Villa won’t join Chelsea and Torres is staying put December 14, 2011 BARCELONA manager Pep Guardiola has denied suggestions striker David Villa will join Chelsea in January. The Spain international started last weekend’s 3-1 win over Real Madrid on the substitutes’ bench and was reported to have fallen out with team-mate Lionel Messi earlier this season. But Guardiola insists the 30-year-old, who signed a four-year deal upon [...]
Indian Olympic chief steps up Dow 2012 stadium wrap row December 14, 2011 INDIA’S top Olympic official has added his voice to calls for London 2012 organisers to abandon their sponsorship with Dow Chemicals over the company’s links to the Bhopal disaster. VK Malhotra, the president of the Indian Olympic Association, spoke out ahead of today’s meeting to decide what further steps to take to demonstrate the country’s [...]
RFU coup as Wimbledonboss Ritchie named CEO December 14, 2011 ENGLAND rugby chiefs the RFU have restored some of the optimism shipped so alarmingly over recent months by appointing one of the most respected men in tennis, Wimbledon boss Ian Ritchie, as their new chief executive. Ritchie, who has held his post at the All England Lawn Tennis and Crocquet Club (AELTC) since 2005, made [...]
More test event tickets on sale December 14, 2011 OLYMPICS: Further tickets for the diving and gymnastics London 2012 test events have been made available. Seats for the January gymnastics competition at the O2 go back on sale today at 10am, while tickets for the diving, which takes place at the Aquatics Centre in the Olympic Park in February, will be re-released on 17 [...]
All new line-up for Toro Rosso December 14, 2011 FORMULA ONE: Toro Rosso have named an all-new line-up for the 2012 season with drivers Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari replaced by youngsters Daniel Ricciardo, 22, and Jean-Eric Vergne, 21. Toro Rosso team principal Franz Tost said: “This team was established to provide a first step into Formula 1 for the youngsters in the Red [...]
Chaos as fear over break-up of euro grows December 14, 2011 STOCKS tumbled on renewed fears that Eurozone leaders would not be able to resolve the crisis soon, as Italy was forced to pay record interest rates to borrow and industrial output data pointed to the heightened risk of renewed European recession. In the UK, the Financial Services Authority is in talks with banks over plans [...]
Credit Agricole plunges after €2.5bn write-down December 14, 2011 CREDIT Agricole yesterday wrote off more than €2.5bn (£2.1bn) of assets and said it is cutting 2,350 jobs globally as it warned it would sink to a loss. France’s third-largest listed bank also said it would close its equity derivatives and commodities businesses and leave 21 of the 55 nations in which it operates to [...]
Safe haven UK sees gilt yields at record lows December 14, 2011 UK BORROWING costs fell to record lows yesterday as investors scrambled to British government debt as a safe haven. Yields fell to 2.21 per cent on £3bn of gilts maturing in 2022. Bonds on the secondary markets continued to attract buyers, pushing yields down to a low of 2.081. As a result investors took the [...]
Men hit hard by drops in employment December 14, 2011 UNEMPLOYMENT hit its highest level since 1994 in the three months to October, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed yesterday, with men faring worse than women. Employment fell by 63,000, or 0.2 per cent, compared with the previous three months, taking the total to 29.1m. Unemployment rose 128,000 to 2.64m, or 8.3 per cent, [...]
Barclays mulls pay clawback December 14, 2011 BARCLAYS is considering clawing back part of its executives’ bonuses over the bank’s £1bn mis-selling of insurance, chief executive Bob Diamond was forced to admit yesterday. After a testy exchange with Andrew Tyrie, chairman of the influential Treasury select committee of MPs, Diamond eventually conceded: “We are taking into account in our businesses that impact [...]
