillingdon Borough Council.
A British court on Wednesday recommended that Briton Gary McKinnon, who allegedly hacked into United States defence computer systems, be extradited to the US to stand trial for what has been called the ”biggest military hack of all time”. His case is expected to be passed to Home Secretary John Reid for a final decision.
Presidents, prime ministers — how universally they hate to step down from power. Long after most of their people and colleagues wish they would go, they hang on, convinced that the country still needs them. Fraser Grace’s play about Zimbabwe in 2001, currently on stage in London, resonates with Britain in 2006.
Ruud van Nistelrooy did not walk out on Manchester United last weekend but was booted out by Alex Ferguson, it was reported on Tuesday. Tuesday’s Manchester Evening News said that the training ground rows last week between manager Ferguson and Van Nistelrooy were so serious that the United boss ordered the striker to go home.
Officials at the International Cricket Council (ICC) called for a ”responsible” reaction to the launch of their new six-year Future Tours Programme unveiled on Tuesday on its website. ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed added: ”The drafting of the new FTP was an incredibly complex process involving two years of analysis and 10 drafts.
Tottenham Hotspur have tried to keep their bid for Champions League football next season alive by asking the Premier League for a replay of their match against West Ham after several of their players were struck down by food poisoning on the morning of the game. Tottenham lost the end-of-season match 2-1 at Upton Park on Sunday.
The man likely to replace Tony Blair as prime minister said on Tuesday he believes Blair will arrange a dignified and orderly exit. ”I think we can prove to the world that we can do these things in a unified and proper way,” Treasury chief Gordon Brown said in an interview on the morning television programme GMTV.
Shane Warne, cricket’s greatest wicket-taker, is turning from England foe to friend. The Australian, who has claimed 172 English Test wickets and counting, announced his involvement on Monday in a school initiative aiming to bolster and hone England’s scant spin-bowling skills.
Arsenal teenager Theo Walcott made England’s provisional World Cup squad on Monday even though he has never played in a Premier League game. Coach Sven-Goran Eriksson also included injured stars Wayne Rooney and Michael Owen in the 27-man roster, as well as several other players who’ve barely kicked a ball in the last few months.
Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards has undergone surgery to relieve pressure on his brain following his fall from a palm tree, his spokesperson confirmed on Monday. Richards (62) underwent the operation in Auckland, New Zealand, where he was taken for treatment to a brain haemorrhage following the accident on the south Pacific Ocean island of Fiji two weeks ago.
Australian spinner Shane Warne has hit back at former captain Steve Waugh, who claimed his team were too friendly with the English players during last year’s Ashes series. The teams often met after a day’s play in the series, which England won 2-1, and Waugh felt it contributed to the Australians’ surrender of the Ashes for the first time in 17 years.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair faced warnings on Monday of the need to avoid a ”corrosive” power struggle as he prepared to take on Labour Party rebels accused of trying to oust him after poor local election results. Blair has pledged to complete a third term in power but not stand for a fourth straight term in office.
Ruud van Nistelrooy will know by Tuesday at the latest if he has any future at Manchester United after walking out of the ground rather than appear as a substitute. The 29-year-old, scorer of 150 goals in 200 starts for United since joining in a £19-million transfer from PSV Eindhoven five years ago, left the ground after discovering he had been left out of the team.
The Beatles’ company Apple Corps lost its long-running trademark battle with Apple Computer in a British High Court ruling on Monday over the use of the famous name and logo. Apple Corps had accused the United States company of breaching a trademark agreement by promoting music products.
A bout of food poisoning affecting 10 of the Tottenham Hotspur squad’s players put the game against West Ham United in doubt at Upton Park on Sunday, but with West Ham involved in the FA Cup final against Liverpool on Saturday, and with rules forced down by the FA Premier League, the match went ahead at the scheduled time of 3pm.
South Africa’s Oscar Pistorius and Natalie du Toit both won double gold at the Visa Paralympic World Cup in Manchester this weekend. Pistorius won gold in the 100 and 200m during Sunday’s athletics events, while Du Toit smashed two world records in the pool on Saturday.
