Spain call up Barca midfielder Thiago for Italy friendly

2011-08-05

Spain coach Vicente del Bosque has called up Barcelona’s promising midfielder Thiago Alcantara into his 22-man squad for next Wednesday’s friendly against Italy in Bari.

The 20-year-old product of the famed Barcelona youth system, who helped Spain’s Under-21 team win the European championship last month, has had an impressive pre-season so far.

Thiago is also eligible to play for Brazil, with his father Mazinho being a member of the 1994 World Cup winning team.

“He (Thiago) is included for sporting reasons,” Del Bosque told reporters in Madrid on Friday.

“He is a player who has been raised in Spain and who could choose to play for Brazil. But he has roots in Spanish football and this is just the next step.”

Bayern relieved to get Zurich in qualifiers

2011-08-05

Bayern Munich, whose Allianz arena will stage this year’s Champions League final, breathed a sigh of relief when they were drawn against modest FC Zurich in the final qualifying round on Friday.

Arsenal will face Serie A outfit Udinese, a draw which looks tough on paper but may not be so tricky in reality against a club who have sold their two most important players and will not have played a competitive match beforehand.

Four-times European champions Bayern and Arsenal were spared the long trip to Russia to face Rubin Kazan, a task which fell to France’s Olympique Lyon.

Post-shuttle, US space explorers need not be human

2011-08-05

  • Robots roll on Mars as probes peer at distant galaxies
  • Human spaceflight has routinely been more expensive
  • Space science a NASA priority from the start

 

NOW that the shuttle fleet is permanently grounded, the US space spotlight could shift toward the path-breaking astronomical science that NASA does without human beings on board.

Human spaceflight has historically grabbed most of the public’s attention and NASA’s budget, but robotic probes and observatories have brought the biggest leaps toward understanding the cosmos, from roaming around Mars to looking billions of years back in time to see how galaxies are born.

Gaddafi seeks Islamist alliance

2011-08-05

  • Gaddafi camps says working with Islamists
  • Rebels receive fuel shipment in Benghazi
  • U.N. envoy in China, conflict grinds on

 

MUAMMAR Gaddafi’s son said his camp was nearing a deal with Islamists within Libya’s rebellion to isolate more liberal members of the insurgency, as a seized cargo of government-owned fuel docked in a rebel port.

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi’s comments, in an interview with the New York Times, underscored attempts to exploit divisions within the rebels as they seek to recover from the killing of their military commander and push towards Tripoli on three fronts.

Assange ‘acts like moody teenager and is hunted by women’

2011-08-05

WIKILEAKS founder Julian Assange behaves like a moody teenager and is hunted by hordes of women, according to his host and protector.

Vaughan Smith, who owns the 10-bedroom Norfolk home where Assange is living as he fights extradition to Sweden over sex assault allegations, has shed light on the unusual domestic habits of the world’s most famous whistleblower.

Smith, a former Army captain who owns the Frontline Club in Paddington, said: “He eats when he’s hungry, sleeps when he’s tired.” House rules had been “implemented but ignored”. Smith said Assange, 40, is “not interested in food” and would skip meals.

New Cyprus cabinet announced

2011-08-05

The new Cabinet comprises:

Minister of Foreign Affairs – Erato Kozakou Marcoullis

Minister of Finance – Kikis Kazamias

Minister of Interior – Neoclis Sylikiotis

Minister of Defence – Demetris Eliades

Minister of Education and Culture – Giorgos Demosthenous

Minister of Communications and Works – Efthymios Flourentzos

Minister of Commerce Industry and Tourism – Praxoulla Antoniadou

Minister of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Environment – Sophoclis Aletraris

Minister of Labour and Social Insurance – Sotiroulla Charalambous

Minister of Justice and Public Order – Loucas Louca

Minister of Health – Stavros Malas.

Mubarak trial is military’s gesture to secular forces

2011-08-05

Former Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak was wheeled into court on Wednesday in a hospital bed  (his lawyers claim he is very ill), and put into the same kind of iron cage that so many of his opponents were tried in before they were jailed or hanged. The charges are corruption and ordering the killing of protesters during the Egyptian revolution last February.

If convicted of the latter charge, he could face the death sentence, but he is unlikely ever to dangle at the end of a rope. Some 850 Egyptian protesters were killed during the revolution, but the kill orders were probably never written down, and it will be very hard to prove Mubarak’s personal responsibility for the killings.

Inching forward towards a deal

2011-08-05

 

THE OUTCOME of yesterday’s talks between the unions and the government on a rescue package for the economy remained elusive, with the two sides putting off a potential deal until next week.

From comments to the media after a two-and-a-half hour session with President Demetris Christofias and Finance Minister Charilaos Stavrakis, it emerged that pension reform was still the largest stumbling block for an overall agreement.

Unions have resisted pressure to accept demands for cuts to income and pension benefits as a way to slash the state payroll – the major drain on state coffers with the government deficit rising sharply to 3.47 per cent for the first half of the year and amid growing fears that Cyprus may eventually need financial support from the EU.

Kikis Kazamias offered finance ministry in reshuffle

2011-08-05

PRESIDENT Demetris Christofias is expected to announce his new cabinet today, with economist and former communications minister Kikis Kazamias reportedly taking the finance portfolio.

Kazamias, an economist, would have the tough job of spearheading much needed fiscal reform to prevent the island’s economy from going into a meltdown.

Kazamias yesterday would not confirm the appointment but he did confirm he had been offered the job.

“I can confirm I was offered the job but from then on, I can’t replace the President (in announcing the new cabinet),” Kazamias said.

Racing to clean up power plant

2011-08-05

EXPERTS are working feverishly to prep installations at the out-of-commission Vasilikos plant so that the some 100,000 tonnes of fuel sitting idle there can be transferred to the two other functioning power stations.

The Vasilikos facility went offline on July 11 when it sustained heavy damage from the blast at the nearby naval base. The plant used to cover over 50 per cent of the island’s electricity needs.

Previously, the station could only import fuel via a submarine pipeline. Now, technicians must make modifications to the installations so that fuel can be exported, or pumped out, of the massive tanks and onto a tanker.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.