Bloodbath on the high seas: Israel faces world fury after deadly raid on blockade-busting Gaza aid convoy

An Israeli army helicopter approaching a convoy of ships carrying aid to the Gaz





Taking aim: An Israeli soldier points his from the deck of one of the Turkish ship





This video image released by the Turkish Aid group IHH purports to show Israeli soldiers aboard a military vessel in international waters off the Gaza coas




Israeli patrol boats are silhouetted against the backdrop of a large civilian vessel before the pre-dawn assault in which up to 19 people die




Angry Islamic protesters try to pass a barricade during a demonstration in Istanbu




Israel faced global condemnation yesterday after a bloody commando raid on a convoy to Gaza which left up to 19 dead.

Another 30 were injured as special forces marines arriving from boats and helicopters stormed the flotilla of six aid ships and fought with activists.
As bullets flew across the decks and soldiers were beaten with iron bars, the carnage was beamed around the world on television.


Injured: A pro-Palestinian activist is evacuated to a hospital in the northern city of Haifa in the wake of the rai







A team of masked Israeli military personnel seen on board one of their ridge boats after the rai
d




Protest: Riot police officers blockade the road leading to the Israeli embassy in Londo





Outcry: Thousands of pro-Palestinian supporters gather outside Downing Street to protest against the the flotilla rai





Egyptian demonstrators shout anti-Israeli slogans during a protest outside Al Fateh mosque in Cairo, Egyp
t

Fury: Pakistani demonstrators burn an effigy representing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu


Israel said ten of its marines were hurt, one seriously, and insisted its forces had come under attack first - a claim denied by the activists.
At least 28 Britons, two Israeli parliamentarians, a Nobel Peace Laureate and a best-selling author were among the 700-strong group of 50 nationalities trying to break a three-year blockade of the Gaza Strip imposed by Israel.

None of the Britons was thought to have been hurt but it was not known if any had been injured.
The incident happened in international waters and worldwide condemnation of Israel was swift.
Turkey, from where most of the dead are said to come, accused Israel of 'state terrorism' and withdrew its ambassador to Tel Aviv.
Tens of thousands marched through Istanbul and attempted to storm the Israeli consulate, chanting: ' Murderous Israel, you will drown in the blood you shed.'
Deputy prime minister Bulent Arinc called Israel's actions 'piracy' and cancelled three planned joint military exercises.
Foreign Secretary William Hague 'deplored the loss of life' and asked for access to the British involved, while David Cameron branded the attack 'unacceptable'.
The deadly clash sparked a wave of furious condemnation of Israel - with 2,000 demonstrators outside the gates of Downing Street and thousands more outside the Israeli Embassy in West London.
In Paris, hundreds clashed with police near the Israeli Embassy. Police responded by firing tear gas.
The White House, which has close ties with both Israel and Turkey, expressed 'deep regret at the loss of life in today's incident, and concern for the wounded'.
Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu cancelled a trip to Washington planned for today to head home as the crisis erupted.

He expressed his 'full backing' for the military action.
The UN said it was 'shocked' by the violence. Its Security Council met last night, with most members of the 15-nation body calling for a thorough investigation.
Following a 90-minute open meeting, the council went into closed-door consultations. Diplomats said envoys were haggling over the text of a proposed statement by the council, a task that dragged on into the evening.

Many council members criticized the Israeli action with varying degrees of vehemence, and said it was time for Israel's three-year-old blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza to be lifted.
'This is tantamount to banditry and piracy,' Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told the council. 'It is murder conducted by a state.'

Horror as woman stamps on her baby after being accused of stealing a mobile

This was the shocking moment a woman accused of stealing a mobile phone in China threw her baby on the ground and stamped on it.

The hideous incident came after a high school student had challenged the woman and a female friend, both holding babies, after being told by witnesses that they had stolen her phone.
The confrontation turned physical and the police were called in Zhengzhou, Henan province.

Officers arrived along with some of the student's relatives. One of these family members pushed one of the suspected thieves who, shockingly, responded by throwing her baby on to the road and stamping on it while shouting in protest.



For a few horrifying the moments the tiny child was left crying in the middle of the road as the woman was pulled away.

The two women suspects were eventually taken to the local police station.

Miraculously, the baby escaped uninjured.

