Posts Tagged ‘London’
Written by admin on 06 February 2012
London, Feb 6 (IANS) Rapper Snoop Dogg has revealed that he was detained by Norweigian customs officers because his cash smelled of drugs but later they let him go.
Contactmusic.com reports that the rapper says he had been stopped for carrying too much cash as he entered the country for an appearance in Oslo.
The 40-year old said: “They (the officials) brought Fido on the bus. Fido was the little search dog that be (sic) trying to find drugs. They take me in the thing (detention room) and they look through my bag and say, wow, you’ve got a whole bunch of money. We’re trying to find these drugs… and it seems that your money smell like drugs.”
The matter got sorted out “so we broke bread… and we kept on moving,” he added.
Tags: London, United Kingdom
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Written by admin on 06 February 2012
London, Feb 6 (IANS) Italian Fabio Capello’s future as the England manager is doubtful after he criticised Football Association (FA) decision to strip Chelsea defender John Terry of national team captaincy.
Capello told Italian television ‘Rai’ that he disagreed with the removal of Terry as skipper, as the Chelsea defender awaits trial on a charge of racially abusing Queens Park Rangers defender Anton Ferdinand during a Premier League fixture in October.
“I spoke with the FA chairman and I told him that I don’t think someone can be punished until it becomes official,” Capello told the Italian state broadcaster Rai.
“The court will decide. It’s going to be civil justice, not sports justice, to decide if John Terry committed that crime that he is accused of. And I thought it fair that John Terry keeps the captain’s armband.”
Terry pleaded not guilty to the charges at a hearing last week and his trial was set for July 9, eight days after the end of Euro 2012.
Capello received the news of Terry’s removal via phone Friday from FA’s chairman David Bernstein, who said that the board took the decision due to “the higher profile nature of the England captaincy, on and off the pitch, and the additional demands and requirements expected of the captain leading into and during a tournament”.
The Italian is due to meet Bernstein and other FA officials at Wembley. Capello’s contract expires in July and he has made it clear that he would be quitting his post after the Euro Championship.
Tags: London, United Kingdom
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Written by admin on 06 February 2012
London, Feb 6 (IANS) Madonna’s 12-minute performance at the Super Bowl left the audience spellbound.
The singer’s medley during half time at the Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis Sunday was a treat for all sports lovers around the world. The performance featured appearances from celebrities like Cee Lo Green, Lmfao, M.I.A. and Nicki Minaj, reports contactmusic.com.
The medley included hit numbers like “Sexy & I Know It”, “Express Yourself” and “Party Rock Anthem Pop”.
The 53-year-old performed on her new track “Give Me All Your Luvin” with M.I.A. and Minaj in public for the first time.
Madonna ended the performance in dramatic fashion, disappearing through a hole in the stage and the message “World Peace” flashed up all around the stadium.
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Written by admin on 06 February 2012
London, Feb 6 (IANS) Diabetic women who become pregnant are four times more likely than other women to deliver babies with birth defects, which include heart disease and spina bifida, a study reveals.
Spina bifida is a defect in which the backbone and spinal canal do not close before birth. A newborn may have a sac sticking out of the mid to lower back.
These findings suggest that higher blood sugar levels in the mother raise the risk. This compares with a risk of one in 50 for women without diabetes, the journal Diabetologia reported.
The study, led by researchers at Newcastle University and the Regional Maternity Survey Office, is based on 401,149 pregnancies, including 1,677 pregnancies in women with diabetes, between 1996 and 2008 in England, according to the Daily Mail.
Researcher Ruth Bell said: “The good news is that, with expert help before and during pregnancy, most women with diabetes will have a healthy baby. The risk of problems can be reduced by taking extra care to have the best possible glucose control before becoming pregnant.”
“Any reduction in high glucose levels is likely to improve the chances of a healthy baby,” said Bell.
Previous research shows having diabetes increases the chance of birth defects, but this is one of the first studies to quantify the effect of glucose levels on risk.
