• Injured pair return;Hockey

Next stop Beijing for traveller proud of his roots;Special report; Boxing;Interview;Billy Joe Saunders
Owen Slot

1,462 字

2008 年 3 月 19 日

The Times

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96

‚ń文

(c) 2008 Times Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved
Owen Slot meets Billy Joe Saunders, a Romany Gypsy fighting to improve his community's standing through his sport.
The initial request for this interview prompted a measure of concern at the Amateur Boxing Association (ABA). It was understandable: it is not often that a Romany Gypsy qualifies for the Olympic Games. In fact, Billy Joe Saunders is the first from Great Britain. And because he is also 18 and has burst like a shooting star to the top of his metier, his media training has been minimal.
The concern is that the teenager from a Hertfordshire travellers' site is going to steal headlines because of where he lives rather than the way he boxes. The concern is that Saunders's background has associations that are sometimes negative.
If not misplaced, such anxiety is unnecessary. Saunders's background is not a subject on which he feels the remotest desire to remain reticent. Indeed, he is as proud of his roots as he is of his boxing. And if his progress in the ring were to continue on such an astonishingly upward curve, he would make a poster boy for both.
If he does continue to track so closely the footsteps of Amir Khan, there will soon be few who do not know that he is boxing in the name of the travellers' community, to kill off some of the prejudice and give his people a good name.
"Every traveller knows me now," he says and he rolls his eyes as if to suggest that he cannot quite believe the path his career is following.
Yet this is the life of Billy Joe Saunders, a young man so thrilled to be so high on the crest of his wave. In the future, maybe, when he has come down the other side and authority figures have smoothed off some of the edges, he may not, for instance, take his son, who is seven months old, into his interviews (the boy's mother, he tells us, lives on the travellers' site in the lot next to his), and neither may he offer so gleefully the fact that he is still, contrary to his coach's wishes, playing striker for his travellers' football team (they lost 21-9 to the Sandy travellers recently. "We have goalkeepers," he explains. "But they're not very good").
But for now he is fresh, genuine and exciting. We met nine days after he had won bronze in a tournament in Pescara, Italy, and thus booked his place in the Beijing Games. He had just popped back from his local supermarket, where strangers in the aisles were still stopping and congratulating him.
"To be an Olympian? I couldn't tell you how it feels," he says. "It doesn't seem right. Like, am I going there or not? The first morning after I got back, when I woke up, I really thought I was dreaming. Then I was eating my breakfast and it came up on Sky News, a big picture of me."
His success is a story, whatever the quirks of his background. At the age of 16 he was selected for "hothousing" by the ABA -four days a week with the elite in Sheffield -but only on the feeder programme that was aimed at the 2012 London Olympics. At the time, Neil Perkins, a former England captain, was the established welterweight lined up for Beijing. But when Saunders turned 17 and was allowed to compete at senior level, he embarked on a winning streak that became impossible to ignore.
When he reels off the scalps he took en route to Pescara, he can hardly talk fast enough. At a prestigious tournament in Bulgaria he beat Carlos Bantuer, the Cuban who had been voted his nation's No 1 pound-for-pound boxer. He then beat Rirko Alexander, the Serb who had beaten Perkins in the previous World Championships ("I took that Serb apart").
When he reached the final he had to take on Evgeni Birisov, a Bulgarian with home advantage. "They tried to rob me," Saunders says, "until I put him down three times and he didn't get up. They couldn't rob me then."
Victory there made it impossible not to select Saunders for the Pescara qualifier ahead of Perkins and by the time he was in the semi-finals, his record at senior level was unblemished: 29 wins in 29 bouts.
At this stage there was a feeling that the Great Britain team, with all seven boxers unbeaten after three days, were on the rough edge of some judging decisions. When Saunders lost his semi-final -and his unbeaten streak -the decision was booed. More significant was the fact that he had straightened his mind out the next day to control the bronze-medal bout, on which hung that Olympic qualification.
When he arrived back in Britain, his mobile phone clicked into action and showed 30 texts and 47 missed calls. As proud as any was his great- grandfather, Absolom Beeney, who, in his day, boxed bare-knuckle in the gypsy fairground booths and who, as he likes to remind people, never lost a contest.
"When you hear it 100 times over and over, you know what he's going to say," Saunders says, affectionately. Beeney is 94 and lives on the same travellers' site. "Everybody knows him. He's probably in the pub right now," Saunders says.
"That's how he survives -loves his beer."
Thus has boxing been in the family. Saunders's father had 18 amateur bouts and has a set of trophies that, when Billy Joe and his elder brother, Tom, were young children, they gave a white -and exceedingly unpopular -lick of paint. They have since repaid him. Tom has a short, unbeaten record as a professional. At one stage their father kept a Portakabin purely as a trophy room, "but it started to sag so we had to get rid of it".
When Billy Joe was 11 he stopped school. "It was getting too much in the way of training," he says. He took some home tuition thereafter, but "my head was full of boxing, I didn't really have time for anything else". To many, that might have seemed a colossal gamble, but on this occasion it appears to have paid off.
He is determined to cash in on behalf of the people he has grown up around. "I am a Romany, that's my background," he says. "I don't actually know what Romany means. But you can't be p***ed off with what you are. I feel proud and happy and that I am doing it for my sort of people -not the travellers that do the illegal things, but for my own people. I'd like to get the point over that we are all different, that we are doing proper things with our lives.
"When you see in the news that a few of the travellers won't move or whatever, that's just out of order. That's not us. My dad doesn't like travelling the roads anyway. We'd just go to the once-a-year fairs, the horse fairs in Appleby (in Cumbria), for instance, for a few days' break. There are (those) who leave rubbish and we get the blame. That's why we never like moving, because my dad thinks that people think it's us." But on his priorities, above the travellers, he puts Billy Joe, his baby boy.
"When I go away, it's mostly him that motivates me," he says. "I do it for him. I don't really want him boxing when he's older. I'm only doing it because hopefully it's going to be my living. But I want to help him through life, I don't want him to have a hard life." At this rate, he will not.
"If I'm boxing someone and he looks like Muhammad Ali, it just doesn't bother me," he says. "It's confidence, mainly." Which leaves this shooting star well placed to keep on soaring.
QUALIFIED SUCCESS
With one tournament left, seven men have qualified for the Beijing Olympics from Great Britain, two more than the total of British boxers at the past three Games.
Tony Jeffries, light-heavyweight, 23, Sunderland ABC
James DeGale, middleweight, 22, Dale Youth ABC, London
Billy Joe Saunders, welterweight, 18, Hoddesdon ABC, Hertfordshire
Bradley Saunders, light-welterweight, 21, South Durham ABC
Frankie Gavin, lightweight, 21, Hall Green ABC, Birmingham
Joe Murray, bantamweight, 21, Boarshaw ABC, Manchester
Khalid Yafai, flyweight, 18, Birmingham City ABC
(c) Times Newspapers Ltd, 2008
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Home news