Flow of oil into the sea is stemmed as BP blasts mud deep into the leaking well

Seal: Heavy mud is being pumped into the pipeline, with a view to then shutting it completely with cement

Live feed: A TV camera shows the oil leak as BP starts the 'top kill' on the ruptured well

BP’s gamble to plug the torrent of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico by pumping mud to block the leak appears to have paid off.

US Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen said the risky ‘top kill’ operation had succeeded in dramatically dropping the oil pressure from the leak one-mile under the ocean.

Once the oil flow is stemmed completely, engineers will begin filling the hole with cement to entomb the well.
‘We’ll get this under control,’ said Admiral Allen, the National Incident Commander, who has been put in overall charge of the operation by President Obama.

The breakthrough came as US scientists claimed the amount of oil that has flooded into the sea was up to four times more than BP estimates and has easily eclipsed the Exxon Valdez disaster to become the worst oil leak in American history.
The British-based oil giant was said to be cautiously optimistic over its latest bid to cap the leak.

It was given a 70 per cent chance of success when the risky operation was launched on Wednesday afternoon.


Crackdown: The Obama administration has announced that oil drilling in Alaska will be suspended until 2011 in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico disaster

Clean up: Workers contracted by BP attempt to clear a beach in Port Fourchon of oil

Disaster: A green heron covered in oil is rescued near Venice, Louisiana. The slick has so far affected around 100 miles of the coastline

Health concerns: Four crew members of commercial shipping helping with the Gulf of Mexico oil spill have fallen ill

‘The operation is proceeding as we planned it,’ said BP boss Tony Hayward.

Crews were still injecting heavy drilling mud deep into the well at high velocity from two tankers on the surface.
But Admiral Allen said that unless there was an unforeseen last-minute hitch – always possible with such a delicate operation so far below the surface – then the ‘top kill’ strategy was working.

The plan relies on the dense mixture overcoming the pressure of oil and gas rising in the 13,000-ft deep well, basically stuffing the flow back down the hole.

If the plug holds, then the focus will turn to cleaning up the environmental catastrophe that has spilled more than 17 million gallons of crude into the sea off the coast of Louisiana.

US Geological Survey Director Dr Marcia Nutt said that a government task force has estimated that BP’s claim that 210,000 gallons of oil a day had leaked since the oil rig explosion on April 20, which killed eleven workers, was woefully off the mark.
The Exxon Valdez spilled about eleven million gallons into the ocean in Alaska in 1989.

Dr Nutt claimed that a final reckoning could show that the crude pouring from the well before it was capped could eventually tally as much as a million gallons a day.

Marine scientists have discovered a massive new plume of what they believe to be oil deep beneath the Gulf of Mexico, stretching 22 miles from the leaking wellhead northeast toward Mobile Bay, Alabama.

President Obama is set to make his second trip to the disaster area on Friday to see at first hand the ooze that has now reached the coastline in Louisiana after weeks of lurking just offshore.
His visit came a day after Elizabeth Birnbaum, the head of the US government agency that oversees offshore drilling, was forced to resign amid a flurry of finger-pointing over the lax regulation that may have contributed to the cause of the rig blast.

At a press conference, Mr Obama announced a moratorium on offshore drilling.

He also defended his administration from claims that it hadn’t reacted quickly enough to the environmental nightmare and had allowed BP to control the operation.

Mr Obama said that while BP was responsible for the ‘horrific disaster’, the government has been in charge ‘since day one.’
'This notion, that for the last three or four somehow the federal government is sitting on the sidelines and we've just been letting BP make the decisions, is not true,' he said.
He didn’t comment on the success of the ‘top drill’ attempt, but he said the government had approved the move and aides were closely monitoring its progress. ‘We are exploring any reasonable strategy,’ said Mr Obama.

President Obama said he is suspending operations at 33 oil wells off the US coast until an investigation into the cause of the BP blast is completed.
'I take responsibility. It is my job to make sure that everything is done to shut this down. It doesn't mean we are not going to make any mistakes, but there shouldn't be any confusion, the federal government is fully engaged.

'I wake up every morning thinking about it and I go to bed at night thinking about it,' he said.

