Euro 2012: Spain beat Portugal on penalties to enter final

Donetsk: Spain reached their third consecutive major tournament final after overcoming neighbours Portugal 4-2 on penalties in the first Euro 2012 semi-final in Donetsk on Wednesday.
Euro 2012 | Matchcentre | Stats

After an attritional game finished 0-0 following extra time, Cesc Fabregas swept home the winning spot-kick to put Spain in the final.

Xabi Alonso and Joao Moutinho both saw their opening penalties saved, but Portugal blinked first when Zenit Saint-Petersburg centre-back Bruno Alves slammed his side's fourth penalty against the crossbar.

Fabregas stepped up and, just as he had done in the penalty shootout win over Italy in the Euro 2008 quarter-finals, the Barcelona man held his nerve, steering the ball into the bottom-left corner to send Portugal home.

Reigning world and European champions Spain, who are bidding to become the first team in history to win three major competitions in a row, will face either Italy or Germany in Sunday's final in Kiev.

It was a deeply disappointing end to the tournament for Portugal captain Cristiano Ronaldo, who had threatened to fire his side into only their second major final but who did not even get a chance to have his say in the shoot-out.

A surprise inclusion in Spain's starting line-up, Alvaro Negredo was at the source of the game's first chance, with Alvaro Arbeloa side-footing over after the Sevilla striker was crowded out in the Portuguese area.

Portugal's match-winner against both the Netherlands and the Czech Republic, Ronaldo was a spectator in the first 10 minutes, but gradually his influence grew.

After fluffing a free-kick into the base of the wall from a tight angle on the left, he lashed a half-volley high over the crossbar from the edge of the area and then drilled a left-shot narrowly wide of the right-hand post.

As in the quarter-final win against France, Spain struggled to find holes in their opponent's defence, and it was a surprise to see Alonso club a long ball forward in the 29th minute.

It produced a sight of goal, however, with Andres Iniesta bending a shot narrowly over the bar after Negredo had chased down Alonso's pass, held off Fabio Coentrao, and worked the ball back to the edge of the area.

The snap in Portugal's tackles was helping them establish a presence in the Spanish half and with Negredo failing to provide enough of an outlet for Spain, it was no surprise to see him replaced by Fabregas early in the second half.

Del Bosque introduced Jesus Navas in place of David Silva, before Xavi worked Rui Patricio for the first time in the match with a speculative effort that found the Portugal goalkeeper's midriff.

Ronaldo had a fine opportunity to snatch a winner in the last minute of normal time but he could only shoot over from Raul Meireles' pass, prompting mocking cries of 'Messi! Messi!' from the Spain fans.

A succession of late flare-ups gave the game added spice going into extra time, and after a watchful opening, Spain finally began to show.

Shortly before half-time in the extra period, Iniesta drew the first real save of note from Patricio after ghosting into the box to meet Jordi Alba's cut-back.

Sergio Ramos then sent a free-kick whistling over the bar, while Navas tested Patricio early in the second half after wriggling down the inside-right channel in the Portuguese box.

Fabregas sent fellow substitute Pedro Rodriguez clear with seven minutes left but he delayed, allowing Coentrao to clear, and the time for penalties had arrived.

Mumbai: Central Railway trains late by 35 to 40 minutes

Mumbai: Trains on Mumbai's Central Railway are running 35 to 45 minutes late due to heavy rains causing major inconvenience to passengers during peak hours.

The Central Railway connects CST to Thane and other suburbs like Kalyan. Lakhs of passengers use the Central Railway everyday.

It has been raining intermittently in Mumbai since early today. Railway officials told NDTV, "Trains are running regularly but there has been a slight delay due to rains".

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Flooding or waterlogging on tracks has not been reported from area.
The city's local trains are its lifeline as lakhs of commuters use them to get to work in the island city.

Race for Rashtrapati Bhavan: Pranab Mukherjee, PA Sangma to file nominations today

New Delhi: Pranab Mukherjee will not use an official car as he drives up to Parliament in a short while from now to file his nomination papers for the Presidential election. He is expected to use the personal car of fellow Congressman and minister V Narayanasamy.

At Parliament House, flanked by a pantheon of political leaders and with 480 important signatures on his four sets of nomination papers, Mr Mukherjee, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance's (UPA) candidate, will stake claim to be President of India. Soon after, his challenger, Purno Sangma, who is supported by the Bharatiya Janata Party, the AIADMK and the Biju Janata Dal, will also file his papers today in what is expected to be an equal show of strength.