Police want mugshot database for Games

Richard Ford

102 字

2008 年 3 月 19 日

The Times

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35

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(c) 2008 Times Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved
Police equipped with handheld computers will be able to access mugshots, fingerprints and closed-circuit television images to help them to provide security at the 2012 Olympic Games in London (Richard Ford writes). The new technology will enable officers on the street to gain access to the police national computer.
Peter Neyroud, chief executive of the National Policing Improvement Agency, told the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee that police also planned to create a database of mugshots of suspects that would enable CCTV cameras to "recognise" criminals.
(c) Times Newspapers Ltd, 2008
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Sport

Olympic Games in Beijing;Comment;Opinion

Matt Dickinson

57 字

2008 年 3 月 18 日

The Times

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90

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(c) 2008 Times Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved
In a couple of weeks, the Olympic flame will pass through London in the run-up to the Games in Beijing in August. If the situation in Tibet continues to be so inflamed, what odds on the torch being blown out by protesters?
(c) Times Newspapers Ltd, 2008
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Sport

Australia dictate terms but given Wembley finale;Rugby Union

David Hands

307 字

2008 年 3 月 18 日

The Times

T

87

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(c) 2008 Times Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved
Australia will complete their European tour next season with an historic match at Wembley Stadium against the Barbarians and are also hinting heavily at a grand-slam tour of Britain and Ireland in 2009.
Just to add to the mix, they are insistent that the experimental law variations (ELV) under trial in the Super 14 tournament should be embraced worldwide on September 1.
The match at Wembley on December 3 stems from the invitation of the British Olympic Association to mark the centenary of Australia's gold-medal win in the 1908 Olympic Games in London.
John O'Neill, the Australian Rugby Union's chief executive officer and managing director, also seeks to add England to his country's 2009 tour programme, which already includes fixtures against Scotland, Ireland and Wales. The Wallabies have not made a grand-slam tour since 1984, but under a new agreement with the Guinness Premiership clubs, England will stage four autumn internationals on alternate years and have four games scheduled for November.
"If the International Rugby Board is truly the governing body of world rugby, they should just mandate it (September 1) as the day from which every competition should use the experimental laws," O'Neill said, disregarding that his views on the value of the ELV are not universally shared. The IRB is due to meet northern-hemisphere coaches and referees this month to debate the new laws' value.
Gonzalo Tiesi, the Argentina centre, will move from London Irish to Harlequins next season to fill the gap left by the retirement of Stuart Abbott and the departure to Worcester Warriors in the summer of Hal Luscombe. Shaun Perry, the England scrum half, has agreed a three-year extension to his contract with Bristol.
(c) Times Newspapers Ltd, 2008
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Sport