Mr Obama added that even when he was shaving in the morning, his eleven-year-old daughter, Malia, walked into the bathroom and said: 'Have you plugged the hole yet, daddy?' Adding 'I grew up in Hawaii, where the ocean is sacred.'

Obama holds BP responsible for oil spill-President Obama Takes Responsibility For Fixing Oil Spill-La. Residents Welcome Obama, but Want Action-Obama Defends, but Isn't Defensive, on Oil Spill-Obama: Fixing Oil Disaster My Responsibility

BP: 48 hours before clear if mud stops oil leak-BP calls Gulf oil leak 'environmental catastrophe'

 

BP is expected to announce within two days whether its top-kill procedure to plug the leak on the seabed has been a success

The chief executive of BP PLC says it will be about 48 hours before they know if pumping heavy mud into a blown-out well is successful in stopping the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

CEO Tony Hayward said on the CBS "Early Show" that his confidence level in the well-plugging bid remains at about 60 to 70 percent.



THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

ROBERT, La. (AP) — It could be late Friday or over the Memorial Day weekend before the world knows if BP's latest effort has succeeded in stopping the surge of oil in the Gulf of Mexico that has already surpassed the Exxon Valdez disaster as the biggest oil spill in U.S. history.

After an 18-hour delay Thursday to assess its efforts and bring in more materials, BP resumed pumping heavy drilling mud into the blown-out well 5,000 feet underwater in a procedure known as a top kill.

As the world waited, President Barack Obama announced major new restrictions on drilling projects, and the head of the federal agency that regulates the industry resigned under pressure, becoming the highest-ranking political casualty of the crisis so far.

In another troubling discovery, marine scientists said they have spotted a huge new plume of what they believe to be oil deep beneath the Gulf, stretching 22 miles from the leaking wellhead northeast toward Mobile Bay, Ala. They fear it could have resulted from using chemicals a mile below the surface to break up the oil.

Obama was scheduled to attend a briefing Friday at the U.S. Coast Guard Station in Grand Isle, La., by Adm. Thad Allen, who is overseeing the response to the spill. It would be his second visit to the region since the disaster began.

At the White House on Thursday, Obama acknowledged that his administration could have done a better job dealing with the spill and that it misjudged the industry's ability to handle a worst-case scenario.

"I take responsibility. It is my job to make sure that everything is done to shut this down," Obama said at a news conference, where he announced a series of new restrictions on oil drilling projects.

BP PLC insisted the top kill was progressing as planned, though the company acknowledged drilling mud was escaping from the broken pipe along with the leaking crude.

"The fact that we had a bunch of mud going up the riser isn't ideal but it's not necessarily indicative of a problem," spokesman Tom Mueller said.

Early Thursday, officials said the process was going well, but later in the day they announced pumping had been suspended 16 hours earlier. BP did not characterize the suspension as a setback, and Eric Smith, associate director of the Tulane Energy Institute, said the move did not indicate the top kill had failed.

"The good news is that they pumped in up to 65 barrels a minute and the thing didn't blow apart," Smith said. "It's taken the most pressure it needs to see and it's held together."

The top kill is the latest in a string of attempts to stop the oil that has been spewing since the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20, killing 11 workers.

If the procedure works, BP will inject cement into the well to seal it permanently. If it doesn't, the company has a number of backup plans. Either way, crews will continue to drill two relief wells, considered the only surefire way to stop the leak.

A top kill has never been attempted before so deep underwater. BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said the company is also considering shooting small, dense rubber balls or assorted junk such as golf balls and rubber scraps to stop up a crippled five-story piece of equipment known as a blowout preventer to keep the mud from escaping.

The stakes were higher than ever as public frustration over the spill grew and a team of government scientists said the oil has been flowing at a rate 2 1/2 to five times higher than what BP and the Coast Guard previously estimated.

Two teams of scientists calculated the well has been spewing between 504,000 and more than a million gallons a day. Even using the most conservative estimate, that means about 18 million gallons have spilled so far. In the worst-case scenario, 39 million gallons have leaked.

That larger figure would be nearly four times the size of the Exxon Valdez disaster, in which a tanker ran aground in Alaska in 1989, spilling nearly 11 million gallons.

"Now we know the true scale of the monster we are fighting in the Gulf," said Jeremy Symons, vice president of the National Wildlife Federation. "BP has unleashed an unstoppable force of appalling proportions."

