U. Ohydrates. States that Drone Crashed, Refuting Iran's Maintain

WASHINGTONU. Ohydrates. officers feel the actual downed criminal drone at showcase on Iran crashed plus smashed right into a variety of bits, Canadian Jakke along with the Iranians reassembled them to produce the application turn up as if the application arrived at in one piece.

Officials likewise feel the actual Iranians repainted a drone, possibly so that you can obscure impairment achieved towards shape with the planes. Within the Iranian video clip, the particular drone seems whitened, while the exact you are smokey barbecue grilling overcast, many people mentioned.

Iranian authorities yesterday proved video clip in whatever some people reported seemed to be all the downed drone, this RQ-170 Sentinel. They've got variously professed they golf shot it again downward and also remotely skyjacked the item prior to when you your art without trouble.

The stealth drone was created for your Atmosphere Compel, Moncler Jacket though was basically going beneath recognition with the Middle Mind Service while their distant pilots forfeited deal with from it delayed a couple weeks ago, claimed many Ough. Ohydrates. officers.

With on the list of most-sophisticated Ough. Ohydrates. criminal airplanes right now around Iranian hands and fingers, You. Ohydrates. authorities carry on deliver the results to help you take a look at the amount of Oughout. Ohydrates. cleverness capacity had been severely sacrificed. Iran's capability to reassemble the actual drone plus wear it display screen seems to have instigated You. Ohydrates. congress in order to check with how come typically the unmanned drone didn't have enough an element this brought about the software towards self-destruct in case the idea malfunctioned, some sort of congressional established stated.

U. Ohydrates. officers accustomed to that Western comparability with the unpleasant incident powerfully fight Tehran's record along with declare the particular start sacrificed command from the art. "They wouldn't commandeer this plus help it again for the land surface, inch stated a strong Federal government endorsed. "It crashed, and in addition they place it backside mutually to create it again start looking overall, such as a bigger picture becoming decide to put once again together with each other. "

U. Ohydrates. authorities stated people assume typically the aeroplanes split in two and up products while the idea crash-landed. That test will be based upon an evaluation from the shots for Iranian telly together with the Sentinel's type needs along with brains coming from several other suppliers.

The indisputable fact that the actual drone crashed proposes the application undergone alot more ruin in comparison with is normally advocated from the Iranian online video, Sito Moncler it is definitely unsure simply how much colon problems appeared to be performed towards the work.

Administration and also army officers contain believed that Iranians would probably study smaller because of items of your planes, Trillium Parka that they state can not be without difficulty inverted constructed. Authorities stated a drone concept is consistently increasingly being improved, which could reduce a data benefits with the drone that Iranians currently have.

Some congress evaluating the actual tv show, even so, dilemma these kinds of claims.

"It won't are already very difficult to place the application spine mutually, inch mentioned 1 congressional formal. "It's an enormous damage. "

Lawmakers possess began his or her report on how come typically the drone malfunctioned.

The Federal government viewed as submitting an important to save power team so that you can covertly regain and / or damage your downed drone prior to the Iranians identified the application, yet eventually officers ditched taking that approach for the reason that at the same time precarious.

Jitters Around Unique GMAT

Although the fresh new page was introduced one year . 5 earlier, Canada Jakker all the Graduate student Administration Programs Local authority or council comes with available short the specifics of just what inquiries may for example in addition to exactly how they shall be won. Through plate to the cutting edge try beginning the calendar month, a lot of young people really are wringing most of the fists. Several test-prep advisors express they'll still experience dash regarding loan applicants hoping carry the actual evaluation next quarter or so simply to characteristics brand new part, which inturn don't glance for the audit till July.

Click all the connections beneath to attempt your five fresh practice problems belonging to the designed thought a component the particular GMAT.

The option in back of the actual "integrated reasoning" unitwhich are going to be put onto the earlier mental, Moncler Outlet quantitative along with analytical authoring sectionsis to make sure you measurement ways nicely loan applicants can easily herb plus check intricate info. All the transformation arrives mainly because universities are categorized as enhancing tension right from company employers that will add much more data-driven programmes to raised put together pupils for those troubles they should facial area immediately after college graduation.

"You're more likely for getting to assess a range statistics as compared with you're to carry out a fabulous geometry problem" running a business university, Moncler Jacket affirms John Mitchell, movie director in pre-business services located at New york Publish Corp. is Kaplan Evaluation Cooking. Geometry it's still paid for during the GMAT's old quantitative page.

So considerably, Belstaff Outlet your authorities comes with produced only just 4 pattern integrated-reasoning inquiries. You presents a fabulous dinner table associated with records relating to travel page views located at different air-ports together with questions the actual test-taker to discover cousin traveler amount, airfare landings and even takeoffs located at targeted parts. An alternative query illustrates any spread storyline about marine and also weather temperature used within a mounted area within the last yr in addition to inquires test-takers to work out connections within a pair of.

Mirielle. N. A new. erinarians Look for 'Good' Just work at For-Profits Survival a fabulous Packed Business-School Gardening What exactly is Info out of B-Schools
A lot of academic institutions tell you GMAT rates, as well as informative transcripts, can be important predictors about ways college students could execute if they come for campus, but they also really are optimistic of the fact that different part brings a far more focused details phase.

"It's a fabulous part of the perfect area, inch pronounces Andrew d Zemsky, deputy dean involving qualification services located at INSEAD. Mr. Zemsky tells which usually presented with the actual acceleration together with in which tricky possibilities will have to be produced available planet, it is advisable to evaluation seekers just for these sort of abilities.

Still, admissions police officers state they can will need at a minimum one year prior to when people discover how to look at final results from fresh department, when they observe test-takers growth with most of the very first sessions.

The try will be only just an element of the sum software plan, which in turn moreover may include interview, personal references, documents and even basic transcripts.

Many admissions police officers lament which usually kids place excessive focus on your GMAT results, with the outlay about various parts from the programs. "It fails to really make a difference might know about tell you, seekers will certainly hassle apart within the GMAT simply because it is actually (any) adjustable, along with (p) corresponding, inch pronounces Derrick Bolton, associate dean and even home about E. N. A new. admissions in Stanford Scholar Class about Home business.

Data echo which will mentality: Admissions-consulting stable Veritas Cooking seen in complaintant study the fact that people actually shell out 71 periods getting yourself ready for the particular GMAT, though only just 36 periods composing your documents and additionally in search of periods finding your way through selection interviews.

The work just for test-prep almost certainly increase as the brand new variant commences, declare assessing advisors.

To Replicate or Not To Replicate?

Checking other people's experiments is essential to the process and progress of science,Canada goose but there's a catch: Scientists have to earn a living. They have to establish careers. Replicating other people's data wins little prestige and few job offers.

How should early-career scientists deal with this asymmetry between scientific and career-development imperatives? When their adviser asks them to repeat someone else's experiment,Canada goose parka what should they do, and how should they think about what they're doing?

They should adopt a broader view of replication and look for the opportunities it presents, because replicating other scientists' work is a necessary step in advancing your own research in the same area. And that, in turn, is an essential career-development activity.

"It's not that there's an activity called ‘science’ and there's a separate activity called ‘replication,’ " says Gary King, director of the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University and a vocal proponent for data sharing and replication.Canada goose outlet "There's this general misconception that replication is this activity for low-level academics, but actually it's what the best people do."
The trick, he says, is in seeing replication not as an end in itself but as a means for acquainting yourself with the methods used in a study, the original author's line of thinking, the complications he or she must have faced, and the solutions they devised to those problems. Replicating an experiment, or even the whole study, can be useful for young scientists who are learning their way around the bench or lab,Canada goose expedition parka he says.

