Daily Archives: January 11, 2016

MANCHESTER UNITED are reportedly ready to pay a world-record £90million to sign Gareth Bale – despite the player insisting he is happy at Real Madrid.

According to The Times, United are determined to get their man as manager Louis van Gaal seeks to spend his way out of their rut.

Van Gaal is under pressure not only to get results but also provide entertaining football as fans at Old Trafford become restless with his team’s style of play.

On Saturday they won a second game on the bounce when beating Sheffield United 1-0 in the FA Cup third round thanks to Wayne Rooney’s penalty in stoppage time.

Dutchman Van Gaal has already insisted he needs added flare in his attacking unit and Bale, it seems, is top of his January shopping list.

According to the report, Bale is unhappy with life in Spain and is seeking a move back to the Premier League.

Real sacked manager Rafael Benitez last week after falling behind Barcelona and Atletico Madrid in the race for the Spanish title.

Bale is said to want a move away from the Bernabeu, despite the player explaining on Saturday that he is comfortable at the club.

“I had a very good relationship with Rafa [Benitez], obviously it was a big disappointment to see him go, but things like this happen in football, you’re professional and you get on with it and carry on,” Bale said.

“I’m happy at the moment. Obviously you can never predict what happens in the future, but I’m enjoying my football at the moment so I’ll keep going.”

source:express.co.uk

New Democracy, Greece’s major conservative party, has a new leader. Kyriakos Mitsotakis is promising a “common-sense” approach to politics, aiming to bring the party to the center and build “a great center-right movement.”

“We have one purpose. To express all the forces that stand against the populism of an incompetent government,” Mitsotakis told supporters Sunday night, referring to the leftist Syriza government led by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.

The son of former Prime Minister Konstantinos Mitsotakis, Kyriakos has an impressive resume. He studied at Harvard University, before going on to work as an economic analyst at Chase Manhattan Group. Mitsotakis was first elected to the parliament in 2004.

The vote follows the resignation of New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras in July 2015 after an election loss. Interim leader Vangelis Meimarakis, who led the party through another defeat in the September 2015 general election, was the favored candidate in the leadership race, after he secured an 11.3 percent lead over Mitsotakis in the first round of voting. In the final ballot Mitsotakis held a two-point lead over Meimarakis with 70 percent of votes counted, but the final result will not be released until later Monday.

2015 was not a good year for New Democracy. In the January election, the party won just 76 seats, lost its position as the governing party and obtained its worst-ever share of seats. The left-wing Syriza, elected on a promise to resist European-imposed austerity measures agreed to by previous governments, took power for the first time.

A glimmer of hope for the right emerged when Syriza leader Tsipras resigned as prime minster in August, triggering a new election. Polls showed Syriza and New Democracy neck-and-neck, but the final result saw a vote gap of 7 percentage points between the two, with Syriza returning to government and New Democracy losing one net seat from the January result.

source:ibtimes.com

David Bowie accepts the Webby Lifetime Achievement Award (Photo by Brian Ach/WireImage)

David Bowie has died after an 18-month battle with cancer, the singer’s son has confirmed.

Duncan Jones wrote on Twitter: ‘Very sorry and sad to say it’s true. I’ll be offline for a while. Love to all.’

Statements were posted on the star’s official Facebook and Twitter accounts saying the star died on Sunday.
They read: ‘David Bowie died peacefully today surrounded by his family after a courageous 18 month battle with cancer.

‘While many of you will share in this loss, we ask that you respect the family’s privacy during their time of grief.’

Bowie released his 29th album, called Blackstar, on Friday 8 January, to coincide with his 69th birthday.

The Heroes singer was famously very private but there had been rumours about his health for years.

Paying tribute to the singer on Twitter, comedian and actor Ricky Gervais, who convinced his long-time idol Bowie to star as himself – and ridicule Gervais – in an episode of 2006 sitcom Extras, wrote simply: ‘I just lost a hero. RIP David Bowie.’

UK Prime Minister David Cameron said on Twitter ‘I grew up listening to and watching the pop genius David Bowie. He was a master of re-invention, who kept getting it right. A huge loss’.

Just three days ago a clip for the song from his new album, Blackstar called Lazarus was released on Youtube.

Lazarus is a biblical character that was resurrected from the dead.

The clip opens with Bowie, lying, bandaged on a hospital bed singing, ‘Look up here, I’m in heaven.’

Former NME editor Krissi Murison told Sky News the only other musician’s death she could think of which was comparable was that of John Lennon.

‘For a music fan, he was everything,’ she said.

Bowie made a surprise comeback in 2013 when he suddenly released a new single on his 66th birthday with an album out just weeks later, his first for 10 years.

Bowie was awarded a Grammy lifetime achievement award in February 2006 and his final performance on stage was later that year when he sang alongside Alicia Keys at the Black Ball in New York.

The star made a habit of confounding the critics – killing off his most famous creation, Ziggy Stardust, at the height of his fame – and reinventing himself in roles including glam rocker, soul singer and hippie songwriter.

Bowie, born David Jones in post-war Brixton, south London, kicked off his music career in the RB boom of the early Sixties.

In 1969 he made his first appearance in the charts with Space Oddity.

A string of albums followed, before 1972’s The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars made him an international star.

The 1980s saw him combine his pop career with appearances in films including Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence and Absolute Beginners.

Bowie married Somali-American model Iman in 1992 and the couple had one daughter, Alexandria ‘Lexi’ Zahra Jones who was born in 2000.

The couple split their time between New York and London.

source:skynews.com.au