BBC NEWS

Kenny Dalglish has been sacked as manager of Liverpool just 16 months into his second spell in charge of the football club.

“After a careful and deliberative review of the season, the club came to the decision that a change was appropriate, the team’s US owners said in a statement.

“It was not a decision that was reached lightly or hastily. The search for a new manager will begin immediately.”

Dalglish’s contract termination comes after he guided the team to a disappointing eighth place in the Premier League.

In response to the announcement, Dalglish said in a statement: “It has been an honour and a privilege to have had the chance to come back to Liverpool Football Club as manager.

“I want to put on record my heartfelt gratitude to Liverpool’s fans, who have always given me and the club their unwavering support.

“Without them neither the club nor I would have achieved anything.”

Dalglish, who had signed a three-year contract, led Liverpool to their first trophy in six years with the Carling Cup.

He also took the team to the FA Cup final, but fell well short of the owner’s target of finishing in the top four of the Premier League.

Sky’s Chris Skudder said: “Liverpool is a global brand and its owners want it up high in the league because of the income it can generate.”

Owners John Henry and Tom Werner – who also own the Boston Red Sox – parted ways with Dalglish after the team finished 17 points behind fourth-place Tottenham.

“Whilst I am obviously disappointed to be leaving the football club, I can say that the matter has been handled by the owners and all concerned in an honourable, respectful and dignified way,” Dalglish said.

“And (it) reflects on the quality of the people involved and their continued desire to move the football club forward in the same way as when they arrived here.”

As a football manager Dalglish has won three league titles – one with Blackburn Rovers – two FA Cups and the Carling Cup.

As a player he won numerous honours, including six English league titles and three European Cups.

Although he sacked Dalglish, principal owner Mr Henry praised the outgoing manager.

“Kenny will always be more than a championship-winning manager, more than a championship-winning star player.

“He is in many ways the heart and soul of the club. He personifies everything that is good about Liverpool Football Club,” he said.

“He has always put the club and its supporters first. Kenny will always be a part of the family at Anfield.”

Dalglish returned for a second spell at Liverpool after Roy Hodgson was sacked in January 2011.

BBC NEWS

www.dailymail.co.uk

An evil father-in-law who imprisoned his son’s Pakistani bride as a sex slave has been jailed – after his victim learned enough English to call police and beg for help.

The depraved 56-year-old stripped the bride of her jewellery and passport after she came to Britain following an arranged marriage, a court heard.

He made her swear on the Koran that she would keep the abuse a secret and promised to heap shame on her by forcing her to divorce his son if she refused his demands for sex.

But after more than three months of abuse, she summoned the little English she had picked up and called 999 at dead of night to plead with the police for help.

Her life was such unbearable misery that she contemplated suicide, Bradford Crown Court heard, after her husband effectively abandoned her at his parents’ home.

The defendant, from Bradford, West Yorkshire, subjected the 22-year-old to ‘repeated and sustained’ sexual abuse, scratching her arm with a screwdriver and burning her with an iron to reinforce his authority over her, the court heard.

Jailing him for seven years, Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC told the man: ‘She was your prisoner and slave in your home.’

He added: ‘The slavery turned into repeated, sustained sexual abuse and degradation.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk

SECRET German plans to force British taxpayers into a new multi-billion pound European Union bail-out provoked ­outrage last night.

Documents revealed that Germany’s finance ministry wants a new emergency fund to be set up if, as looks increasingly likely, debt-ridden Greece quits the European single currency system.

And officials in Berlin insist the costs of the new bail-out fund must be shared among all 27 EU members, including non-eurozone countries such as the UK.

The plot was exposed yesterday as markets across Europe were once again plunged into turmoil by the euro crisis.

Nervous traders wiped £28.5billion from the value of London’s leading shares index as fears intensified that Greece will crash out of the euro.

Another day of turmoil saw the FTSE 100 Index close two per cent, or 110 points, lower at 5465.5 as attempts to form a coalition government in Greece continued to ­stutter.

That left the country facing the ­prospect of another election next month, putting its future in the eurozone in increasing doubt. The uncertainty hit banking shares with Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays and Lloyds Banking Group among the biggest fallers.

The euro is dying on its feet, and to pour more British taxpayers’ money into saving it would be ridiculous. I am sure that the Government will not allow this to happen

EXPRESS,CO.UK

Readers comment:  Angela—- You are joking!

