It's official: rugby league really does produce Men of Steel

September 30th,2010    by Ann

Rugby League's player of the year award, won this week by Wigan's Pat Richards, is called the Man of Steel – and there's a reason for that.

Castleford have not exactly won a lot of awards in recent years, so they can be excused a warm glow of satisfaction over the small blow they struck for the code's athletic reputation last week.

Three members of the Tigers' first-team squad competed against their counterparts from Sheffield United and Yorkshire County Cricket Club to determine which set of sportsmen were fittest for purpose. To the sound of cheering and jubilation along the M62 corridor, it was the Cas boys who came out on top.

"I'm not surprised the rugby lads won, because of the combative nature of their sport," said United's head of strength and conditioning, Dean Riddle. He is one of the few people equipped to compare the disciplines and what they demand of their specialists. Over the last 20 years, the New Zealander has been involved in rugby league with Leeds, cricket with Yorkshire and England and now Championship football with the Blades. "What something like today shows is that everyone has their strengths and weaknesses," he adds

Castleford's strengths showed early and literally in the power events in the United Academy gym, where their team which consisted of the goal-kicking winger Kirk Dixon and two young up-and comers, Joe Arundel and Adam Milner, proved too good for their opponents. "I didn't exactly volunteer for this," said Dixon as he cruised through the bench-presses, two weeks into the Tigers' off-season, and sent out for extra weights. "I think I was the only one still left in the country."

Arundel, an emerging centre with his eyes on the shirt vacated by Michael Shenton's move to St Helens, won the over-hand pull-up event in some style, but Cas did not have things all their own way, with Yorkshire's Jonny Bairstow winning the vertical jumps with the sort of salmon leap that serves him well as a wicketkeeper.

In the running events, the Castleford players kept their noses in front, so much so that rugby league's ambassadors were able to come a relaxed last behind the footballers in the concluding bleep test and still win by a distance overall. "I was always quite confident that we would do well. It was pretty enjoyable and it's a bit of good publicity for the game," said Dixon, who raised eyebrows with his strength, even though he is a relatively lightly-built player. "To come here at the end of a long season and win this is a good effort."

Castleford's showing also drew praise from Riddle. "It shows that modern rugby league players are nothing like the big blokes who used to trundle through the mud," he said.

"It also shows what a good job Kevin Till is doing on strength and conditioning at Castleford. They might not have the resources of some clubs, but they are bringing quality young players through for the team."

It was not an afternoon of unalloyed triumph for the rugby league players, because Bairstow shared the individual honours with Sheffield United's Maltese striker Daniel Bogdanovic, who led a team which also included two young defenders, Kingsley James and Matthew Lowton. "And he gets paid twice as much as me," complained the cricketer, who has since been named in England's Performance Programme squad for the winter.

What the three clubs have in common is that they all use Multipower sports nutrition, under whose auspices the competition was organised. What it proved, according to Riddell, was that the rugby league players and cricketers, in particular, are a lot fitter these days than the general public might give them credit for.

Not that the implied pat on the back cut much ice with the fiercely competitive Bairstow, still bristling at the egg-chasers coming out on top. "They should win the bench-pressing, shouldn't they?" he said. "That's all they do."

"We can all learn from each other," said Dixon, who will be starting his serious pre-season training with Castleford in a couple of weeks time. "It's good to get together and compare what we do."

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The awkward dilemma facing a vanquished contender

September 29th,2010    by Ann

After spending four agonising days pondering whether or not to take up a place in his younger brother's Shadow Cabinet, an unguarded comment during the new Labour leader's speech yesterday has added a last-minute twist to David Miliband's imminent decision over his political future.

The former foreign secretary has until 5pm today to declare his intention to join Labour's front bench. But his pointed criticism of Harriet Harman, for applauding Ed Miliband's denunciation of the Iraq invasion, laid bare the tensions that would plague Labour with both of the brothers in prominent positions. Even before the comments were reported, his future remained the talk of the conference ahead of his brother's first speech as leader. While most senior figures in the Labour party were keen to see him take a position in the shadow team, they also conceded that this would be difficult in practice.