BP officials said the previous estimate of 210,000 gallons a day was based on the best data available at the time and that the company's response was not tied to the estimate.

"I don't believe at any time we have misled anybody on this," Suttles said.

The spill is not the biggest ever in the Gulf. In 1979, a drilling rig in Mexican waters — the Ixtoc I — blew up, releasing 140 million gallons of oil.

In Washington, Elizabeth Birnbaum stepped down as director of the Minerals Management Service, a job she had held since July. Her agency has been harshly criticized over lax oversight of drilling and cozy ties with industry.

An internal Interior Department report released earlier this week found that between 2000 and 2008, agency staff members accepted tickets to sports events, lunches and other gifts from oil and gas companies and used government computers to view pornography.

Polls show the public is souring on the administration's handling of the catastrophe, and Obama sought to assure Americans that the government is in control and deflect criticism that his administration has left BP in charge.

"My job right now is just to make sure everybody in the Gulf understands: This is what I wake up to in the morning, and this is what I go to bed at night thinking about. The spill," he said.

Obama said he would end the "scandalously close relationship" between regulators and the oil companies they oversee. He also extended a freeze on new deepwater oil drilling and canceled or delayed proposed lease sales in the waters off Alaska and Virginia and along the Gulf Coast.

Fishermen, hotel and restaurant owners, politicians and residents along the 100-mile stretch of Gulf coast affected by the spill are fed up with BP's failures to stop the spill. Thick oil is coating birds and delicate wetlands in Louisiana.

Charlotte Randolph, president of Louisiana's Lafourche Parish, one of the coastal parishes affected by the spill, said: "I mean, it's wearing on everybody in this coastal region. You see it in people's eyes. You see it. We need to stop the flow."

"Tourism is dead. Fishing is dead. We're dying a slow death," she added.

The Coast Guard approved portions of Louisiana's $350 million plan to ring its coastline with a wall of sand meant to keep out the oil.

BP's top official, who had previously said the environmental impact on Gulf of Mexico would be modest, upgraded his assessment Friday to an "environmental catastrophe."

Also Friday, engineers in the Gulf tried the "junk shot" method in an attempt to stop a massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, BP's chief executive Tony Hayward said.

The procedure involved shooting debris such as shredded rubber tires, golf balls and similar objects into the blowout preventer in an attempt to clog it and stop the leak. The goal of the junk shot is to force-feed the preventer, the device that failed when the disaster unfolded, until it becomes so plugged that the oil stops flowing or slows to a relative trickle.

The company plans to resume its "top kill" method, pumping heavy mud into the leak, later Friday, he said.

President Obama is scheduled to visit Louisiana on Friday for the second time since an oil rig explosion sent a historic amount of oil gushing into the Gulf.

Obama's visit comes as his administration has been criticized for its response to the massive underwater gusher that is now estimated to be twice the size of the Exxon Valdez disaster.

"I take responsibility. It is my job to make sure that everything is done to shut this down," Obama said Thursday at a White House news conference. "That doesn't mean it's going to be easy. That doesn't mean it's going to happen right away or the way I'd like it to happen. That doesn't mean we aren't going to make mistakes."

The president even said his 11-year-old daughter, Malia, weighed in on the issue on Thursday.

"You know, when I woke up this morning and I'm shaving, and Malia knocks on my bathroom door and she peeks in her head and she says, 'Did you plug the hole yet, Daddy?'" he said.

BP attempted to cap the spill using the "top kill" method Thursday.

The "top kill" involves pumping heavy drilling fluid into the head of the leaking well at the sea floor. The manufactured fluid, known as drilling mud, is normally used as a lubricant and counterweight in drilling operations. Officials hope the drilling mud will stop the flow of oil. Cement then would be pumped in to seal the well.

"This whole operation is very, very dynamic," said Doug Suttles, the company's chief operating officer "When we did the initial pumping [Wednesday], we clearly impacted the flow of the well. We then stopped to monitor the well. Based on that we restarted again. We didn't think we were making enough progress after we restarted, so we stopped again."

The light-brown material that was seen spilling out of the well throughout Thursday was the previously pumped fluid from the top kill procedure mixed with oil, he said.

