Pope met by gay protesters in Spain

About 200 people protested against Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Barcelona, Spain, on Sunday by jeering and staging a gay "kiss-in."
The protest by gays and lesbians took place as Benedict was being driven in his bullet-proof popemobile to celebrate mass at the city's iconic basilica, La Sagrada Familia (Holy Family).
The Pope did not react to the gay-kiss demonstration near the church, and the protesters were outnumbered by thousands of flag-waving supporters of the pontiff.
During the mass, Benedict attacked Spain's laws legalizing abortion and gay marriage.
"The generous, indissoluble love of a man and a woman is the effective context and the foundation of human life in its gestation in the birth and growth and its natural end," said the Pope, on his second visit to Spain since he was elected, .

He criticized policies allowing for abortions, saying "the life of children (must) be defended as sacred and inviolable from the moment of their conception."
The Pope has drawn criticism for remarks he made on his flight to Spain on Saturday, when he said the country was going through a period of "aggressive" secularism reminiscent of the 1930s, when the church suffered violent persecution as Spain lurched from an unstable democracy to civil war.
During his homily Sunday, Benedict praised the man who designed the church of the Sagrada Familia.
The soaring Art Nouveau marvel was designed by Barcelona architect Antoni Gaudi, a staunch Catholic who dedicated his life to the project but died in 1926, only a few years after it had begun.

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Lily Allen thanks fans for 'kind' words on Twitter following miscarriage

The devastated singer confirmed she’d lost her baby on Monday and within minutes celebrities – and fans alike – were tweeting messages of support to her and partner Sam Cooper.

Today the 25-year-old, previously famed for her prolific tweeting bouts, wrote: ‘Thank you for all your kind messages’ on her social-networking page.

Lily was six months pregnant but lost her baby last weekend following complications and asked fans for privacy at the ‘deeply distressing time’.

This was her second miscarriage after suffering her first loss in 2008 when she was pregnant with her and Chemical Brother star Ed Simons'

Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/showbiz/846312-lily-allen-thanks-fans-for-kind-words-on-twitter-following-miscarriage#ixzz14bpyn01O

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Rapper DJ Ironik stabbed by muggers who 'tracked his movements on Twitter'

Rapper DJ Ironik stabbed by muggers who 'tracked his movements on Twitter'
Rapper DJ Ironik was stabbed by muggers after they tracked his movements on Twitter.


The musician, 22, was wounded in the upper leg outside his London home in the early hours of Saturday morning after returning from a gig in Essex.

It is believed the two hooded men had targeted DJ Ironik after he boasted about the price of his diamond-encrusted neck chain during a recent TV interview.

After being discharged from hospital this afternoon after spending most of the weekend in hospital, Ironik thanked fans for their support.


He wrote on his Twitter page today: 'Wow. Thank you everyone for all the love & supportive messages.. I have just been discharged from the hospital.

'Its been a crazy last couple of days and this whole experience is quite surreal. But they say what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.

'I wanna thank each and every one of my friends, family and supportive fans that have showed me lots of much love!



'It could of been much worse so thank God it weren't and I'm just resting and recovering... Love.'



Ironik, real name James Charters, was returning to his Haringey, north London home with his tour manager when two men pounded at 3am.

He threw his chain and other jewellery on the path and ran towards his front door, but was stabbed in the thigh.



From Ironik's Twitter page, they knew he would be going home after performing at the Element nightclub in Southend-On-Sea, Essex.

Before the attack, he had re-tweeted a photo of himself performing on stage to the 1,500-strong crowd.

A police spokesman said it was believed the motivation behind the attack was robbery, but said most of the jewellery taken has since been recovered.

A statement from his management company said: 'Ironik was attacked and stabbed in the early hours of Saturday morning during an attempted robbery whilst returning to his home in North London. He was stabbed in his upper leg, taken to hospital and is currently being treated. He is understandably shaken up by this unprovoked attack.'

