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Football: England must stop living in the past says Hodgson

Dec 15th, 2012
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Football: England must stop living in the past says Hodgson

LONDON – England coach Roy Hodgson insists his country’s players and fans must stop thinking about past failures if they want to enjoy a successful future.


Hodgson has become increasingly aware of English football’s unhealthy habit of wallowing in self-pity whenever the national team fails to live up to expectations.


England’s series of painful penalty shoot-out defeats have also allowed some players to believe they were simply unlucky rather than not up to the standards required to win a major tournament.


If England qualify for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, Hodgson knows references to their failure to emulate the team’s famous 1966 triumph are bound to be raised once again.


But former Liverpool, Fulham and West Brom boss Hodgson, who was the surprise choice to replace Fabio Capello as England manager last season, refuses to let negative thoughts cloud his vision of the team’s future.


“One of my concerns for England has always been that we’re not trying to win in the present, we’re trying to win in the past and we can’t do that,” Hodgson told FATV.


“I know there’s 1966 and that it’s 50 years and that we’ve failed here and there and missed penalty shoot-outs, but unfortunately there’s not very much I can do now to change anything that’s historical.


“You can’t turn back the clock and you can’t win yesterday. You can only win today and while winning today, you can only have an eye on how we can win tomorrow.”


Hodgson has brought in several young players in a bid to purge the squad of the selt-doubt caused by past failures.


Liverpool winger Raheem Sterling and Arsenal defender Carl Jenkinson were among those to make their debuts in a friendly against Sweden last month, while Danny Welbeck and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain were part of his Euro 2012 squad despite their limited experience.


However, with the exception of Sterling, none of that quartet could be regarded as first-choice for their clubs in a league where so many of its top stars are foreign.


Yet Hodgson sees little point arguing against the mass continental influx and instead called on English youngsters to raise their standards.


“Clubs will do what they have to do and I can’t expect that a manager who is under pressure to get results is thinking long-term for the benefits of the English national side,” he said.


“If he thinks his interests are best served by getting a player from Montenegro, Russia or Israel, they’re entitled to do that.


“Rather than complain that there are a lot of foreign players, let’s turn it on its head and make certain that our players do better.


“Take Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain for example, who plays some games but not others. He has got to become so good that Arsene Wenger doesn’t want to look elsewhere.

“That’s what I’ve got to hope for and that’s got to be their ambition.” -AFP-

Source: MOLE

Olimpik 2012 : France Kejutkan Juara Bertahan

Jul 29th, 2012
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LONDON, 2012 – France melakukan kejutan terbesar pada hari pertama acara Bola Baling Wanita dengan menewaskan juara bertahan Norway dengan keputusan 24-23 dalam Kumpulan B peringkat kelayakan di Copper Box.

 

Norway yang merupakan Juara Dunia, Juara Olimpik dan Juara Eropah terpaksa berhempas pulas menentang France yang bermula dengan cemerlang dengan mendahului 6-1. Walaubagaimanapun, pasukan dari Scandinavia itu kembali merapatkan jurang kepada 9-10 setelah 22 minit separuh masa kedua bermula.

 

France kembali menjarakkan diri dengan menjaringkan empat gol berturut-turut sehingga berada dihadapan seketika dengan jaringan 17-12 mengakibatkan pasukan Norway hilang tumpuan untuk kembali mencari rentak permainan.

 

Sehingga tiupan wisel ditiup, akhirnya pasukan France berjaya menumpaskan Norway dengan jurang keputusan yang cukup rapat 24-23.

 

Sebelum itu, juara tiga kali Olimpik acara Bola Baling Wanita, Denmark memulakan langkah kanan dengan menewaskan Sweeden dengan keputusan 21-18. Keputusan lain turut membabitkan Korea Selatan menumpaskan Sepanyol dengan keputusan 31-27 dalam Kumpulan A.

 

Rusia turut menewaskan Angola dengan keputusan 30-27, Brazil pula menewaskan Croatia 24-23 manakala pasukan tuan rumah Great Britain terpaksa tunduk kepada Montenegro dengan keputusan 31-19.