Olympic hopeful fined Pounds 1,000 for abusing fellow competitor;Equestria nism

Jenny MacArthur

265 字

2008 年 3 月 18 日

The Times

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81

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(c) 2008 Times Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved
Oliver Townend, a leading contender for the Great Britain three-day event team for the Beijing Olympic Games this summer, has been fined Pounds 1,000 for abusive and threatening behaviour towards James Adams, a fellow competitor, at the Oasby Horse Trials in Lincolnshire last autumn.
The incident took place in September, two weeks after Townend, 25, had returned from winning a team gold medal alongside Zara Phillips at the European Three-Day Event Championships in Italy. Townend remonstrated with Adams who was on a horse called Babycham - which had formerly been in Townend's yard and which he thought was returning to it.
Speaking yesterday from his yard in Leicestershire, Townend said: "I obviously regret speaking discourteously to a fellow competitor - although it was in defence of one of my employees - and realise I should have dealt with the situation more appropriately. I have learnt an expensive lesson. The rider and I have no bad feelings towards each other and I look forward to putting this behind me and enjoying the season ahead." Adams declined to comment on the incident.
Yogi Breisner, the Britain team trainer, said yesterday that the episode would not affect Townend's chances of selection for Beijing. But the British Eventing Disciplinary Committee warned Townend that any repetition of such conduct "would not be viewed as leniently".
Townend was also charged with abusive behaviour towards Jenny Clark, the owner of Babycham, but the committee decided that this was not substantiated.
(c) Times Newspapers Ltd, 2008
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Overseas news

Tibetan prisoners are paraded on trucks as China tightens its grip

Jane MacArtney Beijing

478 字

2008 年 3 月 18 日

The Times

T

4

‚ń文

(c) 2008 Times Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved
House-to-house hunt for Lhasa protesters
Unrest spreading to neighbouring provinces
Dozens of Tibetan prisoners were paraded on military trucks in Lhasa yesterday, with their heads bent and wrists handcuffed behind their backs, as soldiers from China's People's Liberation Army tightened their grip on the Tibetan capital.
As a midnight deadline approached for rioters to surrender, soldiers carried out house-to-house searches. Some of those suspected of taking part in the mayhem last Friday, when Tibetan anger at Chinese rule erupted into racial hatred with stabbing and beating of ethnic Han Chinese and the burning of shops, banks and businesses, had already been detained.
Four open army trucks carrying about 40 people, mostly young Tibetan men and women, drove in a slow convoy along main roads, witnesses said. Loudspeakers on the trucks broadcast calls to anyone who had taken part in the riots to turn themselves in. Those who gave themselves up might be treated leniently, the rest would face severe punishment, the broadcasts said.
The worst violence for 20 years in the deeply Buddhist Himalayan region has drawn a tough response from the Chinese Government, which is facing embarrassment as the riots threaten to tarnish its image of unity and stability only five months before it plays host to the Olympic Games.
Claims and counterclaims from Chinese officials and Tibetan exiles over the number of casualties and a ban on foreign journalists in Tibet have resulted in much confusion.
Champa Phuntsok, the ethnic Tibetan Governor of the Tibet Autonomous Region, said the demonstrations had left 13 dead and dozens wounded. Unconfirmed reports from Tibetan exile groups put the death toll at 80 - a claim he denied. He said: "This time a tiny handful of separatists and lawless elements engaged in extreme acts with the goal of generating even more publicity to wreck stability during this crucial period of the Olympic Games."
Speaking in Beijing, where he was attending the annual session of China's rubber-stamp parliament, the Governor made clear that the response would be severe. "No country would allow those offenders or criminals to escape the arm of justice and China is no exception."
The search for those involved began in earnest in Lhasa yesterday as office workers trickled back to work after a weekend of fear. Soldiers began house to-house searches, checking all identification papers, residents said. Anyone unable to show an identity card and a household registration permitting residence in Lhasa was being taken away.
The unrest has spread swiftly into neighbouring provinces in China with a large ethnic Tibetan population. In an extraordinary development late yesterday, nearly 100 students in Beijing staged a daring vigil.
Rosemary Righter, page 19
*For breaking news timesonline.co.uk/world
(c) Times Newspapers Ltd, 2008
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Sport

