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/ 5 February 2008
A funeral service was held in London for Bertram ”Jimmy” James, one of the few British prisoners to avoid being executed for joining in the ”great escape” from a German prison in World War II. James, who was 92, died on January 18 in Ludlow in northern England.
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/ 5 February 2008
The man accused of murdering model Sally Anne Bowman had sex with her dead body after drunkenly stumbling across her corpse but denies murdering her, a court was told on Tuesday. Chef Mark Dixie (37) was said to have ”taken advantage of the situation” after discovering the body in Croydon, south of London.
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/ 5 February 2008
Britons are losing their grip on reality, according to a poll that came out on Monday, which showed that nearly a quarter think Winston Churchill was a myth while the majority reckon Sherlock Holmes was real. The survey found that 47% thought the 12th century English king, Richard the Lionheart, was a myth.
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/ 4 February 2008
A Briton alleged to be the mastermind behind a foiled coup in Equatorial Guinea has been ”kidnapped” and his legal team has lost contact with him, his lawyer said on Monday. Simon Mann was flown out of Zimbabwe, where he was in prison, early Thursday after being handed over to officials from Equatorial Guinea.
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/ 4 February 2008
Randgold Resources said 2007 net profit fell 10% as costs rose, but the African gold producer said on Monday that a buoyant gold price should boost this year’s earnings. ”On a before-tax basis at gold, we’ll get up to an 80% odd increase in our profits for the full year,” said chief executive Mark Bristow.
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/ 3 February 2008
Woolworths stores in Britain have halted the sale of ”Lolita” beds designed for children, after a parents’ organisation complained the name is synonymous with sexually active preteens. Woolworths said staff members had been unaware of the name’s connection with Vladimir Nabokov’s 1955 novel Lolita.
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/ 3 February 2008
Wales skipper Ryan Jones hailed his team’s stunning 26-19 Six Nations win over England in London on Saturday as the greatest day of his career. Wales were 16-6 down at the break and were still trailing by 10 points with 20 minutes left before they ran in two tries to record their first victory at Twickenham in 20 years.
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/ 2 February 2008
For the survivors of the February 6 1958 Munich air crash that took away the heart of the so-called Busby Babes, the 50th anniversary of one of soccer’s worst tragedies — to be marked on Wednesday — is more of an ordeal than simply remembering lost Manchester United teammates.
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/ 1 February 2008
A drunk driver on Friday admitted killing a South African rugby fan who was heading home in London after celebrating his team beating England in the World Cup final. Jimmy Kateende (28), from New Malden in south-west London, admitted causing the death of Hugh Morton by driving without due care and attention while under the influence of alcohol.
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/ 31 January 2008
The public problems of pop singer Britney Spears are rarely out of the headlines, but now her troubles are being put on the stage by one of Britain’s leading modern dance companies. The Rambert Dance Company have set the 26-year-old’s battles to music and dance in an interpretation called Meltdown.
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/ 31 January 2008
Cristiano Ronaldo scored twice as champions Manchester United returned to the top of the Premier League on goal difference from Arsenal after a 2-0 win at home to Portsmouth. The Gunners had briefly been at the head of the table after their 3-0 victory against Newcastle at the Emirates Stadium on Tuesday.
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/ 30 January 2008
Fresh write-offs at big European and Japanese banks on Wednesday drove investors’ attention firmly back onto the credit crunch after days gazing at Société Générale’s stunning losses, which it blames on a junior trader. With the Federal Reserve expected to cut interest rates for the second week running, Swiss bank UBS illuminated the depth of the crisis.
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/ 29 January 2008
Honda believes its revamped car will make the Formula One team more competitive this season after a disappointing 2007. Team principal Ross Brawn said Honda’s entire car design was re-evaluated after the team finished eighth in last year’s constructors’ championship with six points — 198 behind winners Ferrari.
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/ 29 January 2008
Sir Alex Ferguson believes experienced midfielder Paul Scholes could play an important part in Manchester United’s bid this season to match their treble achievement of 1999. The 33-year-old former England midfielder is expected to feature in Wednesday’s league match at home to Portsmouth.
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/ 28 January 2008
Asian and European stock markets fell sharply again on Monday as investors worried about possible recession and a forthcoming interest-rate call in the United States, analysts said. The Paris market fell amid anxiety and tension after an alleged -billion fraud was unearthed last week at French bank Société Générale.
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/ 27 January 2008
Cristiano Ronaldo scored two goals on Sunday to help Manchester United beat Tottenham 3-1 in the fourth round of the FA Cup, and United celebrated some more when neighbour Manchester City was ousted by Sheffield United 2-1. Robbie Keane gave Spurs a 24th-minute lead at Old Trafford, but Carlos Tevez equalised in the 38th.
