Queensland city Rockhampton hitting flood peak
Flood preparations in the inundated Australian city of Rockhampton are being put to the test as river levels hit their peak.
The River Fitzroy which flows through the Queensland city is at 9.2m (30ft) and expected to hit 9.4m, having already swamped hundreds of acres.
Officials say more than 400 homes will be flooded and another 4,000 will have water pouring through their gardens.
Many residents have already evacuated, some forced to do so by police.
More than 100 people spent the night in an emergency evacuation centre.
City Mayor Brad Carter said the waters were expected to remain at their peak level for about two days.
"Then as it starts to drop and flatten out, it is likely to be about 10 days or so that it could stay at about the 8.5m mark, which indicates that we will have significant water inundation for the best part of ... two weeks," he said.
Many of the city's historic buildings are being protected by piles of sandbags.
The city's main road to the north is still open but the airport is closed. Supplies are being flown by military cargo plane to a town north of Rockhampton and taken on by road or barge.
Mr Carter said residents had reported seeing snakes moving through the water looking for dry ground and some saltwater crocodiles had also been spotted in the Fitzroy River.
"We do not think they are a risk to public safety if people keep out of the waters, but if people do enter the waters their safety cannot be guaranteed," he told The Australian newspaper.
As the waters rose on Wednesday, Queensland's cabinet was meeting in emergency session to discuss its response to the crisis.
State Premier Anna Bligh said: "Given the scale and size of this disaster... we will continue to have major issues to deal with throughout January.
"There are literally thousands of Queenslanders who need our support."
More than a week of heavy rain has created a huge inland sea across Queensland which is now draining towards the ocean along the state's river systems, causing chaos in its wake.
Officials have said the flooded area is the size of France and Germany combined and 200,000 people have been affected. At least three deaths have been blamed on the floods so far.
South of Rockhampton, floodwaters are threatening St George where officials predict 80% of the town could be inundated next week.
To make matters worse, more rain is forecast for the state.
On Wednesday meteorologists issued a severe thunderstorm warning for southern areas, saying "very heavy rainfall, flash flooding" were likely, with St George among the locations that could be affected.
Student protest footage released by Met Police
Police have released CCTV footage of people they wish to interview after Prince Charles's car was attacked during December's student protests.
The Metropolitan Police have issued the pictures taken from cameras in the Regent Street and Oxford Circus area of London on Thursday 9 December.
A convoy, including a car carrying the prince and the Duchess of Cornwall, was attacked in the area.
The protests were in response to the rise in tuition fees.
The Met's Operation Malone team is investigating the violence in the capital that day.
Police say the newly-released images and footage show a woman striking the royal car and causing damage to one of the convoy vehicles.
In one picture, the woman is seen with a man, whom police also wish to trace as a potential witness.
Officers are also keen to trace two men seen separately attacking the royal car.
Det Ch Supt Matthew Horne, who is leading the Operation Malone team, said: "We believe that most of the people whose pictures we have released may have committed serious offences of violent disorder and criminal damage in this area and urge them, or anybody who knows them, to come forward and speak to us.
"We understand the importance of the right to protest, but people who break the law and endanger those who wish to protest peacefully by committing criminal offences must face the inevitable consequences of their actions.
"I would like to remind anybody involved in attacks of violence that we will investigate them and do everything in our power to bring them before a court.
"Those who are convicted of an offence will have to face the consequences of having a criminal record, which could have a potential impact on their future employment and travel."
Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall were travelling to the Royal Variety Performance at the London Palladium in a distinctive Rolls-Royce Phantom VI when the incident occurred.
Their car was surrounded by as many as 20 demonstrators on Regent Street. One of the vehicle's windows was smashed and paint was thrown at it.
At least three metal dustbins were also hurled at two other cars in the convoy and the duchess was poked in the ribs through an open window. White paint was also thrown over the vehicle.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson ordered an internal review into the incident, which has been presented to Home Secretary Theresa May.
Operation Malone detectives are collating and trawling through hours of CCTV and footage gathered by police during the protests, to identify people for potential prosecution.
Labour and Tories clash over VAT increase
Chancellor George Osborne has defended the VAT increase from 17.5% to 20%, saying it could boost employment and was better than raising income tax.