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Written by admin on 06 February 2012
London, Feb 6 (IANS) Britain is under the spell of snow, ice and freezing temperatures and the prevailing condition may last through February.
On Tuesday, people in parts of Britain woke up to lying snow of up to five inches while the coldest temperature of -8.6C was recorded overnight in north Yorkshire, the Daily Telegraph reported.
Forecasters have warned the biting temperatures, snow showers and overnight frosts could last until the February end as the country returned to work amid expected school closures, the report added.
The first big freeze of the winter led to cancelled flights at Heathrow and treacherous conditions on the roads.
Heathrow airport, one of the world’s busiest international airports, faced enquiries Monday night as to why half of its flights had been cancelled hours after it stopped snowing.
BAA, the Spanish-owned airport operator, had to bear the passengers’ wrath after 600 flights were grounded at Heathrow despite just three inches of snowfall, disrupting the plans of as many as 18,000 travellers.
On Tuesday morning, the airport was operating its normal flight schedule.
As per the meteorological office, the rest of the week would remain cold for most parts of the country.
“Most of England and Wales will be staying relatively settled but cold. The biggest risk is hard overnight frost and freezing fog,” said Steven Keates, Met Office forecaster.
“It looks as if this cold snap will last two or three weeks and this weather system looks as though it will erode from the west in the second half of February.”
This disruption, however, was in contrast to other airports across Europe where flights took off normally despite record low temperatures.
In Germany, no airport had to shut even though Munich city saw temperatures plunging to -27C.
In Stockholm, the capital city of Sweden, only six of 350 flights were cancelled. Copenhagen, the capital city of Denmark, had four inches of snow but no disruption.
In contrast, BAA had already cancelled, by Saturday afternoon, a third of flights nine hours before any snow had fallen in a pre-emptive plan to avoid the chaos of previous winters.
Even as the snow began to melt from 6 a.m. Sunday, over half of flights remained grounded.
Those flying in from Moscow voiced their surprise on being stranded, despite flying out from Russia in -20C snow storms.
The number of planes stuck on the tarmac at Heathrow meant incoming flights were forced to divert elsewhere.
In Ireland, hundreds of passengers were last night stranded as six flights were sent to Shannon airport. British Airways was badly affected. Its two thirds of flights between were cancelled.
Tags: London, United Kingdom
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Written by admin on 06 February 2012
London, Feb 6 (IANS) The aid from Britain to India must be cancelled immediately, demanded some British parliamentarians after India’s finance minister said they don’t need it. The row broke out after India favoured a French firm for a multibillion-pound fighter plane order.
Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said that New Delhi should “voluntarily” give up the 280 million pounds a year it gets from Britain.
“We do not require the aid. It is peanuts in our total development spending,” the Daily Mail quoted Mukherjee as saying.
India has given the preferred bidder status to French firm Dassault ahead of an European consortium that includes British defence giant BAE Systems. BAE had been hoping to partly assemble 126 Eurofighter Typhoon jets at Warton and Samlesbury in Lancashire for the Indian Air Force.
MP Philip Davies sought for immediate cancellation of the Indian aid programme.
“India spends tens of billions on defence and hundreds of millions a year on a space programme – in those circumstances it would be unacceptable to give them aid even if they were begging us for it,” Davies said.
“Given that they don’t even want it, it would be even more extraordinary if it were to be allowed to continue,” he was quoted by Mail as saying.
“There will be millions of hard-pressed families wondering why on earth the government is wasting money in this way,” he observed.
Another parliamentarian, Douglas Carswell said this was “concrete proof that Britain’s aid programme is run in the interests of Whitehall officials and the DFID machine”.
“The fact is that India’s economy is growing much faster than our own. We should be encouraging free trade with them and trying to learn from them rather than handing out patronising lectures,” he said.
Added MP Peter Bone: “India has its own foreign aid programme. So it is absurd for us to be still giving them aid. They are more than capable of looking after their own issues.”
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