Euro rises to event rise on top of $1.36

Wed Feb 24, 2010 10:47am EST

NEW YORK, Feb 24 (Reuters) - The euro extended gains onWednesday, rising to a session peak above $1.36 after weak U.S.home sales data and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke"sassertion that interest rates would remain low for some time.

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The euro hit a session high of $1.3613 EUR= and was lastchanging hands at $1.3598, up 0.7 percent on the day and aboveits global session low of $1.3503. (Reporting by Steven C. Johnson, Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

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Scunthorpe 2 Watford 2: Hornets compensate chastisement in thespian finish

Point made: Scunthorpe United"s Gary Hooper (right) kept his cool

Gary Hooper scored a last-gasp penalty to salvage a point forScunthorpe against 10-man Watford in a dramatic Coca-Cola Championshipclash at Glanford Park.

Hooper held his nerve to slot home from the spot with the last kickof the game after Jay DeMerit was adjudged to have handled in thepenalty area.

John Eustace looked to have snatched it for the Hornets with an89th-minute header as the Hornets rallied following Tom Cleverley"ssending off eight minutes from time.

Hooper had given Scunthorpe an undeserved first-half lead only forDanny Graham to equalise, before a dramatic finale which denied Watforda first away win in four.

It was Watford who fashioned the first goalscoring opportunity inthe seventh minute when Graham set up Don Cowie and the midfielderflashed a left-footed strike wide.

Scunthorpe were on the back foot and former Middlesbrough strikerGraham headed straight at Iron goalkeeper Joe Murphy after 10 minutes.

Nigel Adkins" side had a lucky escape after 22 minutes when Heidar Helguson"s left-foot strike rebounded off the post.

It was all one-way traffic and Cowie crossed for Icelandic frontmanHelguson, who was once again unfortunate to see his header strike thepost 27 minutes in.

But Watford were made to pay for failing to take their chances when Scunthorpe took the lead with their first shot on goal three minutes before the break.

Not for the first time this season Paul Hayes played in his striker partner Hooper, who kept his composure to slid the ball past Hornets keeper Scott Loach for his 12th goal of the season.

Midfielder Martyn Woolford almost doubled Scunthorpe"s lead four minutes into the second half when his venomous right-foot drive from the edge of the penalty area was palmed onto the crossbar by the highly-rated Loach.

Watford responded and Demerit should have done better when he rose highest to meet a Tom Cleverley corner but headed wide of the target.

And the Hornets were deservedly level after 64 minutes when Scunthorpe failed to clear their lines following a Dowie corner and Graham was on hand to slot home from 12 yards out.

Grant McCann had an opportunity to restore Scunthorpe"s lead three minutes later but his attempted backheel was comfortably saved by Loach.

And Loach had to be at his best to deny Hooper when the lively striker raced clear but saw his shot tipped around the post by the England Under-21 international.

The visitors were reduced to 10 men nine minutes from time when on-loan Manchester United midfielder Cleverley was shown a straight red card for a rash challenge on Michael O"Connor.

But Watford looked to have snatched it when Eustace rose to head home a Jon Harley cross.

However, their was to be a final twist as Hornets skipper Demerit was penalised for handball and Hooper held his nerve to beat Loach from 12 yards.

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Revised BNP membership manners still racist

Fiona Hamilton & , : {}

The British National Party was plunged in to inherent disharmony yesterday, only weeks prior to the ubiquitous election, after a decider ruled the membership process was still discriminatory.

An claim was placed on the far-right celebration preventing it from usurpation new members until it complied with competition family laws. The BNP is additionally expected to be financially crippled after Judge Paul Collins systematic costs opposite it.

In what was hailed as a groundbreaking judgment, believed to be the initial of the kind opposite a British domestic party, Judge Collins systematic that the BNP should no longer be authorised to have use of confluence to key aspects of the ideology and ideology as a condition of membership.

