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UEFA Official Site, 31.07.09

http://fr.uefa.com/footballeurope/news/kind=2/newsid=867864.html

IL GIOCATORE

Nato a Sacriston, nella contea di Durham, il 18 febbraio 1933, Robert William Robson comincia la sua carriera da calciatore nel 1950 al Fulham dove, giocando nel ruolo di ala, rimane per sei anni. Poi passa al West Browmich Albion, dove colleziona 257 presenze e 61 gol prima di tornare a Craven Cottage nel 1962. Per 20 volte in campo con la nazionale inglese, dopo un breve periodo come allenatore giocatore ai Vancouver Royals nella North American Soccer League, Robson intraprende la carriera di allenatore al Fulham nel gennaio '68, venendo però esonerato nel Natale di quell'anno. A offrirgli la possibilità di riscattarsi è, nel 1969, l'Ipswich Town dove in 13 anni vince la FA Cup ('78), la Coppa Uefa ('81) e per due volte arriva secondo in campionato.

DIECI ANNI DA CT

I successi con l'Ipswich gli spalancano le porte della nazionale inglese dove, nel 1982, prende il posto di Ron Greenwood. Alla guida dei Tre Leoni arriva fino ai quarti di finale del Mondiale 1986, eliminato dall'Argentina nella famosa partita della "mano de Dios" di Maradona, e chiude al quarto posto nella Coppa del Mondo '90, sconfitto prima in semifinale ai rigori dalla Germania e poi perdendo la finalina di consolazione con l'Italia di Vicini. Lasciata la panchina dell'Inghilterra, Robson allena il Psv Eindhoven, vincendo due volte il campionato, e poi, nel '92, lo Sporting Lisbona, esonerato dopo 18 mesi.

PORTOGALLO E SPAGNA

Chiamato alla guida del Porto, vince due campionati e una coppa di Portogallo e la panchina successiva è quella del Barcellona dove arriva nel luglio '96. Con i blaugrana conquista una Coppa del Re, una Supercoppa spagnola e una Coppa delle Coppe, nel '97 assume la veste di direttore generale salvo poi tornare al Psv. L'ultima panchina della sua carriera è quella del Newcastle, dove siede dal 1999 al 2004, conquistando per due volte l'accesso in Champions League. Il suo ultimo incarico è quello di consulente per la nazionale irlandese. Nel 1990, al termine della sua avventura alla guida dell'Inghilterra, gli viene conferito il titolo di Sir per i meriti sportivi.

Gazzetta dello Sport, 31.07.09

La presse britannique a annoncé ce vendredi la disparition de l'ancien sélectionneur anglais, Sir Bobby Robson. Agé de 76 ans, Robson devait déjà se battre depuis quelques années contre diverses formes de cancer, avant que deux tumeurs, inopérables, ne lui soient diagnostiquées l'an dernier. Après une belle carrière de joueur, Bobby Robson se lança avec succès dans une carrière d'entraîneur. Après avoir pris en charge l'équipe d'Ipswich town, il fut nommé sélectionneur de l'Angleterre en 1982, poste qu'il quitta en 1990 pour prendre en main la destinée de divers clubs dont le PSV Eindhoven, Barcelone, Porto ou encore Newcastle.

Sa dernière apparition en public eut lieu dimanche dernier, lorsque l'ancien entraîneur assista à un match de charité à Saint James' Park qui attira 30 000 spectateurs.

L'Equipe, 31.07.09

Former England manager Sir Bobby Robson has died.

Sir Bobby, 76, passed away this morning at his home, a statement issued on behalf of his family said.

"He died very peacefully this morning at his home in County Durham with his wife and family beside him.

"Sir Bobby's funeral will be private and for family members only.

"A thanksgiving service in celebration of Sir Bobby's life will be held at a later date for his many friends and colleagues.

"Lady Robson and the family would very much appreciate it if their privacy could be respected at this difficult time."

Just five days ago thousands of football fans crowded into Newcastle United's St James's Park to pay tribute to Sir Bobby and raise funds for his cancer charity.

The friendly game featured an England side including Alan Shearer and several members of the 1990 World Cup squad. including Paul Gascoigne. They beat a Germany team 3-2.

One of Sir Bobby's most memorable games as England boss was the 1990 World Cup semi-final when England lost on penalties to Germany in Italy.

Before the kick-off of Sunday's game a guard of honour gave fans and players a chance to show their appreciation of Sir Bobby, who shook the hand of every player.

Proceeds from the match went towards The Sir Bobby Robson Foundation, launched in March 2008.

The foundation has raised more than £1.3 million to fight cancer.

Biographer Bob Harris paid tribute to Sir Bobby's fight against cancer, saying the way he had battled five bouts of serious illness made him start to think he was "immortal".

"He was a lovely lovely man," he told Sky News. "The way I will remember him is that he was a genuine, real football man who loved the game beyond everything else."

Mr Harris said he had a "great attitude" to the sport wherever he played or managed.

He added: "As a manager England was his greatest pinnacle.

"He always wanted to manage England. I think he would have liked to have carried on."

Sir Bobby was one of the most popular figures in football.

His exploits in the Italia 90 World Cup when England battled through to the semi-final made him the country's most successful national boss since Sir Alf Ramsey.

Before that, his skill as a manager had nurtured Ipswich Town into a European force.

After leaving the England job, Sir Bobby managed club sides in Holland, Portugal and Spain, capturing the hearts of millions more fans along the way.

Five times he fought cancer and after his last diagnosis he devoted his time to raising money for the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation, which kitted out a state-of-the art centre in his beloved Newcastle to fight the disease.

Such was the public's regard for Sir Bobby that the £500,000 needed was raised in just seven weeks.

Fans from around the world contributed to what Sir Bobby hoped would be his most lasting legacy.

By his 76th birthday, the total was well over £1.2 million.

The Independent, 31.07.09

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/former-england-manager-bobby-robson-has-died-1765466.html

Robson murió acompañado de su esposa y el resto de su familia en su domicilio de County Durham, en el norte de Inglaterra.

