Новости за 30.06.2015

The noise drowns out the story. The din today included what seemed to be apparent about-turns by Wolfgang Schäuble, the German Finance Minister, and Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president. Schäuble told the German parliament that Greece would remain in the euro for the time being, even if the Greek people rejected austerity, while Juncker told Alexis Tsipras, the Greek Prime Minister, that a bailout accord could still be reached. Tsipras’ new request for a two-year programme follows that. Читать дальше...

David Cameron’s promise of a “full spectrum” response to the indiscriminate murder brought by Islamist terrorism has done nothing to reduce the risk of further attacks.

We are in a period of landmark planning decisions. On 29 June, after much deliberation, Lancashire councillors voted to block proposals for the UK’s first fracking site – despite clear advice from legal and planning advisers that the project should go through. When it came to it, they just couldn’t bring themselves to allow widespread fracking on their doorstep.

Like most things in the British taxation system, tax credits – potentially under lethal threat from George Osborne’s Budget next week – are there for a reason, and a reason that has been too readily forgotten.

Mo Farah has called on Alberto Salazar to prove his innocence to the public and says he will sever ties with his coach with immediate effect if the American is found guilty of any wrongdoing.

How did it come to this? How did Greece end up joining Somalia, Sudan and Zimbabwe on a list of countries officially in “arrears” to the International Monetary Fund?

Make light work of household chores with a powerful, versatile machine

I’ve always been in two minds about Alan Titchmarsh. On the one hand, he’s a gardening god, holder of the Victoria Medal, the highest honour in the horticultural world. On the other, he was responsible for Ground Force and once, while we were pushing through the crowds at the Chelsea Flower Show, my mum reckoned Titchmarsh gave her a dirty look.

This is no time for a soundbite, but I feel the hand of football history on England’s shoulder. Its women will soon kick off against Japan in a World Cup semi-final, and as they are on the cusp of trying to reach the country’s first World Cup final since 1966, the tension is… well, in the strictest truth, the tension now is perfectly bearable.

What kind of a world do we live in where the marriage woes of the MP for Rochdale are considered front-page news? I know, it’s a world in which the narcotic appeal of social media overrides any sense of propriety, and where titillation will beat discretion any day of the week.

If I had to describe the Greek referendum in one word, it would be ‘madness’. I landed in Athens on Friday night for what was supposed to be a week’s holiday in my home country, and I have already had enough of reading the foreign press’ romantic views on the sad state of my beloved country or hearing emotional arguments about how ‘asking the people’ will bring democracy to Greece. It won’t - at least, not this way. It will only bring division.

The Director of Public Prosecutions is being heavily criticised for her decision not to prosecute Lord Janner. The independent reviewer has reversed the decision and given the go-ahead for a prosecution.

Make sure you're protected from head to toe in the heatwave

It’s tricky knowing what to do with the kids at the weekend. Petting zoo? Soft play? Well, this Saturday the Ferrers are trying something different – we’re going to see some real-life Nazis. “Yes, sweetheart. These men are silly!" I imagine I'll have to explain – that and "No, darling. I don’t think their arms are stuck in that position.”

There may be more truth to a much-used romantic saying than was previously thought, after scientists found that beauty really is in the eye of the beholder, especially if you take a long, hard look at your partners first.

The extraordinary heatwave that is about to slam into southern England – Wednesday will probably see temperatures in London of 35C or even 36C (which is 95 to 96.8 degrees in old-fashioned Fahrenheit), according to the Met Office – may well turn people’s thoughts once more to a phrase we have almost stopped using: global warming.

1. Syriza, the Greek coalition of the radical left that is so admired by the sort of people who made sure Labour lost here, has finally led its voters to the point where denial meets reality.

Some directors love to shock, but Damiano Michieletto got more than he bargained for when he staged a slaveringly-protracted stripping-naked of a female actor in a gang-rape chez the evil Gesler in Guillaume Tell: the auditorium was swept by a sudden hurricane of booing so loud, so angry, and so unanimous that the music was drowned and the scene brought to an embarrassed halt.

With the fine mess that pro-European Europeans are making of Europe, who needs Eurosceptics? Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission President, declared the Greek bailout referendum to be an in-out referendum on EU membership. A “no” vote this Sunday, would, he implied, not just force Greece out of the eurozone, it would lead inexorably to Greece falling out of the European single market and the European Union.