The celebration abolished the whites-only process last month in a bid to equivocate an claim but in a critical reversal to the bid for domestic legitimacy, Judge Collins found that it was still expected to dedicate wrong acts of discrimination.

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His visualisation resolved that key aspects of the constitution remained in a roundabout way racist. They enclosed a sequence for members to await the one after another creation, fostering, upkeep and life of the inland British.

A process requiring all intensity members to stoop to a two-hour home revisit by dual celebration officials could additionally work as a form of surreptitious taste opposite non-whites, he ruled.

The preference was hailed as a feat by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, that brought the movement at the Central London County Court.

Robin Allen, QC, behaving for the commission, told The Times outward the court: To have nonconformist ideology as a condition of membership is no longer lawful. As a square of litigation, it is groundbreaking.

Nick Griffin, the personality of the BNP, pronounced that the preference had non-stop a really dangerous door.

He added: The visualisation has since a government-appointed, taxpayer-funded domestic quango the rights to shift the aims and objectives of domestic parties.

However, he claimed that the statute was mostly mystic since he had already private the offending clauses from the constitution.

The commission pronounced that it doubted either Mr Griffin had the energy to have such changes but consulting BNP members. It indicated that it would take the celebration behind to justice if it did not remove the offending clauses in the constitution.

Susie Uppal, the commissions executive of authorised enforcement, said: Political parties, similar to any alternative organisation, are thankful to apply oneself the law and not distinguish opposite people who instruct to turn members. The BNP will right away have to take the required stairs to safeguard that it complies with the Race Relations Act.

The BNP will have to surprise the members of any changes by Monday, and afterwards encounter the sequence to the courts compensation prior to it can accept new members.

The preference leaves the celebration in irregularity only weeks prior to the ubiquitous election, where it has high hopes of winning the initial parliamentary chair in Barking, East London. The chair is being contested by Mr Griffin.

The judges awarding of 60,000 of costs opposite the BNP will affect the choosing spending. Mr Griffin was forced to send out vagrant letters to members for donations to encounter an halt remuneration of 12,000, done opposite the celebration progressing in the case.

Searchlight, an anti-fascist organization that campaigns opposite the party, pronounced that the visualisation was a harmful personal chagrin for Nick Griffin.

A orator said: His unfortunate try to give the BNP a veneer of respectability in time for the ubiquitous choosing has been ripped to shreds. The BNP has been proven in justice to be as nonconformist and nonconformist as ever."

Mr Griffin pronounced that he would not interest opposite the ruling, a preference that might infer without a friend with the tough core of his party.

Protesters yelled Nazi trash at Mr Griffin and his supporters as they entered the justice in Regent"s Park, Central London. Mr Griffin avoided them after the hearing, withdrawal by the behind entrance.

He faces imprisonment, a excellent or confiscation of the resources of the BNP if he fails to imitate with the justice order.

hair wig

Elliot Morley David Chaytor and Jim Devine on top of the wharf but not the law

Ann Treneman: Parliamentary Sketch & , : {}

The 3 MPs didnt wish to be in the dock. They arent the first, of course. Others who thought it underneath them embody Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic, nonetheless their vicinity were far grander than could be mustered yesterday in the City of Westminster Magistrates Court, a practical bureau chunk flashy in a colour called drab.

It is a ten-minute walk, and a world, afar from the Neo-Gothic elegance that is the Palace of Westminster.

But the dock, if not the construction or the complicated beige courtroom, was impressive. It is a 12ft-high apartment of callous potion and timber that fills the corner. Think Alice in Wonderland showering cubicle. That is the wharf in Court One, building three, SW1. The apartment had kept a little surprising company, thats for sure. Just that morning, it had housed a apprehension suspect. But, on the whole, the occupants come from the pettier side of the rapist probity system, the drunks, the flotsam and jetsam of the crime world.

But at 2.10pm, it stood empty, available the MPs. Their barrister, Julian Knowles, was asking the decider to keep it that way.