His wife, Louise Shackelton, was seen in tears on Monday, and is said to be furious at Ed Miliband's decision to run for leader. Alistair Darling, the former Chancellor, summed up the feeling in Manchester yesterday as he reflected on David Miliband's decision over taking a prominent Shadow Cabinet portfolio, saying he was "damned if he does, damned if he doesn't". "If he stays in, people will look at every interview he does, every article and say 'Does he agree with his brother or doesn't he?' If he doesn't go into the Shadow Cabinet, people will say 'Oh he walked away'."

So, as he returned to his home in primrose Hill, London, last night, the question remains: what are David Miliband's options?

Take a Shadow Cabinet job

Keeping the role of shadow Foreign Secretary seemed a likely option at one stage, allowing him to stay out of damaging policy disputes, and giving him an independent sphere of influence. However, his comments on Iraq have now made that all but impossible.

Other positions were already more unlikely. Many on the right of the party were keen to see him installed as Mr Darling's replacement, partly as he would support his plan to halve the deficit in four years. But that would have immediately put him at odds with his younger brother, who has voiced a preference to bring public finances under control at a slower rate. The only other frontbench job big enough would be shadow Home Secretary. David Miliband's refusal to attack the record of New Labour may make him a bad choice for the role, after his brother criticised the party's recent record on civil liberties.

Return to the backbenches

If he refuses to run for the Shadow Cabinet, he will have to resign himself to serving for a period as a backbencher. While some Labour MPs use the position to keep the leadership honest, his every word will be pored over for any coded message about his brother, putting him under intense pressure to remain silent. It is difficult to see how a man who has spent his entire political career in influential positions would be satisfied with dealing with bin collections in South Shields.

Run to be head of the International Monetary Fund

The job may become vacant should the current incumbent, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, decide to run in the 2012 French presidential elections. It would certainly be intellectually stimulating. But he may struggle to meet the qualifications for such a high-profile economic position, while developing countries are pressuring to hand the role to a non-European. It could also put him in competition with another vanquished Labour politician tipped for the job – Gordon Brown.

Become EU foreign minister

He was courted for the second most powerful position in the EU last year and seriously considered accepting. It was ultimately filled by Baroness Ashton, who is widely believed to be struggling in the job and may quit. Power for appointing the post lies with the socialist grouping. But the machinations of parachuting Miliband into the job are complicated, and he may have blown his chances after snubbing it less than a year ago.

Disappear from public life

If he believes that his time as a backbencher would be beset with too many pitfalls, a complete withdrawal from public life would be the extreme option. Many in Westminster have often commented that the older Miliband would be more at home in a dusty Harvard library than the corridors of power, such is his reputation as a cerebral, if nerdy, politician. It could be the most suitable and rewarding exit strategy of all.

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Cabinet Office orders investigation into leaked quangos document

September 28th,2010    by Ann

The government today ordered an investigation into the leaking of documents suggesting that as many as 180 taxpayer-funded quangos are to be abolished.

A spokeswoman for the Cabinet Office described the leak as "irresponsible" and said the government regretted any extra uncertainty it had caused to employees of the public bodies named.

Among the bodies listed for the axe are the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which regulates fertility clinics, and the Health Protection Agency.

The BBC World Service, the Environment Agency and the British Council are among publicly funded bodies whose fate is yet to be decided.

A letter dated 26 August from Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, seen by the BBC, suggests a further 124 quangos will be merged, 56 retained subject to "substantial reform", and 282 retained.

Another 100 bodies, including the tourism advisory groups Visit Britain and Visit England, are yet to be agreed, according to the letter.

A similar, undated list suggests that 177 quangos including British Waterways and the Legal Services Commission are earmarked for abolition.

Minsters have previously declared they want a "bonfire of the quangos" to save billions of pounds. But such a cull would also cost thousands of jobs and provoke controversy from those that accuse the government of removing vital protection for the public.

