Month: October 2016

A Japanese comedian’s nonsense tune that became an internet sensation after Justin Bieber recommended it has entered the Guinness World Records as the shortest song to break into the Billboard Hot 100.
The video for the 45-second long “Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen” has been viewed more than 67 million times since hitting YouTube in August, going viral after pop giant Bieber tweeted it as his “favourite video on the internet”.
“I’m surprised by this sudden popularity,” said the 53-year-old comedian, who goes by Pikotaro, just before receiving the award on Friday at a packed press conference.
“Without Justin’s impact, I think only four people would have showed up in this room,” he joked.
Last week, the song entered the US chart at No. 77, marking the first time in 26 years that a Japanese singer made the Billboard Hot 100.
The video features Pikotaro, dressed in his trademark garish animal print costume, dancing to nonsensical English lyrics such as “I have a pen. I have an apple. Apple pen.”
But despite the global sensation, Pikotaro told reporters that his life had not changed at all since the song became “a worldwide phenomenon” last month.
Pikotaro, who revealed he spent only 100,000 yen ($950) to make the video, hopes to do a world tour though doubts the global craze will continue.
“I just want to quickly release many fun songs,” he said.

Eric Omondi has been on top of his game by pulling some of the most amusing and interesting stunts ever since in comedy industry.
The mischievous humorist started a hilarious segment dubbed ‘How to be’ which he mimics public figures by showing the public how they can be any popular person.
The witty comedian has also been doing renditions of popular songs in his own amusing way; his latest is Diamond’s ‘Salome’.
While shooting video for his own version of ‘Salome’, Eric Omondi decided to suck a cow’s udder; he literally drank raw milk straight from the cow’s udders.
 
Eric’s remix of Diamond’s ‘Salome’ is dubbed ‘Sang’ombe’, maybe it’s the reason why the comedian drunk unprocessed milk straight from the cow.
Watch the video below:
 
 

Most of the migrants left wandering the Calais “Jungle” were relocated Friday following the camp’s demolition, including dozens of the youngsters whose fate has deeply concerned Britain and France.
After being left to fend for themselves for two days in the deserted burnt-out shantytown, around 100 stragglers boarded buses for shelters around France as part of a government operation to shut down the notorious slum.
Around 50 minors, mostly Sudanese, were taken to a centre for refugee children, with another bus of 34 older youths leaving shortly afterwards.
Only around two dozen people who had spent the night in a disused part of the camp were still unaccounted for, following a clearance operation since Monday that has seen some 4,500 people transferred to hostels around France.
Some had been refusing to budge from the site near the northern port of Calais, where migrants have flocked for years in the hope of stowing away on a truck crossing the Channel to Britain.
They included a number of children, whose fate had sparked a war of words between France and Britain.
Among the last to leave Friday was Abdel Bassi, a Sudanese 17-year-old who had been clinging to dreams of a new life across the sea.
“All my friends are in England,” the teen said disconsolately.
France sees the Jungle as a problem chiefly of Britain’s making given that most of its inhabitants were seeking to reach British shores.
On Thursday evening, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve reacted with “surprise” to a demand by his British counterpart Amber Rudd that children left in the Jungle were “properly protected”.
“These people… had been planning to migrate to the United Kingdom,” he said in a statement, insisting that France “had fulfilled its responsibilities out of solidarity and without trying to shy away” from its duty.
Britain has taken in 274 children from the Jungle since mid-October, mostly youngsters with relatives in the country.
Hundreds of others seeking admission to Britain under a scheme for vulnerable children are waiting for their cases to be assessed.
Around 1,500 minors have been taken into a container park next to the Jungle as a temporary measure.
The UN refugee agency had asked that “special arrangements be made to ensure the safety and welfare” of children in the Jungle before it closed, a spokesman said.
On Friday, demolition teams continued tearing down the once bustling settlement of tents and shacks where an estimated 6,000-plus people, mostly Afghan, Sudanese and Eritrean men, had been living. Some set fires to their shacks as they left.
French authorities have said those migrants who agree to be relocated can seek asylum in France. Those who refuse risk being detained and deported.
The relocated Jungle residents have received a frosty reception in some French towns that have baulked at taking in foreigners in a climate of heightened tensions following a spate of terror attacks.
But others have welcomed them with open arms.
More than a million people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Asia and Africa poured into Europe last year, sowing divisions across the 28-nation EU and fuelling the rise of far-right movements such as Germany’s Pegida and France’s National Front.
Many of the migrants in Calais had contacts in Britain and believed their job prospects there to be better than in France.
Many Calais locals fear the Jungle will simply spring back up again once the current clearance operation is over.
Aid groups estimated that between 2,000 and 3,000 migrants left the Jungle before the evacuation began.
Some are believed to be hiding out in the Calais area, biding their time before fresh attempts to stow away.
Police in northern France told AFP they had also seen signs of a move south to Paris, where a thicket of tents has been visibly growing under a railway bridge in the city’s north in recent weeks.
Senior regional official Jean-Francois Carenco said more than 2,000 migrants were sleeping on the streets of Paris, but he denied that large numbers had been arriving from Calais over the past few days after slipping through the net.
“Controls are in place on the roads and the railways, and there is nothing at this stage to indicate an influx of migrants coming from Calais,” he said.

The new Chief Justice is yet to last a month in his office but he is getting to know just how closely scrutinized that office can be.
As the head of the third government arm, the Chief Justice is expected to set by example ethical behavior and be beyond reproach especially in public matters.
Yesterday he had his day in public court and did not perform well. Hailed as humble and God fearing, his reputation suffered a blot when is official car was photographed parked in an area designated for persons with disability.
Kenyans online were quick to air their criticism wondering why the CJ even if he I not the one driving cannot instruct his driver accordingly.
Perhaps the driver and CJ had a special reason for parking there. However, their silence on the issue means more will wonder whether the new Chief Justice has already contracted the impunity of so many public office holders.
The incident happened at Galleria. It brings to mind the case of a former Deputy Chief Justice who was hounded out of office following an altercation with a supermarket security guard.
Here are the photos;

 
 
 
Nancy Baraza was accused of misusing her office and the power that comes with it ending what had seemed to be a promising stint as Deputy CJ.
 

The 68-year-old, who won the tournament with his own country in 2006, was named the national team’s new boss by the Chinese Football Association (CFA) over the weekend.
He faces the difficult challenge of steering the hapless Asian giant to the tournament, a near impossible feat after recent losses to Uzbekistan and war-torn Syria.
“The qualifying table for the 2018 World Cup is worrying, not impossible but definitely worrying,” Lippi told his first press conference in Beijing.
“I want to build the team, help the players improve, to have confidence in themselves. If we win three or four games and miss out on qualification by just one point, that will still represent progress.”
Lippi boasts an impressive CV that includes nine successful years at Juventus, although his second turn in charge of Italy ended in an ignominious first-round exit at South Africa 2010.
He went on to coach Chinese club Guangzhou Evergrande to three consecutive Chinese Super League titles between 2012 and 2014, and the AFC Champions League crown in 2013, their first win in the Asian tournament.
Improving Chinese football at the club and national level has been a priority for President Xi Jinping. Even before taking office he underlined his ambitions for China to qualify for, host and one day win the World Cup.
But it is a Herculean task.
China is the most populous nation on earth but holds a lowly 84th place in the FIFA world rankings, between Guatemala and Kenya.
They have only ever qualified for one final tournament, in 2002, when they lost all three of their group games and did not score a single goal.
In the current campaign China have claimed just one point from four games in the latest World Cup Asian qualification phase and are bottom in Group A, which includes Iran, Uzbekistan, South Korea, Syria and Qatar.
Their previous coach Gao Hongbo announced his resignation after a 2-0 away defeat to Uzbekistan earlier this month.
At Friday’s briefing, Chinese Football Association president Cai Zhenhua acknowledged that “the national team’s level is pretty weak. We hope that under our new high-level coach we will be able to play well in the qualifiers.”
According to state broadcaster CCTV, Lippi will earn a salary of 4.5 million euros ($4.9 million). He and his team will also be paid 15.5 million euros annually by Evergrande’s football academy to act as its “advisers”.
He declined to confirm the figure, saying it was confidential.
Lippi is the latest foreigner to receive a hefty salary for running the national side following in the footsteps of Spaniard Jose Antonio Camacho and France’s Alain Perrin.
Some commentators have expressed doubts about his appointment — and its cost.
Writing in the China Daily newspaper, which is published by the government, Huang Xiangyang said he “cannot understand the logic” of the move and Lippi’s “jaw-dropping” salary.
“History shows monetary incentives are not a panacea for success for the national men’s soccer team,” he wrote.
“As far as I can recall, the players have rarely played like men, though their incomes have reached astronomical figures.”
Chinese entrepreneurs have pumped vast sums of money into domestic clubs, even luring international stars away from European leagues.
There has also been a splurge of Chinese investment in some of Europe’s top clubs, among them Inter Milan, Manchester City, Aston Villa, Espanyol and Atletico Madrid.
Officials and clubs were eager to “squander money on famous players and coaches”, but much more needed to be done to cultivate young talent, with more players, more soccer schools, and more children playing “just for fun”, Huang said.
Last year officials declared football a compulsory part of China’s national curriculum, with pledges to open 20,000 football-themed schools by 2017 with the aim of producing more than 100,000 players.
“Without grassroots development we will never have our own Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo,” he wrote.

Pope Francis offers hope for change in the Catholic Church on a range of moral issues — but there’s a long way to go, say the female leaders of Sweden’s liberal Lutherans ahead of his landmark visit.
“It is clear that he has said and done things that have ignited much hope among many Catholics and even many people outside the Catholic Church,” Sweden’s first female Lutheran Archbishop, Antje Jackelen, told AFP.
Stockholm Bishop Eva Brunne hailed the Argentine pontiff as “a breath of fresh air”.
But the openly lesbian bishop added: “He has a lot to work on when it comes to gender issues, for example.”
Francis kicks off a two-day visit to Sweden on Monday to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation — a highly symbolic trip, given that Martin Luther’s dissenting movement launched centuries of bitter and often bloody divisions in Europe.
Sweden’s branch of the Lutheran Church is amongst the most liberal in Christendom, and the pope’s visit highlights deep splits between the Vatican and this gay-friendly constitutional monarchy, where same-sex marriage is allowed even for priests.
Francis has tried to make the Church less judgemental in its approach to divorced, cohabiting and gay believers since he became pope in 2013, but his critics say he has delivered little concrete change.
In August he launched a commission to study the idea of female deacons — a rank just below priest — but made clear he did not see women becoming priests.
“I believe (the Catholic church) must bear women and men at all levels,” Brunne said, blasting the lack of progress the Vatican has made on female representation.
“I told the pope last year during a speech that it is time to no longer speak for women about women, but to speak with women,” Jackelen said.
“I want to see women priests in the Catholic church and I know that there are many Catholic women who are well-educated and would be excellent priests,” she added.
The Swedish Lutheran Church has been appointing women priests since 1960. Figures released in 2010 showed that 45 percent of its nearly 4,500 professional priests were female, with the proportion even higher among parish priests.
Francis raised hopes early in his papacy that he might steer the church towards greater acceptance for homosexuality, and in June he said Christians “must apologise” to gays and lesbians for their past treatment.
Yet new Church guidelines on family life released in April failed to recognise homosexual couples.
“When the pope was asked about homosexuality and responded ‘who am I to judge?’ some hope was ignited,” Jackelen said.
“One could say that as far as this special stance is concerned nothing has changed,” she added. “There is impatience over change in practice.”
Anders Arborelius, bishop of the Roman Catholic Church in Stockholm, said the pope’s approach had been one of continuity, despite a “progressive” image compared to his predecessors.
“Pope Francis comes from another continent and has a different way of expressing things, but one cannot say that he has changed anything in the teachings,” he said.
Despite tensions between the two churches, the purpose of the pope’s visit to the southern Swedish towns of Malmo and Lund is to celebrate dialogue and common ground between Catholics and Lutherans.
“We are getting closer on how to tackle climate change,” Brunne said, referring to the pope’s calls for action against global warming in an encyclical issued in June 2015.
“We have reached a point now where we have gone from conflict to solidarity, and we are celebrating that now.”
The Nordic region was completely conquered in the 16th century by the Lutheran Reformation as Protestantism established itself as the dominant form of Christianity across northern Europe.
Officially, Catholicism is on the rise in Sweden — the Church has 113,000 members (1.1 percent of the population) compared with only 87,000 in 2000, but it says it believes the actual number of Catholics in the country to be 150,000.
The Swedish Lutheran church says it currently has 6,2 million members, which amount to more than 60 percent of the nation’s population.
But the figures have been slightly falling each year because old members die and fewer children are being baptised, according to the church.
Immigration is also on the rise, prompting religious diversity.

