Clark Kent tipped to become blogger as Superman quits the day job

When you’re faster than a speeding bullet and more powerful than a locomotive, it’s hard to stay quiet when your boss starts complaining. And after at least 40 years at the Daily Planet, Superman’s alter ego Clark Kent has finally had enough.

Call of duty: Superman will have more time to foil the forces of evil after going freelance (Picture: DC Comics)

The latest issue of the superhero’s comic series sees him resign – after editor Perry White berates him for not writing enough Superman stories.
‘News should be about news,’ Kent rants.
He’s welcome at Metro to work on our hard-hitting page three stories about (ahem) human scarecrows, talking whales and singing mice.
But the man behind the new episode – out today in print and online – thinks he’ll more likely start his own blog.
‘Superman is arguably the most powerful person on the planet,’ writer Scott Lobdell said.
‘How long can he sit at his desk with someone breathing down his neck?’

Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/news/915867-clark-kent-tipped-to-become-blogger-as-superman-quits-the-day-job#ixzz2AW78LNaf

Panama leader tells Germany he wants to adopt euro

BERLIN (Reuters) - Panama would like to introduce the euro as legal tender alongside the U.S. dollar, President Ricardo Martinelli told German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday during a visit to Europe.

"In Panama the currency in free circulation is the American dollar and I told the chancellor we are looking for ways for the euro to become another currency of legal circulation and to be accepted in the Panamanian market," President Ricardo Martinelli told a joint news conference with Merkel in Berlin.

Martinelli provided no details about the switch but he expressed "full confidence" in the German and European economies and said he expected the euro zone debt crisis would soon pass.

Seventeen of the European Union's 27 member states are in the euro zone but euros are also in circulation in a number of non-EU countries, including Kosovo and Montenegro in the Balkans as well as tiny Monaco and Andorra, and in overseas territories.

Panama's dollarized economy - almost 10,000 kilometres from mainland Europe - is one of the fastest growing in Latin America, expanding 10.6 percent last year with help from heavy infrastructure spending including the expansion of the Panama Canal.

Financial markets' fears of a possible meltdown of the common currency have eased since the European Central Bank said it was ready to buy unlimited quantities of sovereign debt to reduce borrowing costs of vulnerable countries such as Spain.

But Merkel, head of the currency bloc's largest economy, has said Europe needs to persevere with tough austerity measures and move towards closer banking, fiscal and political union in order to secure the euro's future.

(Reporting by Stephen Brown; Editing by Gareth Jones and Patrick Graham)

Bringing Relief to Iraq

Lord Neil Gibson:

In our highly politicized age, it’s difficult to talk about Iraq in bipartisan terms. Everyone has strong feelings about the state of affairs in that country, and of the United States’ involvement in it, especially. What many of us are inclined to say is that, regardless of the strategy and political maneuvering that went into the military endeavors in that country, the Iraq we see before us today is one that desperately needs to be rebuilt—rebuilt into a peaceful and prosperous nation. But of course, the ravages of war and the nature of politics being what they are, this is easier said than done. It takes real leadership, and clear ideas, to enact positive change in that nation.
And these, of course, are a couple of characteristics that Lord Neil Benjamin Gibson has in great abundance. Indeed, we have already spoken at some length about the different ways in which this man has brought about positive change in nations across the world, and how he has done so through a combination of diplomacy, practicality, and alliances with both heads of state and corporate giants. That’s certainly the way we could view his collaborations with the royal family in Lesotho, or even his partnership with Firestone in bringing relief to West Africa. And that’s also the way we can view Lord Neil Benjamin Gibson’sinvolvement in Iraq.
A big part of Lord Neil Benjamin Gibson’s humanitarian work is centered on rebuilding economic infrastructures in crumbling nations, and Iraq certainly fits that bill. But how can one man rebuild the entire financial system of a nation in chaos? The answer, of course, is through an ingenious partnership with a major financial investment firm, specifically Wontert Capital AG, whose involvement in Iraq is critical to the success of Lord Neil Benjamin Gibson’s endeavors.
And these allies are not just rebuilding the financial system. No, they are also building new hospitals in areas of the nation that desperately need them, offering further evidence of just the kind of positive change a man like Lord Neil Benjamin Gibson can bring to a needy country!