But Labour leader Ed Miliband urged the government to apologise for suggesting that the rate rise was a "progressive" policy.
The VAT rise, which came into effect on Tuesday, will bring in an extra £13bn in revenue, the Treasury says.
Food, children's clothing, newspapers and magazines are not subject to VAT.
It is the second increase in a year, after Labour chancellor Alistair Darling restored the 17.5% rate last January, having temporarily reduced it to 15% for 13 months to stimulate the economy.
Research by the Centre for Retail Research and online shopping group Kelkoo has suggested that retail sales will fall by about £2.2bn in the first three months of the year as a result of the rise in VAT.
The British Retail Consortium has also warned that the rise, announced in the June Budget, may have squeezed the traditional January sales period into a concentrated burst around the New Year.
But Mr Osborne told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I didn't come into politics and become chancellor of the exchequer wanting to increase taxes. I'm actually someone who believes we want to try and lower taxes in this country.
"But when you've got a very large budget deficit and you've in the middle of a European sovereign debt crisis - and you've decided that at least part of dealing with the deficit has to come from tax rises - then I think VAT presents itself as the choice."
He added: "If you look at the population and how much they spend, then VAT is progressive."
Mr Osborne also said the VAT rise was a "tough but necessary step towards Britain's economic recovery", and that 20% was "a reasonable rate to set, given the very difficult situation we find ourselves in".
He added that he regarded the increase as "permanent" and it would "increase employment" because it would increase confidence that the government was tackling the budget deficit.
But, in an interview with the BBC News Channel's chief political correspondent, Laura Kuenssberg, Mr Miliband said: "David Cameron admitted before the election that VAT rises are unfair.
"Everyone knows that poor and middle-income households will be hit hardest. He should come out and apologise for misleading the British people."
Shadow chancellor Alan Johnson said: "This is a broken promise - this was the big issue of the general election campaign."
The change affects any VAT-registered business which sells or purchases goods or services that are subject to the standard rate.
High-ranking Chinese politician arrives in Antigua-Barbuda
China's highest ranking female politician, Madame Liu Yandong, arrived in Antigua on Thursday for talks with Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer and other senior government officials.
The Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) reported that she is accompanied by six ministers and vice ministers from the Chinese government.
The visitors paid a courtesy call on Governor General Dame Louise Lake-Tack on Friday and also had discussions with Spencer. They will sign bilateral agreements, which Ambassador David Shoul said will relate to the recently announced financing for a new airport terminal, and the donation of several computers to the Ministry of Education.
In the Throne Speech in December, Lake-Tack reported that the government of Antigua and Barbuda and the government of China, through the Ministry of Tourism, have signed off on a preliminary schematic design on the construction of a new airport terminal for Antigua and Barbuda.
"This project will cost approximately US$45 million, to be funded by the EXIM Bank of the People's Republic of China. The terms of the arrangement consist of a 30 percent interest free grant and a 70 percent concessionary loan at 2 percent interest, with a five year moratorium. Construction will commence in the first half of 2011," she said.
Another AFC leader leaves party over leadership issue in Guyana
Another leading Alliance for Change (AFC) executive, Grehard Ramsaroop has reportedly left the party as infighting widens among factions in that small political party in Guyana.
The Guyana Chronicle reported that several reasons were given for Ramsaroop's resignation from the AFC, with the most popular being his disagreement over the party's 2011 presidential candidacy.
Several high profile members have left the AFC throughout its brief history, citing similar differences with the party's leadership, the most recent being Peter Ramsaroop. In other cases, there have been claims about discrimination and marginalization against a certain section of the party membership.
There is speculation too that Ramsaroop may have decided to put his political life in the backseat in favour of concentrating his efforts on a number of business ventures inherited from his father. Ramsaroop's father, Boyo, who was a PPP stalwart, passed away in March of this year.
Over the last few months there have been signs of growing discontent over the treatment of certain issues in the party, among which is a leadership feud between the party's two top men, Raphael Trotman and Khemraj Ramjattan. The National Executive Committee of the party has since selected Ramjattan as the presidential candidate for the 2011 elections, but has not been able to remove the existing bitterness among factions in the AFC.
