Champions League hope for Nigeria, South Africa

The 2016 CAF Champions League draws made in Senegal this weekend offer South African and Nigerian clubs hope of going further than this year.

Kaizer Chiefs and Mamelodi Sundowns represent South Africa again and want to avoid the round-of-32 exits they suffered in the 2015 edition of the premier African club football competition.

Enyimba are one of two Nigerian hopefuls for a second successive year and seek to atone for a last-32 exit this season.

Enyimba

Warri Wolves, the other qualifiers from the west African nation, did not compete this year.

Draws were made in Dakar for the three, two-leg knockout rounds ahead of the lucrative group stage and Chiefs’ path to the last-eight could include a rematch against recent foes.

Volcan of the Comoros should not present too many preliminary-round problems with Chiefs visiting the south-east island state for the first leg.

Former African champions ASEC Mimosas of Ivory Coast, who face a to-be-named Chadian club first, are the likely round-of-32 opponents of the South Africans, assuming they qualify.

The clubs met in a 2014 CAF Confederation Cup play-off with ASEC winning 2-1 in Soweto and 1-0 in Abidjan against virtual reserve Chiefs sides.

Should the South Africans clear that obstacle, they probably will come up against 2015 semi-finalists Al Hilal of Sudan with a mini-league place up for grabs.

Chiefs consider themselves among the biggest football clubs in Africa, but do not have the silverware to match, winning only the now defunct African Cup Winners Cup 14 years ago.

South Africa goalkeeper Itumeleng Khune is Chiefs’ best known footballer, Zimbabwean Willard Katsande is a combative midfielder and Togolese striker Camaldine Abrew a recent addition.

Sundowns, an expensively assembled Pretoria-based outfit owned by mining magnate Patrice Motsepe, were Champions League runners-up the same year Chiefs achieved African glory.

Coach Pitso Mosimane craves continental success and his squad includes Uganda goalkeeper Denis Onyango, Zimbabwe midfielder Khama Billiat and Burundi striker Fiston Abdul Razak.

Sundowns were paired with debutants Chicken Inn of Zimbabwe in a preliminary tie and experienced African campaigners AC Leopards from Congo Brazzaville await the winners.

Whoever survives are likely to meet 2014 Champions League runners-up V Club of the Democratic Republic of Congo in a round-of-16 showdown.

Enyimba, the 2003 and 2004 Champions League winners, confront African newcomers Vipers of Uganda in a preliminary-round highlight.

The club from south-east city Aba should keep a close watch on Farouk Miya, an 18-year-old midfielder with a fondness for goals and occasional captain of Uganda.

If Enyimba progress, they would face what appears a less difficult task against Lioli of Lesotho or Vital’O of Burundi, but highly decorated Etoile Sahel of Tunisia loom as round-of-16 opponents.

Etoile lifted the Confederation Cup last month, raising to nine their number of African successes, and the Tunisian club are the only ones to have won all five CAF competitions.

Warri should eliminate Sporting Praia Cruz of Sao Tome e Principe, but 2015 Champions League semi-finalists Al Merrikh and 2014 winners Entente Setif of Algeria are possible rivals for a group place.

The first opponents for title-holders TP Mazembe of DR Congo will be Saint George of Ethiopia or Saint Michel United of the Seychelles.

Preliminary round first legs are scheduled for February 12-14 with the return matches two weekends later.

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France international Ribery injured again, misses rest of year

Former France international Franck Ribery will miss Bayern Munich’s final three matches of 2015 after suffering a thigh injury, his team said on Friday.

Ribery only made his return from a nine-month injury lay-off a week ago, making a late scoring cameo off the bench in a 3-1 defeat at Borussia Moenchengladbach.

He started Wednesday’s 2-0 Champions League victory at Dinamo Zagreb but was forced off at half-time due to the muscle problem in his right thigh.

He will now miss league matches against Ingolstadt and Hanover, as well as the midweek German Cup clash with Darmstadt on Tuesday.

“I may not be able to play against Ingolstadt. I have to take it slowly even though I’m dying with desire (to play),” Ribery had told Bild newspaper.

The 32-year-old spent nine months on the sidelines due to an ankle injury and had only just returned to the team last weekend.

According to some experts in Germany, the decision is more about prudence than a serious problem.

Ribery played only 23 matches for Bayern last season due to the ankle issue.

Bayern’s Moroccan centre-back Mehdi Benatia will also sit out the rest of 2015 with the same injury.

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Stoke wins as Arnautovic blows Man City away

Two goals from Marko Arnautovic condemned Manchester City to a 2-0 defeat on Saturday as their Premier League title hopes suffered a serious blow at Stoke City.

The Austrian forward netted twice in the first half and missed several chances for a hat-trick as a dominant Stoke side claimed a well deserved win at a windswept Britannia Stadium.
Xherdan Shaqiri, their £12 million ($18.1 million, 16.7 million euros) record signing, was at the heart of the success with assists for both goals and a wonderful all-round display.
Despite leading the table at the start of the day, Manchester City now have just one win from their last four league games and are experiencing their toughest spell of the season.
Manuel Pellegrini’s side improved slightly after half-time, but rarely threatened a fightback after a dreadful defensive display in the first period.
Stoke made a dream start as Arnautovic gave them a seventh-minute lead following fine work from Shaqiri on the right.
The Switzerland international showed fine balance to get the better of Fernando on the touchline before crossing for Arnautovic, who darted between two defenders to finish.
Kevin De Bruyne had a chance to level for the visitors after skipping from midfield to the edge of the area, but his tame shot on 14 minutes was well saved by goalkeeper Jack Butland.
A minute later Stoke doubled their lead as Shaqiri and Arnautovic combined again.

