Ivorian infantry kill wound protesters

Tim Cocks and Ange Aboa ABIDJAN Mon Feb 22, 2010 5:07pm EST Related News Ivory Coast protesters burn cars and loot shopsSat, Feb 20 2010TIMELINE: Ivory Coast"s drawn-out political crisisSat, Feb 20 2010Ivory Coast protesters burn cars, loot shopsSat, Feb 20 2010Security forces kill protesters in Ivory CoastFri, Feb 19 2010UPDATE 3-Police fire tear gas at protesters in Ivory CoastMon, Feb 15 2010 < 1 / 2 >

The Becks factor! The less you see of former Manchester United star David Beckham the improved he gets...

He will have lookedperfectly at home asthe flashbulbsexploded and themicrophonescrowded the list in front ofhim at the Milanello sportsfacility, on the hinterland ofMilan, yesterday.

David Beckham gives great face,as Madonna would say, and on theeve of a Champions League knockouttie with Manchester United hewas in his element.

The movement moves to the StadioGiuseppe Meazza, well known to theworld as the San Siro, tonight,where a some-more harsh reckoningawaits.

Emotional clash: David Beckham is scheming to face Manchester United for the initial time

For Beckham, yesterday was adoddle, the easy part.

The capability tohandle the media increases thenearer a man gets to 35; it is hisability to hoop a decent full backthat starts waning.

The asocial will disagree that theday Manchester United pulled ACMilan out of the hat in the pull forthe Champions League secondround, the receptive to advice of champagnecorks popping at Beckham Incwould have been louder than a24-gun salute.

Happy days werehere again.Their man would browbeat thecoverage around the initial match,while his rival lapse to OldTrafford in the second leg would bethe undiluted PR set-piece: an emotional,agenda-setting, headlinegrabbingaffair.

Beckham will not have lookedmore critical as a footballer and sportspersonality given personification his finalgame for Real Madrid roughly threeyears ago.

Yet, there is a downside tothis selling jamboree.Off the field, Beckhamremains representation undiluted butincreasingly, the less that is seen ofhim in games, the better.

Old hand: Beckham face the media at the pre-game press conference

The matchwith Manchester United throwsBeckham the player in to sharpfocus.All eyes will be on him tonight,including those of Fabio Capello,the England physical education instructor scrutinisinghis efficacy opposite the bestopposition.

If Beckham comes up short, ashappened the last time he was thecentre of courtesy in Milan, it willreignite the discuss around hisinclusion in Englands World Cupsquad, and his place on the craft isnot nonetheless guaranteed.

Capello does not do sentiment.He likes Beckham, not for oldacquaintance but for what hebrings to the group. He genuinelyconsiders Beckham the most appropriate professionalin the patrol and isimpressed by his courtesy to detailin preparation, his thoroughnessand fitness.

He is roughly there.Even so, distinct Steven Gerrard orWayne Rooney, Beckham could stillbe displaced. He is in a straightfight for four, may be three, placesin far-reaching midfield with Theo Walcott,Aaron Lennon, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Joe Cole, James Milnerand Stewart Downing.

Second coming: Beckham rejoined AC Milan on loan in January

Many of his rivals are enduringdifficult seasons. Lennon and Walcottare tormented by injury; Cole isincreasingly an afterthought underCarlo Ancelotti at Chelsea.

This strengthens Beckhamshand, but Capello additionally knows thatthe biggest exam of Beckhamsability to change games againstsignificant antithesis in SouthAfrica will come in the ChampionsLeague, or opposite the most appropriate of SerieA, that is since tonights diversion is soimportant.

All that exploded thatnight was the parable that Beckhamwas in the form of his hold up sincereturning to Milan.Inter won impressively despitebeing down to 9 men by the endand the Italian press comparedBeckham to a waxwork dummy.

The critique was harsh,not slightest since therewere a lot of stiff, lifelessfigures in red and blackthat night. More intolerable was thegulf in between the player on showand the one billed pre-match.

Thisis since the United tie is not necessarilyhelpful.Beckham is mostly at his bestunseen. On camera, noticed throughthe middle of a 45-second rollingnews report, a shave of a near-missfree-kick or a decent dilemma canleave the sense that he was atthe heart of the fool around throughout.