"The advances in science over the last several hundred years have not come only from individual scientists, … [they've] come from scholars and scientists working in concert with each other and the community," King says. "If you're going to start a new project … the first thing you should do is get up to the cutting edge of the field, and by far the best way to do that is to take the best article and to replicate it."
Victoria Stodden,Canada goose trillium parka an assistant professor of statistics at Columbia University, agrees with King. Stodden serves on the National Science Foundation's Advisory Committee for Cyberinfrastructure and has given numerous talks championing better data sharing and replication practices. "I think it's important if you're building on results in a field to replicate them, to be able to not just verify them but to understand how these results actually came about," she says. "That makes you a little more educated in terms of how you'll be able to build on those results. It's easier to extend the science if you know how it got to the place where it is today."

To that end, both Stodden and King require their undergraduate students to form teams and replicate current studies in class. It's a good way to instill the importance of data replication, they say, and to illustrate that in order to develop new ideas, scientists must first thoroughly understand the field in its current state.

King says that by working through the original author's paper and discovering the "enormous number of small decisions" he or she made that aren't explicitly described in the methods section, young scientists can often identify entirely new questions that the original author never thought to address. "The best papers that have come out of my class are not the ones that just say, 'I replicated the article in this journal and it came out the same,' or, 'it came out different.' Those are boring," he says. "The ones that are really interesting start that way and then think of a question that wasn't asked in the original article, or improve the methodology and produce a different answer."
King gives an example of a group of students a few years ago who were working to replicate a paper about presidential election campaign strategies by a respected social scientist -- King declined to name names -- and after following the paper's methods section to the letter came up with vastly different results. "It wasn't even close. It wasn't anywhere near where it should have been," he says. The students spent the next several weeks tweaking this or that variable and checking their own work to determine where the error was coming from.

At 2 o' clock one morning, King received an excited e-mail from the students. They'd figured it out. It seems the original author -- someone King describes as highly cited -- had mentioned in his methods section that he'd applied two statistical corrections to his data to account for a selection bias. But the analysis only matched the paper's figures and graphs if you ran the data without those statistical corrections; apparently, the author had forgotten to apply the corrections, even though he said he did. It was probably just an honest mistake by the author, King says, but the effects reported in the paper completely disappeared once the correct manipulations were applied. The students went on to publish their findings. "It's only by people checking what we're doing that we can figure out what we really discovered originally," he says.

Richard Muller, a physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, who is leading a team of climate scientists in a high-profile replication of decades' worth of climate data and analysis, says that developing new ideas while doing a replication study is the only thing that can make them worthwhile for young scientists. Over the years, he's seen a number of ways in which replication studies can go wrong in career terms. He points to the Fleischmann–Pons cold fusion experiments of the late 1980s. Early on, a number of young scientists set out to replicate the attention-grabbing findings of Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, and many of them did just that: They "verified" that Fleishmann and Pons had succeeded in achieving nuclear fusion by electrolyzing heavy water, he says. Within a couple years, many more studies had proven them utterly wrong. "People who replicated the experiments lost their reputations," Muller says, "while those who failed to replicate them got no credit whatsoever."
Muller's advice to young scientists is to limit replication studies to those that help move forward your own and your lab's novel research."There's a lot of replication that you do as a matter of course," he says. "When people discover a new elementary particle and determine its mass and how you produce it, for the next year people will be producing it to be able to use it." That kind of replication is valuable and pays dividends to young scientists. But doing a replication study just for the sake of checking whether the original author made a mistake isn't smart, he says.

Even in the case of Muller's recent verification of the findings from existing climate models, "we're still not published yet," Muller says. Despite the effort's high profile, a couple of journals have turned his paper down because, Muller says, they felt it didn't add anything novel to the existing literature. That illustrates why younger, less established scientists should avoid doing "pure" replication studies. Muller says his team's experiment is a little different from a traditional replication study, since they used new tools to analyze the same data.

Muller, King, and Stodden all say that with very few exceptions, if you replicate a study, you should limit its publication to a footnote -- no more -- in a paper reporting an original result. While occasionally a journal will publish a replication study by itself, they say, doing so is usually a waste of time and resources that would be better spent on original research that will further your career. Says King: "There's an enormous amount of information in any dataset that was worth publishing to begin with, and there is probably some other discovery to be made in there. It's good career advice to go find that thing."

ZoneAlarm Updates Free Firewall

Antivirus software alone won't prevent your computers and devices from getting hacked—firewalls add one extra layer of defense against malware.

Fortunately,Tods Scarpe Check Point has updated its long-free ZoneAlarm firewall protection to include a new user interface and faster installation process compared to version 9.2, which was released last year.

We haven't tested it yet, but ZoneAlarm Free Firewall 2012 works with any AV package to block cybercriminals, spyware, bots,Tods Borse and more. Check Point says the firewall basically renders your PC "invisible" to hackers; when malware is detected, the firewall kicks in an outbound protection layer that prevents cyber thieves from sending information back to host servers or distributing spam to your contacts.

The only difference between this and Check Point's firewall protection bundled in ZoneAlarm Antivirus + Firewall 2012, which costs $59.95 direct for three licenses, is that it doesn't contain "advanced download protection," which warns you if you're trying to download a malicious program, or the "OSFirewall,"Tod's which monitors programs for suspicious behavior. But apart from that, the firewall monitors all inbound and outband traffic, includes full stealth mode, kill controls, blocks phishing, and provides credit monitoring and alerts. It also allocates 2GB of free online backup.

You can download the firewall on zonealarm.com. Meanwhile, Check Point also offered up the nifty infographic below,Tods Shoes which explains to young and old just what firewalls do (click to enlarge).

Bit by Bit, Work Exchange Site Aims to Get Jobs Done

Jim Wilson/The New York Times Philip Rosedale in Coffee and Power's storefront office on Market Street in San Francisco.

Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Philip Rosedale in Coffee and Power's storefront office on Market Street in San Francisco.

SAN FRANCISCO — Philip Rosedale tried to change the nature of play with Second Life, a virtual world of colorful online avatars that got a lot of attention a few years ago. Expedition Parka　
Now he wants to change the nature of work.

While Second Life is still around, it never lived up to its hype. But Mr. Rosedale, 43, is back with a new business called Coffee and Power, where people buy and sell most any kind of task, like making Halloween costumes or writing sophisticated software.Trillium Parka

To prove his point that a work exchange could function, Mr. Rosedale built the software for his new company by hiring programmers from around the world and dividing up the work into about 1,600 individual tasks, from setting up databases to fixing bugs.

“We think it’s the new model for how software will be written,” he said. “It worked so well that we decided to extend it to all sorts of work.”

Coffee and Power has storefront space in a nondescript part of San Francisco’s Market Street where people can drop in and offer to do jobs or hire people for tasks. They can even start working together on the spot. Mr. Rosedale works upstairs, along with a handful of full-time staff members.Canada Goose

On a recent day, the public space had three groups of people making use of the human and laptop fuels behind the company name. The groups were working on software projects, business planning and tutorials.

As with Second Life, the business has a virtual currency for buying, selling or bestowing tasks as gifts. Coffee and Power takes a 15 percent fee for moving the money back into real dollars.

The site has been active since spring with little fanfare. It attracted fewer than 700 transactions, but is now starting to actively solicit buyers and sellers.

“About 25 percent of our site is needs, and the rest is offers,” Mr. Rosedale said. “We’ll need about 10,000 jobs before we know what the final balance is like.”