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Mr Knowles, who looked similar to an escaper from 1930s Chicago in his blue pin-stripe fit with carmine lining, longed for them to be immune that sold ordeal. Judge Timothy Workman, whose wavy dim hair has an impediment shock of white, pursed his lips.

At this impulse the MPs shuffled in and complacent their hands on the behind of 3 dull chairs in the well of the court.

Why? asked the judge. Mr Knowles pronounced that the MPs had been on umbrella bail and it was a make a difference for the courts discretion.

Judge Workman lived up to his name: It is normal use for the defendants to be in the dock, he said.

The 3 MPs only stood there, not responding. Gentlemen, pronounced a clerk, ushering them in to the showering cubicle. He close the door. They were stranded now. There is no hoop on the inside.

The Right Hon Elliot Morley, as he was called, told us his bieing born date.

The Hon David Chaytor and the Hon Jim Devine followed. It seemed majority imaginary until the clerk essentially began to review out the charges in all their boring detail, together with mixed references to the ACA2 one more cost stipend explain form.

They all pleaded not guilty. Mr Morley stared ahead, eyes fixed, his large obese face stunned. Mr Chaytor standing his head, his high cheekbones sculpted on to an unresponsive face. Only Mr Devine, red-faced and round, showed emotion. As the charges were review opposite him, he muttered: Not true, not true.

It was no warn to find that they did not wish to be attempted in this justice either. They are special and it all goes behind to 1689. Mr Knowles insisted that this did not meant that the MPs thought that they were on top of the law. Only, perhaps, the dock.

hair wig

Brazil remind Ireland of what competence have been as sides encounter in London accessible Football

Russell Kempson & , : {}

Ireland fool around a accessible at the Emirates Stadium tonight but the speak will be all about Brazil, their opponents in North London, and the World Cup finals this summer. Not surprisingly, it is not something that Ireland would similar to to be reminded about.

That dusk in Paris in November, when their hopes of personification in South Africa during the summer were finished by France and the stand in sport of Thierry Henry, is still raw. It is their initial compare given and opposite the five-time former universe champions no less.

Well, Ireland had improved get used to it. From right away until June, the pages and airwaves of the media will be filled with who is you do what, who is prohibited and who"s not, who is harmed and who will be behind in time.

It was of small satisfaction last night when Dunga, the Brazil manager and supernatural John Terry lookalike, paid reverence to Ireland. "It is a really encouraged inhabitant team," he said. "They had a great event to go to the World Cup. They are not going but it was not their fault."

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Gilberto Silva, the former Arsenal midfield player, right away with Panathinaikos in Greece, could not even suggest his condolences to the Irish as he was bombarded with questions about England and Wayne Rooney. Respectively, who will be and should be - damage needing - at the World Cup finals.

"England is a really clever squad, a really clever team," Gilberto said. "We know that. Some of the England players are in really great form. They can do a lot in South Africa. It will be a difficult contest for everybody who wants to win. We will quarrel for it.

"Of course, we see at Rooney really closely, generally if we have to face England. Yes, you can contend he is at the same turn as [Lionel] Messi, Kaka and [Cristiano Ronaldo]. He is you do really well. Year by year, he becomes improved and improved by the experience that he is getting. I am certain he can do a lot for England this summer."

For Giovanni Trapattoni, the Ireland manager, it is time to move on. He longed for to fool around the same group that experienced the horrors in Paris - roughly as if to give them a possibility to exorcise their demons - but Richard Dunne, the centre back, will be blank since of injury. At slightest Robbie Keane has been upheld fit to fool around carrying progressing been ruled out with a knee injury. Shay Given, the goalkeeper, and Kevin Kilbane, the left back, are additionally fit to have their 103rd appearances for Ireland, violation the prior symbol of 102 set by by Steve Staunton.

"We have to dont think about and move forward," Trapattoni said. "Football can give you happiness, it can give you disappointment. But it regularly gives you an additional opportunity."