Compromise tax deal extends jobless benefits for 1,700 US Virgin Islanders
President Barack Obama's compromise with Republican lawmakers to extend Bush-era tax cuts and unemployment benefits will aid more than 1,700 local recipients of unemployment insurance, V.I. Labor Commissioner Albert Bryan Jr. said.
Unemployment insurance benefits will be extended retroactively in the territory until January 2012, Bryan said in a statement from Government House on Wednesday.
The deal cut earlier this month extended tax cuts first established by former President George W. Bush, as well as unemployment benefits that would have run out for those long-term recipients.
"The passage of this act ensures that over 1,700 individuals and their families have an income stream for an additional 13 months, maintaining the current extended benefit limits, which is 73 weeks of unemployment benefits," Bryan said in the statement.
Currently, four tiers of unemployment compensation -- three of which are for extended benefits -- are available.
A claimant initially is entitled to a maximum of 26 weeks of unemployment benefits, which the territory pays. Once a claimant exhausts the 26 weeks of regular unemployment, they are kicked up to the federally funded extended benefits, which could offer them up to 47 weeks of further benefits.
In all, beneficiaries can receive up to 73 weeks of unemployment.
This tax-cut extension would not extend unemployment benefits for those recipients who have exhausted those 73 weeks, Bryan said.
Initial unemployment claims in the territory have risen throughout the year, as has the unemployment rate -- to 8.2 percent. The latest figures for initial claims in the Virgin Islands were from August, which had 465 claims. It was the highest number of unemployment claims in the territory since September 2009, which had more than 500 claims.
Since 2008, the Labor Department has distributed more than $91 million in unemployment insurance, according to the Government House statement.
"The additional benefit of this act is that it provides an additional period of transition for not only job placement, but for training and retraining opportunities so that at the end of the benefit period employment may be possible," Bryan said.
"This, coupled with the fact that 66 percent of V.I. beneficiaries use all of their regular unemployment, makes the passage of this bill crucial to the territory," the commissioner said.
Copyright (c) 2010, The Virgin Islands Daily News, St. Thomas
Good year for Bahamas tourism despite challenges
Despite a challenging year, the performance of the tourism sector in The Bahamas was impressive in 2010, headlined by an 18 percent increase in cruise arrivals compared to last year, according to director general for tourism David Johnson.
Johnson told Guardian Business recently that the ministry had braced for tough times given the global economic climate, and its proactive approach was a key factor in having a productive year.
“We anticipated that it would be a difficult year for tourism in the region as a whole and we took a very aggressive posture,” he said. “Some of the programs we initiated were successful and a good portion of our business hopefully will rebound in 2011.”
One of the campaigns Johnson deemed a success was the “Companion Fly Free” program, which he said provided a great boost since its launch. It produced such great results that other Caribbean countries tried to duplicate the campaign, but weren’t able to pull it off as effectively, according to Johnson.
“There’s already been some competition that copied our Companion Fly Free program but they weren’t able to deliver it as well as we did, and because of that it makes us hesitant on how soon we reveal our plans for 2011,” Johnson said. “We will be launching a major initiative next spring that will have a tremendous impact on tourism on the other islands outside of New Providence and Grand Bahama.”
Johnson said the tourism figures for 2010 will be available as early as February of next year, which will include arrivals by air and sea to Nassau and the Family Islands. The latest data compiled by the Ministry of Tourism revealed figures for the first 10 months of the year, during which air arrivals increased 4.1 percent compared to last year, with nearly 45,000 additional visitors traveling to the country.
Grand Bahama experienced a 41 percent year-to-date increase in air arrivals, which could be attributed to the 55 percent rise in visitors coming by cruise ships. It was the largest growth for any island during that period, with Nassau seeing a 10.8 improvement in that category.
The Family Islands category grew in both monthly numbers and year-to-date numbers. Air arrivals were up by 36 percent for the month of October and 13.5 percent for the year-to-date period, while sea arrivals jumped by 37 percent for the month and 15 percent for the period. The increases translated to 14.9 percent more passengers traveling to the Family Islands during those 10 months of 2010, compared to the year before.