Three-time Tour de France champion Chris Froome has called for tighter rules on medical exemptions in cycling after British anti-doping officials launched an investigation into former Sky team-mate Bradley Wiggins.
Wiggins and Team Sky are the subject of an inquiry into the contents of a medical package delivered to the team doctor before the 2011 Tour de France, prompting Froome to question the system of Therapeutic Use Exemptions (TUEs).
Having previously said the process was “open to abuse,” Froome went further in Japan on Friday, demanding that the World Anti-Doping Agency hire independent doctors to examine cyclists.
“I’d certainly like to see the whole process reviewed,” the Briton told AFP on the eve of the Tour de France’s Saitama Criterium race, where he faces a strong field including two-time world champion Peter Sagan.
“I think now is certainly a good time. A suggestion I’ve made is to make it a more independent process,” Froome added.
“It would be good to see some experts employed by WADA to evaluate riders for themselves — and maybe even have a list of medications for certain conditions which would be allowed under the TUE system that would be more regulated.”
Wiggins has denied there was anything nefarious about three injections of the drug triamcinolone to treat pollen allergies before the 2011 and 2012 Tours, and the 2013 Giro d’Italia, arguing it “levelled the playing field”.
Team Sky likewise insisted their conscience was clear, pointing out that the TUEs were cleared by WADA and cycling’s governing UCI.
Sky boss Dave Brailsford has since offered to ask his riders if they would be willing to let their medical information be made public, but WADA rejected the idea of making TUEs transparent.
“Of course I understand that,” said Froome, who with Wiggins was a member of the British cycling squad at the Rio Olympics in August.
“It’s medical confidentiality that they want to protect and obviously that’s their call on it.”
Froome himself, was revealed by the Fancy Bears hackers to have been issued with two TUE certificates for prednisolone, which is used to treat a variety of inflammatory and autoimmune conditions.
Froome and Wiggins have clashed in the past, including famously on the 2012 Tour de France, won by Wiggins.
After Froome defied team orders to attack his team-mate on a mountain stage, Wiggins furiously claimed he had been “stabbed in the back.”
In what viewed as a thinly veiled swipe at Wiggins, Froome recently tweeted that he was not prepared to “win at all costs” and added: “there are some athletes who not only abide by the rules that are in place, but also those of fair play”.

West Bromwich Albion manager Tony Pulis ended speculation about his future on Friday as he signed a one-year contract extension with the Premier League club.
Albion are under new Chinese ownership and it had been suggested Pulis might part ways with the Baggies after expressing his displeasure at the lack of quality signings in the last transfer window.
Pulis was reported to have clashed with chairman John Williams over the failure to land his targets, while some fans are unhappy with his brand of conversative football.
But the 58-year-old is set to stay at the Hawthorns until 2018 after agreeing with Albion owner Guochuan Laito to extend his previous deal, which was due to expire at the end of this season.
“This is a time of great change at Albion and when that happens you need continuity,” Pulis told Albion’s website.
“As I have said from the outset, I want to build things here and play my part in improving the club. You cannot do these things overnight but I do believe, step by step, we are making advances.
“I think the bulk of our fans understand the process we embarked upon under the shadow of relegation less than two years ago.”
Former Stoke boss Pulis, who has been with Albion since January 2015, has overseen just two wins in nine league games this season and his team are only three points above the relegation zone.
Williams added: “Tony brings assurance and stability at an important time, when the club is moving from one long-established ownership regime to the new leadership from China.
“From the outset, the takeover announcement made it clear that this new era would work to progress Albion to an established top 10 club without jeopardising continuity on and off the field.
“With this is mind, I am pleased we have extended Tony’s contract.”

She made the announcement through her social media saying,
In a different post the lady narrated the many problems she has been facing in her life. Most people judge her life and whats worse is that the baby daddy (Alikiba) never took responsibility.
 
 
Judging from a few screenshots of Whatsapp chat between Fahima and Alikiba chances are that the singer fathered the baby, that is if the conversation is legit. Ali Kiba is seen begging to get into Rahima’s pants
 
Anayway, Rahima Faisal is quite famous in Mombasa and is known to roll with big shots from Tanzania. Due to her popularity the lady has been nominated for the Pwani Awards under the social media personality of the year category as reported by a few local tabloids.
If the miscarriage had not have happened then Ali Kiba would have been a father of four kids.

End month is the most dreaded yet most awaited part of the month! With lots of mixed emotions around it, from salaries being paid to almost ¾’s of the salary dedicated to bills waiting for you. But this end month, things will be different. If for nothing else considered, but being alive and having the most awaited party waiting for you.
Courtesy of top entertainment spot Cubano, party will be held on Friday the 28 of October, 2016 with Dj Mfame on the decks. The party is strictly adults only and will be an 8hr party plus you’ll get to witness the largest fireworks display to ever touch Kenya skies.
Tell a friend to tell a friend, tag a neighbor along as well, the prices are very affordable and security will be as usual very tight, you have nothing to worry about.
 
So, we meet up at Cubano, Greenspan Mall, Friday night and party like we just won a jackpot.

With an economic crisis in neighbouring Russia and growing uncertainty in Europe, the hordes of migrant workers from ex-Soviet Moldova face a huge dilemma: whether to return home to grim prospects or ride out tough times abroad.
Wedged between Romania and Ukraine, the country of 3.5 million and one of Europe’s poorest, has relied heavily on remittances from abroad to boost its agriculture-based economy.
But economic woes in neighbouring countries have seen remittances drop and migrants return in droves despite few opportunities in their country, which holds presidential elections on Sunday.
“I’m done with Russia. There is no more work there,” said Pasha, a construction worker from Porumbrei, some 40 kilometres (25 miles) south of the capital Chisinau.
Like Pasha, 28-year-old Grigore returned home after receiving only a fraction of the $1000- (915-euro) salary he was promised.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, mass emigration from Moldova has helped breathe life into its economy.
The figures are nonetheless grim. Some 41 percent of the country’s people live on less than $5 a day while the monthly average salary stands at $240, according to the World Bank.
Olga Coptu, who heads the Bureau of Diaspora Relations, said 800,000 Moldovans — nearly a quarter of the population — live abroad.
Up to 500,000 Moldovans live and work in Russia, while nearly 200,000 work in Italy, she said.
The outflow of Moldovans in search of a better life, including highly-skilled young people, has seen villages and towns depopulated.
“One in 100 Moldovans leaves the country every year,” Stela Grigoras, Moldova’s minister of labour, social protection and family, told AFP.
“This is the highest emigration rate in the region.”
Moldova is often viewed as a tug-of-war between Russia and the West, especially after it signed a historic EU free trade agreement two years ago despite bitter opposition from Moscow.
In addition to facing political turmoil, the country has seen the remittances that once kept its economy afloat slide.
In 2008, Moldova received $1.66 billion in remittances from abroad, a figure that accounted for 27 percent of its GDP.
But last year, that figure dropped 30 percent.
Remittances from Russia, whose energy-dependent economy was battered by low oil prices and Western sanctions, have dropped 45 percent.
The Russian ruble lost nearly half its value in 2014 on the back of these economic troubles.
But the crisis in Russia is far from being Moldovan migrants’ only concern.
Veronica, 32, had dreamt of joining her brother and three sisters in Italy but gave up on her plan because of economic problems there.
“Paradoxically, my sister is a cleaning lady and she makes more than her Italian husband who works in a real estate agency,” she told AFP.
Moldovan authorities are striving to bring the country’s citizens back home, offering them modest financial incentives if they make investments in the country.
Ioana Jumir, 23, had hopes these measures would finally allow her to open a small business in her native country after having sought work in Russia, Poland and Greece.
But she isn’t optimistic.
“When I made some calculations, I saw that it wasn’t worth it,” she said.
Jumir, who was eight when her parents went looking for work in Russia and left her behind with her grandmother, dreams that one day her compatriots will no longer be forced to “work like slaves” abroad.
But she fears that politicians, “whose only goal is to get as rich as possible,” would ultimately not help the population live better.

The Los Angeles Clippers opened the season with 114-106 win over Portland on Thursday, wasting no time getting back into the trenches with the team that knocked them out of the playoffs.
Blake Griffin and Chris Paul each scored 27 points in the Clippers’ regular season debut at the Moda Center arena in Portland, Oregon.
Tempers flared often in an emotional and physical battle that included a number of hard fouls. Portland was whistled for 34 fouls and the Clippers attempted 46 free throws.
The game came just 24 weeks after the Trail Blazers eliminated the Clippers in game six of the first round of the NBA playoffs.
“You can let somebody come in and punk you, or you can do something about it. We stood up to it,” Blazers Damian Lillard said.
Said Portland coach Terry Stotts, “That type of familiarity brings out a rivalry.”
Griffin, who also grabbed 13 rebounds, was a favorite target of the Trail Blazers’ aggression.
“Enough is a enough,” said Paul, who finished with five rebounds and five assists. “You got to treat every game like it is a rivalry.”
The Clippers are on the short list of contenders to make it to the NBA finals this season.
Paul said the Clippers are going to have to watch out for each other out if they are going to be successful.
“Everything was all about togetherness. There is not going to be one guy that does it every night,” he said.
He said they can’t afford to take any nights off in the long season.
“There is an urgency whenever we step on the court,” he said. “It is not about the end of the season, or next year, it is about right now.
“Myself, I am trying to make sure that I have the right mindset and trying to make sure my guys are focused like that.
“We got to come to play hoops every night no matter who it is.”
And that’s what they did in front of a crowd of 19,500 at the Moda Center.
Griffin collected 16 points and six rebounds as the Clippers took a 58-49 lead into the intermission. Paul had 12 points and Marreese Speights 11 while Portland got 12 each from Lillard and Moe Harkless in the first half.
Lillard finished with 29 points and 10 rebounds. Harkless tallied a total of 23 points to go with eight rebounds and Mason Plumlee contributed 17 points, eight rebounds and four assists for the Blazers.
In Sacramento, Kawhi Leonard scored 30 points as the San Antonio Spurs used a second-half blitz to beat the Kings 102-94.
San Antonio earned a seventh consecutive victory against Sacramento thanks to Leonard, who is coming into his own as a superstar in the league. He stole the ball three times over four Kings possessions, turning one of them into his own layup, another into two free throws, and the third into a layup for teammate Dewayne Dedmon.
DeMarcus Cousins scored 37 points and grabbed 16 rebounds for Sacramento, which was denied its first 2-0 start since 2003. Rudy Gay added 17 points for the Kings.
In Atlanta, Paul Millsap scored 28 points to lead the Atlanta Hawks to a 114-99 season-opening victory over the Washington Wizards.
Millsap was 11 for 20 from the field, including three, three-pointers, with seven rebounds and six assists to help Atlanta end a four-year streak of opening-night losses.
He also sparked a 24-6 run and his three-pointer with 8:09 remaining gave the Hawks a 10-point margin it never surrendered.
Tim Hardaway was also instrumental in the game-clinching run. He had 10 points during the streak en route to scoring 21 points off the bench.
Dennis Schroder added 14 points and Thabo Sefolosha had 13 points, seven rebounds and five assists.
Atlanta’s biggest offseason signee Dwight Howard finished with 11 points. Howard, who has bounced around the league after playing his first eight seasons in Orlando, also had a team-high 19 rebounds.