El que también fuera seleccionador inglés dirigió, entre otros, al FC Barcelona durante la temporada 1996/1997, justo después de que Johan Cruyff abandonara el club, un año en el que ganó la Recopa de Europa, la Supercopa de España y la Copa del Rey.

Los notables resultados conseguidos no le sirvieron sin embargo para continuar en el banquillo azulgrana, donde estaba acompañado por el hoy entrenador del Inter de Milán, Jose Mourinho, y acabó siendo sustituido por el holandés Louis Van Gaal.

Su buena labor le valió un puesto en el 'staff' técnico la temporada siguiente, aunque un año después prefirió volver al PSV para ejercer de nuevo como entrenador.

Robson ha sido reconocido tanto en el Reino Unido como en los países por los que ha pasado -Holanda, Portugal y España- como un auténtico 'gentleman', extremadamente educado y con un gran sentido del humor.

Como jugador, su carrera se limitó a Inglaterra, concretamente al Fulham -donde llegó con sólo 17 años-, el West Bromwich y de nuevo al conjunto londinense, donde también ocupó posteriormente el puesto de entrenador. También participó en el Mundial de 1958, celebrado en Suecia.

Uno de sus mayores logros fue sin duda el convertirse en seleccionador inglés, cargo en el que se mantuvo entre los años 1982 y 1990, con dos mundiales de por medio.

Su batalla contra el cáncer fue continua desde el año 1991, y desde entonces tuvo que someterse a operaciones quirúrgicas -le extirparon un tumor cerebral en el año 2006- así como a quimioterapia.

Robson apareció en público por última vez el pasado domingo -y en silla de ruedas- en el estadio de Saint James Park para ver en directo el partido que enfrentó a Inglaterra con Alemania.

Sport, 31.07.09

http://www.sport.es/default.asp?idpublicacio_PK=44&idioma=CAS&idnoticia_PK=633966&idseccio_PK=803

Tuesday night in Amsterdam. Inside the city's ArenA, the colour green floods a giant mosaic of video screens, below which stand the four members of U2, three weeks into their 360 tour. As the band strike up Sunday Bloody Sunday, the screens flash images of protesters on the streets of Tehran alongside lines in Farsi by the Persian poet Rumi. Thus, a song written 26 years ago about political violence in Northern Ireland finds a new and pressing context.

The sequence vividly illustrates U2's unique brand of stadium activism. There's also a tribute to the incarcerated Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi during Walk On, and a recorded message from Desmond Tutu for the One campaign, co-founded by Bono to mobilise support for developing country debt relief and HIV/Aids treatment, among other issues. No globally successful rock band has ever foregrounded politics for so many years, let alone stalked the corridors of power to help thrash out deals, which is why representatives from Amnesty and the World Food Programme cross paths with Helena Christensen and Anton Corbijn in the VIP area.

Equally, the sequence demonstrates the limits of U2's approach. The band have always worked on the principle that in the awareness-raising business something, however imperfect, is better than nothing, but Iran-watchers might justifiably argue that an emotive one-minute montage simplifies, even trivialises, a complicated situation. It really depends on how much imperfection you're willing to accept.

For U2's most dogged critics, the answer is: not much. Around the time of Live 8, the travel writer Paul Theroux branded Bono one of the "mythomaniacs – people who wish to convince the world of their worth". After U2 moved part of their business to the Netherlands to reduce their tax burden in 2006, the Daily Mail dubbed the singer "St Bono the Hypocrite". The Irish writer Eamonn McCann recently labelled U2's music "a toxic cloud of fluffy rhetoric, a soundtrack for the terminally self-satisfied".

The subject of such opprobrium sits in his Amsterdam hotel suite, breakfasting on black coffee and cornflakes, and ponders the downside of being the world's most famous rock star activist. "A little information can do a lot of harm," he says, his voice hoarse from the previous night. "A lot of people don't know what I do so they think, 'He's just turning up in photographs with starving Africans or some president or prime minister. We don't like that. Rock stars telling elected officials what to do, and then they run back to their villas in the south of France. Fuck 'em.'" But, he insists, "if you look into it you think, 'This guy works two-and-a-half days a week at this, not being paid for it, and at cost to his band and his family, and doesn't mind taking a kicking.'"

With his hair cropped short, and his body bunched and compact like a fist, Bono resembles a retired boxer, jabbing the air to make his points. When I meet the rest of U2 individually, their body language also speaks volumes. Guitarist the Edge is serenely quiet and still, except when his eyes crinkle slightly in concentration or mirth. Bassist Adam Clayton sprawls louchely on a sofa, with a perpetual air of mild and mysterious amusement. Drummer Larry Mullen Jr leans forward intently, punctuating his responses with an apologetic grimace as if, far from being the man who founded U2, he had simply won a competition to be the drummer in a rock band. "Nothing with U2 really makes sense," he says, eyes widening. "I have no idea how we managed to get to this place."

The history of rock stars who take on politics is somewhat chequered. Bob Dylan repudiated it, John Lennon tied himself in knots over it, and the Clash were crushed by sky-high expectations. U2's activism has somehow endured and flourished. Their political outlook was shaped by being young and Irish in the late 1970s. As a result of temperament as much as circumstance, U2 could neither play with Clash-style guerrilla chic nor take sides.

"People in the south were always revolted by the acts of terrorism and brutality in the north," says Clayton. "But to express it would have been to sympathise with the Brits, so it was complicated. We were part of finding a spiritual dimension to it rather than just standing at the barricades."

In the early 1980s, U2 were racked by sincerity, applying to such baleful issues as the Troubles, apartheid and the threat of nuclear war a spiritual perspective influenced by soul music and Bob Marley. "You can certainly hear that in the recordings," says the Edge. "Some of it's overwrought and way too intense. There was almost a desperation in the performances to make a connection, which didn't help at times. Our lives seemed to depend on it. There was a sense that it could go all the way or it could go nowhere."