The Bahamas also recorded 5 million visitors for only the second time in history and it’s possible that a new record may have been reached once the final numbers are tallied, according to Minister of Tourism and Aviation Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace. He also noted that total arrivals will be ahead of last year’s number by 14-15 percent and stopover tourists rose at least 4 percent.
Turks and Caicos Islands New Year Resolutions by David Tapfer
As the strains of Auld Lang Syne and sugar plums dance through my head, we have to face the traditional exercise of making New Year’s resolutions. As usual I need to shed a few pounds.
What are the resolutions for the Interim Government in the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI)? The pounds have to come off to improve my health and extend my life. The Interim Government has already lived too long and has not met the people’s expectations.
So what needs to be resolved by this government and London to get the TCI back on its feet?
Number One: Do what you were brought here to do. Weed out the corruption. Bring to justice those who are guilty. Put back the funds Britain's governors let the last government squander.
Number Two: Stop tinkering with the systems. They worked prior to August 2003 so why change them? Representative government will make the adjustments.
Number Three: Transparency was promised. Open up.
Number Four: Set a date for elections and stick to it. Schedule the milestones and meet the schedule. You cannot have milestones without knowing the mileage between them and the speed you will travel. So far this government has only been creeping forward and started out in reverse. Time to shift gears!
Put in place election reform, now. Voter registration cards and party representatives at each polling place are basic. Move now!
Number Five: Fix the civil service and infrastructure .Train them. There are no written rules for anything. Two-and-a-half years after Hurricane Hanna made the causeway impassable all that has happened is that mud was thrown into the breaches. The grantors failed to inspect what the grantees built so they share the blame for that mess The Middle and North Caicos join up is a platform for success. Every day the causeway gets closer to sea level. Fix it!
Number Six: Investigate the TCI Bank closing. Every smelly bit of it and publish the results.
Number Seven: Engage the people, including the politicians who will have to answer to them.
Number Eight. Send Kate Sullivan and Jon Llewellyn home -- their work is over.
Number Nine: Cancel the health care contract and set a budget for TCI people to operate. It was clear from the start we cannot afford a “for profit” contractor used to operating in the oil rich Middle East and nowhere else. Interhealth takes profits and wages home to Canada and we cannot get inexpensive generic blood pressure medications. Audit the hospital builder.
Number Ten: Audit every monopoly in the TCI, including PPC, TCU and Provo Stevedores. A 17 percent profit margin allowed to a major Canadian energy supplier is ridiculous; break the contract.
The perception of this government needs to improve. New development will come with stability and resolve. Tough challenges require strong action. It’s time to get tough!
Happy New Year!
Top 10 NFL stories of 2010
1. The redemption of Michael Vick. There are comebacks, and then there are comebacks, and Vick's career renaissance is in a league of its own. Nothing more than a bit player for the Eagles during the 2009 season -- his first season back in the league after serving almost two years in prison because of his dogfighting conviction -- Vick has electrified the NFL in 2010 like no one else. Though he was a three-time Pro Bowl quarterback for Atlanta, Vick has elevated his game to a new level since he became the Philadelphia starter in Week 2. In a Week 10 Monday-night game at Washington, he put on a tour de force performance, becoming the first QB in league history to pass for 300 yards with four touchdowns and rush for at least 80 yards and two more scores in the same game. Once a pariah, he's now an MVP candidate who has the Eagles on the cusp of a playoff berth.
2. The Saints go marching in to the Super Bowl winner's circle. The feel-good story of the year in the NFL was the Saints' march to the first Super Bowl title in New Orleans' 43-year franchise history, a quest that was as old as the Super Bowl itself. It wasn't just another championship for just another NFL city. The Saints became a living, breathing symbol of the beleaguered but indomitable city of New Orleans and the entire Gulf Coast region, which had been ravaged by Hurricane Katrina in late summer 2005. The Colts were five-point favorites, but the Saints overcame an early 10-point deficit, in part with the help of a daring onside kick to start the second half, and wound up winning 31-17 in Miami behind the MVP performance of quarterback Drew Brees. In a city where the party never ends, New Orleans threw its biggest bash ever in honor of its beloved Saints. Who dat, indeed.
3. A long and painfully slow goodbye for Brett Favre. Like a blackjack player who stays at the table too long, unable to recognize that beating the house is not a forever proposition, Favre's return to Minnesota for a 20th NFL season played out like a doomed adventure almost from the start. Unlike his magic carpet ride of a season last year, when he took the Vikings all the way into overtime of the NFC title game, Favre's winning touch was missing this time around, and he absorbed damaging blows both on and off the field. As Favre went, so went the Vikings' season, and eventually Minnesota's losing ways cost head coach Brad Childress his job. Favre finally incurred an injury he couldn't shake off and saw his cherished starting streak snapped at 297 games. He returned unexpectedly a week later only to leave Monday's game against Chicago with a concussion. Depending on how quickly he recovers, the 41-year-old Favre could end his NFL career watching his losing team play out the string.
4. Randy Moss can't find a home. No one in the NFL traveled a road with more bizarre turns than Moss did in 2010. The 13-year veteran receiver kept running out patterns all season, from New England, to Minnesota, to Tennessee, trying to find both appreciation and remuneration, not to mention someone to throw him the ball. But it was not to be. The Patriots sent him packing in early October after he started spouting off about wanting a new contract, and his stay in Minnesota lasted a mere four weeks, ending after he openly pined for his days in New England. His arrival in Tennessee was much heralded, but his impact has been almost nil, and everywhere he goes, losing ensues. If Vick is the league's comeback story of the year, Moss was just the opposite. He was the Go-Away Player of the Year.
5. The Donovan McNabb trade. When McNabb was traded from the Eagles to the Redskins on Easter night, it ended an era in Philadelphia and began one in Washington. Make that an error in Washington. Nothing about McNabb's time in D.C. has gone as planned, and his presence under center did little to rid the Redskins of the dysfunction and losing that has plagued owner Daniel Snyder's tenure. McNabb's play has been mediocre for the most part, and though he did lead Washington to a vindicating win at Philadelphia in Week 4, by Week 8 new head coach Mike Shanahan had benched him for the final two minutes of a loss at Detroit, setting off a weeklong melodrama. With Washington out of playoff contention by Week 15, McNabb was benched again in favor of the non-descript Rex Grossman, signaling the end of his brief stay in D.C.
6. The Ben Roethlisberger suspension. The Steelers' quarterback won two Super Bowl rings in his first five seasons in the NFL, but his career careened out of control after a Georgia college student accused him of sexually assaulting her in a nightclub bathroom in early March after a night of heavy drinking. Roethlisberger was never charged in the incident, which took place in Milledgeville, Ga., but he suffered heavily in the court of public opinion, and the Steelers reportedly even considered parting ways with their 2004 first-round pick. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell suspended Roethlisberger for the first six games of the 2010 season, later reducing that penalty to four games after the quarterback responded to the punishment by undergoing evaluation and showing contrition for his admittedly boorish and immature behavior.
7. Helmet-to-helmet fallout, high-speed collisions and their impact. In Week 6 of the regular season, some players hit really hard, and the league hit back. The topic of football's level of violence and what kinds of contact should be unacceptable dominated our attention, thanks to the high-profile hits meted that Sunday out by the likes of New England safety Brandon Merriweather, Pittsburgh linebacker James Harrison and Atlanta cornerback Dunta Robinson. The firestorm of alarm that ensued resulted in the NFL adding teeth to its rules concerning illegal hits to the head and neck area, threatening future suspensions and fining the three aforementioned players from $50,000 to $75,000. The issue sparked a raging, weeklong debate about the physical price the game exacts, and whether players or league officials know what's best for football.
8. Cowboys implode, no Super Bowl host for them. With the Dallas area set to host Super Bowl XLV in early February 2011, the Cowboys started the 2010 season with bold talk and such grand designs. Jerry Jones' team made no secret of its intention to become the first team to play a Super Bowl on its own home field -- the eye-catching, two-year-old Cowboys Stadium, in all its state-of-the-artness. But then the games began, and Dallas struggled to avoid embarrassment on a weekly basis. The Cowboys got off to a season-killing 1-7 start, lost starting quarterback Tony Romo to injury along the way and fired fourth-year head coach Wade Phillips after it became clear that his team had quit on him in a Sunday-night drubbing at the hands of Green Bay. Though interim head coach Jason Garrett has infused some life back into the Cowboys season, winning four out of six games since taking over, there will be no Super Bowl berth for Dallas this year. If they want to go to the game, the Cowboys players will have to buy a ticket like everyone else.
