Winter Olympics 2010: Andrea Fischbacher wins super-G gold
Bystaff and agencies Published: 8:45PM GMT 20 Feb 2010
Super three: Slovenia"s silver medalist Tina Maze, Austria"s gold winner Andrea Fischbacher and USA"s bronze medalist Lindsey Vonn celebrate on the podium Photo: GETTY IMAGESSlovenia"s Tina Maze won the silver, her first Olympic medal, while American speed queen Lindsey Vonn, the newly-crowned downhill champion, took the bronze.
Fischbacher"s medal comes in the wake of huge criticism of Austria"s ski team, which after dominating the 2006 Games in Turin with 14 of the 30 medals has so far underperformed in Whistler.
"Amy who?" slides into history Amy Williams: how I won gold Olympic funding pays off First Winter Olympic gold in 30 years Amy Williams wins GB gold Amy Williams profile"In the speed disciplines we didn"t have great results. We"ve not been leading by example, but we"ve shown that if everything goes okay you can be the best," said Fischbacher, who was still in a daze at her achievement.
"I didn"t believe it when I saw my name on top of the leaderboard. It"s just a dream come true.
"I liked the whole course, and the fact it was a difficult slope. You really had to fire out the start and be aggressive over the whole course."
Starting with bib number 19, Fischbacher was one of many skiers who appeared to benefit from the steadily improving light conditions on the challenging Franz"s super-G course.
She posted a winning time of 1min 20.14sec to push Vonn, who had a technically flawless run that looked good enough for gold, off provisional top spot.
Vonn was everyone"s favourite in the event which combines some of the technical challenges of the slalom with the speed of the downhill.
But the 25-year-old admitted she made the error of "stepping off the gas pedal" after negotiating the difficult top sections of the winding course.
"Everyone was having trouble on the top of the course and I tried to ski those difficult sections well. After that I stepped off the gas pedal, and I think that"s where I"ve lost the race," she said.
Vonn however admitted that winning her second medal of the Games was already more than she bargained for.
"I don"t really think I could have done better. I came here hoping to get one medal and won the downhill gold. Getting this medal is the icing on the cake," she added.
"Any medal at the Olympics is already a success, and you have to be really proud of it."
In a day of upsets, Maze produced the race of her life to push Vonn into third, earning a silver medal in the process.
"I didn"t believe I could be so good. When I saw I was number two, it was just amazing," said Maze.
Germany"s Maria Riesch started 12th and looked set for a medal after she beat the fastest time set by number one starter, Julia Mancuso of the United States, by just 0.04.
But as the race went on Riesch, who won super-combined gold on Thursday, was pushed out of the medals and eventually finished eighth.
"It was really tough," said Riesch.
"There were lots of rolls and dark light, it was a difficult course. The key was to make less mistakes and keep the skis going all the time and take lots of speed in flat parts.
"The later numbers had a little better light today. Fischbacher and Maze took this chance really well."
By Rowena Mason Published: 9:11PM GMT twenty February 2010
One comparison figure who has seen a breeze of the paper pronounced that an inner row over how to lift some-more taxation income from North Sea oil and gas had hold up agreement on the appetite policy.
Greg Clark, the shade appetite secretary, was meant to betray his team"s big plan in the autumn a minute declaration of how Britain will cope with the 200bn bid to plunge into meridian shift and safeguard security of supply.
UA Fanthorpe Sir Alan Walters Roadmap fails to draft key taxation points Prompt commercial operation remuneration can good the customer as well as the supplier MPs expenses: Sir Christopher Kelly and John Bercow to throw 25 a night allowanceBut 6 months after and only weeks prior to the ubiquitous election, there is no pointer of the document. It is accepted that the paper might not right away crop up until Mar or even April.
Another source close to the Conservatives pronounced the request was created and ready to be published by the shade appetite and meridian shift group in November, but it appears to have been hold up by higher authorities in the party.
George Osborne, the shade chancellor, has hired former appetite apportion and industry consultant Tim Eggar to see at how disappearing income from North Sea taxation can be maximised.
Mr Eggar reported to the shade chancellor a couple of weeks ago after canvassing North Sea industry leaders who warned that poignant proportions of oil and gas wake up could tumble unless taxation breaks were extended.
"We"ve been given no reason for the hold-up, that equates to nonetheless some-more doubt for investors seeking for signs that the people approaching to form the subsequent supervision have got a little petrify policies," pronounced head of open affairs for an oil vital with operations in the North Sea.