Of course, it went all the way, and U2 clung to the principle of accentuating the positive: Pride (In the Name of Love) mutated from an attack on Ronald Reagan into a celebration of Martin Luther King. Nonetheless, they acquired a grimly humourless image: "These are really serious guys from war-torn Ireland and they've got a thing or two to tell you," as Clayton drily puts it. Their 1992 Zoo TV tour introduced a life-saving element of ironic distance, with its crank calls, costumes and media overload. "By that point, we'd figured out that it's sometimes enough to ask the right question," says the Edge. "You don't necessarily have to come up with an answer."

In the last decade, things have got more complicated. U2's formidable manager, Paul McGuinness, used to tell Bono that an artist's job was to describe problems, not to fix them, but since Bono was first approached to join the Jubilee 2000 debt-relief campaign, he has trod the minefield of top-flight hands-on activism. It is an almost oxymoronic role: the rock star diplomat. "Our job is to bring him back to his position as an artist," says the Edge. "Artists don't have to deal in the muddy grey of political reality. They can see things in black and white terms – ideals. There's an aspirational aspect to rock'n'roll, whereas politics is just one compromise after another."

Bono had the additional misfortune of having to twist arms in Washington during a time when the most divisive president in decades was preparing to launch the most divisive war in decades. As the Iraq fiasco deepened, Bono maintained a diplomatic silence, and images of him beside a grinning George Bush (whom Clayton dismissively refers to as "the other fella") returned to haunt him. He is grateful to the film-maker Michael Moore for kind words at the time. "He said, 'Look, this must be very difficult for you, doing what you're doing while the rest of us are mobilising against this war. I want you to know that you don't have to do everything – you just have to do something.' It was a great feeling."

But even with Bush gone, Bono relies on cross-party support for his campaigns. Two weeks ago, he revealed to Jonathan Ross that he had dodged a hug with Bush during a 2006 photo-op, and rightwing bloggers howled in outrage, causing trouble for his campaigning partners. "It's very hard for me to keep quiet about anything," he says, smiling. "I'm more used to putting my foot in my mouth than I am biting my hand." He says he was known "quietly" as an opponent of the war but refuses to demonise its architects. "There are people who will be walking differently for the rest of their lives because of their decision to invade Iraq," he says. "Remember, 9/11's not far behind. They really are nervous about that. And Blair, too. He doesn't want to be Chamberlain – the guy who says everything's going to be fine. They see this darkness on the horizon and they make a really, spectacularly bad decision. I did say to Condi [Rice], 'Think about what happened in Ireland. The British army arrived to protect the Catholic minority but when you're standing on street corners in hard hats and khaki you very quickly become the enemy.' But I wasn't there for that. I had to keep my focus. You're asking, 'Don't you speak up? Don't you get out on the streets?' I gave up that right once I was in a position of voicing the desire to stay alive of millions of people who had no voice."

Mullen, however, admitted his unease, earlier this year, over Bono consorting with "war criminals", a moment of candour that now makes him wince. "My only regret is that I might have made it easier for his critics to throw some more stones at him, which was really not my intention," he sighs. "There's no question of rolling over in my views; it's just looking at the bigger picture. You can argue it up and down but in the end you have to stand up and go, 'This works.'" Again, it comes down to how much imperfection you're willing to accept. "I've always thought the result was worth whatever way he got there," says Clayton. "I don't think being photographed with George Bush or Tony Blair is too high a price to pay."

Bono may be U2's self-appointed flak-catcher but he worries his activism opens his bandmates to criticism. "They're getting part of the kicking because they have me in the band. So I feel for them. I do." An example: nobody gives a damn about, say, the Red Hot Chili Peppers' accountancy practises, but U2's tax move was roundly slammed as rank hypocrisy.

Bono rubs his temples and sighs. "It's very difficult. The thing I probably regret is not talking about it more but we agreed in the band not to. Which is annoying. What bothered me was it's like you're hiding your money in some tax haven and people think of the Cayman Islands. And you're campaigning for Africa and transparency – of course that looked like hypocrisy. People whom I've annoyed, people who wished us to fail, they finally got what they thought must have been there in the first place. It was a hook to hang me on." He claps his hands forcefully and points. "'We got him!' You could, if you wanted, get … y'know … it could get you going. You look at it and say, 'Well what have you done?'" His flash of annoyance passes. "People are just trying to do the best they can. You can't do everything."

At moments like this, you realise that even Bono's famously thick skin has its vulnerable spots. Even as U2 are keenly aware of the contradictions of their position ("To open yourself up to the possibility of change doesn't mean you have to live up to some impossible ideal," says the Edge), they can't help but be caught up in them sometimes, for one man's contradiction is another's hypocrisy. So Bono squares his shoulders and tries at least to be candid. When I ask why his songs refuse to name specific targets, he says: "The villain is usually me. The hypocrisy of the human heart is the number one target. Rarely do we point the finger at anyone other than ourselves."

He knows why some people don't like him. "I can be annoying," he says with a grin. "I have a kind of annoying gene." But he seems understandably tired of the allegation that he's just a messianic blowhard. It's a cliche, he thinks, to attribute what he does to mere ego. "As Delmore Schwartz said, 'Ego is always at the wheel.' It's just with rock stars, it's more obvious. The need to be loved and admired doesn't come from a particularly pretty place. But people tend to do a lot of great things with it. Ego, yes, but the ego that's in everything human beings are capable of. Without ego, things would be so dull."

I mention a line from Cedars of Lebanon, the closing track on U2's latest album, No Line on the Horizon: "Choose your enemies carefully 'cos they will define you." "As an insight into our band, it's the most important line," he says. "It explains pretty much everything. U2 chose more interesting targets than other bands. Your own hypocrisies. Your addictions, but not to the obvious. Your ego." He emits a hoarse chuckle. "I think we made our enemies very interesting."

Dorian Lynskey, The Guardian, 30.07.09

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/jul/30/u2-rock-star-hypocrisy-activism

A Bichkek, la capitale, les manifestants scandaient "Rendez-nous le pouvoir usurpé" et tentaient de marcher en direction du palais présidentiel quand la police est intervenue. Au total, plus de 5 000 personnes ont manifesté dans le pays à l'appel de l'opposition pour réclamer une nouvelle élection présidentielle après le scrutin du 23 juillet, selon le porte-parole du principal candidat de l'opposition Almazbek Atambaïev.