New iPad available in Malaysia April 20

Apr 18th, 2012
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New iPad available in Malaysia April 20

Further to our report previously, Apple has confirmed that the new iPad will be available in Malaysia starting this Friday, April 20. The new iPad(3) will be available via Apple Premium Resellers in Malaysia such as Machines, Epic Center, MacStudio Switch.

 

In addition to Malaysia, the new iPad also will be available beginning on Friday, April 20 in Brunei, Croatia, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, South Korea, Panama, St Maarten, Uruguay and Venezuela.

 

Beginning on Friday, April 27, the new iPad will be available in Colombia, Estonia, India, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, South Africa and Thailand.

 

Read more HERE.

Source: MOLE

Over 600 die in Europe cold snap, 215 in Russia alone

Feb 13th, 2012
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Over 600 die in Europe cold snap, 215 in Russia alone

MOSCOW: Some 215 Russians have died this year in a prolonged period of abnormally cold winter weather, the health ministry said Monday as the overall death toll for Europe rose to well over 600.

 

Heavy snow continued to fall on Monday in Romania and Bulgaria, but the cold snap that froze much of Europe for the past two weeks began to ease in the west of the continent.

 

In Russia, 215 people died and 5,546 people suffered from hypothermia and frostbite, including 154 children, between January 1 and February 13, the ministry said in a statement.

 

While accustomed to frosty winters, Russia has seen 20 days of unusually cold weather, with the average temperature falling 7 to 14 degrees Celsius below average, the state weather service said.

 

In Moscow, the temperature was minus 20 degrees Celsius on Monday afternoon, the state weather service said.

 

While Russian apartment blocks are generally well heated, the homeless are particularly at risk.

 

In a stunt to protest the prices that Ukraine pays for Russian gas the Ukrainian feminist group Femen braved the cold to pose topless outside the Moscow headquarters of Russian gas giant Gazprom.

 

The women were escorted away by security guards after about 10 minutes, an AFP photographer said.

 

Over the last 24 hours, the coldest temperature measured in Russia was -52.8 degrees Celsius in Toko in the northern Sakha republic, the state weather service said.

 

In the former Soviet republic of Georgia, authorities set up shelters in the capital Tbilisi on Monday after two homeless people died during the coldest weather for decades.

 

“The situation is very serious as far as homeless people are concerned,” Tbilisi Mayor Gigi Ugulava said in a statement after visiting a hospital where a further three homeless men were reported to be in intensive care.

 

Ugulava said that municipally funded canteens that provide free food to the poor would be turned into temporary shelters.

 

Two homeless men died Friday after being admitted to hospital with hypothermia, one in the capital and the other in the western town of Ozurgeti, local media reported.

 

Temperatures fell to minus 10 degrees Celsius in Tbilisi on Sunday — the lowest recorded in the capital for 40 years, according to local media.

 

In Romania, the death toll from the cold increased to 74 on Monday as new snowfalls blanketed the south of the country.

 

“Unfortunately there have been six new deaths due to cold, five of which occurred outside, on the streets or in courtyards, and one in a non-heated building,” said deputy under-secretary for health Raed Arafat.

 

Snow disrupted road and railway transportation in the south and in Bucharest. More than 300 passenger trains were cancelled, officials said.

 

In neighbouring Bulgaria where heavy snowfalls also took place, the newspaper Trud on Monday said 47 people had died of cold or drowned since late January. There is no official death toll.

 

In Bosnia, an 84-year-old woman was found dead of cold in Foca, while in neighbouring Montenegro one of 80 passengers who have been stranded in a train for the past three days because of an avalanche died of a heart attack.

 

The total number of deaths in the western Balkans was put at 56.

 

Twenty people have died in Serbia, 13 in Bosnia, 10 in Kosovo, five in Montenegro, three in Croatia, three in Albania and two in Montenegro.