Jihadists have killed scores of people and taken tens of thousands to use as human shields in the Mosul area, the United Nations said Friday, as Iraqi forces temporarily halted their advance on the city.
Thousands of people have fled from areas surrounding Mosul, prompting a warning of “massive displacement” when fighting starts inside the Islamic State jihadist group’s last major Iraqi urban stronghold.
IS’s “depraved, cowardly strategy is to attempt to use the presence of civilians to render certain points, areas or military forces immune from military operations”, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a statement.
The jihadists are “effectively using tens of thousands of women, men and children as human shields”, he said.
The UN human rights office said that credible reports indicate IS has forced tens of thousands of people from their homes and forcibly taken civilians into Mosul, killing those who resist or who were previously members of Iraqi security forces.
The population of Hamam al-Alil, an IS-held area south of Mosul that is an upcoming target for Iraqi forces, has reportedly nearly trebled, it said.
IS reportedly shot dead 232 people in a single day on Wednesday and killed 24 the previous day, the rights office said.
The killings, which the UN said have been “corroborated to the extent possible”, are just the latest in a long list of atrocities committed by the jihadists since they overran swathes of Iraq in 2014.
The UN report came as Iraqi forces were temporarily halting their advance on Mosul for a period which the US-led anti-IS coalition said was expected to last “a couple of days”.
“They are pausing and repositioning, refitting and doing some back clearing,” coalition spokesman Colonel John Dorrian told Pentagon reporters via videoconference.
“We think it will just be a couple of days and then we are back on the march toward Mosul,” he said, adding that Iraqi forces were between 10-20 kilometres (six to 12 miles) from the city.
Since the Mosul offensive began last week, the coalition has employed nearly 2,500 bombs, missiles, shells and guided rockets, he said.
An Iraqi military statement, apparently issued in response to Dorrian’s remarks on the halt, said that “military operations are continuing” and proceeding on schedule.
As Iraqi forces have closed in on Mosul from the north, east and south, growing numbers of civilians have fled IS-held areas and the impending fighting in territory the jihadists control.
The International Organization for Migration said that as of Friday, 16,566 people had been displaced since the operation began on October 17, the vast majority in the Mosul region.
“We’ve seen… quite a dramatic increase in the numbers in the last few days, and they are now going into the newly set up camps,” Karl Schembri of the Norwegian Refugee Council told AFP.
“This is already worrying because they haven’t yet entered the city… when that happens, it’s going to be quite massive displacement,” he said.
The potential for a humanitarian crisis as tens of thousands of civilians are forced into camps with winter looming is just one of a raft of issues that have complicated military planning for the recapture of Mosul.
Thousands of Kurdish peshmerga fighters are taking part in the operation alongside Iraqi government troops, and Kurdish leaders have made clear that they will expect payback once it has been successfully completed.
The Kurds, who have expanded the territory under their control far beyond the boundaries of their longstanding autonomous region in the north, say their hopes of a new Iraq have been dashed and that they will now explore a separate future.
“As soon as Mosul is liberated, we will meet with our partners in Baghdad and talk about our independence,” the region’s prime minister Nechirvan Barzani told Germany’s Bild newspaper.
But for now, the battle for Mosul is far from over, and most of the advancing forces are still some distance from the city limits.
The head of US military operations in the Middle East, General Joseph Votel, said the jihadists were suffering heavy losses.
“Just in the operations over the last week and a half associated with Mosul, we estimate they’ve probably killed about 800 to 900 Islamic State fighters,” Votel told AFP in an interview.
Washington estimates there are between 3,500 and 5,000 IS fighters in Mosul and as many as 2,000 more in the wider area.

British Cycling bosses have been called to a parliamentary hearing to explain the growing trend of therapeutic use exemptions in the sport.
Damian Collins, chairman of the culture, media and sport select committee, told the Times on Friday that the hearing will focus on grounds for granting the exemptions (TUEs) amid concerns about British star Bradley Wiggins’s controversial use of a powerful corticosteroid before three key races.
“As part of the inquiry into doping, the select committee wants to look at the ethics of the use of TUEs and the way this is policed by British Cycling,” Collins said.
“We can ask British Cycling about any incidents in the past where we believe it is important how the governing body oversees their sport.”
Data stolen by computer hackers after the Rio Games revealed former Olympic gold medallist Wiggins had received TUEs for triamcinolone — a substance which has a history of abuse in cycling and is otherwise banned — on the eve of the Tour de France in 2011 and the race in 2012, which he won, as well as the 2013 Giro d’Italia.
Wiggins and Team Sky principal Dave Brailsford, the British Cycling performance director until April 2014, have strenuously denied any wrongdoing, insisting each time the TUEs were medically necessary to deal with a pollen allergy that aggravates the cyclist’s long-standing asthma condition.
The TUEs also had the approval of the UCI, cycling’s world governing body, and there is no suggestion that Wiggins, who left Team Sky in April 2015, or the team have broken any rules.

Rebel groups including the powerful Ahrar al-Sham faction and former Al-Qaeda affiliate Fateh al-Sham Front fired waves of rockets into government-held western Aleppo, killing at least 15 civilians, a monitor said.
The rebels also targeted government positions east of Aleppo city and in the coastal province of Latakia, including the Hmeimim military base that is used by Russian forces allied with the regime.
The assault comes more than three months into a government siege of eastern Aleppo, where over 250,000 people live, and several weeks after the army began an operation to retake the rebel east.
Rebel groups “announce the start of the battle to break the siege of Aleppo,” said Abu Yusef Muhajir, a military commander and spokesman for Ahrar al-Sham.
The assault “will end the regime occupation of western Aleppo and break the siege on the people trapped inside,” he told AFP.
“The breaking of the siege is inevitable,” said Yasser al-Yusef, a member of the political office of the Nureddine al-Zinki rebel group.
“We will protect the civilians and schools and hospitals from Russian attacks and bring our people food and medicine,” he said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said at least 15 civilians, including two children, had been killed, and more than 100 wounded in rebel fire on western Aleppo.
The monitor reported fierce clashes on multiple front on the western and southern outskirts of western Aleppo, with three suicide car bombs targeting a checkpoint in the Dahiyet al-Assad neighbourhood.
It had no immediate toll in the clashes or bomb attack.
An AFP correspondent in east Aleppo said the assault had boosted the mood in rebel-held districts, with mosques broadcasting “God is greatest” from loudspeakers to hail the battle.
He said residents were burning tyres, sending smoke up over the city in a bid to provide cover for rebel forces from government and Russian warplanes.
The Observatory said rebel forces had also fired dozens of rockets at the Nairab military airport and Aleppo international airport, both east of Aleppo city and under government control.
And rebels also fired rockets from Idlib province into the government stronghold of Latakia, killing one person and wounding six.
The rocket fire hit near the Hmeimim military airport, as well as near Qardaha, the ancestral village of President Bashar al-Assad, the monitor said.
Syrian state television reported the assault, saying “the army has foiled an attempt by terrorists to attack Aleppo city from several axes with suicide bomb attacks and has inflicted losses on them.”
“Terrorist groups have made no advances and clashes are continuing,” it added.
State news agency SANA said government planes were carrying out airstrikes south and west of Aleppo.
Once Syria’s economic powerhouse, Aleppo has been ravaged by the conflict that began in March 2011 with anti-government protests and has since killed over 300,000 people.
Aleppo has been divided between government control in the west and rebel control in the east since mid-2012, and in September the army announced an operation to recapture the whole city.
The assault, backed by Russian forces, has killed hundreds of civilians and destroyed infrastructure including hospitals, prompting international outrage.
The UN’s aid chief Stephen O’Brien this week said Aleppo had become “a kill zone”, adding that “nothing is actually happening to stop the war, stop the suffering.”
Last week, Russia implemented a three-day “humanitarian truce” intended to allow civilians and surrendering rebels to exit the east through passages to western neighbourhoods.
But few left, and a UN plan to evacuate the wounded failed because security could not be guaranteed.
Russia says it has not bombed Aleppo since October 18, and accuses rebel groups of preventing civilians from leaving.
On Friday, Syria’s foreign minister was in Moscow meeting with his counterparts from key allies Russia and Iran.

US oil and gas group ExxonMobil says it has discovered up to one billion barrels of oil in an offshore field in Nigeria, signalling a boost to the country’s crude reserves.
The company said in a statement on its website on Thursday that the Owowo field had “a potential recoverable resource of between 500 million and one billion barrels of oil.”
Stephen Greenlee, president of ExxonMobil Exploration Company, welcomed the development, saying the company “will work with our partners and the government on future development plans.”
The Owowo field, which lies about 62 miles (100 kilometres) southeast of Bonny oil terminal in the Niger Delta, is expected to boost Nigeria’s efforts to raise oil reserves from 36 billion barrels to 40 billion barrels in the coming years.
The original target of hitting 40 billion barrels in 2010 could not be met due to a lack of new investment in exploration.
The delay in the passage of a key Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) eight years after it was sent to parliament has stalled new investments in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector as oil majors are wary about the direction of the industry.
Oil majors have also been divesting from the country’s downstream operations — marketing and the retail market.
Last week, ExxonMobil agreed to sell its 60-percent stake in its Nigerian marketing and retail arm to Nipco Investments, a local firm.
The two companies have signed an agreement for the deal, which is subject to regulatory approvals.
Nigeria, which depends on oil sales for 70 percent of its government revenue, is struggling to fight its way out of a recession as a result of the globally low price of crude and renewed unrest in the Niger delta since the start of the year.

Here are five key facts about Iceland, which goes to the polls Saturday in an election set to shake up the political landscape.
Situated near the Arctic Circle, the Republic of Iceland consists of one large island — the 17th largest in the world — and several smaller ones.
Surprisingly, given its location in the North Atlantic, Iceland enjoys a relatively mild climate thanks to the Gulf Stream.
The volcanic island, with its breathtaking scenery, is home to 334,000 people, spread out over 103,000 square kilometres (40,000 square miles).
More than 11 percent of Iceland lies under glaciers.
In 2010, the Eyjafjoell volcano under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier, shot a massive plume of volcanic debris into the sky.
The eruption caused global travel chaos, stranding more than eight million travellers as ash spread across Europe.
While fishing is a pillar of the economy — accounting for 25 percent of exports — it is the hydroelectric and geothermal energy sector, services and tourism that provide the most jobs.
Tourists come to enjoy the spectacular waterfalls, hot springs and geysers as well as take part in winter sports and hiking.
In recent years, Iceland’s fishing industry has been hit hard by retaliatory trade measures from Moscow after it joined in with the European Union’s 2014 sanctions against Russia over its annexation of Crimea.
Iceland was one of Europe’s most prosperous countries until its three biggest banks and its oversized financial sector collapsed in 2008.
The nation was plunged into a devastating economic crisis and forced to seek a bailout from the International Monetary Fund.
A string of bankers were sentenced to prison, the failed banks were temporarily nationalised and then sold and foreign investors had to accept write downs on their debt holdings.
Capital controls are only now in the process of being lifted.
Iceland now enjoys robust growth, hitting 4.2 percent in the first quarter of 2016. Unemployment is under five percent and public debt fell last year to its 2009 level.
After the financial crisis, Iceland launched EU membership negotiations in 2009 amid a perceived need for political and monetary security.
Talks with Brussels made good progress between 2011 and 2013, although the sensitive fisheries portfolio was never broached.
Reykjavik and Brussels had for years been engaged in a “mackerel war”, which saw Iceland unilaterally increase its catch quota at the end of 2010.
In 2013, a new centre-right coalition suspended the EU negotiations, and in March 2015, Iceland officially abandoned the talks.
The anti-establishment Pirate Party, which could form a coalition with other centre-left and left parties after Saturday’s election, has vowed to hold a referendum on resuming the accession process.
Iceland was ensnared in the leak of the so-called “Panama Papers” in April.
According to the documents, some 600 Icelanders had holdings in tax havens, including the then centre-right prime minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, who was forced to resigned.
Former president Olafur Ragnar Grimsson decided not to run for a sixth term in a June election after his wife also appeared in the leaked documents

