Month: October 2016

Prop Lourens Adriaanse and flanker Nizaam Carr have replaced unavailable Jannie du Plessis and injured Jaco Kriel in the South Africa Test squad for a November tour of Europe.
Loose forward Kriel tore knee ligaments playing in Japan and will be out of action for up to eight weeks, a South Africa Rugby statement said.
France-based tighthead Du Plessis, a 2007 Rugby World Cup winner, wants to be with his wife, who is expecting their third child soon.
Adriaanse and Carr were originally chosen for an exhibition match against the Barbarians at Wembley Stadium in London on November 5, but not for Tests in England, Italy and Wales.
Coach Allister Coetzee said Du Plessis remained part of his plans as he tries to revive the Springboks, who have lost five of nine Tests this season.
“Jannie has a wealth of experience, a burning desire to still be part of the Springboks, and has a lot to offer us.”
South Africa play England in London on November 12, Italy in Florence on November 19 and Wales in Cardiff on November 26.
The Springboks hold a final training session in Johannesburg Friday before flying to London in the evening.
Revised South Africa Test squad
Forwards (18): Lourens Adriaanse, Willem Alberts, Nizaam Carr, Eben Etzebeth, Lood de Jager, Steven Kitshoff, Vincent Koch, Malcolm Marx, Bongi Mbonambi, Oupa Mohoje, Franco Mostert, Tendai Mtawarira, Trevor Nyakane, Jean-Luc du Preez, Roelof Smit, Adriaan Strauss (capt), Pieter-Steph du Toit, Warren Whiteley
Backs (15): Damian de Allende, Ruan Combrinck, Faf de Klerk, Johan Goosen, Bryan Habana, Elton Jantjies, Jesse Kriel, Patrick Lambie, Lionel Mapoe, Rudy Paige, Sergeal Petersen, JP Pietersen, Willie le Roux, Francois Venter, Piet van Zyl
Coach: Allister Coetzee

If you’ve been on social media over the past few days, you’ve probably seen a photo of this boy.
 
 
Or even in different forms like this,
 
 
Or this one.
 
 
If there’s anything we’ve learned, it is that when the internet finds a picture it loves, that photo shall be memed in every possible way.
But who exactly is the boy in the photo? Guess what? We found him.
His name is and he is 4 years old. In the photo, he is scribbling away at a local creative workshop held in his  village of Asempanaye, Koforidua, in Ghana. The workshop was organised by the US-based Ghanaian Artist, .
 
Solomon says about Jake on his Instagram:
He also said about Jake:
The photograph was taken by Carlos Cortes.
Since we don’t want to carry last, we’ll add our own caption to the photo.
Now, send us your best captions!v

Vietnam customs officials seized nearly one tonne of ivory hidden in a timber shipment from Kenya.
This is the third major illegal haul of precious tusks in less than a month.
The latest haul from Kenya was discovered at a port in Ho Chi Minh City on Wednesday, where it was carefully hidden in a shipment of timber logs.
According to a report by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), 17 percent of illegal ivory seized worldwide in the past seven years was confiscated at Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.
Most illegal ivory is destined for Asia, in particular China, where it has soared in value as an investment vehicle and is coveted as “white gold”.
Limited availability of legal ivory in China purchased form the stockpile sale in southern Africa in 2008 has, in turn, boosted demand encouraging illegal ivory trade and the poaching of elephant to meet market needs.
 
A report from the conservation group Save The Elephants in July this year revealed that Vietnam had become one of the world’s biggest illegal ivory markets with 75 percent of its ivory buyers come from China.
In April, President Uhuru Kenyatta destroyed 105 tonnes of ivory; the single largest quantity to be destroyed in the world, in an effort aimed at sending a message globally that ivory is of no value. 
The act was the most significant demonstration against poaching in the region and the largest burn of illegal wildlife products in history.