 

In Sarajevo the heavy snowfall caused the roof of the Olympic sports hall in Skenderija to collapse but no one was injured.

 

At the Grbavica football stadium, part of the stands also crumbled under the weight of the snow, an AFP photographer reported.

 

Over the past two weeks at least 135 people have died of the cold in Ukraine, 82 in Poland, and 45 in Italy.

 

In western Europe, temperatures began to return to normal February averages.

Source: MOLE

Weather in Europe claims 260 lives, travel disrupted

Feb 5th, 2012
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Weather in Europe claims 260 lives, travel disrupted

ROME: The death toll from the vicious cold snap across Europe has risen to more than 260, with the winter misery set to hit thousands of those seeking to escape it Sunday as air traffic was hit.

 

Ukraine has suffered the heaviest toll with 122 deaths, including many who froze to death in the streets as temperatures plunged to as low as minus 38.1 degrees Celsius.

 

Airports were shut, flights and trains delayed, and highways gridlocked as emergency services raced to clear falling snow.

 

London’s Heathrow Airport, Europe’s busiest air passenger hub, cancelled 30 per cent of its flights Sunday to cope with heavy snowfall overnight and possible freezing fog.

 

Heathrow said up to 10 centimetres of snow were expected to fall which, without reductions to the flight schedule, would cause major disruption at the west London airport.

 

“We deeply regret any disruption caused to passengers by the cold weather,” said Heathrow’s chief operating officer Normand Boivin.

 

“Reducing the flight schedule means we can fly as many people as possible and return the airport to normal as quickly as possible.”

 

The changes could affect around 400 flights at the world’s busiest airport for international passengers.

 

In the Netherlands, Amsterdam-Schiphol airport reported dozens of delays and cancellations on Saturday.

 

In Italy, the poor weather also hit boat passengers, when the ferry Sharden hit a breakwater shortly after setting off from the port of Civitavecchia near Rome on Saturday.

 

It caused panic among the 262 passengers who feared a repeat of a cruise ship tragedy in the area last month that is thought to have killed 32 people.

 

Coast guard spokesman Carnine Albano said the accident, which tore a 25-metre hole in the ship’s side above the waterline, happened after the vessel was buffeted by a violent snow storm from the north-east.

 

All passengers were evacuated and no injuries reported.

 

The heaviest snowfall in 27 years here, better known for its warm sunshine, to grind to a halt with taxis and buses unable to navigate through the icy streets without snow chains.

 

Parts of the Venice lagoon also froze over.

 

Among the cold-weather deaths in Italy was 46-year-old woman who died in Avellino, near Naples in southern Italy, after a greenhouse roof laden with snow collapsed on her.

 

A homeless man in his sixties of German origin was found dead, apparently of cold, in the central town of Castiglione del Lago. These latest deaths brought the total in Italy to seven.

 

In Poland, the death toll rose to 45 as temperatures reached minus 27C in the north-east. In Romania, four more victims were found, bringing the number of fatalities in the country to 28.

 

The cold snap has also killed people in Bosnia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Italy, Slovakia, France, Austria and Greece.

 

In France, snow fell from Lille in the north to Marseille in the south, though the west of the country and the capital Paris were spared.

 

A 12-year-old boy died in the eastern city of Strasbourg when the ice broke as he played with a friend on a frozen pond, paramedics said.

 

His friend, 11, was in hospital being treated for hypothermia after plunging in to try to save him.

 

Snow fell in Bosnia for the second straight day, paralysing traffic, with one patient dying as an ambulance was unable to reach his village in the south of the country.

 

In Serbia, a man was found dead in the southern town Lebane as the authorities in 28 municipalities, mostly in remote mountainous regions in the south and southwest, declared a state of emergency.

 

In tiny Montenegro, where one person was found frozen to death in a village, many hamlets in the mountainous north were cut off. Rescuers managed to evacuate 120 people, among them 31 school children from neighbouring Albania on a field trip, Interior Minister Ivan Brajovic said.