Le président sortant, Kourmanbek Bakiev, a été réélu avec 76,43 % des suffrages, contre 8,39 % à son principal adversaire. L'Organisation pour la sécurité et la coopération en Europe (OSCE) a sévèrement critiqué le scrutin, jugeant qu'il ne respectait pas les critères démocratiques. L'Union européenne s'est également dite "inquiète". Le président russe, Dmitri Medvedev, a pour sa part félicité M. Bakiev pour sa réélection.

Le Monde, 29.07.09

http://www.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2009/07/29/kirghizstan-manifestations-reprimees-apres-la-reelection-de-bakiev_1224000_3214.html#ens_id=1221895

Chacun son petit prince. Les États-Unis ont eu Michael Jackson, la France a Saint-Exupéry. Deux époques, deux styles, mais surtout deux icônes mondialement reconnues. Et la Ville de Marseille, qui célèbre vendredi le 65e anniversaire de sa mort, l'a bien compris.

Réputé pour ses différentes casquettes de journaliste, écrivain, aviateur et aventurier, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry est aujourd'hui un emblème dans le monde entier : en France bien sûr, mais également au Japon, au Maroc, au Canada, au Brésil, au Mali ou bien encore au Congo. «Il est présent dans plus de 25 pays par le biais d'associations, d'hôpitaux, d'écoles, d'entreprises ou d'ONG», explique Olivier d'Agay, directeur de la Succession Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - d'Agay et petit-neveu de l'écrivain.

Sa légende est bien sûr née autour de son œuvre maîtresse, Le Petit Prince, traduit dans plus de 200 langues. Un record dans le monde de l'édition. Saint-Ex a également marqué le monde de la littérature par ses œuvres Vol de nuit, Citadelle ou bien Terre des hommes. Mais c'est surtout sa mort, le 31 juillet 1944, qui a entretenu le mythe autour de l'aventurier.

Ce matin-là, à 8 h 45, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry décolle à bord de son Lightning P-38 de l'aérodrome de Bastia, en Corse, pour une mission d'observation dans le sud de la France, en pleine Seconde Guerre mondiale. Ce voyage sera malheureusement son dernier.

La gourmette en argent

Porté disparu pendant plus de soixante ans, il a fallu attendre le 7 septembre 1998 pour que l'enquête décolle. Un pêcheur retrouve miraculeusement la gourmette en argent de l'écrivain. L'histoire s'accélère en 2000 lorsque le plongeur archéologue Luc Vanrell identifie formellement au large de Marseille, près de l'île de Riou, l'épave de son avion. Mais rien ne permet encore d'expliquer les causes du crash. En mars 2008, le voile se lève enfin sur la disparition du célèbre aviateur : un ancien pilote de la Luftwaffe, Horst Rippert, affirme avoir abattu un avion de type Lightning P-38 le 31 juillet 1944 dans la zone où Saint-Exupéry se trouvait.

Mais la fin du «mystère Saint-Ex» n'a rien enlevé au succès que connaît actuellement l'écrivain. Au Japon, par exemple, 400 000 personnes visitent chaque année le musée qui lui est dédié à Hakone, à 100 kilomètres au sud de Tokyo. «Les Japonais sont passionnés par Saint-Exupéry, explique Olivier d'Agay. Le fabricant de matériel informatique Toshiba organise même des expositions sur le développement durable avec l'emblème du Petit Prince.» L'entreprise française Veolia a également décidé de surfer sur l'image du Petit Prince. «Dès la rentrée prochaine, la multinationale va aussi organiser des formations sur le développement durable dans le primaire, ajoute le petit-neveu de l'écrivain. Le héros de Saint-Exupéry est devenu une icône du développement durable. C'est une évidence pour les gens car, dans le livre, il ramone son volcan, ramasse les mauvaises herbes…» Même l'ONU a décidé d'en faire un ambassadeur virtuel - une première dans l'histoire de l'organisation - pour l'enfance et l'écologie. «Son œuvre prend maintenant tout son sens. Saint-Ex était un visionnaire, il est aujourd'hui complètement moderne», conclut François d'Agay.

Marion Brunet, 31.07.09

http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2009/07/31/01016-20090731ARTFIG00012-saint-ex-plus-vivant-que-jamais-65-ans-apres-sa-mort-.php

Los enfrentamientos con la policía comenzaron después de que cientos de simpatizantes del dirigente opositor Mir Hosein Musaví, rival electoral de Ahmadineyad, se concentraran en el cementerio Behest e Zahra, al sur de Teherán, cantando "Musaví, te apoyamos". Cuando el coche del líder político llegó al lugar, los manifestantes le abordaron para saludarle, pero la policía obligó a Musaví a volver a subirse al vehículo y marcharse.

Más tarde, muchos centenares trataron de acercarse hacia la Gran Mosala, la mezquita mayor de Teherán, que se encuentra en el centro de la capital iraní. Pero los numerosos agentes antidisturbios, desplegados en el exterior del recinto religioso, se lo impidieron. La policía obedecía las órdenes de rechazo dictadas por el Gobierno a la demanda de la oposición de celebrar en esa mezquita un acto en memoria las víctimas de junio.

"Hay miles de personas que cantan consignas a favor de Musaví, mientras cientos de policías antidisturbios alrededor de Mosala y en las cayes adyacentes están intentando dispersarlos", declaró un testigo. "Agentes vestidos de civil y policías antidisturbios golpean a los manifestantes con bastones y han lanzado gases lacrimógenos", señala una página web ligada a los reformistas.

Los manifestantes prendieron fuego a varios contenedores de basura en las calles cercanas. Al menos tres de los que protestaban han sido detenidos y la policía ha reventado los parabrisas y los cristales de las ventanas de los coches que tocaban el claxon en señal de apoyo a los manifestantes, añadió el testigo. Restricciones oficiales impiden a los periodistas informar desde fuera de sus oficinas.

