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ECB executive contracts row rumbles on with players deals still not sealed

Help: Richard Bevan was called in by players

England"s cricketers arrive in Bangladesh tonight with their 12-month ECB contracts still unsigned, nearly six months after their previous deals expired.

The players are unhappy with a number of issues and the stalemate led to them calling in Richard Bevan, former chief executive of the Professional Cricketers" Association, for assistance in negotiations.

The ECB wanted a speedy resolution to head off any moves from Indian Premier League franchises to secure players" services for longer than the two-week opportunity agreed in advance.

The players are currently covered by individual tour contracts and continuity of employment but, theoretically, they revert to being free agents at the end of the tour.

Skipper: Alastair Cook is acting England captain on the tour to Bangladesh

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Ian Bell moves from ancillary expel to win commend in starring role

Mike Atherton, Chief Cricket Correspondent, in Dhaka & , : {}

It has been Ian Bells weight via his England career to have been overshadowed by players whose antennae have been some-more attuned to the last of the complicated media. Not for him tattooed forearms, ear-piercing or soundbites, and right away not even the blond streaks that used to deception his ginger thatch usually a excellent technique, a singular hold and a craving for runs.

He went to his tenth Test hundred prior to tea yesterday and nonetheless he will not courtesy it as one of his excellent innings given the medium bowling, it was an critical one in these respects: never prior to has he dominated the scorecard to this extent; never prior to has he scored a hundred when no alternative top-order England batsman has.

The day belonged to him and him alone, and he ensured that there should be no annoying improved to finish the winter. Without his runs, and had the umpires taken a some-more enlightened perspective of a series of close appeals, England might have faced a wily last day.

Certainly that was the idea in the Bangladesh camp. Jamie Siddons, the coach, done a outing to the compare referees room during the sunrise event and he was seen gesticulating in a huff via the afternoon about the umpiring. He was foolish to do so, given enlivening his group to feel persecuted cannot be healthy, nonetheless his disappointment was understandable.

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At the close of fool around Siddons was asked either lower-ranked teams, such as his, get a tender understanding in all and he was unequivocal: Ive felt that my total career. I never felt that Australia got the wrong finish of things and right away Im coaching Bangladesh I really feel that. I dont know given the appeals should lift less weight, but they appear to.

The effect of his ubiquitous evidence is open to subject given the improved teams have improved bowlers and thus emanate some-more opportunities to appeal, but yesterday he positively had a point. Matt Prior should have been given out leg-before to the steady Rubel Hossain when he had done usually nine; Tim Bresnan survived a transparent bat-pad catch at stupid point when he had scored five, and Bell should have been given out leg-before to Abdur Razzak on 82.

On a representation where wicket-taking opportunities are tough to come by, and with such a meagre attack, these were dear moments for the home team. Mind you, Bangladesh have forsaken a integrate of easy chances and their fielding in the afternoon event belonged on the encampment green.

Once Jonathan Trott had unsuccessful to supplement to his overnight score, pulling brazen usually for the round to gunnery unit off desk pad and bend prior to dribbling on to the stumps, Bell enjoyed prolific partnerships of 98 with Prior, who played breezily for 62, and 143 with Bresnan, who went past his initial half-century in Tests, and who, by creation the majority of his opportunities on this tour, has extended his reputation. Tiredness, as most as anything else, brought wickets: Prior heaved opposite the line and Bell swept wearily in the air, both descending to Shakib al Hasan, whose 57 overs brought 4 wickets and enclosed a conspicuous twenty-seven maidens.

Shakib will not mind if he never bowls at Bell again, given at one point the batsman had taken his normal opposite these opponents to some-more than 500. That he has an startling jot down opposite Bangladesh is not something to scream about necessarily, but given entrance behind in to the group after being forsaken during the debate to the Caribbean last winter, he has averaged some-more than fifty, that is. He seems staid as he has not appeared before, loose in his skin and assured in his game. He belongs.

Scoreboard

Bangladesh: First Innings 419 (Tamim Iqbal 85; M Mahmudullah 59; S Islam 53; G P Swann 4 for 114)

England: First Innings *A N Cook c Kayes b Razzak twenty-one I J L Trott b Al Hasan 64 K P Pietersen c Kayes b Al Hasan 45 P D Collingwood lbw b Hossain 0 I R Bell c Islam b Al Hasan 138 †M J Prior b Al Hasan 62 T T Bresnan not out 74 G P Swann run out 6 S C J Broad lbw b Mahmudullah 3 J C Tredwell not out 0 Extras (b 9, lb 11, w 1, nb Six) twenty-seven Total (8 wkts, 154 overs) 440

S T Finn to bat.

Fall of wickets: 1-29, 2-105, 3-107, 4-174, 5-272, 6-415, 7-426, 8-434.