Blatter threat to Britain;Football;The Debate;The Columnist;Talking point;Opinion

Martin Samuel

105 字

2008 年 3 月 17 日

The Times

T

The Game 6

‚ń文

(c) 2008 Times Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved
When there is no Great Britain football team at the 2012 Olympic Games, it will be for one reason: because Sepp Blatter, the Fifa president, cannot be trusted.
Having previously stated that British involvement would not undermine the status of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, Blatter announced at a press conference last week that, no, participation would, in fact, call their independence into question.
Until Fifa's leader is a man of his word, the risk is too great for these countries to co-operate.
(c) Times Newspapers Ltd, 2008
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Features

If you haven't got a head for admin, it's best not to stray;Column

Caitlin Moran

1,045 字

2008 年 3 月 17 日

The Times

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Times2 7

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(c) 2008 Times Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved
Dispatches from the Continent - Tuscany, to be specific. There, the highest court in the land has come up with an exciting new law for the Italian ladies: should you have an affair, you are legally entitled to lie about it, to "protect your honour".
The court gave its landmark ruling after hearing the case of Carla, a 48-year old woman. She had lent her mobile phone to her lover, lied about it, and was subsequently convicted of giving false testimony. On appeal, however, the court decided that perjury was justified to conceal her extramarital affair - and the law was changed accordingly.
"The fact of having an affair is a circumstance that could cause damage to her honour, in the minds of family and friends," said the Court of Cassation (Italy's highest appeal court) - sounding a little bit like those friends who are supposedly "on your side", but who reveal, through their slightly sarcastic choice of phrase, that they really think you're a wanton harlot whom any sane person would wish to stone to death.
All this raises many points, of course. Not least it causes a worldwide frisson of surprise that, given the subject matter, the French law courts didn't get there first. This is a logic that, surely, is right up their infidelity boulevard. (Of course, there is the possibility that the French already have got there - but are lying about it, to protect their honour. Or Your Honneur, as the case may be.) My main puzzlement revolves around the exact nature of "honour". We don't really have a concept of "honour" in this country any more - it seemed to die out at some point between the end of the Second World War and Kerry Katona: Crazy in Love. I'm of the wrong generation to understand it.
Still, even I wonder just how much honour you actually have left to "protect" in a month where you've been both knocking off some bloke from the book club and lying under oath during a court case. Frankly, short of screaming "LOOK OVER THERE! Is that ABBA re-forming!?!" during a crucial moment in a gentlemen's duel, it's hard to see how you could be much more of a weasel. To quote a stock response from my cutting friend Martin: "Protecting your honour? That's scarcely something you need worry about."
And, of course, honour is the least of your concerns, in the event of your infidelity. What you need to concern yourself with is the fact that you are making the decision of a lunatic. You are driving yourself mad! You will have no mind left by Christmas!
Of course, I know what I invite by writing this. Some manner of accelerating hubris, which means that the next time I see my husband, it will be on Kerry Katona: Crazy in Love, with him drunkenly pawing at her, and leering: "I've never done 'it' with someone as sophisticated as you before."
But yet, if there were anything that was the foundation of our marriage - before the advent of Katona - it was our mutual terror of infidelity. Or, to be more specific, our mutual terror of all the infidelity admin. Dear Lord, shagging around is certainly hard work. I observe my friends and acquaintances who are engaged in their "giddy, intoxicating" affairs, and it looks like an experience only slightly less onerous than bringing the Olympic Games to London. The organisation, forward-planning and paperwork involved are insane. Cover stories. Hidden receipts. Running a second - secret - mobile phone. Briefing your friends on your current lies. It would drive you NUTS.
That someone as scatty as Boris Johnson has managed several side portions of woman is truly incredible. He must, surely, have had to sign up to some manner of infidelity concierge service, which could text him with appropriate lies on Christmas Day. How could anyone get involved in a dangerous liaison without possessing a series of colour-coded box files, labelled "MY AFFAIR"? And as for scheduling, it would be murder. For myself, unless I could find someone to knock off who lived either on the direct route to the kids' school, or above Budgens, and could come down and have sex with me when I'm in the Five Items or Less queue, then it's simply not going to happen.
And on top of all this, there's the showering. Unfaithful people are always having showers, aren't they? To scour away "the guilt". Well, right there, that's pretty much the deal-breaker for me. If I wash my hair more than twice a week, it goes all frizzy, and starts creating its own electrical force field. If I ever had an affair, I'd have hair like Yahoo Serious in the film Young Einstein.
People who have two lovers perplex me in the same way that people who have second homes do. Although, theoretically, I can see why they might think that it's a good idea - twice the fun! All your options covered! One for work, and one for play! Makes you look flash! Erm, it's an investment, for old age! - the reality just looks exhausting. First, it's ruinously expensive to maintain two set-ups; secondly, you spend all the time you should be "enjoying" yourself shuttling between the two; and, thirdly, you can never remember where you left your glasses. In an era in which you can buy ready-grated cheese, it seems incredible that people would go to such effort for a few dozen shags.
So yes. While I should imagine that there will probably be a time when I will be tempted by the notion of infidelity - if Boris Johnson is going about things alphabetically, I think my shift is due around November 2010 - there is one thought that will, hopefully, stop everything in its tracks. And that's that while honour can be restored, from what I gather in novels, simply by not shouting "LOOK! ABBA re-forming!" during a duel, all that adultery paperwork is much harder.
timesonline.co.uk/caitlinmoran
(c) Times Newspapers Ltd, 2008
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Home news