Goal-shy South Africa have turned to Netherlands-born striker Lars Veldwijk ahead of their African World Cup qualifying Group D clash at home to Senegal on November 12.
Bafana Bafana (The Boys) scored only eight goals during six matches in a failed 2017 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying campaign, and four of those came away to weak Gambia.
Belgium-based Veldwijk, 25, qualifies to play for South Africa because his father was born in the republic.
His previous clubs include English second-tier team Nottingham Forest and he scored 14 goals for Dutch top-flight side PEC Zwolle last season.
Veldwijk has had less success since moving to KV Kortrijk, manging just one goal in five outings
“I have been monitoring him since he was playing for Nottingham Forest and now he has moved to Belgium,” coach Ephraim ‘Shakes’ Mashaba told a media conference in Soweto.
“He is a big, strong boy and maybe he can help us get more goals.
“Our build-up play is as good if not better than most national teams in the world, but we have serious shortcomings in the final third of the pitch.”
Mashaba chose four of the Mamelodi Sundowns team that last Sunday became only the second South African club after Orlando Pirates to win the CAF Champions League.
They are full-backs Asavela Mbekile and Tebogo Langerman, midfield enforcer Hlompho Kekana and winger Keagan Dolly.
Sundowns striker Sibusiso Vilakazi, who was ineligible for the premier African club competition this season, has also been selected.
South Africa drew 1-1 away to Burkina Faso last month in matchday 1 of the World Cup qualifying group phase while Senegal triumphed 2-0 at home to Cape Verde.
Only the section winners qualify for the 2018 tournament in Russia.
South Africa squad
Goalkeepers: Itumeleng Khune (Kaizer Chiefs), Brighton Mhlongo (Orlando Pirates), Ronwen Williams (SuperSport Utd)
Defenders: Tebogo Langerman, Asavela Mbekile (both Mamelodi Sundowns), Erick Mathoho, Ramahlwe Mphahlele (both Chiefs), Rivaldo Coetzee (Ajax Cape Town), Clayton Daniels (SuperSport), Thulani Hlatshwayo (Wits), Thabo Matlaba (Pirates)
Midfielders: Keagan Dolly, Hlompho Kekana (both Sundowns), Dean Furman (SuperSport), Andile Jali (Ostend/BEL), Daine Klate (Wits), May Mahlangu (Dinamo Bucharest/ROU), Mpho Makola (Pirates), Ayanda Patosi (Lokeren/BEL)
Strikers: Bradley Grobler, Thuso Phala (both SuperSport), Eleazar Rodgers (Wits), Thulani Serero (Ajax Amsterdam/NED), Lars Veldwijk (Kortrijk/BEL), Sibusiso Vilakazi (Sundowns)
Coach: Ephraim ‘Shakes’ Mashaba

Marin Cilic and David Goffin seemed headed in opposite directions in the race for the ATP World Tour Finals as Cilic earned a win while his rival took a loss at the Swiss Indoors on Thursday.
Fourth seed Cilic reached the quarter-finals with a 6-0, 7-6 (7/4) defeat of Pablo Carreno Busta.
However, Argentine dangerman Juan Martin del Potro handed Goffin a 7-5, 6-3 defeat.
Del Potro has risen 1,0000 ranking places this season since his February comeback from the latest in a series of wrist injuries which forced him to consider retirement.
Del Potro beat Roger Federer in the 2012 and 2013 finals in Basel.
“I’m not seeded. I’m not not the favourite. I played five matches last week in Stockholm (which he won),” said Del Potro who will face Kei Nishikori for a place in the semi-finals.
With two places remaining in the eight-man field for the November season wrapup in London, Goffin stands on provisional ninth, with Cilic one spot behind.
But the Croatian, who will lead his nation in the Davis Cup final against Del Potro’s Argentina later this year, is making up ground in the narrow points race.
Goffin has one chance remaining at next week’s Paris Masters, the final event of the ATP regular season, where Cilic will also be playing.
After defeating Carreno Busta, winner of the Moscow title last week, Cilic will next face a second Spaniard in Marcel Granollers, a 6-3, 6-1 winner over eighth seed Jack Sock.
Cilic won the last six points of his match against Carreno Busta after trailing 0-4 in the second-set tiebreaker. He delivered nine aces and 21 winners in a tie lasting just under 90 minutes.
In another second-round contest, Gilles Muller of Luxembourg beat Germany’s Florian Mayer 6-3, 6-2.
Top seed Stan Wawrinka was bidding for his first Basel quarter-final since 2011 in a later match against qualifier Donald Young.