Bowling: Islam 14-3-45-0, Razzak 37-7-127-1, Al Hasan 57-27-99-4, Mahmudullah 15-3-36-1, Hossain 23-4-80-1, Islam 7-0-29-0, Iqbal 1-0-4-0.

Umpires: A L Hill and R J Tucker

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Zimbabwean deminers transparent lethal bequest of Falklands war

Martin Fletcher, Port Stanley & , : {}

The initial blast shook the land and sent a plume of black fume thirty metres in to the air. Seven others followed in close period until a cover of peat and sandy dust hung over the slight peninsula, flanked by the breakers of Surf Bay, that connects Stanley to the old airport.

A infrequent caller nearing on a journey boat at the week end competence have thought that Argentina was ascent a second allege a reply to the oil training that began last week in the doubtful waters off the Falkland Islands. The explosions were essentially piece of an bid to remove a lethal bequest of the initial invasion. Work has eventually started to transparent the 120 minefields, containing at slightest 20,000 mines, that the Argentinians laid in 1982.

The minefields are everywhere strong on the highway to Stanley from the new Mount Pleasant airbase, on the low mountainous country at the behind of the town, on clearly unspoilt beaches where the Argentinians feared that British Marines would land to recapture Las Malvinas. They are ringed by barbed-wire fences arrayed with skull-and-crossbone signs.

Clearance work began true after the fight but was shortly halted since multiform British servicemen were injured. The minefields were instead fenced off and left, there being small vigour for land in the frugally populated islands. The fences were softened in the 1990s after the peculiar cow or sheep was blown up, but no human was harmed and the islanders learnt to live with them.

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That altered when Britain sealed the Ottawa Convention in 1998 and committed itself to stealing all mines from the territories. The islanders could not see the point. We felt the income would be improved outlayed in countries where kids are blown up on a unchanging basis, pronounced Emma Edwards, a part of of the legislative assembly. But the initial deminers eventually arrived late last year and have to date privileged 692 mines from 4 commander sites.

There are 4 teams of twelve often black Zimbabweans who learnt their traffic clearing mines laid along their countrys limit with Mozambique during the fight of independence.

They are a little of the majority veteran deminers Ive ever worked with, says Roger Gagen, the plan physical education instructor for the British executive Bactec, that employs them.

Fortunately, the Argentinians kept prudent annals of majority of their minefieldsand surrendered them after the war. Unfortunately they used worldly mines containing less steel than a little earring creation them really tough to detect. To devalue the problem, most of the coastal minefields have been lonesome by alternate sands, definition total beaches will have to be dug up and sieved.

Minefield 8 by Surf Bay was one of the heaviest mined, with usually over 1,000 Italian anti-tank and anti-personnel inclination what Mr Gagen calls the Ferraris of mines laid perceptibly close together in prolonged lines right away buried low underneath sand-blown grassland. The role was to repudiate the British entrance to Stanley from the airfield and to deter a Normandy-style landing.

The Times watched the Zimbabweans, clad in Kevlar aprons with reinforced perspex visors, operative their approach down the rows, clearing the vegetation, smoothly prodding the earth, digging trenches that concede them to display the small, turn cosmetic mines from the side and manufacture phony posts to symbol them.

Every alternative day the unearthed mines are broken on the mark with cosmetic explosives as a result the blasts at the weekend.

It is perfected work, and the men allege usually a couple of metres a day. It is additionally dangerous: each group has a full-time medic. The men work at slightest twenty-five metres from each alternative in box of explosions. They work six-hour days with consistent breaks to forestall thoroughness lapses. They can splash ethanol usually on Saturday nights.

They have had colleagues killed in alternative countries but here usually one cave has exploded prematurely, and the deminer survived. These are early days, and it could take a decade to transparent all the minefields in the Falklands.

The Zimbabweans wear the risk lightly. They are an inconsistent steer on the streets of Stanley, and the cold, wet, breezy continue of this empty archipelago could perceptibly be some-more opposite from Zimbabwes. But they have solid work that allows them to send desperately indispensable remittances to their families. They are additionally saying sights they never dreamt of.

Theyre positively vacant by the penguins, sea lions and dolphins, Mr Gagan said.

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Major-General Richard Barrons puts Taleban warrior numbers at 36000

Jerome Starkey Kabul & , : {}

The ubiquitous in assign of persuading Afghan fighters to put down their weapons has estimated that there are as majority as 36,000 insurgents, giving a singular estimation of the fighting force at the authority of the Taleban.

Reiterating the perspective that anticipating jobs for those fighting Western and Afghan forces was the key to finale the war, Major-General Richard Barrons pronounced of the militants: Some are ideological full-time jihadis, a small are related to the rebellion for localised reasons, internal grievances; a small given the a approach to have a living; a small given they similar to to fight; a small given their communities are hedging their bets in in between the Government and the insurgency.

He added, pointedly, that the Karzai Government had finished small to consequence the certitude of the people, whilst the Taleban had in a small cases supposing improved simple governance.