Olympic site 'will attract prostitutes';Factbox

Jill Sherman

628 字

2008 年 3 月 17 日

The Times

T

28

‚ń文

(c) 2008 Times Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved
* Women will be drawn to influx of workers
* Warning on sexually transmitted diseases
The imminent arrival of thousands of construction workers for the 2012 Olympics could cause a surge in prostitution and the spread of sexually transmitted infections, health experts say. Olympics chiefs are being urged to address the impact of the predominantly male construction workforce, which is likely to total more than 100,000 over the next four years.
More than 1,000 people are already working on preparing the site, with a further 2,000 scheduled to begin arriing within weeks as work starts on the stadium. Health organisations are warning that thousands of prostitutes, including trafficked women, are likely to arrive in the run-up to 2012.
They are calling for extra staff in sexual health clinics to address a predicted rise in sexually transmitted infections and for preventive measures such as sex leaflets in various languages and condom distribution. Terrence Higgins Trust (THT), the HIV and sexual health charity, is calling for an urgent meeting with the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) and the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games.
Clinicians assessing the impact of the Sydney 2000 Games found a big increase in demand for sexual health services and a corresponding increase in sexually related diseases, mainly among casual workers, said THT.
Lisa Power, policy director for the trust, said: "There will be increased sexual activity at the Olympics and the run-up. It happens everywhere if a mass of people work away from home. There will be migrant workers, mostly men, separated from their families. Many of them will have unprotected sex. They will go out for casual sex or with sex workers. There is a big potential for increase in poor sexual health, including HIV, chlamydia and gonorrhoea.
"Many workers are coming from countries where there are lower rates of HIV infection, such as the Baltic states. If they are not aware of the need of protection it could spread.
"Sexual health services need to be strengthened but this an issue where everybody gets embarrassed and they don't want to talk about it."
Sara Walker, of the English Collective of Prostitutes, said: "Of course, where men gather with time and money then prostitutes will go there. We are more concerned about the police coming in and targeting prostitutes who are not illegal immigrants."
Grahame Maxwell, spokesman on human-trafficking at the Association of Chief Police Officers, told The Times that the Metropolitan Police were liaising closely with the Human Trafficking Centre and Maxim, another unit dealing with immigration and smuggling, to detect any increase in trafficking related to the Games. A spokesman for the ODA said that no plans had been made to address sexual health specifically although an occupational health centre would be set up for workers.
With up to 25,000 workers on site during the peak of construction work in 2009-10 there are also concerns about accommodation. The ODA has ruled out building temporary huts for workers, but unions are concerned that landlords will push up rents and provide poor, cramped accommodation. At least 50 per cent of the labourers are expected to be migrant.
Protection zone
* 100,000 construction workers are expected on or near the Olympic site in the next four years
* An estimated 10,000 sex workers were operating at the Sydney 2000 Olympics
* In Sydney 70,000 condoms for athletes went so fast that 20,000 more were ordered. Even these ran out before the Games ended
* Athletes at the Manchester Commonwealth Games were handed condoms wrapped in little gold medals
* The Home Office claims to have no estimate of the number of prostitutes operating in London
(c) Times Newspapers Ltd, 2008
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Home news

