Rates to stay very low Wed, Feb 24 2010
EasyJet today confirmed that its new chief executive is Carolyn McCall, the head of the Guardian Media Group.
Ms McCall has no experience of the cut-throat airline industry and is leaving one company in turmoil for another beset by management rows and departures.
The carrier, which handles more passengers in the UK than any other airline including British Airways, announced that Ms McCall will replace Andy Harrison who is swapping budget aviation for budget hotels by becoming the chief executive of Whitbread, the company that owns the Premier Inn chain.
The appointment will cause surprise in some quarters. Not only is Ms McCall an industry outsider but few women have reached the top of the airline industry.
Related LinksCarolyn McCall to take the helm at easyJetWhitbread names ex-easyJet boss as new chiefEasyJet maintenance firm shuts at StanstedOne easyJet insider defended the appointment. Few people believed easyJet would appoint a chief executive from within the airline industry, he said.
The airline has been looking for someone who has experience of a highly competitive market, someone from a consumerfacing industry, someone at home with the transition to the internet and someone adept at government lobbying. Carolyn McCall was a very impressive candidate.
The position became available only after Mr Harrison decided to quit following an internecine battle with the airlines founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou who at one stage, as a non-executive director of the company, refused to sign off its accounts, so deep had the divisions with Mr Harrison and the then chairman Sir Colin Chandler become.
Sir Colin subsequently walked out and has since been replaced by Sir Mike Rake, the chairman of BT and the former head of KPMG, the accountancy giant.
Mc McCall said: "I am proud to become the chief executive of a company that has achieved so much in the past 15 years, not least a leading presence on Europe"s most popular routes.
"My priority will be to build on easyJet"s strengths: a strong consumer proposition, leadership positions in many of Europe"s key airports, and an operating model built around simplicity and low cost.
Sir Mike said: "On behalf of the board, I am delighted to welcome Carolyn to easyJet. Following a thorough process involving a number of high calibre candidates we have unanimously chosen a strong chief executive with the strategic ability, operational capability and passion to drive easyJet through the next stage of its development and we look forward to working with Carolyn."
Simon de Bruxelles & , : {} The captives, all well built immature men in their late teenagers and early 20s, were herded to the place of execution. Fifty-four in total, their heads were hacked off and built orderly in a pile. The bodies were tossed in to a array where they remained a mixed of limbs and headless torsos until archaeologists following the lane of a new highway stumbled opposite the stays last year.
Not the murdering fields of Iraq or the Balkans but the Ridgeway, nearby Weymouth, an really old lane opposite the right away tranquil Dorset countryside, where one thousand years ago a prolonged lost electrocute took place.
The victims, a poser when the find of the mass grave was initial suggested in The Times, have been identified. They were Viking raiders who had come to Britain in poke of slaves and plunder.
The discovery, during building a whole of a service highway for sailing events in the 2012 Olympics, led to a host of theories. At initial it was thought they were Iron Age warriors killed by the invading Roman Legions during fighting for Maiden Castle, Britains largest mountain fort. That speculation was ruled out when air wave CO tests antiquated the skeleton to in in between AD910 and AD1030, a thousand years later.
Related LinksWere electrocute victims Vikings or internal heroes?Archaeologists to dig up Shakespeares balderdashNow tests on isotopes in the finish of their teeth has found the men came from serve afield. They had sailed opposite the North Sea from what is right away Scandinavia. At slightest one of the Norse men had lived most of his hold up inside the Arctic Circle.
Study of the skeleton has suggested the savagery of their deaths. Their heads were not clean split from their shoulders with the pitch of an executioners axe, but hacked off with swords as the exposed warriors attempted to urge themselves with their unclothed hands.
Ceri Boston, an consultant in really old skeleton who carefully thought about the remains, said: It was not a true one cut and head off. They were all hacked at around the head and jaw. It doesnt see similar to they were really peaceful or the executioners really skilled.
We think the decapitation was disorderly since the chairman was relocating around. One man had his hands sliced through. It looks similar to he was perplexing to grab hold of the long knife as he was being executed.