Rory McIlroy shook off the rust and regained his putting mojo Friday to climb into contention at the World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions in Shanghai.
McIlroy had just 26 putts en route to a 66 after taking 32 on the greens Thursday and moved to seven-under par for the tournament.
“When you miss a few putts it starts to get into your head a little bit, it was just hard,” he told AFP after his second round on Friday. “I felt a little more comfortable with it today.”
McIlroy’s round was eclipsed by runaway leader Hideki Matsuyama who followed his opening 66 with a best-of-the-day 65 that contained nine birdies to open a three-shot advantage on 13-under par.
But Japan’s in-form Matsuyama put himself in pole position to the be the first man from the host continent to win “Asia’s Major” since it became a WGC event in 2009 with a round that contained nine birdies.
Matsuyama broke into the world’s top 10 for the first time following his second place finish behind Justin Thomas in the PGA Tour’s CIMB Classic in Malaysia last Sunday and victory at the Japan Open the week before.
He has already proved this year that he is the man for the big occasion by finishing tied seventh at the Masters and tied fourth at the US PGA Championship.
“I haven’t really played well here before,” Matsuyama told reporters.
“I was a little bit nervous thinking it’s not going to be a good week for me. But then I decided, let’s just have fun this week. It’s made a difference.”
He was one of only a handful of players to master the blustery conditions Friday by playing aggressively and peppering the pins with arrow-straight iron play.
“I thought maybe just a couple under par would be a good score. So I’m really happy with how it ended up today,” added the first Japanese player to be ranked in the top 10 since Jumbo Ozaki in April 1998.
Defending champion Russell Knox kept his hopes alive of becoming the first player to record back-to-back WGC-HSBC Champions wins with a 68 Friday to share second place on 10-under par with American Bill Haas, who carded a 67.
McIlroy had a three-week layoff after the Ryder Cup before arriving in Shanghai this week.
“There was definitely some rust in the 71 yesterday. I feel like I’ve shaken most of that off.
“The green speeds here are so different to what we’re used to. They’re quite slow this week so it’s probably taken me a day or two to get used to that as well.”
Despite being six shots off the leader, the world number three believes he is right back in the mix going into the weekend.
“I’ve been able to come back from six behind with 18 to play, seven behind with 18 to play,” said McIlroy.
“So over 36 holes, a lot of things can happen. Hideki is obviously playing very well and he’ll be tough to catch.
“But if I can keep that sort of golf going over the next two days, I should have a chance.”

DP Ruto’s official residence in Karen was built on a 10 acre parcel of land by Kibaki’s government at a cost of 450 million shillings. The palatial residence was meant to house then VP Kalonzo Musyoka but the Wiper leader never moved in.
Jubilee government came in power in 2013 and Deputy President William Ruto moved into the 450 million house.
The house comes with an office block, garage, swimming pool, gazebo, generator house, staff residence and a comptroller’s unit among other luxuries that make the DP and his family feel all comfortable.
 
Photos taken inside the house reveal how big and beautiful it is; the DP’s friend, Donald B. Kipkorir, shared some photos taken inside the house when he visited the place on October 25.
“Today, visited the official residence of my friend Deputy President William Ruto to go pledge my loyalty to Her Excellency Rachel Ruto. My friendship & loyalty to Kenya’s No. 2 family is unequivocal and unconditional.” Kipkorir posted.
 
 

Iconic Wrigley Field, the 102-year-old home ballpark of the Chicago Cubs featuring a hand-operated scoreboard and ivy-covered outfield walls, plays host to its first World Series game in 71 years on Friday.
The Cubs, level with Cleveland at 1-1 in Major League Baseball’s best-of-seven final, can snap America’s longest sports title drought by winning their first crown since 1908 with triumphs Friday, Saturday and Sunday in the stadium nicknamed the “Friendly Confines.”
“To get to this moment and have your fans have the opportunity to witness a World Series game here — not lost on me whatsoever. It’s going to be an absolute blast,” Cubs manager Joe Maddon said. “I know people have been waiting for this for a long time.”
“Hopefully on our part we can do something to really make it even better.”
Whether cursed, unlucky or just so-called loveable losers, the Cubs have not played in a World Series since 1945.
They are only 2-10 in World Series games at Wrigley Field, winning 8-7 in 12 innings over Detroit in game six in 1945 and 3-1 in game five over Detroit in 1935.
How hungry are Chicago’s long-suffering but devoted supporters?
More than 300,000 people jammed into the ballpark’s northside neighborhood — known as Wrigleyville — after the Cubs beat the Los Angeles Dodgers to reach the World Series.
That’s why more than 1,000 police and law-enforcement officers will be in the area to keep order this weekend.
“I watched when they clinched to go to the World Series and how crazy it was, seeing the fans in the streets where they had to have police escorts,” said Cleveland first baseman Mike Napoli. “You could just see the crowd just part ways. So it’s going to be fun.
“The atmosphere is going to be unbelievable.”
Even visiting players will be excited with the buzz and electricity of screaming Cubs fans watching history unfold.
“It’s just something that gets you going, even though you’re in a visiting park,” Napoli said. “How loud they get, it’s to the point where you can’t even think. It’s just crazy.
“It’s just a cool moment to take in and be a part of.
Built by Charles Weeghman for $250,000 and opened in 1914, the 41,268-seat ballpark did not exist when the Cubs won their last crown in West Side Park.
Ticket prices Sunday could reach record resale highs for a US sports event if the Cubs are playing for the title. Even the rooftop seats across Waveland Avenue looking into the stadium beyond the outfield will cost more than $1,000 this weekend.
Fans gathered outside Wrigley Field already on Thursday’s workout day, hoping to catch a glimpse of one of their heroes entering or leaving the ballpark.
“There were so many people out there today,” Cubs second baseman Javier Baez said. “It’s going to be crazy tomorrow.”
Friday’s match-up will be the first World Series night game at Wrigley Field.
Lights were added in 1988 after years of pressure from Major League Baseball to end the last holdout of day-only games.
Ivy-coated outfield walls have engulfed many a ball. The live greenery was planted in 1937, the same year the emblematic scoreboard was built.
Numbers are still changed by hand, just as the “W” flag for a win is manually raised.
“We’re talking three wins in a row so we’re ready with a flag for each victory,” scoreboard operator Darryl Wilson says.
Cubs outfielder Ben Zobrist adores the feel of a bygone era echoing throughout the park.
“It’s amazing. I love baseball history, and Wrigley Field is as good as it gets,” he said. “I ride my bike to the field. That kind of makes it feel like old school baseball all over again.
“I love that feel.”

This comes a few days after the gay activists revealed that he was facing eviction for being gay in a steaming interview with Ghafla. Joji mentioned that being gay is hard but there is nothing he could do to change his status. He loves men and that’s how it will remain.
Speaking to Joji named Nick Mutuma, Sauti Sol and the man himself Jomo Kenyatta as the men he finds attractive. Though he seemed to have a problem with their names at first the gospel singer was good at describing their good ‘genes’.
 
 
He was however not specific on which member of the Sauti Sol he was interested in. He just described him as “short and chubby” leaving room for his fans to speculate on which guy he was describing.
 
When talking about the president’s eldest son, Jomo Kenyatta, Joji sarcastically joked as he pleaded to the officials not to arrest him.
He said
Joji Baro is currently single and is hoping to meet a man who will love him to the end of the world.
 
 

Azerbaijani security services have killed two men suspected of plotting “terrorist attacks” in the secular ex-Soviet country with a mainly Muslim population, authorities said Friday.
The two Azerbaijani nationals were shot dead during a special operation on Wednesday night, the oil-rich Caucasus nation’s State Security Service said in a statement, adding that another suspected “terrorist” had been arrested.
The three suspects had been mandated by “foreign radical religious terrorist groups” to create an armed group known as the Caucasus Jamaat to carry out attacks in the country of 9.5 million, authorities said.
“The armed group, the Caucasus Jamaat, has been planning terrorist attacks in Azerbaijan and had links with terrorist organisations involved in armed conflicts abroad,” the statement said without giving further details.
One of the two suspects killed in the operation had allegedly attempted to detonate a hand grenade as security officers tried to apprehend him.
In February, Azerbaijan arrested eight men for fighting alongside the Islamic State jihadist group in Syria and Iraq.
Local media had previously reported numerous cases of Azerbaijani nationals fighting alongside IS jihadists, including within the ranks of the Jaish al-Muhajireen wal Ansar (JMA) group consisting mostly of Islamists from the former Soviet Union.

Sisi’s comments came at the end of a two-day “youth conference” on Thursday, an effort to reach out to young Egyptians as the country braces for austerity reforms to salvage its battered economy.
Reading a series of conclusions at the end of the conference, Sisi said the government would look into revising the law passed in 2013, months after the former army chief overthrew his Islamist predecessor Mohamed Morsi.
The law, which bans all but police-sanctioned protests, has been used to jail activists for up to two years.
“The government will undertake, in coordination with the relevant agencies, to study suggestions and proposals to amend the protest law,” Sisi said, before he was interrupted by applause from the audience.
Sisi laughed and said “you really love protesting,” adding that the revisions would be presented to parliament.
The committee of youths, he said, would be formed “under presidential supervision to exhaustively examine the youths detained.”
It will present its recommendations in 15 days, he said to a standing ovation.
The United Nations and rights groups had asked the Egyptian government to reconsider the protest law.
A crackdown on Islamist supporters of Morsi after his ouster saw hundreds of demonstrators killed and thousands jailed, including secular dissidents.
Jihadist attacks have since killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen.

Defiant Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders said Friday he will refuse to attend his hate speech trial next week, dubbing it a travesty aimed at silencing him as the country prepares for 2017 elections.
The trial opens on Monday before a three-judge bench with the far-right politician facing charges of insulting a racial group and inciting racial hatred for comments he made about Moroccans living in the Netherlands.
“It is my right and my duty as a politician to speak about the problems in our country,” Wilders said in a statement Friday, dubbing the case “a political trial, in which I refuse to cooperate”.
It comes as opinion polls have shown his far-right Freedom Party (PVV) doing well ahead of March elections.
After riding high amid the migrant crisis, the party is now polling neck-and-neck with Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s Liberals each predicted to win between 25 to 29 seats in the 150-seat parliament.
Set to last until November 25, the trial focuses on a comment made at a March 2014 rally when Wilders asked supporters if they wanted “fewer or more Moroccans in your city and in the Netherlands?”
When the crowd shouted back “Fewer! Fewer!” Wilders answered: “We’re going to organise that.”
It is the second such trial for Wilders who was acquitted on similar charges in 2011.
Wilders said Friday he would leave his defence in the hands of his lawyer Geert-Jan Knoops and instead “go to work” in the parliament in The Hague.
The court confirmed in a statement that the trial would go ahead, adding like any defendant Wilders had the right not to appear.
While the court can force someone to turn up, “it is not known whether it will do so in this case,” it added.
Wilders’ 2014 statements were met with outrage including from the small, but vocal Dutch Muslim community. An avalanche of 6,400 complaints followed, and he faced condemnation from fellow MPs.
Judges earlier this month dismissed arguments by Wilders’ lawyers that the trial was “politically motivated” adding they did not believe it will impact the PVV’s election campaign.
Politicians “are granted broad freedoms of expression because of their official position,” the judges ruled last month.
“Precisely therefore politicians have an important role to avoid feeding intolerance by making these kind of public statements.”
Wilders hit back Friday saying “it is a travesty that I have to stand trial because I spoke about fewer Moroccans.”
“Millions of Dutch citizens (43 percent of the population) want fewer Moroccans,” he claimed.
“Not because they despise all Moroccans or want all Moroccans out of the country, but because they are sick and tired of the nuisance and terror caused by so many Moroccans.”
Wilders drew flak when he unveiled his party’s controversial election programme saying he would confiscate Korans and close mosques if he wins the elections.
He is often described as “the most heavily guarded man” in The Netherlands and the trial is taking place in a high-security courthouse in Schiphol.
His name has “appeared on hit-lists drawn up by Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and the Islamic State group”, according to his lawyer.
If found guilty, Wilders could face up to two years in jail or a fine of more than 20,000 euros ($22,000).
But as he would be a first-time offender, a lower fine or community service were more likely options, said Rolf Hoving, Dutch criminal law expert at Groningen University. A conviction will also not bar him from office under Dutch law.
“If he is acquitted … it will surely boost his popularity, but if found guilty, it will put people off from voting for him,” said biographer Meindert Fennema.
Retired politics professor Philip van Praag agreed, but said a guilty verdict would further isolate Wilders from other political parties.
“He will always remain in the opposition. He is the eternal opposition leader. Always against the establishment,” he told AFP.

