Czechs, Russia lead 2-0 in Fed Cup

 

Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova took more than two hours to put defending champion the Czech Republic in control of its Fed Cup tie with Germany, while Italy s Francesca Schiavone surprisingly lost to give Ukraine a boost on Saturday.

 

The Czechs led 2-0 in Stuttgart, Russia led Spain by the same score in Moscow, Italy and Ukraine were 1-1 in Biella, and Belgium and Serbia were 1-1 in Charleroi.

 

Germany was without its best player, an injured Andrea Petkovic, but pushed the Czechs hard in both singles.

 

Iveta Benesova overcame Sabine Lisicki 2-6, 6-4, 6-2, then Kvitova was, twice, two points from losing to Julia Goerges in the second set, but pulled through 3-6, 6-3, 10-8 in 2 hours, 21 minutes.

 

Goerges, who beat Kvitova in their only previous match, hit some superb service returns and twice broke back in the final set to put the pressure back on the Czech star.

 

She can clinch the Czechs a spot in the semifinals in April by winning the first reverse singles on Sunday against Lisicki.

 

In Biella, 2010 French Open champion Francesca Schiavone lost a home Fed Cup match on clay for the first time in seven years when she was picked apart by unheralded Lesia Tsurenko from Kiev 6-1, 6-2.

 

Tsurenko, ranked 110 spots below Schiavone at 121st, dominated with a strong serve and accurate volleys in just her third tie.

 

She evened the tie after Australian Open quarterfinalist Sara Errani beat Kateryna Bondarenko 6-2, 6-3.

 

In Moscow, Maria Sharapova and Svetlana Kuznetsova won their opening singles as expected and without trouble.

 

Sharapova accounted for Silvia Soler-Espinosa 6-2, 6-1 and Kuznetsova put away Carla Suarez Navarro 6-3, 6-1.

 

Sharapova was nervous because she lost her opening singles of her last tie in Moscow, last year against France. But Soler-Espinosa wasn t up to taking advantage of it. Sharapova can send Russia into a sixth successive semifinals in Sunday s first match against Suarez Navarro.

 

Belgium or Serbia will face the Russia-Spain winner in the semis, and the tie in Charleroi was evenly poised after the first day.

 

Former world No. 1 Jelena Jankovic first put Serbia in front by saving two set points in a 7-5, 7-5 win over Kirsten Flipkens, then Yanina Wickmayer hit back with 6-4, 6-4 defeat of Bojana Jovanovski, winning the last four games.

 

The minus-7 C temperature outside the Spiroudome almost overwhelmed the indoor heating, leaving the players and fans shivering. Jankovic joked she might turn out on Sunday in a coat and hat.
 

US plans to cut Army, invest in future: Pentagon

WASHINGTON: The Pentagon on Thursday proposed trimming the Army’s size by 13 percent as the debt-ridden United States winds down a decade of war but vowed new investments to exert power in Asia and the Middle East.

With pressure mounting to balance the US books, President Barack Obama’s administration sought a nine percent cut in the 2013 budget compared with last year’s request by retiring older ships and planes and pulling back two brigades from Europe.

But the administration called for investment on new projects including a futuristic floating base for special operations and drones and assigning elite Brigade Combat Teams with language training to each region of the world.

“We are at a strategic turning point after a decade of war and substantial growth in defense budgets,” Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said as he unveiled a preview of the Defense Department’s 2013 budget requests.

Panetta vowed to maintain US power in the Middle East and Asia — where China’s growing military has concerned the United States and its allies — including by modernizing submarines and funding a next-generation bomber.

Panetta called for funding to station littoral combat ships in Singapore and patrol craft in Bahrain, part of the US strategy of forward-deploying its military to such small and strategically placed US allies.

“The force we are building will retain a decisive technological edge, leverage the lessons of recent conflicts and stay ahead of the most lethal and disruptive threats of the future,” Panetta told a news conference.

The budget is far from a done deal. Panetta is hoping to ward off calls for steeper cuts backed by some members of his Democratic Party, while Republicans seeking to defeat Obama in November elections have resisted any cuts to the military and instead prefer reductions on social benefits at home.

