Appreciation: Seve Ballesteros, Spain’s Fallible and Fabulous Golf Hero

Sportsmen and sportswomen are skilled entertainers, and there’s nothing wrong with that; they bring us joy, and by their derring-do fashion a time machine that takes us back to times when we were younger and more innocent and lived for play, not work. But every so often a sports personality comes along who does more than entertain, and the Spanish golfer Seve Ballesteros, who has died, aged just 54, after a long battle with cancer, was one of them

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Your Incredible Shrinking Paycheck

Before I started writing this column on why paychecks are likely to keep shrinking even if unemployment starts to inch down, I consulted Google to see if the term Marxism was trending upward. It was and has been ever since the end of December, the conclusion of a year in which workers’ share of the U.S

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Henin granted wild card for Australian Open

Australian Open organizers have granted a wildcard to former world number one Justine Henin to play in the opening grand slam of 2010. The 27-year-old Henin announced last month that she was returning to competitive tennis, shortly after fellow Belgian Kim Clijsters capped her own comeback by triumphing in the U.S

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Veil Opening: New Rights, and Challenges, for Saudi Women

Like those of its competitors in New York or London, the sleek glass and steel offices of media company Rotana are filled with preening attitude and fashion-conscious staffers: assistants teeter in shoes that might have absorbed much of their monthly paycheck; executives parade the halls in power suits and pencil skirts. But Rotana isn’t in New York or London; it’s in Riyadh, capital of Saudi Arabia, a country in which women normally adhere to a strict dress code in public — a black cloak called an abaya, a headscarf and a veil, the niqab, which covers everything but their eyes.

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