Defiant people yearn for the 'political monk in Gucci shoes';Tibet

Jane Macartney

432 字

2008 年 3 月 17 日

The Times

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7

‚ń文

(c) 2008 Times Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved
Photographs of the Dalai Lama have been banned for years in Tibet. And yet this weekend house-to-house searches began across Lhasa to confiscate images concealed in their homes by Tibetans who revere their exiled god-king.
Vilification of the monk, said to be the 14th reincarnation in a line identified in the 16th century, has been state policy in China for more than a decade. For Tibetans, however, government condemnation of the monk regarded as the incarnation of the Buddha's body has failed to erode their faith. Even government officials yearn privately for his return. The searches this weekend began in the homes of party cadres and state employees.
On a recent visit to the Jokhang Temple, the holiest of shrines in the heart of Lhasa, thumbnail-size photographs of the Dalai Lama could be glimpsed in the dormitories of some monks. Ordinary Tibetans and young monks may sidle up to foreigners and request a picture of their temporal leader who fled into exile 49 years ago during a failed uprising against Chinese rule. Time has failed to diminish his influence among Tibetans. Many have prospered from Chinese rule but while they may say they want to keep the system that has brought them a more comfortable life, they want the return of the Dalai Lama, too.
Beijing regularly condemns him as a secessionist bent on dividing the Himalayan region from China. The Dalai Lama says that he wants only autonomy and not independence.
Among Tibetans his word remains law. Speaking in his native language, he can be severe, even prescriptive, about behaviour and beliefs. In English, he has developed a more genial style. It is a charismatic combination that has transformed him into a figure of veneration, and even of worship, around the world.
When he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 he described himself as "a simple monk from faraway Tibet". His existence as a symbol of the struggle for freedom have won him a huge following in the West. But his position is complicated; he has been described as "a very political old monk shuffling around in Gucci shoes".
Yesterday, trying to tread a diplomatic line between his opponents in Beijing and young Tibetans who see him as too accommodating in his approach to China's communist rulers, he said: "China deserves to be a host of the Olympic Games." And then he added that Beijing needed to be "reminded to be a good host".
(c) Times Newspapers Ltd, 2008
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Business

Rivals line up in the race to bring you Olympic Games on your mobile;UK Bu siness

Lilly Peel

674 字

2008 年 3 月 17 日

The Times

T

46

‚ń文

(c) 2008 Times Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved
The 2012 Olympic Games will do for mobile TV what the Coronation did for early television, an industry expert has predicted, as mobile operators face the decision over which technology to use.
It will, it is argued, make tuning in on your mobile phone to watch the men's 100 metres final, rowing's coxless fours or the latest in the gymnastics as second nature as sending a text message.
But preparation for that future will gather pace next month with the auction of the L-Band spectrum, which is well-suited to the demands of mobile TV. It could prove to be the catalyst that forces the industry's big guns to make an early commitment to the technology that will take London 2012 to the mobile generation.
In Italy, Vodafone has chosen live mobile television using the Nokia-backed DVB-H (digital video broadcasting handheld), a technology that Viviane Reding, the European Telecoms Commissioner, has said should become the European standard.
Ofcom disagrees and has a technology-neutral stance to spectrum. UK options are, therefore, still open.
Of the four technologies available, Orange and T-Mobile have put their money on TDtv and this summer will start a pilot offering 24 television channels to several thousand people in West London. As partners, the two companies intend to share the cost of network rollout - estimated at hundreds of millions of pounds - and have invited the other networks to join them.
Jake Redford, the head of mobile TV at Orange, said: "We need to make this technology a success, and the only way to do that is to get the vast majority of operators to join."
Analysts are sceptical. As one industry commentator put it, getting network operators to co-operate "is like herding cats".
Next month's auction will be followed by two others that could also be applied to mobile TV - the 2.6 gigahertz spectrum, pencilled in for later this year, and the old analogue television spectrum, which is expected in spring next year and works with the DVB-H technology.
Moreover, the picture is complicated further by the varieties of technologies being developed. Other options are the DAB-based technology as used by BT and Virgin for their now-defunct BT Movio mobile TV service, which was withdrawn due to lack of demand, and Qualcomm's MediaFLO, which works well on the L-Band spectrum being auctioned by Ofcom next month.
At present mobile operators stream programmes over 3G, which can never be mass market because only a few people can use it in the same area before the network becomes congested. TDTV, on the other hand, is a broadcast technology.
The benefit of TDtv, developed by NextWave Wireless at its British unit in Wiltshire, is that it uses TDD, a small chunk of spectrum that four of the five operators (all except Vodafone) were given when they bought their share of the Pounds 22.5billion 3G spectrum in 2000. The downside is that TDD does not travel as well through walls as lower bandwidths, such as those used by analogue television, which is to end in 2012.
A further hurdle is getting the public to watch television on phones. Will Harris, of Enders Analysis, said: "We believe consumer demand for paid-for services is very limited." A survey last year by Enders of more than 1,000 adults in Britain revealed that 79 per cent were "not at all" interested in paying Pounds 5 a month for mobile TV.
Advertising seems to be the obvious answer as to how operators will make any money from mobile TV. "It's a foundation for a very valuable advertising platform," Phil Lehmann, senior product manager of T-Mobile's mobile TV division, said. "The Olympics will be to mobile TV what the Coronation was to television it will be the point when people adopt a new technology."
(c) Times Newspapers Ltd, 2008
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Home news