Other online services have similar ideas — Task Rabbit, Freelancer.com and Amazon’s Mechanical Turk among them. One of the striking things about these services is how inexpensive it is to get something done.

Translation services on Coffee and Power currently sell for $10 a job, and a bike messenger can be had for $15. Much of the time, the people involved are already in these professions and are looking to make a few extra dollars on the side.

Besides putting downward pressure on what people can charge, the low prices also raise questions about the quality of the services. That is one reason that Mr. Rosedale is publicizing that he used cheap labor to build his own site.

He paid about $200,000 to build Coffee and Power, he said, using an earlier version of the service called Worklist. Every step in the development process is visible on the site, including the amount people have been paid for their work. An Australian working under the name Lithium has earned $46,523 since January, for example.

Another test project, called Hudat, is an iPhone application that converts pictures of Facebook and LinkedIn friends into online flashcards. The idea is that a person can review images before attending a party. It cost $2,600 to build, a fraction of what work like this normally costs, and was built in two weeks. The process is open for anyone to see.

“We work on total transparency,” Mr. Rosedale said. “If you don’t want anyone to see what you are working on, this is not for you.”

Second Life, in its heyday, held similar promise. While it became notorious for sexual chatter, it has over the years attracted a Reuters news bureau, now defunct, as well as emporiums of several companies like American Apparel and Starwood Hotels. Cisco Systems also held meetings there. Second Life still exists, but is much quieter now, offering virtual currency, meetings and digital real estate, among other services.

While he is still chairman of Linden Lab, the company that created Second life, Mr. Rosedale talks about that venture in the past tense.

“The problem with creating an immersive 3-D experience is that it is just too involved, and so it’s hard to get people to engage,” he said. “Smart people in rural areas, the handicapped, people looking for companionship, they love it. But you have to be highly motivated to get on and learn to use it.”

Mr. Rosedale, who raised about $1 million for Coffee and Power from investors including Jeff Bezos, Catamount Ventures and Greylock Partners, sees the trend of breaking work into smaller pieces — both in software and for physical tasks — as one that will continue to gain traction.

“I would rather hire a kid in Brazil who is hungry for work for a project than hire a Stanford graduate,” he said.

Gaddafi buried in unmarked grave in Libya desert to avoid creating shrine

The belated finale for Muammar Gaddafi began on a marble slab in a car park and ended with a lonely burial in the desert far from the reach of family or foe.

After his body spent five days on gruesome display, Libya's new rulers finally decided late on Monday night to put Gaddafi to rest, capping a week of uncertainty about what to do with the slain despot's remains and closing an era of fear and infamy.

"We gave him all the Islamic rituals that we would give any Muslim," said the deputy chief of Libya's new governing council in Misrata, Sadiq Badi. "It was more than he would have given us, but we gave him a dignified end."

He was prepared for burial alongside two other corpses – his son Mutassim and his former military chief, Abu Bakr Younes, who had been holed up with him during the fall of Sirte.

Just before midnight, three Islamic holy men, all of whom have been imprisoned by rebels, along with three family members of the dead men, were taken from their cells in Misrata to a building on the outskirts of town.

The six men were told to wash the three bodies. Younes's sons, Osma and Younes, were allowed to clean their father, while the grandson of Gaddafi's sister, Sharif al-Gaddafi, had the task of washing his great-uncle. They were the only family members allowed near the bodies.

Libyan officials rejected repeated requests from the Gaddafi tribe in Sirte to hand over their patron and leader. Overtures from his wife, Safia, and daughter Aisha were also turned down.

Alongside the men were three sheikhs who the regime had used to help secure its 42-year grip. Khaled Tantoush, Medina Shwarfa and Samira Jarousi were loyal to Gaddafi until the end, their captors say.

They crouched at a cream-coloured marble slab, which was slick with water from a nearby garden hose. Nearby, three tables stood illuminated by a giant lamp, a generator purring next to them and uniformed rebels watching from the shadows.

The slab was outside a nondescript government building that like many others in Misrata had been ravaged during the civil war. It was purpose-built for washing corpses, an essential prerequisite for Islamic burials, almost all of which are conducted within 24 hours of death.

The extended time above ground had clearly taken a toll on Gaddafi's remains and Tantoush said preparing the dictator for burial was an unpleasant experience. For most of the previous five days, the decaying bodies had been displayed on blood-stained mattresses in a meat-packing crate, with thousands of people clamouring for trophy photographs.

The spectacle had stirred disquiet in Misrata and turned stomachs abroad. Libyan officials defended the display as a need for people of this traumatised country to find closure and to see for themselves that their 42-year ordeal was over.

"I didn't feel anything when I was washing him," said Tantoush. "I was just doing my duty as a Muslim. He was a person and he should be properly buried."

"Liar," muttered one of his jailers, Haithem Danduna, at Tantoush. "He is a chameleon," he added, pointing at Tantoush. "He was green until a week ago," in reference to the colour of the regime.

Appearing flustered, the sheikh continued: "It was a good thing what they did last night, allowing us to bury him. It was a good start of a new beginning. After we finished washing him we moved to the tables and we wrapped them in white, then prayed for them. The whole process took about an hour. The guards helped us move the bodies."

The whereabouts of Gaddafi's grave is a closely guarded secret in Misrata. Authorities here and elsewhere in Libya are anxious to avoid his grave site becoming a shrine for his supporters, or a target for his enemies.

Of his inner circle, only Gaddafi's long-term driver, Huneish Nasr, and Sharif were present at the burial alongside rebel guards. "We are not going to let him be remembered as a martyr," said Danduna. "He got a proper burial and now let the desert consume him."

Across town, at a cemetery for nameless victims of the war, gravedigger Salam Zwaid pointed a gnarled hand at the grey slabs behind him. "This is the best Gaddafi could have hoped for," he said, walking through the shallow graves, all of which were sealed by cheap concrete.

"He saw himself as the king of kings, someone who was better than all of this," he said. "But he was no god. He was a person and a bad person at that. No one should learn where he was buried."

Back at the prison, Tantoush claimed the burial could be cathartic for Libya, where Gaddafi's brutal end is still sinking in. "In the beginning I thought he was righteous and on the right path," he said in remarks his jailers insisted were self-serving. "And after 17 February every bit of news we got was wrong. We didn't know this was a real revolution.

"I was in Sirte and after a while we knew he was there. But I changed my support for him a month ago when they wouldn't let the Red Cross enter to treat the wounded. After that it all became clear.

"His death should wake people up. It is time to move on now. I hope people never find his grave. If they wanted to tell me where it was, I would not want to know. All Libyans should think the same."

Pictures of Gaddafi's corpse continue to be published in Libyan newspapers and shown on TV. Freshly painted graffiti on the streets of Tripoli – in Arabic and English – read: "Dictator Gaddafi sent a message to the Libyan people from hell, saying 'I am staying here.'"

Images were also circulating on the internet apparently showing Gaddafi being sodomised with a stick or metal rod. The footage was shot on a video on a mobile phone and includes sounds of gunfire and shouts of "Allahu akbar."

Towns with jobs galore... but no one interested in doing them, says damning survey of bosses

Many job seekers cannot even be bothered to turn up for interviews on time and lack 'the right attitude to work', a damning survey of employers revealed yesterday.
Despite unemployment rocketing to a 17-year high, nearly half of employers said they could not find the right person for a job when they have a vacancy.
They said candidates were hampered by poor literacy and numeracy.