– Fernando limps off –

There was more brilliance from Shaqiri, whose superb turn outfoxed Fernando before his fabulous pass gave Arnautovic the chance to produce a cool, low finish for 2-0.
After a quiet spell, Bojan threatened to score a bizarre third goal for Stoke when he made the most of several ricochets to ride three challenges before eventually being crowded out 10 yards from goal.
Then Stoke had a glorious chance to add to their tally when a back-heel from Ibrahim Afellay released Glenn Whelan on the left and the midfielder’s cross was headed wide at the near post by Arnautovic.
Arnautovic missed an even better chance to put the game beyond City just before the interval when he was released by another fine Shaqiri pass, only to see his shot bounce back off the right-hand post.
City goalkeeper Joe Hart had to make a smart save early in the second half to block a shot from Bojan after another weaving run from the Barcelona striker. The rebound fell to Arnautovic, who fired just wide.
Then the Austrian went close again when he collected a wonderful flick from Bojan and closed in on goal before sending a firm cross-shot just wide of the far post.
Bojan was the next to go close for the hosts when he collected a clever pass by Shaqiri and beat Hart to the ball before having his run checked by the visiting goalkeeper.
The afternoon got worse for Pellegrini when Fernando was forced to limp off on 73 minutes, reducing his side to 10 men, with three substitutes already used.
City applied some pressure in the second half, but Butland, Hart’s deputy with England, was rarely called into action as Mark Hughes’s men dug in for a resonant victory.

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Egypt coach, El-Badry, vows to deny Nigeria Olympic ticket

Egypt Under-23 national team coach Hossam El-Badry remains hopeful they will progress to the semifinals of the 2015 Africa U-23 Cup of Nations, despite getting their campaign off with a draw against Algeria in their Group B opener in M’Bour on Sunday.

El-Badry

Zamalek winger Mahmoud ‘Kahraba’ Abdel-Moneam headed home Mohamed Hani’s free-kick to give the young Pharaohs the lead on 54 minutes, but Algeria levelled matters through USM Alger attacking midfielder Zinedine Ferhat 10 minutes later with the Egyptian keeper Mosaad Awad largely to blame.
“Keeper Awad’s error cost the team a goal but such kind of errors are frequent in football,” El-Badry commented after the match.
“We were close to winning the game, especially in the first half, but we failed to capitalise on our goal-scoring chances.
“We didn’t lose the game. There are two matches remaining in the group phase and we are determined to earn positive results in these games to advance into the semis.”
The Egyptians will be looking to seal their first win of the competition when they take on Nigeria in their second Group B outing tomorrow.

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Five ways Russian sanctions can hurt Turkey economy

Russia’s economic sanctions against Turkey over its downing of a Russian warplane could hurt the Turkish economy in several areas from fruit to tourism, even if the initial impact is likely to be limited. Turkey and Russia have enjoyed burgeoning trade ties in recent years despite disagreements on a number of political issues from Moscow’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine to the more than four-year old civil war in Syria.
But ties hit a low when Turkish jets shot down last week a Russian warplane on the Syrian border which Ankara said had violated its air space.  Moscow put forward a raft of economic sanctions against  Ankara while demanding an official apology from the Turkish leadership.
But Moscow is keeping some of its powder dry and the effect may be limited for now, with tourism and agriculture the most immediate casualties. “The impact… will, in general, probably be limited,” said William Jackson Senior Emerging Markets Economist at Capital Economics in London, putting the maximum cost to the Turkish economy at 0.5 percent of GDP annually.
Here are five sectors of the Turkish economy that could be hurt by the Russian action:

TOURISM:

Shortly after the crisis erupted, Russia swiftly called on its citizens to scrap any travel plans to Turkey, dealing an immediate blow to the Turkish tourism industry.  Russian tour firms promptly halted the sale of holidays to Turkey, in line with a directive from the federal tourism agency.
The move dealt a huge blow to tourism in Turkey, where every eighth tourist is Russian and Russians dominate resorts on the Mediterranean like Antalya and Alanya. According to Turkish tourism ministry statistics, 3.5 million Russian tourists visited Turkey in 2015 from January to October, down from 4.1 million in 2013 and 4.3 million in 2014. “Perhaps the most damaging impact to Turkey from the sanctions will come via tourism,” said Jackson.

ENERGY

Russian Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev did not rule out that the measures could hit two major projects with Turkey — the planned Turk Stream gas pipeline under the Black Sea and the Akkuyu nuclear power plant.  Meanwhile, energy-hungry Turkey relies on Russia for 55 percent of its natural gas and 30 percent of its oil as it searches for greater self-sufficiency.
However while the Turk Stream and Akkuyu projects may be at risk, no Russian energy official has seriously suggested cutting off energy supplies to Turkey, a move that would severely hurt Russian gas giant Gazprom.

TRADE

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin had ambitiously aimed at reaching a trade volume of $100 billion in 2023, up from $32 billion in 2013. According to the Russian state statistics office, in 2014 Russia exported $24.5 billion of goods, mainly natural gas, oil, steel and grain to Turkey, while imports from Turkey totalled at $6.7 billion.
The $100 billion target now looks like a pipe dream.  Lilit Gevorgyan, senior economist at IHS Global Insight, said the confrontation was “a major setback of more than a decade long efforts to build commercial and energy partnership between Russia and Turkey, despite their geopolitical and historic differences.”

FOOD

Turkey was a major beneficiary of the Russian trade embargo on EU foodstuffs imposed as a retaliation measure with bilateral trade in agricultural goods rising 19 percent to $4 billion in 2014 due to imports of Turkish fruits, vegetables and nuts.
However Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said Monday that Turkish fruit and vegetables would be banned, albeit after a certain lag to stop inflation. Russian Agriculture Minister Alexander Tkachev warned Ankara that Turkey’s agricultural exports could be replaced by Russia within a week, with suppliers from countries ranging from Iran to South Africa.