The former Arsenal and Liverpool winger, 33, made the comment as he departs Tampines Rovers after just nine months in the nine-team Singapore league.
“No matter who you get, you could bring Messi here, yes, you’d attract fans but without money, and the government and the league helping out like they do with other sports, or what they do in other countries, it’s not going to grow,” he told the Straits Times newspaper.
“If they don’t do anything, football is always going to be in a comfort zone, not progressing.”
Pennant was arguably the biggest signing in S-League history, but he was cut loose after Tampines Rovers finished second, one point behind Albirex Niigata.
The S-League struggles to attract spectators and sponsorship in an era when many Singaporean fans prefer to watch European football on television.
The Straits Times said Pennant was believed to be earning Sg$20,000 ($14,000) a month under his contract.
Club chairman Krishna Ramachandra told AFP on Thursday that “While the club could afford his wages, it would also send the wrong message to all the other players, who may have to take a pay cut, that one player is getting a super-scale salary.”

 
 
The Repsol Honda rider, who locked up the season title in Japan two weeks ago, posted a best lap of 2min, 1.21secs on a dry track in the morning.
But gastroenteritis forced him to pull out of the afternoon session, when Malaysia’s tropical rains left the track wet, putting the brakes on lap speeds.
Riders on Friday were getting acquainted with tweaked conditions including a surface repaving at the Sepang International Circuit ahead of Sunday’s event.
Fellow Spaniard Maverick Vinales of Suzuki, who is now fourth in the world championship standings, was 0.268 seconds off Marquez’s pace.
Britain’s Scott Redding was third-fastest at a gap of 0.297 seconds.
Marquez has an unassailable 57-point lead in the championship standings but has vowed no let-up in the final two races, at Sepang and next month at Valencia.
“We?ll try here to push from the beginning again, but with a different result,” Marquez had said before practice.
“I?d like to finish as a minimum,” he said, a reference to his crashing out of the Australian Grand Prix last weekend.
“But hopefully I?ll get on the podium and fight for the victory.”
Marquez’s clinching of the title leaves Italian legend Valentino Rossi, a nine-time motorcycling world champion, trying to hold off his Movistar Yamaha teammate Jorge Lorenzo of Spain in the fight for second-place.
Rossi posted the fifth-fastest lap on Friday, 0.401 seconds behind Marquez.
Lorenzo, who won the world title last year, was only tenth-fastest on Friday, 0.803 seconds off Marquez’s speed.
Sepang is among the trickiest tracks due to the tropical heat and frequent rain.
The track has been resurfaced and some of its banking modified.
Officials have said the re-surfacing will help hasten water run-off and improve tyre grip.
But riders will be working over the next two days to determine exactly how it will affect traction, speed and tyre wear, and whether the banking changes require modified approaches to key turns.
Just ahead of Rossi on Friday was Andrea Iannone, who is returning to competition in Sepang for the first time since he suffered a vertebrae fracture in a crash in early September.
Like Marquez, he sat out the afternoon session, saying he did not want to risk a tumble on the slick surface, according to Motorsport.com.
“I’m very happy because this morning I had a very good feeling from the beginning with the bike,” he said.
“With my injury, I have pain, but I manage very well at the moment. This is very important for all the weekend.”

Tamim Iqbal scored his eighth Test century before Moeen Ali took 5-57 to spark a spectacular collapse as England dismissed Bangladesh for 220 runs on the first day of the second Test Friday.
In a topsy-turvy day’s play in Dhaka, opener Tamim made a quickfire 104 off 147 balls while Mominul Haque scored 66 as the hosts surged to what should have been a commanding score of 171 for one.
But Tamim’s dismissal, lbw to Ali, sparked a spectacular collapse, as Bangladesh lost their last nine wickets for 49 runs with seven of their batsmen failing to make double figures.
England then suffered their own mini-collapse as they were reduced to 50 for three before rain brought an early end to proceedings, 11.3 overs before the scheduled close of play at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium.
Shakib Al Hasan removed Ben Duckett for seven before young Mehedi Hasan ended Alastair Cook’s innings at 14 through lbw.
Cook, who equalled Michael Atherton’s record of 54 Tests as England captain at the start of play, was initially given not out but the decision was overturned after Bangladesh reviewed.
Mehedi then dismissed Gary Ballance for nine, the batsman’s third single figure score of the series, to bring Bangladesh right back into the game, with England still trailing them by 170 runs.
Ali was unbeaten on two at the close, leaving him at the centre stage at the start of day two of the Test after his starring role in the drama of the opening day.
“It’s a good cricket game at the end of the day,” said Ali
“Obviously losing three wickets at the end put us back a little bit … I think its 50-50 at the minute.”
Tamim and Mominul dominated the morning session after Woakes earned England an early breakthrough removing opener Imrul Kayes for one, with Duckett taking a spectacular catch at point.
Tamim smashed 12 boundaries but he became Ali’s first victim of the day shortly after driving the same bowler for back-to-back fours through the cover to bring up his third century in six Tests against England.
It ended his 170-run stand with Mominul, who had also looked solid until he too was bowled by Ali for 66.
“The way the wickets fell today, my century has suddenly become special,” Tamim said after the first day.
“The blame lies with everyone, from myself to Rabbi (last man Kamrul Islam). But we got three crucial wickets so we could still make a game of it tomorrow.”
The all-rounders Ben Stokes and Chris Woakes shared the other five wickets as the tourists tightened the noose on a Bangladeshi side still reeling from the disappointment of losing the first Test by just 22 runs.
Bangladesh skipper Mushfiqur Rahim had called on his team before the start of the Test to show more consistency and learn how to drive home their advantage at key points in matches.
But the rapid succession of wickets in the afternoon session pointed to Bangladesh’s continued frailty in high-pressure situations, severely damaging their hopes of squaring the two-match series.
England made two changes to the team that won the first Test last Monday in Chittagong, with left-arm spinner Zafar Ansari handed a Test debut for Gareth Batty and paceman Steven Finn coming in for Stuart Broad who has been rested.
Bangladesh picked all-rounder Shuvagata Hom ahead of Shafiul Islam in their only change. They are playing with just one specialist fast bowler.

Despite the threat, it’s hard not to want to cuddle the pint-sized furball and her mate Freddy, the only pygmy anteaters in the world to be kept in a zoo.
Since being rescued from animal traffickers a decade ago, when they were a year old, the pair have lived in the Huachipa Zoo in Lima, Peru.
Native to Central and South America, pygmy anteaters measure about 20 centimeters (eight inches) long — the smallest anteaters in the world.
Also called silky anteaters, or Cyclopes didactylus, they are known as creatures of the night, wrapping their little golden-brown bodies around tropical tree branches to feed on ants.
They are much smaller than their cousins, such as the Tamandua anteaters, which can measure up to a meter long, or the giant anteater, which reaches two meters long.
They spend their entire lives in the treetops, never touching the ground.
But the destruction of the Amazon rainforest is leaving them without a home.
Because of their fragility, Paulina and Freddy are not on public display.
They are kept in a special enclosure designed to mimic their arboreal habitat.
The pair are believed to be the longest-lived pygmy anteaters in captivity.
Sometimes captured to be kept as pets, the animals typically stay alive only a short time outside their native habitat.
“There’s not much information about them because they’re not very visible. They are being affected by deforestation, and because of that we are losing them,” said the biologist who cares for the Lima pair, Gina Ccarhuas.
It is difficult to estimate how many pygmy anteaters there are in the Amazon because they are so solitary and shy.
“They are vulnerable,” said Ccarhuas.
“A conservation program is being launched, and a zoological training course on managing the species.”
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) does not classify the species as threatened, but warned in a 2014 report that parts of its habitat were disappearing in Brazil.
“There is no doubt that rapid and ongoing deforestation of the Atlantic Forest is negatively affecting the northeastern population of Cyclopes didactylus,” it said.
“The species cannot survive in the sugar cane plantations that are replacing the native vegetation in this area and the remaining patches of suitable habitat are increasingly fragmented.”
Feeding Paulina and Freddy is a challenge for the zoo, which has had to substitute the ants they eat in the wild with a special protein-rich, probiotic milk formula.
They usually wake up around 6 pm and are active until about 4 am, Ccarhuas said.
They live in an enclosure designed to simulate the canopy of a tropical rainforest.
When daytime comes, they curl up to sleep in a small wicker basket — VIP treatment for two star guests.

Venezuela’s opposition sought to pressure President Nicolas Maduro on Friday with a strike, which he threatened to break with army takeovers of paralyzed firms.
The strike risks exacerbating the shortages of food and goods gripping the country, but it seemed to be only partially observed on Friday morning.
In the capital Caracas and cities such as Maracaibo and San Cristobal, the streets were quieter than normal but public transport was running and banks and schools opened as usual.
The action, scheduled for 12 hours from 1000 GMT, was called by the opposition to protest authorities’ decision to block a referendum on removing Maduro from power.
The move followed scuffles and clashes in recent days between riot police and pro- and anti-government protesters around the country.
In a statement, the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) had called for “a citizens’ strike for the people: to leave streets and workplaces empty… to pressure the government to obey the constitution and respect our right to choose.”
The center-right coalition’s latest move to pressure the unpopular leftist leader came after anti-government protests drew hundreds of thousands of people on Wednesday.
Maduro vowed to respond forcefully.
“If a company stops, it will be taken over,” he said Thursday in a televised speech.
He also extended a carrot to the struggling workers who have served as his socialist party’s traditional base: a 40 percent increase in the minimum wage, to the equivalent of about $140 a month.
But economic analysts called that a drop in the bucket for a country the International Monetary Fund says is facing inflation of 475 percent this year, rising to 1,660 percent next year.
And a wage hike may only add fuel to the inflationary fire.
Although Venezuela boasts the world’s largest oil reserves, falling crude prices have plunged the country into an economic crisis.
Maduro calls the crisis a capitalist conspiracy. The opposition blames his economic policies.
The recession has spawned a messy political crisis. The opposition won a majority in the National Assembly last December.
That forced the president to share power with an opposition legislature for the first time since Maduro’s predecessor and mentor, the late socialist firebrand Hugo Chavez, came to power in 1999.
Maduro accuses the National Assembly of staging a “parliamentary coup” by voting to put him on trial for alleged breach of duty.
The opposition says it is Maduro who is staging a coup d’etat by blocking a referendum.
Fears of violent unrest are mounting in the country, where rioting at anti-government protests killed 43 people in 2014.
The opposition has vowed to march next week on the presidential palace, the scene of a short-lived but deadly opposition coup attempt against Chavez in 2002.
Army chief Vladimir Padrino has declared loyalty to Maduro, vowing to defend the socialist government “with (his) life.”
The army will inspect some 700 companies Friday to see whether they observe the strike, Maduro said.
He wants to address the crisis in a “national dialogue” with opponents from Sunday, a plan he says is backed by Pope Francis.
The MUD said it would agree to talks only if the government respects the constitutional right to a referendum and frees imprisoned activists and leaders, among other demands.

