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By Mitch Phillips LONDON (Reuters) - Every year since Italy joined the Six Nations championship in 2000 the England coach has warned they are a threat. Each time his team have followed up by handing out an annual thrashing. Andy Robinson, like Clive Woodward before him, maintained the theme this week, having been given fresh ammunition by Italy's impressive efforts against Ireland last week. "Rome is never an easy place to play," said Robinson of a venue where England have averaged more than  ...

By Karolos Grohmann TURIN (Reuters) - Action at the 20th Winter Olympics finally speeds away on Saturday with four gold medals up for grabs on day one of competition. The first will be decided on the biathlon track of the Cesana mountain above Turin with Norway's Ole Einar Bjorndalen the overwhelming favourite for top honours. Four years after winning all four gold medals at the Salt Lake City Games, the 32-year-old will begin his quadruple defence in the 20km individual race. In the women's ...

By Sumeet Desai MOSCOW (Reuters) - Britain will create a modern-day version of World War II code-breaking operation Bletchley Park to tackle terrorist financing, Chancellor Gordon Brown will pledge on Monday. Brown will call on his Group of Eight colleagues gathered in Moscow this weekend to put international cooperation to track terrorist finances at the top of their agenda. He will tell fellow finance ministers Britain is planning to combat terror financing through a series of new measures  ...

LONDON (Reuters) - Thousands of demonstrators including mayor Ken Livingstone are due to rally in the capital on Saturday to protest about the publication of Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad. Organisers said the aim was to allow Britain's Muslim community to express concern about growing Islamophobia across Europe but also to appeal for calm. Last week, about 400 angry protesters gathered outside the Danish embassy in London carrying placards with slogans such as "Massacre those who ins ...

MIAMI (Reuters) - The family of Sir Freddie Laker, the "no frills" air travel pioneer, conjured up his sense of humour on Friday in saying he would be cremated with his cell phone. "A joker to the end, his body will be cremated with his mobile phone in case you weren't able to get in a last call," the family said in its first statement, a day after Laker's death at age 83. It said the business m ...

By Jim Loney PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - Former President Rene Preval could be headed for a runoff in Haiti's first election since Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted two years ago, according to the latest election results issued on Friday. With about half the votes counted, Preval held 50.3 percent, just barely above the majority he would need to avoid a runoff on March 19. In results released on Thursday, Preval held 61 percent, when only 15 percent had been counted, and appeared on his  ...

By Mitch Phillips LONDON (Reuters) - Arsenal face Bolton Wanderers for the third time in a little over two months on Saturday hoping to avoid a third successive defeat at the hands of Sam Allardyce's side. Bolton won 1-0 in the FA Cup and 2-0 in the league, both at the Reebok, but it is not just this season that they have proved a thorn in Arsenal's side. They beat them 1-0 at the Reebok last season and drew at Highbury and also managed draws in the three previous campaigns. It is a remarkabl ...

NEW YORK (AP) -- There is great embarrassment in your future. A box of X-rated fortune cookies was mistakenly delivered to a fundraiser hosted by a Brooklyn politician. The 350 cookies stuffed with "the most graphically lurid" fortunes got mixed up in a batch of 1,750 cookies ordered for the Chinese New Year event, Borough President Marty Markowitz said Friday. Some guests "were stunned, to say the least." The annual event -- to raise money to send poor children to summer camp -- was attende ...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Despite President Bush's lagging approval ratings and a spate of negative publicity, House Majority Leader John Boehner appears sure that the GOP can fend off Democrats in this year's congressional elections. That confidence was expressed in an interview Friday, as House Republicans prepared to meet behind closed doors to plot election strategy. "The numbers aren't real good right now. There's no sense in kidding anybody about that," Boehner said. "But if we get ourselve ...

LONDON (Reuters) - Thousands of demonstrators including London mayor Ken Livingstone are due to rally in the capital on Saturday to protest about the publication of Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad. Organisers said the aim was to allow Britain's Muslim community to express concern about growing Islamophobia across Europe but also to appeal for calm. Last week, about 400 angry protesters gathered outside the Danish embassy in London carrying placards with slogans such as "Massacre those  ...