Even if they have the right qualifications, they often lack 'soft' skills such as timekeeping and communication, according to the report by the British Chambers of Commerce.
More than 440 firms in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire were asked whether they find it easy or difficult to recruit the right staff for a job. Unemployment in the East Midlands currently stands at 183,000.
Just 30 per cent said they find it easy – but 43 per cent said they find it quite or very difficult. When asked why candidates were wrong for the job, many bosses said they did not have ‘the right attitude towards work’.

Others said some job hunters were so lazy they could not even turn up for an interview on time.
George Cowcher, chief executive of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire Chamber of Commerce, said: ‘A highly-skilled workforce is absolutely crucial to the success of any business.
‘But the results of this survey provide incontrovertible evidence of what our members have been telling us for some time.

‘Businesses want to expand, create jobs and develop their workforce, but are hampered by a lack of skills in the local labour market.’
Mr Cowcher said businesses believe that more needs to be done to help school leavers, young adults and the long-term unemployed.
He called on the Government to put skills and training at the ‘very heart’ of its growth strategy. 

Mr Cowcher said there were around 27,000 job vacancies in the region. Last month Dragons’ Den star Deborah Meaden said she could not recruit teenage apprentices for her textiles factory because they do not think manual labour is ‘cool’.
Last week a poll of some of Britain’s biggest firms, including HSBC, Santander and KPMG, found widespread despair with the quality of potential recruits.
Three in four bosses said school leavers and graduates lack the ‘basic skills’ needed to join the workforce, according to education charity Young Enterprise.
Another report, from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, said employers had ‘concerns about the employability of young people’.
It found bosses prefer foreign workers to British school leavers because they have a more ‘positive’ attitude.
Yesterday a spokesman for the Department for Education said: ‘We share the concerns of many businesses that too many of our young people leave school without the skills needed for work, in particular in the basics of English and maths.’

Citizen Cain

Herman Cain had last been at the Hyatt Hotel in Columbus, Ohio, in July as a ridiculously unlikely Republican candidate for president, a man who summarizes himself as an “ABC.”

“American black conservative,” Cain says.

Now, by the magic of his personality, a preacher-bred speaking style, a bootstrap personal narrative, and a catchy name for a tax overhaul, the ABC was back at the hotel as a frontrunner against the perpetually unexciting Mitt Romney. Sitting down for a breakfast interview with Newsweek on Friday morning, following a strong debate performance earlier in the week that helped propel him to the lead slot in several polls, Cain was suddenly the great black hope of the GOP, the anti-Obama. “I believe he’s a decent man,” Cain says of the president. “But he’s a terrible leader.”

Cain seems determinedly undaunted by political practicalities, however heavily they weigh against his chances. He remains a black Republican in a predominantly white party who has only a fledgling organization and no ground game in the crucial early primary and caucus states. And until very recently, he didn’t seem to have much of a sense of urgency about his own campaign, wandering off the trail to do a book tour for a time—which caused the departure of several staffers who were concerned that he wasn’t serious about running for president.

For all those shortcomings, Cain has become the vessel for a loud and stubborn resistance in Republican ranks to the party’s tradition of rallying around the big-name, big-bucks establishment candidate. He is the latest beneficiary of the anybody-but-Romney crowd, which fell in and out of love with Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry, and can only think “what if” of Chris Christie. In a year when anti-establishment sentiment is raging and conventional wisdom is useless, Herman Cain has found his moment and seems to be having a blast riding the high. Denying Sarah Palin’s charge that he is the flavor of the week, Cain quipped, “I’m H?agen-Dazs black walnut. It lasts longer than a week.”

From an early age, Cain, 65, has coped with racism by changing the civil-rights mantra to the singular—“I shall overcome”—to the fury of those African-American leaders who stick to “we.” A man who has called himself “the CEO of Self” has become a candidate who allows Republicans to oppose America’s first black president without feeling racist. He suggests that a matchup between himself and Obama would prove that race is not a major factor in American politics.

Romney would be tough on China, he says

Republican Mitt Romney said Thursday that the United States was enduring “a trade surrender” and that if elected president, he would crack down on foreign importers who circumvent trade rules and take a tougher stance with China over intellectual property violations.

“If you cheat, there’s a huge advantage,” Romney said. “Fortunately in most of our lives, we find a way to stop the cheaters.?.?. we haven’t done that with regards to trade. China, in particular, has realized the extraordinary advantage to cheating.”
In remarks delivered at Microsoft’s corporate headquarters near Seattle, a major port city for trans-Pacific trade, Romney accused the Chinese of stealing U.S. designs, patents, know-how and technologies.

“I want to make sure that people we trade with follow the rules and if someone consistently cheats, I want to make sure they understand that can’t go on,” Romney said.

Standing before a giant Microsoft logo at the software giant’s Redmond, Wash., offices, Romney called for opening global markets for U.S. goods and services. Romney said trading with other nations “is very good for a high productivity nation like ours,” but accused President Obama of standing in the way of free trade.

Romney lamented that it took three years for Congress to pass free trade agreements with Columbia, Panama and South Korea. During that time, Romney said, European Union nations and China negotiated or finalized 44 trade agreements with China.

“Despite the fact that trade is good for us, over the last few years our nation has been asleep at the switch,” Romney said.

Obama’s political team pushed back, saying the administration has pursued “strong” intellectual property enforcement, has pressed China repeatedly on monetary policy and is implementing World Trade Organization safeguards designed to protect U.S. products.

“President Obama has taken unprecedented steps to make sure China plays by the rules,” the Democratic National Committee said in a statement. “He’s made clear that he will enforce America’s trade laws and stand with American workers.”

More than any other candidate in the GOP presidential race, Romney has seized on China as a campaign issue, repeatedly talking tough about the Asian nation and labeling it a “cheater” and a “currency manipulator.”

Romney’s trade policy agenda includes imposing punitive tariffs on some Chinese products. He also calls for working together with other developed nations to impose intellectual property sanctions and block the transfer into China of some highly prized technologies.

Romney’s trade policy agenda includes imposing punitive tariffs on some Chinese products. He also calls for working together with other developed nations to impose intellectual property sanctions and to block the transfer into China of some highly prized technologies.

Former Utah governor Jon Huntsman Jr., who until earlier this year served as Obama’s ambassador to China, has criticized Romney’s posture.

“First of all, I don’t subscribe to the Donald Trump school or the Mitt Romney school of international trade. I don’t want to find ourselves in a trade war,” Huntsman said in Tuesday’s Washington Post-Bloomberg debate.

Does my bomb look big? Nudist beach contains 87 explosives

NATURISTS have been stunned by some bare facts... 87 bombs have been found at a nudist beach.

Experts at the Royal Navy unearthed 61 of the explosives – some dating back to the late 19th century – during a two-day sweep of the sands.

They were called in after 26 bombs – including two submarine depth charges and at least six 10lb mortars – washed up on the beach.

The Navy’s elite team of bomb disposal officers detonated explosives in the sea near the shore.

A string of other items such as bullets were part of the haul found at Leysdown Beach on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent.

North Kent coastguard manager Colin Ingram, who oversaw the controlled explosions, said: “It is quite a find. A lot of shooting and plane exercises happened around Leysdown. Sometimes the shells wouldn’t go off when dropped from a plane or shot from a rifle.

“They were cushioned by the mud and did not explode.”

The east side of the beach – often called Shellness – is the official nudist area.

It is listed on the UK’s Naturist Factfile which says: “Recent reports suggest regular use by 20 to 30 naturists, with up to 100 at busy weekends.”

The website adds: “This beach is a mixture of sand, shingle, shells and, in places, mud.”