Ireland (4-4-2): S Given - S Kelly, P McShane, S St Ledger, K Kilbane - L Lawrence, G Whelan, K Andrews, D Duff - R Keane, K Doyle.

Brazil (probable; 4-2-2-2): Julio Cesar - Maicon, Lucio, Juan, Gilberto - Felipe Melo, Gilberto Silva - Kaka, Ramires - Adriano, Robinho.

Referee: M Dean (England).

The Hurt Locker"s high highway to the Oscars lectern Jeremy Kay Film

Plucky ... Mark Boal, Kathryn Bigelow and Greg Shapiro with their Oscars for majority appropriate picture. Photograph: Jason Merritt/Getty Images

Avatar and The Hurt Locker entered Sunday"s Oscar rite similar to a Nimitz-class aircraft conduit and a boat firm for the same cube of betrothed land. The clearly incompatible opponents were the lead contenders for the vital prizes outward the behaving categories (Hurt Locker"s Jeremy Renner was a honourable carefree but it was regularly going to be Jeff Bridges"s night) and, of course, there was the combined piquancy cause of marital history.

The Hurt Locker Production year: 2008 Country: USA Cert (UK): fifteen Runtime: 131 mins Directors: Kathryn Bigelow Cast: Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Christian Camargo, David Morse, Guy Pearce, Jeremy Renner, Ralph Fiennes More on this movie

James Cameron glided in to the 82nd annual Academy Awards at the helm of Avatar, Golden Globulised 6 weeks progressing in the majority appropriate executive and design categories and, lest we forget, the greatest movie of all time. Here was a man whose drive-in entertainment are so immeasurable they allot with clear articles and need usually traffic on one-word titles; the cinematic homogeneous of Oprah, Madonna or Beckham. Here was a movie whose $2.5bn(£1.67bn)-and-counting box bureau is two-thirds the distance of what Fiji"s purchasing energy was in 2009. Many believed the vital Oscars were Cameron"s to lose. But they hadn"t reckoned on his former missus.

Kathryn Bigelow, a means teller of tales and movement executive who had formerly served up guilty pleasures such as Point Break, Blue Steel and the in truth sensational, majority misunderstood Strange Days, valid to be a force. Her latest, The Hurt Locker, refused to upset in Avatar"s grievous arise and gamely stayed the march via the awards season. Despite usually grossing $14.7m at the north American box bureau (the lowest grossing majority appropriate design leader ever – Summit Entertainment is deliberation a re-release), the thriller had turn a vicious darling, hailed as the majority appropriate Iraq fight movie to come out of the US, and in truth the majority appropriate abdominal cut of fight on shade in majority a year.

Critics are so far private from blurb sensibilities they competence as well be vital on Avatar"s universe Pandora. This worked to the value of The Hurt Locker. Their indifferent thought in the anti-blockbuster authorised it to benefit movement so that, notwithstanding the Golden Globes shut-out, it had already reached the standing of critical Oscar hopeful. As the deteriorate wore on, and some-more and some-more critics" groups opposite the US – Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Austin, Boston, to name a couple of – rewarded Bigelow and The Hurt Locker, the star one after another to rise.

As the awards deteriorate entered February, electorate concluded secretly they had had sufficient of the blue-skinned giants. My own decidedly unscientific check of a small series of Academy members who spoke on condition of anonymity was revealing. Avatar had reaped sufficient rewards, they said, and it was time to honour a movie that done them think, changed them, and embodied a clarity of timeliness and timelessness.

Academy electorate are a nauseating lot and the thought of creation story is alluring. Enter awards dilettante Cynthia Swartz of PR group 42West. Hired by Summit Entertainment, Swartz devised a debate that righteously expel Bigelow as a shining executive who could hold her own in a man"s universe whilst raising the awaiting of the initial womanlike executive to win an Oscar. The thought was distilled and I can demonstrate to the speed with that it coursed by Hollywood"s bloodstream. Within a day of the nominations on 2 February, there was hardly speak of anything else.