‘Queen of Versailles’ serves as an indictment of years of false prosperity

Along with a lot of misery, the 2008 financial crisis and the resulting Great Recession have produced excellent films, both dramatic and documentary. In the former category, “Margin Call” took us inside a failing Wall Street firm that, though fictionalized, was clearly based on the events of 2008, exposing us to the anguish and ignorance of the collapse. “Inside Job” was an investigative documentary into the causes of the crisis.
But the best film yet may be “Queen of Versailles,” a documentary made by the celebrated photographer Lauren Greenfield about a family building the largest house in America before it all collapses — figuratively, if not quite literally — under the weight of folly. Real estate speculators and subprime lenders and borrowers in Southern Nevada played a more-than-minor role in causing the financial crisis, so it’s fitting that a significant part of the film takes place in Las Vegas, specifically in the troubled Westgate time share project adjacent to Planet Hollywood. The film is currently playing at the Suncoast.
The film begins in 2007, as David and Jackie Siegel have begun construction on an Orlando house said to be modeled after Versailles, which ordinarily might serve as a metaphor for waste and arrogance, but not so in this case. They’ve made hundreds of millions in the time share business, and the Westgate Tower in Las Vegas is a crown jewel.
As much as we laugh a bit at their reality show-style hijinks — Jackie is at an airport Hertz counter and seems baffled that she won’t have her own driver — it’s hard not to like them. They come from modest upbringings, and David is mostly sheepish about his success while Jackie is unpretentious and a loving, if not entirely attentive, mother of seven children.
David concedes that his middle-class time share customers rely on financing, which means he relies on cheap and easy credit from the banks to keep his business growing and thriving.
Once the credit markets freeze in the fall of 2008, the story takes a sudden turn because Westgate customers can no longer get financing. Suddenly, we’re in the Tom Wolfe novel, “Man in Full,” when the rich commercial developer who is overextended is getting a “workout” from the banks, squeezing him for everything he worked a lifetime to build.
David Siegel fights the banks to keep them from seizing the Westgate. Construction on the faux Versailles stops. Its half-finished skeleton, familiar to anyone who drives around here and sees similarly unfinished buildings, is a crass symbol of economic collapse. The kids are sent to public schools. The huge household staff is trimmed. If we can’t exactly feel sorry for them, we can see ourselves in them, largely because of the arresting and largely sympathetic portrait painted by Greenfield. (David apparently disagrees with that assessment — he’s suing Greenfield.)
Still, intentionally or not, the movie for me serves as an indictment of those years of false prosperity, when everyone had a house or a time share or a time share building he couldn’t afford, when the financing was cheap and easy, and when all was too good to be true.

Lord Sugar names new Apprentice

Ex-wrestler Ricky Martin has been named Lord Sugar's latest Apprentice after winning the BBC business contest.

Martin, 27, a recruitment manager from Portsmouth, won a £250,000 investment from Lord Sugar, who will now become his partner in a new business venture.

Martin impressed Lord Sugar with his plan for a niche recruitment company specialising in the science industry.

He won despite being branded an "arrogant fool" by Lord Sugar's advisers in Sunday's final.

The four finalists were grilled by Lord Sugar's associates during interviews in the last episode.

Viglen chairman Claude Littner told Martin parts of his personal statement, in which he likened himself to the Norse God Thor, were "completely ludicrous".
'Infantile'
It was "probably the most crass, obnoxious and infantile personal statement that I've had the, not really a pleasure, I've had the opportunity of reading", he added.

But Martin, who has an Honours degree in Biochemistry, persuaded Lord Sugar he had learnt a lot during the series and won him over with his business plan.

He beat fellow finalists Jade Nash, Nick Holzherr and Tom Gearing in the final, which ended the eighth series of the business reality show.

And Martin, who took part in amateur wrestling bouts in his spare time before entering the contest, said he would now swap the wrestling world for the boardroom.

"I've now retired from the wrestling ring," he said. "I'm hanging up my boots and my Lycra and that's it now for me."

Fitting Start to Queens Jubilee

LONDON — Long known as the sport of kings, today horse racing is the Sport of the Queen, as the Diamond Jubilee got underway with a familiar annual ritual, the running of the Epsom Derby.

Horse-loving Queen Elizabeth II did not have a horse in the "dah-bee," as it's known here; instead it was the appropriately named Camelot, the favorite, that won the feature race today, in front of a crowd of 150,000 racing fans, with the No. 1 fan watching in the royal enclosure.

Along with her were members of her family, including her husband, Prince Philip; her two younger sons, Prince Andrew, Duke of York, and Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex; and two of her grandchildren, Andrew's daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie.

The day was overcast, windy and cool but it was an especially colorful and cheerful derby, decorated with flags, flowers and jubilee bunting. It opened with military parachutists, bearing Union Jacks, floating down in their scarlet red jumpsuits, one of the reasons they're known as the Red Devils.