Azah Miah “hounded and stalked” his victims

A Carlisle takeaway boss has been jailed for 15 years for attempting to recruit four girls aged between 12 and 16 into prostitution.

Azad Miah, 44, was also found guilty of running a brothel from his business and paying two teenagers for sex.

BBC

Manchester City have apologised to Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson after striker Carlos Tevez held up a banner goading his former manager.

A City spokeswoman said: “The creation of the tasteless material is in itself reprehensible and in accepting and brandishing it, Carlos has made a significant error of judgement.

“The club wishes to express its sincerest apologies to Sir Alex Ferguson and Manchester United Football Club for any offence or distress caused.”

The sign may have been a reference to a remark by Ferguson three years ago when asked if United would ever be underdogs against City. “Not in my lifetime,” the Scot said.

City pipped arch rivals United to the title on goal difference after a dramatic last-gasp 3-2 win over QPR on the final day of the season.

The incident comes at the end of a controversial campaign for Tevez in which he spent more than three months on authorised leave in Argentina during an extraordinary dispute with the club.

He returned in February and went on to play an influential role in the title run-in although, despite making peace with manager Roberto Mancini, he continued to divide opinion among fans.

SKY NEWS

The invitation was extended by Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem over the past few days, and thus wasn’t necessarily tied to Thursday’s attack.

 

The former U.N. secretary-general brokered a cease-fire deal, to which key parties had ostensibly agreed, that was to take effect April 12. Since then there have been some calmer days but violence has continued: The Local Coordination Committees of Syria, a network of opposition activists, reports at least 1,025 people have been killed — some of them executed and tortured to death — since that date.

Syria has been mired in unrest since March 2011, when al-Assad’s forces began cracking down on anti-government demonstrators. The United Nations has said more than 9,000 people have been killed nationwide since then, while opposition groups put the toll at more than 11,000.

    Nine bodies were found hanging from an overpass

    “An organized crime group” is believed to be behind the killings, an official says

(CNN) — Residents of the Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo found nine bodies hanging from an overpass Friday morning, along with a message directed to a drug cartel.

The five men and four women were hanging from one of the busiest intersections in the city.

“We are investigating. We think it is related to an organized crime group, but we cannot speculate,” a military official told CNN. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

All of the bodies had signs of being beaten and tortured, the military official said. The bodies had their hands tied behind their backs and seven of them had blindfolds on.

The message said the victims belonged to a drug cartel and had been responsible for a car bomb that exploded outside the police station in last month

CNN

Osama bin Laden was told Ireland was ‘ready for Islam’

Osama bin Laden was urged by a fellow leading al-Qa’ida member to send a message to the Irish people to urge them to convert to Islam.

New files removed from Bin Laden’s compound reveal how Ireland was occupying the mind of top al-Qa’ida leaders.

Adam Gadahn, al-Qa’ida’s American-born spin doctor, proposed an ambitious new front in the global jihad in January of last year.

He called for the group to “prepare a message for the Irish” who he said tended to be sympathetic to the cause of the Palestinians.

He also noted “the increasing anger in Ireland towards the Catholic Church” after “sex scandals and others” and urged the group to persuade the disenchanted to turn to Islam rather than secularism.

Being “historically the prominent enemies of the Jews”, Mr Gadahn said, Catholics offered “fertile ground”.

Ibrahim Michael Noonan from Co Waterford, who is the first Irish man to become an Imam, said last night that he had become aware of a small, militant element of Islam creeping into the country and called for increased vigilance.

“I have become aware in the last year or so of a radical wing of Islam converting young Irish men who have become disenchanted with Irish society.

“I must stress that 99pc of Muslims living in Ireland have absolutely no interest in this branch of Islam but there is small element of brainwashing going on of young, disenchanted men by some extreme people who have made their way into the country,” he said.

Mr Noonan, a former theology student and staunch Catholic, contemplated becoming a priest before converting to Islam.

He is now the head of the Muslim community in Galway.

“It is unsettling to hear that there are certain people in the country who are interested in the kind of mindset of Osama bin Laden,” he said.

In the new declassified documents, Bin Laden was also advised there was a possibility of converting Irish people because of their anger over the economic crisis.

Among the documents is the letter from Mr Gadahn to an unknown recipient dated January of last year, which lays out the reasons for reaching out to the Irish people.

The documents also speculate on the impact of the clerical child abuse scandal and the economic crisis on Ireland.

