PARIS — David Beckham has no intention of saying goodbye to England after reaching 100 appearances.
The Los Angeles Galaxy star, who reached the milestone Wednesday night, maintains the wave he gave when he walked off during England's 1-0 loss to France was just an acknowledgment of the standing ovation that even the French fans gave him.
"I don't know where the rumours came from but they weren't from me," Beckham said. "It is 100 not out as far as I am concerned. The wave at the end was not a goodbye, just a thank you.
"The reception when I came off from both sets of fans was amazing. You obviously expect it off your own fans and I thank them for that but from the French people as well, it was an amazing standing ovation."
Although Beckham didn't even have a shot on goal and collected a yellow card for a foul on French goalscorer Franck Ribery, he was satisfied with his performance.
"The most important thing for me was to prove my fitness and I felt that I did that. I felt very fresh and a lot better than I thought I would," he said after playing 62 minutes at the Stade de France.
"As much as you work hard in pre-season, there is nothing better than playing in games and I enjoyed it."
Even though he had been replaced, Beckham was the last England player to walk off the field. At the end of the game, he walked back on, hugged France defender William Gallas, and had a long talk with the Arsenal player before again waving and applauding the fans.
"If there was another place I would have liked the game after Wembley, it would have been in Paris because it is where (Zinedine) Zidane played," he said in reference to his former Real Madrid teammate. Zidane scored two goals in the 1998 World Cup final at the same stadium where France beat Brazil 3-0.
"It is also one of my most favorite cities and I have a house in the South of France."
Beckham, who turns 33 in May, believes he will still be fit enough to play at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, assuming England qualifies.
"I want it to carry on," he said. "It doesn't stop here for me."
"I still feel I can perform at the highest level. The 2010 World Cup remains an ambition for me. I am quite a stubborn person so it is something I want to reach. I'd love to be part of the squad in 2010."
Although the loss was greeted by scathing criticism in the English media on Thursday, Capello was satisfied with the performance.
"As I told the players I am very happy with what they did because we made progress compared with the Switzerland game," he said, referring to England's 2-1 victory over the Swiss at Wembley last month.
"I am happy because I saw some very good things, especially because we played against a top level team and we showed our value. I am happy because I made the team play two different ways and I could see many players. Therefore my ideas are a lot clearer for the future."
Capello was also pleased with Beckham.
"He played like I know he can play," said Capello, who has only friendlies between now and qualifying for the 2010 World Cup because England failed to reach this summer's European championship.
"I only substituted him because I know how he can play and I wanted to see other players."
Beckham, who was overlooked by Capello for the Switzerland game because the Italian didn't consider him fit enough during Major League Soccer's off-season, called on the England fans to be patient with the new manager while he tries new formations, tactics and selections.
"As soon as a new manager comes in, there is always a period when it takes time to get going," Beckham said. "But he was pleased with the fact we passed the ball around well and in the first half kept a lot of possession.
"But if you don't score in that time, teams like France are always going to capitalize on it. And they did."
Thursday, March 27, 2008
David Beckham has no plans to quit England after 100th appearance
Iraqi Prime Minister Says No Retreat
BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq's prime minister vowed Thursday to fight "until the end" against Shiite militias in Basra despite protests by tens of thousands of followers of a radical cleric in Baghdad and deadly clashes across the capital and the oil-rich south.
Mounting anger focused on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who is personally overseeing operations against the militias dominated by Muqtada al-Sadr's supporters amid a violent power struggle in Basra, Iraq's southern oil hub.
The Iraqi leader made his pledge to tribal leaders in the Basra area as military operations continued for a fourth day with stiff resistance.
"We have made up our minds to enter this battle and we will continue until the end. No retreat," he said in a speech broadcast on Iraqi state TV.
The events threatened to unravel a Mahdi Army cease-fire and lead to a dramatic escalation in violence after a period of relative calm that had lasted for months.
Sadrist lawmakers in Baghdad issued a strongly worded statement demanding a halt to the military operations and appealing to Iraqi security forces to stand down.
"We call on our brothers in the Iraqi army and the brave national police not to be tools of death in the hands of the new dictatorship," Sadrist lawmaker Falah Shanshal said.
The crisis was seen as a test of the Iraqi government's ability to eventually take over its own security. The U.S.-led coalition has a minimal presence in Basra after British forces turned over responsibility for the area to the Iraqis in late December.
Demonstrators in the northern Baghdad neighborhood of Kazimiyah called al-Maliki a "new dictator" as they carried a coffin bearing a crossed-out picture of the U.S.-backed prime minister, who belongs to a rival political party. A sea of people also rallied in Sadr City, Baghdad's main Shiite district.
Suspected Shiite extremists also continued to hammer the U.S.-protected Green Zone, firing several rounds of apparent rockets that sent a huge plume of smoke above the heavily fortified area in central Baghdad.
No casualties were immediately reported Thursday, but the military said a U.S. soldier, two American civilians and an Iraqi soldier were wounded in a volley the day before. An American financial analyst was killed Sunday in attacks on the Green Zone.
