Dani Alves welcomes Chelsea seductiveness as Barca quarrel Arsenal and Manchester City for Spanish right behind Cesar Azpilicueta

Dani Alves says he is honoured to be linked to Chelsea and insists he is not close to signing a new contract with Barcelona.

The Brazil right back has two-and-a-half years to run on his Nou Camp deal, but could improve his current 60,000 a week by moving to Chelsea or Manchester City.

"Chelsea are a great club," he told Brazilian website Globoesporte. "To be talked about and be in their plans is a privilege.

High praise: Dani Alves (left) goes shoulder to shoulder with Chelsea"s Florent Malouda

"At the moment I"m happy at Barcelona and intend to see out my contract here. Interest from them (Chelsea) gives me great satisfaction, knowing that they are one of the biggest teams in world football."

Hail, Cesar: Starlet Azpilicueta

The 26-year-old denied reports in Catalonia that he was about to extend his current contract. In fact, it is believed that Barcelona are stepping up their bid to sign Spain Under 21 right back Cesar Azpilicueta, who has a 13million buy-out clause at Osasuna.

"My situation is that I have a contract at Barcelona, and despite everything that has been said, there is nothing to sign.

"I can"t speak for Barcelona, but for my part I have a contract andwant to continue, regardless of their interest in renewing my contractor not.

"But at the moment everything is uncertain because they have neither come to me with an agreement, nor me to them."

Barcatechnical secretary Txiki Begiristain hopes to tie up a deal forAzpilicueta to sign this summer, but the European champions facecompetition from Arsenal and Manchester City.

Begiristain is also thought to have lined up Manchester United"s John O"Shea as an alternative.

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Murdered Post Office owners father was confronted by armed raiders

Adam Fresco, Crime Correspondent , : {}

An armed raider confronted the husband of a post office owner and told him, Weve got your wife, before demanding cash, police said.

Diana Garbutt, 40, was found dead in the upstairs living quarters of the village store in Melsonby, near Richmond, North Yorkshire, by her husband, Robin.

Detectives said that Mrs Garbutt died from severe head injuries but would not say how she received them. She had not been shot.

Detective Superintendent Lewis Raw, from North Yorkshire Police, said Mr Garbutt had been working downstairs in the shop when he was confronted by the raider just after he opened the post office part of the business at 8.30am on Tuesday. The robber escaped with a substantial amount of money in a holdall.

Related LinksPost office owner dies after violent robbery

He said that Mr Garbutt, 44, had called paramedics after finding his wife upstairs. It is believed that the masked intruder broke into the living quarters of the post office before making his way to the shop.

Mr Raw said: The man threatened Mr Garbutt, saying Weve got your wife. The male then made off with a significant amount of money, which he had placed in a black holdall.

Mr Raw added: This is a shocking crime which has left Mr Garbutt distraught and the residents of Melsonby very shocked and saddened.

Police are determined to bring Mrs Garbutts killer to justice. However, we need the assistance of members of the public who were in the area at the time to come forward.

He added: This would have been a fairly busy time in the village, with people travelling to work or school.

We are appealing for anyone who may have seen a suspicious or unknown vehicle in the village or saw one leave the village at that time, or if you saw a man dressed in dark clothing and wearing a mask, to come forward.

He also asked people to look out for any discarded balaclavas.

Early yesterday long traffic queues formed on the roads in and out of the village as police stopped drivers to ask if they had seen anything. Anyone walking past the post office was also stopped and spoken to.

About 30 bouquets had been laid at the scene by yesterday morning and, as parents taking their children to school walked past, more tributes were handed to officers.

The suspect was described as 5ft 11in to 6ft tall, wearing a black, tight-fitting mask, a dark blue, long-sleeved T-shirt and dark blue-black jeans.

People living and working near the post office said that they did not notice anything unusual until an ambulance and armed police arrived.

Mrs Garbutts business The Village Shop and Post Office is at the heart of the village, a few miles north of Richmond.

The murder comes almost exactly a year since armed robbers targeted the post office. On that occasion police said that two men, one armed with what appeared to be a handgun, threatened staff and made off with stamps and a large amount of cash.

Villagers said that Mrs Garbutt and her husband, who ran the store with her, had put the business up for sale but, it appears, they had recently decided to stay.