Musaví y Mehdi Karrubí, el otro candidato reformista, sostienen que las autoridades manipularon el voto de las presidenciales para garantizar la reelección de Ahmadineyad. El líder supremo, ayatolá Alí Jamenei, respaldó los resultados y exigió el fin de las protestas por las elecciones, que hundieron a Irán en su peor crisis interna desde la revolución de 1979 y han dejado al descubierto las divisiones dentro del seno del poder.

"No comprendo el significado de que se envíen fuerzas policiales y agentes de seguridad a cercar a quienes quieren rendir homenaje a los muertos", declaró Karrubí en el cementerio, a donde acudió la familia de Neda en el 40º día que marca el fin del duelo en la tradición chií. Neda recibió un mortal disparo durante los enfrentamientos entre los seguidores de Musaví y policías y basiyís (la milicia del régimen). Las autoridades iraníes afirman que la bala que mató a la joven no era del tipo de las utilizadas por las fuerzas de seguridad del país y que su muerte fue preparada para ensuciar la imagen de Irán.

Mientras, el activista Saed Hajyarian, encarcelado durante las protestas de junio, fue trasladado ayer a una casa de reposo gubernamental ante su débil estado de salud. Hajyarian debía haber sido puesto en libertad el miércoles, según el comunicado emitido ese mismo día por el poder judicial. "Su liberación tiene lugar basándose en las últimas órdenes del jefe de la judicatura", indicaba el texto.

Sin embargo, y supuestamente debido al deterioro sufrido en la cárcel por su salud, Hajyarian, de 55 años y en silla de ruedas desde el intento de asesinato que sufrió en 2000, fue enviado a una residencia con las "adecuadas facilidades médicas", según reveló la agencia semipública de noticias Mehr. Sus familiares están autorizados a visitarle. Hajyarian, que fue consejero del ex presidente reformista Mohamed Jatamí, es un destacado abogado y periodista, de quien se dice que sus investigaciones sobre la cadena de asesinatos de disidentes de la oposición durante la década de los noventa fue "el dedo" que apretó el gatillo en el atentado del que extrañamente salió vivo.

Parisa Hafezi, El Pais, 31.07.09

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Iran/reprime/golpes/oposicion/elpepiint/20090731elpepiint_1/Tes

Not many thirtysomething Spanish actresses have been the subject of major retrospectives at London's National Film Theatre. It is a measure of the esteem in which Penelope Cruz is held – and perhaps a testament to her glamour too – that her career is being celebrated in a month long BFI season. The season – for which The Independent is a media partner – launches this weekend on London's South Bank with The Independent Interview featuring Cruz and her most important mentor Pedro Almodovar. (She is Marlene Dietrich to his Josef von Sternberg.) There will also be a preview screening of Broken Embraces, their new film together.

The Cruz screen-story starts with a teenage girl sitting sobbing in the offices of a Spanish film production company. She has just been passed over for the leading role in Bigas Luna's The Ages of Lulu on the grounds that she is too young, especially for material as sexually explicit as Luna's coming-of-age story. Nonetheless, Cruz is devastated.

This setback – if it can be described as such – is only temporary. Cruz had been "discovered" a few months before by Katrina Bayonas, the head of Madrid-based talent agency, Kuranda. "Within the company, we have a talent search every year. We screen test 350 young actors and then we will choose one or two – or maybe none – to represent," Bayonas explains. The teenage Cruz was one of the applicants in the early 1990s. Bayonas gave her the text from Ingrid Bergman's role in Casablanca to perform.

"Clearly, she was much too young for that but clearly there was something absolutely amazing in this girl," the talent-agency boss recalls of her first encounter with the future star.

Bayonas set her various further tasks: an improvisation, another prepared text but one more appropriate for a girl her age. Again, Cruz excelled. "She blew everybody's socks off. At the age of 14, she had this amazing connection to everything an actor needs: what was going on inside, her emotions. She was clearly very disciplined, very well trained."

The agent struggles to put into words just what made this girl seem so special. "Yes, she was luminous. She had the passion and commitment to take what she had and make the most of it."

In this period, Cruz (who was born in Alcobendas, a high-rise suburb just north of Madrid in 1974) was still at school full-time. She was modelling to pay for her acting classes and was also attending ballet classes at the weekend. Cruz's early ambition had been to become a dancer. She had studied for three years in the Spanish Ballet with Angela Garrido and for several years with the Classical Ballet in the National Conservatory.

Bayonas insists that the adolescent would-be actress wasn't being pushed into showbusiness by ambitious parents. "But I do know that when she was a child, she was probably not the best-behaved child. In order to get rid of all this excess energy, they put her into ballet class. That's the only decision the parents made."

Bayonas acknowledges that the young Cruz had "a lot of insecurity," but says that this was something that the actress was determined to overcome. When Cruz was offered an opportunity to become a TV presenter, both she and Bayonas agreed that this would help her become comfortable on camera, even if it was a sideways step. She took a couple of roles in small Spanish films. "The second anybody saw her, they were looking for projects – something they could do with her."

The flamboyant and eccentric Luna – the bad boy of Spanish cinema – was among those smitten. "She was just too young to do his very racy material," Bayonas recalls of the early talk about her appearing in The Ages of Lulu, a film about a young woman's sexual awakening.

Eventually, when she was a little older, Cruz was given a leading role in Luna's Jamon Jamon (1992). Even in this very early role, you can see precisely what makes her such a distinctive and unsettling screen presence. She plays Silvia, a whore's daughter. Luna treats her as a sex symbol in the making. The film has barely started when we see her boyfriend nibbling at her breasts (he crudely claims that one tastes like omelette and the other like ham.) There is a lot of nudity in the film, which both satirises and celebrates Spanish machismo. It's a raucous comedy-drama about men obsessed by food, sex and bullfighting. Cruz, however, has a quality a long way removed from the boorishness of Luna at his lowest. There is a delicacy and gentleness about her. (It's not for nothing that critics have often likened her to Audrey Hepburn.) She is soulful and doe-eyed. She combines earthy sensuality with something more ethereal. It is this quality that clearly most appeals to her greatest mentor, Pedro Almodovar.