Russia has handed over to the Netherlands raw radar data from the area where Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was downed over rebel-held eastern Ukraine in 2014, Moscow confirmed Thursday.
“We gave the Dutch side raw radar data which we discovered a month ago,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told AFP.
She spoke after Dutch Justice Minister Ard van der Steur told parliament on Wednesday that Russian prosecutors had handed “a packet of information” to the Dutch embassy in Moscow.
He said he could not give details because the contents needed to be assessed to see if they were useful for the investigation.
Russia’s defence ministry in late September released what it claimed were new radar images showing that there was no missile fired from rebel-held territory on the day of the MH17 flight in July 2014, contradicting some of its earlier declarations.
The ministry released the images to journalists two days before the Dutch-led international team of criminal investigators released initial findings on September 28 into the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 that found the missile was transported from Russia.
The Dutch-led investigative team, which has spent two years investigating the crash that killed all 298 people on board the Boeing 777, said at the time that Russia had not given them this new radar data.
Ukraine and the West insist pro-Russian rebels blew the jet out of the sky with a Russian-made Buk missile system likely supplied by Moscow.
The tragedy saw the European Union slap tougher sanctions on Russia — blamed by the West for being behind the rebellion. The punitive measures remain in place as the fighting drags on.
But Russia and the rebels have consistently denied any role in downing the plane, and have instead blamed Ukrainian government forces.

White House frontrunner Hillary Clinton challenged the FBI to defend its renewed probe into emails sent to her private account, declaring herself confident it would find no wrongdoing.
The Democratic candidate, who is seeking to be elected America’s first female president on November 8, launched a blistering fightback after the Federal Bureau of Investigation revived its probe, citing new evidence.
“We are 11 days out from, perhaps, the most important national election of our lifetime,” Clinton told reporters, complaining that the FBI announcement posed more questions than answers.
“The American people deserve to get the full and complete facts immediately,” she said. “We don’t know the facts, which is why we are calling on the FBI to release all the information that it has.”
But her defiant words came after Republican rival Donald Trump had seized on the news, declaring Clinton unfit for office as a jubilant crowd of supporters in New Hampshire chanted: “Lock her up!”
Concern that the renewed probe would damage Clinton’s seemingly unstoppable momentum rocked the markets, with US stocks, the dollar and oil prices tumbling lower on the prospect of a close vote.
FBI Director James Comey dropped his bombshell in a letter to congressional committees investigating allegations that Clinton had put US secrets at risk during her time at the State Department.
In July, Comey told lawmakers the FBI had not found any criminal wrongdoing in Clinton’s unusual decision to use a private server instead of a government email account while serving as secretary of state.
But on Friday he wrote to congressional leaders to reveal that “in connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation.”
The FBI will thus take “appropriate investigative steps” to decide whether the new batch of mails contains classified information “as well as to assess their importance to the investigation,” Comey wrote.
Clinton’s campaign was outraged, and quick to imply that Comey’s intervention could be politically-tinged because, in Clinton’s words, the letter was only sent to “Republican members of the House.”
“We have not been contacted by anyone,” she complained. “The American people deserve to get the full and complete facts immediately.”
Clinton noted that Comey had said he himself does not know whether the emails are significant or not.
“I’m confident, whatever they are, they will not change the conclusion reached in July,” she added.
According to the New York Times, the newly discovered mails emerged after agents seized electronic devices used by Clinton’s closest aide, Huma Abedin, and her husband, Anthony Weiner.
Weiner, a former congressman who resigned in 2011 after he was exposed for sending explicit online messages, is under investigation over allegations he sent sexual messages to a 15-year-old girl.
According to NBC News, the newly discovered emails were sent by Abedin to Clinton from a laptop used by Weiner, who also saw a bid to become mayor of New York founder over similar claims in 2013.
Officials in President Barack Obama’s administration said they had learned of Comey’s letter and the issues it raises in news reports.
“I don’t think anything has surfaced to change the president’s opinions and views,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz said.
Meanwhile, Trump, trailing in polls both nationally and in the swing states he must win to secure the White House, seized triumphantly on the news.
“We must not let her take her criminal scheme into the Oval Office,” the 70-year-old billionaire told cheering crowds at a campaign rally in Manchester, New Hampshire.
“I have great respect for the fact that the FBI and the Department of Justice are now willing to have the courage to right the horrible mistake that they made,” he added.
The news took the shine off what should have been a good day for the 69-year-old Clinton, with Obama’s Democratic administration announcing stronger than expected economic growth numbers.
While the former first lady holds an overall poll lead, a handful of states — including Iowa — could be close-fought.
Both candidates were to be in the battleground of Iowa within hours of each other as they vie to drum up support across the rolling plains of the Midwest.
From Cedar Rapids, Clinton went to the state capital Des Moines to rally voters.
Trump kicked off the day in New Hampshire, jetting to Maine and was to wrap up with an evening rally for 5,000 people in an open-air amphitheater in Cedar Rapids.
While Trump draws the biggest crowds, he is failing to pull in donations to match. Contributions to his campaign slumped in October.
Both camps filed campaign accounts Thursday for the period leading up to October 19, confirming the Democrat’s overpowering lead in the money game.
Trump’s campaign was rocked this month by the release of 2005 footage showing him bragging about how his fame allowed him to grope women with impunity, followed by a string of accusations of sexual misconduct — which he denies.
As he faltered, Trump piled on the defiant rhetoric, claiming the allegations were part of a plot to rig the election, and threatening not to recognize the outcome if he loses.

