Month: October 2016

“Inferno,” the latest big screen installment of Dan Brown’s conspiracy novels, fizzled out in its opening weekend in North America, industry data showed Monday, earning $10 million less than expected.
The third film in the series that stars Tom Hanks took a frosty $14.9 million in North America, a fraction of the $77.1 million debut of “The Da Vinci Code,” which kicked off the franchise in 2006.
“At this point, it could truly flame out and struggle to reach $40 million,” wrote Brad Brevet of film finance website Box Office Mojo, noting that it been expected to make closer to $25 million.
But he added that Sony had kept the budget at a relatively low $75 million, meaning that, combined with overseas ticket sales, the studio wasn’t “looking at a complete blood bath on the balance sheet.”
Based on Dan Brown’s bestselling book series, the film stars Felicity Jones alongside Hanks, who returns to the role of Harvard professor Robert Langdon, this time seeking to stop an evil billionaire from killing off the world’s population by releasing a deadly virus.
Sony’s poor showing with “Inferno” cleared the way for Lionsgate’s “Boo! A Madea Halloween” — the latest installment in Tyler Perry’s Madea franchise — to retain the number one spot in its second week.
The comedy, in which Perry reprises his role as a tough-talking matriarch, took in $17.2 million for a total of $52.6 million, box office tracker Exhibitor Relations said.
“Jack Reacher: Never Go Back” slipped a spot from last week to take third place with $9.6 million.
The sequel to the 2012 film “Jack Reacher” stars Tom Cruise as a former soldier now going it alone, based on the book series by British author Lee Child.
The financial thriller “The Accountant,” starring Ben Affleck, held on to its number four spot from last week with $8.5 million.
The film follows an autistic mathematics savant who capitalizes on his fondness for numbers by becoming an undercover forensic accountant for criminal organizations.
Horror prequel “Ouija: Origin of Evil” — about home seances gone wrong — dropped two spots to take fifth place during its second weekend with $7.1 million.
Rounding out the top 10 films were:
“The Girl on the Train” ($4.4 million)
“Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” ($4.1 million)
“Keeping Up with the Joneses” ($3.4 million)
“Storks” ($2.9 million)
“Ae Dil Hai Mushkil” ($2.2 million)

The United States issued a stern rebuke to its ally Turkey on Monday after authorities stepped up their persecution of media outlets critical of the government.
Washington regularly expresses concern about the increasingly authoritarian treatment of the media by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government.
But State Department spokesman John Kirby raised the tone after Turkey detained the editor of the newspaper Cumhuriyet and closed 15 other outlets.
“The United States is deeply concerned by what appears to be an increase in official pressure on opposition media outlets in Turkey,” he said.
Kirby called Cumhuriyet “one of Turkey’s most respected newspapers” and criticized Ankara’s ongoing detention of many journalists.
He insisted Washington remains a friend of Turkey and supports its fight against terrorism, including its fight against the Kurdish PKK group.
But he added: “We encourage the government of Turkey to ensure that the rule of law and fundamental freedoms are protected.
“Democracies become stronger by allowing diverse expressions of views, particularly in difficult times,” he argued.
Cumhuriyet’s editor Murat Sabuncu was detained and police are hunting for executive board chairman Akin Atalay, Turkey’s official news agency said.
The paper, which has published revelations embarrassing for the government, said at least a dozen journalists were detained in dawn raids.

Burnley striker Andre Gray says he wants to move on now he has returned to first-team action following a four-game ban for homophobic tweets he made several years ago.
The 25-year-old — who played in Saturday’s 0-0 draw with Manchester United in the Premier League — published the tweets when he was a non-league player in 2012, but they resurfaced on social media in August.
“I’m glad it’s over with. It’s obviously a long time ago now so it’s been frustrating,” said Gray on Monday.
“It is what it is at the end of the day so I’ve just got to get on with it and keep my head down.
“I’ve come here to play football and play at the highest level, so it was just another bump in the road.
“It’s over with now and I’m just going to move on with my career.”
Gray, who was playing for non-league side Hinckley United when he made the offensive tweets, admitted it had not been easy sitting on the sidelines unable to play.
“It’s been difficult,” said Gray, who was last season’s Championship (second tier) player of the year for his immense role in helping Burnley regain their Premier League status.
“I’ve been training and having to do extras.
“It’s hard because you want to be playing. I’ve just kept my head down, really, tried to stay fit and just got on with it.
“It’s like the manager (Sean Dyche) said — it’s what comes with the territory. It’s where I wanted to be and it’s just one of those things.”

Ivory Coast striker Wilfried Bony ended a 10-month goal drought with a brace against former club Swansea City as Stoke City’s revival continued with a 3-1 win in Monday’s Premier League clash.
Both goals for the 27-year-old Manchester City loanee were set up by another former Swansea favourite, Joe Allen, with Alfie Mawson also putting through his own net as Stoke claimed a third win on the bounce.
“It is crazy that my first goals come against my ex-team, it is disappointing for them but that is how football happens,” Bony told Sky Sports.
“I have missed some chances but I knew the goals would come. Every game I push myself.”
Swansea, who had levelled in the first half through Wayne Routledge, have made their worst start to a Premier League season with just five points from 10 matches. It is also the first time they have gone nine games without a win.
“There is no easy solution to getting confidence back,” Swansea manager Bob Bradley told Sky Sports.
“When you are going through a bad stretch you have to have belief.
“It was 1-1 at half-time but we didn’t start the second half in a way that suggested we could win the game,” added the former United States coach, who has picked up just one point from three games in charge after replacing Francesco Guidolin.
Stoke are unbeaten in five matches and climb to 12th, five points clear of the relegation zone, while Swansea are second from bottom and five points adrift of safety.
It took less than three minutes for Bony to make his mark, pouncing to prod home from inside the six-yard box after Allen’s mishit half-volley for his first goal in 23 matches for club and country.
However, the Swans levelled within five minutes as Routledge did brilliantly to head home Gylfi Sigurdsson’s superb cross.
The hosts were impressive going forward and Scotland international Charlie Adam — making his first Premier League start of the season — hit the post with a fantastic curling effort.
Stoke suffered a blow in the 26th minute as Swiss playmaker Xherdan Shaqiri had to go off injured and was replaced by Egyptian youngster Ramadan Sobhi.
Adam then conjured up another splendid effort but was this time denied by the other post.
The woodwork was proving to be a very effective 12th man for the visitors as it once gain came to the rescue after Allen’s astute pass found Marko Arnautovic, who rounded goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski only to see his effort cannon back off an upright.
Bony blazed over after being teed up by Arnautovic at the start of the second half but 19-year-old Sobhi was the creator as the hosts restored their advantage in the 55th minute.
Sobhi produced a delightful piece of skill inside the box after a superb pass from Irish veteran Glenn Whelan and his shot was diverted into his own net by Mawson.
It was another brilliant Stoke move which produced the killer third goal 17 minutes from time.
Arnautovic delivered a sublime back-heeled pass to find Allen, whose shot was saved by Fabianski. However, the Welsh international reacted brilliantly to help the ball across to Bony, who applied the finish.

American actress Tippi Hedren alleges in a new autobiography that Alfred Hitchcock sexually assaulted and intimidated her while they were working together in the 1960s, according to reports.
Hedren has accused the director of sexual harassment on a number of previous occasions, notably in interviews around the 2012 release of the HBO movie “The Girl,” which depicts his alleged obsession with her.
But the publication of “Tippi: A Memoir” on Tuesday will mark the first time she has written about her treatment herself.
Hedren, plucked from obscurity by Hitchcock to star in his 1963 masterpiece “The Birds,” alleges that the director became obsessed with her shortly after signing her to a five-year contract.
He demanded that other cast members steer clear of her, and became upset if he saw her talking to other men, she writes, according to the New York Post and Daily Mail, which obtained access to the memoir.
She says Hitchcock once threw himself on top of her and tried to kiss her in the back of his limousine, the newspapers report.
She reportedly describes another incident when the director cornered her on set one day and asked her to touch him.
Whenever he caught her alone, “he’d find some way to express his obsession with me, as if I owed it to him to reciprocate somehow,” Hedren reportedly writes.
Hedren, whose daughter is the actress Melanie Griffith, also claims Hitchcock used his driver to stalk her and had her handwriting analyzed, according to the Mail.
Hitchcock and Hedren worked together on “Marnie” the following year, a film about a habitual thief with mental health problems who is raped by her husband on their wedding night.
Hedren says she was aware of a widespread belief that the scene of a man forcing himself on his “frigid, unattainable bride” was Hitchcock’s personal fantasy about her.
The British filmmaker, who died in 1980, expressed his love for her but became increasingly aggressive as she kept her distance, she reportedly said, describing one particularly traumatic attack.
“I’ve never gone into detail about this, and I never will. I’ll simply say that he suddenly grabbed me and put his hands on me,” she says.
“It was sexual, it was perverse, and it was ugly.”
She wrote that she didn’t tell anyone about the incidents because at the time, “sexual harassment and stalking were terms that didn’t exist,” the Post reported.
Hitchcock grew frustrated by her resistance and allegedly warned her he’d ruin her career, blocking Universal when it attempted to submit her performance for an Oscar.
“I’ve made it my mission ever since to see to it that while Hitchcock may have ruined my career, I never gave him the power to ruin my life,” Hedren reportedly writes.

New Zealand great Dan Carter and two other players from French side Racing 92 are to take their case to the public prosecutor after confidential medical records were made public by media, their club announced Monday.
Carter, fellow former All Black Joe Rokocoko and Argentinian winger Juan Imhoff were the target of an investigation by the medical commission of the French Rugby Federation after testing positive for corticosteroids following last season’s domestic Top 14 final.
But the trio, as well as Racing’s medical staff, were all cleared of any wrongdoing.
The club said in a statement that media reports had “blurred public perceptions of their players”.
The statement added that they and the players had decided to take action “in order to shine light on how their medical confidentiality was breached.”
“After totally justified medical treatment dispensed conforming to the rules, three Racing players saw their medical confidentiality breached when details were reported by the media,” Racing added.
“This serious and evident violation must not create any future difficulty for anyone wishing to work securely and transparently with the relevant anti-doping institutions.”
Corticosteroids can be used to combat pain, inflammation or allergies.
They can be taken legally or illegally, depending on the method of ingestion.
It is illegal to take corticosteroids orally or have them injected in either the blood or muscle, but they can be injected into joints or inhaled.
Even if taken in a banned manner, athletes can gain permission to do so by applying for the controversial Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE).
French sports daily L’Equipe originally revealed the positive tests on October 7.
French television channel Canal+ claimed Carter’s corticosteroid readings showed 81 nanogrammes per millilitre, with 49 for Rokocoko and 31 for Imhoff, while the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has set a limit of 30.