Panetta proposed a $613 billion budget for the year starting in October — a $525 billion base spending plan and $88.4 billion for combat operations, primarily in Afghanistan. He said the base budget would rise to $567 billion by the 2017 fiscal year, by when the United States plans to withdraw most forces from Afghanistan.

He proposed reducing the number of active US Army soldiers from 570,000 in 2010 to 490,000 by 2017 and cutting the Marines’ strength from 202,000 to 182,000 over the same period.

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged that the proposals were “tough” and said he expected more cuts in the future as the Pentagon looks to meet a goal of saving $259 billion over five years.

“The primary risks lie not in what we can do, but in how much we can do and how fast we can do it,” Dempsey said. “As I have said before, we will face greater risks if we do not change from our previous approach.”

Among the most ambitious future projects, the budget would fund work on an “afloat forward staging base” — a giant barge that can transport special operations or other forces at quick notice, reducing demands on aircraft carriers.

Even with cuts, the US military remains far larger than those of other countries. China, which has the world’s second largest military budget, said it was devoting 601.1 billion yuan ($91.1 billion) in 2011, although many foreign experts believe that the actual figure is higher.

The United States has 285 ships and a goal of 313 in total, although the proposal calls for the early retirement of seven cruisers.

Panetta also called for getting rid of six of the Air Force’s 60 tactical air squadrons — meaning about 120 planes — along with one training squadron.

As previously announced, the Pentagon plans to pull out two of four brigades from Europe — for a total of more than 7,000 troops. The United States now has three brigades in Germany and one in Italy, although it has not decided which to withdraw.

In one proposal that is especially sensitive, Panetta said that Obama would ask Congress to set up a commission to consider closure of military bases “with a goal of identifying additional savings and implementing them as soon as possible.”

Panetta promised to maintain military pay raises over the next two years that are in line with the private sector but warned of “more limited” increases afterward. He also called for increases in fees paid for health care, although he said the costs for retirees would remain below private sector plans. AGENCIES

London’s Big Ben is leaning, parliament sinking: reports

LONDON: The landmark clock tower containing Big Ben at Britain’s Palace of Westminster, is tilting, while media reports said the mother of all parliaments was slipping into the River Thames, raising fears over its future.

The House of Commons commission, which is responsible for the upkeep of the 19th century neo-Gothic parliamentary estate popular with tourist photographs, met Monday.

Media reports said it would discuss a surveyor’s report which could recommend lawmakers move out for repairs costing up to one billion pounds, while the Daily Telegraph said another proposal might be to sell to Russian or Chinese developers for about 500 million pounds (£779.7 million).

But a commission spokesman said there was no surveyor’s report, and members were only meeting to discuss setting up a group to look at general long-term renovation of the grade 1-listed building designed by Charles Barry and Augustus Welby Pugin.

“I think there’s been twos and twos added together and come up with we are selling to the Russians, but they won’t be talking about anything like that,” the spokesman said.

The 96-metre tall clock tower, which houses the bell originally nicknamed Big Ben, leans about 46 cm to the left of its peak.

A construction expert who worked on the leaning tower of Pisa in Italy and a multi-storey carpark under the houses of parliament in central London, said there was nothing to worry about, and it would take 10,000 years to reach an angle of concern.

Professor John Burland of Imperial College London also said work on the underground Jubilee train line in the 1990s had not caused dramatic movement, while a spokesman for the commission said the tilt could have existed since its construction in 1859.

The lean which is just visible to the naked eye had “been there for years,” Burland said.

“When I first started work on the car park it was obvious that it was leaning,” he told BBC radio.

“It was probably developed at a very early stage because there’s no cracking in the cladding and we think it probably leant while they were building it and before they put the cladding on.

“That was a long time ago and buildings do lean a little bit.”

He also dismissed concern in the media that parliament was slipping into the Thames, while the commission’s spokesman denied the walls around the palace were suffering from a particularly bad subsidence problem causing Big Ben to lean.