Mr Mukherjee will file his nomination papers accompanied by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, the NC's Farooq Abdullah, the DMK's TR Baalu, NCP chief Sharad Pawar and, notably, Sharad Yadav of the Janata Dal (United) which is a part of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA). He is also being supported by parties like the Samajwadi Party and BSP and calculations at present give him a comfortable advantage with about 56 per cent votes in the electoral college. Missing today will be key UPA ally Mamata Banerjee.

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Sharad Yadav is the first signatory on one set of Mr Mukherjee's nomination papers. Mulayam Singh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati have also signed Mr Mukherjee's nomination papers. Among the 480 MPs and MLAs that have proposed and seconded his nomination are union ministers, chief ministers and Congress Legislature Party leaders.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal, who is Mr Mukherjee's authorised election agent, told NDTV that the former Finance Minister will not file an asset declaration as it is not required under law. He, however, added that it is for Mr Mukherjee to decide if he wants to declare his assets at a later stage. Polling will be held on July 19 and India will have a new President by July 22.

The numbers don't favour former Lok Sabha Speaker PA Sangma, but he is backed by the BJP, and two powerful Chief Ministers - Tamil Nadu's J Jayalalithaa and her AIADMK, and Odisha's Naveen Patnaik and his Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and he is expected to wear that support on his sleeve when he files his papers this afternoon. High-profile BJP leaders like Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, Ms Jayalalithaa and Mr Patnaik and Punjab Chief Minister and Akali Dal chief Parkash Singh Badal are likely to be present.

After today's grand photo opportunities as nomination papers are filed, both candidates will get into campaign mode. For Mr Mukherjee that will mean consolidating his numbers. He will fly by a private jet arranged by the Congress first to Chennai and then to Bangalore and Hyderabad as he kicks off his campaign.

Mr Mukherjee has wider support than mere political alignments would allow as he is expected to be a political president. His candidacy came not without drama - some brinkmanship from Mamata Banerjee which included heart-in-the-mouth moments as the Congress' good friend Mulayam Singh Yadav seemed to waver. His own party seemed undecided for long whether it could spare a man who wore many hats. In the end, however, Mr Mukherjee did not see a repeat of 2007 - when the Congress had said it could not spare him for Rashtrapati Bhavan - and was declared the UPA's candidate.

He has some Leftist support too in the CPM and cleanly sliced through the NDA when important constituent the JD(U) declared Mr Mukherjee was its man for President. The UPA's one loss - Mamata Banerjee, who, however, has still not said an emphatic yes to the Mr Sangma either. Trinamool Congress sources say she will remain "equidistant."

Mr Sangma is expected to ensure a high decibel contest. He quit his party, the NCP, which as a UPA ally is staunchly supporting Mr Mukherjee.

Al Qaeda using Arab Spring nations as base to train terrorists: UK spy chief

London: Al Qaeda militants are using the countries which toppled their leaders in the Arab Spring as bases to train radical Western youths for potential attacks on Britain, the chief of the MI5 Security Service said on Monday.

In his first public speech for nearly two years, Security Service Director General Jonathan Evans said the Arab Spring revolts in Tunisia, Libya, Yemen and Egypt offered long-term hope of a more democratic Middle East.

But Britain's domestic spy chief said al Qaeda, which moved to Afghanistan from Arab countries in the 1990s and thence to Pakistan after the fall of the Taliban, was once again trying to gain a foothold in the Arab world.

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"Today parts of the Arab world have once more become a permissive environment for al Qaeda," General Evans said, according to an advance text of a rare speech in London outlining the key threats to British interests.

"A small number of British would-be jihadis are also making their way to Arab countries to seek training and opportunities for militant activity, as they do in Somalia and Yemen. Some will return to the UK and pose a threat here."

"This is a new and worrying development and could get worse," said Evans, a career officer who has served as head of the Security Service since April 2007.

The Arab Spring was lauded by Western leaders who hoped the revolts would usher in prosperity and freedom to the Middle East and North Africa, though Islamists have come to power in elections in Tunisia and Egypt.

Libya has been racked by turmoil while al Qaeda militants are expanding their foothold in the south of Yemen. A plot by al Qaeda in Yemen to blow up an airliner over the Atlantic was foiled in May by a British spy.

British officials say one of the biggest threats to the realm is likely to come from a domestic cell of militants who have received training or support from al Qaeda in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia or Yemen.

OLYMPICS - "ATTRACTIVE TARGET"

General Evans, who joined MI5 in 1980 after graduating from Bristol University with a degree in Classical Studies, said preparations for the Olympic Games in London were going well though the event was an attractive target for Britain's enemies.

Britain's national threat level is assessed at "substantial" - meaning an attack is a strong possibility - but that is still one notch lower than for most of the past decade.

"The Games present an attractive target for our enemies and they will be at the centre of the world's attention in a month or so," General Evans said. "No doubt some terrorist networks have thought about whether they could pull off an attack."

