World Cup 2014: Brazil fans stunned as Germany routs home team

The problem is psychological," said Brazil fan Fabio Fontes. "It would be normal for the team to lose against Germany, but not in this fashion."

Soccer fans in Sao Paulo watch in horror as Germany dominates the home side en route to a 7-1 win. (Rodrigo Abd/AP)

With Brazil's star striker Neymar out injured and captain Thiago Silva suspended for the match, it quickly became clear the Brazilians couldn't handle the Germans.
To make matters worse, at Copacabana’s Fan Fest viewing area, hundreds of people stampeded out as a gang of young men carried out a mass robbery, running through crowd, inciting panic and snatching necklaces and bags along the way.
That, coupled with the crushing game, sent many fans heading home.
With Brazil tossed out of its own World Cup in such rough fashion, "you are going to have the most depressed country ever," Pablo Ramoz said.
Brazil spent billions of dollars preparing for the tournament, with expectations that home advantage could deliver Brazil a sixth title, but the high cost also ignited intense anger and protests against the World Cup, with demonstrators lamenting the costs when the nation is saddled with woeful public services.
Few thought Germany's stomping of Brazil would spark renewed mass protests — but it is certain to put a severely sour taste back into the mouths of the nation's fans.

'What a shame!'

In Sao Paulo, Brazil's biggest city, thousands gathered in the Bohemian neighbourhood of Vila Madalena, the streets carpeted with yellow, green and blue — the colours of the Brazilian flag.
Fan Samir Kelvin clung to a street pole and loudly cried: "I have nothing left! I am Brazilian and humiliated I want to kill myself!"
Nearby, a woman cried out "What shame, what shame!" as a man nearby was banging his head against a bar table.
The website Veja Sao Paulo, meanwhile, tweeted an image of Brazil fans burning the country's flag.
A large group of fans gathered at a 600-unit apartment complex in Rio couldn't believe what they had witnessed.
Jorge Cardoso, an engineer, blamed the loss on the injury that sidelined Neymar and the benching of Silva for accumulating two yellow cards during the tournament.
He said simply: "It's like someone you love has died."

R. Lee Ermey Talks Military, Acting and Reality TV

Actor R. Lee Ermey in his ranch outside of Los Angeles. Angel Canales/ABC News

Los Angeles — Retired Marine Corps Gunnery Sgt. R. Lee Ermey has had a great acting career for over 35 years. Before his Hollywood career skyrocketed, Ermey, 70, was a farm boy in Kansas growing up with five other brothers.

“I grew up in a farm, so I didn’t really have any playmates or friends with the exception of my brothers,” he said.

Ermey’s father was in the U.S. Navy and he wanted to follow in his dad’s footsteps. However, Ermey ended up joining the Marine Corps after he saw one in person.


A young R. Lee Ermey riding a horse in the farm in Kansas. Courtesy R. Lee Ermey

“There’s a Marine standing in full dress blues and I just looked at him and I thought ‘Oh boy, hey.’ If these guys were a uniform like that, they couldn’t do too much work. This is something I should look into. I assumed incorrectly,” he said with a smile.

He joined the Marine Corps in 1961 and said he really enjoyed his time there.

“When I went into the Marine Corps, I had all kinds of playmates, all kinds of brothers and friends. I like that aspect of it,” he said.


R. Lee Ermey in full Marine uniform. Courtesy of R. Lee Ermey

When it came time to re-enlist after four years, he wasn’t too enthusiastic about going back to the farm. As a result, he ended up serving honorably for 11 years.

“I thought well, ‘What do I want to do? Do I want to go back to the farm or do I want to stay in the Marine Corps?’” he said.

It worked out just fine for Ermey. He went on to become a staff noncommissioned officer and served two years as a drill instructor.

“I would rather have been out fighting in the war rather than training people to fight the war but that’s the way it works,” he said.

Ermey was deployed once to Vietnam and retired in 1971.

“The hardest part about being retired out of the Marine Corps was to find myself standing outside the gate in San Diego with nothing but a green sea bag. The toughest part of the transition was leaving my friends behind because every friend that I had in the world was back there,” he said.

Ermey was awarded an honorary promotion to Gunny in 2002. But Ermey had to reinvent and find a way to support himself.

“Whether I liked it or not I was retired but that didn’t mean that I had to leave the [Marine] Corps. Supporting me was the question. I was a grunt. I was an instructor. There’s no big call for grunts or drill instructors or people running up a hill to kill the bad guys in civilian life,” he said.

At the same time, Vietnam War theme shows started production and Ermey took notice. He used his G.I. Bill benefits and enrolled at the University of Manila in the Philippines, where he studied drama.