Assessing the militants numbers, General Barrons said: There are probably 900 in the leadership, counting unequivocally youth to unequivocally senior, and there are in in between 25,000 and 36,000 people who would call themselves fighters.

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More than 100,000 US and Nato forces, together with about 200,000 Afghan soldiers and police, outnumber the insurgents rounded off ten-to-one. Instead of simply fighting them, General Barrons runs a Nato reintegration cell perplexing to assimilate what motivates the militants to quarrel and utilizing that report to assistance Afghan officials to lure them to barter sides.

The incentives for assent approaching to cost about $1 billion (�670 million) over the subsequent five years embody jobs, money, precision and tolerable development. These are goals that have eluded majority of Afghanistan given the US-led advance eight years ago. This is not about regulating all the majority problems of Afghanistan, he said. This is about removing sons home to their family groups and family groups in their communities branch opposite the insurgency.

Despite $17 billion outlayed on assist given 2001, Afghanistan stays one of the lowest countries on earth, with 850 young kids underneath 5 failing each day, according to Save the Children. Literacy and stagnation run at rounded off thirty per cent.

This need not be a desperately bad place, General Barrons said. Given time [and] investment you unequivocally could broach a improved hold up for the many. If what this nation is going to need is lorry drivers and miners and overpass builders we should bond them with precision that will assistance them do that.

The plan echoes a British-backed beginning deserted in 2007 when President Karzai diminished the diplomats who written it, for negotiating with the Taleban but his permission.

General Barrons pronounced that in majority instances Nato and the Taleban had been fighting for paper-thin reasons, but in a small cases he pronounced Mr Karzais Government was piece of the problem. People have found the internal member predatory, hurtful and unqualified of mending their lives, he said.

President Karzai has betrothed shift but has so far unsuccessful to deliver. A new remodel programme is approaching to be denounced this month.

British Airways workman questioned about militant appropriation UK headlines

A BA orator said: "We take counts relating to security intensely severely and as a obliged association regularly co-operate entirely with the police." Photograph: AFP/Adrian Dennis

Police are doubt a British Airways workman about militant fundraising, it emerged today.

The 30-year-old man was arrested at one of the company"s offices in Newcastle on Thursday. He is being hold at a executive London military hire after detectives were postulated some-more time to subject him at a justice conference on Saturday.

A orator for British Airways reliable the arrest. "We take counts relating to security intensely severely and as a obliged association regularly co-operate entirely with the police," he said.

"As with any issue relating to a military review it would be inapt to criticism further."

The Sun reported that the man worked in one of BA"s call centres, receiving newcomer bookings. Scotland Yard pronounced searches were carried out at one of the company"s offices.

Labour in risk of being overtaken on innovative meditative towards crime

Analysis: Rosemary Bennett, Social Affairs Correspondent & , : {}

When it comes to new and innovative meditative on combating gangs, crime and yobbish behaviour, Labour is in risk of being outflanked by the Conservatives.

The Government, painful by accusations of being soft on crime during the years in opposition, has never utterly got over the fright that it will be marked down as such again.

Cases such as Edlington, where dual brothers pounded and roughly killed dual boys, and the Fiona Pilkington tragedy risk undermining their difficult on crime record. That equates to conditions such as reconstruction are doubtful to underline prominently in Labours manifesto. The celebration will quarrel the choosing with promises of some-more eremitic poise orders, some-more steel detectors in schools and longer sentences.

Earlier this week, it deserted the early recover intrigue for prisoners notwithstanding jot down levels of overcrowding in jails, in credentials for going to the polls.

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In contrast, the Conservatives are relishing the ultimate on-going meditative on crime, and have resisted the enticement to make use of cases such as Fiona Pilkingtons to call for tougher measures on uncontrolled youngsters.

An successful inform by Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader, is mostly at the back of the change in tone. His Centre for Social Justice think-tank published, to good acclaim, a inform on fighting squad enlightenment that embraced new models of operative from a little of the majority crime-ridden cities in the US.

It referred to a far some-more worldly approach, bark off those who deposit in to gangs in poke of a father figure with the indicate of something else to do sports clubs, precision and family support. All military efforts could afterwards be focused on the squad leaders, who would be punished with a new sort of poise sequence and concede the military to take to court for teenager infractions, such as pushing offences.

Aspects of that inform are expected to turn celebration policy.

Mr Duncan Smith is about to indicate an even some-more in advance proceed to girl probity in his ultimate research. Work has started, but the initial object on the bulletin is raising the age of rapist shortcoming from 10, that has prolonged been a idea of magnanimous campaigners.

The stream girl probity complement fails scrupulously to rehabilitate immature offenders so that they can go on to lead law-abiding and certain lives. The cost to multitude is staggering, Mr Duncan Smith said.

Not all of his recommendations will turn celebration policy, but they have positively since Conservatives a opposite citation to move in.

It is right away Labour that is underneath vigour to come up with something new.