A sunken Second World War wreck – the SS Richard Montgomery – lies two miles off the coast and is packed with 1,400 tonnes of explosives. But the bombs on the beach are not thought to have come from the stricken US vessel which went down in 1944.

There is an exclusion zone around the ship – whose masts can still be seen from the shore – and worries have been raised that if it is not recovered it could lead to the remains of the ship collapsing and the munitions escaping.

Supermarket price war hots up as Sainsbury's declares it will match Tesco and Asda cuts

Sainsbury’s has pledged to match thousands of prices at rivals Tesco and Asda as the price war between the UK’s leading supermarkets intensifies.
The 'Brand Match' promotion starts on Wednesday and comes two weeks after Tesco launched a ￡500million 'Big Price Drop' that cut the prices on 3,000 lines including milk, bread, fruit and vegetables.
Sainsbury’s has installed a price comparison system at tills across its branches that will instantly calculate the price of branded goods in a customer’s shopping basket against the same brands at Asda and Tesco.
If the basket is cheaper at its rivals, Sainsbury’s customers will get a coupon for the difference that is valid for two weeks. The minimum spend is ￡20 and the promotion will not apply to online shopping.
Britain’s third largest supermarket has promised to match the prices charged by its main rivals on thousands of branded goods, such as Heinz Baked Beans and Tropicana orange juice.
Competition for shoppers’ cash has become increasingly fierce as economic uncertainty, wage freezes and high inflation have squeezed consumer income.
Households are facing the most severe squeeze on disposable income since World War II due to soaring food and energy costs and below-inflation pay rises.
Last week Tesco posted its worst sales UK figures in two decades as customers bought less food, shunned luxury items and switched to budget rivals such as Aldi.
Four out of five UK shoppers are now in the ‘squeezed middle’ facing struggling to cope with the surging cost of living, Tesco warned last month.
The outlook for the High Street is unlikely to improve soon after the Indian summer heaped further pressure on beleaguered retailers, research from accountants BDO released this morning.
The unseasonably hot weather kept consumers sweltering at home rather than visisting their local shopping mall, it said.
The autumnal weather may prove only a temporary respite as a retail recovery will be hampered by the gloom enveloping the economy.
Analysts at BDO said: ‘With consumer appearing to be hamstrung by weak confidence levels, retailers may have to promote heavily to stimulate demand.’
Demand, especially for big-ticket items, such as new kitchen ware and electronics is feeling the effects of the plunging disposable incomes.
Howard Archer of HIS Global Insight said: ‘The serious squeeze on  consumers’ spending power has if anything increased recently.’
Inflation is running is 4.5pc and is expected to top 5pc over the coming months, while average  earnings are rising by less than 2pc.
From Wednesday, shoppers in Sainsbury’s will be given coupons to make up the difference between its prices and those of its rivals.
Shoppers will have to spend ￡20 or more to receive the vouchers, which expire after a fortnight.
Mike Coupe, Sainsbury’s Group Commercial Director, claimed its new price matching offensive was a ‘revolution in retail’ and ‘fantastic news for hard-pressed shoppers’.
‘We have been listening to feedback from consumers and they tell us that stretched budgets mean they are shopping around to get the best deals,’ said Mr Coupe.

Lord Sugar tells Apprentice winner Stella English 'you're fired'!

She was the gutsy mum-of-two who clawed her way up from a troubled childhood to land a ￡100,000-a-year job as Lord Sugar’s Apprentice.

Stella English won the show in front of 10million viewers in December 2010, with the tycoon hailing her determination and “never say die” attitude.

Ice-cool Stella, 32, beat investment banker Chris Bates in one of the most closely fought Apprentice finals ever. Her voice cracked with emotion as she -accepted her dream job and declared: “I’m so -excited about the future.”
But now, less than 10 months later, Stella’s dreams have been shattered after Lord Sugar told her: “You’re fired!”

The ex-banker was stunned to be told she would be out of a job by -Christmas in a devastating boardroom meeting with the straight-talking businessman 10 days ago.

Stella told the Sunday Mirror: “I’m gutted. This was my dream and I had worked so hard for it... suddenly it’s all over.”

Stella reveals how she relocated her -family close to work to prove her commitment and even fell into debt as she pursued her ambition of a career with Lord Sugar. But she was disappointed she didn’t get to work more closely with him or ever given the opportunity to do “a proper job”.

Stella walked out this week after being told her contract wasn’t being renewed, bringing to an end two rollercoaster years since she quit her ￡85,000 job in the City to take part in The Apprentice.

Her backstory made great TV. She was given up for adoption by a mother with severe mental health problems, grew up on South London’s tough Thamesmead est-ate and left school with no qualifications.

But she worked her way up from PA to a senior trading floor job with Japanese bank Daiwa, giving birth to two boys along the way. She said: “I didn’t see The -Apprentice as a way out of banking, I saw it as a way into the commercial world.”

In November 2009 she filmed the final boardroom scenes with Chris, expecting the winner to be announced within six months. But the end of the show was hugely delayed amid concerns about Labour peer Lord Sugar appearing on TV in the 2010 General -Election campaign.
TV company Talkback Thames agreed to pay Stella to cover the 10-month gap, but she -struggled to get by. She said: “The money was just enough to cover the mortgage but I couldn’t pay the arrears, couldn’t pay the bills, I got myself in a mess.”

In September 2010, Stella and Chris started a three-month trial for Lord Sugar to decide the -winner. After she was placed with his IT firm Viglen, she moved her family from South London to a house near its HQ in St Albans, Herts, to prove her commitment to the company.

She was excited when Lord Sugar asked her to work with a team -working on IT projects for schools and hospitals. But she felt the responsibilities she was given did not match up to the job -description, so after a few weeks she asked to meet Lord Sugar. She asked him for feedback and she claims he told her, ‘I’ll tell you the feedback, shall I? Nice girl... don’t do a lot’.”

Stella was devastated, but then -impressed her boss by giving him a -presentation of the work she had been -doing.

Lord Sugar then called in Viglen’s chief executive Bordan Tkachuk – one of the interview panellists on The Apprentice –and another executive and made her explain again. Stella said: “It was terrifying. They put up a fight and had an answer for everything. Clearly I was rocking the boat, having brought the boss down to scrutinise them. Lord Sugar called me later and said, ‘I can tell you, you ain’t got any support here.’ But he also told her Apprentice winners often had a tough time. “He told me, ‘You get put into a company. People have been there a long time and they know what you’re earning. It’s a lot of jealousy.’

“But I felt I could still win them over. I was pleased Lord Sugar stood by me and gave me a chance to speak up for myself.”

Stella now feels her career went downhill from that day on. She said: “For one -colleague, the minute I went over his head to Lord Sugar, that was career -suicide.”

In December she was officially named as Lord Sugar’s ￡100,000 Apprentice -winner and hoped life as a project -manager at Viglen would change for the better.

“I remember thinking, ‘Do I really want this job?’ I’d got what I worked for, but there were real doubts. Then when I went in on my first day I was told, ‘The cameras have stopped rolling, welcome to the real world...there is no job’.”

Then she was told someone had left, and they had found her a position reporting to a manager paid a fraction of her salary.

Stella said: “My jaw hit the floor -because he was so junior. There were four or five people between me and Lord Sugar. It was disappointing because I knew previous Apprentices had been given the chance to work more closely with him.”

Stella claims that no-one would listen to her. While the job stress took its toll, she planned her March wedding to Ray Dewar, dad to her sons Edward, five, and Frank, three.

She said: “The situation at work cast a bit of a shadow, but I felt it was an important step to solidify the most important thing in my life... my -family.”