A former president of El Salvador, Elias Antonio Saca, arrested with six other people over the weekend, stole $246 million from state coffers, the Central American nation’s chief state prosecutor said Monday.
“An overall amount of $246 million was embezzled into the accounts of individuals, benefiting those charged,” Douglas Melendez told a news conference.
Nearly half of that was taken out in cash after being transferred from government accounts to those of presidential employees who wired them to accounts belonging to companies “close to the accuseds.”
Several companies connected to a cousin of Saca’s were searched under warrant on Monday.
Saca, 51, and the six other suspects, including three currently serving government officials, were arrested on Sunday for alleged embezzlement and money laundering.
A self-made businessman, Saca was a well-known journalist before becoming president for a five-year term in 2004.
He was seen as a strong ally of the United States during his time in power.
The other suspects arrested include former public waterworks official Cesar Funes, 46, and ex-presidential communications chief Julio Rank, 65.
The other three people detained are Pablo Gomez, Francisco Rodriguez Artega and Jorge Alberto Harrera.
They worked in Saca’s government and are currently financial officials in the government of leftist President Salvador Sanchez.
Saca was a member of the conservative Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) during his time as president.
He was expelled from ARENA at the end of 2009 after the party blamed him for its defeat in presidential and legislative elections that year.
The suspects could face sentences of up to 15 years in jail for embezzlement and money laundering, according to El Salvador’s penal code.
Saca was already facing charges dating to early this year, when he was accused of embezzling some $4 million.
His leftist successor as president, Mauricio Funes, faces similar charges. He obtained political asylum in Nicaragua in September, after saying he feared for his life in El Salvador.

The UN Security Council agreed Monday to press on with the deployment of a new UN mission for Colombia that will monitor a ceasefire until a final peace deal is reached.
The council endorsed recommendations from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to deploy 400 observers in Colombia after President Juan Manuel Santos extended the ceasefire with FARC rebels until December 31.
The government signed a historic peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) on September 26 to end decades of conflict, but in a shock move, voters rejected the deal in a referendum.
With 152 observers already on the ground, Ban told council members in a letter that it was important to “quickly ramp up the mission’s capacity” to get to work on truce monitoring.
Under the peace deal, the UN mission was to oversee the disarming of rebels but its tasks for now will be limited to the ceasefire monitoring.
Ban said the mission can accommodate immediately another 68 observers and noted that support from Latin American and Caribbean countries was critical to build up the monitoring force.
Both the government and the FARC had requested that the UN mission be authorized to verify the ceasefire signed on October 13.
Ban argued in the letter sent last week that the mission is now more important than ever.
“Its presence helps to foster popular confidence that, however complex the ongoing political dialogue may be, a point of no return has been reached in the search for peace in Colombia,” he wrote in the letter obtained by AFP.
Over the weekend, Santos said he was hoping for a peace deal by Christmas and warned that any further delay could make the peace process “explode.”

Wales defence coach Shaun Edwards has called on the side to climb the global rankings to improve their chances at the 2019 World Cup in Japan.
November sees Wales, currently fifth in the World Rugby’s standings, at home to Australia, Argentina, Japan and South Africa,
A run of good results, starting with Saturday’s clash against the Wallabies in Cardiff, will help Wales in their quest to break into the top four come May’s 2019 World Cup draw.
World champions New Zealand, on a record 18-game unbeaten streak, are currently out in front with England second, Australia third and South Africa fourth.
The leading quartet will be the top seeds and that should, in theory at least, lead to a ‘better’ pool draw and a more straightforward route to the knockout stages of the World Cup.
Wales dropped to ninth place shortly before the 2015 World Cup draw and as a result found themselves in the same group as England and Australia.
Although Wales came through the ‘pool of death’, with tournament hosts England suffering the embarrassment of a first-round exit, they were beaten by Australia before losing to South Africa in the quarter-finals.
Edwards for one would like Wales to make life easier for themselves, saying Monday: “We’ve only been in that top four four percent of the time since the world rankings came to fruition 15 or 16 years ago.
“So if we can push our way into the top four that will be a big effort from our boys, and that’s what we’re aiming to do.
“That would be mission accomplished with the World Cup draw on the horizon.”
Wales have lost their last 11 Tests against Australia, several by a slender margin, but with the Wallabies having had their fair share of problems in 2016, home fans will hope that run ends this weekend.
“They have had some criticism over the summer but they came second in the Rugby Championship,” said Edwards.
“At the moment New Zealand are obviously number one by a distance, but the rest of the competition they basically won,” he added.
“People talk about their two sevens, but they have other outstanding players other than (Michael) Hooper and (David) Pocock.”
Wales captain Sam Warburton is set to miss Saturday’s match, with the Cardiff Blues flanker in line to play for his club instead as he continues his recovery from a neck injury.
Meanwhile full-back Liam Williams and lock Jake Ball are both injury doubts for a Wales side where Rob Howley will be in charge following head coach Warren Gatland’s secondment to the British and Irish Lions.
Wales have put their team announcement back until Thursday and Edwards said: “Liam was in a boot last week, it did look serious, but we’ll wait until the last minute with the medics.
“We’re hopeful he’ll play, but he’ll definitely play some part in the series over the next month.”
The former Great Britain rugby league international added: “Jake has started light training, so we’ll see if he’s available for selection later in the week.”

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola will have a Halloween trick up his sleeve when his old club Barcelona visits on Tuesday, according to the Catalan giants’ coach Luis Enrique.
Guardiola sprang a surprise in the teams’ first Champions League Group C encounter at the Camp Nou two weeks ago, picking midfielder Kevin De Bruyne up front in place of star striker Sergio Aguero.
Barcelona won 4-0, but it took the dismissal of City goalkeeper Claudio Bravo for the home side to take control and Luis Enrique expects Guardiola to present him with fresh dilemmas at the Etihad Stadium.
“I don’t think they can be any more aggressive in terms of pressure, because they were pressing us up to the stand almost,” said Luis Enrique, who spent five years playing with Guardiola at Barcelona.
“Pep’s Manchester City have a lot of things going for them. They can do many different things. You need to adapt to their football so you can press them.
“But they have a lot of good qualities. Obviously playing here it’s different because we know what we did against them.
“I sense there will be changes also because we know Pep and we know his ideas. We have to be attentive because Pep will try to touch the right key to get the right result.”
Barcelona require just a point to reach the last 16 and will be guaranteed top spot in Group C if they beat City and Borussia Moenchengladbach fail to overcome Celtic.
But Guardiola is missing several first-team players, with centre-back Gerard Pique, left-back Jordi Alba and captain Andres Iniesta among those unavailable due to injury.
Aguero is expected to return to City’s starting XI, having ended a six-game goal drought with a brace in Saturday’s 4-0 win at West Bromwich Albion.
“We know Sergio Aguero is one of the best strikers in the world,” said Barca’s Croatian midfielder Ivan Rakitic.
“When he starts to score, it’s bad for the other teams. He had a good day at the weekend. We hope tomorrow (Tuesday) he can be easy and wait for the next game at the weekend.”
Rakitic also expressed admiration for Guardiola, whose former squad number he now wears.
“When I took the number four jersey, it was purely because of him,” he told the pre-match media conference.
“When I saw there was an opportunity to play with the number four, it was a great opportunity and one I took with both hands. He was one of the best in the world.
“He’s fantastic and I hope he’s really successful in the future, just not tomorrow. It would be fantastic to work with him one day. And if not, I’ll let him come for a coffee.”

Pristina on Monday advised its citizens not to use neighbouring Serbia as a transit country after the second arrest of a Kosovo Albanian in a month.
Serbian authorities on Friday arrested Hilmi Kelmendi, 36, as he was travelling from Kosovo to Germany on suspicion of committing war crimes during the 1998-1999 conflict, a statement from the foreign ministry in Pristina said.
It denounced the arrest as “unacceptable”.
In Belgrade, an interior ministry official confirmed Kelmendi’s arrest on the basis of a court warrant, saying he was currently “in hands of the war crimes prosecutor’s office.” She declined to provide further details.
At the end of September, Serbian police also arrested Nehat Thaqi, Kosovo police’s director of the northern Mitrovica area, as he crossed into Serbia. He was detained on suspicion of “terrorism” although the specific allegations are unknown.
On Friday, a Belgrade court extended his one-month detention for another 30 days.
Following the arrests, Kosovo’s foreign ministry urged all citizens to “who, for whatever reason, choose Serbia as a transit country, to avoid it as much as possible in the coming months.”
“This arrest is unacceptable and endangers many processes achieved during the dialogue for the normalisation of relations between Kosovo and Serbia,” the ministry said.
Since 2011, Kosovo and Serbia have been negotiating under EU auspices to improve ties which have remained strained since the end of the war and particularly since Pristina’s unilaterally declaration of independence in 2008 that Belgrade refuses to accept.
Freedom of movement was one of the first accords clinched, and since December 2011 Serbia agreed to allow ethnic Albanians to travel across the “border/boundary” on the basis of ID cards.
The war between Serbian security forces and pro-independence ethnic Albanian guerrillas ended after a three-month NATO air campaign that ousted Belgrade-controlled troops from the breakaway province of Kosovo.
The war claimed some 13,000 lives, mostly ethnic Albanians.