9. The Albert Haynesworth-Mike Shanahan showdown in D.C. Theirs has been a bad marriage from the start, on an epic scale of say, Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown. Haynesworth has little use for Shanahan, and vice versa. But while we all saw trouble brewing between the Redskins' high-priced defensive tackle and their new, autocratic head coach, who could have known just how bad the train wreck would be? Haynesworth made it clear he didn't want to play nose tackle in the Redskins' new 3-4 defense, and to drive home the point, he skipped most of the team's offseason workouts. Shanahan responded by making him jump through assorted hoops (almost literally) as part of the conditioning program that Haynesworth had to pass before being allowed to join training camp. Things didn't get a lot better after that, with Haynesworth deactivated for four games during the regular season, loafing his way through plays at times and generally staying locked in a test of wills with Shanahan. The end of the saga was predictable. Haynesworth was suspended for the rest of the season, without pay, and will be playing his football somewhere else in 2011.
10. The overtime debate sparks a rule change. When the Saints beat the Vikings 27-24 on a first-possession field goal in overtime of the NFC title game in New Orleans, denying Favre a chance to even have the ball in his hands in the extra period, it renewed the debate over the inherent fairness of a team being able to win a coin flip and then the game on any score in sudden death. At the league's annual meeting in March in Orlando, NFL owners voted 28-4 to take a half-measure, leaving the OT rules unchanged in the regular season, but adding a new twist for the playoffs. Starting with the 2010 postseason, a team can only win on the first possession of overtime if it scores a touchdown. A field goal merely extends the game and gives the other team the ball, with a chance to either match or beat that score. Ironically, the new OT rule for the playoffs wouldn't have made an impact had it been instituted this regular season. Of the 18 overtime games played through Week 15, 16 of them (or 88.9 percent) have featured at least one possession for each team. Nothing unfair about that.
Source: SI.com
Top 10 NBA stories of 2010
1. "The Decision." Two years of speculation heightened the buzz around the ultimate free-agent destination of LeBron James. And then the self-indulgent idea of crassly announcing his departure from his hometown Cavaliers on live TV detonated the hype at the expense of James' good name. Someday, we will look back and realize the notoriety of last summer served more than anything to raise his profile, which will mean ever more attention for James should he win a championship in Miami alongside fellow free agents Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, whose group machinations resulted in an unprecedented coup for Heat president Pat Riley. The whole extended episode of LeBron's escape from Cleveland -- the long build-up, launch and instantaneous crash -- can be viewed as his attempt to leap the Snake River Canyon. It had two results: He lost control of his fame, and he became more famous than ever.
2. Lakers beat Celtics in NBA Finals. The NBA's last rivalry was reconstituted when point guard Rajon Rondo unexpectedly drove Boston out of its regular-season doldrums and through the Eastern Conference tournament. A knee injury to center Kendrick Perkins in Game 6 of the Finals, combined with the lingering ailments of Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett, weakened the Celtics just enough, enabling the cold-shooting but tirelessly rebounding Lakers to overcome a 13-point deficit in the second half of Game 7 for an 83-79 victory and their 16th championship -- one short of Boston's record. Afterward, Kobe Bryant (6-of-24 in Game 7) admitted that beating Boston meant more to him than anything, and that he couldn't have done so without the cold-blooded assistance of Ron Artest (20 points, five steals).
3. Breakout of Kevin Durant. At 21, he became the youngest scoring champion (30.1 points per game) in league history while driving the young and heretofore hopeless Thunder to 50 wins -- more than Durant had totaled over his previous two seasons in Oklahoma City and his team's previous home of Seattle. Then he led a young USA team to its first FIBA World Championship gold medal in 16 years while breaking the American tournament scoring record in the absence of 2008 Olympians Bryant, James and Wade. When Durant quietly signed an extension to remain with Oklahoma City (his only credible option with the 2011 lockout looming), he was cast as the anti-LeBron as well as the main challenger to James' two-year lock as league MVP.