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/ 24 January 2008
Global digital music sales rose by 40% to an estimated -billion in 2007, but the strong growth failed to compensate for the continued slump in CD sales, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry said in a report published on Thursday. Figures showed that digital sales in 2007 accounted for 15% of the global music market.
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/ 24 January 2008
Global share prices rocketed on Thursday, though fears of an economic slowdown lingered as Société Générale revealed a massive €4,9-billion fraud-related loss it attributed to one of its traders. Europe’s leading share indices surged in morning deals, with gains of between 4% and more than 5% after a recovery on the Japanese market.
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/ 24 January 2008
Lonmin, the world’s third-biggest platinum producer, cut its sales outlook for the current year on Thursday after a 19 % fall in first-quarter refined platinum output. The London-listed firm said in a statement it expected 860 000 ounces of refined platinum sales during the year ending September 2008, compared with a previous forecast of 900 000 ounces.
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/ 24 January 2008
Chelsea will face London rivals Tottenham in next month’s League Cup final after crushing Everton’s dream of a first domestic final appearance in eight years on Wednesday. Joe Cole’s well-taken strike left Everton with little prospect of overturning their 2-1 first-leg deficit at Goodison Park.
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/ 23 January 2008
Tottenham finally got the better of Arsenal as they booked a place in the League Cup final with a 5-1 rout of their north London rivals in Tuesday’s semifinal second leg. Juande Ramos’s side had endured a miserable nine-year sequence of 21 matches without a victory over the Gunners, but they swept away those bitter memories in style at White Hart Lane.
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/ 22 January 2008
The mother of Tania Nicol, the first and youngest of five women to be murdered around Ipswich, told a court on Tuesday she did not know her daughter was working as a prostitute. Nicol (19) disappeared on October 30 2006, and her body was finally found in a stream on December 8.
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/ 22 January 2008
More than half of teachers in a British survey said they thought plagiarism from the internet was a problem. Some students who steal essays wholesale from the web, they said, are so lazy they don’t even bother to take the adverts off the cut-and-pasted text.
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/ 22 January 2008
Substitute Peter Crouch scored two minutes from time after Marlon Harewood’s over-head kick and an own goal from Fabio Aurelio cancelled out Yossi Benayoun’s opener to earn Liverpool a 2-2 draw against Aston Villa. It was a night that was all about the Liverpool fans directing their displeasure at the plans of club owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett to re-finance their debts.
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/ 21 January 2008
William Gallas believes the fear factor can help Arsenal reach the League Cup final and extend their long unbeaten run against Tottenham on Tuesday. Gallas’s side travel to White Hart Lane for the League Cup semifinal second leg with the tie delicately poised at 1-1.
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/ 21 January 2008
Sven-Goran Eriksson admitted Manchester City were fortunate to preserve their unbeaten home record after Darius Vassell’s controversial equaliser rescued a 1-1 draw against West Ham. City trailed to Carlton Cole’s excellent early goal at Eastlands on Sunday but Vassell was given the benefit of a debatable offside decision to level.
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/ 21 January 2008
Britain set a two-week deadline for a private-sector rescue of Northern Rock on Monday, as it confirmed plans to convert its billions of pounds of loans to the stricken bank into bonds in a bid to smooth a deal. The financing package will tie the government to Northern Rock, Britain’s biggest casualty of the global credit crunch, for years to come.
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/ 20 January 2008
A year on since a shipwreck off the English south coast, locals are still revelling in their wild days of frenzied pillaging. But they are keeping mum on who grabbed the best plunder. The carcass of the MSC Napoli cargo ship is still visible through the sea fog off the coast of Branscombe, a picturesque village on the Devon coastline.
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/ 20 January 2008
A Wayne Rooney-inspired late show enabled Manchester United finally to overcome Reading and hold on to pole position in the English Premier League title battle on Saturday. At St James’ Park, Kevin Keegan’s second stint as Newcastle manager got under way with a subdued performance that ended in a goalless draw with Bolton.
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/ 19 January 2008
Investigators said on Friday that the engines of a British Airways Boeing 777 failed to respond to demands for more thrust shortly before it crash-landed at London’s Heathrow International Airport on Thursday. Thirteen people were injured when British Airways flight 83 from Beijing came down well short of the southern runway.
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/ 18 January 2008
The pilot of a British Airways jet that crash-landed at London’s Heathrow airport with more than 150 people on board was hailed as a hero on Friday as investigators began their probe into the incident. All 136 passengers and 16 crew escaped without serious injury when the aircraft was forced to land short of the runway on Thursday.
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/ 17 January 2008
A British Airways (BA) plane on a flight from China made an emergency landing at London’s Heathrow Airport on Thursday and three people were slightly hurt in an incident police said had no link to terrorism. ”We can confirm that BA Flight 38 arriving from Beijing made an emergency landing,” an airport spokesperson added.