"If you look at the roles which she has played with Almodovar, she has normally been a good woman set upon by circumstances beyond her control. What Almodovar is interested in – and what cements their relationship – is the idea of female goodness. Normally, it's a maternal goodness," suggests Madrid-based film historian John Hopewell, author of Out of the Past: Spanish Cinema after Franco.

Hopewell believes that Cruz embodies qualities that Almodovar cherished in his own mother. He couldn't find these qualities in others of his muses, whether Carmen Maura (who was too voluptuous and too comedic a personality) or Victoria Abril.

"When I was little, I was always surrounded by women," Almodovar has recalled. "I can't picture myself as a child, that is before the age of ten, with men... I always have this image of being surrounded, not just by my mother, but also by the neighbouring women."

Cruz herself has noted how strongly Almodovar was influenced by his mother, whom she met. "She was smart and funny... I think she was an artist inside. She is present in all his movies," the actress suggests.

There is a certain irony here. Cruz, the sex symbol who first received recognition for working with the ultra-macho Bigas Luna, is seemingly regarded by Almodovar almost as if she is the Virgin Mary. "I've never seen a director love an actress like Pedro loves you," Carmen Maura once told her. There is little that is sexual in this love, though. It is more to do with reverence than with lust.

Almodovar and Cruz work extraordinarily well together. She calls him her "favourite director" and has talked frequently about how important he is to her life. "It goes beyond my career." Almodovar has admitted that, much though he adores his other actresses, it is for Cruz that he feels "real passion.". They have made four films together – not as many as might be expected given how closely they are intertwined in the public's mind. In the first, Live Flesh (1997), she had a small role (as a prostitute giving birth in the back of a bus.). In All About My Mother (1999), she was cast as a young nun made pregnant by a transsexual. Volver (2006) gave her arguably her greatest role in an Almodovar film, as a heroic blue-collar mum ready to mop up the blood and hide the corpse in the freezer to keep her daughter out of harm's way. It was the kind of role that evoked memories both of the roles that Lana Turner used to play in old Douglas Sirk melodramas, and of Turner's own peculiarly fraught biography.

Spain has never been short of pretty and talented young actresses. The question is why Cruz has become an international star while so many others have not have not. Beyond the obvious explanation that she has been the beneficiary of a long working relationship with Spain's greatest living director, Cruz clearly has a drive that many of her compatriots lack. Bayonas says that, early in her career, Cruz sometimes worked so hard, she has made herself ill. Like Javier Bardem (her co-star in Jamon Jamon and Vicki Cristina Barcelona), she was ambitious to work on an international stage. She was ready to speak English to further her opportunities and was even prepared to throw herself onto the publicity trail.

Cruz's international career is uneven in the extreme. In Spain, she was acknowledged as a star from the very first films she made. She was nominated for a Goya Award for Best Actress for Jamon Jamon and for Fernando Trueba's Belle Epoque (1992), which won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language film. Foreign casting agents were keen to use her but not sure how best to utilise her talents. The Hollywood studios seemed to labour under the illusion that she was a latter-day Sophia Loren – an exotic foreign star who could be used to parachute in a little continental eroticism and glamour to films. The comedic qualities evident in Spanish films like Trueba's The Girl of Your Dreams (a Lubitsch-style comedy about Spanish film-makers adrift in Nazi Spain) or the intensity of her performance in Alejandro Amenabar's Open Your Eyes (1997) in her Hollywood work. Films like Stephen Frears' latterday western The Hi-Lo Country (1998), John Madden's wartime romance Captain Corelli's Mandolin (2001) and even Cameron Crowe's English-language remake of Open Your Eyes, Vanilla Sky (2001), failed to stretch her.

It wasn't so much that she gave bad performances as that there was nothing especially distinctive about her roles. She was an A-list actress, an achievement in itself, but was becoming better known for her private life than her acting. There was also a dismaying sense that she was becoming just another of Hollywood's "pretty Latin girls" – an actress treated with the same disdain as Salma Hayek (later to be her co-star in Bandidas) in this period.

On one level, Bayonas suggests, Cruz was also simply unlucky. For whatever reason, films that "on paper seemed absolutely brilliant" proved to be anticlimactic experiences. "Doing a Stephen Frears movie cannot be a bad thing. John Madden had just won an Academy Award... they (these films) all appeared absolutely brilliant things to do but didn't turn out that way. It had absolutely nothing to do with Penelope."

When she went off to Hollywood and then began a relationship with Tom Cruise following Cruise's break-up with Nicole Kidman, the Spanish press began to turn against her.

"The [Spanish] public has always adored her but there was a time certainly when the press was very angry with her for having gone [to the US]. It was really nasty. It didn't last very long but there was a bit of a "who does she think she is and where does she think she is going?" attitude from the press," Bayonas says.

"Most Spaniards were slightly proud," Hopewell suggests of the public's reaction to the much-covered affair between Cruise and Cruz. "It showed that young Spaniards could go out with the best of them. People who actually met Tom Cruise liked him. They said he was a very nice, down-to-earth guy. When he came to Spain, he was always very good at working the crowds."

Meanwhile, Cruz was finally beginning to display her versatility. One key role was as a near-illiterate Italian-Albanian woman, abused as a child by her father and still deeply traumatised, in Sergio Castellitto's Don't Move (2004). There is something almost absurd about the lengths she goes to in this film to escape her own glamorous image. As Italia, her eyes are sunken, her hair is greasy, her teeth are bad. Even if there is a sense that the actress is self-consciously slumming it, Cruz still gives a very affecting performance. Italia is raped by a wealthy surgeon (Castellitto) who subsequently falls in love with her. It's a grim but compelling drama about two damaged, self-destructive characters. As the woebegone anti-heroine, Cruz rekindles memories of roles played by actresses like Giulietta Masina and Anna Magnani in old Italian movies: women who may not have been conventionally beautiful but who had intensity and passion.

The film also underlined Cruz's versatility. As her range of roles attests, she is equally adept at playing tragic heroines in social realist dramas, heroic mums, femmes fatales, nuns, screwball comediennes and conventional Hollywood glamour queens. Cruz is clearly ready to work in difficult and unlikely locations if a role demands it. When she was amking Martha Fiennes' Chromophobia in London, she didn't balk at having to shoot a scene without security in a kebab shop in Hackney late at night.

Despite her growing fame, Cruz, insists Bayonas, has never become arrogant or self-obsessed. "She is very grounded. She has a wonderful sense of humour. I laugh a lot with her. She is very funny. These one-liners come out of her. She is very much a family girl. She loves her family," Bayonas enthuses of the actress she has now known for more than 20 years. "If there was any possibility that Penelope wouldn't be grounded, the family would kick that out of her in five seconds. But there is no possibility."

Colleagues speak fulsomely of the actress's generosity and kindness. Bayonas, who is still Cruz's worldwide manager, says that she is always ready to help and encourage other young clients in the agency.

Cruz continues to work in both Europe and Hollywood. It's indicative of the way she mixes and matches between art-house projects and studio pictures that no sooner had she made Broken Embraces (her latest film with Almodovar, in which she plays a beautiful actress/call girl) than she threw herself into Rob Marshall's big-budget musical, Nine (an adaptation of Fellini's 8, in which she is reported to perform various sultry burlesque routines.

Still only in her mid-thirties, Cruz has already clocked up an extraordinary number of credits. Counting television movies, her filmography stretches to more than 50 titles. Her immensely lively performance in Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona as Javier Bardem's vengeful and temperamental ex-wife was revealing. All her colleagues may talk about her generosity and kindness, but there is clearly an element of the diva about her. She successfully upstaged Scarlett Johansson, not something that many other actresses around today would be able – or even dare – to do.

Ten years ago, when the BFI staged a season of films by Michelle Pfeiffer, its programmers were attacked for taking an easy, populist route in a bid to boost audiences. Some of the same accusations are likely to come the way of the Penelope Cruz season. However, if you overlook her occasional Hollywood misfires, it is apparent that Cruz has had an extraordinarily varied career and that she has worked with many key Spanish directors. It is no coincidence that their films with her are often among their best work.

Cruz lines: her five most notable roles

Volver

The high point of Cruz's career thus far. She plays a glamorous but very resilient mum who copes with everything the fates can throw at her, whether bloody corpses or ghostly apparitions of loved ones. Almodovar's rapturous obsession with Cruz is evident. When a director likes his leading lady so much, it's almost inevitable that audiences will feel the same affection for her.

Belle Epoque

In Fernando Trueba's Oscar-winning, 1930s-set comedy-drama, Jorge Sanz's young deserter has four beautiful daughters to choose between. Somehow, it doesn't come as a surprise where his affections are eventually directed. Cruz glows as the beautiful young ingenue Luz, the last of the women he encounters and the only one who offers him genuine love.

Don't Move

A gap-toothed Cruz bravely acts against type, deliberately toning down the glamour to play an impoverished and abused Italian/Albanian woman in Sergio Castellitto's gritty love story. After offering a man her phone, she's raped by him; he expresses his regret and they begin a tender relationship. Her affecting performance is the most persuasive thing about the film.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Crashing into the film at the halfway point, Cruz rampages through Woody Allen's romantic comedy. She plays Javier Bardem's ex-wife Maria Elena, a jealous, gun-toting, highly strung artist with big hair who first vies with US tourist Scarlett Johansson for Bardem's affections and then takes quite a shine to Johansson herself.

Jamon Jamon

Bigas Luna's raucous comedy may play like Iberian Benny Hill in its lesser moments, but Penelope Cruz excels as the prostitute's daughter with the beatific smile. Even the indignity of having her breasts likened to ham and omelette doesn't throw Cruz, who brings humour and pathos to a role which easily could have seemed one-dimensional.

Geoffrey Macnab, The Independent, 31.07.09

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/queen-of-spain-the-independentbfi-penelope-cruz-season-launches-1764849.html

Les quatre partis d'opposition cumulent 53 sièges sur 101, mais le Parti communiste reste la principale force politique du pays, totalisant 45,07 % des suffrages et 48 sièges de députés. L'opposition n'obtient donc pas la majorité requise pour élire le prochain président – 61 voix sur 101 –, véritable enjeu du scrutin. Les communistes avaient connu le même problème après les élections décriées d'avril : il leur manquait alors un siège pour désigner le successeur de leur propre leader, Vladimir Voronine, arrivé au terme de ses deux mandats ; l'Assemblée avait dû être dissoute. Ce dernier a affirmé que son parti était "prêt au dialogue" pour désigner le nouveau chef de l'Etat.

"La seule majorité qui semble envisageable, c'est si les quatre partis d'opposition arrivent à débaucher des communistes, et ça je pense que seul Marian Lupu [chef du Parti démocratique et ancien leader communiste] peut le faire", commentait jeudi un diplomate occidental en poste à Chisinau. Pourtant, les partis de l'opposition avaient largement annoncé qu'ils n'accepteraient aucun compromis face au Parti communiste, avec lequel de très nombreux désaccords persistent. Les principaux étant le degré de rapprochement avec l'Union européenne et la position à adopter face au voisin roumain.

Les communistes, bien qu'ayant engagé un rapprochement avec l'UE, sont historiquement liés à la Russie, et plus proches de la partie russophone de la population. Ils accusent donc les libéraux de vouloir l'intégration à l'UE de la Roumanie. En avril, lors des violences qui avaient éclaté alors que leur parti avait remporté le scrutin, ils avaient accusé la Roumanie d'organiser les troubles à distance.

Pour l'instant, la Russie observe le scrutin avec circonspection, et la presse russe considère Marian Lupu comme un interlocuteur potentiel. L'OSCE (Organisation pour la sécurité et la coopération en Europe) s'est dite "encouragée" par le déroulement du scrutin. Selon Le Courrier des Balkans, elle avait déployé 300 observateurs pour suivre le vote, soit près de cent de moins que pour le scrutin d'avril, qu'elle avait déjà jugé "globalement satisfaisant".