4. Miami's slow start to 2010-11. Years from now, people won't be able to fathom the ruckus created by the 9-8 start of James, Wade and Bosh in Miami. You had to be there and, unfortunately, we were. Each new day turned the least significant detail into breaking news, whether it was Bosh's lingering failure to produce numbers, James' subtle complaints or Wade's impassive support of coach Erik Spoelstra. When James shouldered past Spoelstra during a timeout, "the bump" was replayed and re-examined like a fresh view of the Zapruder film. Funny how the three stars never complained about the excessive attention.
5. Carmelo Anthony's wedding. As first reported by Newsday, New Orleans point guard Chris Paul toasted at Anthony's July wedding in New York that he and the groom would join newly signed Amar'e Stoudemire "and form our own Big Three" with the Knicks. Paul and Anthony would dismiss the toast as a joke inspired by the frenzy of Miami's recent coup. But both stars would spend the rest of the year engaged in LeBronish conjecture that they would be the next to abandon their franchises.
6. Mikhail Prokhorov buys Nets. Commissioner David Stern hopes the arrival of the Russian billionaire oligarch will launch a wave of foreign ownership for the NBA. Prokhorov's $200 million purchase (giving him 80 percent of the team and 45 percent of the new arena ) hinged on the Nets' ability to move to Brooklyn in 2012-13 and challenge the Knicks' hold on New York. This was followed by the acquisition by Ted Leonsis of the remaining 56 percent of the Wizards, the Verizon Center and Ticketmaster in a deal valued altogether at $550 million; the highly competitive (and exorbitant) $450 million sale of the Warriors to a group headed by Joe Lacob and Peter Guber; and the unprecedented takeover of the Hornets for more than $300 million by the NBA itself, positioning Stern to personally ensure that franchise values don't dwindle heading into a potential 2011 lockout.
7. Celtics upset Cavaliers in Eastern semifinal. If the Heat's slow start was epilogue, then this series served as bizarre prologue to "The Decision." It began with innuendo of a serious right elbow injury to James, who shot a free throw left-handed during the top-seeded Cavs' opening-round beating of Chicago. In a performance reminiscent of Kobe Bryant's unhappiest years, James played passively for crucial stretches against Boston, which would lead to speculation by Cavs owner Dan Gilbert and others that James had quit on his team because he'd already decided to leave. An alternative (but inexcusable) possibility is that he was fed up carrying the Cavs and looking forward to sharing responsibility with more talented teammates. Or maybe he was simply having a bad week, for any number of reasons.
8. The Dream Team, 18 years later. The 1992 Olympic team -- the first U.S. team that featured NBA players -- was inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame as a group, while team members Scottie Pippen and Karl Malone were brought into the Hall as individuals. The team's biggest star, Michael Jordan, whose face launched the NBA into new global markets based on the success of the '92 Games, became majority owner of the Charlotte Bobcats in his native North Carolina -- an unrivaled investment in the league by a star player.
9. Gilbert Arenas' suspension. The Wizards' forlorn point guard made the regrettable error of bringing three unloaded guns into the team's Verizon Center locker room and then revealing them in December 2009 to teammate Javaris Crittenton amid a lingering dispute over gambling debts. Arenas insisted he had committed a prank gone bad, but in January he pleaded guilty to felony gun possession in the District of Columbia and was sentenced to a month in a halfway house, and commissioner David Stern suspended the three-time All-Star and Crittenton for the rest of the season. Arenas began the 2010-11 season with the Wizards before being traded to Orlando in December as Washington moved forward with No. 1 pick John Wall as its new point guard and franchise cornerstone.
10. Lockout speculation. Owners and players spent 2010 looking ahead to the possibility of a 2011 lockout that could wipe out the 2011-12 season. Stern revealed an opening "offer" to the union of shorter contracts and smaller salaries that would cost players close to $800 million annually. Union chief Billy Hunter responded by enlisting players to vote in favor of decertifying the NBPA as a last resort in case of an extended lockout. James' shenanigans had raised TV ratings for the NBA as revenues continued to increase, yet the immediate future looked grim as owners of most franchises claimed to be losing money -- an assertion refuted by players and their agents.
Source:SI.com