She’s seen owners come and go, but the tortoise in the garden of a five-bedroom Victorian terrace house on sale in Exeter, south-west England, should not be changing address any time soon. Eliza has been living at the Prospect Park property, near the local university, since at least World War II.
The extreme right British National Party (BNP) on Friday was celebrating a rise in support in local elections across Britain, saying it showed that voters were fed up with immigrants and asylum seekers. Eleven out of 13 BNP candidates put forward in Barking and Dagenham, a constituency east of London, won seats with one more ward still to declare.
Body Shop, the self-styled ethical retailer that is currently being taken over by French cosmetics giant L’Oreal, reported on Friday a 5% increase in annual pre-tax profits. Profit before tax rose to £37,6-million during its 2005/2006 financial year, compared with £35,7-million previously.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair sacked his home secretary and moved other key ministers in a sweeping Cabinet reshuffle on Friday after voters punished his scandal-hit Labour Party in local elections. Blair also stripped Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott of many of his responsibilities.
Steve McClaren was named as the new England manager, in succession to Sven-Goran Eriksson, by the Football Association on Thursday. The Middlesbrough manager, currently Eriksson’s deputy in the England set-up, will take over from the Swede following the World Cup finals in Germany and will take up his new role from August 1 on a four-year contract.
Hearts caretaker coach Valdas Ivanauskas paid tribute to his predecessors George Burley and Graham Rix after the Tynecastle club clinched second place in the Scottish Premier League (SPL) and their first-ever spot in the Champions League. A 1-0 win at home to Aberdeen on Wednesday evening meant the Edinburgh side cannot be caught by Rangers, despite the two sides meeting in the final game of the season at Ibrox on Sunday.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair could be forced into naming the day he will step aside if Thursday’s key local elections go any worse than predicted for his scandal-hit Labour Party. Experts predict that after nine years in power, Blair’s centre-left party is set for a pounding at the polls.
England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson said on Wednesday that striker Wayne Rooney had more than one break in his foot and would probably need a ”miracle” to be fit for the World Cup. Eriksson added that he planned to name Rooney in his provisional 23-man squad on Monday, a week before the official Fifa deadline, and then keep his fingers firmly crossed.
The British government announced plans on Wednesday to deport virtually all foreign convicts in a bid to defuse a scandal that threatens to damage the governing Labour Party’s results in local elections. Thursday’s elections to more than 4Â 000 local authority seats are a key test for Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government.
Nick Mallett could help England retain the World Cup next year after the South African expressed interest in the newly created role of director of elite rugby at the Rugby Football Union (RFU). Mallett, currently director of rugby at Western Province, was quoted as saying he would be interested in any approach from the RFU concerning a role in which he would work alongside England’s head coach, Andy Robinson.
England number two Tord Grip has admitted that they are devising a ”Plan B” for the World Cup after injuries to top strikers Wayne Rooney and Michael Owen. Rooney broke a bone in his foot on Saturday but has refused to give up hope of playing some part in England’s World Cup campaign, despite the scepticism of his Manchester United boss, Sir Alex Ferguson.
Britain’s Prince Charles may have a fight on his hands when the time comes to inherit the crown from his elderly mother, Queen Elizabeth II, if a growing band of republicans has its way. The movement wants to swap the monarchy for an elected head of state, effectively making Charles and the rest of the royal family redundant.
Shane Warne has firmly rubbished rumours of an impending return to Australia’s limited overs squad. Warne, back in the United Kingdom for the start of a county season with Hampshire, said he had no intention of coming out of his self-imposed one-day international retirement.
If Wayne Rooney’s latest injury has got England fans worried, the use of new, lightweight football boots by some of the world’s top players could start alarm bells ringing. Four years after David Beckham’s foot injury first brought the words ”metatarsal bone” into common parlance, Rooney is facing the same injury agony as the England captain ahead of the 2002 finals.