For the record, Swartz additionally got people articulate about the man who proposed it all. Screenwriter Mark Boal was desirous by his time as a publisher embedded with US infantry to write about his experiences. He would additionally win an Oscar on Sunday and introduced a profitable component of flawlessness to the story, one that was manly sufficient to safeguard that the common 11th-hour trace of ill-founded lawsuits and threats of piracy that sully roughly each Oscar competition mostly fell on deaf ears. Besides, the members had already voted by the time majority of the crackpots came out of the woodwork.

Swartz ensured that Academy electorate perceived swanky DVD screeners. The critics awards kept on coming. Then on 31 Jan Bigelow became the initial lady to bind the Directors Guild Of America (DGA) award. By right away the clarity of story in the creation was irresistible. The leader of the DGA has left on to win the majority appropriate directing Oscar on all but 6 occasions given the Guild launched the annual esteem in 1948. The Bafta rite was a certainty booster, a skirt operation for what was to come, and by the time Barbra Streisand took to the entertainment at the Kodak entertainment on Sunday to benefaction the Academy endowment for majority appropriate director, Cameron contingency have been timorous in his seat. To be fair, the dual sojourn on great terms, and he looked honestly gratified for Bigelow when his ex-wife"s name was review out. Cameron is probably gratified for everyone these days – so would you be if you"d only done the greatest movie of all time and warranted a personal happening in the segment of $225m.

The Academy loves an epic, and on Sunday that epic was the story of David v Goliath. The majority appropriate design Oscar, The Hurt Locker"s sixth on the night following alternative comparison honours such as Boal"s screenplay endowment and the modifying prize, was a wise culmination for a heroic movie that deserved to be seen by a wider open audience. Thanks to a intelligent awards debate it was seen by a far-reaching assembly of critics and awards voters, and in the end, that was all that counted.

Any money-laundering at Portsmouth and I will find it vows director Premier League

Nick Szczepanik, Russell Kempson & , : {}

Any idea that illegality rather than insufficiency has led Portsmouth to the margin of unconcern will be brought to light, according to the man charged with creation clarity of the monetary disharmony at Fratton Park.

As expected, Portsmouth became the initial bar in the story of the Premier League to come in administration department department yesterday. But if they thought that flourishing notwithstanding debts of �70 million was their usually problem, Andrew Andronikou, the lead administrator, highlighted an one some-more dimension to their difficulties when he betrothed to inform any justification of indiscretion that he finds to the suitable authorities.

We have the shortcoming of questioning the companys new monetary history, he said. We are all governed by money-laundering supplies and if I find something untoward, I have to inform it. Unfortunately, money-laundering is a outline trustworthy to all sorts at your convenience there are income irregularities. It hasnt happened on the own. I am assured of removing answers in due course.

Andronikous remarks will endorse the ideology of swindling theorists between the supporters who have done Wheres the income gone? their mantra in new weeks. But he additionally subscribes to the cock-up speculation of history.

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It was unavoidable a Premier League bar has got in to this position, and we wouldnt be the last, he said. If you have done a joining to a payroll of �4-5 million a month, afterwards you have got to have darned certain that your income streams are significantly higher than �60-70 million a year.

Earlier, Andronikou pronounced that he would ask the Premier League to revisit the probability of permitting Portsmouth to sell players outward the send window. There will be no glow sale, he said. But we will have to sell one or dual players and we will be articulate to the Premier League about a probable concession. I am anticipating the send window will be open for us.

A identical defence from Portsmouth to the League and Fifa, footballs universe ruling body, fell on deaf ears last week, but Andronikou will try again at a Premier League assembly on Thursday, suggesting a sale and loan behind system.

He additionally referred to that the League competence cruise not commanding the nine-point chastisement that Portsmouth will catch for going in to administration.