CNN.com Live: Underwater view of top kill procedure

"I probably should apologize to folks that we haven't been giving more data on that," Suttles said when asked why it took so long for BP to announce it had suspended the top kill. "It was nothing more than we are so focused on the operation itself."

Suttles said part of the problem is that too much of the muddy fluid is leaving the breach instead of going down the well.

"So what we need to do is adjust how we are doing the job so that we get more of the drilling mud to go down the well," Suttles said.

He said one solution would be to introduce solids -- known as "bridging material" or its variant "junk shot" -- into the mix.

Oil spill demystified: A glossary

The revelation that BP suspended the "top kill" effort for 16 hours before it was restarted late Thursday afternoon troubled some.

Neither Obama nor Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, who is leading the government's response to the oil spill, appeared to be aware of the break when they addressed reporters at separate news conferences Thursday.

A White House official told CNN that people inside the White House knew about the temporary halt in the "top kill," but it wasn't clear if Obama was aware of it.

Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser, who has been critical of the federal response to the spill, said the delay in information from BP was "par for the course."

"We've been dealing with this from day one, and the information has not flowed on anything," he said.

Stopping the leak took on even more urgency after government scientists released spill estimates that far exceed the previous 5,000-barrel-a-day number given by BP.

The burst well is spewing oil at a rate of at least 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day, U.S. Geological Survey Director Marcia McNutt told reporters Thursday, meaning 260,000 to 540,000 barrels had leaked as of 10 days ago -- larger than the 250,000 barrels spilled when the tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground in Alaska's Prince William Sound in 1989.

The spill erupted April 20, when the drilling platform Deepwater Horizon exploded and burned about 40 miles off Louisiana. The rig sank two days later, taking 11 of its crew of 125 with it.

The rush of oil has taken its toll on Louisiana's sensitive coastal marshes. Heavy oil has been killing plant life and fouling local wildlife and fisheries. On Thursday, the eve of the Memorial Day holiday weekend, the beaches of Grand Isle were empty.

"If only it gets stopped, if what they did yesterday works, that's the beginning of the end," Grand Isle Tourism Commissioner Josie Cheramie said. "We can clean up what's already been put out there, but we just really need to get it stopped. That's the main thing."

North Korea threatens to launch 'immediate physical strikes' as South Korea stages anti-submarine drills off coast

Tensions: A South Korean soldier hits an effigy of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il during a rally in Seoul

Drills: The South Korean navy has been carrying out anti-submarine exercises off the coast, despite warnings from the north

Anger: More than 10,000 protesters gather at a rally today after the sinking of a South Korean warship in March

North Korea annouced today that it will scrap an agreement aimed at preventing accidental naval clashes after Seoul blamed it for a torpedo attack which sank a South Korean warship.

Tensions between the two countries have risen dramatically since a team of international investigators said last week that a torpedo fired by a North Korean submarine sank the warship on March 26, killing 46 sailors.

North Korea has denied any involvement in the sinking and warned any retaliation would mean war.
The country's military said in a statement released by the official Korean Central News Agency: 'Immediate physical strikes will be launched against any South Korean ships that intrude into North Korean waters.'



Defiant: South Korean sailors manning the guns on a warship during 2nd Fleet training

It said it will also start a review to possibly ban South Korean personnel and vehicles from entering a joint industrial park in Kaesong - the last remaining major inter-Korean reconciliation project.

The military said the measures are its first-phase reaction to 'the reckless moves of the group of traitors and confrontation maniacs'.

A South Korean defence ministry official said the country would 'resolutely' deal with its neighbour's measures.
The announcement came hours after a fleet of South Korean warships staged a large-scale anti-submarine drill off the west coast, despite warnings that such exercises will drive the peninsula to the brink of war.

The two Koreas are still technically at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.

As a result of the Korean War, the U.S. stations 28,500 troops in South Korea. They are on their highest alert since the north made its second nuclear test in May last year.

The JoongAng Ilbo newspaper, citing a Seoul official, reported that the South Korean and U.S. combined forces raised its surveillance level - known as Watch Condition - up a level from three to two. Level one is the highest.

South Korea, backed by the U.S., Japan and other allies, has begun carrying out punitive measures including slashing trade, resuming propaganda warfare and barring the north's cargo ships.