 

But as Europe huddled indoors for warmth, Russian gas giant Gazprom said it could not satisfy western Europe’s demand for more energy.

 

“Gazprom at the moment cannot satisfy the additional volumes that our Western European partners are requesting,” the company’s deputy chairman Alexander Kruglov said at a meeting with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, according to Russian news agencies.

 

Frigid temperatures even edged into north Africa, with the temperature forecast to drop below freezing in Algiers on Saturday night.

 

In Algeria’s eastern region, a 17-year-old man was assumed killed after he was swept away by a swollen river. Many domestic and international flights were cancelled.

Source: MOLE

Scotland clashes with London over independence vote

Jan 13th, 2012
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Scotland clashes with London over independence vote

LONDON: Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond fuelled a tense constitutional clash with London on Wednesday, insisting that his government can organise its own independence referendum in 2014.

 

London announced on Tuesday it would give Edinburgh legal powers to hold a vote on a break-up of the 300-year-old union, but said it would be unlawful unless done with London’s approval of the timescale and conditions.

 

But Salmond — a nationalist who is widely regarded as one of the sharpest political operators in the British Isles — has announced plans for Scotland to hold its own referendum in the autumn of 2014, on its own terms.

 

The issue could eventually end up at the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court.

 

Salmond, whose Scottish National Party last year won the first majority in the Edinburgh assembly since it opened in 1999, said there was a mandate for the Scottish parliament to organise and hold the referendum on its own.

 

“It must be a referendum built in Scotland and decided by the Scottish people,” Salmond told BBC radio.

 

He indicated however that he was ready to strike a deal if Prime Minister David Cameron’s government recognised it was lawful for the Scottish parliament to hold the referendum.

 

Cameron’s Downing Street office also appeared to soften its stance on Wednesday, with a spokesman saying Cameron would absolutely take part in discussions with all parties including the SNP in coming weeks.

 

Scotland was an independent nation until 1707 when the Acts of Union of united it with England and Wales, although both countries had shared the same monarch since 1603.

 

Polls currently show a lack of support for independence among Scots, but Salmond is trying to tap nationalist sentiment as 2014 is the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn, a famous Scottish victory over the English.

 

In the same year, Scotland also hosts the Commonwealth Games in its biggest city Glasgow and golf’s Ryder Cup.

 

Cameron’s Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government wants the vote to be held as soon as possible and on its own terms, in a bid to keep the United Kingdom together.

 

In its statement on Tuesday it did not set out the conditions it wanted but reports say it would seek a simple yes/no question on independence, whereas Salmond’s spokesman said he was open to a third independence-lite option.

 

Cameron said at the weekend that uncertainty over the issue was harming the Scottish economy.

 

Former finance minister Alistair Darling, himself a Scot, said he believed the pro-union campaign would win if his Labour party worked with the coalition.

 

“The only reason we have been put off until 2014 is because Alex Salmond doesn’t think he can win just now and he is playing for time,” he told the BBC.

 

In Scotland, The Scotsman newspaper ran the front-page headline “1,000 days to decide our future”.

 

It also ran a piece by an expert on referendums, Matt Qvortrup, saying that Salmond’s arguments were correct, citing the examples of Montenegro’s secession from Serbia in 2006 and Estonia’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1990.

 

“The basic principle in international law is that the seceding country (in this case Scotland) decides whether it wants to become independent,” he said.

 

A survey by British Future, an independent think-tank, said Monday that 54 per cent of Scots wanted Scotland to remain part of the United Kingdom, compared to 29 per cent in favour of independence. It polled 497 people last month.

 

The Scottish parliament currently has power on matters such as education, health, the environment and justice. Key areas including foreign affairs and defence are still controlled by the British government in London.

 

A break-up would involve thorny economic issues such as North Sea oil and gas. Scotland has long complained that tax revenues from the industry — £8.8 billion (RM45.35 billion) last year — go direct to London.

 

But there is also the issue of a currency, with Salmond refusing to say whether an independent Scotland would join the struggling euro.

Source: MOLE

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