CONSTRUCTION

Some 35 percent of Russian imported construction services were from Turkey in 2014, according to central bank data. Turkish companies had also benefited hugely from the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi that year.
But Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said Monday that while contracts with Turkish companies signed before December 31 would be honoured any new deal would require government approval. Shuvalov emphasised however that no measures were planned “for the moment” against Turkish industrial goods.

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Liverpool, Man City, Arsenal, others splash out £130m on agents fees

Premier League clubs splashed out almost £130 million ($195 million, 185 million euros) on agents’ fees last year in a £15 million increase on the previous 12 months.
Liverpool spent the most of any club as they paid out £14.3 million to the sport’s middle men over the last two transfer windows, according to figures released by the Premier League on Monday.
The second highest spenders were Manchester United (£13.8m), followed by local rivals Manchester City (£12.4m) with the total reaching £129.86 million for the year ending September 30.
Chelsea and Arsenal both spent £11.9 million, while at the other end of the scale newcomers Watford paid £1.6 million.
Fees are not just paid to agents when transfers happen, but also when players sign new contracts.
During the period in question, there were 172 inbound transfers and loans in the Premier League, 542 new or improved contracts and 573 outbound transfers and loans – a total of 1,287 transactions, all of which could have led to an agent’s fee being paid.
The total spent by the 24 Championship clubs was £26.1 million.
The biggest payers in the second tier were Cardiff (£2.8m), Fulham (£2.7m), QPR and Reading (both £2.3m).
Further down the leagues, third tier Bury and fourth tier Accrington Stanley and Hartlepool did not pay a single penny to agents.

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Men linked to Paris attacks registered as migrants – Police

Two men who French police are seeking to trace in connection with the Paris attacks registered as refugees with Greek authorities earlier this year, the Greek police confirmed on Saturday.
French authorities had asked their Greek counterparts to check a passport and fingerprints of one man and the fingerprints of another who were thought to have registered in Greece, which is the main entry point into Europe for Syrian refugees.
At least one Syrian passport was found at the scene of the Stade de France attack.
Greek minister for citizen protection, Nikos Toskas, said in a statement that one of the men had been registered on the Greek island of Leros in October.
“We confirm that the (Syrian) passport holder came through the Greek island of Leros on October 3 where he was registered under EU rules,” said a statement issued by Toskas.
French police said the passport was found “near the body of one of the attackers” in the investigation into the main attack of Friday’s carnage, at the Bataclan concert hall, where 82 people were killed.
The authenticity of the passport was being checked, but its discovery indicates a possible Syrian connection which has been a working hypothesis for investigators after assailants hit six separate locations in Paris.
A Greek police source said the second man had also registered in Greece, with TV station Mega adding this was also on Leros in August.
European security officials had long feared that jihadists could take advantage of the mass migration influx, mainly from war-torn Syria, that Europe has been experiencing since the beginning of the year.

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Music world in shock over Paris concert massacre

The assault on one of the leading concert halls in Paris has sent shockwaves through the music world, with top-selling artists including U2 and Foo Fighters calling off shows.

A woman lights a candle in front of the French embassy on November 14, 2015 in Prague a day after deadly attacks in Paris. The string of coordinated attacks in and around Paris late November 13, 2015 left more than 127 people dead, in the worst such violence in France’s history. AFP PHOTO

“Shocked, sad and angry. We are all Parisian today,” tweeted Peter Gabriel, one of many prominent musicians who took to social media after Friday’s night coordinated attacks in the French capital.
More than 80 people were killed inside the Bataclan concert hall as gunmen opened fire during a performance by the California rock band Eagles of Death Metal, an attack for which the Islamic State group took responsibility.
France’s Culture Minister Fleur Pellerin laid a bouquet of flowers Saturday in front of the Bataclan, a historic venue which is striking for its 19th-century chinoiserie architecture.
A short while earlier, an anonymous man brought a mobile keyboard near the entrance and played songs including John Lennon’s pacifist anthem “Imagine” under the eye of a pack of photographers.
– Tragedy for music industry –
The music industry was directly touched by the tragedy, with at least three employees of Universal Music France, part of the largest global label group, among the dead.
“The Universal Music family is in mourning,” tweeted Pascal Negre, president of Universal Music France, as he identified the dead by the first names Thomas, Marie and Manu.
“This is crazy. It’s normally a pleasant place where people come to relax and then it was hell,” said the television and radio presenter Pierre Janaszak.
The 35-year-old told AFP that he survived by hiding in the restrooms as the assailants took hostages and was freed in the police counter-assault.
Members of Eagles of Death Metal, a bluesy garage rock band known for lascivious lyrics but rarely politics, were unhurt and were set to return to the United States, although a crew member originally from England was killed, people close to the group said.
The Deftones, another California band who were in the audience ahead of their own since-cancelled shows at the Bataclan, were also safe and leaving Paris.
The Bataclan, which has a capacity of 1,500, is one of the most prominent Paris venues for successful but eclectic bands.
The night before the assault, the acclaimed electronic artist St Germain performed with an ensemble of Malian musicians.
“We are devastated. Our thoughts are with the victims and their loved ones,” the Bataclan’s owners, Jules Frutos and Olivier Poubelle, said in a statement.
“We are also thinking about our exemplary staff but also about the audience and artists present last night in our venue,” they said.
– Motorhead keeps show –
France imposed a state of emergency after the attack and the city Saturday closed all cultural venues.
U2 had already cancelled a concert Saturday at the 20,000-seat Bercy arena, the biggest covered concert hall in Paris, despite weeks of promotion for a live television broadcast on HBO.
The Irish rockers led by Bono later also appeared at the Bataclan to pay their respects.
U2, whose last concert tour was the highest-grossing in musical history and are winding down their latest global trek, also called off a second date at Bercy on Sunday.
Foo Fighters — whose frontman Dave Grohl has collaborated with Eagles of Death Metal — separately announced that the band was cutting short its world tour.
“In light of this senseless violence, the closing of borders, and international mourning, we can’t continue right now. There is no other way to say it. This is crazy and it sucks,” the band said in a statement.
Foo Fighters had been due to play at Bercy, also known as AccorHotels Arena, the day after U2 and also had shows left in Turin, Lyon and Barcelona.
But in contrast, another veteran rock band, Motorhead, will go ahead Sunday with a show.
The high-decibel heavy metal group led by Lemmy will play the Zenith, the second-largest indoor venue in Paris at 6,000 capacity.
Elsewhere, Coldplay postponed a concert in Los Angeles on Saturday that was due to be live on streaming service Tidal.
The English rock act, which is promoting an upcoming album, said it made the decision out of respect after the “terrible events in Paris” but would still play a set of old material offline for fans with tickets