But North Korea has responded by threatening to wage 'all-out counterattacks' and barring South Korean ships and airliners from its waters and airspace.
North Korean Major General Pak Chan Su said: 'We will never tolerate the slightest provocations of our enemies, and will answer to that with all-out war.

'This is the firm standpoint of our People's Army.'

Ten warships fired artillery and dropped depth charges during the South Korean anti-submarine drills off the coast of Taean, 95 miles south of Seoul.

It is the first anti-submarine drill since the Cheonan disaster, which occurred about 100 miles to the north.

South Korea is planning two major joint military drills with the U.S. off the west coast in July.

Colombian beauty queen accused of getting models to smuggle cocaine is arrested in Argentinian youth hostel

 
Valencia is escorted by police after being arrested at a youth hostel in Buenos Aires

Valencia's mother, Janeth, speaks to the press after her daughter was arrested in Buenos Aires

Sanclemente is accused of leading a drug-trafficking gang that persuaded young women to smuggle cocaine to Mexico

A Colombian model accused of leading a drug-trafficking gang that persuaded pretty young women to smuggle cocaine to Mexico was arrested yesterday after evading Argentine police for five months.

Angie Sanclemente Valencia had been hiding out in Buenos Aires since December, when airport police caught a 21-year-old Argentine woman with 121lbs of cocaine in her baggage boarding a flight to Cancun.


Former beauty queen Sanclemente, 30, was detained in Buenos Aires for allegedly being the key player in a drug-trafficking operation that uses models as smugglers

 

 

That led to arrests of six other alleged gang members who allegedly fingered Colombia's former 'coffee queen' as a ringleader.

Argentina's media quickly dubbed Sanclemente the 'Narco Queen,' but two officials involved in the case said her specific role in the smuggling organization has not been established.

'When they organised the trafficking of cocaine to Mexico, she participated in the meetings,' said one of the sources.

Police were able to determine Sanclemente's identity because she had made quite an impression upon her arrival in Argentina, flying first class with a Pomeranian dog, the other official said.

The 30-year-old model was captured in a hostel for foreigners in the fashionable Palermo neighborhood, airport police spokesman Maximiliano Lencina said.

Lencina declined to discuss the evidence, but said Sanclemente 'was an important figure in the organisation' that allegedly recruited pretty young Argentine women to smuggle cocaine on flights to Cancun.
Police believed she was still in Argentina. She declared her innocence on Facebook, where she posted pictures of Buenos Aires dated after Interpol issued a warrant for her arrest, and her mother arrived in the country weeks ago to help with her defense.

'She is no drug trafficker, nor is she the queen of cocaine,' her mother, Jeannette Valencia, declared after the arrest.

'There are bad intentions - a plot against her. She will prove her innocence,' Valencia told reporters after police prevented her from entering her daughter's room.

Judicial authorities already rejected a request for special treatment from her lawyer, Guillermo Tiscornia, who said Sanclemente had not turned herself in for fear that her looks would expose her to rape or other mistreatment in a common prison.
Sanclemente had 'fear that they will rape her, that they will cut her face' in prison, her mother added.

'I feel great anguish and desperation. I can't rest, I'm very sad that the Argentines have treated me so badly, wiping away the trash with me. I don't deserve this,' Valencia told the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo.

Sanclemente, a native of Barranquilla, Colombia, won her country's National Coffee Queen beauty pageant in 2000.

Then aged 21, she was forced to give up her crown when it was discovered she was married at the time in violation of pageant rules.

WORLD CUP 2010: Fabio Capello's clear vision for England success

For those starting to wonder if Fabio Capello's loyalty to the flag of St George might be tested by Inter Milan's millions, there came comforting signs yesterday.

From England's retreat in the Austrian mountains, Capello spoke with a rare depth of feeling about the players under his control and his passion for the job.
Speaking in his native tongue, in an interview for an Italian television channel, he was able to portray some of the emotion which is so often absent when he uses his limited English.

Capello explained how God Save the Queen gives him 'goosebumps' before a match and how he adores the work ethic and training ground commitment of the English players.



Also, how this is not a one-man team over-reliant on the talents of Wayne Rooney but one with a broad range of talents capable of winning the World Cup.