“What helped to prepare the message was the last economic crisis that affected Ireland a lot, thus forcing its youth to look for sources of living in the outside,” writes Mr Gadahn.

“The other matter is the increasing anger in Ireland towards the Catholic Church after exposing a number of sex scandals and others,” he adds.

The document says that Irish people, “who were the most religious of atheist Europe,” are moving towards secularism.

“Why do not we face them with Islam?” asks Mr Gadahn.

The Republic of Ireland has never been a haven for al-Qa’ida activists.

At the turn of the century the United States became concerned at the logistical role being played by a handful of sympathisers based in the Republic, mainly on the southside of Dublin.

As a result, the garda special branch and military intelligence stepped up surveillance and intelligence gathering on a hardcore of around 20 people.

But although a number of terrorists, who had been operating in Afghanistan, were reported to have come here temporarily for a rest, there was no evidence found to indicate that any of the sympathisers based in the Republic were becoming directly involved.

BBC NEWS

David Miller

Scotland’s most senior Roman Catholic, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, has accused the prime minister of acting immorally by favouring the rich ahead of ordinary citizens affected by the recession.

The cardinal also denounced David Cameron’s opposition to a “Robin Hood tax” on financial institutions.

And he urged Mr Cameron not just to help “your very rich colleagues”.

Mr Cameron said that he understood how difficult things were for families and that more jobs were needed.

The prime minister told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: “If you’re trying to make the household budget work out, if you’ve got petrol and diesel at the prices that they are now, I understand how difficult it is when you’ve got job losses in the public sector and you need the private sector to expand faster – we need more jobs.

“I understand those difficulties, that is what gets me out of bed to work hard to do the right thing for my country and it’s got to be about the long term.”

The cardinal also said it was immoral “just to ignore” those who were suffering as a result of recent financial disasters.

In a BBC Scotland interview, he said: “My message to David Cameron, as the head of our government, is to seriously think again about this Robin Hood tax, the tax to help the poor by taking a little bit from the rich.

“The poor have suffered tremendously from the financial disasters of recent years and nothing, really, has been done by the very rich people to help them.

“And I am saying to the prime minister, look, don’t just protect your very rich colleagues in the financial industry, consider the moral obligation to help the poor of our country.”

    It is not moral just to ignore them and to say ‘struggle along’, while the rich can go sailing along in their own sweet way”

The UK government has opposed the unilateral introduction of the “Robin Hood” tax, which would impose a small tax levy on large transactions of currencies, bonds and shares. It argues jobs and investment would be lost overseas.

But the cardinal said he believes that position is immoral because, he maintains, it overlooks the needs of the poorest in society and those of the less well-off.

He said: “When I say poor, I don’t mean (only) the abject poverty we see sometimes in our streets.

“I mean people who would have considered themselves reasonably well-off.

“People who have saved for their pensions and now realise their pension funds are no more.

“People who are considering giving up their retirement homes that they have been saving for, poverty affecting young couples and so on and so on.

“It is these people who have had to suffer because of the financial disasters of recent years and it is immoral.

“It is not moral, just to ignore them and to say ‘struggle along’, while the rich can go sailing along in their own sweet way.”

BBC NEWS

The Liberal Democrats have fallen into fourth place behind Ukip in a shock poll result which will cement a sense of crisis in the party.

Just a day after a poll found the Liberal Democrats would be all but wiped out if a general election were held now, a YouGov survey for the Sun put the party on eight per cent – one point behind Ukip.

The result comes as it emerged Liberal Democrat councillors in North Tyneside have wiped all mention of their party from election leaflets in a bid to cling onto their seats.

It will also boost expectations for Ukip’s success in the upcoming local elections.

Supporters of the party complained that many London mayoral events – including those of the BBC and the Evening Standard – failed to include the Ukip candidate but made room for Green contender Jenny Jones, despite the party outpolling the Greens on projected seats on the London Assembly.

George Galloway’s shock victory in Bradford West also showed how easy it is for fringe groups to outmanoeuvre mainstream parties on their far left or right flank during mid-term votes.

In its wake, pollsters will be expecting a strong performance from Ukip at the start of next month, when local elections are held.

The YouGov survey put Labour on 43% and the Tories on 32%.

A separate Populus poll for the Times put Labour up four per cent on last month and nine points ahead of the Tories.

The result comes as George Osborne’s Budget continues to unravel, with rows over the 50p tax rate decision and taxes on pasties, grannies and philanthropy dominating the headlines.