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Russia sees possible ‘terror’ link in Egypt jet crash

Moscow acknowledged Monday for the first time a terrorist attack could have caused last month’s Russian plane crash in Egypt, as thousands more tourists were evacuated from the country.
Britain and the United States, as well as international investigators, suspect a bomb exploded on board the Metrojet A-321 plane, but Egyptian officials insist there is no evidence yet of an attack on the aircraft which jihadists claim to have downed.
Russia had also previously refrained from blaming the crash, which killed all 224 people on board, on terrorists until Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev‘s admission.
“The possibility of an act of terror is of course there as the reason for what happened,” Medvedev said in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta state newspaper.
A growing international chorus has backed the theory that the plane was downed in an attack, with British Foreign Minister Philip Hammond saying Monday it was “more likely than not” that the plane was downed by an “explosive device placed on board”.
On Monday, Israel — which has strong intelligence links to neighbouring Sinaiwhere the Airbus came down while en route from Egypt‘s resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to Saint Petersburg — joined in.
“There is a strong probability that this is an attack,” Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon told Israeli reporters on Monday.
And Airbus chief Fabrice Bregier said no technical fault has yet been detected for the crash of the A-321.
“I can say that so far, what we got from the investigation didn’t trigger any action, technical action on our side, regarding the A-321 fleet,” said Bregier.
“But we need to wait for the conclusion of the investigations.”
Sources close to the probe have told AFP that experts involved in the investigation, with the exception of the Egyptians, “strongly favour” the theory of a bomb on board.
Egypt has pushed back against mounting international concerns that a bomb brought down the plane, with Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry saying it was too early to form a “hypothesis”.

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President Obama joins Facebook, just a few years late

Add President Barack Obama to Facebook's 1 billion-plus users.

The POTUS has joined the most popular social network on the planet, a surprising development as one would think he'd have gotten a page up at some point during his seven years in office ... or before. While there are other Obama pages, those are run by the White House or various fundraising groups. This is straight Obama, coming at you direct.
In his inaugural Facebook post, Obama writes he hopes users will "think of this as a place where we can have real conversations about the most important issues facing our country - a place where you can hear directly from me, and share your own thoughts and stories."
While we're sure the president will talk about important topics like health care and the economy, he also notes his page will feature "some just-for-fun stuff, too."

The first POTUS post

In addition to serving as an introduction to his page, President Obama's first post includes a description and video of him walking through his backyard - a.k.a. the literal national park behind the White House.
He casually strolls across the lawn, talking about a fox and a hawk named Lincoln he seems there. He segues into a message about preserving this park, all US national parks and the planet by acting on climate change.
Obama discusses US leadership to combat climate change, the upcoming meetings in Paris, and ends with a call to action to viewers to get passionate about and start acting on the issue, including on the very platform he just joined.
At the time of writing, the president's video had been seen 78,000 times with over 5,050 likes (Update: Views are now up to 128,000 and likes topping 9,328).
Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, is the top comment, writing: "Welcome to Facebook, President Obama! Excited for you to have your very own Page - and looking forward to the conversation (and the just-for-fun stuff)."
If you want to see the president's page for yourself, it's got a few other photos and milestones you might be interested in.

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TECHNOLOGY

U-17 W/Cup: Ten man Belgium beat Mexico to seal third

Van Vaerenbergh and the ever-dangerous Pablo Lopez each went close, but neither side could break the deadlock in a tight opening period.

Ten man Belgium finished third at the FIFA U-17 World Cup Chile 2015 after a hard-fought 3-2 victory against Mexico in Vina del Mar. Dennis Van Vaerenbergh opened the scoring for the Belgians before a Ricardo Marin penalty levelled matters moments later with Dante Vanzeir’s wonderful chip cancelled out by Francisco Venegas’s late leveller. Vanzeir then kept his cool in stoppage time to seal third place.
There were two clear-cut opportunities in the opening exchanges of the game, first with Belgium and then Mexico failing to capitalise. Vanzeir burst clear of the Mexican defence, after a slip by Francisco Venegas, but he sliced his effort wide. Claudio Zamudio then found himself in space behind the Belgian defence, but Gaetan Coucke, making his first appearance of the finals, saved well with his feet.
The European side were first to strike, with Vanzeir once more showing his pace and trickery down the Belgian right wing. The Genk player picked up the ball close to the halfway line and took on a number of Mexican defenders before forcing his way into the penalty area. He found Van Vaerenbergh in space inside the six yard box and the tall No9 made no mistake, slotting home for his first of the tournament.
Mexico were given an opportunity to level moments later. Kevin Lara cut inside from the Mexican right and hit a left-footed effort at goal which was blocked by Wout Faes’ hand. Substitute Marin stepped up and calmly sent Coucke the wrong way for his first goal of Chile 2015.
Captain Faes then found himself taking an early bath, after he picked up a second yellow following the booking received for the handball which led to the penalty. That did not hinder the Belgians, who almost immediately took the lead. Christophe Janssens broke out of defence and his pass inside found its way to Van Vaerenbergh. The forward spread the play to Vanzeir who settled himself with a good first touch before dinking a beautifully disguised chip over the onrushing Abraham Romero.
Venegas levelled matters late on after Marin poked his way following a scramble in the Belgian penalty area. But Vanzeir had the last word, sealing the win with another superb individual effort. The winger found himself one-on-one with Romero once more and kept his cool to slot home the dramatic winner and seal third place for the Red Devils. They will look back fondly on their time in Chile, the first time they have reached the knockout stages of the U-17 World Cup.

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Mourinho won’t be in Stoke, vows to be ‘responsible’

Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho will miss the trip to Stoke City on Saturday but has still promised to take “responsibility” for the Premier League champions when they are at the Britannia Stadium on Saturday.
The Portuguese was punished for his behaviour towards officials at half-time of Chelsea’s 2-1 defeat by West Ham, but has already adapted by giving his staff detailed plans for the Stoke game.
Asked why he would not appeal against the ban, Mourinho again implied on Friday that he is suffering from double standards, and said that being given a stadium ban for language — as opposed to aggressive behaviour — sets a precedent for more such punishments.
“Because the match is tomorrow and because I know the result of that appeal already, and I decided to give up,” Mourinho told a news conference at Chelsea’s training ground in Cobham, southwest of London.
“It’s stupid to fight a fight that you know you’ll already lose,” he added, having come under intense pressure this season with Chelsea now a lowly 15th in the 20-team Premier League.
“I travel with them, yes. I travel with them and will be with them until the moment somebody stops me, which is, I think, when I am in the limit of the compound of the stadium,” Mourinho explained.
“We know when I have to stop. I have to get out (of the coach) before. I don’t know (where I watch the game).
“I have no plans. Maybe I sit in the street corner with my iPad. I don’t know.”
– ‘Incredible scenarios’ –
His staff do know how to handle the game, he insisted, due to his planning.
“I will be in charge. Every responsibility is my responsibility,” Mourinho said. “My staff are completely free of that extra pressure. That doesn’t belong to their jobs. It’s my responsibility.
“If after 10 minutes we are playing with seven men, it’s something I didn’t prepare my assistants for. They’d have to decide themselves.
“You’re right: the game is unpredictable, we don’t know the direction in many aspects, but we try to reduce. That we did. The most incredible scenarios you can imagine (we have envisaged).
“Let’s go to extremes: at half-time winning or losing 4-0,” he explained. “In between this, you have 1,000 options: be dominating and controlling the game; being dominated and not controlling the game; having problems with this or that area; injuries or red cards of the goalkeeper, the right-back, the centre-back, the striker, the winger.
“We went through all these different scenarios. They are prepared. Also, what is important is for them to feel protected by the fact that it’s my responsibility.
“It’s just for the players to play, and for the assistants to be with them and supportive with them.”
He added: “I know the situation where I am in relation to the football power in this country, and I have to adapt. I have to adapt to it.”
Mourinho also believes the decision opens up more potential stadium bans for other managers.
“If I go to the dimension of the punishment, I think it opens a range of situations and options that I can imagine, in the future, we are going to have lots of managers with stadium bans because a stadium ban should relate to something really, really serious in terms of aggression, words I don’t want to lose.
“This stadium ban is connected to words, to complaints. So, I imagine, in this moment it’s open, in the future, for the stadium ban to happen much more times unless, and maybe unless, we have our association or other associations around Europe that question in a very serious and legal way about the rights of the managers and the dimension of the stadium ban.”
Mourinho meanwhile confirmed that Branislav Ivanovic is available again after a hamstring injury, but that Radamel Falcao is out with a muscular problem.

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Benzema charged in sex tape extortion case

Real Madrid striker Karim Benzema was charged on Thursday in an extortion case involving a sex tape featuring fellow French international Mathieu Valbuena, the prosecutor’s office said on Thursday.
Benzema, 27, has been charged with “complicity in an attempt to blackmail” and conspiring to commit a criminal act, which is punishable by at least five years in prison, the prosecutor’s office in Versailles outside Paris said.

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Narendra Modi: India pledges $600m to help Africa

 

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced $600m (£393m) in assistance for development projects in Africa at a major summit in Delhi.

More than 50 African leaders are attending the India-Africa Forum Summit, unprecedented in scale, in the Indian capital.
Although India's trade with Africa has more than doubled to $72bn since 2007, it is still comparatively small.
The meeting is being seen as an attempt by India to improve ties with Africa.
A record number of African leaders, including South Africa's Jacob Zuma, Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, President Sisi of Egypt and Sudan's Omar al-Bashir are attending the summit - part of India's big push to increase its presence in Africa.

'Bright spots'

Reports say the summit represents the highest number of foreign dignitaries to descend on India since 1983 and is thought to be the biggest ever overseas gathering of African leaders.
Welcoming them, Mr Modi described India and Africa as the "two bright spots of hope in the global economy".
"The hearts of 1.25 billion Indians and 1.25 billion Africans are in rhythm. We are united by youth - two thirds of India and Africa are below 35. And, if the future belongs to the youth, then this century is ours to shape and build," Mr Modi said.
The BBC's Sanjoy Majumder in Delhi says India is using its historic ties with the continent, where a large number of Indians migrated during colonial times, to strengthen its economic links.
India is interested in Africa's natural resource while African countries want to benefit from Indian expertise in high-tech sectors such as IT and mobile phones.
Much of central Delhi has been shut down as the African leaders are being ferried across town in limousines and on Wednesday night, they turned out wearing colourful Indian turbans and jackets at an official dinner.
The first ladies, in the meantime, are being taken sightseeing and given Indian cooking lessons as India pulls out the stops to make the summit a grand success, our correspondent says.

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China to end one-child policy

 

China has decided to end its decades-long one-child policy, Xinhua news agency reports.

All couples will now be allowed to have two children, the state-run news agency said, citing a statement from the Communist Party.
The controversial policy was introduced nationally in 1979, to reduce the country's birth rate and slow the population growth rate.
However, concerns at China's ageing population led to pressure for change.
The one-child policy is estimated to have prevented about 400m births since it began.
Couples who violated the policy faced a variety of punishments, from fines and the loss of employment to forced abortions.
Over time, the policy was relaxed in some provinces, as demographers and sociologists raised concerns about rising social costs and falling worker numbers.
The Communist Party began formally relaxing national rules two years ago, allowing couples in which at least one of the pair is an only child to have a second child.

• Introduced in 1979, the policy meant that many Chinese citizens - around a third, China claimed in 2007 - could not have a second child without incurring a fine
• In rural areas, families were allowed to have two children if the first was a girl
• Other exceptions included ethnic minorities and - since 2013 - couples where at least one was a single child
• Campaigners say the policy led to forced abortions, female infanticide, and the under-reporting of female births
• It was also implicated as a cause of China's gender imbalance

What was China's one-child policy?

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Currently about 30% of China's population is over the age of 50.
Correspondents say that despite the relaxation of the rules, many couples may still opt to only have one child, as one-child families have become the social norm.
The announcement comes on the final day of a summit of the Chinese Communist Party's policy-making Central Committee, known as the fifth plenum.
The party is also set to announce growth targets and its next five year plan.

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UCH, USA varsities discover cure for sickle cell anaemia

OVER five million sickle cell patients in Nigeria and other African countries can now heave a sigh of relief as the University of Ibadan in partnership with the University of Illinois, Chicago, USA and University of Loyola, Chicago have discovered a permanent cure for the terminal disease.
The cure of the deadly disease, according to the Professor  of Medicine, Victor Gordeuk, who is the Director, Sickle Cell Centre, University of Illinois, Chicago, USA and his colleagues, Prof. Damiano Rondelli, also from the same university and Prof. Bamidele Tayo, University of Loyola, Chicago this new treatment is done through bone marrow transplant and that it is less risky.
This was revealed yesterday at the University College Hospital, Ibadan after a three-day brainstorming session with other experts in the teaching hospital.
Unlike the other conventional method of stem cell transplant which exposes patients to radiation which could cause cancer, first blood and marrow stem cell transplant, BMT, is much more effective.
The experts who were flanked by the Chief Medical Director, UCH, Prof. Temitope Alonge, Dr. Titilola Akingbola, an haematologist and Dr. Foluke Fasola, said this  stem cell transplant is a standard procedure for the treatment of many blood cancers in both adult and children.
He said: “With this chemotherapy-free transplant, we are curing adults with sickle cell disease, and we see that their quality of life improves fast within just one month of the transplant.
“About 90 per cent of the approximately 450 patients who have received stem cell transplants for sickle cell disease have been children. Chemotherapy has been considered too risky for adult patients, who are often more weakened than children by the disease.
“Adults with sickle cell disease can now be cured without chemotherapy — the main barrier that has stood in the way for them for so long. Our data provide more support that this therapy is safe and effective and prevents patients from living shortened lives, condemned to pain and progressive complications.”
“In the new procedure, patients receive immuno-suppressive drugs just before the transplant, along with a very low dose of total body irradiation, a treatment much less harsh and with fewer potentially serious side effects than chemotherapy.”
“ Donor cells from a healthy and tissue-matched sibling are transfused into the patient. Stem cells from the donor produce healthy new blood cells in the patient, eventually in sufficient quantity to eliminate symptoms. In many cases, sickle cells can no longer be detected. Patients must continue to take immunosuppressant drugs for at least a year.
The CMD, Prof. Alonge who called for support from government, philanthropists, donour agencies and corporate bodies like banks and Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation for provision of equipment and completion of the sickle cell centre, described sickle cell as a disease of bone crisis which the patient suffers from head to toe.
He added that Sickle Cell Disease is a genetic disorder due to the presence of an abnormal form of haemoglobin in the red blood cells, called haemoglobin S (Hb S) instead of haemoglobin A (Hb A). Haemoglobin in the red blood cell is responsible for the transportation of oxygen in the body.

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Blatter blames ‘bad losers’ as seven candidates retained

Outgoing FIFA president Sepp Blatter blamed England, the United States and Michel Platini for the corruption scandal engulfing the organisation on Wednesday as seven candidates, including Platini, were confirmed in the running to succeed him.
Blatter claimed in an interview with Russian news agency TASS that it had been agreed to award Russia the 2018 World Cup, and the USA the 2022 edition, before the secret vote to designate the hosts took place.
But the 79-year-old Swiss said UEFA president Platini and former French president Nicolas Sarkozy skewered the 2022 plan by cosying up to eventual hosts Qatar.