The EU Parliament will ask French far-right leader Marine Le Pen to reimburse it nearly 340,000 euros paid to two of her aides as they allegedly carried out party business, sources told AFP on Monday.
The anti-EU Le Pen is suspected of illegally paying wages to two parliamentary assistants who were working on matters not pertaining to her role as a European lawmaker, an official from the parliament and another source told AFP.
The 339,900-euro ($373,000) demand was first reported by the French magazine Marianne and website Mediapart.
“The parliament knows it must begin to recover the sum in question from Marine Le Pen,” the parliamentary source, who asked to remain anonymous, said to AFP.
Another source said that Le Pen, who is a major candidate for the French presidency next year, had missed a four-week deadline given on September 30 to provide feedback on the case.
A lawyer for Le Pen, Marcel Ceccaldi, told AFP his client will refuse to cooperate without first receiving the full report on the matter from the EU’s European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF).
“How can you possibly separate the activities of a MEP and the president of a major political party,” Ceccaldi said.
“European debates and questions on French society, such as migration and Europe’s visa-free Schengen policy, are intimately linked,” he said.
Florian Philippot, a top advisor to Le Pen, told French news channel BFMTV that the bloc was harsh on those who questioned it.
“At the European Union, the arbitrary reigns,” he said. “It goes easy on its friends… and is merciless with its adversaries.”
OLAF meanwhile confirmed in an email that its investigation was completed in July.
“In this particular case, OLAF sent its final report containing financial recommendations to the European Parliament, so that any EU funds unduly paid are returned to the EU budget,” the office said.
In March 2015, European Parliament President Martin Schulz alerted OLAF to possible financial irregularities committed by the National Front (FN) party in wages to 20 EU parliamentary assistants.
French police are also investigating the allegations in a separate probe that is still ongoing.
The current case involves two assistants who worked directly for Le Pen, Thierry Legier and Catherine Griset.
A similar OLAF case targets Le Pen’s estranged father Jean-Marie Le Pen, who is also a MEP. The EU is claiming the elder Le Pen should repay 320,000 euros paid to his parliamentary assistant.
In an unrelated case, EU lawmakers last week lifted the parliamentary immunity of Jean-Marie Le Pen, a move sought by French prosecutors who want to try him for allegedly inciting racial hate.

Stung by a chastening 4-0 defeat at Camp Nou two weeks ago, Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola makes a second attempt to outwit his former club Barcelona on Tuesday.
Guardiola’s men were undone by the second-half dismissal of goalkeeper Claudio Bravo on October 19, when Lionel Messi scored a hat-trick to propel his side five points clear of City at the Group C summit.
Another defeat would give Borussia Moenchengladbach and Celtic an opportunity to overtake City and Guardiola knows his side face a major test of their nerve at the Etihad Stadium.
“We have to be focused for 90 minutes, knowing they are going to provoke our mistakes because of the quality they have,” said Guardiola, who led Barcelona to European glory in 2009 and 2011.
“Barcelona provoke your mistakes. But we had a few chances and have to keep going in that sense and try to finish better than we did in Barcelona.
“We will try. We will try it again. I’ve never thought we could not win. I have never entered a match thinking we can’t win.
“We have to play almost perfectly to win, but if not we congratulate them and set our minds on the game against Celtic and in Moenchengladbach in a few weeks.”
After a run of six games without victory — the longest of Guardiola’s coaching career — City blew off the cobwebs with a 4-0 win at West Bromwich Albion on Saturday that kept them top of the Premier League.
Having scored twice and made a goal for Ilkay Gundogan, striker Sergio Aguero is expected to keep his place in the starting XI, after being dropped for the trip to Barcelona.
With Barcelona old boy Bravo suspended, Willy Caballero is due to deputise between the posts.
Bacary Sagna (hamstring) and Fabian Delph (muscle) are the only expected absentees for City, who reached the Champions League semi-finals for the first time under Manuel Pellegrini last season.
Barcelona are aiming for a sixth successive victory over City, who they eliminated from the Champions League in both 2013-14 and 2014-15.
Luis Enrique’s side, European champions for a fifth time in 2015, require just a point to reach the last 16 and will be assured of first place if they win and Gladbach do not prevail at home to Celtic.
“I think it’s a great opportunity for us to qualify,” said the Barcelona coach.
“Obviously it won’t be easy. We want to be first in the group. We will have to play very well, as we did in Camp Nou, with and without the ball.
“It’s difficult against a team like City, who know how to occupy space in the right way and don’t like losing the ball. We’ll have to play at our top, top level.”
Barca are currently on a four-game winning streak, but they arrived in Manchester on Monday with a depleted squad.
With Gerard Pique (ankle) and Jordi Alba (hamstring) absent, as well as Aleix Vidal (thigh), they are missing two first-choice defenders, while captain Andres Iniesta (knee) is also out.
Jeremy Mathieu, a potential option at centre-back, is nursing a calf problem, but his first-leg dismissal means he is suspended in any case.
French defenders Samuel Umtiti and Lucas Digne are due to fill in for Pique and Alba, with Arda Turan, Rafinha, Denis Suarez and Andre Gomes vying for the right to take Iniesta’s place in midfield.
Luis Enrique said Turan’s fitness would be tested in the final pre-match training session after the Turkey captain sat out the 1-0 victory over Granada at the weekend with an ankle injury.
Asked what changes in Iniesta’s absence, midfield colleague Ivan Rakitic said: “A lot changes. He’s a unique player.
“Whoever plays in that position tomorrow (Tuesday), we’ll have to be together and help that player.”

Andy Murray will meet Fernando Verdasco in his opening match at the Paris Masters after the Spaniard advanced at the expense of injured Dutchman Robin Haase on Monday.
Verdasco, a former world number seven, was leading 6-2, 3-2 before a hip injury forced Haase to throw in the towel in their first-round encounter.
World number two Murray can dethrone Novak Djokovic at the top of the rankings with a victory in the French capital if the Serb fails to reach the final, or if the Briton makes the final and Djokovic falls before the semis.
Former Australian Open finalist Marcos Baghdatis defeated French wildcard Paul-Henri Mathieu 6-2, 6-4, while Benoit Paire joined the French exodus after losing 6-4, 7-6 (7/4) to Paolo Lorenzi.
Pablo Carreno Busta, who defeated Fabio Fognini to lift the Kremlin Cup in Moscow a week ago, dealt the Italian another loss in Paris, racing to a 6-3, 6-1 victory.
Djokovic takes on the winner of Tuesday’s match between Nicolas Almagro and Gilles Muller after receiving a first-round bye, while US Open champion Stan Wawrinka begins against Germany’s Jan-Lennard Struff, who thrashed Illya Marchenko 6-1, 6-1.
Tomas Berdych is ninth in the Race to London standings with the Czech needing to progress to the last four to remain in with a chance of playing at the end-of-season Tour finals next month.
He trails Dominic Thiem and Marin Cilic, a winner in Basel at the weekend, in the battle for the final two places in the eight-man field and must beat Portugal’s Joao Sousa to remain in contention.

Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who saved tens of thousands of Jews during World War II, was finally declared dead by his homeland on Monday over 70 years after disappearing into the hands of the Soviet Union.
The announcement brings only a partial closure to one of the greatest mysteries of the Cold War — the fate of the so-called “Swedish Schindler” — as his body was never returned to his family.
Wallenberg issued Swedish papers to tens of thousands of Jews, allowing them to flee Nazi-occupied Hungary and likely death.
But months before the war ended, the Soviets invaded Budapest and summoned the Swede to their headquarters in January 1945.
He disappeared, and his fate became a flashpoint issue between the West and the Soviet Union.
“The official date of his death is July 31, 1952”, said Pia Gustafsson, an official from Sweden’s tax authority, which registers birth and deaths.
“This date is purely formal. Legally, we must choose a date at least five years after his disappearance and there were signs of life until the end of July 1947,” she said.
The decision came after a representative of Wallenberg’s family asked for a death certificate from Sweden, which published search notices for him and received no new information on his whereabouts.
A statement sent to AFP in 2015 by the family said Wallenberg’s “declaration of death is a way to deal with the trauma we lived through, to bring one phase to closure and move on.”
Wallenberg was sent as a special envoy to the capital of Nazi-controlled Hungary in 1944, and by early 1945, he had issued Swedish papers to thousands of Jews, allowing them to flee the country and likely death.
The Swedish diplomat, who was 32 when he disappeared, also acquired buildings to house as many Jews as possible and provide them with extraterritorial status.
He organised the Budapest rescue mission which, according to some estimates, saved 100,000 people from persecution.
Wallenberg’s efforts earned him the nickname “Swedish Schindler” in reference to Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist who rescued some 1,200 Polish Jews during the war.
In 1957, the Soviet Union released a document saying Wallenberg had been jailed in the Lubyanka prison, the notorious building where the KGB security services were headquartered, and that he died of heart failure on July 17, 1947.
But his family refused to accept that version of events, and for decades tried to establish what happened to him.
In 2000 the head of a Russian commission of investigation conceded Wallenberg had been shot and killed by KGB agents in Lubyanka in 1947 for political reasons, but declined to be more specific or to cite hard evidence.

The notorious “Jungle” migrant camp on the outskirts of the French port of Calais has for years been a staging post for migrants trying to smuggle across the Channel to Britain.
Following are key dates in the history of the sprawling settlement which on Monday was finally closed by the French authorities.
In 1999, the Red Cross opens the Sangatte camp near Calais port for migrants sleeping rough in and around the city.
Under pressure from Britain, which sees it as having a “pull” effect on migration, the camp is closed in 2002.
Hundreds of mainly Afghan migrants set up a camp east of Calais. They call it the Jungle.
In September 2009, the camp is demolished for the first time on the orders of then president Nicolas Sarkozy.
In early 2015, a new settlement named the New Jungle sprouts up near a state-run day centre for migrants established at the site. The camp later becomes simply known as the Jungle.
From mid-2015 on, migrants attempting to board lorries or enter the Channel Tunnel frequently clash with police around the camp, which mushrooms as asylum-seekers pour into Europe.
Several migrants die attempting to climb onto lorries heading towards Britain under cover of night or trying to sneak into the Channel Tunnel.
In January 2016, the port of Calais is shut for more than three hours after dozens of migrants occupy a moored Britain-bound ferry.
The southern half of the Jungle camp is demolished in late February and early March. Protesting Iranian migrants sew their mouths shut. Those evicted are moved to the northern part of the camp.
Work begins in September on a four-metre (13-foot) high wall along part of the main port road, to prevent migrants climbing onto trucks.
On September 26, President Francois Hollande announces that the Jungle will be demolished and that the migrants — estimated to number over 6,000 — will be moved to shelters around the country.
Britain takes in over 200 unaccompanied minors seeking to be reunited with relatives or contacts across the Channel.
The operation to tear down the camp starts on October 24, with thousands of migrants bussed out to shelters nationwide. A day later work begins to demolish the shantytown.
Hollande hails the operation as a success.
On October 31, French authorities clear the last shacks, signalling the end of the camp.

Fledgling fly-half Joey Carbery could make his Test debut as Ireland go in search of a first win over New Zealand when they face the world champions in Chicago on Saturday.
Carberry, included in a 27-man squad on Monday — a day before his 21st birthday — has made just nine senior appearances for Leinster.
But with Ulster’s Paddy Jackson missing the trip to the United States for personal reasons, Carbery could provide bench cover for first-choice No. 10 Jonathan Sexton after he was selected ahead of Ian Madigan, now at French club Bordeaux.
The Irish will be without experienced forwards Peter O’Mahony, Sean O’Brien and Iain Henderson — all returning to fitness — as they bid to defeat a New Zealand side looking to extend their world record for successive international wins by a major rugby nation to 19 consecutive Tests.
In 28 Tests spanning more than a hundred years, Ireland have never beaten New Zealand, with their best result a 10-10 draw in Dublin in 1973.
But their last meeting saw Ireland, under New Zealand-born Joe Schmidt, go desperately close before Ryan Crotty’s injury-time try, converted by Aaron Cruden, gave the All Blacks a 24-22 win at Dublin’s Lansdowne Road three years ago.
Ireland and New Zealand will meet again in Dublin on November 19.
Ireland squad to play New Zealand at Soldier Field, Chicago, on Saturday:
Finlay Bealham (Connacht), Rory Best (Ulster, capt), Joey Carbery (Leinster), Sean Cronin (Leinster), Ultan Dillane (Connacht), Tadgh Furlong (Leinster), Craig Gilroy (Ulster) Cian Healy (Leinster), Jamie Heaslip (Leinster), Robbie Henshaw (Leinster), Billy Holland (Munster), Rob Kearney (Leinster), Kieran Marmion (Connacht), Jack McGrath (Leinster), Luke McGrath (Leinster), Jori Murphy (Leinster), Conor Murray (Munster), Jared Payne (Ulster), Garry Ringrose (Leinster), Donnacha Ryan (Munster), Jack Ryan (Munster), Jonathan Sexton (Leinster), CJ Stander (Munster), Devin Toner (Leinster), Andrew Trimble (Ulster), Josh Van der Flier (Leinster), Simon Zebo (Munster)

Basement Russian side Samara have sacked their Belgian manager Frank Vercauteren for a series of poor results, a senior club official said on Monday.
The announcement came shortly after Samara suffered a 1-0 away defeat to promoted Orenburg in the Russian Premier League, leaving them bottom of the table.
“I can confirm: Vercauteren has been sacked,” Sport Express quoted Dmitry Shlyakhtin, a regional sports minister and club director, as saying.
“The club’s poor results were the reason.”
Samara will present their new manager in the near future.
The 60-year-old former Belgian international Vercauteren took over Samara in June 2014, winning promotion to the Premier League the same season.
But Samara have struggled from the start of this term and have just seven points from 12 matches.

“These men were found guilty of having left Bosnia in 2013 and 2014 and joining the ranks of the Islamic State terrorist organisation,” said judge Mirsad Strika, reading the verdict.
“They participated in terrorist activities, they admitted to have been on Syria’s territory and that their goal was to fight the regime of Bashar al-Assad,” Strika said, referring to the Syrian president.
The first defendant Enes Mesic, jailed for three years, is considered a particularly radical Islamist belonging to the hardline Wahhabi community in Bosnia’s northeastern village of Dubnica.
Out of the seven convicted jihadists, only Ibro Delic, sentenced to a 23-month jail term, was in the court to hear the verdict. The others, all under house arrest, were represented by their lawyers.
Two defendants, each sentenced to 22 months in jail, were also found guilty of illegal possession of arms, including an automatic rifle and a dozen hand grenades.
A radical Bosnian Islamic leader, Husein Bosnic, sentenced by a local court in 2015 to seven years in prison, has received the most severe punishment in Bosnia so far among those charged with having fought alongside jihadists in Syria and Iraq.
The departures of Bosnians to Syria and Iraq have nearly stopped, although some 200 people were still there in mid-2016, out of a total 330 that had left, including many women and children, according to authorities and official figures.
Around 40 people have been killed while some 50 have returned to Bosnia.
Some jihadists have pleaded guilty and were sentenced to a symbolic one-year jail term, after an agreement with the prosecutor.

After another case of so near yet so far for Atletico Madrid, the spectacular form of Yannick Carrasco is powering the latest strong bid from Diego Simeone’s men to finally be crowned kings of Europe.
Victory at home to Champions League debutants FC Rostov on Tuesday will seal Atletico’s place in the last 16 for the fourth consecutive year with two games to spare.
Carrasco’s goal in May’s final of last season’s Champions League wasn’t enough as cross-city rivals Real Madrid emerged victorious in a penalty shoot-out.
Atletico are now the only team to have lost three finals without ever winning the European Cup — two of them in the past three seasons under Simeone.
Yet, with the Belgian winger enjoying a breakout second season at the Vicente Calderon, Antoine Griezmann and Kevin Gameiro forging a prolific partnership up front and the best defence in Europe proving as solid as ever, Atletico could make their final year at the Calderon one to remember.
Carrasco’s six goals in his last four games mean he has even ousted Euro 2016’s top marksman Griezmann as Atletico’s top scorer this season.
“He has improved with a lot of hard work, sacrifice and, above all, understanding the potential he has,” said Simeone after Carrasco’s double saw off Malaga 4-2 in La Liga on Saturday.
He has also shone in Europe. Carrasco has provided the winner in Atletico’s last two Champions League outings as three 1-0 wins over PSV Eindhoven, Bayern Munich and Rostov put them in a commanding position at the top of Group D.
“I feel great. Thanks to the team I am in very good form and I hope to continue like this,” said Carrasco.
The 23-year-old has also already improved his tally of goals from an inconsistent first season in Spain when he hit five in 43 appearances in all competitions.
“May he keep improving because he has a lot to offer,” added Simeone.
“Hopefully he understands that his biggest virtue is his ambition and hopefully he maintains that.”
Atletico quickly realised the talent they have on their hands, extending Carrasco’s contract to 2022 earlier this month just over 12 months into the five-year deal he signed when joining from Monaco for 20 million euros ($22 million).
Carrasco may also feel he has a debt to repay in the Champions League.
Despite his strike in the final against Real in Milan, he watched on as right-back Juanfran missed the crucial penalty having not stepped up to take one himself.
It could have been so different for Atletico had Griezmann not hit the bar with a second-half spot-kick.
The character showed by the Frenchman to shrug off that disappointment and net in the shoot-out was a reflection on his improvement not only as a player, but of his mental strength under Simeone.
Griezmann arrived at Atletico just over two years ago as a talented winger and has since been transformed into one of the most potent strikers in the world.
Simeone’s same tonic has rubbed off on a more confident and free-scoring Carrasco.

Around 220 African migrants forced their way through a fence between Morocco and the tiny Spanish enclave of Ceuta Monday, clashing with police in an incident that injured 35, officials said.
“The migrants demonstrated a hostile and violent attitude. Many were armed with sticks and they attacked the officers when they tried to prevent them from entering,” the Spanish government’s representative in Ceuta said in a statement.
Three policemen and 32 migrants were treated in hospital for minor injuries, the statement said.
The migrants were taken to a short-stay immigrant centre while Spanish authorities determine their legal status, a local police spokesman said.
Police were also searching for a handful of others who made it across the barbed-wire fence and fled into the surrounding hills.
Ceuta along with Melilla, another Spanish territory in North Africa, have the European Union’s only land borders with Africa.
They are favoured entry points for African migrants seeking a better life in Europe, who get there by either climbing over the border fence or by swimming along the coast.
In 2014, 15 migrants drowned as dozens tried to swim to Ceuta from a nearby beach.
At the time, human rights groups and migrants said Spanish police tried to keep them from reaching the shore by firing rubber bullets and spraying them with tear gas.

Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said Monday Turkey wants the drive to oust Islamic State jihadists from the Syrian city of Raqa to begin after operations in Iraq’s Mosul and a Turkish-backed mission in northern Syria are over.
“It would be right, militarily and strategically, to conduct this Raqa operation after the Mosul operation and Turkey’s Euphrates Shield operation have ended,” he told reporters in Ankara.
Last week US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter said operations for the “isolation” of Raqa, the de-facto capital of IS’ self-declared caliphate, should begin in conjunction with the assault on Mosul.
An offensive by Iraqi and Kurdish peshmerga forces to free Mosul, Iraq’s second biggest city, began in mid-October with air support from the US-led coalition.
Meanwhile Turkey is continuing with an operation called Euphrates Shield, launched on August 24, in which it is supporting opposition fighters in northern Syria with tanks and air strikes.
The Ankara-backed fighters comprise various brigades rather than one organised force, according to experts.
So far, the rebels have captured the IS stronghold of Jarabulus and retaken the symbolically important town of Dabiq.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said last week that the rebels would target Raqa after advancing towards the city of Al Bab in northern Syria and taking Manbij, recently captured by Syrian Kurdish YPG militia.
Euphrates Shield has two main goals: to clear IS elements from the Turkish-Syrian border and halt the westward advance of the YPG.
Last week Ankara conducted air strikes against People’s Protection Units (YPG) positions to stop their advance towards Al Bab, Turkish media said.
Ankara views the YPG as linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been waging an insurgency inside Turkey since 1984.