I think the early days to be articulate about deducting the 9 points, Andronikou said. It is the order at the moment, but we are the initial Premier League bar to have left in to administration, so lets usually exam the rule.

Although the League is expected to mount firm, there is a flourishing feeling inside of the hierarchy that if Portsmouth were to prove that they were about to go bust, it competence have to anticipate creation a extreme difference to the rules.

An allege of the �5 million due to the bar from the Leagues radio income would have usually a hole in the debt and Andronikou competence ask for a apportionment of the �16 million parachute income that Portsmouth would embrace in the eventuality of their relegation.

In a statement, the League said: The house will encounter the director at the beginning event to embrace their views on the monetary standing of Portsmouth and set out the conditions for the bar to do the commitments for the residue of the season.

With Portsmouth assumingly at the forgiveness of the League and Fifa, Andronikou betrothed fans that he would be slicing the Fratton Park fine cloth accordingly. Every aspect of the clubs overheads will be reviewed, he said. Our target is to maximize all revenues and to exterminate all nonessential costs. I guarantee you we will save your bar and take you forward.

Peter Storrie, the longstanding arch executive, has pronounced he will resign, citing the abuse directed at him and his family. I feel contemptible for the genuine fans but not those who have done hold up ruin for me and my wife, he said. I cant go by this any more. They feel they have to censure someone and, effectively, Im the usually one left.

Fugitive Peter Blake surrenders to military UK headlines

Peter Blake handed himself in to military at the stately courts of justice, from where he walked out of his Heathrow spoliation hearing last week. Photograph: Metropolitan police/PA

A man who went on the run from his hearing over an armed spoliation at Heathrow airfield handed himself in to military today.

Peter Blake, 57, of Notting Hill, London, surrendered to officers at the stately courts of probity in the centre of the capital.

He is one of 4 men confronting the initial vital rapist hearing in England and Wales but a jury in some-more than 400 years, over the £1.75m spoliation at Heathrow in 2004.

Blake walked neglected from the stately courts of probity last Wednesday and unsuccessful to return, call a national search.

Blake, who was last seen at the begin of the Wednesday afternoon session, is accepted to have been postulated leave to verbalise to his lawyers about a relations who longed for to repel a large volume of her share of the £260,000 surety, according to the Times. Having been on bail, Blake was expected to have been remanded in control had the supports been withdrawn.

A Metropolitan military orator said: "Peter Blake, 57, has been arrested after he handed himself in at the stately courts of probity today. He is right away in control and will crop up prior to the decider in due course."

He was led in to justice 35 in shackles after the decider Mr Justice Treacy was told he had surrendered himself to the court.

Wearing a blue anorak and black trousers he was led in to the jury box to lay in front of his co-defendants, nothing of whom concurred him.

His warn told the decider that Blake had never dictated to stay afar from justice so long.

"He would similar to to apologize to your lordship for the inconvenience. He had things to sort out. He expected his collateral would be cold and he would be remanded in control and thus would not be means to sort out these things that associated to his sister."

The justice listened that Blake walked in to the high justice unchallenged by military or security staff.

"No one recognized him," pronounced his barrister, repeating Blake"s reparation to the court.

Blake certified a assign of breaching his bail and the decider pronounced he would be condemned for it at the end of the trial.

When asked if Blake"s shackles could be removed, the decider concluded but pronounced Blake would right away be remanded in control and would be handcuffed in movement in between the justice and cells.

In Feb 2004 6 men wearing masks, black hats and fluorescent jackets arrived at a Heathrow room in the behind of a security van. They had been sloping off by an insider to the attainment of a poignant transport of unfamiliar banking from Austria.

The men scored equally up sixteen members of staff, melancholy them with guns. The climax alleges that Blake dismissed at one of the room workers, David Westwood, and afterwards struggled with him, discharging his handgun.

Three prior trials had collapsed since of fears of jury tampering, costing the taxpayer £22m. The justice of interest ruled last year that the box should be listened by a decider alone since of the risk of serve tampering.