Blatter

“In 2010, we (FIFA’s 22-strong executive committee) had taken a double decision, we were agreed to go to Russia (in 2018), then in 2022 we’d return to the United States,” Blatter told TASS.
That all changed, he added, “after talks between Sarkozy and Qatar’s prince (Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani) who is now running the emirate,” – a meeting followed by lunch between the two men and Platini.
As a result of that Franco-Qatari summit, at FIFA’s secret ballot in December 2010, “four European votes deserted the United States and the result was 14-8 (to Qatar).
“And if the United States had received the World Cup all we’d be talking about now would be the marvellous 2018 World Cup in Russia and not about any problem at FIFA.”
He dismissed calls to strip Russia of the 2018 World Cup as the bleatings of “bad losers”.
But English Football Association chairman Greg Dyke said his organisation would investigate the claims and indicated he would attempt to get back the money spent on England’s failed bid — a total of around £21 million ($32.2 million, 29.1 million euros).
“We will look into detail at what Mr Blatter says,” Dyke told the British parliament’s culture, media and sport committee in London.
“There’s nothing Mr Blatter says that surprises me much. If he is saying, ‘We wanted Russia’ and it looks like he wanted that fixed before the vote, it’s suggesting that it was all fixed anyway.”
– Nakhid rejected –
Earlier, FIFA’s Electoral Committee confirmed it had retained seven candidates to run in its election for a new president on February 26.
The candidates are Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein, Musa Bility, Jerome Champagne, Gianni Infantino, Michel Platini, Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa and Tokyo Sexwale.
Former Trinidad and Tobago footballer David Nakhid submitted his candidacy last week, but it was rejected on the grounds that one of the five national football associations he gave as endorsing him had already backed another candidate, a FIFA source told AFP.
Candidates need the backing of at least five of FIFA’s 209 association members before they can be considered.
Nakhid told AFP that he would appeal against the decision which he said was part of a “dirty tricks campaign”.
FIFA said in a press release that, with the exception of Platini, the candidature dossiers would be processed by its electoral committee.
Platini is currently suspended from all football-related activities for 90 days while he is investigated over a $2 million clandestine payment he received from Blatter on behalf of FIFA in 2011 for consultancy work carried out years before.
“Should such a ban be lifted or expire before the FIFA presidential election, the Ad-hoc Electoral Committee would decide, depending on the respective exact point in time, on how to proceed with the candidature concerned,” a FIFA statement read.
Platini been seen as a strong favourite to take over when Blatter announced in June he was standing down.
Blatter, meanwhile, identified Platini as the original cause of the crisis at the top of football.
“Platini wanted to be FIFA president, but he didn’t have the courage to put himself forward (in the May 29 election in which Blatter saw off Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein for his fifth term in office),” he told TASS.
“And now look where we are. And the victim of all this at the end of the day is Platini himself.”
The scandal erupted when seven FIFA officials were among those arrested by Swiss police in Zurich on May 27 as part of a bribery investigation by US authorities.
On Wednesday, one of those arrested, former Brazilian Football Confederation president Jose Maria Marin, 83, agreed to be extradited to the United States.
Also on Wednesday, the German federal government confirmed it was looking into corruption allegations in relation to the country’s hosting of the 2006 World Cup and an alleged unexplained payment of 6.7 million euros ($7.43m) made to FIFA by the German Football Association (DFB).

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FIFA accepts seven presidential candidates

FIFA has accepted seven presidential candidates to stand to replace incumbent Joseph Blatter at an extraordinary congress in 2016, excluding former player David Nakhid, the world football governing body said on Wednesday.
An online statement did not give specific reasons for not accepting the bid of Nakhid, a former Trinidad and Tobago international, saying only that FIFA’s member associations have proposed, in due time and form, seven candidates.
Gianni Infantino, the general secretary of the sport’s European organization UEFA, Bahraini royal family member Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa and Liberian football association head, Musa Bility confirmed their bids on deadline day.
Also standing are UEFA president Michel Platini, Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein of Jordan, South African businessman and apartheid-era political prisoner Tokyo Sexwale and ex-FIFA official Jerome Champagne.
Platini was the favourite before being suspended by FIFA’s ethics committee for 90 days along with Blatter, awaiting an investigation into a 2 million Swiss franc (2.06 million dollars) payment by FIFA to the former France player in 2011.
Due to his ban, Platini would not yet have his candidacy processed by the committee in charge of the election.
“Should such a ban be lifted or expire before the FIFA presidential election, the Ad-hoc Electoral Committee would decide.
“Also, depending on the respective exact point in time, on how to proceed with the candidature concerned,’’ the statement said.
However, the other six were to be assessed by the committee and would undergo integrity checks carried out by the investigatory chamber of the FIFA ethics committee.
The election will take place at an extraordinary FIFA congress in Zurich on Feb. 26, 2016.

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Happy 60th birthday, Bill Gates

Bill Gates' parents wanted him to be a lawyer.
What if he had followed through with his parents' plan and studied pre-law at Harvard instead of founding Microsoft. Would he be arguing cases before the Supreme Court? Would he be sitting on the Supreme Court? (Probably the latter.)
One thing is clear, no matter his profession, Bill Gates would probably be good at it. We're just lucky he chose computers instead of litigation.
Because without Bill Gates and Microsoft, we'd still be thinking of computers as those IBM machines office workers ran away from every weekday at five o'clock.

A BASIC beginning

Sixty years ago today, William Henry Gates III was born. And a mere twenty years after that, Gates and partner Paul Allen formed Microsoft (or Micro-Soft, as it was then known) in order to sell their BASIC interpreter for the MITS Altair 8800.
What the hell does that mean? It means that Gates and co. put a boot in the ass of computing and sent it careening onto the den desk. BASIC made it possible for the average hobbyist to interact with a computer. No more time-sharing at the local university or spaghetti-only diets in order to afford a personal computer. The revolution would not be televised; it would be found in your home, on your desktop, with Microsoft's Altair BASIC.
But in 1976, Microsoft's first year of operation, few in the tech industry saw it that way. In the early years of computing, hardware was king – IBM had grown into a multi-national behemoth because of the success of its time clocks and punch-card readers. Gates, however, envisioned a different paradigm, one where software would supplant hardware as the dominant driver of the computing space.
And thanks to the Microsoft-spurred rise of the home computing market, he was right.