Hong Kong sevens coach Gareth Baber was named as the new mentor of Olympic and world champions Fiji on Friday in what he described as an “incredible opportunity”.
The Welshman will take up the post in early 2017 on a four-year contract, allowing him to see the Pacific islanders through to their Olympic title defence in Tokyo in 2020, the Hong Kong Rugby Union (HKRU) said.
Baber said he had “tremendous affection” for Hong Kong, the spiritual home of sevens as the organiser of its most famous tournament, but he also relished the chance to work with Fiji rugby.
“Coaches, like players, need to constantly challenge themselves; I want to continuously strengthen my knowledge of the game, and the competition level that Fiji operates at will provide that opportunity,” he said.
Fiji won their first ever Olympic medal when they hammered Britain 43-7 in the men’s sevens final in Rio in August, as rugby rejoined the Olympic programme after a gap of 92 years.
The island team, known for their flamboyant play and hulking physiques, have also won the last two sevens world series under their outgoing coach, Englishman Ben Ryan.
Baber’s Hong Kong narrowly missed out on a place in Rio when they were beaten by Japan in the final of this year’s Asian qualifying tournament.
Hong Kong also won their third Asian sevens title in five years earlier this month.

A 22 year old suspected Al-Shabaab terrorist was shot dead yesterday October 27 after he attacked a GSU officer manning security at the US embassy.
The lone terrorist walked up to the GSU officer, pulled out a knife and stabbed him in the face. The officer wrestled him and managed to pull out his gun and shot the terrorist four times.
The assailant died on the spot; passersby took photos of the lifeless body that remained lying on the ground after the incident.
 
FBI agents stationed in US embassy rushed to the scene of the attack and inspected the deceased’s body for concealed weapons.
 
Meanwhile the US embassy has announced that it will remain closed to the public on October 28. In a Facebook post, US embassy said routine consular services had been cancelled, only emergency consular services for U.S. citizens continues to be available.   
.  The announcement by US embassy
 

The first leg of a classic David-versus-Goliath showdown is set for Stade Mustapha Tchaker in Blida Saturday with the return match eight days later at Stade TP Mazembe in Lubumbashi.
France-born Velud is adamant that Mazembe winning nine CAF titles and Bejaia competing in Africa for the first time this year will have no impact on the destiny of the trophy.
His belief is based on two tight tussles between the clubs at the group stage with the first ending goalless and Mazembe winning 1-0 at home through a Rainford Kalaba goal.
“The final is a 50-50 affair,” the coach who has previous experience with several top-flight Algerian clubs told the Congolese media.
“Mouloudia have proved their worth and I am not surprised that they qualified for the Confederation Cup final.
“Having worked at several Algerian clubs as a coach, I know the mentality of the players extremely well.
“While some Algerian footballers may lack a little in talent, they more than compensate for that with incredible fighting spirit.
“Bejaia have been written off regularly during this competition and now they are in the final,” said the 57-year-old former goalkeeper.
“On our side, there is a need for better finishing. We created many scoring chances during the two legs of the semi-final against Tunisian club Etoile Sahel yet scored only one goal.”
Mazembe, whose nine CAF triumphs include five in the elite Champions League, boast the most multi-national club side in Africa with stars from DR Congo, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mali and Zambia.
Among those stars is Zambia dribbling wizard, captain and winger Kalaba.
He has netted six times in the Confederation Cup this season, making him joint leading scorer with Arsenio ‘Love’ Cabungula, whose Angolan club were eliminated in the play-offs.
Congolese pair Jonathan Bolingi and Merveille Bope, who boast five CAF goals between them, are others who will require close policing from a mean Bejaia defence.
Bejaia coach and former Algeria defender Nacer Sandjak says he is happier facing 2013 runners-up Mazembe than 2015 title-holders Etoile Sahel in the final.
“If I had to choose between the two teams, I would have opted for the Congolese because the Tunisians are very difficult to handle,” he told the Algerian media.
“When we meet Mazembe this time, we will not be taking a leap into the unknown. We know our opponents quite well now.
“They are a strong side with very athletic individuals, but we think we have the right formula to beat them.”
Bejaia rely more than Mazembe on home-based footballers, but Malian defender Soumaila Sidibe and France-born Chad international Morgan Betorangal are possible starters.
Betorangal has been nominated for the 2016 Africa-based Footballer of the Year award helped, no doubt, by a brilliant long-range goal in a key group game against Medeama of Ghana.

There was no apparent motive for the killing of the 29-year-old man named by local media as Manmeet Alisher, a well-known singer in the Indian Punjabi community.
Police superintendent Jim Keogh told reporters “it’s a horrific incident here in the quiet suburb of Moorooka.”
“This is a rare one where it appears to be no apparent motive.
“A bus driver, going about, doing his business, supporting the community, has had his life taken from him in what is a senseless and needless act.”
A 48-year-old suspect was arrested at the bus stop and placed in custody.
Bystanders kicked down the back doors of the municipal bus to rescue passengers, who were “traumatised” by the incident, Keogh said.
“It’s lucky the whole bus didn’t become engulfed in flames,” Keogh said.
Around half-a-dozen passengers were aboard the vehicle and some were treated for smoke inhalation.

Retired pace spearhead Mitchell Johnson has slammed the Australian team culture under former captain Michael Clarke and coach Mickey Arthur as fractured and “toxic”, saying the dynamics changed when Ricky Ponting retired.
In his newly-released autobiography ‘Resilient’, Johnson suggested things were so bad that some teammates did not want to play, with cracks emerging after veteran Ponting called it quits in late 2012.
“The dynamics definitely changed. It became more groups in the team. It wasn?t a team. There was different little factions going on and it was very toxic,? Johnson told Fox Sports News late Thursday.
“It just built very slowly but everyone could see it, everyone could feel it and nothing was being done at that time.?
The left-arm paceman, who took the fourth-most wickets (313 at 28.40) of any Test bowler in Australian history, was one of four players suspended by Arthur and Clarke for not completing a feedback task during Australia?s shambolic tour of India in 2013.
Arthur was eventually sacked before the side?s next Test campaign, the 2013 Ashes. It was reported during that tour that Arthur alleged Clarke had described senior teammate Shane Watson as “a cancer on the team”.
Clarke was back in the headlines last week following the release of his autobiography, which revisited his run-ins with Watson and Simon Katich.
He said Watson was part of a group that was “like a tumour” on the team, to which Watson replied that bringing up history reflected poorly on the former captain.
Katich, meanwhile, denied Clarke’s claims the two were now friends following a volatile showdown between the pair in the Sydney Cricket Ground changing rooms after a Test win in 2009.
“(Our relationship) has been non-existent, so to suggest we are mates now after everything that has happened is a bit of a stretch,” said Katich.

The Hollywood studio that made the latest “Transformers” blockbuster must pay a Chinese scenic area more than two million yuan ($300,000) because it failed to include the park’s logo, state media reported.
A court in Chongqing ordered Paramount Pictures and its Beijing partner to pay the money to a park in the southwestern municipality, the official Xinhua news agency said late Thursday.
The films are wildly popular in China, with Chinese companies from milk producers to banks flocking to link their products to them, and when “Transformers: Age of Extinction” came out it became the country’s highest ever grossing movie.
Some of its scenes were filmed in the gorges and caves of the Wulong Scenic Area, and the tourism group managing the park claimed that it had a product placement agreement for the logo to be shown in the footage.
It filed suit in 2014, saying that its contract had been violated and demanding 20 million yuan in compensation, reports at the time said.
Neither Paramount Pictures nor its Chinese partner 1905 Internet Technology could be reached for comment by AFP on Friday.
“Age of Extinction” was the fourth film in director Michael Bay’s robot action franchise, with a fifth instalment due next year.

To many, Donald Trump’s pledge to build a wall along the US-Mexico border is unrealistic. But for Jim Chilton, it’s the only way he’ll get a good night’s sleep.
The 77-year-old, a fifth-generation rancher on the Arizona border with Mexico, says he has grown weary of seeing drug smugglers — rather than just cattle — on his ranch and a wall is the answer to his troubles.
“I really admire Trump for having the insight and the knowledge to know what’s wrong with the current border system,” he said, as he surveyed the sprawling desert plains of his 75-square-mile ranch that stretches to the Mexican border.
“We need a wall. I’ve been saying that for 10 years… and we need roads along the boundary and the border patrol to be deployed there and not let anybody in,” he added. “It would make my life so much better and I’d feel more secure.”
The Republican US presidential candidate has made building a wall along the southern border a staple of his campaign and has said the structure would cost $8-12 billion, with Mexico footing the bill.
He has also pledged to deport some 11 million people who are in the country illegally.
Chilton, who admits that Trump was not his first choice among the Republican candidates for the White House, says building a barrier to secure the 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer) US-Mexico frontier not only makes sense but is also a question of national security.
“I live in a no-man’s land. I live in a land that is occupied by the Sinaloa drug cartel,” he sighed, pointing to mountains on his ranch where he said scouts equipped with sophisticated equipment are posted as lookouts for smugglers.
“I have seen cartel scouts on these two mountains before … and even in my front yard,” he said. “I wave at them and they often yell ‘hola’ and wave back.”
Chilton — who keeps a gun holstered on his hip, a rifle by his front door and a pistol by his bedside — added that he and other ranchers are also in favor of beefed up security in remote border areas as extremist groups like Islamic State (IS) may be using them to slip operatives into the United States.
“We have no idea on this porous international boundary how many people from IS are actually coming in,” he said, standing by the four-strand barbed wire fence on his ranch. “It could be awful, it could be horrible.
“This is the international boundary and it’s outrageous that it’s open for 25 miles of fence just like this.”
Although several US politicians have claimed that members of the jihadist group were present in Mexico and had crossed into the US through the southern border, authorities have said there was no actual evidence of that.
But beyond the drug cartels and threat of terrorism, Chilton insists that Trump’s wall is all the more necessary for humanitarian reasons.
“It’s just outrageous for me to find a dead body on my ranch. It’s outrageous for the border patrol to find a dead body and it’s outrageous for my cowboys,” he said, referring to migrants who often die making the crossing into the US through the brutal desert.
“This is as big a humanitarian issue as it is a national security issue.”
He said he always carries at least 10 gallons of water in his pick-up truck in the event he runs into desperate migrants, but in recent years their numbers have dwindled as drug cartels took control of the border area.
According to the US Border Patrol, nearly 2,600 bodies have been recovered since 1998 from the desert in the Tucson, Arizona sector which covers 262 miles of the border.
But groups that work closely with migrant issues in that area say they doubt the number of casualties will decline if a wall is built.
They point to the 652 miles of fencing and related infrastructure that already exist along the US-Mexico border as an example of why a barrier — however tall and solid — will not deter people from trying to illegally enter the US.
“A fence by itself will do absolutely nothing if you don’t have somebody watching it all the time,” said Mike Kreyche, a member of Tucson Samaritans, a humanitarian group that drops water and food along migrant trails in the desert.
“I think the biggest thing missing from this conversation about migrants is looking into the root causes,” he added.
“As someone said, ‘Show me a 50-foot wall and I’ll show you a 51-foot ladder.'”

After trading point guard Derrick Rose to the New York Knicks, Chicago overhauled last season’s roster with the addition of Wade and Rajon Rondo, who signed with the Bulls in the offseason.
Wade, who finished with 22 points, hit four-of-six from the three-point line in his first game with the Bulls. Wade had just seven threes during all of the last NBA season for the Miami Heat.
Wade, who grew up in Chicago, sealed the victory Thursday with his final three pointer of the night. He nailed a long-range shot over guard Avery Bradley with 26 seconds left in the fourth quarter to put Chicago up 104-99.
“It was special,” he said of getting a chance to play for his hometown team. “I had an amazing career and 23 years ago I had a dream of playing basketball and a dream of playing with this organization and tonight it became a reality.”
Wade has never been known as a three-point shooter but he’s been working on getting better at it.
“For a guy who has been in the league that long it says a lot that he is willing to work hard and add a new element to his game,” said Bulls coach Fred Hoiberg.
Jimmy Butler led Chicago with 24 points and Rondo added four points and nine assists.
“For some guys who can’t shoot, I think we did pretty well tonight,” said Butler.
Forward Taj Gibson finished with 18 points and 10 rebounds for Chicago as he earned a starting role to begin the season.
Nikola Mirotic had 15 points off the bench for the Bulls, who dominated the glass 55-36.
Guard Isaiah Thomas led Boston with 25 points, while Bradley had 16 points, Jae Crowder added 14 and Al Horford — a high-profile offseason signee — finished with 11 points, seven rebounds and five assists.
The Celtics played their second game in as many days after defeating the Brooklyn Nets 122-117 on Wednesday at home.
Chicago led the entire first half. That included a 57-49 lead at halftime, after getting a combined 28 points, 12 rebounds, 11 assists from Wade, Butler and Rondo.
The Celtics are coming off two straight playoff appearances. This season they added four-time all-star Horford, who inked a four-year deal worth $113 million.
Wade said he likes the way the Celtics are playing and that teams are going to have trouble stopping them this season.
“You have to be at your best if you are going to beat them,” he said.

Silent and enigmatic, China’s emblematic Terracotta Warriors are at the centre of a bitter row, with patriots and scholars dismissing as impossible theories they could have been inspired by Greek sculpture.
The 8,000-man clay army, crafted around 250 BC for the tomb of China?s first emperor Qin Shihuang, is a UNESCO world heritage site, a major tourist draw and a symbol of ancient Chinese artistic and military sophistication in a country that proclaims itself a 5,000-year-old civilisation.
Questioning their origins touches on deep sensitivities, as many take pride in China’s early discovery of world-changing inventions, from gunpowder to the compass and movable type.
At the same time its history with the West is fraught with a sense of humiliation over the colonies and concessions established in the 19th century.
But theories put forward by art historian Lukas Nickel of the University of Vienna ? and trumpeted in a recent documentary by National Geographic and the BBC ? claim that Greek innovations in artistic naturalism, and perhaps even Greek artisans themselves, directly influenced the sculptures.
After the documentary aired earlier this month, netizens blasted the BBC and questioned how the Greeks could have impacted ancient China.
“Couldn?t it be that Chinese people went first to Greece and influenced their sculpture?” one wrote.
At the tomb tourists from across China crammed observation platforms to view the ranks of soldiers, jostling for space to snap selfies against their serious, stony facades as guides briskly narrated the story of their discovery by farmers in the 1970s.
Several visitors were incredulous at theories of foreign influence. Dong Shenghua of Beijing said this was “impossible”, pointing to the Asian features of the statues and the sophistication of the craftsmanship, which is “so good we can?t even make them today”.
“We have 5,000 years of history, how many does England have?” he asked.
Ma Dongling, from Guangxi, said inspiration could not have come from abroad as China was “very innovative” at the time. “The emperor was the first in the world to do this.”
The museum’s lead archaeologist Zhang Weixing was similarly dismissive, saying the materials, technology, and ceramics techniques used for the Warriors were all Chinese.
“To say that the Qin tombs and ancient Greece had contact has no substantial evidence at all,” he told AFP. “It merely exists in the scholar’s conjecture.”
As emperor, he added, Qin Shihuang “not only innovated the terracotta warriors, he also created a series of innovations” including standardised weights and measures, national roads, and a unified currency.
“Who influenced whom, it’s tough to say. Ancient Greek sculpture had already also been influenced by Egypt.”
For evidence Nickel points to historical records suggesting the first Qin emperor made casts of huge bronze statues seen in China’s far west, realistic detailing of muscle and bone on some figures, and the absence of an extensive prior sculptural tradition in China.
Further research could show that foreign empires may have provided a model for the Qin state itself, he told AFP.
“I think it?s perfectly possible that there’s much more influence in thought about statecraft, in how to run an empire, than people have been so far willing to admit.”
He points to the rise of empires in central Asia before the Qin dynasty, with the Achaemenids in Persia followed by Alexander the Great and the Seleucids. “When I look at the map of Eurasia, what the Chinese do fits perfectly in the big picture.”
But basing theories about transmission of cultural ideas on stylistic similarities in objects fails to convince some Chinese scholars, he acknowledged.
“This is an argument that works mainly in Europe and America,” Nickel says. In China, researchers rely more on textual evidence for proof, he said, and so were “very hesitant to believe there were interactions before the mid 2nd century BC, when the Chinese emperor of the Han dynasty sent an envoy to central Asia”.
And the idea of early Sino-Western exchanges threatens to undermine a cornerstone of Chinese identity: the Qin dynasty, while brutal in many respects, with book burnings and executions of literati, laid the foundation for China as a unified nation state that has persisted for two millennia.
“That is the moment when China is being made,” said Nickel, acknowledging the sensitivity of his assertions.
“Saying there is such a link, it always brings up memories of colonialism, of Western domination of East Asia, which is totally understandable.”
Zhang insisted the disagreement was based on academic rigour. “If he was an archaeologist we could discuss this issue,” he said. “Archaeologists put more importance on historical documents and unearthed objects.”
Li Xiuzhen, a fellow scholar at the museum, told AFP that while there may have been cultural contact, that did not imply influence and the warriors were completely Chinese.
“The terracotta army is unique in the world,” she said, and the “creation of the Qin people”.

Uncapped quick Joe Mennie was a surprise pick on Friday in Australia’s 12-man squad for the first Test against South Africa, as batsman Usman Khawaja regained his place despite slamming selectors.
South Australia’s Mennie was named ahead of Jackson Bird after he topped last season’s Sheffield Shield competition with 51 wickets and recently toured South Africa with Australia’s one-day side.
Pace spearhead Mitchell Starc was also picked for next week’s opener in Perth after recovering from last month’s freak training accident when he collided with equipment, suffering deep lacerations in his left leg.
Mennie, who is 6ft 2ins (190cm) tall and known for his accuracy, will battle it out with Peter Siddle for the third fast bowler’s spot behind Starc and John Hazlewood.
“Joe bowls a great length at a lively pace and his form in first-class cricket has been terrific in the last 12 months,” chief selector Rod Marsh said.
“He’s surprisingly quick. He hits the bat pretty hard. No one likes bowlers who bowl a good length,” Marsh said.
Australia’s fast bowling depth is stretched ahead of the three-Test series, with Pat Cummins and James Pattinson sidelined. Spearhead Starc and Siddle (ankle and back) are both recovering from injuries.
“We’ll wait and see how they go in the nets. We’ll wait and see how everyone’s fitness is,” Marsh said, when asked if Mennie or Siddle was favoured as the third fast bowler.
Bird missed out despite taking five for 59 in his last Test against New Zealand in February before touring Sri Lanka for Australia’s 3-0 Test defeat in July and August.
Shaun Marsh, who has scored centuries in his last two Test outings, was named as opener with David Warner following his recovery from a hamstring strain, ahead of Joe Burns.
Khawaja also returns at number three despite being dropped for Australia’s final Test against Sri Lanka.
Khawaja last week claimed both he and Burns were made “scapegoats” by “fickle” selectors when they were axed on the ill-fated Sri Lankan tour.
“He probably opened his mouth before his brain got working,” Marsh said.
“I’m not too concerned about it. But I wouldn’t say it’s the smartest thing he’s ever said. That’s life. I think the coach (Darren Lehmann) covered that one off.”
Adam Voges, 37 and with a Test average of 72.75, is one of five recognised batsmen in the squad, while veteran offspinner Nathan Lyon, who has taken 211 Test wickets, keeps his place.
Australia (from) – David Warner, Shaun Marsh, Usman Khawaja, Steve Smith (capt), Adam Voges, Mitchell Marsh, Peter Nevill, Mitchell Starc, Peter Siddle, John Hazlewood, Joe Mennie, Nathan Lyon.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah party aims to hold its first congress since 2009 by the end of this year, an official said, in what some analysts have called a bid by the 81-year-old to stave off rivals.
The plan to hold the congress of the mainstream party he heads comes as Arab states have reportedly been pressuring Abbas to bring longtime rival Mohammed Dahlan back from exile in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
While Abbas’s advisers insist the congress is being organised simply because it is overdue, some analysts see it as an opportunity for him to reshuffle key positions and sideline Dahlan allies.
A member of the Fatah central committee said on condition of anonymity that the congress would take place “before the end of the year,” hopefully in November.
It will be Fatah’s seventh since its formation and the first since 2009.
The congress is to include elections for Fatah’s 23-member central committee, in which Abbas serves as president, and its 132-member revolutionary council.
The so-called Arab Quartet — Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the UAE — has been pushing for Abbas to resolve issues with rivals in Fatah with a view towards a wider reconciliation between Palestinian factions.
Besides splits within the party, Abbas’s secular Fatah and the Islamist movement Hamas have been at loggerheads since the latter seized Gaza in a near civil war in 2007.
In a recent poll, 65 percent of Palestinians were pessimistic about the potential for reconciliation, with just 31 percent optimistic.
Another source of concern has been Saudi Arabia not providing any financial contributions to the Palestinian budget since April, according to the Palestinian finance ministry’s website.
The oil-rich Gulf state normally provides around $20 million a month, and there have been suggestions the money has been withheld over frustration with the deadlock.
Abbas, known to be a heavy smoker, was hospitalised earlier this month for a heart test, though he has since returned to his normal duties.
“Everyone is thinking about post-Abbas succession. Everyone has their preferred candidates,” said Hugh Lovatt, Israel and Palestine coordinator for the European Council on Foreign Relations think-tank.
“Abbas has been consolidating his position — excluding his potential rivals. There is no clear person in his camp who could succeed him.”
The Arab Quartet has reportedly been seeking to encourage Abbas to bring Dahlan back.
Dahlan, Fatah’s former strongman in Gaza, was expelled from the party in 2011 and now lives in exile in the UAE.
“It is no secret Dahlan is the preferred candidate of the Arab Quartet,” Lovatt said.
Dahlan has previously called for Abbas to step aside and on Sunday gave an interview with BBC Arabic in which he again criticised him.
Hundreds of his supporters in his native Gaza recently marched calling for his return — with some burning pictures of Abbas.
Officials insist the timing of the congress is unrelated to succession rumours.
Husam Zomlot, strategic affairs advisor to Abbas, said it was merely because Fatah must hold a congress every five years, though the previous one was 2009.
“There is so much analysis about the timing. The timing is (because) the congress of Fatah is due,” he told AFP.
But Jehad Harb from the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research said it was a way for Abbas to stave off what he sees as “interference” from Arab states.
“Dahlan is trying to use the Quartet to return to Fatah, while Abu Mazen (Abbas) wants to exclude Dahlan under the cover of the decisions of Fatah.”
At least three positions on Fatah’s executive committee are thought to be up for grabs, with Dahlan expected to be formally removed and two others having died. Rumours of others being expelled abound.
Meanwhile, wider Palestinian politics has stalled. Abbas’s term as Palestinian president officially ended in 2009 but there has been no election since.
Diana Buttu, a former Abbas spokeswoman and now a fierce critic, said that moves to alienate challengers had created uncertainty over a succession, in contrast to the smooth transition when veteran leader Yasser Arafat died in 2004.
“With Abu Mazen (Abbas) we don’t know who will follow him, and we don’t even know how. They will be chosen,” she said.

