This has been billed as a one-sided series, a battle perhaps lacking the glamour and stars of previous incarnations. Oh, foolish us. One day in, the old love affair is proving as tumultuous and intoxicating as ever.

Fourteen wickets, almost 300 runs. A first-ball wide, a teenage debutant, a dramatic collapse. Two hat-trick balls, another collapse, a full house boozing and bellowing and a captain castled for a duck.

Elsewhere in the world, Test cricket might be in crisis, played out in front of empty stands and superseded by the tarty charms and easy pleasures of Twenty20. Not when England play Australia.

England were expected to make far more than 215. Australia were chastened to close on 75-4.

Those of us engrossed by the struggles and fightbacks of both should be less surprised. This is the 10th time that 14 or more wickets have fallen on the first day of an Ashes series. A sporting rivalry that has fired for 130 years was not going to splutter out overnight.

Quite what it means for the balance of power over the next few days - and remaining four Tests beyond that - is harder to divine. Sometimes the pattern is set, as in 2006 when Australia ended the opening exchanges on 346-3 en route to that 5-0 series win, or in 2002 when they closed on 364-2 to begin the march to a 4-1 overall triumph.

At other times - not least last time out, when England were dismissed for 260 on the first day in Brisbane yet bossed the series 3-1, or in 1997 when Australia were skittled for 118 but won the bigger battle - the first few blows have counted for little.

What made England's initial slump here so galling was not only the fact that they had won the toss but also that for large parts the tourists' bowling looked decidedly average.

The toss might have been something of a bum steer - only once since the Second World War have England won the toss in the first Ashes Test and won the match. The inexperience of the Aussie attack was indisputable.

Coming into this match, they had just 38 Ashes wickets between them, compared to the 352 of the 2006-07 vintage. Not the least insignificant reason for this was the shock selection of a 19-year-old, Ashton Agar, who earlier this summer was turning out for Henley in the Home Counties Premier League.

Agar did not quite turn to jelly, but like several of his team-mates he wobbled. On a morning where the low grey clouds created ideal conditions for swing bowling, two wickets fell yet 19 boundaries were conceded, every three good balls followed by a bad one.

The most incontinent was Peter Siddle, whose first four overs cost 27 runs. In the afternoon, aided by some woeful stroke-play from England, he tightened up and then let rip.

In some ways, Siddle is the archetypal Aussie sportsmen - fair-haired, relentlessly aggressive, never happier than when sticking it to the Poms. In other ways, he breaks the mould. How many other Australian fast bowlers have been committed vegetarians?

Here at Trent Bridge, he tucked into England's rump with carnivorous glee, forcing errors from Jonathan Trott and Kevin Pietersen, and dismissing Joe Root and Ian Bell with beauties.

Like others among his ancestors, he has previous. On the opening day of the series last time out he took 6-54, including a hat-trick; of the eight times he has taken five wickets in a Test innings, half of them have been against England.

Amid his snarling excellence, too many of the home side were culpable. This England batting order has issues to deal with.

For the third time in six first innings this year, not one batsman got to 50. The last six wickets fell for 37 runs, the last four for just two. Ian Bell, his travails hidden by the debates about Root and Nick Compton, now averages just 21 in 16 Test innings against Australia in England.

This being the Ashes, the story of the day was only half-told.

As the wickets kept tumbling, three in the space of three runs - Shane Watson to a characteristically strong-armed drive, Ed Cowan with a nerve-stricken edge, skipper Michael Clarke to a wonderful away-swinger from Jimmy Anderson for a six-ball duck - memories of the carnage of the recent past reared again.

If not quite in the extraordinary league of 2005 - Australia 190 all out, England 92-7 - or as bewildering as that day in 1997 (hot favourites Australia 118 all out, England 200-3) - only twice in more than 100 years have more batsmen been returned to the pavilion than traipsed back to the old wooden shed on Wednesday.

There was still time for Steve Smith, a hapless struggler three years ago, to launch a spirited riposte that included a straight six off Graeme Swann, and for Phil Hughes - as robust as meringue in his previous Ashes innings - to hang around in support.

With the injured Stuart Broad expected to be fit to join the assault on Thursday morning and Swann optimistic that he can find turn on this dry track that was absent on the first day, this match on fast-forward may continue to accelerate.