One OS to rule them all

Over the course of the 80's and 90's the rapidly decreasing cost of the personal computer led to a rapidly increasing presence in households. The "computer in every den" had joined "the chicken in every pot, and the car in every garage" as an American aphorism.
And that was due in no small part to Bill Gates' Microsoft.
Microsoft's DOS and later Windows operating systems came to dominate this new market, thanks to their compatibility with most, if not all, non-Apple PC's. What did consumers see whenever they pressed the power button on their new Dells and Compaqs and Gateway 2000s? Gates' signature, flying, multicolor-paned Windows logo.
As consumers increasingly associated their home computing experience with Microsoft operating systems, application developers (at least those keen on maximizing profits) were forced to do the same.
In this way, Gates bent the home computing market into a Microsoft feedback loop. Average Joe and Jane used Windows because it came bundled in with their new home computer. Developers coded their "killer apps" for Windows because that's what the Average Joe and Jane had on their shiny new desktop. And Average Tim and Kim, in order to get that awesome word processing program Average Joe talked up at the last PTA meeting, had to get a computer with this "Windows thing" otherwise Tim and Kim wouldn't be able use Joe's touted word processor.
Clearly this was great for Bill Gates, but it wasn't bad for Average Joe and Jane either.
Just as BASIC made it possible for hobbyists to access a personal computer, DOS and Windows made it possible for the rest of us. Now Average Joe could easily use and (more importantly) afford a technology previously limited to businesses, tech-geeks and academics.

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Court jails Islamic cleric for inciting Aqsa violence

An Israeli court on Tuesday ordered the jailing of a firebrand cleric whose Islamist group has been accused of inciting a wave of violence over Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque compound.
Fresh violence erupted in the evening, with two Palestinians shot dead in the West Bank after stabbing an Israeli soldier.
Raed Salah, the head of the radical northern wing of the Islamic Movement in Israel, was found guilty on appeal of inciting violence at the holy site in a 2007 speech.
However he has also been on the government’s radar for stoking current tensions over the compound that has led to a wave of anti-Israeli knife attacks, shootings and violent protests.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised last week to ban the Islamic Movement for “wild incitement” of the current attacks.
During the speech in 2007, Salah urged “all Muslims and Arabs (to) start an intifada (uprising) to support holy Jerusalem and the blessed Al-Aqsa mosque.”
Salah was ordered to present himself to prison officers on November 15.
The Al-Aqsa mosque compound is in a mostly Palestinian area that was annexed by Israel from Jordan in 1967 and is a powder-keg for tensions in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Clashes erupted at the holy site in September as an increase in Jewish visitors to the site alarmed Palestinians who fear Israel is seeking to change rules which currently forbid Jews from praying at the compound.
Salah’s branch of the Islamic Movement has been accused of financing two Muslim groups, the female Murabitat and male Murabitun who act as self-appointed sentinels at Al-Aqsa, keeping an eye on Jewish visitors and harassing those they suspect of secretly praying.
Both groups were outlawed from the site when tensions boiled over in September.
Clashes at the mosque compound spiralled into a wave of stabbing attacks and shootings that have left nine Israelis dead since October 1. Fifty-eight Palestinians — around half of them attackers — and one Israeli Arab have been killed.
An Israeli Jew and an Eritrean were also been killed after being mistaken for attackers.
In the latest attack, two Palestinians were shot dead Tuesday evening north of the West Bank city of Hebron after stabbing a soldier.
“The soldier was stabbed when forces at the scene approached two suspects at the junction,” the Israeli army said. “Forces responded to the attack with immediate fire.”
Palestinian security officials named the suspected assailants as Ezzedine Abu Shahdam, 17, and Shadi Dweik, 22, both residents of Hebron.
The soldier was taken to hospital in moderate condition.
Amnesty International accused Israel of a series of “unlawful killings of Palestinians using intentional lethal force without justification” in east Jerusalem and the West Bank.
The rights group said that in at least four cases, “Palestinians were deliberately shot dead by Israeli forces when they posed no imminent threat to life, in what appear to have been extrajudicial executions.”
Also Tuesday 76-year-old American Israeli Richard Lakin, who was shot in the head and stabbed in the chest on a Jerusalem bus on October 13, succumbed to his wounds.
His son Micah Avni Lakin said he had been a big fan of social media, where young Palestinians have incited attacks, uploading videos and sharing the hashtag “#Jerusalemintifada.
“One of the things that comes out of the tragic, horrific event that happened to my father is the need to rethink the way we look at social media,” said Lakin
“To be able to put on Facebook or Twitter specific instructions on how to slice somebody’s chest straight open and cut their intestines, just like was done to my father… is just completely and utterly unacceptable.”
Before he died Lakin’s family put his name on a petition of 20,000 Israelis backing a lawsuit an Israeli NGO filed Monday against Facebook, for failing to remove pages that encourage the killing of Jews.
The surge in violence has prompted an intense diplomatic drive to douse tensions that many fear herald a third Palestinian intifada.
However these efforts have already run into trouble.
Netanyahu on Tuesday called government members to order after deputy foreign minister Tzipi Hotovely stoked Palestinian fears by saying it was her “dream to see the Israeli flag flying” over the holy site, which is sacred to both Muslims and Jews.
Netanyahu’s office reacted swiftly with a statement late Monday recalling his promise to maintain the status quo which allows Muslims to pray at the site, and Jews to visit but not pray there.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu made ​​it clear that he expects all members of the government to act accordingly,” his office said.
Hotovely, from Netanyahu’s rightwing Likud party, said on television that Jews should be allowed to pray at Al-Aqsa, but later issued a statement saying: “My personal opinions are not government policy.”
One of the measures agreed in a flurry of diplomatic efforts last week was the installation of cameras at the Al-Aqsa compound.
However Israel and Jordan have locked horns over who will control the installation of the cameras.

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