The crowds cheered and waved little flags (35,000 were handed out beforehand) as the queen and her husband arrived in a Rolls motorcade down the track. Smiling broadly, she exited the car and the Royal Marine Band struck up the familiar notes of the national anthem. Katherine Jenkins, the Welsh classical vocalist who finished second in Dancing With the Stars last month, sang God Save the Queen with gusto, although she looked slightly chilled in the cold while dressed in a creamy, strapless mermaid-tail gown, standing just a few feet away from the queen.

"This is definitely a day that I will never forget," she told the BBC later.

Unlike so many others, Jenkins was not wearing a hat for her performance but she didn't have to. By contrast, there's a strict dress code for those in the royal enclosure: Hats for women; top hats for men; and smart outfits for all. Elsewhere in the stands, fans are allowed to wear what they want and many of them apparently believe the wackier the better.

As per usual, the queen went down from the royal box to the paddock where she inspected some of the horses that competed in one of the races, the Coronation Cup, renamed the Diamond Jubilee Coronation Cup. She awarded the cup to the owner, trainer and jockey of winner St. Nicholas Abbey.

The big winner, Camelot, was trained and ridden by a father-son team, the first in derby history, adding to the historic character of this year's event.

Epsom is not just any horse-racing venue; the derby is way older than the Windsor dynasty, with the first was one in 1779. It's also one of the richest, at about $2 million. And it's free for fans.

The race also is the United Kingdom's only major one that the horsewoman-in-chief has not won. An expert in breeding, raising, training and racing horses, she has gone to the derby every year except one in her 60 years on the throne. She even attended just a few days after she was crowned in 1953, when her horse, Aureole, finished second, nearly giving the new queen a coronation victory.

Last year, her horse Carlton House, was the favorite but finished third, although it did win at another racetrack on Thursday.

Racing is one of the queen's real passions, so it's no coincidence that the derby opens the jubilee weekend. Brits are used to seeing her at the races, a standout in the royal box in her colorful hats and outfits, peering through binoculars, surrounded by family and friends. She typically visits the paddock and the winner's circle, loves talking to the trainers and jockeys, closely reads the daily racing press.

British commentators have repeatedly pointed out that no other event during jubilee weekend will be as much fun for the 86-year-old queen as the derby. Typically, she shows an enigmatic or neutral expression on her face during engagements, although lately she's been seen beaming for jubilee events. But it's at the races where she shows her excitement. One piece of video often shown features the queen at a race, grabbing her binoculars and rushing out of the royal box as one of her horses moved to the front of the pack.

Following the horses is the queen's hobby, one that provides a "relief from her daily duties," said her top-hatted (and rarely interviewed) racing manager, John Warren, interviewed by Sky News.

When the queen goes to the USA on rare private visits, she typically heads for Kentucky bluegrass country. There she visits Lane's End Farm, a top breeder owned by her friend William Farish, the former American ambassador to Britain.

And when she made her historic visit to Ireland last year, the first by a British monarch to its former colony, she made a point of spending hours at the Irish National Stud, talking horse bloodlines with people whose love of horses is as high as her own.