The current building, which houses the upper and lower chambers as well as the offices of some lawmakers, was built after its medieval predecessor was largely destroyed by fire in 1834 and has required constant maintenance.

“There’s no such thing as an old building that isn’t cracked,” he said.

“In fact they’re beneficial because the building moves thermally more than is caused by the Jubilee Line and the movements concentrated around the cracks and, if they didn’t, there’d be cracking elsewhere.

“So these have been there for years and they’re certainly not caused by the Jubilee Line or the car park.” AGENCIES?

Details on Kim Kardashian’s surprise Italian honeymoon

TrendPK.com: When Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries took off for Italy after their wedding, it actually wasn’t something Kim was expecting to do right away.

While Kim figured they’d take their honeymoon next summer when they had free time, Kris apparently wanted to surprise her with a little romantic trip, states UsMagazine.com. “Kris surprised me last minute!” Kim revealed.

And what a honeymoon it was as the newlyweds stayed at the $3,300-per-night Romeo and Juliet chalet at the five-star Hotel Santa Caterina.

The two also got in time at the pool and at the Mediterranean Sea.

Now, Kim will just have to wait and see if her honeymoon will also bring her baby.

Italy: Small town mints own money to fight austerity

 A small town in Italy, Filettino, set in rugged hill country around 100 km east of Rome, is rebelling against a proposal to merge the governments of towns with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants to save money.

Filettino has only around 550 people, but instead of merging with neighboring Trevi, Mayor Luca Sellari is trying to go it alone and set up a “principality” along the lines of the famous republic of San Marino to the north.

 “We aim to achieve real autonomy from Italy and we have the financial resources to do it,” Sellari said. There was no immediate comment from the central government in Rome.

Mayors from all over Italy are up in arms about proposals to cut local government funding and merge small towns as part of a 45.5 billion euro ($65.3 billion) austerity plan to balance the country s budget by 2013.

Details on Kim Kardashian’s upcoming, official honeymoon

TrendPK.com: Although Kim Kardashian just spent a few days in Italy with her new husband, Kris Humphries, she is already thinking about her real honeymoon that will take place at a later date.

Kim has already revealed that the official honeymoon will likely be next summer when they are both much more free, states Hollyscoop.

And as far as location? It will be a little different than the Italy trip: “Definitely tropical.”

UK Deputy PM Clegg defends response to London riots

He also rejected claims government failed to provide leadership as the capital was hit by rioting over the weekend because senior ministers were away from London.

As it emerged that Theresa May, the Home Secretary is flying back to the UK for talks with police chiefs about the disturbances; Clegg defended the government s response to the trouble and condemned what he described as “needless opportunistic theft and violence – nothing more, nothing less”.

On his first day back in Westminster after his summer holiday Clegg said the violence was “completely unacceptable”. The government stood “side by side with those people in those communities who utterly condemn the violence and the theft”, he said.

There have been complaints that the government did not have a senior minister in London at the weekend when the rioting broke out. But Clegg insisted that senior members of the cabinet had been in regular contact by phone.

“I reject completely this notion that somehow this government hasn t been functioning very effectively,” said Clegg, who said he had spoken to David Cameron, who is on holiday in Italy, by phone on Monday morning.

“We have arranged things to make sure that this government works effectively on all the issues of the day. We are in constant contact with each other and we are working as effectively this week as we do in every other week of the year.”

Gaddafi revives offer of vote to end Libya conflict

TRIPOLI: The Libyan government on Sunday renewed its offer to hold a vote on whether Muammar Gaddafi should stay in power, a proposal unlikely to interest Gaddafi’s opponents but which could widen differences inside NATO.

Pressure is growing from some quarters within the alliance to find a political solution, three months into a military campaign which is costing NATO members billions of dollars, has killed civilians, and has so far failed to topple Gaddafi.

Moussa Ibrahim, a spokesman for Gaddafi’s administration, told reporters in Tripoli the government was proposing a period of national dialogue and an election overseen by the United Nations and the African Union.

“If the Libyan people decide Gaddafi should leave he will leave. If the people decide he should stay he will stay,” Ibrahim said.

But he said Gaddafi — who has run the oil-producing country since taking over in a military coup in 1969 — would not go into exile whatever happened. “Gaddafi is not leaving anywhere, he is staying in this country,” Ibrahim said.

The idea of holding an election was first raised earlier this month by one of Gaddafi’s sons, Saif al-Islam.

The proposal lost momentum when Libyan Prime Minister Al-Baghdadi Ali Al-Mahmoudi appeared to dismiss it. At the time, it was also rejected by anti-Gaddafi rebels in the east of Libya, and by Washington.

Many analysts say Gaddafi and his family have no intention of relinquishing power. Instead, they say, the Libyan leader is holding out the possibility of a deal to try to widen cracks that have been emerging in the alliance ranged against him.

The election proposal could find a more receptive audience this time around, especially after a NATO bomb landed on a house in Tripoli on June 19, killing several civilians.

After that incident, alliance-member Italy said it wanted a political settlement, and also said that the civilian casualties threaten NATO’s credibility.

SOCCER DEFECTIONS

Libyan government forces have been fighting rebels, backed by NATO air power, since Feb. 17, when thousands of people rose up in a rebellion against his rule.

The revolt has turned into the bloodiest of the Arab Spring uprisings sweeping the Middle East.

Rebels now control the eastern third of the country, and some enclaves in the West. They have been unable though to break through to the capital, leaving Western powers banking on an uprising in Tripoli to overthrow Gaddafi.

The Libyan leader suffered a propaganda defeat when four members of the national soccer team and 13 other football figures defected to the rebels, the rebel council said.

Libyans are passionate about the sport and the national team was closely aligned with Gaddafi’s rule. At one point his son, Saadi, played in the side.

Asked about the defections, government spokesman Ibrahim said: “The Libyan footall team is full and functioning and performing all of its duties inside and outside Libya.”

HUMANITARIAN SWAP

A momentary thaw in the fighting allowed the Red Cross to reunite people caught on the wrong side of the conflict with their families.

A ship, the Ionis, arrived in Tripoli’s port on Sunday carrying 106 people from the main rebel stronghold in Benghazi. Many of the passengers were elderly, and families with small children.

A crowd of a few dozen people waited for the ship to dock, among them Mohammed Al-Gimzi. “I love Muammar Gaddafi very much,” he said.

When Al-Gimzi’s sister disembarked from the ship, he rushed to greet her and the two stood weeping with their heads on each other’s shoulders. “I am very happy to see my sister again,” he said, tears running down his face.

As part of the same exchange, a ship carried around 300 people from Tripoli to Benghazi on Friday. They included dozens of rebel supporters who had been detained.

“This is purely humanitarian, for families to meet with their loved ones and to be able to travel,” Robin Waudo, a spokesman in Tripoli for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said on Sunday. AGENCIES

Ship with 600 migrants sinks off Libya

Aid officials were still trying to confirm the fate of those people after the vessel broke apart on Friday in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Libya, UNHCR spokeswoman Laura Boldrini said.

Witnesses who left the Libyan capital on another boat shortly afterward reported seeing remnants of the sunken ship and the bodies of some passengers floating in the sea. Other witnesses saw passengers swimming to shore but it was unclear how many survived, according to the International Organisation for Migration.

Its staff on the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa interviewed a Somali woman who said she lost her four-month-old baby in the sinking. The woman swam to shore and managed to board another boat heading to Italy, the IOM said in a statement on Monday.

At least three other boats that left Libya in late March have disappeared, with hundreds feared dead, Boldrini said.

Libya’s Gaddafi presses offensive after son killed

TRIPOLI: Muammar Gaddafi pressed an offensive against rebel forces, and his supporters burnt Western embassies after the Libyan leader survived a NATO airstrike that officials said killed his son and three grandchildren.

Funerals were expected to be held on Monday, an occasion that might bring an awaited appearance or declaration by Gaddafi who authorities say was in the Tripoli house when it was destroyed by at least three missiles late on Saturday.