Glowing reviews in imitation are oftenprovided by freelance observerswho are paid by the word and havea vested seductiveness in hyping his displayto extremes.

The actuality is, unfamiliar football anoraksaside, we do not see most ofBeckham these days. Major LeagueSoccer matches are on in the smallhours and ESPN, home of Serie A,has a singular audience.

Our report is gleaned fromclips, and the reports of stringerswho fast realize ;Beckham hasquiet night is not a thesis to pursueif they are formulation on eatingthat week.

So, dual things happen: possibly adecent arrangement is saved as a masterclass or a bad diversion reinventedas disaster.

Old times: Beckham was an Old Trafford favourite

Either story makesheadlines.This is since Beckham was singledout after the Milan derby, but alsowhy the being of that performancecame as such a crashing disappointmentafter all that had beenwritten of him previously.

It did not assistance that ESPN chosethat week end to go free-to-air as apromotional debate to encouragesubscribers, definition some-more sawBeckham than usual.

He cannotafford to defect a second time.Beckham has a jot down of rising tothe big occasion, of course.

Indeed,since being left out of the Englandteam by Steve McClaren, he hasbeen on a mission to confoundthose who disbelief him.It cannot be taken for grantedthat he will regularly win this battle,though.

He could not opposite Inter,and Manchester United are asgood. The writer of happy endingson so most occasions, this one may be over even his remarkablepowers of invention.

More...We"ve still got the legs for it, insists AC Milan luminary David BeckhamRemember me? Sportsmail relives David Beckham"s sorcery Manchester United moments forward of long-awaited Old Trafford lapse with AC Milan Real Madrid aim Vidic is going nowhere, claims Manchester United trainer FergusonDavid Beckham won"t let tension mount in the approach of booting Manchester United out of the Champions League Huntelaar out to stir Man United as Fergie plots swoop for AC Milan striker Ferguson has watched us but we"re keeping the cool, says Milan genius PatoWe all fright being axed by Fergie, reveals Manchester United defender Evra

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Think tank: Hit the City with a Robin Hood tax

Rowan Williams and Richard Curtis & , : {}

Nobody is going to win the choosing by earnest to be good to bankers, but it feels a squandered event to conflict to the monetary predicament in a vengeful way, simply asking for bankers to be punished.

The dual of us could not come from some-more opposite areas of work, but we find ourselves joined by the goal that out of the monetary problems competence arise something sure that could spin the promissory note predicament in to an rare event for the world. It competence assistance to heal the crack that has non-stop up in in in in between banks and multitude at large by creation the monetary industry piece of the solution, not only the source of the problem.

There is a possibility to deliver a taxation that will recognize both the large enlargement of monetary services in new years and the actuality that taxation has not kept gait with this but additionally a taxation that will beget estimable resources to understanding with the obligatory tellurian needs that cannot wait for for a little supernatural turnaround in the economy.

The plan is to taxation sure exchange in in in in between monetary institutions. It would not weight the high travel banks or the in isolation promissory note exchange of holidaymakers, but would aim the hundreds of billions that upsurge in in in in between the big players in the monetary industry.

A directed towards ubiquitous taxation of an normal of 0.05% 50p in each 1,000 on these exchange could beget something similar to 250 billion a year.

The debate in await of this has called itself the Robin Hood tax, that belies the complexity of it. Neither of us is an economist nonetheless majority comparison economists await this plan and we are asking those people who have for years used their luminosity to digest formidable ways of generating income to good the banks to assistance to digest a new make up of taxation on banks that would good the world.

The thought is that the income lifted would be separate 3 ways: 50% would go to made at home governments so there would be a larger fountainhead of resources to equivocate cuts in simple services such as preparation and health, and to account some-more made at home programmes of misery rebate and affordable housing; 25% would go towards assisting poorer countries to understanding with the stroke of meridian shift and to revoke their CO emissions; and 25% would be directed towards for the quarrel opposite tellurian poverty.

The taxation would give us a critical possibility of assembly the millennium growth goals creation malaria and motherly genocide in birth things of the past, guaranteeing that each kid gets an preparation and majority more.

It will not be easy to secure correspondence in between all nations, but majority disagree that even a nation unilaterally commanding such a taxation maybe starting with a promissory note taxation would beget a outrageous volume of uninformed income and would not lose the mercantile competitiveness.

Could Britain take the lead and hold up the initial stairs towards a form of taxation that might in essence renovate the attribute in in in in between abounding and poor?

In the past decade or so we have seen a series of campaigns that have mobilised large await from polite multitude from churches and intentional organisations and internal vigour groups in a approach that resulted in estimable change. These embody the Jubilee 2000 debt debate and the Make Poverty History campaign. This is the subsequent plea for this kind of politics.

Sometimes, in the distance, you glance something new and the clarity of shortcoming widens. Once it was bona fide in this nation to buy and sell slaves; 150 years ago, majority people in the UK supposed that their associate countrymen would die of craving and disease. The gratification state was devised to conflict opposite that. And we think this Robin Hood taxation is a glance of the future, where there will be correct ubiquitous appropriation to understanding with the largest problems confronting the world.

As the ubiquitous choosing approaches, this does appear similar to a genuine event for reliable prophesy on the piece of the domestic parties.

The unusual tellurian joining to putting in reserve 0.7% of GDP for growth appropriation creates an event for dignified leadership. Are the politicians and financiers ready to dedicate to reconnecting promissory note with genuine hold up and genuine need? Are they ready to attest that we are still, as a society, focused on the growth goals spelt out 10 years ago and on eradicating misery at home? Are they peaceful to lift their eyes over short-term problems and to suppose a universe in that those majority at risk can be positive of the majority appropriate resources we can suggest them?

If the answer is yes, afterwards out of the disaster of fervour and fantasy that constructed the monetary meltdown of the past eighteen months a new goal will have been innate for those who majority need it, here in the UK and opposite the world.

Richard Curtis is co-founder and vice-chairman of Comic Relief

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Briton between 42 killed as flooding truns Madeira in to sea of mud

Graham Keeley & , : {}

A British traveller was swept to her genocide when the cab she was travelling in was held up in the peep floods that have killed at slightest 42 people on the legal holiday island of Madeira.

Pamela Gaines, 50, was travelling in between hotels with her father and an additional British integrate when waters from a distended stream engulfed their car in the mountainous country on top of the capital, Funchal.

The cab motorist was additionally killed, and a five-year-old internal kid died nearby the same mark when surging waters held up with the car he was in with his parents.

The father, Norberto Norberto, whose mother Eulalia is missing, pronounced that he had lost carry out of the car as the family exited a bypass to expostulate in to the city. I told my mother to have a run for it with the kid and thats what she did, he told the inhabitant newspaper, Diario de Noticias.

Related LinksFlooding kills dozens on Madeira islandHow a kid over island"s dreamsMadeira massacre might be related to construction workMultimediaIN PICTURES: Madeira mudslides GRAPHIC: the assist operation

The Portuguese island, that is renouned with pensioners and holidaymakers from Britain, was a stage of extinction yesterday: cars were overturned, roofs were ripped off and roads swept away.

When the peep floods struck on Saturday after overnight winds and torrential rain, those perplexing desperately to shun the brownish-red torrents of H2O were cleared off their feet. Others clung to railings to forestall themselves pang the same fate.

More than 120 people were being treated with colour with colour in hospitals, and some-more were feared missing. Residents seeking for blank desired ones were destined to the resorts general airport, where a temporary morgue has been set up.

Regional authorities pronounced that usually a couple of unfamiliar tourists were between those harm in the floods. The casualties enclosed Mrs Gainess husband, George, 54, from Driffield, North Humberside, who was treated with colour with colour in sanatorium for teenager injuries along with a friend, Roger Wilson, prior to being discharged.

Mr Wilsons wife, Gillian, suffered chest, stomach and leg injuries but was last night in a fast condition.

Simon Burgbage described how mudslides cascaded down the slopes surrounding Funchal. We listened a shrill noise, similar to rolling thunder, the belligerent shook and afterwards we realised it was H2O entrance down, he said.

Cathy Sayers, an additional holidaymaker from Britain, pronounced that the islands collateral Funchal was similar to a spook town. The drains only cannot cope with the H2O thats entrance down from the plateau they are only exuberant with sludge, she said.

Troops and rescuers were yesterday utilizing their unclothed hands and mine apparatus to dig by mud-filled houses and streets after the floods tore by Funchal and the south of the island. In a grave denote that the genocide fee might rise, some-more pathologists were additionally being finished with to the island.

