Robin van Persie: Man Utd agree £24m deal with Arsenal for striker

Manchester United have agreed a £24m deal to sign Arsenal striker Robin van Persie on a four-year contract.

The 29-year-old will meet with United in the next 48 hours to discuss personal terms and have a medical.

Arsenal captain Van Persie announced in July he would not extend his current deal, which expires in June 2013.

"Manchester United is pleased to announce it has reached agreement for the transfer of Robin Van Persie," the club said in a statement.

"The deal is subject to a medical and the agreement of personal terms. A further announcement will be made in due course."

United will pay £22.5m, with a further £1.5m one-off bonus to follow if they win a Premier League or Champions League title in the next four years.

It is understood Arsenal were willing to make Van Persie their highest paid player ever, but never actually offered him a new contract.

The Netherlands international scored 44 goals in 57 games for club and country last season.

Transfers between Arsenal and Man Utd are rare. Viv Anderson was the last to make the move, in 1987, although Mikael Silvestre did go in the other direction in 2008.

-  BBC.co.uk

England 2-1 Italy

Jermain Defoe came off the bench to score a superb late goal and earn England victory over their Euro 2012 conquerors Italy.

Italy started strongly with Daniele De Rossi giving them the lead when he headed in Alessandro Diamanti's corner.

But Roy Hodgson's side replied, also from a corner, Phil Jagielka sending his diving header in on 27 minutes.

The game looked like petering out, but after Ryan Bertrand cleared off the line, Defoe struck on the counter.

Spurs striker Defoe had plenty to do when he was fed by James Milner, but having turned on the edge of the penalty area, he checked inside Ignazio Abate and smashed a shot past Salvatore Sirigu 11 minutes from time.

For Hodgson, it turned what appeared to be a promising evening in Switzerland into a very pleasing one, meaning he has yet to lose a game in open play after seven games in charge.

19-year-old Butland, who became the youngest goalkeeper to win a full England cap despite having only played as high as League Two, had to be sharp to deny Italy on several occasions.

-  BBC

Rafael Nadal has pulled out of the US Open through injury

World number three Rafael Nadal has pulled out of the US Open after failing to recover from a knee injury.

The 26-year-old's last action was at Wimbledon, in June, when he was beaten in the second round by Lukas Rosol, ranked 100 in the world.

He was then forced to pull out of the London 2012 Olympics with the injury, which has since failed to clear up.

"I am very sad to announce that I am still not ready to play," said Nadal in a statement.

He added: "I am sorry since I always found great crowds and great support, but I have to continue with my recuperation and preparation to be ready to play in the right conditions.

"I want to say hi and thanks to all the fans, in particular to the New Yorkers. I'll miss you all this year at the Open!"

Following his defeat to Rosol, Nadal said he was happy with his form, saying: "You win, you lose. The last four months were probably the best of my career. I just played an inspired opponent."

He also admitted he was looking forward to a rest before the start of the Olympics, where he was preparing to defend the gold medal he had won in Beijing.

Nadal has a history of knee problems, with tendonitis ruling him out for much of the 2009 season and more recently forcing him to withdraw from a charity match against Novak Djokovic on 14 July.

Libor scandal: Seven banks summoned in US probe

Barclays was fined for trying to manipulate the
Libor rates 

Seven banks, including HSBC and Royal Bank of Scotland, are to be questioned in the US for alleged manipulation of the Libor inter-bank lending rate.

The other banks receiving subpoenas by the New York attorney general are Barclays, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan and UBS.

Last month, Barclays was fined £290m by UK and US regulators for rigging Libor.

Some of the world's biggest banks have been embroiled in a number of scandals in recent months.

Following the Barclays fine, US regulators said they were investigating a number of other banks for potential Libor rigging.

A government-ordered review into Libor is currently being conducted by the managing director of the Financial Services Authority, Martin Wheatley.

The Wheatley review is examining how the Libor rate, the benchmark interest rate for trillions of financial contracts including some mortgages, is calculated and regulated.

The current Libor system is no longer a "viable option", Mr Wheatley said.

Libor is calculated using rates submitted by a group of leading banks who estimate how much it costs them to borrow in 10 currencies and 15 lengths of loans, ranging from overnight to 12 months.

There have been a series of allegations over the trading policies of banks in recent months.

-  BBC.co.uk

Bill Gates backs 'future' toilets

Prof Michael Hoffman shows off his
winning design - a solar-powered toilet 

Bill Gates' charitable organisation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is looking for future loos that can improve sanitation around the world.

At the Reinvent the Toilet fair, hosted at its Seattle campus this week, designs included a lavatory that used microwave energy to turn poo into electricity.

Another turned excrement into charcoal, while a third used urine for flushing.

In total 28 designs were shown off at the fair and the winner was a team from the California Institute of Technology.

Led by Prof Michael Hoffman, the toilet they designed was solar-powered and generated hydrogen gas and electricity. They won a $100,000 prize.

"We couldn't be happier with the response that we've gotten," Bill Gates said at the event.

Preventable deaths


The project challenged inventors to come up with a toilet that operated without running water, electricity or a septic system. It needed to operate at a cost of no more than five cents (3p) a day and would ideally capture energy or other resources.

Walter Gibson, from a team of scientists at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, showed off a toilet that used black soldier fly larvae to process waste and create environmentally-friendly animal feed.

The toilet is already being field tested in South Africa.

Traditional flush toilets waste tons of drinking water and are often impractical in many areas of the developing world.

The UN estimates that disease caused by unsafe sanitation is responsible for half of the hospitalisations in the developing world. About 1.5 million children die each year from diarrhoeal disease.

The Gates Foundation has committed $370m (£235m) to its future toilet initiative and hopes to field test the prototypes within three years.

(BBC)