The communities and local government secretary, Eric Pickles, said the Telegraph list was out of date. "It's a bit dated, that document. I think things may have moved on," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. He said the government had promised to reduce the number of quangos and would make an announcement "in due course".

Baroness Deech, a former chairman of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, argued that the body was cost-effective. "This is one (quango) that deals with new life, new baby life, health and very important medical matters," she told BBC Radio 4. "It only costs £5m and it is not taxpayers' money. Most of the money comes from the patients ... and I'm sure the patients won't pay any less if the functions are picked up by other bodies."

The Telegraph's list confirms previous announcements that the Audit Commission, UK Film Council and eight regional development agencies are to be abolished. Others slated for the chop include the Commission for Rural Communities, the Commission for Integrated Transport, the School Food Trust, and the Sustainable Development Commission.

More than 50 bodies linked to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are in line to be scrapped, according to the newspaper, while around 30 health bodies will be axed or have their functions transferred to the Department of Health. The British Council, BBC World Service, Environment Agency, Competition Commission, Design Council, Energy Savings Trust, Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Forestry Commission, and the Office for Fair Trading are among 94 publicly funded bodies whose fate has yet to be decided.

A further four bodies – the Film Industry Training Board, the Construction and Skills Training Board, the Engineering Construction Industry Training Board, and the Tote Board – could be privatised.

Mergers could result in a new heritage body taking in the current English Heritage, the National Memorial Fund and the National Lottery Fund, and the postal regulator Postcomm having its functions brought under communications regulator Ofcom.

A Cabinet Office spokeswoman said: "The cabinet secretary has this morning asked for an immediate investigation into the leak of a government document on public bodies reform. We deeply regret any extra uncertainty for employees that this irresponsible leak has caused."

A Labour party spokesman accused the government of playing politics with people's jobs and of briefing the media ahead of consultations with those involved. "Any government should be looking to cut bureaucracy, but that shouldn't be confused with hitting valuable services in areas where independence is crucial," the spokesman added.

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Big brother refuses to tell Ed if he'll serve on the front bench

September 27th,2010    by Ann

David Miliband kept his younger brother waiting last night as he agonised over whether to quit frontline politics following his dramatic and painful defeat in the Labour leadership election.

Although Labour put on a public show of unity at its Manchester conference, tension erupted after Ed Miliband declared the New Labour era was over and raised the prospect of higher taxes and cutting the public deficit over a longer timescale than the party currently supports.

But Alistair Darling, the shadow Chancellor, will warn the conference today that Labour should not abandon his plan to halve the deficit in four years. In an interview with The Independent yesterday, he said: "Labour fought long and hard to establish ourselves as a party that is responsible on tax and spending. We have to keep that in mind. If you spend money, you have to justify every single penny of it. If you are taxing people, you have to justify every single tax rate. Nobody likes paying tax – even people who consume public services. You have to be very careful here."

Blairites were dismayed by David Miliband's narrow defeat and expressed fears that Labour would lose the next general election. One told The Independent: "Ed thinks he can win by not being New Labour because it is 'the past' while throwing in the occasional reference to aspiration to show he is on the side of ordinary working people. It's hopeless."

A Blairite former Cabinet minister added: "It is a miracle result for the Tories. Ed is fatally damaged. We have a second-best leader who wasn't even elected by a majority of his own party members or MPs."

David Miliband has until 5pm on Wednesday to decide whether to stand in the election among Labour MPs to choose the shadow Cabinet, after which his brother will allocate frontbench posts. Today, he faces a gruelling appearance in front of delegates, whom he is to address on foreign affairs.

Aides said he wanted to "chill out" and consider his future. He moved out of the main conference hotel in Manchester to try to avoid the spotlight.

David Miliband received conflicting advice yesterday. If he walks away now, critics may accuse him of flouncing out after losing. But if he intends to bow out of British politics in the medium term, it might be better for him to go sooner rather than later.

