Premier League news. Stories from the newspapers and BBC sport – sports news from tabloids Daily Mail, Daily Express, Daily Star, the Guardian, Daily Mirror, the times, daily telegraph
DID you 9-year-old earthquake survivor Lin Hao (short) walking in the Bird’s Nest paprade with Yao Ming (not short).
Lin Hao escaped from his collapsed school building. In is arms he carried an unconscious classmate. He then went back and rescued another child out with him.
An upside down flag is a signal of distress. Xinhua, the Chinese news agency sent out an alert: “This photograph has been withdrawn. Please do not use.”
GOOD news indeed that Arsenal football club have joined the Mirror’s anti-knife campaign.
The paper features pictures of Arsenal footballers Theo Walcott, William Gallas and Cesc Fabregas in anti-knife crime T-shirts.
The Mirror is against glamorising violence and last months brought news of how weaponry had been appearing on a T-shirt on open sale in London’s Oxford Street.
The paper was appalled and the offending items were removed from public view at the Selfridge’s department store.
For readers not au fait with Arsenal FC, they are nicknamed “The Gunners” and were founded by workers at armaments manufacturer in London.
That’s their club crest on the left – the one with the cannon symbol. It should be banned…
While the world was watching Beijing and the Olympic opening ceremonies yesterday a war broke out in the former USSR.
It tempting to call it a Civil War but the nations have been neighbours after the break up of the Soviets states.
The Independent’s view of the Georgia flare-up. As different as ever, it shows the true horror of war. As tanks roll in, women and children flee on foot. Already 1,400 are dead and the toll is rising.
The outbreak has already driven the Olympics from the Page One Lead slots in many of the UK newspapers and the happenings are likely to overshadow Beijing in the same way as the murder and cross-fire killings of the Israelis ruined Munich’s Olympic bash.
It was a calculated and vicious manoeuvre to quell the South Georgian breakaway state of of South Ossetia, while world leaders were distracted elsewhere and has brought Russia and Georgia to the brink of of all-out war.
As Georgia launched a major offensive to retake the region, Russian tanks rolled south towards the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali. The BBC’s chartlet of the region
Over 1,400 are thought to have been killed in the worst hostilities since the province won a shaky and disputed independence in a war during 1992. Tskhinvali is said to be devastated.
The fighting broke out as much of the world’s attention was focused on the start of the Olympic Games and many leaders, including Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and US President George Bush, were in Beijing.
The 41-year-old Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, above, may have been counting on surprise to fulfil a pledge to win back control of South Ossetia – a key to his hold on power. He was swept into office after street fighting and chaos in the Georgian State.
Mr Saakashvili agreed the timing was deliberate but accused Russia of being the aggressor. He says the countries are at war.
I report this coverage here because some Anorakians were seeking a diversion away from the Olympics…well you’ve got it.
Russia does not take kindly to having its beard pulled and it would be as well to remember the national heritage, nature, and character-set of the Georgians…the Soviet State which produced one Joseph Stalin, apart from the Spanish ‘flu pandemic, probably the most prolific killer the world has ever known.
Just one mean-minded thought… if you think gas is expensive now…wait till Russia cuts the gas supply lines to get the Western European nations on message and on-side.
Gordon Brown will no doubt feel their (and our) pain.
IT’S not a jolly, honest. Being a sports minister is serious stuff. If anyone can pull of supporting two teams, it’s our Gerry Sutcliffe:
A pair of leading political figures have dragged Anglo-Australian hostilities back into the sporting limelight with a bet and a boast in Beijing. Gerry Sutcliffe, the Sports Minister, and Kate Ellis, his counterpart Down Under, indulged in a spate of sledging that reopened old wounds and led to a string of gibes.
The sparring moved from the sporting fields to the corridors of power as the pair agreed that the minister of the country that finishes lower in the Olympic medal table will have to wear its rival’s national colours at the next big sporting event between the two countries. Sutcliffe, a Manchester United season ticket-holder, said: “It might mean me having to wear an Australian rugby league shirt at Old Trafford, which could be dangerous, but it’s all healthy fun.”
Note: No United fan will give a sh*t what some plonker in the expensive seats is wearing…
SUCH is the density of smog, the Beijing Games might be the first Olympiad that is best viewed on the radio.
Olympic fans can recreate the glory of the Beijing games by locking themselves in a small, stuffy room – the downstairs loo is our tip, or a wheelie bin – lighting a pack of fags, spritzing the place with athletes’ foot power and eating a steaming hot plate of sweet and sour duck fat.
Says the Times on its front page: “Beijing Games to begin in smog of controversy.”
All day yesterday Beijing was obscured by thick grey air, a phenomenon known in the Chinese state media as “overcast and hazy skies”, and described by the rest of the world as smog.
AS The Croydonian points out: “From the wonderful people who had a fire sale of gold reserves, this:
[Sports minister Gerry] Sutcliffe, in Macao to visit the Team GB preparation camp, said competitors needed to come home with 41 medals and show the British public that the country’s £500 million investment into elite sport was “value for money
AMANDA Beard, US Olympic swimming champion and Playboy cover girl, is campaigning for Peta by taking her clothes off. Says she:
Seeing animals slaughtered to be worn as fashion is awful to me, so I’m definitely against wearing fur … I’d much rather go naked than ever put a dead animal on my body.”
POTESTORS at the green Democract convention are advised to remain in the Protest Zone. No kidding. Really..:
Denver officials announced today that the protest zone for Invesco Field where Sen. Barack Obama will deliver his nomination acceptance speech will be in the parking lot. The lot will be fenced.
The fenced-in area will be about 53,000 square feet in Lot J. Delegates entering the convention will pass by the area from between 200 and 400 feet away after they are dropped off for the night’s speech by Sen. Barack Obama.
Protesters will be allowed to use bullhorns, and the city will provide a stage, amplification equipment, and at least two speakers that will be located outside the zone and pointing toward Invesco Field at Mile High.
Sun readers get to see Kevin holding a large wooden object with menace. Whoah! Kevin’s no braker of broken Britain. Kevin plays cricket. Yeah, the game with the sticks, stones and name calling.
Kevin is not a fooballer – for shame! – but he did once get a lover to chant his name during coitus, and he has been out with footballer Frank Lampard (pictured).
CHINA’S Henan Business Daily prints the photo of China’s Premier Wen Jiabao jumping up to shoot a basketball. He is the latest politician to toil at the sports-politics interface.
Politicians cannot resist looking sporty. Tony Blair played headers; Gordon Brown hit a tennis ball; even Ted Heath messed about in boats, although who didn’t think that a euphemism?
In China, Jiabao is promoting not only the Olympics but so too sporting prowess – although one basket from five suggests the basket was too small and basket maker 65567980b should be shot.
What better person than Harry for a thrusting jihadi blade to befriend if he is to immerse himself in British life before blowing himself into enough bits to satisfy so many virgins?
But it’s as hard for Gallardo to move on as it is for the Star and the Sun which both focus on the topless stunna as she parades her box-fresh floatation aides on a beach.
While the tabloids zoom in, Sun readers note the initial “CR” etched on Gallardo’s wrist.
In moments of quiet reflection, Gallardo can consider her wrist and wonder what might have been. She may even care to flaunt her wrist at a football match in which Ronaldo is playing in a time-honoured manner favoured by many a football fan.
And her future lovers can also consider her wrist and wonder what will be…