But General Evans warned against complacency, quipping that when intelligence folk smell roses they look for the funeral.

Though al Qaeda has made no successful attack on Britain since 2005, the threat has not evaporated, he said, adding that Britain has been the target of credible terrorist plot every year since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

"In back rooms and in cars and on the streets of this country there is no shortage of individuals talking about wanting to mount terrorist attacks here," General Evans said. "It is essential that we maintain pressure on al Qaeda."

Some 100-200 British residents are thought to be involved in militant activities in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa, mostly young men from cities such as London and Birmingham between the ages of 18 and 30.

General Evans said MI5, which now employs about 3,800 people up from 1,800 on the eve of the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York, had shifted some its focus to reflect the changed appreciation of the wider threat to British interests.

He said about half of MI5's priority casework now focused on Afghanistan or Pakistan dimensions, down from 75 per cent a few years ago. As the threat from al Qaeda in Pakistan declines, it has risen in Yemen, Somalia and the Sahel, he said.

General Evans said companies should seek to defend themselves against organised crime groups or states seeking to steal secrets or sow turmoil in their computer systems.

He cited the case of an unnamed London-listed company which lost 800 million pounds as the result of a state cyberattack.

Russia or China are thought to be behind the attack.

"The extent of what is going on is astonishing - with industrial-scale processes involving many thousands of people lying behind both state-sponsored cyber espionage and organised cyber-crime," he said.

RBI announces measures to boost economy, but markets, rupee slide

The Reserve Bank of India on Monday said it would allow companies to borrow more from overseas to pay back their high cost rupee loans. The central bank has also allowed new category of investors like sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, insurance funds and foreign central banks to buy Indian government bonds.



External Commercial Borrowings limit has been lifted to $40bn from $ 30bn earlier. This would be to repay outstanding rupee loans of Indian businesses. This comes as a relief to the manufacturing sector. The rupee loans are expensive while foreign currency loans are cheaper. In addition, manufacturing and infrastructure companies -- as well as those that have foreign exchange earnings -- can now avail of ECBs of up to $ 10 billion to repay rupee loans invested in capex, or for fresh rupee capital expenditure.



The RBI’s measures were part of a package to halt the slide in the rupee and to prop up a sagging economy. However, the markets were clearly unimpressed with the central bank's efforts: the Bombay Stock Exchange's benchmark Sensex fell below 17,000 mark shortly after the announcement. The Sensex closed 0.53 per cent lower at 16,882.16. The rupee gave up gains to fall to 56.94 at 2:38 p.m. after having hit 56.40 earlier in the day. The rupee has lost over 25 per cent in the last one year.

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"The market was expecting a slew of measures. The measures announced now won't have any direct material bearing on the rupee. Unless the RBI comes in with more measures, the rupee will fall back to the 57-58 to a dollar levels," said M Natarajan, head of Treasury at the Bank of Nova Scotia in Mumbai.



As part its efforts to reduce currency volatility and infuse more liquidity into the system, the central bank also raised the limit on foreign institutional investor (FII) investment in government securities in India by $ 5 billion to $20 billion.



The RBI has decided to widen the non-resident investor base to include sovereign wealth funds, pension funds and insurance funds in government securities with a limit of $ 20bn. This is in-addition to raising the FII investment limit by $ 5bn. However, these new entities will need to be registered with capital markets regulator Securities and Exchane Board of India.



(Also read: Government, RBI announce steps to boost economy: 10 developments)



Qualified Foreign Investors (QFIs) can now invest in those mutual fund (MF) schemes that hold at least 25 per cent of their assets (either in debt or in equity or both) in the infrastructure sector under the current USD 3 billion sub-limit for investment in mutual funds related to infrastructure



Earlier, outgoing Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said the RBI would shortly issue a circular announcing steps the government was taking to arrest declining growth, and that he had had discussions with RBI deputy governor Subir Gokarn. Mr. Mukherjee will resign on Tuesday to run for President.



On Sunday, Mr Mukherjee had said that the government and the Reserve Bank of India would take steps to halt the fall in the rupee and improve market conditions. He said that the government had discussed the rupee’s depreciation with the central bank governor on Friday.



The Indian currency has fallen 10.92 per cent since the beginning of the current fiscal and hit an all-time low of 57.33 against the dollar in June 22. The economy has slowed to 6.5 per cent for fiscal 2012, while inflation has risen to 7.5 per cent in May. Earlier this month, the central bank defied calls for a cut in interest rates, choosing instead to keep the policy rate unchanged at 8.0 per cent and the cash reserve ratio at 4.75 per cent.