Ex-Soviet Moldova will cast ballots Sunday in a presidential election viewed as a tug-of-war between supporters of European integration and advocates of closer relations with former master Moscow.
The crisis-hit country of 3.5 million, wedged between Ukraine and Romania, will for the first time since 1997 elect a president by national vote instead of having parliament select the head of state.
The popular ballot now forces Moldovans to make a tough choice for their country, which has been rocked by protests and political turmoil since the mysterious disappearance of $1 billion (915 million euros) — some 10 percent of the country’s GDP — from three banks last year.
Presidential candidates are pressing diametrically-opposed visions for the country’s future: deeper ties with the European Union and closer relations with Moscow.
The country signed an historic EU association agreement in 2014 despite bitter opposition from Russia, and the result of Sunday’s elections could fuel strife between pro-European and pro-Russian forces.
EU officials have admitted that Europe’s appeal has dwindled in the ex-Soviet republic in spite of the 2014 association agreement.
Pirkka Tapiola, who heads the EU mission to Moldova, told AFP that 70 percent of Moldovans had supported a European course for the country’s development but that this figure had dropped following a string of failed pro-Western government reforms.
“The fact that we have had successive governments that have called themselves pro-European (…) has taken a toll on the popularity of the European vector,” Tapiola told AFP.
Presidential candidate Igor Dodon, who heads the Socialist Party, has vehemently advocated against turning toward Europe.
“What have we received from Europe? Nothing,” said Dodon, who currently leads in voting intention polls, during a recent rally.
Dodon, who served as economy minister from 2006 to 2009 under a Communist government, has pledged to “restore a strategic partnership with Russia” and to void the economic portion of the association agreement with the EU.
“I am not against the EU,” Dodon told AFP, stressing that the implementation of reforms demanded by Brussels, including in the justice system, are in Moldova’s interest.
Candidate Maia Sandu of the centre-right opposition, currently second in voting intention polls, has promised to make Moldova European.
“We advocate European integration because we see true democracy and prosperity for workers in the EU,” Sandu told AFP.
Sandu, a former education minister who worked for the World Bank, conceded that authorities in Chisinau will have to convince “Moldovans and European partners of their sincerity” before even setting a timeline for the country’s possible accession to the EU.
Moldovan voters seem as divided as their political leaders, with half the population in favour of bolstering ties with the EU while the other looks east to Russia and hopes the country will enter a Russian-led customs union that also includes Belarus and Kazakhstan.
“Moldova needs to be part of the EU,” said 66-year-old former construction worker Mihai Scutelnic. “But before that we need to put our country in order.”
But for others like 67-year-old Ion Badii, the country’s Communist past and strong ties with Moscow are more appealing.
“It’s better to have close ties with Russia because Europe does not need our commodities,” he said.
Factory worker Vladimir, 37, said the country was “psychologically closer to Russia” because of its Soviet past.
But Tapiola of the EU warned against attempts to label the country’s different political factions as pro-Russian and pro-European, saying it made for “artificial polarisation.”
“I think that some may have preferred to direct the discourse into pro-EU or pro-Russia because it is an easy discourse compared to the main discourse,” he said.
“What are the reforms which are needed, what are we going to do with the justice system, how are we going to deal with corruption?”

Big-spending Racing 92 and Toulon seek morale-boosting Top 14 wins this weekend after a traumatic fortnight which left their European Cup hopes bruised and battered.
Defending Top 14 champions Racing went down to a 27-17 loss to Leicester in their opening European tie, a week after their scheduled opener at home to Munster was postponed following the death of Anthony Foley.
Three-time European champions Toulon, meanwhile, are struggling to make the quarter-finals of the continent’s top club competition after defeat to Saracens and a narrow win at Sale.
In the Top 14, Racing are eighth while Toulon are fourth.
However, at least they should be comforted by knowing that on Saturday they face the bottom two clubs — Racing go to Bayonne while Toulon host Grenoble.
After eight rounds of the Top 14 and two matches in Europe, Racing have yet to win an away match and have claimed just one bonus losing point on their travels despite a squad boasting All Blacks legend Dan Carter.
“We look like we are not the same team when we are playing away from home. We are still looking to click,” said coach Laurent Travers.
Racing are also confronting problems with the schedule.
During the November Test series, they will be missing French stars Maxime Machenaud, Wenceslas Laurent, Camille Chat and Eddy Ben Arous.
Toulon owner Mourad Boudjellal, meanwhile, lost patience with coach Diego Dominguez and replaced him with Mike Ford, the Englishman who was brought in as backs coach in September.
As a signal of intent, and despite insisting recently that he was ready to walk away from the club he has bankrolled to success, Boudjellal reached for the chequebook to sign England wing Chris Ashton from Saracens.
“Mourad really likes my vision of doing things. To put it simply, he’d like me to create a way of playing which is pleasing to watch,” said former Bath coach Ford.
Toulon will be without Welsh full-back Leigh Halfpenny and South African winger Bryan Habana who are away on international duty while a decision on whether or not Japanese full-back Ayumu Goromaru will make his long-awaited debut will be made Friday.
Grenoble, with just two wins from their eight league games, have been buoyed by the return from injury of second-rower Hendrik Roodt and back-row forward Rory Grice who will be making their season debuts on Saturday.
Leaders Clermont don’t play until Sunday when they travel to Brive so either La Rochelle or Montpellier, who clash 24 hours earlier, could knock them off top spot.
La Rochelle have been the surprise of the season. They sit in second spot, three points behind Clermont after four wins and two draws in their eight games.
Key to their progress has been former All Blacks back-row forward Victor Vito who won the last of his 33 caps as a late replacement in the World Cup final win over Australia last year.
“Every day Victor shows why he is a world champion,” said La Rochelle coach Patrice Collazo.
“He’s a world champion on the pitch, in training, in the dressing room, amongst the players. He pushes them up to his level.”
Fixtures (GMT)
Saturday
Pau v Toulouse (1245), Montpellier v La Rochelle (1630), Stade Francais v Lyon (1630), Toulon v Grenoble (1630), Bayonne v Racing 92 (1845)
Sunday
Castres v Bordeaux-Begles (1130), Brive v Clermont (1515)

But behind closed doors, residents are squabbling over whether to remove the Republican nominee’s name from the facade to protest his divisive run for president and allegations that he sexually assaulted women.
A group of residents from the complex on Riverside Drive — on the Upper West Side, a wealthy, generally liberal enclave — launched a petition two weeks ago to take down the large letters that spell out Trump on the front of the building.
The New York billionaire’s name is his core asset, emblazed on a dozen skyscrapers dotted around Manhattan, helping him amass a personal fortune that is partly bankrolling his bid for the Oval Office.
The petition slams Trump’s “appalling treatment of women,” “history of racism,” attacks on immigrants, mockery of the disabled, tax avoidance and “outright lying” as “antithetical to the values” in which the organizers believe.
Many of the staff are minorities or immigrants, and working in a building that bears the Trump name is “insulting,” it says.
“Since Trump leases his name to buildings he does not own, part of our rent is being used to increase Trump’s net worth,” it complained.
So far, 465 supporters have signed the petition. But not everyone is on board in the cossetted corridors of homes to the rich and successful, including CEOs of companies such as KPMG, Viacom and HSBC.
“I think it’s nonsense,” said one harried father disappearing into an elevator. “When they are going to have to pay for it, they are not going to do it.”
“We live here regardless, and we love the staff, that’s all that matters,” said Ann Rae, who walks passes through the building at least three times a day to walk her dog and says she has always been friendly with everyone.
“Some of the people who have signed — we don’t even know them, not even sure they live here,” she said.
“It’s not that we like the name… it’s disgusting some of what Trump has said,” Rae added. “But it’s one of the things about living in New York — there are so many things and buildings in New York that say Trump.”
“It’s not going to change anything, taking out the name,” she said.
But Brittany Ashby, mother of two young children, said she was in favor of the petition.
She rents a two-bedroom apartment for $9,000 a month that she believes is worth several million dollars — not one of the building’s priciest.
“I am only a renter, by the time anything gets done, I will be out of there,” she said. “But if I owned a place, and you are there for life, to be associated with it forever, that is a different thing.”
The petition is not listed for discussion at the building’s next board meeting, scheduled for late November. By then, after the election, it could be a moot point, Ashby admitted.
Democrat Hillary Clinton holds the momentum two weeks before the November 8 election, and polls give her a commanding lead over Trump.
But the petition reflects the growing threat to Trump’s business interests from his self-inflicted wounds on the campaign trail, which have already cost him at least one business associate.
Luxury apartments in buildings bearing his name no longer command sale price premiums, despite being up seven percent on the market rate last year, according to a study by the Redfin real estate agency.
The Trump Organization did not respond directly to requests for comment about the petition.
But a spokesperson told AFP: “The sole focus of our property management division is to provide unparalleled white glove service, meticulous attention to detail and a warm friendly atmosphere.”
“We will continue to exceed all expectations while providing the highest levels of luxury and service.”

Dak Prescott leads the Dallas Cowboys against Carson Wentz and the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday in an NFL showdown that could mark the start of a long-running quarterback rivalry.
Prescott has been outstanding in place of injured Cowboys signal-caller Tony Romo, ranking fifth in the NFL in passing through the first six games, with seven touchdown passes and only one interception.
He’s taken Dallas to the top of the NFC East, ahead of the Eagles and their own sensational rookie QB Wentz.
Wentz, the second overall selection in the NFL draft, has thrown eight touchdowns with three interceptions since taking the helm in Philadelphia — who traded veteran Sam Bradford before the start of the season and opted to hand the reins to their young recruit.
“It’s exciting,” Wentz said of the showdown with Prescott. “It’s exciting for him, for me.
“Obviously it’s going to be played up into something. It’s cool to see another young guy like him that I’ve come to know and to see the success he’s having.”
But Prescott, who was drafted in the fourth round and went into training camp as the Cowboys’ third-string quarterback, says it’s not about a duel with Wentz but about getting a needed win against a division foe.
“No, it’s the Cowboys versus the Eagles,” Prescott said. “I’m worried about this team, the Cowboys, and how this team can finish and be remembered this season.”
Prescott became the Cowboys starter after No. 2 QB Kellen Moore broke his leg in training camp and veteran starter Tony Romo broke a bone in his back in the third pre-season game.
“I think it’s circumstantial,” Eagles head coach Doug Pederson said. “But I think some of it too is the fact that these kids, how well they prepare, how well they execute in pre-season games and in practices that catches the coach’s attention, catches the coach’s eye.”
Prescott doesn’t know how long he’ll have the reins in Dallas. Romo took part in a practice for the first time this season on Thursday and could conceivably be back on the field for a November 6 game against Cleveland.
Prescott has handled the feverish speculation in Dallas about a possible quarterback controversy with the same aplomb he’s shown on the field. For as long as he’s asked, he’ll just keep trying to pile up wins.
This week he’s expected to have the help of receiver Dez Bryant, who missed three games with a hairline fracture in his right knee.
Cowboys rookie running back Ezekiel Elliott leads the league with an average 117.2 rushing yards per game and is the first rookie in NFL history to rush for at least 130 yards in four consecutive games.
Sunday’s action kicks off in London, where after a foray to the rugby bastion of Twickenham the NFL returns to Wembley with a clash between the Washington Redskins and Cincinnati Bengals.
The Oakland Raiders put their perfect 4-0 road record on the line at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the New England Patriots will try avenge an embarrassing 16-0 home defeat to the Bills when they travel to Buffalo.
That game four weeks ago marked the first time the Pats had failed to score in a game since 2006. But it also marked the fourth game of superstar quarterback Tom Brady’s Deflategate suspension, with backup Jimmy Garoppolo sidelined by a shoulder injury and third-string rookie Jacoby Brissett getting the start despite a thumb injury.
Since Brady’s return New England have beaten Cleveland, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh by a combined 49 points. Bills coach Rex Ryan admitted his team would face a different Patriots squad this time around.
“The last time was a great time to play them,” Ryan said. “I’ll admit, it was probably an easier game to play them without (Brady); I’m here to say it was easier.”