Actor and Retired Marine Corps Gunnery Sgt. R. Lee Ermey (center on right) with his 1966 Marine recruits at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego. R. Lee Ermey/U.S. Marine Corps



“I said, here’s my chance. Here’s the door. Here’s the big door that’s going to come open for me. It would get my foot inside the door to impress the appropriate people,” he recalled.

The plan worked. Film Director Francis Ford Coppola was filming “Apocalypse Now” in the Philippines and cast Ermey in a featured role. From there, Ermey’s career catapulted following the iconic 1987 film by film director Stanly Kubrick “Full Metal Jacket.”

“When you do a really fantastic film with a great role that you’re able to customize for yourself, the doors fly open. Let’s face it, I was a drill instructor, I was a Marine and I am a Marine so who knows better,” he said.

Ermey, who was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor, has been working nonstop since and has appeared in over 120 films.

His new job is one he really enjoys — one where he gets to show his softer side. When Sportsman Channel ask Ermey to host the new reality show “Saving Private K-9″ last year, he said yes. Saving Private K-9 features untold stories of military and law enforcement dogs. Each episode highlights the dogs’ battlefield training, heroic accomplishments and relationships with their handlers — as well as their impact on those who have worked with them.


A scene with host R. Lee Ermey from Saving Private K9 with military dogs. Sportsman Channel

“I love reuniting the dogs with their former handlers and I want people to know that these dogs are very adoptable, extremely trained and smart,” said Ermey, who has a soft spot for dogs and currently has two of his own on his ranch outside Los Angeles.

Half of NHS bosses believe patients will have to pay for some services

Thirty-five percent of respondents backed the idea of introducing charges for services such as visiting a GP or for missed appointments. Photograph: Hugh Macknight/PA


Almost half of NHS bosses believe the health service is under such strain that patients will be forced to pay for at least some services within 10 years.

The finding reflects deepening gloom among chief executives of NHS organisations that the service is becoming unsustainable in its current form as a result of rising demand for care amid an ongoing financial squeeze.

In a survey of 78 senior NHS leaders by the Nuffield Trust health thinktank, 47% said it was quite (33%) or very (14%) unlikely that comprehensive healthcare would still be provided free at the point of use in England a decade's time.

Although 48% thought the NHS would still be operating along existing lines by 2024, the thinktank said in a report published on Thursday that it was struck by the lack of confidence "that some of the NHS's core values will remain in 10 years' time, squeezed out by relentless austerity, and the need to meet rising numbers of (very) frail older people and people with chronic illness, and increasing expectations about what a health service can and should provide."

Among the respondents 63% said that taxes should rise to fund the NHS, although 29% disagreed. And while 55% opposed introducing charges for services such as visiting a GP or missed appointments, 35% backed the idea. NHS England's chairman, Prof Sir Malcolm Grant, said last year that whoever forms the government after the next election would have to consider introducing charges to help the NHS stay intact.

Three-quarters of (76%) NHS bosses also believe the service could become more efficient without harming care but the thinktank warned that patients could start to feel the effects of its tightening financial squeeze before next May's general election.

"I think they will notice it in some hospitals. They will find rising A&E waits, some people will have to wait longer [for elective treatment] and I think they will have to wait longer to see a GP", said Andy McKeon, the thinktank's senior policy fellow.

The squeeze means hospital trusts are increasingly having to decide whether to spend money to improve the quality of care they offer or let it slide, for example by letting waiting lists lengthen.

Its report, Into The Red?, warned that the NHS could experience a funding crisis before next year's election and that, after coping well until last year with the increasing demands placed upon it, official NHS financial data for 2013-14 show that "cracks are starting to show in a system under severe financial pressure".

There was a worrying £1bn turnaround in the financial health of the hospital sector in England between 2012-13 and 2013-14, which saw the number of trusts in deficit rise from 45 to 66 and a £383m surplus in 2012-13 become a £100m deficit in 2013-14, even after a further £500m was pumped into ailing trusts by the government.

In May the health minister Lord Howe said that while 2014-15 would be "a tough year financially" for the NHS, "in 15/16 … we are going to be really up against it." It is likely to be up against it before then, McKeon said.

Further evidence emerged on Wednesday of the growing pressures on the NHS when official figures showed the number of people being forced to wait longer than the six-week target for a diagnostic test for cancer and other serious illnesses, such as a CT scan or MRI scan, had reached its highest level for six years.

In May a total of 18,664 people waited more than six weeks to have either form of scan, ultrasound or an endoscopy.

Duleep Allirajah, head of policy at Macmillan Cancer Support, said it was extremely worrying that the proportion of people waiting more than six weeks for tests to diagnose cancer had more than doubled from 1% to 2.2% in a year.