Linda Sharp, who works part-time in the shop and lives in a nearby cottage, said of them: A lovely couple, just very devoted. I feel very sorry for Robin, I dont know how hell go on without her.

Ms Sharp said she thought Mr and Mrs Garbutt had been married for about five or six years.

She added. I never heard a thing. I opened my curtains around 8.15am and saw the kids waiting for the bus, went to make my bed and then saw the ambulance.

Thailand braced for outrageous demonstrations as protesters find to move down Government

Sian Powell, Wang Noi & , : {}

Up to 50,000 security crew were deployed in and around Bangkok yesterday to forestall demonstrators paralysing the city this week end and toppling the Government.

The complement of administration is braced for unrest, and has rebuilt H2O cannon, sound-wave machines, teargas and batons in box protests spin violent. Government insiders contend that there are additionally fears of gun and trebuchet attacks, and domestic leaders will be changed to a troops authority centre during the rallies.

Organisers are anticipating to move a million people on to the streets to criticism opposite what they see as a complement of administration comprising a class of troops officers, associated with the chosen and the ruling Democrat Party that has foul brought down a array of populist governments, commencement with that of Thaksin Shinawatra, a former Prime Minister.

The Government has invoked the Internal Security Act, giving security forces the energy to broach curfews and shorten gatherings.

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At a main road checkpoint at Wang Noi, 40 miles (64km) northeast of Bangkok and a intensity flashpoint in the rave to Sundays greatest convene in executive Bangkok military and soldiers clad in full proof rigging searched cars, pick-up trucks and buses for weapons and checked newcomer and car support as people from the farming northeast converged to expostulate to the capital.

Three vehicles filled with of protesters from the United Front for Democracy opposite Dictatorship (UDD), ready to go in their heading red shirts and fluttering outrageous flags, were in the destiny waved through.The criticism began at red-shirt gatherings opposite the republic at 12.12pm yesterday, heralded by acclaim and the receptive to advice of Buddhist gongs and chanting.

At Lak Si, on the corner of Bangkok, about 2,000 red-shirt activists cheered and waved as their proof began. Chawarit Chawangkiet, 37, a computer programmer, pronounced that he felt constrained to assimilated the criticism since he longed for domestic reform. I wish to quarrel for democracy, he said. This nation is tranquil by invisible forces.

The red-shirt personality Weng Tojirakarn, who was examination over the Lak Si gathering, told The Times that the target was to quarrel for a complement in that all people were treated with colour equally, elections were called and the people authorised to confirm the domestic destiny of the country. He pronounced that there was an need to "end the stand in customary that is so backward".

UDD leaders contend that hundreds of thousands of farming poor, especially, generally from the north and northeast, are approaching to stick on the protest. Sean Boonpracong, a spokesman, pronounced that the Government was you do all it could to deter protesters from entrance to Bangkok, together with environment up outrageous checkpoints on highways, melancholy to close motor fuel stations, banning plantation vehicles and out-of-state taxis and invoking the draconian ISA.

UDD leaders contend that they wish to shift an age-old complement of payoff that entrenches the resources of the civic elite. Our idea is retraction of Parliament. If retraction was voiced tomorrow, there would be no movement, Mr Boonpracong said.

Bangkoks Suvarnabhumi airfield is on rapt with authorities dynamic to equivocate a repeat of the function in 2008, when royalist yellow-shirt supporters, aligned with the Government, seized it in protest.

Mr Thaksin, vocalization from outcast in Dubai, urged supporters to stick on the protest. He is approaching to residence the convene around video-link.Abhisit Vejjajiva, the Prime Minister, has pronounced that uninformed elections, and his resignation, were probable to relieve dissent. I will not hold on to power, he told Parliament this week.

hair wig

Ex-KGB representative Alexander Lebedev pays 1 for Indy

James Ashton & , : {}

ALEXANDER LEBEDEV, the former KGB representative incited media mogul, will this week compensate a token 1 to take carry out of The Independent the same cost as shopping one duplicate of the paper from the newsstand. But he will oath to deposit millions in the loss-making pretension and the Independent on Sunday over five years.

The last jump to a sale is close to being overcome this week end after Independent News Media concluded to take piece of the suffering of a 10-year copy understanding with opposition publishing house Trinity Mirror. Lebedev would dedicate usually to five years and INM has right away concluded to pledge the rest. It would have cost 35m to get out of the contract.

