Ségolène Royal and Wikipedia duped by tale of anti-slavery activist

Léon-Robert de L’Astran, an 18th-century shipowner, was praised for his noble refusal to participate in the slave trade. Sadly, however, it seems that he existed only as an internet hoax — duping Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia, for three years, along with Ségolène Royal and others.

Blowing South Africa’s Trumpet

Shame on the visiting footballers and coaches who, before the World Cup has even begun, are whining about the noise made by vuvuzelas, the metre-long plastic trumpets with which South African football fans serenade and spur on their team!

Propaganda war latest: Tehran 3 Israel 0

As Iran’s leadership prepares to dispatch a Red Crescent flotilla to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza, its propaganda organs are spreading one message throughout the Muslim world: the Jewish state, branded by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as “the Zionist stain of shame”, is heading for its inevitable destruction.

Mandelson declares new Labour dead and promises to ‘ruffle feathers’

Video: watch Philip Webster on Peter Mandelson at www.thetimes.co.uk

The punk prophet of Ing-er-land

It’s amazing the reaction you get when you tell people that Mark E. Smith has done a World Cup song. It’s a shock, like the first time the fiercely independent singer and his band appeared on Top of the Pops. The Fall have been going for 33 years and 28 studio albums, never signing contracts, never allowing themselves to be grouped in with a particular scene. At 53, Smith is the only constant memb

Rachel Bilson models summer dresses

At around this time each season, when the weather begins to turn and the shops fill up with new clothes, our minds start to wonder: shall I try sports utility, or deconstruction, or clear anything from my wardrobe that isn’t yellow?

What the Swedes can teach Prince William and Kate

There are rumours, and there are rumours so frothy, so evanescent and insubstantial that you wonder how they ever existed in the first place. Of these, the frothiest of all are royal wedding rumours, which pop up every few months only to disappear without trace a short while later.

British troops hand over command to the Americans — again

Graham Norton is unsung hero of another Eurovision disaster for Britain

It was a dreadful night, even for a nation so well accustomed to crushing defeats on the international stage.

‘Difference of opinion’ on BP’s oil rig hours before explosion

It was shortly before noon on April 20, only ten hours before a torrent of crude oil ripped through the Deepwater Horizon rig, that the quarrel broke out.

A bedbug epidemic bites New York

At first May thought that her husband had heat rash. “We were staying at a smart hotel in Cape Cod. Then I developed these hive-like welts on my back and legs.” May (not her real name; she is terrified of giving me that) is middle class, in her late fifties and lives on the Upper West Side, New York, in a well-maintained four-room apartment. When she and her husband returned to the city, one docto

Naked Swiss rambler seeks right to roam the Alps in the buff

A Swiss rambler, 47, struck a blow for freedom yesterday when he went to court to uphold his right to roam the Alps in his birthday suit.

Little people asking big questions: parties where French children eat up philosophy

Fed up with musical chairs? Can’t afford an entertainer? Then maybe you should try a new fad sweeping France: children’s tea parties with cakes, fruit juice — and metaphysics.

Nexus between politics and criminality lies behind Kingston chaos

Kingston remains under a state of emergency, paralysed by a situation that Bruce Golding, the Prime Minister, has described as a “calculated assault on the State”.

Poor reap none of the new riches in continent of broken promises

Africa is finally shaking off its dependence on aid handouts from the West and — thanks to new trading ties with China, India and Brazil — emerging as an independent player on the global stage.

‘We have to help the Greeks,’ say French, ‘it’s our duty’

It is a gloriously sunny Pentecôte bank holiday, and hundreds of people have descended on Morschwiller-le-Bas, a suburb of the French city of Mulhouse, for its annual marché aux puces — flea market.

Brazil’s flamboyant President strives to make his country a global player

He is one of the world’s most popular leaders, rising from rags to riches. He has brought lost respect back to his country and is currently going about the task of forging Middle East peace and resolving the crisis over Iran’s nuclear programme.

States hit by oil spill prepare to seize control of botched clean-up

Fury over the handling of the BP oil disaster intensified yesterday as state officials challenged federal authorities, accusing them of bureaucratic fumbling and betrayal as the slick took over 65 miles of Louisiana coastline.

Gunmen clash with Kingston police in bid to halt extradition of ‘drug lord’

Helicopter gunships buzzed over the Jamaican capital last night as police and soldiers clashed for a second day with masked gunmen seeking to prevent the extradition of an alleged drug baron to the United States.

Voices from the eurozone: German fury over Greece bailout

It is only a ten-minute drive across the Rhine from Mannheim’s railway station to Ludwigshafen — but that is long enough for Klaus Fischer, 67, a taxi driver, to vent his fury at Germany’s leading role in the €750 billion (£645 billion) bailout of the eurozone’s most profligate states.

Voices from the eurozone: From prostitutes to pasta sellers, ignorance is bliss

Jade, 35, a heavily made-up prostitute with a pierced lower lip and plunging cleavage, sits reading Ciné Revue magazine in her self-styled “vitrine” — glass-fronted cubicle — in the Villa Tinto House of Pleasure, one of the last remaining brothels in Antwerp’s cleaned-up red-light district.

Oil spill brings ‘death in the ocean from top to bottom’

It has been an hour since our sport-fishing boat started streaking through the freshly oil-soaked marshes of Pass a Loutre, but we’re still only halfway through the slick. Eighteen miles out and the stink of oil is everywhere. Rashes of red-brown sludge are smeared across vast swaths, between them a swell rendered faintly psychedelic with rainbow-coloured swirls.

'We fled our plane for the shelter as the Taleban attacked our base'

We knew something had gone badly wrong when a nervous-looking RAF crewman addressed the passengers. “Does anybody have weapons and ammunition on board?” he asked a rugged but bemused collection of American troops.

Beaches polluted five times a day

THE scandal of Britain’s dirty seas is revealed this weekend with evidence that raw sewage is being pumped up to five times a day into areas where holidaymakers swim and paddle. And the tag “the dirty man of Europe” looms again after Britain was ranked 18th out of 22 European countries for beach cleanliness.

Prison trains await unruly England fans

THE chief of police in Cape Town, the venue for England’s second match in the World Cup, has warned any supporters intent on disrupting the tournament that they will be herded onto prison trains, tried on the spot and transported to remote detention centres.

FSA calls Sir Fred Goodwin to account over RBS unravelling

Sir Fred Goodwin has been summoned by the Financial Services Authority to answer questions about Royal Bank of Scotland’s management in the run up to its near-collapse in October 2008.

BP shares dive amid US senators’ £20bn escrow plan

Read how BP managers face years in jail and how America snubbed British offer of help with spill at The Times's new website

Cowdery goes it alone to cut banks’ fees

Clive Cowdery’s Resolution is close to securing a ground-breaking deal to slash investment bank underwriting fees on a rights issue to fund a £2.75 billion acquisition of Axa’s UK life business.

‘A disloyal, dishonest, criminal cheat’ – bank boss denounces rogue trader

Jérôme Kerviel, the rogue trader accused of losing almost €5 billion, was denounced by a former boss as criminal, dishonest, disloyal and a cheat at his trial in Paris yesterday.

Economy may never recover from banking crisis, warns OBR

The economy, more damaged by the banking crisis than previously admitted, will grow more weakly and may never fully recover, the new Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said yesterday.