A orator for Mr Clark insisted that the paper was ready to be expelled and the announcement was quite a make a difference of timing. Sources close to the MP claimed that there had been no check and that it was "a disagreement and utterly not the case" that there were any disagreements about policy.
Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, lengthened taxation breaks to small, technically formidable fields in the last Budget, but oil companies have warned that indiscriminate remodel of the law is needed. The complement of administration was devised decades ago when Britain"s prolongation was almost higher and descent majority easier.
A investigate due to be expelled by industry group Oil & Gas UK subsequent week will show that seductiveness in the North Sea scrutiny seems to be picking up but that majority new projects are some-more technically formidable and longer-term.
Malcolm Webb, Oil & Gas UK"s arch executive, pronounced remodel of the complement was indispensable to safeguard Britain"s appetite security.
"It is critical for governments to realize that the complicated taxation weight this industry faces is an snag to investment," he said.
"If tightening of the taxation complement of administration equates to lightening the existing, old-fashioned taxation regime, so that it encourages the one some-more investment indispensable to maximize liberation of the superfluous 25bn barrels of UK oil and gas, afterwards we would await it."
"The significance of the oil and gas pot in appetite security cannot be overstated. Even on feat of the Government"s targets for renewable and chief energy, the UK will still rely on oil and gas to encounter 70pc of the appetite needs in 2020."
A consult by Deloitte last month showed that offshore scrutiny and estimation wake up forsaken by some-more than 35pc last year. Fewer wells were drilled in the last entertain than at any time given 2003.
By Louise Armitstead Published: 8:36PM GMT twenty February 2010
The MP for Twickenham would concentration remodel on promissory note and taxationHis bureau is a dimly lit, close small room, tucked at the back of a lift missile in Portcullis House, opposite the highway from the Houses of Parliament. Black and white photos of "Vince out and about" are stranded rounded off on one wall and an old map of his subdivision of Twickenham is pinned on another. The usually equipment of intensity discernment are a little cuttings on his table about the abdication of Hector Sants from the Financial Services Authority, and a jot down noted "Answers".
Cable ambles in, wearing a thick cloak and a Trilby, his tall await ostensible over-sized in the small space. "Sorry, I was transparent about UK stagnation figures," he explains, branch to rummage for writings in his bag.
George Osborne answers a little difficult questions on monetary reform Speaker needs Equitable debate Vince Cable for Speaker? Britain can be bound ? but not by a PM who wants to save the world Banks should tell sum of staff earning over 200,000, says Vince CableThe droll thing about Vince, as someway you feel similar to job him, is that you think you"ve well known him forever. Perhaps it"s since there are no surprises: he doesn"t appear older, younger, shorter or louder than on TV. But additionally his still Yorkshire drawl, singular in between the tip politicians, seems infrequently familiar.
It"s a peculiarity that"s severely worrying both the Tory and Labour camps. With weeks to go prior to the General Election, Cable"s recognition appears to be the usually non-moving part. In check after poll, he"s been voted as the majority appropriate welfare for Chancellor of the Exchequer, the majority devoted statesman on the economy and the majority arguable executive of regulatory reform.
For the dual main parties calming themselves that as a Lib Dem, Cable will never win, it"s still deeply irritating for him to be autocratic the key selecting battleground. And, with the concerns about the probability of a hung Parliament, Cable"s significance is growing.
One comparison Tory said: "If it"s that close, the Lib Dems will hold the whip hand, possibly by combining a bloc or in charity devotion to the Government. Vince competence be emissary personality [of the Lib Dems], but he"s the key man. And it"s his mercantile policies that are majority expected to be used as conditions for the support. We"re examination him really carefully."
So does he wish to be Chancellor? And that celebration would he cite to work with? From his background, it would be Labour. After flourishing up in Yorkshire and after study at Oxford and Glasgow, his initial dual and catastrophic attempts at winning a parliamentary seat, were done wearing a red rosette. But a little of his policies, quite in the area of tax, are unashamedly Tory.
Cable won"t be drawn. "We have no welfare one proceed or the other. We"ve regularly pronounced we"ll let the open confirm and do whatever is majority appropriate in the inhabitant interest," he says. "And whatever is financially responsible."
He denies reports that the Lib Dems have already proposed negotiations with the alternative parties but confirms a shopping-list of policies does exist. The election, he says, will be fought on "four big themes": economy and the deficit; bank remodel and bonuses; taxation reform; and the restructuring of the British economy.
Polls have regularly found that Cable"s credentials as an economist gives him the corner in conditions of credibility, quite in the City. Apart from his PhD in economics, Cable outlayed his career prior to apropos an MP as an mercantile adviser, rising to the on all sides of arch economist at Shell.
"It really helps carrying an intrinsic learn on economics," he says.
In a week in that a gorgeous form of venerable economists have banked up on possibly side of the evidence over when to cut Britain"s deficit, that side is he on?
"There are probably all sorts of jokes you could have at the responsibility of my former profession" he laughs. Then some-more seriously: "I"m fearful you can"t rely on veteran economists for the answers economics is a great fortify but it"s not great at elementary answers to formidable questions."
Although Cable has called for a slower proceed to slicing the necessity than the Tories, he has summarized 15bn of specific spending cuts some-more than Labour or the Tories.
"We"ve got to have a transparent plan" he says. "But the speed contingency rely on the state of the economy in the center piece of this year. If there is clever recovery, afterwards we should speed up the cuts, if not afterwards we should wait."
On the alternative key battleground, the banks, Cable final evident action. He says: "If I were Chancellor of the Exchequer the priorities would be tax, bill and classification out the banks. Day one, hour one I would shift the design of the nationalised banks.
"The Government has set the wrong objectives for the banks. The part-nationalised banks are perplexing to set up up collateral pot and progress their share price. The design of formulating shareholder worth with a perspective to an early sale is foolish. It might take a decade to spin the banks around.
"Now that they are nationalised, they should combine on assisting the economy. The state-owned banks have no excuses. They don"t need to be concerned about their haven ratios: they can"t go bust, they are owned by the Government. There is no reason whatever they shouldn"t be taking advantage of expanded lending policies."
The promissory note predicament is Cable"s clever suit, an area about that from the begin of the monetary predicament and famously prior to he has valid conspicuous prescient.
In Nov 2003 during Treasury questions in the House of Commons, Cable asked Gordon Brown, afterwards Chancellor: "Is not the heartless law that the expansion of the British economy is postulated by consumer spending pinned opposite jot down levels of personal debt, that is secured, if at all, opposite residence prices that the Bank of England describes as well on top of balance level?"
Brown"s answer has condemned him ever since: "We have been right about the prospects for expansion in the economy and the Hon Gentleman has been wrong."
Four years later, when Northern Rock collapsed, Cable emerged as transparent and decisive. He was the initial to remonstrate for nationalisation whilst his domestic opponents and the rest of the tripartite group fumbled for an answer.
His views on the banks are still some-more in advance and transparent cut than his opposition.
"How to understanding with the banks is at the heart of the complaint since of the faith of the rest of commercial operation on them. The banks contend they are lending to businesses. But small commercial operation owners and commercial operation organisations are revelation us a opposite story: that lending isn"t there. I"m not suggesting for a second that Alistair Darling should be on the house of the banks, selecting that Fred Blogs should get that volume of money, no. But there contingency be a vital framework."
Does that meant requisite lending targets?
"Yes, over all targets to grasp growth. We mustn"t be silly. But the banks need to reply and recognize that their poise is deleterious the economy."
If the Government has dealt with the banks badly, Cable says the Tory plans for restructuring the monetary complement are bad too.
"We remonstrate with the Tory approach. The FSA messed up big time. But there"s been a change, they"re recruiting improved people. We"d leave the have up of the tripartite. The worse thing after a two-year interregnum is for new legislation to come in and shift everything. Regulation and organisation needs to be got right and it"s deeply unhelpful to speak up all this uncertainty."
But Cable says bankers contingency fool around their part, generally on bonuses. "The open won"t mount for the actuality that the taxes they are shelling out is simply being paid out to comparison executives. The inconsistency in between the compensate of an investment landowner and that of someone using a association of 100 people is ludicrously distorted."
Cable"s annoy over bonuses is that they are not scrupulously earned, he says.
For Cable, the issue of lending, bonuses and risk direct one solution: the break-up of the banks that are "too big to fail".
He insists he"s not simply opposite the banks but he thinks the UK is far as well reliant on the sector. "We"re removing to Icelandic levels of faith on promissory note and that"s not sensible," he says.
Reform of the taxation complement is key. On the troublesome theme of non-domiciled taxation standing he says that it is "not convincing in a globally integrated universe to levy punitive levels of taxation on general workers differently they"ll only go elsewhere.
"The useful [approach] would be to concede people to work for 7 years we can remonstrate about how prolonged it is after that time you contingency compensate taxes similar to everybody else. It"s traffic with rich people sincerely and realistically."
The same arguments request to house tax. "Our beliefs are broadly the same as the Tories. We wish a reduce rate with fewer exemptions. But it"s formidable to grasp this but impacting alternative tools of business. The design is to have a rival rate of tax.
"In the UK we"ve been flapping towards the higher finish of the scale. If I were Chancellor my design would be to have commercial operation taxes rival again."
Central to Cable"s prophesy are geographic imbalances. "The open administration department has been over-centralised. The Liberal Democrats would decentralise British internal supervision and await infrastructure growth in the regions."
Before I go, I ask for only one some-more prediction: where"s the bubble? Cable doesn"t blink: "There"s something really bizarre going on with skill prices. The big improvement in overvalued prices hasn"t happened. There"s been a prejudiced improvement about 6 months after the crash. But not a correct one. This is worrying." Let"s never forget, Mr Cable has been right before.
By Nick Meo in Malmo, Sweden Published: 7:30AM GMT twenty-one February 2010
Judith Popinski: Judith Popinski graphic subsequent to the White Bus at the Red Cross notable relic in Malmo, Sweden Photo: SCANPIXWhen she initial arrived in Sweden after her rescue from a Nazi thoroughness camp, Judith Popinski was treated with colour with good kindness.
She lifted a family in the city of Malmo, and for the subsequent 6 decades lived happily in her adopted homeland - until last year.
Attacks on Jews in Britain climb after Gaza conflict Thats droll you dont see anti-Semitic Interview: Andrew Robinson, Pirate Party UKs leader Pirate Bay leads Swedish Viking assign on paid content YouTube cursed over Nazi videosIn 2009, a chapel portion the city"s 700-strong Jewish village was set ablaze. Jewish cemeteries were continually desecrated, worshippers were abused on their approach home from prayer, and "Hitler" was mockingly chanted in the streets by masked men.
"I never thought I would see this loathing again in my lifetime, not in Sweden anyway," Mrs Popinski told The Sunday Telegraph.
"This new loathing comes from Muslim immigrants. The Jewish people are fearful now."
Malmo"s Jews, however, do not usually point the finger at hypocritical Muslims and their associate racists in the country"s Neo-Nazi fringe. They additionally credit Ilmar Reepalu, the Left-wing mayor who has been in energy for fifteen years, of unwell to strengthen them.
Mr Reepalu, who is blamed for messy policing, is at the centre of a flourishing debate for observant that what the Jews understand as exposed anti-Semitism is in actuality usually a sad, but distinct effect of Israeli process in the Middle East.
While his views are far from surprising on the European liberal-left, that is mostly indicted of a pro-Palestinian bias, his Jewish critics contend they inspire immature Muslim hotheads to abuse and harass them.
The destiny looks so dour that by one estimate, around thirty Jewish family groups have already left for Stockholm, England or Israel, and some-more are scheming to go.
With the immature people formulation new lives elsewhere, the superfluous Jewish households, most of whom are done up of Holocaust survivors and their descendants, fright they will shortly be left altogether. Mrs Popinski, an 86-year-old widow, pronounced she has even encountered feeling when invited to verbalise about the Holocaust in schools.
"Muslim schoolchildren mostly omit me right afar when I verbalise about my practice in the camps," she said. "It is since of what their relatives discuss it them about Jews. The hatreds of the Middle East have come to Malmo. Schools in Muslim areas of the city simply won"t entice Holocaust survivors to verbalise any more."
Hate crimes, especially destined opposite Jews, doubled last year with Malmo"s military recording 79 incidents and revelation that far some-more probably went unreported. As of yet, no approach attacks on people have been available but most Jews hold it is usually a have a difference of time in the stream climate.
The city"s synagogue has guards and rocket-proof potion in the windows, whilst the Jewish kindergarten can usually be reached by thick steel security doors.
It is a far cry from the city Mrs Popinski arrived in 65 years ago, half-dead from starvation and typhus.
At Auschwitz she had been distant from her Polish family, all of whom were murdered. She transient the gas chambers after being sent as a worker labourer. Then she was altered to a womens" thoroughness camp, Ravensbrück, from where she was afterwards evacuated in a recover understanding negotiated in between the Swedish Red Cross and comparison Nazis, who were by afterwards perplexing to save their own lives.