Lebedev, who already owns Londons Evening Standard, has struck a apart five-year understanding with INM to supply articles to the alternative newspapers in South Africa and Ireland.

Launched in 1986 and 1990 as free-thinking alternatives to the rest of Fleet Street, the Indy and Sindy lose some-more than 10m a year and have never finished a postulated profit. Circulation appearance at 400,000 in 1989. Today the full-rate every day UK dissemination is only 92,000, nonetheless with ignored bulk copies and unfamiliar sales the sum is 186,000.

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A understanding gives INM the exit that the shareholders have been demanding, for the cost of rounded off one years losses. However, it will crystallize a small change piece strike as it writes down the titles superfluous worth on the books.

Lebedev is approaching to condense the 1 cover cost of the Indy to kindle sales, pier vigour on the opposition The Guardian.Another choice would be to give it away, as he has finished with the Standard that he paid for from the Daily Mail for 1 last year to progress promotion income.

Gavin OReilly, INMs arch executive, outlayed most of last year battling over the destiny of the publishing house with telecoms aristocrat and associate shareholder Denis OBrien. Both hands have been enervated given a restructuring left bondholders with a 48% stake.

Lebedev rebuilt for the Indy understanding last week by assembly Gordon Brown at Downing Street. He additionally demanded that INM rectify staff excess terms. The Office of Fair Trading invited comments on the proposal.

+ Financial sum of the British arm of Readers Digest will this week be circulated to intensity buyers by the publishers administrator, Moore Stephens. The publishing house was placed in administration department after the Pensions Regulator refused to authorize a plan to block the 125m grant deficit.

hair wig

GM triples revamp supports for Vauxhall and Opel to €1.9bn

Catherine Boyle & , : {}

General Motors (GM) will deposit €1.9 billion (�1.7 billion) on restructuring the Vauxhall and Opel brands, slicing the volume of state appropriation indispensable to rescue the American carmakers European division.

The sum is some-more than 3 times the strange €600 million investment guess put brazen by GM.

A series of governments, together with Britain, asked for an one some-more €415 million to equivalent the intensity stroke of serve decrease in the car market.

The sum cost of restructuring the division, that GM attempted to sell last year, has right away been lifted to about €3.7 billion.

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Governments are being asked to minister less than €2 billion to the revamp, down from the €2.7 billion formerly estimated.

GM, that is right away infancy owned by the American Government, attempted to sell the European multiplication last year but altered march and motionless to keep the carmaker.

Earlier this year, GM sole the Swedish code Saab to Spyker, the Dutch supercar maker, for �46 million.

Nick Reilly, the arch senior manager of Opel/Vauxhall, pronounced that the €1.9 billion in appropriation would be done in the form of both equity and loans".

About 8,300 jobs will be lost opposite Vauxhall and Opel"s European operation by 2011.

Plans to strew some-more than 500 Vauxhall employees in the UK have been announced.

At the Luton outpost creation factory, 369 jobs will be cut, and 154 sales and admin purposes will be axed opposite the country. The Ellesmere Port bureau on Merseyside, that creates Vauxhall Astras, has so far transient the turn of redundancies.

GM additionally voiced currently it will stop 1.3 million cars in North America over a potentially inadequate energy steering motor.

The move follows Toyotas tellurian problems with inadequate accelerator pedals and brakes that have forced the stop of scarcely 9 million cars.

GM"s stop of 2005-2010 Chevrolet Cobalts and 2007-2010 Pontiac G5s follows a sovereign examine in to the complaint in January.

Owners of the cars complained about energy steering failures that could have the vehicles formidable to control.

Jamie Hresko, clamp boss of peculiarity at GM, said: We found that this is a condition that takes time to develop. It tends to start in comparison models out of warranty."

Breast divert cheese on the menu in New York Richard Adams World headlines

Breast milk: the new cheese course? Photograph: Corbis

Take 4 cups of breast milk, supplement rennet, salt and yoghurt – yes, 4 cups of breast milk, according to a recipe combined by New York cook and restaurateur Daniel Angerer, who posted his regulation for maple caramelized pumpkin encrusted cheese on his blog, and offering "whoever wants to try it is acquire to try it as prolonged as supply lasts".