Eight days from Election Day, the provocative billionaire and the scandal-hit Democrat followed in the spirit of the bruising 2016 race by spending more time branding each other unfit to lead as they did highlighting their own strengths to voters.
Trump, aiming to disprove polls that show him trailing nationally and in key swing states, campaigned in Michigan, where Clinton has led every poll since the race began, hoping to capitalize on the controversy over the FBI’s renewed focus on his rival’s emails.
Allegations that Clinton put America at risk by using a private email server while secretary of state were thrust back into the spotlight Friday when FBI director James Comey said the bureau would study newly discovered messages possibly related to Clinton.
The bombshell announcement could shift the momentum in a race where Clinton was increasingly seen as the prohibitive favorite.
But a new NBC News/SurveyMonkey weekly tracking poll released Monday showed virtually no change in standing following the revelations, with Clinton maintaining a six-point lead over Trump, 47 percent to 41 percent.
Clinton, furious at Comey for making his announcement without providing evidence of wrongdoing, addressed the issue head on in Kent, Ohio.
“Now they apparently want to look at emails of one of my staffers. And by all means they should,” she told a rally in the crucial swing state.
“And I am sure they will reach the same conclusion they did when they looked at my emails for the last year: there is no case here.”
Trump countered that lingering suspicions against Clinton meant her election “would mire our government and our country in a constitutional crisis that we cannot afford.”
He predicted that “we would have a criminal trial for a sitting president,” and chastised Clinton for seeking to blame others for the scandal that has persisted for 20 months.
“She has brought all of this on herself,” he said.
Trump campaigned Sunday in Democrat-leaning Colorado and New Mexico, and holds a rally Tuesday in Wisconsin, where Clinton’s lead is 5.7 points, according to a RealClearPolitics poll aggregate.
University of Virginia politics professor Larry Sabato said the FBI development has changed the race’s dynamics.
“She would have been running a victory lap this week, running up the score,” he told AFP. “Instead she’s trying to hold on.”
Nevertheless Sabato distilled the Trump strategy to a simple truth: he needs to flip at least one Democratic-leaning state on November 8 in order to win.
“He is going to have to turn a blue state or two in addition to winning the battlegrounds,” Sabato said. “He has to win almost everything. If he wins all the battlegrounds, he needs one more blue state.”
Clinton, 69, hit the campaign trail hard Sunday in battleground Florida, where Trump has clawed back into a half-point lead, according to RealClearPolitics. A Florida victory would be a lifeline for Trump. Defeat there would almost certainly see him coming up short in the overall race.
On Monday in Ohio Clinton assailed him for using scare tactics to keep Democrats and left-leaning independents from trooping to the polls.
“His whole strategy is to suppress the vote. Lots of noise, lots of distractions. Throwing stuff at me,” she told diners at Angie’s Soul Cafe in Cleveland, where she made an unannounced stop.
Clinton meanwhile charged that Trump would be quick to consider using nuclear weapons, warning he would be a thin-skinned president who “loses his cool at the slightest provocation.”
“So imagine him in the Oval Office facing a real crisis.”
Clinton’s campaign was badly jolted when Comey announced that his agents are reviewing a newly discovered trove of emails, resurrecting an issue the candidate hoped was behind her.
Her response has been to hit out at the move as “deeply troubling” and to rally supporters to get out and vote.
President Barack Obama’s first attorney general, Eric Holder, issued a blistering opinion piece on Comey’s actions in Monday’s Washington Post.
Comey “made a serious mistake,” Holder wrote.
“It violated long-standing Justice Department policies and tradition. And it ran counter to guidance that I put in place four years ago laying out the proper way to conduct investigations during an election season.”
According to US media, the probe was renewed after agents seized a laptop used by Clinton’s close aide, Huma Abedin, and her now estranged husband, Anthony Weiner.
The disgraced former congressman, who resigned in 2011 after sending explicit online messages, is under investigation over allegations he sent sexual overtures to a 15-year-old girl.
Clinton campaigned Monday for a third straight day without Abedin by her side.

The Dutch government Monday said it needed more time to negotiate a compromise over a key EU-Ukraine pact, and will keep up intense talks at home and abroad ahead of a December EU summit.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has been walking a political tightrope since an April 6 referendum — organised by eurosceptic groups — in which 60 percent of voters rejected the cooperation accord with Kiev.
The Netherlands is the only one of the 28-member bloc that has yet to ratify the accord, which aims to boost political dialogue as well as economic and trade cooperation.
Even though it was a non-binding referendum, and voter turnout was very low, Rutte has been trying to find a way to amend the pact to honour the outcome.
He is suggesting adding a clause about no-military cooperation, and no guarantees for Ukraine’s accession to the European Union.
In a letter to parliament on Monday, Rutte said “only a legally binding solution that does justice to the ‘no vote’ can be ratified by The Netherlands.”
“But this takes time,” he stressed, adding it was in the country’s “national interests to do our utmost to find a solution.”
Rutte said he had already been in discussions with his European partners, and intended to continue the talks over the next six weeks leading up to the December 15-16 summit.
“Although no formal commitments have been made, the government believes that such a solution is feasible,” Rutte added.
In a heartfelt plea to opposition parties on Friday, Rutte warned without compromise the agreement could fail, and offer Russia a vision of a divided Europe.
With a Tuesday Dutch parliamentary deadline looming for a solution, Rutte had warned his government would have no choice but to propose a law by late Monday withdrawing the country’s support for the accord.
It would seem that weekend talks with opposition parties have bought the government more time to find a solution.
Rutte has found himself in a Catch-22 situation having failed to convince opposition parties to back his proposals to amend the accord. The opposition wants him to negotiate with Brussels first and bring back an amended treaty for debate.
But Rutte said Brussels first wanted assurances the accord will be passed by the Dutch parliament before asking other member states to accept any proposed changes.

Demolition crews destroyed the last shelters at the infamous “Jungle” migrant camp in Calais on Monday, AFP reporters at the site said.
Work began last Monday to clear the Jungle, home to around 6,000 migrants until a week ago and a glaring symbol of Europe’s worst migration crisis since World War II.

A top US diplomat was headed to Venezuela on Monday to underscore US support for a newly begun political dialogue between the leftist government and the opposition, the State Department said.
Thomas Shannon, the US undersecretary of state for political affairs, will meet with senior government officials, opposition leaders and representatives of civil society during the visit, which will run through Wednesday.
“His visit will underscore our support for the ongoing dialogue process, and our interest in the well-being of the Venezuelan people,” the State Department said.
Venezuelan government and opposition leaders on Sunday opened Vatican-mediated talks, agreeing to an agenda for further discussions aimed at defusing a deepening political impasse in the oil-rich South American nation.
The opposition has staged mass street protests and threatened to march on the presidential palace later this week after Venezuelan electoral authorities blocked a referendum to recall President Nicolas Maduro.
Discontent with Maduro, who succeeded the late Hugo Chavez in 2013, has been running high amid a worsening economic crisis that has led to shortages of food and medicine.

World champions Germany will be granted an audience with Pope Francis when the team travel to Italy for a friendly international next month, head coach Joachim Loew confirmed on Monday.
Germany play a 2018 World Cup qualifier away to minnows San Marino on November 11, then face Italy in a friendly in Milan four days later.
The German squad will meet the 79-year-old Argentine around the time of the Italy match.
“It’s great that this will be possible,” said Loew in a press conference on Monday to confirm his contract extension until 2020.
“It does not matter which religious ideologies you have – it’s a great thing for everyone when the team gets involved in other things.”
Several of the diverse Germany squad are Muslim, including Arsenal midfielder Mesut Ozil, defender Shkodran Mustafi, Juventus midfielder Sami Khedira and Manchester City’s Ilkay Gundogan.
The pope is known to be a football fan and is an honorary member of German second division club 1860 Munich.

Andy Murray insisted on Monday he felt no additional pressure ahead of his quest to wrest away the world’s top ranking from long-time incumbent Novak Djokovic at this week’s Paris Masters.
Murray can supplant Djokovic at the summit by claiming a first title in the French capital if the Serb fails to reach the final of an event he has dominated in recent times.
The Briton has won three successive tournaments — Beijing, Shanghai and Vienna — to close in on Djokovic and would become the oldest new number one since Australia’s John Newcombe in 1974.
But the 29-year-old said his approach would remain the same and vowed to block out the hysteria surrounding his potential ascent to the top.
“It’s not in my control. I can obviously try and win my matches, but even if I win all of my matches this week, I still might not get there,” said Murray.
“So it’s in Novak’s hands. He’s ahead obviously just now, so if he wins his matches and gets to the latter stages of the last two tournaments, then he’ll most likely keep the No. 1 spot.
“So I don’t feel any differently now to how I did kind of six, eight weeks ago. My goal wasn’t to finish No. 1 at the end of this year.
“I wanted to finish this year as strong as possible, and I think there is a lot stronger chance of doing it in the early part of next year, which is what I targeted rather than this week.”
Murray, who received a first-round bye, will begin his Paris campaign against former world number seven Fernando Verdasco, after the Spaniard progressed following the retirement of Dutchman Robin Haase.
The Wimbledon champion is riding a 15-match winning streak and lifted his career-best seventh title of the season following Sunday’s straight-sets victory over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in Austria.
“This year I have been healthy the whole year, and the last four or five months I have played the best of my career,” Murray added, dismissing concerns over fatigue despite his recent winning run.
“I feel fine. I had a break after Shanghai, which I needed, and didn’t hit any balls until I arrived in Vienna.
“And then obviously I got the walkover (in the semi-finals) on Saturday which helped, so it was pretty much a rest day. And then, yeah, the final wasn’t too long yesterday, either. I feel okay.”
Murray owns an impressive 69-9 record in 2016 and is just two wins shy of last year’s win total, but he was swept aside convincingly by Djokovic in last year’s Paris final.
The Serb admitted Murray’s late assault on his number one ranking had rejuvenated his own faltering season as he looks to extend his 122-week stay at the top.
After completing a career Grand Slam at the French Open, Djokovic crashed out prematurely at Wimbledon and the Rio Olympics and was then beaten by Stan Wawrinka in the US Open final.
He has fond memories in France, though, and will attempt to win a fourth consecutive Paris Masters crown to keep Murray waiting.
“It makes me want to go on court and fight for every point because there is something to win at the end,” said the 12-time major winner.