Industry had been hoping that the central bank would relax the limit on external commercial borrowings. The earlier cap was at 350 and 500 basis points over the existing London interbank rate, for loans of up to 3 years and more than 5 years, respectively.



The existing NRE rate is 9 per cent-plus, while the Foreign Currency Non-Resident (FCNR) rates are LIBOR + 200 basis points and LIBOR plus 300 basis points for the 1-3 year and 3-5 year longevity, respectively.



Market analysts had expected RBI to announce an increase in interest rates for deposits of Non-Resident Indians.



They also expected that the government would announce a bond issue to attract inflows. “RBI may increase the interest rate on FCNR(B) deposit further and announce the issuance of bonds for Non-Resident Indians to address the issues in the short-term,” Crisil Chief Economist D K Joshi had said.



In 1998, India had launched the ‘Resurgent India’ bonds soon after the announcement of nuclear tests and sanctions that followed. The scheme raised $ 4.2 billion in capital. In 2000, the government launched ‘India Millennium’ deposits on the back of rising fuel prices and slowing capital flows. That scheme attracted $ 5.5 billion.



However, experts say a $ 5 billion scheme may not make any significant difference to India’s financial woes. According to a section of experts, India would need something close to $ 15 billion to $ 20 billion to have a meaningful impact on the economy.



However, the situation now is starkly different from the time that those bonds were launched. India’s current forex reserves stand at $289 billion, which is $21 billion less than from a year ago. At the time of Resurgent India bonds, forex levels were at $28 billion, while they were $36 billion when the India Millennium bonds were issued.



The rupee dropped a little over 3 per cent against the dollar last week, its worst weekly decline in nine months, weighed down by mounting concerns over the global as well as India's economy. Analysts say the rupee could continue to fall further in the near-term, dragged down by the momentum from the worsening global risk environment.

India growth story was oversold, says former US Secretary of State

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India's growth story was oversold, but it has the ability to pull through, former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told NDTV on Tuesday.

“India’s growth was maybe oversold to a certain point, and then when it goes through a small period when things shift a little bit, there is undue gloom,” she said in an interview.

Also Read: Why falling oil prices not helping India’s economy

However, according to Albright, this does not mean that India’s growth story is over. “I think that there is going to be a period where the growth is not everything that the Indians expected,” she said, adding that she has great confidence in Indian economy.

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“I have great confidence in the Indian economy and in the Indian people and the capability of working through what are some slowdowns in certain areas,” Albright, who is now an international strategic adviser, said.

She also said that a 7 per cent growth is a ‘pretty good record’ in comparison to the growth of most countries.

There have been mounting concerns about the Indian economy that has been besieged with falling industrial output and soaring inflation. India’s GDP growth slowed to 6.5 per cent in fiscal 2012, while gross domestic product (GDP) growth for the march quarter fell to a paltry 5.3 per cent, the lowest in nine years. Additionally, the fiscal deficit for the current fiscal has been pegged at 5.1 per cent of GDP, after having climbed to 5.9 per cent in FY-12 from a projected 4.6 per cent. Meanwhile inflation has risen to 7.5 per cent in May. The currency, meanwhile, has fallen 10.92 per cent since the beginning of the current fiscal and hit an all-time low of 57.33 against the dollar in June 22.

India Inc has severly criticised government for its lack of reform process. The country's ratings too have become the focus of some concern among ratings agencies and economists. Earlier this month, ratings agency Standard and Poor's cautioned that warned that India could become the first "fallen angel" among the BRIC—Brazil, Russia, India and China—countries if it lost its investment grade rating, citing slowing GDP growth and political roadblocks to economic policymaking as some of the factors that could lead to such an action.

Global banking giant HSBC has termed India as a "gasping elephant" as the slowdown in economic growth was "deepening" and the downside risks to the outlook have increased.

Over 8 lakh people affected by drought in China

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Beijing: About eight lakh people have been struggling for drinking water in a central Chinese province that was hit by drought early this month, authorities said on Monday.

So far, 31 cities or counties in Hubei province have been affected by the drought, with 4.2 million mu (280,000 hectares) of crops withered and 165,000 livestock short of water, according to the Hubei drought relief headquarters.

Water reserves in Hubei's reservoirs currently total just 11 billion cubic meters, 22 per cent less than that of last year. A total of 964 rivers and 141 reservoirs have dried up completely, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

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Some 8.13 lakh people are now struggling for drinking water, it said.

High temperatures have exacerbated the effects of the drought. The cities of Shiyan, Xiangyang, Xiaogan and Huanggang in northern Hubei have seen temperatures rise above 35 degree Celsius over the last two weeks, the report said.

The province's rainy season began on June 25 and two heavy rainstorms are expected to improve the situation.