England caretaker boss Gareth Southgate on Thursday backed Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy to rediscover his best form after suffering his worst scoring drought in almost two years.
Vardy, one of 30 players shortlisted for the Ballon d’Or this week, has not scored in his last 10 appearances for club and country and was dropped by Foxes coach Claudio Ranieri last weekend.
Last season Vardy found the net in a record 11 successive Premier League matches with his 24 goals helping spur Leicester towards their improbable title triumph.
However, the 29-year-old has scored just three times this term and was left out of Leicester’s starting line-up for the first time in the league since March 2015 in Saturday’s 3-1 win over Crystal Palace.
“All goalscorers have periods where they are not scoring. History and records over the years shows you what they are likely to fall back into and his scoring record is phenomenal,” Southgate told Britain’s Press Association.
“I have played with Alan Shearer when he went through the same – and Andy Cole. Over a long period of time if they have a record of one in two or one in three they will come back to that.
“You can take a small sample of games for any player but that’s all it is. You have to look longer-term, especially with goalscorers. He has proven himself at every level.”
Vardy endured a run of 23 matches without a goal between September 2014 — after he inspired a famous 5-3 win over Manchester United — and March 2015, but finished joint-second behind Harry Kane in last season’s scoring chart.
The striker was on target in Leicester’s 2-1 defeat to United in the Community Shield and netted in successive games against Swansea City and Liverpool in August and September but the goals have since dried up.
However, he was included by Southgate for recent World Cup qualifiers against Malta and Slovenia and is likely to retain his place for next month’s clash with Scotland and friendly with Spain.

Leicester City’s Japanese striker Shinji Okazaki is the player who gives the team a lift in times of need, manager Claudio Ranieri said on Thursday.
The Premier League champions ended a three-game winless run last weekend by beating Crystal Palace 3-1 and Okazaki celebrated his first start since September 10 by scoring the second goal.
The hard-working forward, 30, helped set the tempo for Leicester’s display and Ranieri used his famous rallying cry from last season’s 5,000-1 title triumph to highlight Okazaki’s importance.
“He is a hard worker. Sometimes he’s not so close to goal, but when the ball is around the box Shinji is always there,” said Ranieri, whose side visit Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday.
“He is important for the team because he presses a lot. He is our ‘dilly ding, dilly dong’. He wakes up our players — he has the bell!”
While Okazaki’s goal against Palace was his first of the campaign, his overall display illustrated his worth to Ranieri’s side.
The Japan international covered 11.66 kilometres (7.25 miles) during the game — more than a kilometre more than fellow strikers Jamie Vardy and Islam Slimani in any game this season.