Archaeologist hold the men were from a prisoner raiding celebration and were taken to the site by Anglo-Saxons fortifying their land for the specific role of putting them to death. Ms Boston added: The place is a standard place for a Saxon execution site, on a main highway and a bishopric range and close to antiquated burrows.
Teeth from ten people were carefully thought about by Dr Jane Evans and Carolyn Chenery at NERC Isotope Geosciences Laboratory in Nottingham. Dr Evans said: Isotopes from celebration H2O and food are bound in the finish and dentine of teeth as the teeth are shaped in early life. The isotope interpretation we performed from the funeral array teeth strongly prove that the men executed on the Ridgeway originated from a accumulation of places inside of the Scandinavian countries.
These formula are fantastic, this is the most appropriate e.g. we have ever seen of a organisation of people that obviously have their origins outward Britain.
The scientists goal to expose some-more sum of the lifestyles, activities, ubiquitous health and diets of the warriors as the research continues.
Vikings raiding parties struck all around Britain and Europe in in between the eighth and eleventh centuries. They colonised piece of northern France right away well known as Normandy.
David Score, from Oxford Archaeology, that excavated the grave, said: Any mass grave is a comparatively singular find, but to find one on this scale, from this duration of history, is intensely surprising and presents an implausible event to sense some-more about what was function in Dorset at this time.
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Foreign Staff & , : {} Bright frocks, high heels and large wigs filled the Royal Randwick Racecourse yesterday for the Pink Stiletto Race Day, a fundraiser for this weekends Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade.
Six men in draw towards together with pearls, wigs and plume boas strew their heels for the 50m Pink Stiletto Queen competition in front of multiform thousand fans in the grandstand.
They are all finished up and everything. But they werent authorised to wear their platforms. They ran barefoot, Nicole Kolotas, of the organising charity, the Bobby Goldsmith Foundation, said. Its worked perfectly, she pronounced of the event. Its been really popular. Everyone is ready to go up. People are wearing pink.
The competition day, hold in and with the Australian Jockey Club, had the await of the countrys heading equine trainer, Gai Waterhouse. She pronounced prior to the event: Im happy to be entrance out at the Pink Stiletto competition day and fasten the Bobby Goldsmith Foundation in what will be the worlds initial happy competition day.
Organisers pronounced that they had lifted some-more than A$30,000 (17,500) for the foundation, that provides practical, romantic and monetary await for people vital with HIV/Aids. (AFP)
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Forensic officers at the Red Road flats in Glasgow. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
Three people who fell to their deaths from a Glasgow building retard on Sunday are believed to have been Russian nationals who had been perplexing to explain haven in the UK from Canada.
A source close to the box pronounced the 3 were a father, elderly 43 and declared Serykh, believed to be a former piece of of the Russian security services, a mother, and a son in his early 20s. The source pronounced it was a rarely surprising case.
The family are pronounced to have been perplexing to explain haven in the UK from Canada, that had reportedly given them leave to stay but had denied them citizenship. They are pronounced to have initial arrived in the UK in Nov 2007 and came to Glasgow in autumn last year.
The bodies were found at the feet of the 30-storey retard in the Springburn area of north-east Glasgow on Sunday morning.
Strathclyde military have pronounced they will not recover the identities or nationalities of the defunct until subsequent of family have been traced and informed. The Home Office, meanwhile, has denied that there was any UK Borders Agency wake up at the skill on Sunday sunrise after claims by a little vital in the area that there competence have been a raid on the prosaic prior to to the incident.
The source pronounced the family had been in Canada from Nov 2000 to Nov 2007 prior to travelling by Germany, the Netherlands and Ireland to the UK, where they primarily lived in Brent in north London. The source pronounced the family had finished a array of wild claims about the Canadian government.
No one at the Canadian high commission was accessible for comment. Their box to stay in the UK had been deserted but the Home Office was not posterior them immediately. Their monetary await had been cold and they had been asked to empty their flat. They had additionally been told to proceed the Scottish Refugee Council and alternative charities for puncture assistance.