Those with tickets for the fourth and fifth days on the weekend may be dismayed by the harum-scarum speed of proceedings thus far. Prospects for the weeks ahead, however, are the stuff of smacked lips and cockles warmed.

Separately, Western diplomats said Russia blocked a draft UN Security Council resolution this week calling for a stalled UN chemical weapons investigation team to be allowed to visit Syria and to be permitted to conduct an “objective” inquiry.
The United Nations said in a statement that the head of the UN chemical arms team, Ake Sellstrom of Sweden, and UN disarmament chief Angela Kane have accepted an invitation from the Syrian government to discuss their investigation of alleged chemical attacks in Syria.
Russia, along with Iran, is Syria's closest ally and chief arms supplier. The draft resolution echoed a recent statement by the Group of Eight (G8) developed nations including Russia.
“The Free Syrian Army strongly condemns all usage of chemical weapons against a civilian population and denies Russia's allegations about the FSA using chemical weapons in Khan al-Assal, Aleppo,” Khalid Saleh, a spokesman for the coalition, said in a statement.
“Only the Assad regime has the know-how, capability and willingness to use these weapons,” Saleh said, referring to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
“The coalition and supreme military council have asked for the UN monitors to come to Syria to investigate the use of these weapons and the Assad regime refuses to allow them to do so,” he said.
Russia's UN envoy, Vitaly Churkin, on Tuesday said Russian scientific analysis strongly indicated a projectile containing sarin that hit Khan al-Assal on March 19, killing 26 civilians and military personnel, was fired by oppositions.
The government and oppositints have blamed each other for that incident, as well numerous other alleged chemical attacks. Both sides deny using chemical weapons.
“The usage of chemical weapons is inconsistent with the guiding principles and goals of the Syrian revolution,” Saleh said. “Targeting civilians indiscriminately to achieve political gains is a common characteristic of the Assad regime.”
The United States has cast doubt on the Russian analysis of the Khan al-Assal incident and, along with France, called for full UN access to Syrian sites where chemical weapons use was suspected.
The United Nations says as many as 100,000 have died in the two-year civil war.

Chemical projectile fell short?

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior Western diplomat also expressed skepticism about the Russian claim that the oppositioms were behind the Khan al-Assal attack.
He dismissed the idea that Assad's government was willing to let the UN team investigate Aleppo because it was certain the oppositioms were responsible for the March 19 chemical attack. He said available evidence suggested the Syrian army carried out the attack.
“What they hope will be discovered there is lots of soldiers who were poisoned by chemical weapons, which is true,” the envoy said. “But our information suggests that that was because the projectile ... fell short and landed in an area where there were Syrian troops, not that the opposition had done it.”
Churkin said Russian experts visited the location where the projectile struck and took their own samples of material from the site. Those samples, he said, were then analyzed at a Russian laboratory certified by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
He also said that the projectile was not a standard military weapon.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, Western diplomats on the 15-nation Security Council said Russia blocked a draft resolution based on a statement Moscow supported at last month's G8 summit in Belfast that urged all parties to the conflict to grant access to the UN team “in order to conduct an objective investigation into reports of the use of chemical weapons.”
Diplomats said Russia justified its opposition to the resolution by saying the timing was not right. Russia's UN mission did not respond to a request for comment.
So far, chief UN chemical weapons inspector Sellstrom's team has not traveled to Syria because of diplomatic wrangling over the scope of access he would have there.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon wants Sellstrom to have unfettered access to investigate all credible alleged chemical attacks while Assad's government wants the UN experts to confine their investigation to the March 19 incident. That disagreement has caused a deadlock in talks between the United Nations and Syria on access for the inspection team.
Syrian UN Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari on Monday said his government has invited Sellstrom and UN disarmament chief Kane to Damascus to discuss allegations of banned arms use in Syria's two-year civil war but suggested it would not compromise on access.
Ban met with Sellstrom in New York on Wednesday to discuss Sellstrom's work, the UN said in a statement. It added that Sellstrom provided Ban with an “oral update” of his work outside of Syria, including information he has received from UN member states. Diplomats say that Britain and the United States have provided the UN with details of 10 alleged chemical attacks. 

Turkish riot police use tear gas to disperse demonstrators during a protest against the destruction of trees in Gezi Park (Photo: Reuters)

Turkey might have to pay thousands of euros in compensation to victims of pepper spray and tear gas extensively used by the police against Gezi Park protesters in line with a recent ruling of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) against Turkey in the case of two May Day protesters who were subjected to tear gas and police violence in 2006.