"Despite the fact that waiting times are significantly lower since the introduction of the six-week waiting time target in 2008, it's alarming to see them creeping back up again. The NHS is under strain and cancer risks being overlooked and not given the focus it needs," he added.

Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, said the figures were further proof of "an NHS heading seriously downhill under David Cameron. Patients are waiting longer for crucial tests, causing stress and real anguish for worried families."

Germany asks top US intelligence official to leave country over spy row

Angela Merkel last year accused the National Security Agency of tapping her phone. Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

The German government has asked the top US intelligence official in Berlin to leave the country, according to a politician from Angela Merkel's party.

The move comes in response to two reported cases of suspected US spying in Germany and the year-long spat over reported NSA spying in Germany.

Clemens Binniger, who chairs the parliamentary committee that oversees the intelligence services, told reporters on Thursday that "the government has asked the representative of the US intelligence agencies in Germany to leave the country as a reaction to the ongoing failure to help resolve the various allegations, starting with the NSA and up to the latest incidents."

Pakistani politician and former cricketer Imran Khan is an alumnus of the elite Aitchison College in Lahore. Photograph: Nya,/AP


Traditions die hard at Aitchison College, a Raj-era school in the heart of Lahore that has been educating Pakistan's elite amid manicured playing fields and Mughal-esque buildings for decades. Students still wear starched turbans on formal occasions, tent-pegging is a competitive sport and important guests tour the 200-acre campus in a horse-drawn buggy.

So the surprise announcement by the school's governors that they would no longer favour the sons of alumni in the annual fight for places has sparked howls of indignation from high-powered old boys who say selecting on merit alone will damage the character of an institution that is a byword for social elitism in Pakistan.

The scrapping of the "kinship" rules, which took account of whether a father or grandfather of a would-be pupil once attended the school, was pushed through last month in a unanimous decision by board members.

Chaudhry Muhammad Sarwar, a former Labour MP who as governor of Pakistan's Punjab province also chairs the school board, said kinship had been used as an excuse to favour a tiny minority of "V-VIP" families.

"It was nothing to do with kinship but favouritism," said Sarwar. "When they talk about kinship they are not talking about kinship for the middle classes, they are talking about kinship only for a maximum of one dozen families."

The school has long been dogged by claims that coveted places have been handed out as favours to powerful political families, many of whom have attended the school for generations.

One former school leader said a parent once tried to use a political donation to a flood relief fund to ensure his son was made a prefect in the prep school.

Sarwar has been criticised for interfering halfway through the admissions process. He insists the change was strongly supported by Shahbaz Sharif, the powerful Punjab chief minister and younger brother of the prime minister.

But it caused uproar among old boys, particularly after the school posted a public notice saying only 75 of the more than 450 six-year-olds who had applied had scored more than 50% in entrance test. Although many of those who fell below that mark were later included to fill the 120 available places, the controversy has not died down.

Sarwar insisted the children from powerful families got marks far below the pass rate and would not have benefited from kinship considerations, which the school claimed only ever carried limited weight.

"It is very unfortunate that the children of notables didn't succeed, but they should feel happy merit prevailed and people from [the] middle classes have taken admission," he said. "They are upset because they feel they have some right to a place, but we are living in the 21st century."

Alumni have argued that kinship helps to ensure Aitchison continues to produce all-rounders as well as sustaining loyalty to an institution that has educated scores of famous politicians, including Imran Khan, the former cricket star.

Khawaja Tariq Rahim, another distinguished alumnus who once served as governor of the Punjab, said the system simply emulated the famous British public schools on which Aitchison was originally modelled.

"The governor has no idea about public school life," he said. "His whole politics are from his union activities, which he picked up as a member of the Labour party in the UK."

Most public schools in the UK are now educationally selective. The Headmasters' & Headmistresses' Conference, a body of elite UK private schools, said it was not aware of any of its members offering places based on family members being former pupils.

Although Aitchison faces growing competition from high-performing chains of private schools, it still commands fierce loyalty among students, one of whom last year praised the school for producing "perfect gentlemen".

"An Aitchisonian exudes a well cultivated air of confidence without appearing conceited," one A-level student wrote in an article for a national newspaper. "This is combined with unassuming intelligence and a sense of purpose."

The school, established in 1886 to educate the sons of princes, today boasts lavish facilities, including swimming pools and boarding houses.

While nationwide half of school-age Pakistanis are not in any form of education, Aitchison teaches in English and many of its 2,700 students go on to study at top foreign universities.

Some old boys say they are considering taking the matter to court.

"The problem is they think it's like a British club and they have a natural right for their sons to be invited to become members," said Fakir Aijazuddin, who said he tried to introduce merit-only selection during a short-lived and controversial period as the school principal, during which Aitchison was accused of giving away places to well connected families.

"But it doesn't belong to them, they only went there."