Le Monde, 30.07.09

http://www.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2009/07/30/l-opposition-moldave-prepare-une-coalition-les-communistes-prets-a-negocier_1224372_3214.html#ens_id=1223558

The Burma court scheduled to deliver a verdict in the high-profile trial of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi said today it was not yet ready to make a decision and adjourned until 11 August, diplomats said.

Suu Kyi rose to her feet after the judge's announcement, turned to foreign diplomats in the courtroom and said jokingly, "I apologize for giving you more work," a Western diplomat said on condition of anonymity, citing protocol.

The 64-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate is charged with violating the terms of her house arrest by harboring an American man who swam to her house uninvited. She faces up to five years in prison.

Her trial has drawn international condemnation since it opened 18 May. Critics have accused the military government of using the bizarre incident as a pretext to keeping Suu Kyi behind bars through the country's planned elections next year.

Friday's hearing lasted only a few minutes.

"The presiding judge walked into the courtroom and said the verdict will be postponed until Aug. 11 because the court is not ready to give the ruling," a foreign diplomat who attended the hearing told The Associated Press. The court was closed to journalists.

Another diplomat said the judge added that the ruling required "further deliberation." The diplomats interviewed asked not to be named because of the sensitivity surrounding the trial.

Security was heightened Friday ahead of the expected verdict, with teams of riot police stationed nearby. All roads leading to Yangon's Insein prison — where the trial is being held in a court inside the compound — were blocked by barbed-wire barricades.

Suu Kyi's lawyers had said they were cautiously optimistic about the outcome.

"The charges against our client are not strong and we are confident that we will win if things go according to the law," lawyer Nyan Win said early Friday as he entered the prison.

A day earlier he said that Suu Kyi was "preparing for the worst" and stocking up on medicine and reading material in case she is sent to prison. Suu Kyi provided lawyers with a list of requested books, which Nyan Win said he delivered to her, including novels and historical biographies in English, French-language history books and others in Burmese on Buddhism.

Suu Kyi is charged with violating the terms of her lengthy house arrest when an American intruder swam across a lake and spent two nights at her home in May.

She is widely expected to be convicted, although there has been speculation she may stay under house arrest rather than serve time in jail. Suu Kyi has been in detention for 14 of the last 20 years, since leading a pro-democracy uprising in 1988 that was crushed by Burma's military junta.

Verdicts were also postponed for the uninvited American visitor, John Yettaw, 53, and two women who lived with Suu Kyi — Khin Khin Win and her daughter Win Ma Ma — and face charges similar to hers. Yettaw is charged as an abettor in violating her house arrest and faces up to five years in prison.

Suu Kyi's lawyers have not contested the basic facts of the case but argued that the law used by authorities against her is invalid because it applies to a constitution abolished two decades ago. They also say that government security guards stationed outside Suu Kyi's compound should be held responsible for any intrusion.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told reporters in New York on Wednesday that he hopes the government will respond to his repeated appeals to free Suu Kyi.

But neither outside pressure nor the possibility of better economic and political ties with the West has deterred the ruling junta, which appears determined to find Suu Kyi out of the public eye.

Suu Kyi's party won national elections in 1990, but Burma's generals refused to relinquish power. Next year's promised elections will be the first in two decades.

The Independent, 31.07.09

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/burma-court-delays-suu-kyi-verdict-1765428.html

Il le fait sur les pas de Tomo (Thomas Thurgoose), un adolescent de Nottingham qui fuit on ne sait quoi (le shérif, une famille violente...) et arrive à Londres, gare de Saint-Pancras. Comme le savent les utilisateurs du tunnel sous la Manche, c'est là que s'arrêtent maintenant les trains en provenance de Paris. Comme s'en souviennent les spectateurs de Par effraction, le dernier film d'Anthony Minghella, le réaménagement de la gare a bouleversé le quartier. Il s'appelle Somers Town et n'est pas très bien famé. Tomo en fait l'expérience dès sa première nuit bien arrosée. Dépouillé de ses maigres possessions, il croise le chemin de Marek (Piotr Jagello), qui prend des photos des rues du coin pour tuer le temps que lui laissent les longues journées de travail de son père, venu de Pologne pour travailler dans le bâtiment.

Ces deux personnages sont des silhouettes, à peine esquissées. Marek est un rêveur, Tomo une grande gueule qui veut lui ravir l'attention de Maria, la jolie serveuse. Ils croisent aussi le chemin d'un petit arnaqueur que l'on dirait sorti d'un film de gangsters londoniens des années 1970. C'est à peine si la possibilité de la violence pointe son nez. Suivant les récents exemples de ses aînés, Mike Leigh (Be Happy) ou Ken Loach (Looking For Eric), Shane Meadows a fait le choix du bonheur.

Il est servi dans cette entreprise par la jolie photo en noir et blanc de Natasha Brier qui adoucit la brutalité du paysage de Somers Town. Jusqu'à ce que les deux compères économisent assez pour se payer un billet de train et retrouver Maria à Paris, le film passe alors en couleur et l'on découvre les charmes de la Ville Lumière.

C'est peut-être le moment de signaler que Somers Town est un film de commande. Eurostar avait demandé à Shane Meadows de chroniquer l'irruption du train à grande vitesse dans Somers Town. Après avoir hésité, le réalisateur de This Is England a pris les fonds proposés par la compagnie de chemin de fer tout en s'assurant de garder le contrôle sur le contenu du film (c'est en tout cas ce qu'il jure sur son site Shanemeadows.co.uk). Peut-être pour prouver cette indépendance, Somers Town donne beaucoup plus envie aux Londoniens d'acheter un aller pour Paris que l'inverse.

Thomas Sotinel, Le Monde, 29.07.09

http://www.lemonde.fr/cinema/article/2009/07/28/somers-town-promenade-autour-de-la-gare-de-saint-pancras_1223530_3476.html#ens_id=1201271