Mr Darling urged the former Foreign Secretary to stay. "My guess is that he will stay and fight his corner. The party will be much better with him on the front bench than without him. He is passionately committed to the Labour Party and will want to play his full part." But another former minister said: "He is finished. If he's got any sense, he might as well get out now."

Some Blairites claimed David Miliband had shown he lacked the killer instinct by refusing to fight back hard against his brother. They suggested David could have won by saying more strongly he was the man to win the next general election. "He allowed Ed to faze him. For ordinary, unpolitical party and union members, there seemed to be no price to pay in voting for Ed," one said.

Yesterday Ed Miliband said of his elder brother: "He needs time to think about the contribution he can make. I think he can make a very big contribution to British politics." He insisted there would be no lurch to the left under his leadership and denied he would be a prisoner of the unions, who secured his victory: " I am nobody's man; I am my own man."

However, he described Mr Darling's deficit reduction plan as a "starting point" and said Labour would look to see how it could "improve" it. He declared that the Chancellor George Osborne's proposal to eliminate the structural deficit by 2015 was "economically dangerous".

The Labour leader also stressed his personal commitment to universal benefits and backed a graduate tax in which graduates would pay higher taxes worth between 0.3 and 2 per cent of their incomes for 15 or 25 years.

Ed Balls, who came third in the leadership election and wants to become shadow Chancellor, called for the starting level of the 50p top rate of tax to be lowered from £150,000 to £100,000—a move that may be considered by Ed Miliband but would appal Blairites.

Mr Balls said the Darling plan had been mistaken and involved cutting too quickly but circumstances had changed. "Ed [Miliband] was clear today: get the deficit down in a gradual and careful way... I totally support that," he said.

Ed Miliband summoned Labour MPs to a special meeting in Manchester last night and won warm applause after a 10-minute speech. His brother was not present. Jim Murphy the shadow Scottish Secretary, who ran David Miliband's campaign, said he was "just taking a few hours out... He will be back tomorrow morning".

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I'm very sorry: the final words of Teresa Lewis

September 25th,2010    by Ann

Her last meal was fried chicken and green peas, washed down with a can of Dr Pepper.

Her last outfit was a blue prison uniform and a pair of flip-flops. And her final words, uttered in the moments before they strapped her down to administer the lethal injection, were: "I'm very sorry."

Teresa Lewis, a 41 year-old former drug addict with an IQ that puts her on the verge of being mentally disabled, became the first woman to be executed in the United States for five years when she was put to death at Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Virginia.

Supporters of Lewis, who was convicted of hiring two hit-men to kill her husband, Julian, and his son, Charles, in 2002, watched silently through one-way glass as she was tied down with leather straps securing her legs, wrists and chest, before intravenous lines were inserted into each arm.

Also looking on, in the other familiar ritual of American capital punishment, were friends and relatives of Lewis's victims, who were killed as part of a macabre plot to secure a life insurance payout. They saw her feet twitch slightly as the lethal injection was administered and she slipped into death.

Of the more than 1,200 people who have been executed since the US Supreme Court voted to reinstate the death penalty in 1976, only 11 have been woman – a statistic which, together with the circumstances of Lewis's original murder conviction, helped turn her case into a global cause célèbre. More than 7,300 appeals were lodged with the Governor of Virginia, Robert McDonnell, calling for him to stop her killing, including one by the thriller writer John Grisham.

Even the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, got in on the act. He used a speech in New York this week to argue that the case typified Western double standards: Americans expressed outrage at the stoning of woman in Islamic countries, he argued, yet sanctioned the lethal injection of a mentally challenged woman in their own backyard.

At her original trial, the prosecution portrayed Lewis as an appalling criminal mastermind who hoped to make $250,000 from the death of her stepson Charles, an Army reservist who had a standard military life insurance policy which named Lewis's husband, Julian, as its chief beneficiary.

The court heard how Lewis, a serial adultress, met two young men, Matthew Shallenberger and Rodney Fuller, at a branch of Walmart. She began a sexual relationship with both men, before plotting with them to kill both Charles and Julian – using shotguns she had bought for them.