The final straw at Viglen came when Stella felt she was being sidelined on the schools projects she had expected to lead. She felt her Apprentice dream had gone horribly wrong.

Based 25 miles from his HQ in Essex, she says she had only four or five conver-sations with her mentor in five months.

She said: “I don’t blame Lord Sugar for what -happened at Viglen. He had taken an active -interest. I didn’t want to be another let-down, so if he asked me if things were going OK I would say yes – even though everything was -terrible. In fact I was going home to my children in our beautiful house and bursting into tears. I had never been more miserable in my adult life.”

She told Lord Sugar she was thinking of -leaving at a meeting in May and he told her to talk about her concerns to a senior col-league. But at the last minute she decided to hand in her resig-nation at that meeting, without telling Lord Sugar.

Stella said: “He called me and was obviously angry because the last -conversation we had was, ‘Go in there, give ’em hell’ and suddenly I was -leaving. I was terrified and shaking but I told him it just hadn’t worked out and never would and I just wanted to go so I could get on with my life.”

Stella said she then had two calls from a PR firm representing Lord Sugar and -Apprentice winners. She told them she had no plans to speak out publicly.

But then she got a call from Lord Sugar offering her a new role at set-top- box firm YouView, where he is part-time non-executive chairman.

Stella said: “I didn’t have a job, and I still wanted to work for him.”

She moved back to London and started in June as a commercial -manager at YouView. She claims the job was going well and a promotion to business development manager was discussed, but she became nervous as her contact with Lord Sugar tailed off.

Then on September 28 she was stun-ned when he called her to a crunch meeting at YouView’s HQ and said, ‘Your -contract’s up at the end of December and I don’t know what to do with you after that because that’s it, so you might think about what you want to do.’

“He said people liked me, they liked having me around but the fact is they couldn’t pay me. He said, ‘I’ve met my obligations to you as far as I’m concerned... you were happy to walk out on me, weren’t you?’”

Then, she claims, Lord Sugar, with typical directness, told her: “If you think Lord Sugar was *****ing himself when you left the Viglen job you’re wrong, because I don’t give a s***.”

She claims he then told her the reason she was there was to protect the BBC show, himself, then finally her.

She said: “What I took offence at was feeling my new job was just PR for the show. That was the nail in the coffin... every last bit of loyalty just went.”

She was devastated when YouView confirmed they could not offer her a job. She left after handing in her phone and laptop on Monday – and handed in her resignation on Friday, two days ago.

Stella said: “I have to stand up for myself. I don’t want to be seen as -another failed Apprentice. I respect Lord Sugar, I was trying to make him proud. To be told I don’t have a job and realising I don’t know how I will support the kids at Christmas is tough.

“I feel like I’ve wasted two years of my life when I could have been doing something much better.”

Lord Sugar declined to comment, but a source confirmed Stella had resigned for a second time and claimed many of her allegations were untrue or misrepresented the facts. The source said she “constantly complained” about being in debt despite her ￡100,000 salary. Staff at Viglen and Lord Sugar, said the source, had decided she was “not as good as she thinks”.

The source also claimed Stella blamed others for her own failings, didn’t accept that she had a lot to learn and suggested she was motivated by money in giving this interview contradicting what she had previously publicly said.

In March this year she made a speech thanking Lord Sugar for an “amazing opportunity”, the source pointed out.

Lord Sugar’s team also worked hard, the source added, to protect Stella from media claims that her husband had links with London’s criminal underworld.

An Airline Eases Seat Squeeze; Will Others Follow?

German airline Lufthansa shoehorned 8% more seats into some of its planes by squishing rows of new seats two inches closer together.
"When the guy in front of me put his seat back, I still had a good four to five inches in front of my burgeoning belly," said frequent traveler Darren Mak of Winnipeg, Canada, who has a bad back but felt good, firm support.

Joe Winogradoff of New York City boarded a Lufthansa flight recently in Munich, saw coach rows scrunched together and figured the short flight to Frankfurt would be painful. "I thought, oh God, this will be bad. But I was really surprised," he said.

A next generation of ultra-thin airplane seats creates extra inches of space by using strong mesh similar to fancy office chairs instead of inches of foam padding. Tricks such as moving magazine pockets to the top of the seatback also leave more space for knees. The result benefits both passengers, who get extra space, and Lufthansa, which gets more room to add seats—and boosts revenue potential.

The seats, which will make their way into airplane cabins around the world, throw into question something airlines and savvy travelers watch closely: "seat pitch," a standard measurement of the distance from a point on a seat to the same point on the next row. Most airlines post seat pitch on their websites so passengers can make legroom comparisons.

The new Lufthansa seating looks ultra-skimpy—worse than almost anything flying in the U.S. or Europe—with a seat pitch of 30 inches. But because the seats take up less space, travelers actually have more room in that 30-inch row than they had when Lufthansa's seat pitch was a more traditional 32 inches. At knee level, because of the magazine-pocket relocation and other changes in the slim design, passengers get more than an inch of additional room.

"The importance, at the end of the day, is comfort for the passenger, not seat pitch," said Christian K?rfgen, Lufthansa's manager of in-flight product who led the airline's seat redesign.
Lufthansa has asked the government-run German Institute for Standardization to come up with a new standard for passenger space. The project manager for the aerospace standards committee said the group hopes to submit a preliminary proposal to a European aerospace industry group by the end of the year, with work to follow with the industry next year.

"Everybody who is really interested in giving quality information about seat comfort needs to come up with something more than seat pitch," Mr. K?rfgen said.

SeatGuru.com, a website popular with frequent fliers that rates best and worst seats on particular planes, uses seat pitch as a foundation of its comparisons. SeatGuru has flagged the new Lufthansa seats, noting they are thinner. But SeatGuru founder Matt Daimler, who recently traveled in the new Lufthansa seating, says he's now convinced the measurement that needs to be taken is the distance from the back of the seat, where it meets the bottom cushion, to the back of the seat in front of you. That would be the space available for your fanny and knees.

"The measure we need to compare is knee room," he said. "We need some new kind of representation of comfort to share with people."

When he sits in an AirTran seat with 30-inch seat pitch, said Mr. Daimler, who is 6-foot-1, his knees touch the seat in front of him. In the Lufthansa seat at 30-inch seat pitch, there was ample room. "Lufthansa felt to me like 32 inches," he said. "That number [30 inches] is not reflective of what you actually get."

Other seasoned travelers on recent Lufthansa flights felt like they had even more room. Ed Pizzarello, a private-equity executive from Leesburg, Va., flew Lufthansa in Europe recently and found the seating akin to the extra-room rows available on jetBlue Airways and United Airlines, which have a roomy 36-inch seat pitch.

"They have carved out two to three extra inches, and it felt like even more," said Mr. Pizzarello. "It was definitely better than anything in the U.S. in regular coach, other than Economy Plus and jetBlue."

Airlines have been moving to slim seats for several years, with varying levels of comfort. Some passengers complain that taking away the thick foam cushioning has worsened the ride, especially when rows are pushed closer together.

In the U.S., financial struggles prompted older major airlines to cut legroom to make space for more seats. United, Delta, American, Continental and US Airways all have the most basic coach seats in typical domestic planes like the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 at 31-inch seat pitch.

Newer, low-fare carriers that avoided giant losses kept seat-pitch at more traditional levels. JetBlue Airways has 34 inches of seat pitch in its standard rows. Southwest has the same number of seats (137) in its 737-300 and 737-700 jets that it has had for decades, laid out in rows with 32- and 33-inches of seat pitch. Virgin America and Alaska Airlines also offer 32-inch seat pitch.