Neighbours pronounced the 3 had usually changed in to the prosaic in the Red Road formidable dual months ago. Carol Craig, 51, and Graham Galbraith, 38, who live in the prosaic subsequent door, pronounced they were woken by military on Sunday sunrise who told them that their evident neighbours had depressed to their deaths. When the integrate looked over their own patio on the 15th building of 63 Petershill Drive, they saw 3 bodies on the small vegetable vegetable patch of weed below.
"We last saw them on Saturday," pronounced Craig. "They were out on the landing. I thought it was a family. It"s been such a shock. I can"t get it out of my head."
The Red Road towers, at one time the top in Europe, have been a underline of Glasgow"s skyline given the 1960s, but have depressed in to disrepair and are due for demolition. In new years, they have been used to residence most refugees and haven seekers from a accumulation of countries, together with Kosovo, tools of Africa, Iraq and Afghanistan. Paint is bark from the walls and the small balconies are stable usually by cosmetic mesh. The retard at Petershill Drive is now leased to the YMCA. A orator for the organization pronounced they could not criticism on the nationality of those who had died.
Today small groups of haven seekers collected at the mark where the 3 died. A singular candle had been illuminated and pieces of paper laid out on the scarred and pitted vegetable vegetable patch of weed with the words: "Freedom, greatfully hold us."
Seyed Ali Ghasemi, 28, from Iran, who lives in an adjoining tower, pronounced he could assimilate the recklessness that competence expostulate someone to take their own life. Those looking haven usually have each alternative for support, he says, and everybody is disturbed about their own situation.
He had looked out of his window on Sunday sunrise and had insincere that the total he saw at the bottom of the conflicting building were sleeping rough, as he himself has finished in the past.
"It is very, really sad. They are scared. They are only so fed up of everything. Maybe I"m in a bad incident and I do the same thing. I have not seen my son for dual years. We are all frightened and fed up," he said.
Ledia Tewelde, 22, from Eritrea, pronounced that last year she had jumped from the window of her second building prosaic in an additional piece of Glasgow, after conference shrill noises at the doorway and fearing she was about to be deported. She pronounced she pennyless both her ankles and harmed her back.
"I was very, really scared. I thought there was somebody entrance in to the room and I only jumped. I didn"t wish to go behind to my country. I have been 4 years in this nation with nothing. They give me vouchers for my food. You come from a bad incident and you come here and you are scared. It is really stressful."
Robina Qureshi, executive of Positive Action in Housing, a gift that functions with refugees and haven seekers, pronounced it was time for an renovate of the haven process. "This box raises critical questions about the approach the UK haven complement operates in this country. Members of the open have a right to know if we have a satisfactory haven complement or one that terrorises exposed people to the point they would kill themselves.
"We hold the stream haven complement is formed on the fake grounds that all haven seekers are bogus."
Hillary Clinton, left, and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner during their assembly in Buenos Aires yesterday. Photograph: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AFP/Getty Images
Hillary Clinton has pronounced the US is ready to assistance Argentina and Britain finalise tensions over the tenure of the Falkland Islands.
The US cabinet member of state is in Buenos Aires as piece of a five-day South American debate that will additionally see her revisit earthquake-hit Chile.
Tensions in in in in in between Argentina and the UK have flared in new weeks over British oil scrutiny in the islands" waters.
Clinton met Argentinian boss Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in Montevideo, Uruguay, yesterday, prior to drifting to Buenos Aires for serve talks today.
Clinton said: "We are not meddlesome in, and have no genuine purpose in, last what [Britain and Argentina] confirm in in in in in between the dual of them. What we wish to do is promote them articulate to each other."
She and Kirchner were in Uruguay to attend the coronation of President José Mujica. Clinton had reportedly usually dictated to outlay 10 mins articulate with Kirchner in Montevideo, prior to a late shift in transport plans saw her skip for Buenos Aires.