China faces crisis as world leaders call for restraint;Tibet

Jane MacArtney, Catherine Philp

471 字

2008 年 3 月 15 日

The Times

T

3

‚ń文

(c) 2008 Times Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved
The violent protests roiling Tibet could not have come at a worse time for Beijing - or a better one for the Tibetans fighting repressive Chinese rule there. This summer's Olympics have turned the world's spotlight on China as never before, a fact not missed even on the remote Himalayan plateau.
In recent months there has been a sharp increase in demonstrations in the tightly controlled region, led first by Buddhist clergy and now ordinary Tibetans, emboldened by international scrutiny Beijing suddenly finds itself under in its year of the Olympic Games.
Beijing, in resorting to force that has claimed several lives including, it is reported, a 16-year-old girl and a Buddhist monk, has unleashed a storm of international condemnation. Tibetans have reacted to a rising tide of Games related criticism of China's human rights record, from Steven Spielberg's withdrawal as artistic advisor over Beijing's culpability in the Darfur genocide to the refusal of the Prince of Wales, a long-time supporter of Tibet, to attend.
Yesterday witnesses spoke of bodies left lying in the streets after the People's Liberation Army sent armoured personnel carriers and troops into the streets to curb running battles between the rival ethnic groups.
The violence escalated at about 11am when monks from the 7thcentury Ramoche monastery staged a demonstration. Police tried to stop the lamas from racing on to the streets of Lhasa and a police car posted outside the monastery gate was set on fire as hundreds of Tibetans then rallied around the monks.
Angry Tibetans attacked ethnic Han Chinese and gunshots echoed in the streets as security forces tried to restore order.
Witnesses reported seeing the bodies of six Tibetans in the streets late on Friday night, although this could not be independently confirmed. The bodies of two Tibetan men and two Tibetan women were seen in the Barkhor market that winds around the Jokhang temple, Tibet's holiest site.
The body of a Tibetan man was seen in the Lugu district and a Tibetan woman lay dead on Qingnian Road, near the city centre. All appeared to have been shot but no monks were seen among the dead.
From his home in exile in India, the Dalai Lama called on Beijing to hold back from employing "brute force" to quash the demonstration, while international pressure mounted on Beijing with pleas from Washington and Brussels for China to show restraint.
Britain, the EU and the US joined the calls for restraint. David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, said: "There are probably two important messages to go out - one is the need for restraint on all sides and secondly that substantive dialogue is the only way forward."
(c) Times Newspapers Ltd, 2008
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Sport