After the war, usually as magnanimous Sweden took in Jews who survived the Holocaust as a charitable act, it additionally took in new waves of refugees from restraint and conflicts in the Middle East. Muslims are right afar estimated to have up about a fifth of Malmo"s competition of scarcely 300,000.
"This new loathing from a group 40,000-strong is focused on a small group of Jews," Mrs Popinski said, vocalization in a sitting room filled with paintings and Persian carpets.
"Some Swedish politicians are vouchsafing them do it, together with the mayor. Of march the Muslims have some-more votes than the Jews."
The misfortune situation was last year during Israel"s short fight in Gaza, when a small proof in foster of Israel was pounded by a screaming host of Arabs and Swedish leftists, who threw bottles and firecrackers as the military looked on.
"I haven"t seen loathing similar to that for decades," Mrs Popinski said. "It reminded me of what I saw in my youth. Jews feel exposed here now."
The complaint is apropos an annoyance for the Social Democrats, the mayor"s party.
Their inhabitant personality Mona Sahlin - the lady who is expected to turn the subsequent budding apportion after an choosing after this year - last week trafficked to Malmo to encounter Jewish leaders, that they took to be a pointer that at last politicians are waking to their plight. After the meeting, the mayor, Mr Reepalu, additionally betrothed to encounter them.
A former architect, he has been credited with revitalising Malmo from a half-derelict shipbuilding centre in to a vibrant, moneyed city with successful IT and biotech sectors.
His city was - until not prolonged ago at slightest - a resplendent multicultural success story, and has taken in proportionally some-more refugees than anywhere else in Sweden, a jot down of that it is proud.
Sweden has had a prolonged jot down of charity a stable breakwater to Jews, the initial of whom arrived from the easterly in the mid-nineteenth century. Today the Jewish competition is about 18,000 nationally, with around 3000 in southern Sweden.
The mayor insisted to The Sundaythat he was against to anti-Semitism, but added: "I hold these are anti-Israel attacks, continuous to the fight in Gaza.
"We wish Malmo to be worldly and stable for everyone and we have taken action. I have proposed a discourse forum. There haven"t been any attacks on Jewish people, and if Jews from the city wish to move to Israel that is not a have a difference for Malmo."
Sweden has had a prolonged jot down of charity a stable breakwater to Jews, the initial of whom arrived from the easterly in the mid-nineteenth century. Today the Jewish competition is about 18,000 nationally, with around 3000 in southern Sweden.
"Jews came to Sweden to get afar from persecution, and right afar they find it is no longer a stable haven," pronounced Rabbi Shneur Kesselman, 31. "That is a hideous feeling."
One who has had sufficient is Marcus Eilenberg, a 32-year-old Malmo-born lawyer, who is relocating to Israel in Apr with his immature family.
"Malmo has unequivocally altered in the past year," he said. "I am confident by nature, but I have no conviction in a destiny here for my children. There is really a threat.
"It proposed during the Gaza fight when Jewish demonstrators were attacked. It was a hideous feeling, being pounded in your own city. Just as bad was the realization that we were not being stable by the own leaders."
Mr Eilenberg pronounced he and his mother deliberate relocating to Stockholm where Jews feel safer than in Malmo. "But we motionless not to since in five years time I think it will be usually as bad there," he said.
"This is function all over Europe. I have cousins who are withdrawal their homes in Amsterdam and France for the same reason as me."
Malmo"s Jews are not the usually ones to humour loathing crimes.
At the city"s Islamic Centre, the executive Bejzat Becirov forked out a bullet hole in the window at the back of the main accepting desk.
Mr Becirov, who arrived in 1962 from the former Yugoslavia, pronounced that windows were continually smashed, pig"s heads had been left outward the mosque, and outbuildings burnt down - probably the acts of Neo-Nazis who have additionally baited Jews in the past.
He pronounced that the nuisance of Jews by a little immature Muslims was "embarrassing" to his community. Many of them are impoverished and cramped to hold up on dour estates where the Scandinavian mental condition of wealth and equivalence seemed far away.
For most of Malmo"s white Swedish population, meanwhile, the secular problems are bewildering after years of magnanimous immigration policies.
"I initial encountered competition loathing when I was an au span in England and I was shocked," pronounced Mrs Popinski"s crony Ulla-Lena Cavling, 72, a late teacher.
"I thought "this couldn"t occur in Sweden". Now I know otherwise."
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