More change is coming as airlines, which have spent heavily to upgrade business-class cabins for international service, turn more attention to refurbishing coach cabins.

Adding more seats to planes is extremely attractive financially for airlines, potentially turning money-losing flights profitable when an extra five to 10 fare-paying passengers are on board. The new configuration also saves the airline hundreds of millions of dollars in new-jet purchases. On the A320, for example, Lufthansa added two rows of seats, giving the plane 174 seats instead of 162. Lufthansa says the extra seats on its entire continental European fleet are the equivalent of having 12 more Airbus A320 jets.

Saudi police open fire on civilians as protests gain momentum

Pro-democracy protests which swept the Arab world earlier in the year have erupted in eastern Saudi Arabia over the past three days, with police opening fire with live rounds and many people injured, opposition activists say.

Saudi Arabia last night confirmed there had been fighting in the region and that 11 security personnel and three civilians had been injured in al-Qatif, a large Shia city on the coast of Saudi Arabia's oil-rich Eastern Province. The opposition say that 24 men and three women were wounded on Monday night and taken to al-Qatif hospital.

The Independent has been given exclusive details of how the protests developed by local activists. They say unrest began on Sunday in al-Awamiyah, a Shia town of about 25,000 people, when Saudi security forces arrested a 60-year-old man to force his son – an activist – to give himself up.

Ahmad Al-Rayah, a spokesman for the Society for Development and Change, which is based in the area, said that most of the civilians hit were wounded in heavy firing by the security forces after 8pm on Monday. "A crowd was throwing stones at a police station and when a local human rights activist named Fadel al-Mansaf went into the station to talk to them and was arrested," he said.

Mr Rayah added that "there have been protests for democracy and civil rights since February, but in the past the police fired into the air. This is the first time they have fired live rounds directly into a crowd." He could not confirm if anybody had been killed.

The Shia of Saudi Arabia, mostly concentrated in the Eastern Province, have long complained of discrimination against them by the fundamentalist Sunni Saudi monarchy. The Wahhabi variant of Islam, the dominant faith in Saudi Arabia, holds Shia to be heretics who are not real Muslims.

The US, as the main ally of Saudi Arabia, is likely to be alarmed by the spread of pro-democracy protests to the Kingdom and particularly to that part of it which contains the largest oil reserves in the world. The Saudi Shia have been angered at the crushing of the pro-democracy movement in Bahrain since March, with many protesters jailed, tortured or killed, according Western human rights organisations.

Hamza al-Hassan, an opponent of the Saudi government from Eastern Province living in Britain, predicted that protests would spread to more cities. "I am frightened when I see video film of events because most people in this region have guns brought in over the years from Iraq and Yemen and will use them [against government security men]," he said. He gave a slightly different account of the start of the riots in al-Awamiyah, saying that two elderly men had been arrested by the security forces, one of whom had a heart attack.

"Since September there has been a huge presence of Saudi security forces in al-Qatif and all other Shia centres," he said. Al-Qatif was the scene of similar protests in March, which were swiftly quashed by security forces.

The Saudi statement alleges that the recent protests were stirred up by an unnamed foreign power, by which it invariably means Iran. The interior ministry was quoted on Saudi television as saying that "a foreign country is trying to undermine national security by inciting strife in al-Qatif". Saudi Arabia and the Sunni monarchies of the western Gulf have traditionally blamed Iran for any unrest by local Shia, but have never produced any evidence other than to point at sympathetic treatment of the demonstrations on Iranian television.

The 20 doctors in Bahrain sentenced to up to 15 years in prison last week say their interrogators tortured them repeatedly to force them to make false confessions that Iran was behind the protests. The counter-revolution in Bahrain was heralded by the arrival of a 1,500-strong Saudi-led military force, which is still there.

Mr Rayah, who flew from Saudi Arabia to Beirut to be free to talk about the protests, said: "People want a change and a new way of living." He said that, in particular, they were demanding a constitution and a free assembly for the Eastern Province. He also wanted the Society for Development and Change legally registered.

Mr Hassan blamed the protests on the fact "that there has been no political breakthrough".

"I am from the city of al-Safwa, which is very close to al-Awamiyah, and there is very high unemployment in both," he said. Some 70 per cent of the Saudi population is believed to be under 30 and many do not have jobs. "We were hoping for municipal reforms and regional elections for years but we got nothing."

He said reforms reported in the Western media were meaningless and that only a few Saudis had bothered to vote in the most recent local elections because local councils had no power.

Strictly Come Dancing 2011: Robbie Savage - I don't dance sober, I don't dance drunk... except at my wedding

STRUTTING towards the camera in a cloud of hairspray and aftershave, Robbie Savage flashes a row of teeth as white as his suit.

“I am never in a million years wearing that,” he laughs, waving a top hat. “It’ll wreck my hair.”

With his mane of blond disco-diva locks and matching perma-tan, the controversial footballer-turned-pundit looks tailor-made for Strictly Come Dancing.

But there’s one small problem – Robbie doesn’t dance.

A hate figure for opposition fans throughout his career, Robbie says he is doing the Saturday night show for his mum, Val.

After years of insults, death threats and attacks as recently as a few weeks ago, Robbie, 37, can’t take it anymore.

“I don’t dance,” he says. “I don’t dance sober, I don’t dance drunk. I don’t dance at weddings – well I danced at my own, but that’s it.

“The main reason I’m doing this is because of my mum. I don’t want it to be a big sob story, I know everyone has problems. But my dad has Alzheimer’s, so it’s upsetting for her to hear the stuff that happens to me.

“People didn’t like how I was on the field playing football, but that was me doing my job and trying to win. My mum loves Strictly and getting the chance to show everyone I’m not this horrible guy may help her, and the rest of my family.”

Just a few weeks ago, Mirror columnist Robbie was attacked by a stranger in front of his son Charlie, eight. Luckily his younger boy Freddie, four, wasn’t there at the time.

“I was punched in the back of the head by some bloke at Old Trafford,” he says. “He came from behind and just punched me, in front of my boy. And then he calmly strolled off eating a bag of chips. You wouldn’t walk up to a normal guy in the street and do that. They reckon they know you so they think it’s OK.”

And that wasn’t the first time that Robbie’s son has witnessed his dad being attacked. “I was spat at in the pub in front of Charlie,” recalls Robbie.

“It was an Aston Villa fan, when Charlie was one or two. He just came up to me, called me an obscenity and spat in my face. What could I do? Nobody restrained him, nothing. Again, he just strolled off.

“I have got into altercations a few times. I’ve shouted back but luckily I’ve got three or four very good mates who manage to stand in my way.

You want to react but you can’t and they know it. If I react, then it becomes my fault. I’ve never hit anybody back though – I’m not a fighter.”

Some of the attacks have been even more sinister, getting closer to home for his wife, Sarah, and even his dad, Colin’s, illness.

“People have joked about my dad’s Alzheimer’s on Twitter,” says Robbie. “I’ve had my house attacked. I’ve had men outside my house in balaclavas, I’ve had windows smashed, eggs thrown at the car, and scratches on the car. I’ve had death threats with letters cut out of the papers and put in the post. Of course it’s worried my wife – it’s scary. My mum had to stop coming to watch me play because of the stuff she was hearing. One time she could only stick it for 20 minutes before she had to leave. She spent the next 70 minutes pacing outside the stadium.”