Angerer runs the Manhattan grill Klee, and the breast divert is granted by his mother and grill co-owner Lori Mason after the integrate found they had an additional supply in their freezer dictated for their baby daughter Arabella. Angerer explained on his blog:

"My associate is stuff oneself the baby with breast milk. We are advantageous to have copiousness of pumped mommy"s divert on palm and we even freeze a great volume of it – my associate essentially thinks of donating a small to an infant divert bank that could assistance small babies in Haiti and such but for the meantime (the divert bank requires check-ups that takes a small while) the small freezer ran out of space. To throw it out would be similar to wasting gold."

So Angerer motionless to examination - "my over-stuffed home freezer and my healthy in progress instincts done me think of creation cheese out of (human) mother"s milk" – and posted the formula on the internet."I was endangered a small bit with the thought of creation cheese out of mother"s milk," he wrote. "I wondered if it was ethnical - since I haven"t seen it on any grill menu yet. Conclusion – my associate concluded – the baby has copiousness fill-in mother"s divert in the freezer so whoever wants to try it is acquire to try it as prolonged as supply lasts (please cruise cheese aging time)."

Angerer told the Toronto Star that business at his grill have been asking to try the cheese and he has rebuilt a small amuse-bouche – canapé of breast-milk cheese with figs and Hungarian peppers – but that he has no plans to sell it: "That weirds me out," he said.

Of the dual batches he"s done so far, the initial tasted salty-sweet and the second was somewhat spicy. "It depends on what my mother has eaten. That directs the flavour," he told the Star.

Lori Mason says the integrate have been criticised for the recipe. "I think a lot of the critique has to do with the multiple of sex and cheese, but ... the breast is there to have food," she told the New York Post.

According to the Post, city authorities have told the grill to keep the breast divert cheese afar from customers. "The grill knows that cheese done from breast divert is not for open consumption, either sole or since away," a mouthpiece for the city"s dialect of health said.

Two years ago the animal rights organization Peta approached Ben and Jerry"s ice thickk cream association with the thought of utilizing breast divert instead of cow"s milk. That was as well most even for the famously magnanimous Ben and Jerry"s, that incited it down.

The full recipe is on Angerer"s blog. Here"s the ingredients:

My Spouse"s Mommy Milk Cheese Making Experiment(basic recipe utilizing 8 cups of any divert - yields about ½ bruise cheese)

4 cups mother"s milk1½-teaspoon yogurt (must be active well-bred yogurt)1/8-tablet rennet (buy from supermarket, customarily located in pudding section)1 teaspoon sea salt

Plans for new intercity swift strike the buffers

Robert Lea, Industrial Editor & , : {}

Plans for a new swift of intercity demonstrate trains that would yield 21st-century transport for rail passengers, as well as guarantee and emanate up to 12,500 jobs, have depressed detached among acrimony.

Lord Adonis, the Transport Secretary, has cancelled his much-vaunted proposals for a �7.5 billion swift of fast trains to reinstate the twenty to 30-year-old former British Rail rolling batch that carries rail passengers from Paddington to the West Country and Wales and from Kings Cross to the North East and Scotland.

Lord Adonis blamed the City for not subsidy the plan financially. He pronounced that a understanding could not be finished forward of the ubiquitous election, notwithstanding awarding the stipulate on a elite bidder basement a year ago to Hitachi, the Japanese sight manufacturer that built the new Javelin high-speed trains from St Pancras to Kent, in joining with John Laing, the rail infrastructure firm, and Barclays.

The plans to pointer the stipulate have foundered on the item and funding.

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The new intercity demonstrate buying programme was launched 3 years ago. In awarding the understanding last year to Hitachi, Geoff Hoon, Lord Adoniss predecessor, caused debate since it left out Bombardier, the Canadian engineering organisation that is the usually British-based sight manufacturer.

Unions were mollified when Mr Hoon pronounced that he approaching a new sight production plant to be built in Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire, Sheffield or Gateshead. With depots around the country, he pronounced that the new try could be approaching to await 12,500 jobs.

Lord Adonis said: Over the march of the buying there has been a rebate in the genius of the debt marketplace to await the stipulate as creatively envisaged, and newcomer expansion has additionally slowed. In addition, the Government and Network Rail have committed to outfit with electric wiring the Great Western Main Line from 2016. The Government has identified suitable adjustments to the strange programme to take comment of these developments. This has fundamentally lengthened the contractual negotiations, that are not nonetheless finish and would not be so until mid-March at the earliest.