Argentina’s ex-president Cristina Kirchner received a rock-star welcome from thousands of supporters as she appeared in court Monday to request a graft probe against her be dropped, claiming it was “persecution” by the current government.
“This is folly. It’s manipulation by the current government to cover up the economic disaster,” Kirchner told journalists after the hearing before a federal judge in Buenos Aires.
The former leader, in power between 2007 and 2015, is being investigated on allegations that her government steered public works contracts to a businessman, Lazaro Baez.
She was the first of 17 people summoned to give statements. The judge, Julian Ercolini, is to determine whether the case should go ahead to trial or be dismissed.
Kirchner said she had submitted a written request to cancel the corruption probe, one of many launched against her since she left office in December.
Baez, a construction magnate who is in custody, had close links to Kirchner and to her late husband Nestor Kirchner, who preceded her as president.
The complaint filed by prosecutors alleges that Kirchner was part of a “criminal organization” with other officials working to benefit Baez, who repaid the former president by renting rooms in hotels owned by the Kirchner family in the southern province of Santa Cruz.
Mauricio Macri, Argentina’s conservative president who succeeded Kirchner, alluded to the public works investigation Monday at the inauguration of a project in Buenos Aires.
“Public works should never again be synonymous with corruption, as we see in the quantity of these open cases,” he said.
“We want to know what happened. We all want there to be no more impunity.”
Kirchner was greeted by around 5,000 supporters at the heavily guarded courthouse in the capital, many of whom held up banners and sang songs.
She entered the building through a back door, where dozens of workers used cellphones to try to snap a picture of her — a sign of the polarizing love-hate fascination she holds in the country.
In her comments to the media after her hearing, Kirchner claimed sardonically that prosecutors were trying to portray her entire government as “a criminal association.”
Kirchner alleged she was the target of “political persecution” by Macri’s center-right government, and suggested it was part of an effort across Latin America to attack current and former leftwing leaders.
“This isn’t new — we are also seeing this in Brazil, with ex-president Lula,” she said, referring to Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva, the former leader now facing three corruption-related court cases.

Moroccan authorities were promising Monday to investigate the death of a fish seller whose crushing in a rubbish truck sparked widespread demonstrations.
Mouhcine Fikri, 31, was crushed to death on Friday in the truck in the northern city of Al-Hoceima as he reportedly tried to protest against authorities seizing and destroying his wares.
His death in the Rif — an ethnically Berber region long neglected under the former king and at the heart of a 2011 protest movement for reform — has triggered outrage in other cities including the capital Rabat.
Thousands attended Fikri’s funeral in Al-Hoceima on Sunday after an image of his inert body — head and arm sticking out from under the lorry’s crushing mechanism — went viral on social media.
The gruesome picture was splashed across the front page of newspapers on Monday alongside photos of the protests — in Al-Hoceima as well as in smaller Rif towns, but also in Casablanca, Marrakesh and Rabat.
“Morocco is in shock. The horrific death of the fish seller has caused tears in the Rif and outrage among Moroccans,” the daily Akhbar Alyoum said.
Images on social media showed hundreds of high school students protesting in Al-Hoceima on Monday morning.
Around 2,000 people attended a later demonstration in the town, some carrying pictures of Fikri and others Berber flags.
Autopsy results quoted by the media on Monday showed “fractures of the five first ribs left and right” and reported death from “haemorrhagic shock after a chest wound”.
The circumstances of the fishmonger’s death have remained unclear.
But a human rights activist said on Sunday that the authorities had forced him to destroy several boxes of swordfish, which it is illegal to catch using driftnets.
Fikri threw himself in the truck after his goods were crushed by the machine, Fassal Aoussar from the Moroccan Association of Human Rights (AMDH) said.
Interior Minister Mohamed Hassad late on Sunday vowed that an investigation would be held to “determine the exact circumstances of the tragedy and punish those responsible”.
He said authorities found “a large quantity of swordfish” in his car at a police checkpoint and “a decision was taken to destroy the illegal goods”.
“All questions are about what happened after that,” he said.
“We cannot accept officials acting in haste, anger or in conditions that do not respect people’s rights.”
It was the self-immolation of a street vendor in Tunisia in late 2010 in protest at police harassment that sparked Tunisia’s revolution and the Arab Spring uprisings across the rest of the region the next year.
The AMDH on Sunday warned of a “possible repeat” of the 2011 protests in the Rif, just a week before Morocco starts hosting international climate talks.
King Mohammed VI ordered a “thorough and exhaustive investigation” into Fikri’s death and the “prosecution of whoever is found responsible”, the interior ministry said.
The king — who was in Zanzibar at the weekend on a tour of East Africa — sent the interior minister to “present his condolences” to Fikri’s family, it said.
Morocco is due to host the COP22 climate talks in Marrakesh from November 7 to 18.

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has admitted his players must keep their discipline and produce the “perfect” performance to beat Barcelona in the Champions League at Eastlands on Tuesday.
Guardiola’s side lost 4-0 in their Group C encounter against the Spanish giants at the Nou Camp on October 19 ?- their fifth defeat in as many meetings with the Catalan club.
City goalkeeper Claudio Bravo was sent off in that match and Guardiola acknowledged the importance of keeping 11 players on the pitch against a side of Barcelona?s class.
?We know we need to play almost perfectly,? Guardiola, who guided Barcelona to two Champions League titles while manager from 2008-12 after starring for the club as a player, told a news conference on Monday.
“It’s always difficult in the Champions League. Ten versus 11 against Barcelona is almost impossible. We have to improve that otherwise it is impossible to achieve the target.
“I have never thought we can’t win a football match and I will never start to think that way, even though we lost 4-0. We’ll give it a go. We know it is difficult and they are a difficult opponent.
?Maybe we are going to change the way we press, the build-up, many things. I would like to play in a good level. What passed in Barcelona, that is not the reason for what it is going to happen here.
?We have to be focused in 90 minutes knowing they are going to provoke our mistakes with the quality they have. In that moment we try to keep going and finish better than in Barcelona.?
Barcelona top the group at the halfway point with three victories from their three matches, while City have four points after a draw against Celtic and victory over Borussia Moenchengladbach.
Guardiola said the group standings meant Tuesday’s match was of greater significance for City than Barcelona.
?It is not a final for them. It is a final for us,? the 45-year-old explained.
?There are just three games left. We dropped two points in Glasgow against Celtic and we need to recover those points.
?Every manager, every trainer has his plans. We know them, they know us. But football is unpredictable. Hopefully our quality in front can make a difference.
?In the first half we played well at Camp Nou but the two wide players for Barcelona are almost unstoppable. The only thing I can ask of our players is they play the way they know.?
With Bravo suspended following his red card in the first fixture, Willy Caballero will start in goal for the match at the Etihad Stadium and Guardiola has every confidence in the 35-year-old goalkeeper.
“He has helped me very much from the first few games,? Guardiola said.
?I like Willy on a personal level and as a goalkeeper he has played and given a lot of confidence. If he plays well, we?re all be happy with him. If he doesn?t, then we will support him. But I have no doubts about him.?
City forward Nolito also said striker Sergio Aguero will be a key player against Barcelona and insisted his team-mates have the self-belief needed to beat the La Liga champions.
“I think he?s one of the best strikers in the world,? Nolito said. “And it?s a pride to have him in the team and we hope he has one of those days where he scores lots of goals.
“Sincerely, we have to beat Barcelona one day. We have to win this one because of the situation we?re in. We have to. Knowing how strong they are we will have to be at our best.?

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, fed up or finally sensing his opportunity, has turned on President Francois Hollande six months from elections in which his Socialist party faces crushing defeat.
The trigger for Valls, unfailingly loyal to Hollande since taking office in March 2014, was a bombshell book on the president published earlier this month whose contents continue to reverberate.
In “A President Shouldn’t Say That”, written by two political journalists after a series of interviews, Hollande is quoted criticising judges, the national football team and even his own government’s policies.
Valls talked of his “anger” and the “shame” in the party last week, opening up a breach with his political master who is the most unpopular president in sixty years.
His criticism breaks with French political tradition — in which the prime minister’s main job is devotion to the all-powerful president — and has led to a surge in speculation about Valls’ strategy.
“I have respect for Francois Hollande, he’s a friend,” Valls added on Sunday in an interview with the France 24 television channel during a trip to Africa. “I also have respect for the role.”
Is he seeking to discourage Hollande from standing for re-election, a seemingly hopeless endeavour according to the polls? Or is Valls simply distancing himself ahead of the inevitable crash?
“It’s essential for Valls to differentiate himself to prevent himself sinking with the president,” analyst Bruno Jeanbart from the polling group OpinionWay wrote in Le Figaro newspaper on Monday.
Within Hollande’s camp, the 54-year-old Barcelona-born premier is talked of as a possible “Brutus”, a reference to the Roman-era politician who famously took part in assassinating Julius Caesar.
“The boss, until further notice, is the president of the Republic. He was elected,” Hollande’s spokesman, Stephane Le Foll, said acidly on Sunday.
Valls, a Spanish painter’s son who only obtained French nationality at age 20, has never hidden his presidential ambitions.
In 2011, he ran in the Socialist presidential primary but scored a lowly six percent, eventually throwing his support behind Hollande and running his campaign communications.
When Hollande took office, Valls was rewarded with the interior minister’s post before becoming prime minister in March 2014 when Hollande moved his government towards the political centre-ground.
“It’s the first time there’s a breach between the president of the Republic and the prime minister,” one Socialist MP told AFP on Monday on condition of anonymity.
“The question is who will it benefit? We’ll have to watch the polls in the coming days,” he added.
Alain Juppe, a candidate from the centre-right Republicans party, is widely seen as the election frontrunner, polling around 28 percent of the vote in the first round.
He is likely to face — and defeat — Marine Le Pen from the far-right National Front in a final second-round vote in May.
Analysts are still unsure of how the Socialist party will emerge from its current disarray, whether Valls will go down as a tarnished one-time PM under Hollande or reposition himself as a future leader of the party.
The premier faces multiple problems, not least his image as one of the leading figures in Hollande’s unpopular government which has been ground down by high unemployment, multiple terror attacks and policy U-turns.
He began as premier as one of the country’s most popular Socialist politicians, with his tough talk on crime and battles with the left-wing of the party leading to comparisons with former British prime minister Tony Blair.
He also takes a hard line on identity questions and secularism in France, supporting a ban on the Islamic veil in universities and criticising the burkini swimsuit as a “provocation.”
But in a poll published on October 26, Valls and the more instinctively left-wing Hollande would win the same vote share in the first round of next April’s election, a humiliating nine percent.
He also risks being eclipsed by fellow pro-business centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron, who quit as economy minister in August to start his own political movement, and hard-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon.
The main question for him is “how do I get through the next stage, how do I get out of the presidential wreck to be useful afterwards?” concludes the Socialist party MP who spoke to AFP anonymously.