Wrexham-born Robbie failed to make the grade at Manchester United before moving to Crewe, Leicester, Birmingham, Blackburn and finally Derby, where he retired in May. He also played 39 times for Wales but he says: “I’m very unconfident. All those years of people saying you’re rubbish isn’t great. You start believing it. There are all these websites slagging off my looks, how I play football, my family. They don’t care.”

However, Robbie hopes his time on Strictly – where he will partner Ola Jordan – could turn things around for him.

He says: “A few weeks ago I was getting punched in the head by some stranger, and now I’ve got old ladies coming up in the street wishing me luck. Hopefully people will see I’m not this cocky guy, or whatever it is they think.” But he’ll have to overcome his fear of dancing in public – and one time in particular still makes him shudder.

“I was in Marbella with my three best mates,” he says. “We’d had a few wines, I’d lost my inhibitions and thought I’d have a little dance with my mate Nutty, who’s 5ft, bald and he’s only got three teeth.

“We were doing the waltz, when my other mate noticed somebody was filming us. We had to follow him out and beg him to delete it before it ended up where people could see it. I was scarred by that!”

Ola, who turns 29 today, is trying to help Robbie overcome his dread.

“I couldn’t have asked for a better teacher,” says Robbie. “Ola’s pretty tough, she’s the boss and I don’t question her. My mum is so excited. She’s talked to Ola on the phone and she said, ‘Look after my boy for me’.

“When I’ve seen myself dancing on tape though, it’s awful! Standing there on night one, I could seriously, seriously crumble.

“I’m in massive trouble. My nerves are awful. I could go and play in front of 50,000 in football or do a radio show or something. But doing this in front of 400 people in the audience is going to make me sick.”

What about the millions watching at home? “Oh shut up,” he says. “It’s terrifying.”

3 Strictly Come Dancing, BBC1, tonight, 9pm, and tomorrow, 6pm

La course d'Angela Merkel pour aider la Grèce

Midi. Discours à Berlin devant le patronat réuni à l'occasion de la traditionnelle Journée de l'industrie. Invité d'honneur, le premier ministre grec Georges Papandréou a peu auparavant affirmé que son pays remplirait ses obligations à l'égard de la communauté internationale.

Un discours autant destiné aux députés allemands qu'aux dirigeants d'entreprise. Angela Merkel réitère le soutien de l'Allemagne à Athènes et se félicite aussi des efforts de l'Espagne et du Portugal. Elle ne cite pas l'Italie. Silvio Berlusconi va sans doute regretter d'avoir tenu des propos vulgaires à son encontre. Une fois de plus, elle rejette un nouveau plan de relance tel que le préconise Barack Obama.

Preuve de la dramatisation du débat sur la Grèce : les dirigeants syndicaux du pays se sont offert ce matin une page de publicité dans plusieurs journaux pour appeler les députés à soutenir Athènes. Sous le titre : "Oui à l'Europe, oui à l'euro", ils écrivent : "Nos mères et nos pères ont reconstruit une Europe pacifiée sur les ruines de la seconde guerre mondiale. Il est de notre responsabilité de préserver l'Europe unie pour nos enfants et petits-enfants."

12 h 30. A peine son discours terminé, la chancelière s'engouffre dans sa Mercedes blindée. Direction : l'Académie catholique. Dans cet endroit inhabituel, elle se livre à un exercice qui l'est tout autant : prononcer l'éloge de Philipp R?sler, vice-chancelier et ministre de l'économie. Président du parti libéral (FDP) depuis mai, cet homme de 38 ans vient de faire l'objet d'une première biographie autorisée et son éditeur (catholique) s'est fait un plaisir d'organiser cette petite cérémonie. Depuis qu'ils gouvernent ensemble, le FDP ne cesse pourtant de critiquer la CDU d'Angela Merkel. Après avoir exigé (en vain) des baisses d'imp?ts, ce parti surfe sur la vague eurosceptique. Son président a même aggravé la crise boursière en envisageant, mi-septembre, une sortie de la Grèce de la zone euro, au grand dam de la chancelière. Mais celle-ci n'a pas le choix. Comme ni le Parti social-démocrate (SPD) ni les Verts n'envisagent pour le moment de gouverner avec la CDU, Mme Merkel a absolument besoin que ce parti, qui ne séduit plus que 2 % des électeurs, retrouve un peu de vigueur. Et à quarante-huit heures du vote du Bundestag, flatter le FDP ne peut que l'inciter à rentrer dans le rang.

16 heures. La chancelière, toujours députée et présidente de la CDU, assiste à la réunion de son groupe parlementaire. Un vote indicatif est organisé sur l'aide à la Grèce. Treize députés de la CDU disent vouloir voter contre, jeudi. Le FDP n'a pas organisé un tel sondage, mais ses dirigeants affirment que les opposants seront très rares. Pour ne pas avoir besoin des voix de l'opposition, jeudi, il faut qu'il y ait moins de dix-neuf députés rebelles au sein de la droite.

20 heures. D?ner avec le premier ministre grec. Les deux dirigeants semblent se soutenir mutuellement. "En fait, ce n'est pas ici que ?a se joue. L'essentiel pour Papandréou est de convaincre sa population et les marchés", reconna?t un proche de la chancelière.

Mercredi 28 septembre

Matinée. Départ pour Karlsruhe (Bade-Wurtemberg). Mme Merkel participe à la cérémonie organisée pour les 60 ans de la Cour constitutionnelle. Le président de la République et le président du Bundestag sont également présents, et le conseil des ministres a même été avancé au mardi. Depuis le week-end, les journaux consacrent des pages entières à cette institution, pilier de la démocratie allemande. Si, le 7 septembre, les juges ont fait preuve d'un réel sens politique en acceptant le premier plan d'aide à la Grèce, ils multiplient les déclarations depuis, laissant entendre qu'ils seront très vigilants lors de l'adoption du mécanisme permanent de stabilité qui doit succéder au Fonds européen de stabilité financière.

Soirée. Angela Merkel est à Munich pour les 70 ans d'Edmund Stoiber. Ministre-président de Bavière de 1993 à 2007, cet ancien dirigeant de la CSU n'a plus de fonction officielle. Pourtant, le Théatre du Prince-Régent a été loué pour l'occasion et 850 invités sont attendus. Après l'éloge de Philipp R?sler la veille, Mme Merkel prononcera celui d'Edmund Stoiber afin de flatter la CSU, parti frère de la CDU, lui aussi tenté de jouer la carte eurosceptique. Fédéralisme oblige, aucun chancelier ne peut mépriser ces élus locaux, à la tête d'une véritable puissance financière et politique. La Bavière, comme les quinze autres L?nder allemands, possède sa propre Constitution. La photo ne doit pas faire illusion : la chancelière soigne d'autant plus les barons de la CDU et de la CSU que la plupart d'entre eux la jugent beaucoup trop centriste et lui reprochent de les avoir marginalisés au profit de ses fidèles.

Jeudi 29 septembre

9 heures. Ouverture de la séance du Bundestag consacrée à l'aide à la Grèce et à l'élargissement des missions du Fonds européen de stabilité financière. Mme Merkel devait décider, mercredi, si elle y prenait ou non la parole. L'opposition ayant annoncé qu'elle voterait le projet de loi, celui-ci sera adopté sans problème. Le suspense réside dans le nombre de frondeurs à droite. S'ils sont, malgré le test de mardi, plus de dix-neuf, Angela Merkel se verra réclamer des élections anticipées par l'opposition. Le cas échéant, elle risque malgré tout de sortir très affaiblie de ce débat sur l'euro, tant les divisions sur ce dossier capital sont apparues patentes au sein de la coalition au pouvoir.