The Transport Secretary pronounced that since the negotiations were for a multibillion-pound understanding travelling scarcely thirty years, the Government did not hold that it would be suitable to come in this stipulate prior to long prior to an election.

Lord Adonis pronounced that he had asked Sir Andrew Foster, former controller of the Audit Commission, to yield an eccentric comment of the programmes worth for income and the viability of any alternatives that still met the objectives.

It is vicious for rail passengers that the right long-term preference is done about the subsequent era of intercity trains, that will have a hold up of thirty years or more, Lord Adonis said.

The existent rolling batch dates behind to the 1970s and needs to be replaced. If Sir Andrew reaffirms that the intercity demonstrate programme is improved than the alternatives, my goal would be to ensue with the plan in the subsequent Parliament, theme to acceptable fortitude of all the contractual issues.

Agility Trains, the consortium comprised of Hitachi, John Laing and Barclays pronounced that it had worked tough to encounter the Department for Transport mandate and pronounced that it was unhappy by the preference to desert the project.

Theresa Villiers, the Shadow Transport Secretary, delivered a curse outcome on the decision. The intercity demonstrate programme has been blighted by Government insufficiency at each turn, she said. She blamed the Departments micro-management of the intrigue for outrageous cost acceleration on the project.

Anthony Smith, arch senior manager of the rail patron watchdog Passenger Focus, said: Passengers desperately wish to see these new trains with some-more seats and a some-more gentle tour in use as fast as possible.

We goal that yes or no celebration is in energy after the subsequent choosing will collect up these plans and move the plan forward as fast as possible.

Punishment contingency fit the crime when profitable taxation bills late

Opinion: Terry Dockley & , : {}

As the retrogression began to bite, the Chancellor gave an endeavour that HM Revenue Customs would take a some-more easy proceed to businesses that honestly had worry in creation taxation payments on time. However, as the retrogression has progressed and taxation revenues have plummeted, this endeavour has mostly been less strong in practice.

In the surrounded by of commercial operation failures and cashflow crises, from May 1 this year HMRC is introducing penalties for late earnings and remuneration of multiform taxes together with PAYE, inhabitant word and building a whole industry intrigue deductions.

There are, of course, a little facilities to suggest - the rate of majority of these penalties will be influenced by how late the lapse or remuneration is made. HMRC will additionally have energy to lessen the penalties. These facilities are absent from the VAT default surcharge regime.

The default surcharge imposes a chastisement of in in in in between 2 and fifteen per cent depending on the series of times that a commercial operation has done a late lapse or remuneration inside of a since period. However, the turn of surcharge is unblushing by the length of check in profitable the VAT due. The surcharge is the same either VAT is paid a day or dual months late. Nor is there any bound extent chastisement and no eminence is done in in in in between a pardonable trip or counsel lateness. There is no range for slackening and usually really singular range for pleading a in accord with excuse.

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A new default surcharge interest illustrates the twisted formula that can upsurge from this system. Enersys Holdings UK done the VAT remuneration a day late and suffered a 5 per cent surcharge of �131,881. This amounted to sixteen per cent of the companys increase and 44 per cent of the house taxation guilt for a year. The association appealed to the First-tier Tax Tribunal. Reasonable forgive was one of the drift for this appeal, that the judiciary had to reject. Both the applicable legislation and box law yield usually singular range for arguing in accord with forgive and the human blunder heading to the check did not pass muster. In the deficiency of any energy to lessen the surcharge, the judiciary struck it down in the entirety.

The drift for this surprising preference were subsequent from EU law; VAT is a European taxation and the focus and administration department contingency be compatible with European law. The European Court has found that taxation penalties contingency be proportional to the effect that they are written to combat; there contingency be a change in in in in between low mark and anticipation on the one palm and discretion on the other.

Some of the contrasts in in in in between the surcharge and a little of the new penalties helped to convince the judiciary that this sold default surcharge unsuccessful to set upon that balance; it was not merely oppressive but seemingly unfair.

The default surcharge complement has the benefits of faith and ease of administration; nonetheless penalties similar to those levied opposite Enersys cannot be defended. The default surcharge complement needs to be reformed so that the penalties imposed simulate the length of check and yield for an top extent and range for mitigation.

• Terry Dockley is VAT executive at the accountants James Cowper