After packing on 40 kilograms (88 pounds) of muscle, ex-Germany goalkeeper Tim Wiese will make his full WWE debut on Thursday in what he describes as the “Champions League” of wrestling.
The 34-year-old made the last of his six friendly appearances for Germany in 2012 and was part of their 2010 World Cup squad.
But after hanging up his boots three years ago and dramatically beefing up, Wiese is poised to make his professional wrestling debut in Munich.
At 1.93 metres (6 feet 4 inches) and weighing around 130kgs, Wiese will be an imposing figure in the razzmatazz world of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) having radically changed his figure.
Wiese bulked up with an intensive schedule of weight-training sessions and a diet that included a kilo of meat per day.
He has trained for his debut in Orlando, Florida, and will wrestle in “The Shining Stars” team, alongside established WWE stars Cesaro and Sheamus.
“This is Champions League. WWE is the biggest thing in wrestling, so I’m fully focused and blending out everything else around me,” Wiese told SID, an AFP subsidiary.
Wiese has yet to be given his wrestling nickname, and expects a few boos from the crowd as part of the show.
“I think I’ll be playing the role of the bad guy,” he said. “I’m being pushed in that direction, but that’s OK.
“My God, in football, I was already the bad guy who opposition fans would insult. I’m OK with that, it doesn’t bother me. They can all hate me.”
Wiese turned his back on the Bundesliga in 2013 after 269 appearances in Germany’s top flight.
After falling out with Hoffenheim bosses, the former Werder Bremen player was banished from the first team, even though he had three years left on his contract, which allowed him to hit the gym.
“Eleven games and three years of paid holiday. That’s like winning the lottery!” he said in 2013 after playing fewer than a dozen matches for Hoffenheim.
“That was just the truth. What more should I say?” he said, looking back.
“Should I have given up my contract and relinquished the money? Who would have done that? I made peace with it.”
His Hoffenheim contract finally expired earlier this year, allowing Wiese to realise his dream of entering the adrenaline-fuelled world of WWE.
“I was a big fan in the 90s and, when I was a boy, I collected the cards and played out bouts in the playground,” he said.
“I kept track of it, even during my footballing career, but never thought of myself as a wrestler.
“The question came when I had already finished with professional sport.
“I didn’t take it seriously as first, then things became more concrete.
“I’m ready and prepared for the drills in the US. I’ve been chased from one side of the ring to the other.
“It’s been a long time since I worked as hard as I did in the last few weeks.”
While his former peers and ex-football colleagues are becoming television pundits or studying to become coaches, Wiese enjoys being different.
He becomes animated when discussing workouts endured in the ring.
“It’s crazy. The tryouts in America were unbelievable and you can’t compare them to football training,” he said.
“Every day, people were dropping out, because they got injured.
“The Americans are like drill instructors, they want to see if you can take it — and that’s my thing. I always liked hard training, I was born to do it.
“I don’t have any aches and pains. There are people today who the wind could knock over and injure. Fortunately, I’m not like that — I can deal with pain.”
And Wiese expects fireworks in the ring.
“It’s going to be a good show, I’m with the right people in the ring. They are awesome wrestlers,” he said.
And as for any pain heading his way, he said: “I don’t care. I will hurt them, they won’t hurt me. Anyone can have a go: I’m going to be unbeatable.”

President Vladimir Putin on Monday signed a law suspending an agreement with the United States on disposing of weapons-grade plutonium amid a rise in tensions with the West.
The law, published Monday in the government’s online database, comes weeks after Putin had ordered the deal — signed in 2000 to allow both nuclear powers to dispose of plutonium from their defence programmes — be halted.
The Russian parliament had previously approved the legislation.
The move comes as Russia is locked in its worst standoff with the West since the Cold War over its 2014 annexation of Crimea, the conflict in Ukraine and stalled efforts to end the war in Syria.
In addition to tearing up the cooperation deal, Russia said earlier this month that it was suspending joint research on nuclear projects with the United States.
The law sets a series of unprecedented conditions for the deal to be reinstated, including the cancellation of Western sanctions against Moscow and the withdrawal of US troops from eastern European NATO members.

Manchester United left-back Luke Shaw hailed Bastian Schweinsteiger’s return to first-team training after the former Germany midfielder’s exile came to an end on Monday.
The 32-year-old has not featured since United manager Jose Mourinho’s pre-season arrival and was written off as an asset in the club’s financial results for the year ending June 30, 2016.
He was also omitted from United’s Europa League squad, but pictures on the club’s social media accounts showed him training with team-mates ahead of Thursday’s match at Fenerbahce in the competition.
“It’s great to see him back,” Shaw told AFP at United’s training complex.
“We found out the news a couple of days ago and it’s so great to have him back. He’s a big influence in the dressing room and obviously on the pitch, especially for the young players like myself.
“It’s a great boost for us, the experience and the quality that he brings.”
Shaw’s words were echoed by former United captain Bryan Robson.
“Bastian’s a great lad, speaks perfect English, has got great quality and vast experience,” said Robson, who was speaking at the launch of a United deal with Chinese mattress firm Mlily.
“For me he could definitely help the group, on the confidence side and just the know-how on how to play the game in that central role.
“I still think he could be valuable to the squad.”
Shaw was criticised by Mourinho after United’s 3-1 defeat at Watford last month and, following a spell on the sidelines, was left out of the squad for their recent 4-0 defeat at Chelsea.
But he has started United’s last two games, against Manchester City in the League Cup and Burnley in the Premier League, and says there are no issues between him and the manager.
“I was very unhappy to not be in the squad (against Chelsea), because I really wanted to play that game,” said Shaw, whose team are currently eighth in the Premier League table.
“But at the end of the day it’s the manager’s decision. After the game I spoke with him about it and I 100 percent agreed with what he said and why I wasn’t involved.
“Obviously we’ll keep that between us two. But it’s been really good the last couple of games. I’ve felt fitter and stronger.”
United were held to a 0-0 draw by Burnley at Old Trafford on Saturday despite mustering 37 attempts at goal — their third successive league game without scoring.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic was particularly profligate and has now gone five games without scoring, but Shaw does not believe the Swede’s famous self-confidence has been affected.
“No chance at all. I wouldn’t say that,” said the England left-back.
“He’s a world-class player and I wouldn’t say it’s a dip. He’s been unlucky.
“He’s had chances, but the saves that have been happening from his shots are unbelievable, especially that volley he did at the weekend, with Heats (Burnley goalkeeper Tom Heaton) saving that.
“He’s a very confident person and his confidence is always sky-high.”
He added: “It’s a shame we couldn’t get the three points on Saturday, but we have to keep playing the way we’re playing. The goals are going to come.”

The ancient city of Hatra withstood Roman invasions nearly 2,000 years ago and decades of more recent war and instability in Iraq, but then jihadists marked it for destruction.
The Islamic State group vandalised Hatra and is reported to still have a presence in the area, which may again put the famed archaeological site in the line of fire as Iraqi forces fight to drive the jihadists back.
Hatra, known as Al-Hadhr in Arabic, was established in the 3rd or 2nd century BC and became a religious and trading centre under the Parthian empire.
It was surrounded by two walls — one of earth and another of stone that was dotted with towers. These fortifications helped it withstand sieges by the forces of two Roman emperors: Trajan in 166 AD and Septimus Severus in 198.
Hatra finally succumbed to Ardashir I, the founder of the Sassanid dynasty, a few decades later.
But the city remained well preserved over the centuries that followed. The site was excavated in the early 20th century and again from the early 1950s.
Two decades later, Hatra left its mark on pop culture as the location for the opening of horror film “The Exorcist”, which was shot there in 1973.
In addition to its imposing fortifications, Hatra was home to magnificent temples that blended eastern and Western architecture. It was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985.
Like many other archaeological sites in Iraq, access to Hatra has been limited by instability and continual cycles of violence that followed the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.
In June 2014, the group that is now known as IS overran the city of Mosul, northeast of Hatra, and swathes of other territory in Iraq and carried out a seemingly endless series of atrocities.
Seeking to continue to shock the world and remain the focus of attention, IS began targeting Iraqi heritage sites as well as brutally murdering people.
The jihadists frame the destruction as a religiously mandated elimination of idols, but have no qualms about selling smaller artefacts to fund their operations.
They ransacked the Mosul museum, blew up the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud, and also came for Hatra.
IS released a video in April 2015 showing militants knocking sculptures off the walls of a building, shooting at them with an assault rifle and hacking away at a statue with a pickaxe.
The full extent of the damage at the site is still unclear, but it may be in for further destruction if fighting breaks out in the area during Iraq’s operation to retake the city of Mosul and the surrounding Nineveh province.

It is an important part of the digestive system and a sign that the body is in top shape (it’s the reason farting is compulsory after undergoing an operation to make sure all the gut/ organs are back in place).
 
Farting is the way the internal organs ‘exhale’ where otherwise the ‘gas’ meant to be let out will find its way via somewhere else (the mouth maybe?). Where there’s no farting the internal organs will not be in great shape or continue to function as they are supposed to.
There are reasons to have a great fart when the pressure to release the gas calls:
Farting regularly helps get rid of bloating which is usually caused by certain foods (most times rich in carbohydrates and other forms of sugary foods)where otherwise it can result in heartburn, get uncomfortable amongst others.
Farting immediately in most cases eliminate bloating simply like releasing a pressure valve.
Farting can help determine the state of one’s health. It is an indication of a healthy gut- where its silent and without a foul smell- or otherwise. For instance if farts get really smelly then there’s probably a case of indigestion of a digestive tract infection and in some cases an indication of an underlying health issue like ‘s disease (people who suffer this pass extremely smelly farts everytime).
In some cases, it might just be a pointer to load up more on certain foods as against others.
 
People who don’t fart may need to step up nutrients intake. If there’s a case where gas isn’t released (via farting) then the microbes in the gut may not be getting the needed nutrients (which should be in place for a clean gut) in which case there should be a need to increase intake of carbohydrate.
Fart is naturally the system’s way of releasing pressure caused by everything that goes into the body after the digestive system is done processing all it needs to function!
Studies reveal that fart contains hydrogen sulfide that reduces cell damage when inhaled in small amounts which at the end of the day reports reveal keep strokes, heart diseases and more at bay!
Need more reasons to let it out next time (discreetly by all means)?

Fifteen miners are confirmed dead and 18 missing after a coal mine explosion in southwest China Monday, state media reported, the latest mining disaster in the country.
More than 200 rescue workers including firefighters, armed police and mine experts are searching shafts at the Jinshangou mine in the town of Laisu in the Chongqing Municipality’s Yongchuan district, Xinhua news agency reported.
It said 35 miners were working underground when the gas explosion ripped through the mine in the morning and just two managed to escape.
All coal mines in the municipality have been ordered to stop production for safety checks following the blast at the privately-owned mine, which is licensed to produce 60,000 tons of coal a year.
China is the world’s largest coal producer and deadly accidents are common.
In September at least 18 people were killed after a mine explosion in the northwestern Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.
In March 19 people died in a coal mine accident in the northern province of Shanxi.
Officials say the number dying annually in the country’s mines has fallen substantially in the past decade, to fewer than 1,000 a year.
But some rights groups argue the actual figures are significantly higher due to under-reporting.

reports that the , said the uncovering of the supposed location of the tomb in the complex called the was unique.
According to him, the
he added.
 
‘ burial place is being restored, while the church built in 1810 will be completely rebuilt.
Professor the chief scientific supervisor of the project, spoke to the National Geographic on the renovation.
he said.
, the archaeologist-in-residence at the also spoke on the project.
he added.
 
The restoration of the supposed location of the tomb of Jesus is estimated at $3.4M and should be completed in 2017.

Australia coach Michael Cheika has urged his side to aim high during their tour of Europe as they look to finish a tough 2016 with a flourish.
Cheika’s men have the chance to emulate the celebrated 1984 Wallabies that featured the likes of David Campese, Michael Lynagh and Mark Ella by completing a Grand Slam — victories over England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales on one tour.
Australia will also play France in Paris on November 19 in a run of five internationals on successive weekends, starting with Saturday’s clash against Wales in Cardiff.
Australia gave New Zealand a few awkward moments before losing last year’s World Cup final at Twickenham, but 2016 has seen the Wallabies suffer some chastening defeats by the All Blacks, including a 42-6 hammering in Sydney in August.
That was a low in a run of six straight defeats that included a 3-0 series defeat at home to England, a side coached by Eddie Jones, Cheika’s former team-mate at Sydney club Randwick.
New Zealand then beat Australia 37-10 in Auckland to set a new world record for a major rugby nation of 18 successive Test wins, with Cheika furious at being depicted as a clown in a New Zealand newspaper.
Cheika, however, was in more upbeat mood at Australia’s arrival press conference in London on Monday, saying of the Grand Slam: “I think that it’s very important for players to have dreams of achieving the bigger picture items. I really do, I believe that’s important.
“If you don’t have those dreams inside of you, then what are you doing it for?
“That’s in the background, but that will only come to fruition when we’re excellent every day and our players are learning.
“We’re really trying to do the right thing, not just for the short term, but also for the medium term.”
Cheika flew out a day later than his squad after undergoing surgery following a training ground collision with powerful back Israel Folau ahead of the Auckland loss to the All Blacks.
The coach tried to keep Folau’s name under wraps before scrum-half Nick Frisby spilt the beans at an awards ceremony in Sydney on Thursday — an event Cheika attended with his arm in a sling.
“Izzy’s still on the tour so he’s all right. He didn’t get dropped,” joked Cheika on Monday.
“The important thing was that he didn’t get injured. The coach can’t be injuring the players.
“I have a new empathy for players recovering from reconstructive surgery because it’s quite painful. Maybe it is because I am a little bit older.”

 
He recently graced a cooking show dubbed chef 001 that put him on the spot to show what he could easily prepare. To our surprise the governor opted to prepare plantains, mutton biryani, chapati and fried mutton.
 
In the first shots honorable Joho is seen washing his utensils to ensure that the ill-causing bacteria which survive in many places around the kitchen, including your hands and cutting boards are dead.
Anyway he moves to preparing his ingredients and at some point pounding some of the ungrounded spices spices which are widely used to render a distinct flavor to the preparation.
The governor also goes ahead to explain why most Swahili families prefer using coconut oil in their dishes. Before the video comes to an end, Joho is seen taking off his sweater to get ready to prepare the most challenging dish, chapatis.
Checkout the video
 

The UN envoy for Yemen said Monday he will return to the region for talks on reaching a peace deal in the coming weeks, even though both sides have rejected his proposals.
“The ball is in the court of the Yemeni parties,” Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed told the Security Council.
“What are the parties waiting for to sign a political agreement? Have they not understood that there are no winners in wars?”
The envoy has presented a roadmap to the Huthi rebels and their allies and the Yemeni government to end 18 months of war that has left nearly 7,000 dead, mostly civilians, and brought the country to its knees.
The proposals call for the appointment of a new vice president and the formation of a national unity government that will oversee a transition leading to elections.
Under the plan, the Huthis would withdraw from Sanaa, Hodeida and Taez and hand over their weapons in a process carried out in parallel with the new political arrangements.
One of the poorest countries in the Arab world, Yemen slid deeper into chaos when the Saudi-led coalition launched military operations in March 2015 in support of Yemen’s President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi.
Hadi on Sunday rejected the UN peace proposal, saying it “rewards the putschists” who seized power in Sanaa, while the rebels said the roadmap had “fundamental flaws.”
Ould Cheikh Ahmed said he would return to the region immediately after his report to the council and that his proposed roadmap “should allow a comprehensive settlement in the coming weeks if the parties engage in good faith.”

The singer was seen in black leather hot pants and leather corset that could barely hold her in. She paired her outfit with sexy black lace tights and leather boots.
Akothee took some time to show off her stripping skills as she is holding tight to the stripper poles at XS Millionaires. The singer also got an opportunity to ‘interact’ with the queen of twerking, assuming they had a faceoff as Akothee has proved to have mad twerking skills before.
What’s more shocking is how she has cut off the baby fat she gained while carrying her late twins. However looking at her day to day activities one will notice that the singer is always up and down that helps her keep fit.
Anyway checkout her outfit below:
 

A retired electrician who kept nearly 300 Pablo Picasso artworks in his garage for almost 40 years told a French appeal court Monday that the artist’s widow may have wanted to keep the works hidden from his son Claude.
Pierre Le Guennec, convicted last year along with his wife of possessing stolen goods, said that after Picasso died in April 1973, his widow had asked him to store between 15 and 17 garbage bags containing the artworks.
“Mrs Jacqueline Picasso had problems with Claude Picasso,” the 77-year-old defendant told the court in the southern city of Aix-en-Provence.
Le Guennec said that some time later Jacqueline Picasso retrieved the bags but gave him one of them.
The collection, whose value has not been assessed, includes drawings of women and horses, nine rare Cubist collages from the time Picasso was working with fellow French artist Georges Braque and a work from his “blue period”.
Other more intimate works include portraits of Picasso’s mistress Fernande, drawings of his first wife Olga and a drawing of a horse for his children.
The unsigned works, which had not been inventoried, were created between 1900 and 1932.
The authorities seized the works after Le Guennec tried to get them authenticated in 2010 and handed them over to Picasso’s son Claude Ruiz-Picasso, who represents the artist’s six heirs.
Le Guennec had previously testified that he and his wife Danielle received the works in 1971 or 1972 when the Spanish master was still alive.
Their lawyer Eric Dupont Moretti said he had learned this version of events only a few days ago.
Le Guennec said he did not reveal the truth before for “fear of being accused along with madame of having stolen these bags”.
The couple were initially given two-year suspended prison terms for possessing stolen goods by a court in March 2015.
Their appeal is set to last one day, with the defendants facing maximum jail time of five years and a fine of 375,000 euros ($410,000) — or half the value of the pieces, whichever figure is greater — if the conviction is upheld.
Pierre Le Guennec had testified previously that the art legend and his wife gave him the artworks when he was working on the last property they lived in before Picasso died.
Le Guennec, who worked for Picasso between 1970 and 1973, said Jacqueline gave him the 271 works as a gift recognising the couple’s devotion.
He described the 180 single pieces and a notebook containing 91 drawings as “drawings, sketches, (and) crumpled paper”.
Uninterested in the haul, Le Guennec said he put the collection in his garage and discovered it again in 2009.
He went to Paris the following year to get the works authenticated by Claude Ruiz-Picasso, and the artist’s heirs promptly filed a complaint against him.
Claude and his sister Paloma were the offspring of Picasso’s relationship with Francoise Gilot, his companion from 1944 to 1953.
The investigation did not formally identify the thief or thieves.
“We’re honest people,” Le Guennec said after the initial verdict.
Much of the trial centred on why none of the works was signed, with several witnesses saying the artist would sign everything — partly to ensure against theft.
According to Gerard Sassier, the son of Picasso’s long-time cleaning woman, the artist once said after an attempted theft: “Anyway, nothing can be stolen as nothing is signed.”
The defence argued it would have been extremely difficult to steal from Picasso as he had “an amazing memory” and his property was protected like a “fortress”.
One of the few plaintiffs to have known Le Guennec when he was employed by the Picasso family, the artist’s grand-daughter Catherine Hutin-Blay, acknowledged during the trial that the electrician did have a special relationship with the artist.
Prosecutor Laurent Robert said Le Guennec was a pawn who was manipulated by unscrupulous art dealers trying to obtain works initially stolen by Picasso’s former chauffeur.