Kwakye awake to possibilities of ending the embarrassment

Rick Broadbent Athletics Correspondent

792 字

2008 年 3 月 14 日

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(c) 2008 Times Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved
* Cook's record in sight after silver in Valencia
* Diminutive Briton looking to next level
Sex sells at the Olympic Games. From Denise Lewis wearing nothing but bodypaint to Victoria Pendleton sitting naked on her bike, a timeline of cover girls has gleefully merged physical fitness and beauty. "I don't want to walk around with something stuck on my bottom," Britain's latest sprint starlet said after receiving a bum deal from the Dwain Chambers saga.
Jeanette Kwakye is on the way up. She won a silver medal at the World Indoor Championships in Valencia a week ago and broke a 22-year-old British record, but her feat was largely ignored as the global focus switched to Chambers's attempt to win gold for the team who did not want him. Whatever happens with Chambers and any challenge to the British Olympic Association bylaw, Kwakye will be around for longer.
She will turn 25 on Thursday and gave up her part-time job at a steel supplier in Enfield only on Christmas Eve. She did not make the top 50 in the 100 metres last year but reduced her personal best for the 60 metres from 7.17sec to 7.08 in Spain last Friday. Now she wants to fill the void in British women sprinters, but she will do it her way.
"I'm well aware that I look awful when I run," she said. "What you see is what you get. I don't have a persona. I'm quite animalistic in my thinking. I get aggressive. My body is taken over."
There is much more of this from a woman who is bubbly, bright - she has a politics and economics degree to prove it - and brimming with potential star quality. "I want to make a name for myself as an athlete and it doesn't matter how I appear," she said. "I don't care if it looks like I am possessed for seven seconds, if I get what I've worked so hard for."
Breaking Bev Kinch's record is one thing, but can Kwakye build on it and become a force outdoors? It is a huge ask because, although Abi Oyepitan made the Olympic final in 2004, the dearth of fast British women has been a lingering embarrassment, highlighted by Kathy Cook's record of 11.10sec coming up to its 27th anniversary.
"When it comes to championship performances, I've never had a British woman to look up to and say, 'Wow, you're amazing, I'm going to do that.' It's unbelievable," she said. "A lot of young sprinters have come through, but they've never been able to take it up to the next level, whether through injury or personal circumstances."
Kwakye has the disadvantage of being only 5ft 3in, although she points out that she is taller than Angela Williams, the American who pipped her to gold by two hundredths of a second last week. "Technically, I had to change so much because of my size," she said. "I can't get round the bends as quick because I'm a lot shorter, so I have to stay on the ground longer and really go as hard as I can. It's power-based with me."
She plans to boost her power this year by running more 200 metres races and is aware of what she needs to achieve if she is to threaten the Jamaicans and Americans. "Historically, the world's best sprinters have run 7.0 indoors and sub-11 out," she said. "If I'm going to be a world-class sprinter, I've got to start thinking sub-11 times."
That is a tough proposition, given that her best time is 11.26, set at last year's World Championships in Osaka, but she says that she underperformed in Japan and shaving almost a tenth of a second off her indoor time bodes well. Certainly, Cook's British mark could come under threat.
In the meantime, Kwakye is being sponsored by her former employer, Rimex Metals. "They have been fantastic," she said. "I get lottery money, but you always need more. I put it aside for a rainy day because I've had some in the past and expect a few more because it's the nature of the beast."
To win a world silver medal barely two months after going full time and with her commitment to being judged as a runner rather than a pin-up girl, it is safe to assume that Kwakye has a promising future in front of her rather than behind her.
(c) Times Newspapers Ltd, 2008
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Overseas news

Tibet turmoil spreads as more monks join the fray

Jane MacArtney, Beijing

387 字

2008 年 3 月 14 日

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(c) 2008 Times Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved
Beijing has imposed tighter controls across Tibet as the biggest antiChinese demonstrations in nearly two decades begin to spread to more far-flung monasteries.
Monks at Ganden monastery, a hilltop eyrie near Lhasa, the capital, were reported to have started a hunger strike to protest against the deployment of armed paramilitary police sent in on Wednesday to restore order. Across the border in northern India more than a 100 Tibetan exiles were dragged away by police, ending a march to their homeland to protest against China hosting the Olympic Games.
The demonstrators had vowed to march to Tibet to coincide with the start of the Games.
Indian officials, fearing that the march would embarrass China, banned the exiles from leaving the Kangra district that surrounds the city of Dharmsala, the headquarters of the Tibetan government-in-exile in India.
In Lhasa senior officials called meetings of all government employees to remind Tibetans not to attempt to take sides with the monks, who took to the streets this week to demand greater religious freedom before the Beijing Olympics in August and to show their support for the Dalai Lama. Reading out a prepared document to staff, the leaders of work units outlined details of the protests that erupted on Monday with a march by 500 monks on the outskirts of the city.
One resident quoted the statement as saying: "These incidents pose a grave challenge to the long-term stability of Tibet." The notice described the demonstrations as very serious.
All staff of government offices and state entities were banned from visiting religious institutions where unrest had erupted.
The government notice did not specify the punishment for defying the ban, but residents said it was unnecessary since Tibetans knew that the usual penalties were dismissal or withdrawal of salaries.
The demonstrations coincided with marches around the world to mark the 49th anniversary of an uprising against Chinese rule in the region in which the Dalai Lama and many followers fled to India. Rights groups said that the protests had spread beyond the boundaries of Tibet proper into the large areas of China that are mainly populated by ethnic Tibetans.
*For breaking news on the protests timesonline.co.uk/world
(c) Times Newspapers Ltd, 2008
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Sport

Gebrselassie caveat;Olympic games

76 字

2008 年 3 月 13 日

The Times

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(c) 2008 Times Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved