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Ségolène Royal and Wikipedia duped by tale of anti-slavery activist

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 00:01:00 GMT

Léon-Robert de L’Astran, an 18th-century shipowner, was praised for his noble refusal to participate in the slave trade. Sadly, however, it seems that he existed only as an internet hoax — duping Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia, for three years, along with Ségolène Royal and others.

Blowing South Africa’s Trumpet

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 20:29:12 GMT

Shame on the visiting footballers and coaches who, before the World Cup has even begun, are whining about the noise made by vuvuzelas, the metre-long plastic trumpets with which South African football fans serenade and spur on their team!

Propaganda war latest: Tehran 3 Israel 0

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 19:01:25 GMT

As Iran’s leadership prepares to dispatch a Red Crescent flotilla to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza, its propaganda organs are spreading one message throughout the Muslim world: the Jewish state, branded by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as “the Zionist stain of shame”, is heading for its inevitable destruction.

Mandelson declares new Labour dead and promises to ‘ruffle feathers’

Thu, 03 Jun 2010 00:01:00 GMT

Video: watch Philip Webster on Peter Mandelson at www.thetimes.co.uk

The punk prophet of Ing-er-land

Thu, 03 Jun 2010 00:01:00 GMT

It’s amazing the reaction you get when you tell people that Mark E. Smith has done a World Cup song. It’s a shock, like the first time the fiercely independent singer and his band appeared on Top of the Pops. The Fall have been going for 33 years and 28 studio albums, never signing contracts, never allowing themselves to be grouped in with a particular scene. At 53, Smith is the only constant member and the undisputed boss, having sacked several of his former bandmates.

Rachel Bilson models summer dresses

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 00:01:00 GMT

At around this time each season, when the weather begins to turn and the shops fill up with new clothes, our minds start to wonder: shall I try sports utility, or deconstruction, or clear anything from my wardrobe that isn’t yellow?

What the Swedes can teach Prince William and Kate

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 00:01:00 GMT

There are rumours, and there are rumours so frothy, so evanescent and insubstantial that you wonder how they ever existed in the first place. Of these, the frothiest of all are royal wedding rumours, which pop up every few months only to disappear without trace a short while later.

British troops hand over command to the Americans — again

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 00:01:00 GMT

Graham Norton is unsung hero of another Eurovision disaster for Britain

Mon, 31 May 2010 00:01:00 GMT

It was a dreadful night, even for a nation so well accustomed to crushing defeats on the international stage.

‘Difference of opinion’ on BP’s oil rig hours before explosion

Mon, 31 May 2010 00:01:00 GMT

It was shortly before noon on April 20, only ten hours before a torrent of crude oil ripped through the Deepwater Horizon rig, that the quarrel broke out.

A bedbug epidemic bites New York

Mon, 31 May 2010 00:01:00 GMT

At first May thought that her husband had heat rash. “We were staying at a smart hotel in Cape Cod. Then I developed these hive-like welts on my back and legs.” May (not her real name; she is terrified of giving me that) is middle class, in her late fifties and lives on the Upper West Side, New York, in a well-maintained four-room apartment. When she and her husband returned to the city, one doctor prescribed antihistamines, surmising the couple had reacted to shellfish. She called a dermatologist. “He took one look and said, ‘You both have bedbug bites’. My husband turned our mattress over and we saw them. That’s when — no joke, no exaggeration, however ridiculous it may sound — our nightmare began.”

Naked Swiss rambler seeks right to roam the Alps in the buff

Fri, 28 May 2010 00:01:00 GMT

A Swiss rambler, 47, struck a blow for freedom yesterday when he went to court to uphold his right to roam the Alps in his birthday suit.

Little people asking big questions: parties where French children eat up philosophy

Fri, 28 May 2010 00:01:00 GMT

Fed up with musical chairs? Can’t afford an entertainer? Then maybe you should try a new fad sweeping France: children’s tea parties with cakes, fruit juice — and metaphysics.

Nexus between politics and criminality lies behind Kingston chaos

Fri, 28 May 2010 00:01:00 GMT

Kingston remains under a state of emergency, paralysed by a situation that Bruce Golding, the Prime Minister, has described as a “calculated assault on the State”.

Poor reap none of the new riches in continent of broken promises

Wed, 26 May 2010 00:01:00 GMT

Africa is finally shaking off its dependence on aid handouts from the West and — thanks to new trading ties with China, India and Brazil — emerging as an independent player on the global stage.

‘We have to help the Greeks,’ say French, ‘it’s our duty’

Wed, 26 May 2010 00:01:00 GMT

It is a gloriously sunny Pentecôte bank holiday, and hundreds of people have descended on Morschwiller-le-Bas, a suburb of the French city of Mulhouse, for its annual marché aux puces — flea market.

Brazil’s flamboyant President strives to make his country a global player

Tue, 25 May 2010 21:00:24 GMT

He is one of the world’s most popular leaders, rising from rags to riches. He has brought lost respect back to his country and is currently going about the task of forging Middle East peace and resolving the crisis over Iran’s nuclear programme.

States hit by oil spill prepare to seize control of botched clean-up

Tue, 25 May 2010 00:01:00 GMT

Fury over the handling of the BP oil disaster intensified yesterday as state officials challenged federal authorities, accusing them of bureaucratic fumbling and betrayal as the slick took over 65 miles of Louisiana coastline.

Gunmen clash with Kingston police in bid to halt extradition of ‘drug lord’

Tue, 25 May 2010 00:01:00 GMT

Helicopter gunships buzzed over the Jamaican capital last night as police and soldiers clashed for a second day with masked gunmen seeking to prevent the extradition of an alleged drug baron to the United States.

Voices from the eurozone: German fury over Greece bailout

Tue, 25 May 2010 00:00:13 GMT

It is only a ten-minute drive across the Rhine from Mannheim’s railway station to Ludwigshafen — but that is long enough for Klaus Fischer, 67, a taxi driver, to vent his fury at Germany’s leading role in the €750 billion (£645 billion) bailout of the eurozone’s most profligate states.

Voices from the eurozone: From prostitutes to pasta sellers, ignorance is bliss

Mon, 24 May 2010 00:01:00 GMT

Jade, 35, a heavily made-up prostitute with a pierced lower lip and plunging cleavage, sits reading Ciné Revue magazine in her self-styled “vitrine” — glass-fronted cubicle — in the Villa Tinto House of Pleasure, one of the last remaining brothels in Antwerp’s cleaned-up red-light district.

Oil spill brings ‘death in the ocean from top to bottom’

Mon, 24 May 2010 00:01:00 GMT

It has been an hour since our sport-fishing boat started streaking through the freshly oil-soaked marshes of Pass a Loutre, but we’re still only halfway through the slick. Eighteen miles out and the stink of oil is everywhere. Rashes of red-brown sludge are smeared across vast swaths, between them a swell rendered faintly psychedelic with rainbow-coloured swirls.

'We fled our plane for the shelter as the Taleban attacked our base'

Mon, 24 May 2010 00:01:00 GMT

We knew something had gone badly wrong when a nervous-looking RAF crewman addressed the passengers. “Does anybody have weapons and ammunition on board?” he asked a rugged but bemused collection of American troops.

Beaches polluted five times a day

Sun, 23 May 2010 00:01:00 GMT

THE scandal of Britain’s dirty seas is revealed this weekend with evidence that raw sewage is being pumped up to five times a day into areas where holidaymakers swim and paddle. And the tag “the dirty man of Europe” looms again after Britain was ranked 18th out of 22 European countries for beach cleanliness.

Prison trains await unruly England fans

Sun, 23 May 2010 00:01:00 GMT

THE chief of police in Cape Town, the venue for England’s second match in the World Cup, has warned any supporters intent on disrupting the tournament that they will be herded onto prison trains, tried on the spot and transported to remote detention centres.