And he confirmed the good news, first revealed by Sportsmail on Wednesday, that Gareth Barry is making such rapid progress from an ankle injury that he has a good chance to making the squad for South Africa.

'The tests and scans of two days ago say that his ankle is doing well, much better than we had thought,' said Capello. 'Most importantly, it looks as if the recovery times will be much shorter.

'We will wait until the end of the week and then we will decide if Barry will or won't play in the World Cup but we are very hopeful.'
The Italian also insisted he was perfectly happy with Rooney's condition, despite just one goal in seven England games for the Manchester United striker, who has suffered problems with his ankle and groin and complained of a stiff neck during Monday night's Wembley win against Mexico.

'Rooney has not scored lately but all he does in training gives me the maximum comfort, because he has recovered 100 per cent,' said Capello.

'He has all the qualities of a top goalscorer and I have always told him to play more central. Before, he always helped all his team-mates, running right and left and everywhere, and in so doing he was spending a lot of energy. Now that he keeps more in front of goal he's fresher and sharper, so he scores more.

'But I do not believe that one player can make the difference, even if he's as important as Rooney, someone who gets everyone behind him.

'It is the team which wins, particularly in a World Cup. The most important thing is the group, the spirit of togetherness.

'My England players have a different spirit, they train very well and eagerly, really determined.

'They are far less capricious on the pitch than others. It's great to work with them. Besides, they are very good technically, they know how to stay on the pitch.

'I am satisfied with the work we've done so far. We are retrieving all the work done during the qualifying matches. We have not been together for seven months, apart from a couple of days. Our aim is to retrieve and recover all that I had asked from the players over two years.'

Asked to name England's main rivals in South Africa, Capello went with the favourites, Spain and Brazil, but admitted he would be keeping an eye on a few others, notably Argentina and Italy.

'Brazil are the most compact and solid team,' said Capello. 'Their style is very little Brazilian and very much European. Spain are the European champions and a team that can play really well. They have been together for ages and they have not lost for ages. They are a real danger. I am wary of Argentina, probably the team with the most talented players. As for the other Europeans, do not forget Italy are the world champions.

'Nobody seems to take Germany into account but they have played the most finals and always finish in the top four. Another team you should consider is Holland, with some very good players, and I've always said that there could be an African surprise.'

Capello has been asked before how he would feel if England were to meet Italy, coached by his friend Marcello Lippi, in South Africa.

'My shirt will be an England shirt,' he said. 'I would not swap my position with Lippi. I prefer to be England manager.'

Inter would like to tempt Capello back to Italy next season on a £9million-a-year salary.

The FA are confident of keeping their man until his contract ends in 2012 but, nevertheless, they will have been delighted to hear his response to a question yesterday about the national anthem.

'I know the words but I do not feel it is correct for me to sing an anthem which is not part of my country,' said Capello.

'But I always feel very strong emotions when God Save the Queen is being sung or played. It always gives me the goosebumps. It is a very fine anthem, which makes you feel committed 100 per cent.'

Park de Triomphe - the day French farmers turned the Champs-Elysees into a garden

Business as usual: How the busy Champs-Elysees usually looks, clad in concrete and choked with traffic

Rustic charm: Visitors walk between planted fields on the Champs Elysees near the Arc de Triomphe monument in Paris. French farmers have organised a two-day event to draw attention to their trade

With its designer shops, cafes, boutique restaurants and bars - and non-stop traffic - there is nothing rural about the Champs-Elysees, Paris's most famous avenue.

Yet, for the next two days, it is the closest destination for Parisians who want to escape to a country garden.


Flower children: Parisians and tourists alike enjoyed a day among the flowers and 'fields' brought in

France's struggling farmers have decided to stage a beautiful reminder of their trade by bringing vast plots of flowers, herbs and crops to the capital.
And that's not all, visitors to the the Champs-Elysees might be lucky enough to bump into the occasional pig, sheep or cow.

The two-day event, over a French public holiday, has drawn thousands of locals and tourists to the 'country lane', crowned by the Arc de Triomphe.

The farmers have brought with them more than 8,000 plots of earth, 150,000 plants and almost 700 fully grown trees - along with pigs, cows, horses and sheep.

It's aimed at instructing city slickers in the values of Mother Nature while highlighting the work of France's farmers.

Gad Weil, whose Nature Capital group conceived the project, says: 'It's a way to remind people that man lives at the heart of nature.'
Farmers have seen their costs rise and product prices fall, and feel that their hard work is rarely appreciated in the big city.

Organisers of the event, which cost private investors £3.6m - and has to be removed by the end of tomorrow - said they hoped to attract up to two million people.

Mr Weil said the transformation was a wonderful example of different trades working together, and he expected the clean-up operation to run just as smoothly.
He added:'Lorry drivers, truck drivers, farmers, woodsmen, events planners: these men don't usually work together, but here everyone is doing so with a smile.'

Visitors were able to buy plants and produce today, sampling regional delicacies. A mas barbeque was put on by Parisian butchers in the afternoon.

It's not the first time that farmers have come up with novel ways to catch president Nicholas Sarkozy's eye and draw attention to their plight. Last month, more than 1,000 cereal farmers drove to the capital on tractors to protest against their plummeting standard of living.

Diego Maradona demands luxury toilets be installed at World Cup training base

 
Demands: Diego Maradona has demanded luxury toilets be installed at his World Cup suite

 
Luxury: Maradona's toilet is believed to be similar to this one, which features heated seating and a warm air blow dryer

Base: Maradona and the Argentinian football team will stay at the High Performance Centre in Pretoria during the World Cup tournament

Diego Maradona has demanded two state-of-the-art bidet toilets be installed for him at Argentina's World Cup base camp in South Africa.

Builders were rushed in to carry out a £1,400 overhaul of the football legend's private suite after his aides complained that the existing bathroom facilities would not meet his 'high standards.'

DIEGO'S DEMANDS

Two bidet toilets
All rooms must be painted white
Six Playstations for the footballers
Ten hot dishes to be served every day
Every dinner must include three desserts
Icecream must be available at all times



His bedroom now includes two bathrooms, each featuring a bidet toilets, which according to a South African newspaper retail for £311 each.

They feature a heated seat, a warm air blow-dryer and front and rear bidet wands.

The toilet is available on www.sandman.com, which describes it as 'the best toilet seat in the world.'

Colin Stier, the manager at the High Performance Centre in Pretoria where the team will stay, said Maradona's aides had made the demand.

'(Bidets) are quite common in Argentina but hard to get hold of here,' he said.

'In the end we managed to track down a seat which has bidet nozzles, but to make it fit we ended up having to replace the whole bathroom too.'

'Of course we were happy to do so. If it makes Diego more comfortable during his stay then it's worth the effort.'

Maradona and Argentina's squad will arrive in South Africa later this week.
Maradona's private suite at the centre, which is operate by the University of Pretoria, was created by knocking two existing bedrooms together.

The request was one of many made by the Argentinian team, which only narrowly qualified for the World Cup after a string of poor results under Maradona's leadership.
Other requests including a demand for rooms to be painted white, and for six Playstations to be installed for players to use during their free time.

The Argentinian FA also demanded 10 hot dishes be served every day alongside no less than 14 different salads at every meal.
Every dinner must include at least three pasta sauces and no fewer than three desserts.

The team also demanded South African braai at least once every three days and requested that ice cream be made available at all times throughout their stay.

The catering details were revealed by South Africa's Sunday Times newspaper during an interview with HPC kitchen manager Linda Tyrrell.

Argentina's rivals have also made a string of demands ahead of their arrival in South Africa.

The Brazilian team demanded their pool be heated to exactly 32 C by the time the players arrive at the Fairway Hotel in Johannesburg.

Hotel marketing assistant Ariska van der Westhuizen also said the squad would bring along two of their own Portuguese chefs, but 'would not be taking over the kitchen'.

They also ordered hot coffee and cookies - but said that there was to be no chocolate.
The Mexican players, who will stay at the Thaba Ya Batswana lodge near Johannesburg, requested their own priest who will conduct services during the tournament in a church on the premises.

The Italian team has flown in specialist gym equipment ahead of their arrival and will bring their own pasta with them from Rome.

Managers for the New Zealand team have enquired about arranging golf lessons for some of their players during the tournament.

These demands contrast starkly with the more budget requests from the Slovakian players - who simply asked for a pair of table tennis tables and an electronic dartboard.