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Tony McCoy would get a flog out of proof doubters wrong over Denman Sport

Albertas Run, ridden by Tony McCoy, clears the last to win the Ryanair Chase at Cheltenham. Photograph: Russell Cheyne/REUTERS

Tony McCoy has frequency looked some-more similar to the smashed maestro than he did at 4.05pm this afternoon. He limped from the lane after a tumble in the fifth competition at Cheltenham, his second brief of the day, with stitches in his chin interjection to a flog in the head after the first. But in in between there was a feat in the Ryanair Chase, one of the underline events at the Festival, and for as prolonged as those keep coming, all the low mark will appear worthwhile.

Success on Denman in the Gold Cup this afternoon would be a relief to ease each ache and pang in the 35-year-old"s body. He has won the competition only once before, in 1997, and competence never get a improved possibility to win another. It would additionally erase the mental recall of his initial float on Denman, at Newbury last month, when McCoy was unseated after a hideous fumble 3 fences from home.

"Gone, history, pfffft," was McCoy"s answer when asked to simulate on that race. But for a little punters, it lifted doubts about the hold up jockey, either he is the right man for Denman and either his important strength is commencement to flag. If thoughts similar to that ever worm their approach in to McCoy"s mind, his conspicuous career will be as great as over.

Tom Segal, arguably the majority reputable tipster in the commercial operation interjection to his Pricewise mainstay in the Racing Post, has been the majority distinguished apostate in new months, though his concerns are not specific to Denman.

"I don"t think that McCoy roving him is by any equates to a negative, but if I was going to select a manoeuvre to float any chaser I owned, he wouldn"t be in my tip five," Segal said.

"Other jockeys win big races over fences and in ubiquitous he doesn"t. His win in the Ryanair was his initial in a Grade One follow given 2008.

"He right away leans behind at his fences, all the weight is on the behind and withers of the horse, given if you see at a manoeuvre similar to Barry Geraghty, all the weight is at the front and that creates it simpler to get a equine in to a rhythm.

"It"s unequivocally not surprising. He"s scarcely 36, he"s been around for ages and taken loads of falls. I"d be the same. The longer you go on, the some-more you"re somewhat distrustful about removing a bad fall, and that"s because you gaunt back. It"s only what happens to burst jockeys."

Like his jockey, Denman"s aplomb is over disbelief and he is not a formidable ride. "He"s straightforward," Ruby Walsh, who will float Kauto Star, Denman"s great rival, says. "Either he"s in form or he"s not in form. There"s a lot of waffle about the tumble [at Aintree in Apr 2009] and the unseated [at Newbury].

"You don"t have to hold him up, you don"t have to check your plea on him. You line him up, put him in the outpost and up the ante on him."

Jonjo O"Neill, one of McCoy"s unchanging employers and a Gold Cup leader himself, described him as "the sorcery man" after Albertas Run won the Ryanair, and it was positively an e.g. of McCoy at his best, as he seized the beginning entrance down the mountain and focussed the competition to his will.

"Racing is done up of opinions," Ted Walsh, the Channel 4 pundit – and father of Ruby – said. "Obviously a little jockeys fit a little horses improved than others. I recollect Jonjo O"Neill won dual races here on Dawn Run, but I was regularly of the perspective that she ran quicker and faster for Tony Mullins, who wasn"t a vegetable patch on Jonjo as a jockey.

"But I don"t think this is one of those situations. Denman is straightforward, and Tony McCoy is one of the excellent jockeys and horsemen that you could ever put opposite a horse."

McCoy competence think of Newbury as history, but he will have been formulation how he competence scold the jot down ever since.

"The Gold Cup should be a great race, and it will be a improved competition if Denman beats Kauto Star," he said. "I think each racing fan should be seeking brazen to it.

"When I was on the belligerent [after descending in the first] the suffering starting point was contrast me to the limit, and I got a great flog in the behind of the head so I"m flattering sore. But I could get up, and if you can get on a equine and you can pull it and do it justice, you should float it, shouldn"t you?"