The applicants, Zuhal Subaşı and Ali Çoban, maintained that while taking part in a demonstration in İzmir on May 1, 2006, they had been attacked by police officers, who had kicked and beaten them and had used tear gas against them, and that the authorities had failed to carry out an effective investigation of their allegations of ill-treatment. The applicants relied in particular on Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which concerns the prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment.
The Strasbourg-based court ruled that there were two violations of Article 3, which are ill-treatment and ineffective investigation in the case of Subaşı and Çoban.
The court ruled that Turkey must pay 15,000 euros to each of the applicants in non-pecuniary damages.
Given the fact that thousands of people who demonstrated against government plans to demolish Gezi Park in İstanbul's Taksim Square have been affected by the use of tear gas and pepper spray by the police, with many of them sustaining injuries or burns, they may possibly win compensation like Subaşı and Çoban if they take their cases to the European court.
The demonstrations, which began in late May, went nationwide due to the police's use of excessive force against the demonstrators. The protests were extensively covered by the foreign media.
Işıl Karakaş, a Turkish judge who represents Turkey at the ECtHR, said the court's ruling on the use of pepper gas and the police's use of disproportionate power is not the first one as the court had ruled against Turkey in similar cases in the past, adding that there are already many similar cases before the court.
She said the European court's latest ruling points to a shortcoming in Turkey about the existence of a regulation that sets the rules for the use of tear gas and pepper spray.
Indicating that the court's ruling will definitely set a precedent for Gezi Park demonstrators, Karakaş said: “It is up to the good functioning of Turkish domestic law [whether Gezi Park demonstrators will apply to the court]. If Turkish domestic law functions well, there will be no need for individuals to go to the ECtHR.”
President of the Human Rights Association (İHD) Öztürk Türkdoğan told Today's Zaman in a phone interview that the ECtHR ruling on Subaşı and Çoban will definitely set a precedent for the Gezi Park demonstrators who were subjected to frequent use of tear gas and pepper spray.
He said the İHD is now making preparations to apply to the Constitutional Court, demanding a temporary injunction against the use of pepper spray, which he said has been widely used in most demonstrations in Turkey since this year's May Day celebrations.
He explained that the application will be made individually as the court is accepting individual applications, and if the top court refuses to issue a temporary injunction, then the individuals who sustained physical or psychological damage due to the police's use of tear gas and pepper spray during Gezi Park demonstrations will take their cases to the European court because they will have exhausted domestic remedies.
In further remarks, he said Turkey fails to comply with rules set by the United Nations about the use of pepper spray and that the country will sooner or later have to bear the consequences of this failure.
A woman named Ceyda Sungur has become the symbol of police's arbitrary use of pepper spray with a photo of her in a red summer dress and showing a policeman firing pepper spray directly at her face. As she turned, the masked policeman leapt forward and sprayed her back. The unprovoked attack on the woman left her and other activists choking and gasping for breath; afterwards, Sungur collapsed on a bench.
Tayfun Kahraman, a member of Taksim Platform, a solidarity group formed to oppose the planned demolition of Gezi Park in Taksim, said the treatment received by the Gezi Park demonstrators is no different than the treatment received by May Day demonstrators in İzmir and that Gezi Park demonstrators have even been subjected to harsher treatment by the police.
So Kahraman said he expects similar rulings to come out of the European court for Gezi Park protesters.
“Many people were injured, many of them lost their sight and many others sustained severe burns on their bodies due to random and arbitrary use of tear gas and pepper spray during the Gezi Park demonstrations,” he said, adding that after exhausting domestic remedies, many of the victims will knock on the Strasbourg-based court's door to demand justice.
Five people, including a policeman, have died and more than 5,000 have been injured in the clashes with police, according to a Turkish rights group.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has once again vehemently criticized the Egyptian army for ousting a democratically elected leader, saying that Turkey had experienced dire consequences of the coups in the past and he doesn't want to see “the Egyptian people” suffer from same problems that emanate from military coups.

Speaking at a fast-breaking dinner organized by the Civil Servants' Trade Union (MEMUR-SEN) in Ankara on Wednesday, Erdoğan said the new interim president was not determined by the Egyptian people but was chosen by Egyptian military.
Except for Turkey and a few other countries, Erdoğan noted, the international community failed to call “coup” a “coup” and didn't endorse the democratic process in the North African country.
He harshly criticized the international community for turning a blind eye on a massacre targeting Egyptian people who had “only questioned their stolen votes,” in reference to the July 8 killing of dozens of Muslim Brotherhood supporters in Cairo.
The Turkish prime minister also slammed the main opposition party in Turkey for enduring internal squabbles over defining the military intervention in Egypt.
Some deputies within main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) rejected describing the army's move as a military coup while the official position of the party recognized the Egyptian army's intervention in civil politics as a direct coup.
Erdoğan said Turkey is looking forward to seeing a return to normal politics and Egypt emerging out of political turmoil as soon as possible with the formation of a transition period to democracy.
He said steps must be taken to pull Egypt out of the ongoing chaos to avoid letting it deepen.
Erdoğan also argued that those who perpetrated a coup will not be remembered well in history as at the early phase of military coups some appear and hail them.
“Turkish people never forgive coup perpetrators, as history clearly illustrates,” Erdoğan said.
Regarding efforts to draft a new Turkish constitution, Erdoğan said parties represented in Parliament have been able to agree upon 48 articles while there is still disagreement over the rest of the new document.
“Let's submit those 48 articles which parties agree upon to Parliament within one week,” Erdoğan urged, in a move to accelerate the process of writing the new constitution, which has faced constant deadlocks because of a wide rift among parties regarding some controversial articles such as the definition of citizenship and a shift to a presidential system of government.

The İstanbul 1st High Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant on Thursday for a confessed machete attacker, who was released pending trial on Monday by another İstanbul court, after the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office appealed the decision.

Sabri Çelebi was detained on charges of injuring protesters during a Gezi Park protest on Sunday after media outlets broadcast video footage showing the man brandishing a machete and striking a woman with the flat of the blade. Police shown in the footage failed to respond, sparking a controversy that widened after Çelebi's statements in court -- where he said his business had been damaged by the Gezi Park protests and that the latest protest triggered his rage -- were reported.
Çelebi's Monday release by the İstanbul 33rd Civil Court of First Instance also caused public outrage. The İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office appealed the court's decision; the İstanbul 1st High Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for the confessed machete attacker on Thursday.

William Jefferson Clinton is a man of the world, a globe-trotting celebrity as likely to show up at the World Cup in South Africa as he is at a humanitarian mission in Indonesia. As the 42nd president of the United State, he was lampooned, even by his allies, as a Big Mac scoffing, saxophone-blowing, sly lawyer from the Deep South. At the same time, his adversaries acknowledged his charm, intelligence and political acumen.

Clinton still keeps tabs on politics- he pays attention to polling, as he always has, especially to the approval numbers of a certain secretary of state- but he spends time every day running the public William J. Clinton Foundation, which takes on the most pressing issues facing the planet. Its signature endeavour is the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), which in five years has facilitated 2000 "commitments to action" (it awards no grants) by its members- governmental bodies, non-profit organisations and individuals- valued at US$63 billion ($64 billion). CGI programmes have helped nearly 300 million people in more than 170 nations get better access to healthcare, safe drinking water, and job training, and its members have underwritten medical research and reforestation efforts and made thousands of small loans. Former South African president Nelson Mandela has praised the initiative for its ability to have "a direct impact on the lives of millions of people across our planet." President Barack Obama has called Clinton’s efforts “a remarkable record of achievement”. Last year’s annual meeting featured a star-studded guest list that included Barack and Michelle Obama, 60 current and former heads of state, and a host of celebrities including Bill Gates, CBS’s Katie Couric and Ben Stiller. As the world came to his door once again, it was clear that Bill Clinton’s foundation had not only helped redefine global anti-poverty efforts but had also set a new standard for what US presidents can do after they leave office. Clinton sat for an extended interview for Reader’s Digest with Carl Cannon, a former White House correspondent and executive editor of politicsdaily.com.

Reader’s Digest: It’s been ten years since you left office, and you look more physically fit now than you did then. Is the secret not having to deal with the White House press corps?

Bill Clinton: [Laughs] No. I’m working as hard as ever. But after my heart surgery and my stent, I decided I had to try a radically more heart-friendly diet, and I started watching what I ate. And I try to walk a lot and do some work in the weights room. I feel great.