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Jenson Button escapes 'terrifying' armed attack on car in São Paulo

Driver and crew attacked by gunmen on leaving Interlagos



• Sauber mechanics suffer similarly and relieved of their valuables
 
 
 
Guiding a 750-horsepower projectile around a grand prix circuit at 200mph is one thing. Being confronted on your way home from work by half a dozen men with automatic weapons and bad intentions is another. Formula One drivers tend not to frighten easily, but Jenson Button's experience while trying to leave the Interlagos circuit on Saturday night, after qualifying for today's penultimate round of the 2010 world championship series, was great deal scarier than heading into the circuit's first turn in the middle of a howling pack of racing cars.




The attempted hold-up, or kidnapping, or whatever it may have been, took place at dusk, a few hundred metres from the circuit's main entrance, on a busy road where several such incidents have occurred since the Brazilian grand prix returned to São Paulo in 1990. The world champion and his companions were in an unmarked and relatively inconspicuous car, leading to suspicions that the armed men may have been tipped off by a colleague inside the circuit.



Interlagos is a suburb of São Paulo, built amid the endless sprawl on rolling hills above the stinking Pinheiros river. It is a mixture of favelas – shanty towns – and apartment blocks. The Avenida Interlagos, which leads from the main entrance down the hill to the cast-iron bridge over the river and thence towards the city centre, is bordered on one side by a variety of small businesses and on the other by a tumbling jungle of three-storey concrete apartment buildings painted buff with rust-coloured doors and shutters. Built into the side of a hill, they are joined by elevated walkways and identified only by numbers: Bloc 6, Bloc 7, and so on. Stray dogs lie in the entrances to the narrow alleyways and most of the available surfaces are covered with graffiti in the distinctive Gothic style favoured by São Paulo's wielders of aerosol cans. It was from there that the raiders appeared to come.



This is the city's wild south-west. During the four days of the race meeting, pairs of armed policemen are stationed every 50 metres. But half a dozen years ago a group of Toyota mechanics were ambushed at gunpoint early one morning while traffic heading towards the Autodrómo Carlos Pace was at a standstill.



Four miles away lies Morumbi, another suburb and a different world, where plush apartment blocks decorate the skyline, rising out of verdant avenues encircling the local Jockey Club. Most of the drivers stay at the four-star Morumbi Hilton, which is where Button was heading through thick traffic at 7pm when the armed men stepped out of the dusk, some of them apparently carrying automatic weapons.



Button, his father John, manager Richard Goddard, and personal trainer Mike Collier, were being driven in an armoured B-class Mercedes-Benz by a police-trained chauffeur. As usual, the city-bound side of the dual carriageway was at a standstill. The driver's only option, it seems, was to force his way between the stationary cars, knocking several aside as he attempted to put distance between himself and the threat.



"We stopped at the traffic lights, three rows back," Button recalled after arriving at the circuit today. "Our driver, as always, stopped early, leaving space to the car in front. We looked to the right and saw a few guys gathering by the side of the road, just by the entrance to a building. They looked a bit suspect but we didn't think anything of it. Then Richard noticed that one of the guys had a baton hanging down from his arm and I noticed that one was playing with something in his trousers, and it was a gun.



"As soon as I said that, the driver looked across. They saw him look and they started running towards the car. He angled the car and floored it – it didn't look like there was enough space to get through. He went between six cars and rammed every single car just to get past. We got through in the end, but looking behind there were two guys with handguns – quite a simple looking handgun – and one guy with a machine gun.

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Archbishop of Canterbury warns of forced jobs 'despair'

Archbishop of Canterbury warns of forced jobs 'despair'


Government plans to force the long-term unemployed to do unpaid manual labour could drive vulnerable people into a ''downward spiral of uncertainty, even despair'', the Archbishop of Canterbury warned.
 
Archbishop of Canterbury warns of forced jobs 'despair'


Government plans to force the long-term unemployed to do unpaid manual labour could drive vulnerable people into a ''downward spiral of uncertainty, even despair'', the Archbishop of Canterbury warned.

Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, will lead the closing session at Davos. Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith will this week unveil plans for four-week programmes of compulsory community work doing jobs like litter-picking or gardening for jobless people deemed to have lost the work ethic.

His Cabinet colleague Danny Alexander today said the Work Activity placements would be used as a ''sanction'' against benefit claimants who fail to take advantage of available support to find employment.

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