Liverpool 3-0 Lille (Liverpool win 3-1 on agg) Europa League Football

Fernando Torres celebrates after scoring Liverpool"s second idea opposite Lille. Photograph: Stephen Pond/Empics Sport

On the scale of great European nights at Anfield this competence not scratch in to the tip 40 but, as feats of escapology go, it was still a hugely gratifying arise for Liverpool, given what it would have meant for them to go out of this competition. The Europa League is not a contest the bar would craves but it competence nonetheless have healing qualities as they proceed the last stages of a difficult, spasmodic agonizing season.

The vigour on Rafael Benítez could have risen dangerously close to frightful had Liverpool been separated prior to the quarter-finals. Instead they set about the commercial operation of overhauling Lille with next to measures of panache and determination, Steven Gerrard putting them forward with a ninth-minute chastisement prior to Fernando Torres"s dual second-half goals showed the Spaniard is close to his rapacious majority appropriate after a deteriorate heavily disrupted by injury. These dual talismanic total were superb on a night when the usually regard for Liverpool was the outcome a second diversion in 4 nights competence have on the players" legs prior to hostilities are renewed with Manchester United on Sunday.

Liverpool put so majority in to this diversion their supporters could be forgiven if they find themselves fretting about the sapping effects. There was a heart-stopping impulse in the initial half when Gerrard went down after an harmless aerial plea and took an age removing to his feet, and there contingency be viewable concerns about confronting a United side that has had the total week to prepare. That, however, is a scapegoat everybody continuous with the bar will be peaceful to accept given the esteem of refreshing their hopes of finale the deteriorate with a prize – any trophy.

Thursday night football, with that singular pre-match anthem, is not what any one at Anfield aspired to at the begin of the deteriorate but it could not be pronounced that the players looked short of proclivity or that there was any clarity of this foe being underneath a bar some-more in the habit of to the Champions League. Gerrard was a commanding, entire figure and there were flashes of luminosity from Torres as he scored his initial goals for Liverpool in European foe given the quarter-final opposite Chelsea last April. Torres has right away scored five times in as majority starts given recuperating from a groin damage and, when he and Gerrard are in this mood, it encourages the clarity that the group can finish the deteriorate with a flourish.

Benítez"s men played as though it was not usually the physical education instructor who was affronted by Albert Riera"s outline of a "sinking ship". Lille, a fast, counter-attacking side who have climbed to fourth in le Championnat, arrived at Anfield with a 1-0 first-leg value but the tender appetite of the home side seemed to take them by surprise.

Riera has been dangling by the bar until Monday and will be fined dual weeks" wages. "We will understanding with it internally," Benítez said. "Sometimes, though, you don"t need to contend as well majority [in response]. You usually see at the approach the players hang together on the pitch."

Point made. The compare was a story of roughly continuous vigour on Mickaël Landreau"s goal. Only when the measure was 2-0, with Lille dire for the idea that would have incited the tie in their favour, did any nerves climb in. They subsided as Torres pounced on the miscarry after Gerrard"s shot had been parried by Landreau.

Lille will simulate on the moment, usually after the half-hour, when Eden Hazard detonate by the Liverpool counterclaim and attempted to crack the round over José Reina usually for his shot to inhibit off the goalkeeper"s head. But it was a singular attack. Liverpool"s vigilant was viewable from the begin and for prolonged spells their opponents looked as though they had usually realised how Anfield, underneath floodlights, with the Kop in great voice, can inflict theatre trepidation on even the majority courageous travellers.

Their opening was riddled with mistakes and the diversion swung in Liverpool"s foster after a nightmarish impulse for Adil Rami, the Lille centre-half obligingly adhering out a leg as Lucas ran on to the round inside the chastisement area. Gerrard was patience personified from the mark and, from that moment, Liverpool played with an assuredness that competence not have been approaching from a group with so majority to lose.

Benítez after spoke of Torres still not being entirely fit – "he is operative really tough with the physios but he can still improve" – but five mins in to the second half the striker reminded us because a box could be done for him to be recognized as the majority fatal finisher in Europe. Ryan Babel"s through-ball was small some-more than a prolonged clearway but the untimely Rami misjudged the rebound and from that impulse there was an air of karma about where the round would finish up. Torres hold off the centre-half Aurélien Chedjou and dinked his shot over Landreau. When he kick Landreau for a second time it soothed any slow nerves in the crowd. Liverpool could get to similar to the Europa League after all.