West expels envoys over massacre of Syrian children

By Joseph Logan

BEIRUT | Tue May 29, 2012 8:03pm BST

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Western powers expelled Syria's envoys on Tuesday in outrage at a massacre of 108 people, almost half of them children, and peace envoy Kofi Annan urged President Bashar al-Assad to take bold steps to halt the bloodshed as "a tipping point" had been reached.The killings in the town of Houla drew a chorus of condemnation from around the world, with the United Nations saying entire families were killed in their homes on Friday, some by army tanks and others probably by pro-Assad militia.
"Bashar al-Assad is the murderer of his people," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told Le Monde. "He must relinquish power. The sooner the better." His Australian counterpart Bob Carr said: "This massacre of more than 100 men, women and children in Houla was a hideous and brutal crime."
U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous, whose monitors are in Syria, contradicted the Assad's government assertion that the killings were carried out by terrorist gangs.
"Part of the victims had been killed by artillery shells, now that points ever so clearly to the responsibility of the government. Only the government has heavy weapons, has tanks, has howitzers," Ladsous told reporters, adding:
"But there are also victims from individual weapons, victims from knife wounds and that of course is less clear but probably points the way to the (pro-Assad) shabbihas, the local militia."
The United States, France, Britain, Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain, Australia and Bulgaria gave Syria's envoys hours or days to leave their capitals in a coordinated move meant to isolate Assad further diplomatically.
Some had already expelled ambassadors or downgraded ties and so, like Washington, ordered out less senior charges d'affaires.
U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland called the Houla attack "the most unambiguous indictment to date" of Damascus's refusal to implement U.N. resolutions.
"We hold the Syrian government responsible for this slaughter of innocent lives," she said.
Western countries that have called for Assad to step down hope the Houla killings will tip global opinion, notably that of Syria's main protector Russia, towards more effective action against Damascus, perhaps in the form of U.N. sanctions.
"WE ARE AT A TIPPING POINT"
While Western and Arab countries have unilaterally imposed economic sanctions on Syria, Russia and China have blocked any similar move at the United Nations.
French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said Paris wanted the option of U.N. sanctions to be looked at seriously, adding: "We are talking to everyone, and especially Russia."
But Moscow, which on Sunday backed a non-binding U.N. Security Council text criticising the use of artillery and tanks in Houla, but has twice vetoed tougher resolutions, showed no sign of changing its stance.
Annan, in Damascus to try to save a six-week-old peace plan that has failed to stem Syria's bloodshed, told Assad of the "grave concern of the international community".
"We are at a tipping point," he told a news conference in Damascus. "The Syrian people do not want the future to be one of bloodshed and division. Yet the killings continue and the abuses are still with us today."
He urged the armed opposition to cease violence but appealed first to the government, as the stronger party, to take "bold steps now - not tomorrow, now" by stopping all military operations and showing "maximum restraint".
However, Assad's government denied having anything to do with the deaths, or even having heavy weapons in the area, despite the contrary evidence found by United Nations monitors.
Assad himself repeated to Annan Syria's line that "terrorist groups" - Syria's term for the rebels - were stepping up killings and kidnappings across the country.
The estimated number of internally displaced Syrians has more than doubled to 500,000 since an April 12 ceasefire and the flow of refugees abroad has gathered pace again, U.N. officials said on Tuesday.
SPENT SHELLS AND TANK TRACKS
U.N. monitors found spent shells and fresh tank tracks in Houla, evidence of weaponry that Syria's lightly-armed rebels do not have in their arsenal.
But the U.N. human rights office in Geneva said the bulk of the 108 mostly civilian dead in Houla had been executed at close range. Survivors told U.N. investigators that the killers were pro-Assad "shabbiha" militiamen, who in the past have assaulted and intimidated hotbeds of opposition to Assad.
"What is very clear is that this was an absolutely abominable event that took place in Houla, and at least a substantial part of it were summary executions of civilians - women and children," said Rupert Colville, spokesman for the U.N. human rights office in Geneva.
He said 49 children and 32 women were among the victims. "At this point, it looks like entire families were shot in their houses."
The report was at odds with a note sent by Syria to the Security Council that said: "Not a single tank entered the region and the Syrian army was in a state of self-defence ...
"The terrorist armed groups ... entered with the purpose of killing and the best proof of that is the killing by knives, which is the signature of terrorist groups who massacre according to the Islamist way."
Gruesome video footage distributed by opposition activists has helped to shake world opinion out of growing indifference to a conflict in which more than 10,000 have been killed.
Opposition sources said rebels had killed 20 soldiers in heavy fighting close to the border with Turkey.
They said six civilians and six rebels, including two commanders, had also been killed over the past 24 hours in fighting that began when the army launched an offensive with tanks and helicopters to retake the region around Atareb.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Annan in a telephone call that "all sides" must end the violence, a statement said.
MOSCOW'S INTERESTS
Moscow long saw Assad's late father as the best defender of its interests in the region, and leases a major naval base in Syria. It has suggested that foreign countries are undermining Annan's plan by supporting the opposition.
"We are alarmed that some countries ... are starting to use this event as an excuse to put forth demands of the need for military action in an attempt to put pressure on the U.N. Security Council," Lavrov told journalists in Moscow.
"We are troubled by the ceaseless attempts to frustrate Kofi Annan's peace plan."
The plan calls for the government to withdraw all heavy weapons from towns and cities, followed by a cessation of fighting and dialogue with the opposition, but has stalled at the first hurdle.
Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad told reporters: "Syria has not committed a single violation of Annan's plan or the initial understanding between Syria and the United Nations.
"At the same time, the other party has not committed to a single point. This means that there is a decision by the armed groups and the opposition not to implement Annan's plan and to make it fail."
Sunni Muslim Gulf powers Saudi Arabia and Qatar favour arming the mostly-Sunni rebels fighting Assad, whose ruling cadre are mostly Alawites - members of an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.
A military presence is required in Syria to guarantee a potential ceasefire and to protect observers and aid workers, Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said on Tuesday.
"Without asking for intervention like in Libya a real military presence to assure the ceasefire, protect U.N. observers and protect those who want to do humanitarian work is indispensible," Reynders told reporters.
(Writing by Kevin Liffey, editing by Peter Millership)