Meanwhile, gunmen kidnapped an Iraqi civilian spokesman for Baghdad security operations Thursday and killed three of his bodyguards after torching his house in a Mahdi Army stronghold in the capital.
The attack targeted Tahseen Sheikhly, a Sunni who often appeared with U.S. military and embassy officials at news conferences to tout the successes of the crackdown on sectarian violence that began in February 2007.
The demonstrating Sadrists are angry over recent raids and detentions, saying U.S. and Iraqi forces have taken advantage of the August cease-fire to crack down on the movement.
They have accused rival Shiite parties, which control Iraqi security forces, of engineering the arrests to prevent them from mounting an effective campaign after the Iraqi parliament agreed in February to hold provincial elections by the fall.
U.S. commanders have insisted the fight is being led by the Iraqi government and was not against al-Sadr's movement but breakaway factions believed to be funded and trained by Iran, which has denied the allegations.
Al-Maliki has warned gunmen in Basra to surrender their weapons by Friday or face harsher measures.
Despite the ultimatum, heavy gunfire and explosions resounded across Basra while helicopters and jet fighters buzzed overhead. The city's police chief escaped an assassination attempt late Thursday but three of his guards were killed in the roadside bombing.
Government troops have faced stiff resistance in neighborhoods controlled by the Mahdi Army in Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad. Residents spoke of militiamen using mortar shells, sniper fire, roadside bombs and rocket-propelled grenades to fight off security forces.
A Pentagon official said Wednesday that reports from the Basra area indicate that militiamen had overrun a number of police stations. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
Street battles that started Tuesday in Basra and Sadr City have spread to several other neighborhoods and southern cities, leaving more than 200 dead, including civilians, Iraqi troops and militants. That three-day figure was a rough estimate provided by police and hospital officials who could not give a more specific breakdown.
Iraqi officials reported 17 more people killed in overnight clashes in Sadr City, raising the total there to 40.
The death toll in the Shiite city of Hillah, 60 miles south of Baghdad, also rose to at least 60 in fighting that continued into Thursday, according to a senior police official who asked not to be identified because of security concerns.
The U.S. military said four suspected Shiite extremists were killed in an airstrike but it had no further details.
The police chief in Kut, Abdul-Hanin al-Amara said 40 gunmen had been killed and 75 others wounded in that southeastern city.
A bomb struck an oil pipeline Thursday in Basra, a local oil official said, declining to be identified because he was not authorized to release the information.
Iraqi Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani, however, sought to assure international oil companies. The security situation in Basra "is still unstable ... but this has not reflected negatively (on) works at oil output and export installations," al-Shahristani told the U.S.-funded Radio Sawa.
In other violence reported by police, a booby-trapped car exploded near the Iraqi Red Crescent Society's offices in Baghdad, killing two civilians and wounding five.
Gunmen also killed a U.S.-allied Sunni fighter and wounded his wife and daughter after storming his house in the northern city of Samarra late Wednesday.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Spitzer's prostitute a 'Girl Gone Wild'
And Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis is already capitalizing on scandal.
By Gina Piccalo, Times Staff Writer
Fresh out of prison, the irrepressible Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis is already capitalizing on scandal, culling his archives for footage of call girl-turned-MySpace star Ashley Alexander Dupre and promising to release his findings on girlsgonewild.com "shortly."
It turns out that Dupre, identified last week as the prostitute who was hired to visit former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer at a Washington D.C. hotel in February, appeared in a 2003 "Girls Gone Wild" Spring Break production during an especially raucous weekend in Miami celebrating her 18th birthday, Francis said in a news release Tuesday.
"After fighting with a friend and getting thrown out of her hotel, Ms. Dupré sought out a nearby Girls Gone Wild bus, signed her paperwork and immediately began filming," the news release stated. "Ms. Dupré spent a full week on the GGW bus and shot seven full length tapes that included nudity and same sex contact. Dupré later took a Greyhound Bus home."
The discovery was a surprise to Francis. Just this morning, (3/18), he'd offered Dupre $1 million to host his 2008 Girls Gone Wild Spring Break Tour and pose for his new GGW magazine. But he wisely withdrew that costly offer when someone – he won't say who – tipped him off to the fact that he already had sexy footage of Dupre.
In the news release, Francis likened Dupre to "a cloud that keeps circling back over the landscape."
The irony of this statement was apparently lost on the GGW founder and CEO.
Francis, who served 11 months in a Nevada prison for two counts of tax evasion, was released a week ago from Nevada custody so he could face charges in Florida related to filming 17-year-old girls in a shower. A day later, he pleaded no contest in Florida to child abuse and prostitution charges and the judge released him on time served and fines. Then, he jumped on a plane and flew to L.A. to hold a press conference at the Beverly Hilton Hotel to herald his return to public life.
Francis still faces charges in L.A. of misdemeanor sexual battery for allegedly touching a woman inappropriately at a party.
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