Gaddafi, fighting a rebellion against his authoritarian 41-year rule since mid-February, has not been seen in public since the attack, though a spokesman said he was unhurt. His son Saif al-Arab, 29, was killed with three young grandchildren.

The embassies of Britain and Italy were attacked and burnt, along with the U.S. commercial and consular affairs department after Gaddafi loyalists were shown on Libyan television vowing vengeance. The buildings had been vacated weeks earlier.

Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim said the strikes were a fourth attempt to assassinate Gaddafi. He denied allegations in some media that the deaths had been fabricated to discredit NATO. The alliance said it hit a command and control centre.

Any appearance of an assassination attempt against Gaddafi is likely to lead to accusations the British and French-led strikes are exceeding the U.N. mandate to protect civilians.

French surgeon Gerrard Le Clouerec, who does not work for the Libyan government, was asked to independently identify the bodies of Saif al-Arab and two children. He said all three had died due to a blast. He said the children’s faces had been obliterated by the blast so they were difficult to identify.

Le Clouerec said he also saw the body of a young man of about 30, with a beard and a thin moustache whose face matched a photograph he had been shown of Saif al-Arab.

ROCKETS HIT MISRATA PORT

Gaddafi’s forces fired rockets at the port in Misrata on Sunday as an aid ship was trying to unload, rebels said, and the shelling forced two other vessels to wait offshore. The port is the lifeline for Misrata which has been under siege for weeks.

“Shelling the port is disastrous for us because it will sabotage all the humanitarian aid we are getting,” said rebel spokesman, Ahmed Hassan. “God help us if this happens. God protect our port.”

Libyan state television said the port was shelled to stop NATO from delivering weapons to the insurgents. The rebel spokesman said that was a lie.

Rights groups say hundreds of people, including many civilians, have been killed in Misrata, about 200 km (130 miles) east of Tripoli. Officials in Tripoli deny targeting civilians, and say they are fighting armed gangs and al Qaeda sympathisers.

Rebels have repelled government troops from the centre of Libya’s third largest city in recent days and now say they have gone on the offensive to try to capture Misrata airport.

The frontline in eastern Libya has been static west of the town of Ajdabiyah for a week with government troops digging in and rebels attempting to train and regroup.

In the west, Libyan government forces are fighting to dislodge rebels from the Western Mountains after they seized control last month of the Dehiba-Wazin crossing, opening a passage for food, fuel and medicine.

The sound of heavy bombardment and small arms fire echoed through the mountains on the Libyan side of the border.

Artillery shells fell on and around the town of Dehiba on the Tunisian side of the border, residents told Reuters, the site of an incursion on Friday by forces loyal to Gaddafi that provoked fury in Libya’s western neighbour.

Refugees poured across the border into Tunisia on Sunday.

“I never thought I would have to leave my house but today, at the age of 80, I find myself forced to flee with my family, without taking any possessions and without knowing where I’m going to stay here in Tunisia,” said a Libyan man who fled the rebel-held town of Zintan.

U.N. WITHDRAWS STAFF

Britain expelled the Libyan ambassador and Italy condemned the attack on its embassy as a grave and vile act. Most Western countries closed their embassies in Tripoli before the NATO military intervention began several weeks ago.

Deputy Foreign Minister Kaim called the attacks on the embassies “a regrettable action. These actions happened after 3:30 in the morning. That’s why our police force were outnumbered by the number of demonstrators.”

The United Nations withdrew its international staff from Tripoli after a crowd entered their compound.

“A crowd of people entered a U.N. compound and some vehicles were taken. All U.N. staff are safe and accounted for,” Martin Nesirky, a U.N. spokesman, said. “The decision to leave the country was based on the overall security situation in Tripoli.”

The U.N. sent international staff to Tripoli only last month after it reached an agreement with the Libyan government on a humanitarian presence. These staffers would now cover Western Libya from neighbouring Tunisia, the United Nations said.

“They have the right to do so because of what happened this morning,” Kaim said. “My understanding is it is a temporary withdrawal.” AGENCIES

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