Although Lewis later admitted her guilt, her alleged role as mastermind seems at odds with her IQ, which at somewhere between 70 and 72 puts her on the verge of being mentally disabled. Adding to the apparent discrepancies in her death sentence was the fact that Shallenberger and Fuller, who were also convicted, were sentenced to mere life imprisonment.

"Tonight the death machine exterminated the beautiful childlike and loving spirit of Teresa Lewis," said her lawyer, James Rocap, shortly after her death was announced.

Right Or Wrong?

John Grisham, Lawyer and Novelist

'Why did the triggermen get life without parole while Lewis received a death sentence? ... It had little to do with fairness. It depended more upon the assignment of judge and prosecutor, the location of the crime, the quality of the defence counsel ... and other such factors.'

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Iran accuses US of double standards over woman's execution

September 21st,2010    by Ann

Iran accused the US of human rights violations today over plans by the state of Virginia to execute a woman for the first time in nearly 100 years, despite claims that she has severe learning difficulties.

Iran's state-sponsored media has devoted considerable coverage to reports about Teresa Lewis, who is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Thursday for arranging the murder of her husband and stepson in 2002.

The parliamentary human rights committee said her case reflected "the double standards" of the American government, comparing her case to that of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a 43-year-old Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery.

"We will file an official complaint to the international community against the US if the sentence is administered," Hossein Naghavi, an Iranian MP and the spokesman for the committee, told the semi-official Fars news agency. Several Iranian MPs have expressed concerns over Lewis's execution and have asked the US for her sentence to be commuted.

America was one of the several countries to express outrage over Ashtiani's case, which has embarrassed the Iranian government after receiving considerable international attention. Iran has since suspended the stoning sentence, although Ashtiani is still being held in jail and her family fear for her life.

In Virginia, governor Robert McDonnell refused an appeal for clemency for Lewis, who lawyers say has an IQ of 72. The supreme court has ruled that anyone with an IQ below 70 may not be executed. She has one last chance of appealing to the US supreme court ahead of her scheduled execution. The men who carried out the killings – one of whom was Lewis's lover – received life sentences.

Iranian news agencies highlighted similarities between the cases, reporting that Lewis, like Ashtiani, had been convicted of "having an extramarital relationship". MPs criticised the US for sentencing Lewis to death while sparing the lives of the killers – as happened in Ashtiani's case.

The Fars news agency criticised the US media for "being silent in the past seven years Lewis has been kept in jail". "On her execution day she'll wish for a better country whose judiciary would listen to its people rather than intervening in the internal affairs of other countries," it said.

"It's not been a long time since the American media attacked Iran over the case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani … Lewis's case has similarities with Mohammadi Ashtiani's case with the difference that Sakineh has been found guilty for the crime she committed but there are lots of ambiguities in Teresa's case. The US and the American media tried their best to make a symbol of human rights out of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani because of the background of their atrocities towards Iran but after seven years, human rights organisations have been silent for Teresa. This shows their double standard in relation to other counties."

Iranian MPs Zohreh Elahian and Salman Zaker also condemned the US over Lewis's sentence which they say is "contradictory to international standards". They have called for a judicial review.

In an interview with ABC last weekend in New York, Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denied Ashtiani had ever been given a death sentence by stoning.

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A mother, lost and found

September 20th,2010    by Ann

One day in the summer of 2004, I lost my memory. I woke up in hospital surrounded by my husband and four children and I did not recognise a single one of them. They were strangers. I am told there was some build-up, in that I had been off work for a few days with a gastro-intestinal upset and became quite confused. My daughter tells me I called my husband Stephanie. They were told by the hospital that I had viral encephalitis, a serious neurological infection affecting the brain. I was 43.

The first person I recognised was our youngest son, Leo, who was 11 at the time. I had been in hospital for five and a half weeks, initially in a coma, and he spoke to me from behind the bed. I was unable to see him there, so it was his voice I recognised, and I said his name. It was my first meaningful word for such a long time and they were all so delighted and relieved. And it was so special that it was him that I recognised. But, sadly, that recognition was only fleeting and when I was discharged six weeks later, arriving home was like crash landing into someone else's life.

I had to believe that my husband was the right person, but I had no sense of certainty about him. With our children, I had a bit more feeling of security because, although I did not recognise any of them, I had a feeling that they were ours. It was, I suppose, a strong maternal instinct. But I had no sense of belonging to this family who, I was told, were mine. I remember feeling completely separate from this group of individuals who seemed so intense and confident together. They were very clearly a unit, but one that I didn't feel part of. And I was very scared.

I didn't recognise our home, so I couldn't find my way around. I even had to be helped to go to the right rooms. My younger daughter, Georgia, who was nine, left pink heart-shaped notes all round the house: "Bedroom", "This way to the bathroom", and "I love you, Mummy". It was a lovely thing to do and I've kept those notes, but at the time I struggled to believe this was the home I lived in. I remember, in particular, not wanting to wear any of the clothes I was told belonged to me. I simply denied they were mine – a lot were lost and many have never been found. My husband thinks I disposed of most of the items that were previously my favourites, ones he supposes that I identified with the "me" I had lost.

In my life prior to the illness, I had a good education and 27 years of experience nursing in the NHS. Now I found myself unable to name plants and animals, as well as not knowing where to go two doors from home. I had always wanted to be a mum and was the person who organised family life – the cooking, the driving and so on – but now I found myself completely misunderstanding the needs of my own children. Struan, then 16, and Helen, then 14, would say (as they still do): "You know I don't like spicy chicken!" and "Why give me sugar in my tea when you know I don't have any?", but I really don't know that.

I want so much to get it right, but without the most basic memories I spend a lot of time getting it wrong. They have a mum who doesn't know them individually and who doesn't remember how to be Mum. At times, it has made me feel like a dismal failure – and it has been very difficult for them.

But things are not all doom and gloom. The children – now aged 22, 20, 17 and 15 – are fun-loving in a full-on way, and they tease me to try to make me laugh. It's part of the way this family communicates. In the years following my illness, I didn't recognise this and so it upset me. But more and more these days, I am able to understand the repeated teasing for what it is – just fun – and react more normally.

I've also learned how helpful it can be to write things down. It started with reminders on scraps of paper, such as how to use the washing machine and clean my teeth (I had forgotten these things too) and later developed to things such as "Helen dislikes kedgeree" and "Leo enjoys football". With the passage of time, and with the help of my written reminders, there have even been moments when I've been able to feel like Mum again – I mean, the mum I'm told I used to be – making smiley-face crumpets or driving my children somewhere they really like going. That feels good.

I've met others through the Encephalitis Society who suffer from the effects of this illness, and that is another thing that helps. Often people say "I know how you must feel", but like so many dramatic experiences in life, only those who have experienced it can really know.

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Retail sales drop adds to evidence of slowdown

September 17th,2010    by Ann

Fresh evidence of a slowdown in the economy emerged today when official data for high street spending last month showed the first drop since January.

Adding to fears that the summer marked a peak in activity, the Office for National Statistics said retail sales volumes dropped by 0.5% between July and August.

The ONS said the decline in spending had been across the board, with falls in sales of food, clothing and footwear.

August's fall in retail sales followed a sharp increase in July, although the ONS today said this was 0.8% rather than the original estimate of 1.2%. Sales in August were just 0.4% higher than a year earlier, while the difficult trading conditions forced retailers to trim their prices.

Today's figures, which were far weaker than the 0.3% increase forecast by the consensus of City economists, will add to speculation that consumer anxiety about looming public sector cuts is having an impact on spending behaviour.

The retail sales data comes after Wednesday's news of a small rise in claimant-count unemployment and recent survey evidence suggesting a weakening of orders for manufacturers, construction firms and the service sector.

Howard Archer at IHS Global Insight said the unexpected fall was "a nasty shock" and "deals a significant blow to growth hopes".

He added: "Indeed, it will likely fuel fears of a double dip, given the importance of consumer spending to the economy and the fact that the fall in sales were broad-based in August. Furthermore, August's drop in retail sales occurred despite evidence that there was competitive pricing on the high street."

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Keep the faith, George – you'll have your freedom in eight weeks

September 15th,2010    by Ann

The pop star George Michael will wake up this morning to a host of pun-laden headlines borrowing heavily from his back catalogue of hits, but also to the more serious matter of an eight-week prison sentence after he admitted crashing his Range Rover while high on drugs.

The former Wham! singer had previously admitted driving under the influence of cannabis after being found slumped unconscious in his vehicle, having crashed it into a north London branch of Snappy Snaps. Yesterday, he was told he would spend four weeks in prison and four on licence.

The 47-year-old sighed as the judge passed sentence. One fan sobbed in the public gallery of Highbury Corner magistrates' court as Michael was led to the cells.

It is the latest in a list of offences committed by the singer, who is famous for a host of No 1 singles including "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" and "Careless Whisper" (prime candidates to become Lock Me Up Before You Go-Go and Careless Spliffter in today's tabloids).

Most memorably, in 1998, he was arrested in Beverly Hills after "engaging in a lewd act" in a public toilet with an undercover police officer.

In 2006 and 2008, he was cautioned for possession of cannabis. In 2007, he pleaded guilty to driving while unfit through drugs. Then, he was banned from driving for two years and sentenced to 100 hours of community service. But yesterday, he was imprisoned.

The court heard that Michael – whose real name is Georgios Panayiotou – was arrested in Hampstead shortly before 4am on 4 July this year when two police officers found him apparently unconscious in his grey Range Rover. After being roused by an officer banging on his window, Michael got out of the car and was said to be sweating, breathing heavily, and had to be held up. When told he had crashed into a shop, he said: "No I didn't. I didn't crash into anything."

He was found in possession of two cannabis cigarettes. Tests later showed he was unfit to drive through drugs.

Michael admitted smoking a "small quantity" of cannabis at about 10pm the previous evening and said he also took a newly prescribed sedative to help him to sleep.

District Judge John Perkins told the singer: "It does not appear that you took proper steps to deal with what is clearly an addiction to cannabis. That's a mistake which puts you and, on this occasion, the public, at risk."

The District Judge said he took into account that Michael had checked into a clinic after the crash to seek help for anxiety, depression and insomnia, which had led him to depend on prescription drugs.

"I accept entirely that you have shown remorse for the offence, that you are ashamed of it, that you admitted it," he said, but added that a jail term was inevitable because of Michael's previous conviction. In the public gallery, Michael's long-term partner, Kenny Goss, threw his head into his hands. The singer was also banned from driving for five years and was ordered to pay a £1,250 fine, £100 costs and a £15 victim surcharge.

Mukul Chawla, QC, mitigating, said that Michael personally repaid the cost of the damage to the shop owner and that he was ashamed and horrified at "having repeated the conduct of 2007".

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Briton wins Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series

September 14th,2010    by Ann

Gary Hunt from Southampton was crowned the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series champion at the final leg of the tournament in Hawaii over the weekend.

Despite finishing second to reigning champion Orlando Duque from Colombia in the final showdown, Hunt was the overall winner with four wins out of possible six.

“It’s great, I’m speechless,” Hunt said. “I only had to do one dive to get the title but now it’s really starting to sink in.”

The competition has taken competitors to difficult diving platforms around the world, including Kragero in Norway, La Rochelle in France and Yucatán in Mexico.

Organisers claim that more than 20,000 miles have been travelled throughout the competition, with 200 three-second flights and 17, 263.45 points awarded.

The grand final of the 2010 Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series was hosted at the sport’s birthplace in the Kawainui Falls.

The top six athletes overall automatically qualify for the 2011 series.

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