Kirchner has been pulling Britain to rivet in talks over the Falklands, that Argentina calls Las Malvinas, given the attainment of the Ocean Guardian oil supply in the islands" waters.
"What we have requested is intervention as a accessible nation of both Argentina and the United Kingdom," Kirchner said.
She combined that Argentina wants those the talks to take place inside of a horizon determined by the United Nations following the 1982 conflict. "That"s it. The usually thing we have asked for is only to have them lay down at the table. I don"t think that"s as well much."
Desire Petroleum, a small British company, proposed training about 60 miles north of the islands on twenty-two February. Geologists contend there could be up to 60bn barrels of oil in the area, nonetheless sceptics disbelief the blurb viability.
Talking to reporters en track to Buenos Aires last night, Clinton concluded on the need for talks in in in in in between the countries, but did not spell out what purpose the US would fool around in any discourse.
"We would similar to to see Argentina and the UK lay down and finalise the issues in in in in in between them in a pacific and prolific way," she said.
Argentina has been stepping up the tactful descent in the last couple of days. Last week a limit of 32 countries in Mexico permitted an Argentinian request accusing Britain of flouting general law by needing training to begin. On Thursday Argentina appealed to the United Nations to put vigour on Britain over the islands" sovereignty.
The UN has called for talks in in in in in between the dual countries, but would be incompetent to meddle but the subsidy of the security council, where the UK would be means to halt concrete resolutions.
Fernando Alonso is prime to win this year"s Formula One universe championship with his new team, Ferrari. Photograph: Callo Albanese/Ferrari
Fernando Alonso, the prime to win this year"s Formula One universe championship, has referred to that his formidable experience in partnering the British motorist Lewis Hamilton at McLaren in 2007 helped him to "grow up" and was great credentials for fasten his new team, Ferrari.
"2007 was really formidable but I learnt a lot personally," he says in an speak to be published by the Guardian tomorrow. "It was great for my career to take that step of fasten McLaren and flourishing up. I schooled how to work with a group and additionally to ward off the media pressure. The difficulties I had were entrance from the group and the media. Now I am majority some-more rebuilt for all in Formula One – and in hold up as well." Bitter infighting cost McLaren the championship in 2007, and Alonso returned to his old team, Renault, the following season.
Jenson Button, similar to Alonso in 2007, arrives at McLaren this deteriorate as the reigning universe hold up and it is at large approaching that tensions could arise in between him and Hamilton. "Obviously I don"t know how McLaren is right away but if Jenson arrived in my time then, for sure, it would be really difficult for him," Alonso told the Guardian. "But, hopefully, it"s right away improved for Jenson since I schooled a lot from that deteriorate and McLaren did as well."
Alonso confronts rumours that he has a stretched attribute with his new team-mate, Felipe Massa. "People are usually essay these things since they know we are really strong. Felipe and I work for the team. After so majority years of march I have battled with Felipe. It"s the approach it is – and we"ll keep carrying these fights. But Michael Schumacher and [Nico] Rosberg will have fights at Mercedes. I am certain Lewis and Jenson Button will have fights at McLaren. Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel will have fights at Red Bull – in actuality they were fighting last year already. But noone talks about this. They speak about it with Ferrari since we are in a great position."
In tomorrow"s interview, Alonso reflects on the unconsidered purpose he played at the centre of the Spygate and Crashgate controversies that so blighted the repute of Formula One. He additionally reveals his goal to form a new Tour de France group with his crony Alberto Contador – who won the competition last year.
"It"s a plan for me – a kind of mental condition I have since I love cycling. I know it is not easy to emanate a tip cycling group from zero. You need great riders, great staff, a lot of credentials and, majority important, a lot of sponsors. It is something Alberto and I can work on. I know this year he is with Astana but from subsequent year onwards, for sure, if there is an event I will be really interested. I think he will be meddlesome as well."
The new Formula One deteriorate starts in Bahrain dual weeks on Sunday.
Read the full speak online and in the paper tomorrow