Iraq’s Yazidi minority is in the spotlight Thursday after two women from the community won the European Parliament’s Sakharov human rights prize.
Nadia Murad and Lamia Haji Bashar have spearheaded a movement to protect Yazidis, followers of an ancient religion with more than half a million Kurdish-speaking believers concentrated in northern Iraq.
Here are some facts about the Yazidis:
Mainly living in remote corners of Iraqi Kurdistan, the Yazidis adhere to a faith that emerged in Mesopotamia more than 4,000 years ago. It is rooted in Zoroastrianism but has over time integrated elements of Islam and Christianity. Yazidis pray to God facing the sun and worship his seven angels — the most important of which is Melek Taus, or Peacock Angel.
Of the world’s 1.5 million Yazidis, the largest community is in Iraq — comprising 550,000 people according to the Iraqi Kurdistan government. Of these, some 400,000 have been displaced by fighting with the jihadist Islamic State. Around 1,500 have been killed and nearly 4,000 are in captivity.
A few thousand more are in Syria, Turkey, Armenia and Georgia. They are mostly impoverished farmers and herders. The United Nations has estimated that around 3,200 Yazidis are currently in the hands of the Islamic State, mainly in Syria.
Yazidis discourage marriage outside the community and even across their caste system. Their unique beliefs and practices — some are known to refrain from eating lettuce and wearing the colour blue — have often been misconstrued as satanic. Orthodox Muslims consider the Peacock a demon figure and refer to Yazidis as devil-worshippers.
As non-Arab and non-Muslim Iraqis, Yazidis have long been one of Iraq’s most vulnerable minorities. Persecution by Saddam Hussein forced thousands of families to flee the country. Germany is home to the largest community abroad, with an estimated 40,000.
On August 14, 2007, massive truck bombs almost entirely destroyed two small Yazidi villages in northern Iraq. More than 400 people died in the single deadliest attack since the 2003 US-led invasion.
In August 2014, Yazidis struggled to survive after their bastion Sinjar was seized by the Islamic State, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee. The IS then pursued a brutal crackdown on the minority that included massacres, enslavement and rape.
UN investigators have said the IS assault on the Yazidis was a premeditated effort to exterminate an entire community — crimes that amount to genocide.
Iraqi Kurdish forces backed by US-led coalition air strikes recaptured Sinjar in November 2015.

“As part of Tunisian-US bilateral cooperation, we have acquired drones to train our military personnel to use this technology and to control out southeastern border with Libya and detect any suspicious movement” there, a defence ministry spokesman said.
But “Tunisian soil has never been and never will be used to strike targets in Libya. The drones are used by Tunisians and no one else,” Belhassen Oueslati said.
The Washington Post on Wednesday reported that the Pentagon had “secretly expanded its global network of drone bases to North Africa, deploying unmanned aircraft and US military personnel to a facility in Tunisia to conduct spy missions in neighbouring Libya”.
The “drones began flying out of the Tunisian base in late June” and “played a key role in an extended US air offensive against an Islamic State (jihadist group) stronghold” in Libya, the newspaper said.
Since August 1, the United States has carried out 351 air strikes in Libya in support of loyalist forces fighting to retake the coastal city of Sirte from IS, US Africa Command (AFRICOM) said on Thursday.
Tunisia’s Defence Minister Farhat Horchani told the Mosaique FM radio station on Thursday: “We were one of the few first countries to oppose a foreign military intervention in Libya.”
“We don’t — and won’t — have a foreign military base in Tunisia,” he said.
An AFRICOM spokesman did not deny that US drones had taken off from Tunisia but said: “There are no US bases in Tunisia.”
“There are US service members working with the Tunisian security forces for counter terrorism and they are sharing intelligence from various sources, to include unarmed aerial platforms,” Colonel Mark R. Cheadle said.
Tunisia “requested additional military equipment and training from Washington after deadly militant attacks last year in Tunisia and the US has provided more than $250 million in security assistance”.
Tunisia has suffered from a wave of jihadist violence since the 2011 revolt that ousted longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
IS claimed brazen attacks last year on the National Bardo Museum in Tunis and a beach resort that killed a total of 59 foreign tourists.
In March, dozens of jihadists attacked security installations in the town of Ben Guerdane on the border with Libya.

reports that he has criticised imams, who use iPads to deliver their sermons, rather than the Qur’an.
In his words, ”
He was supported by the imam of
said that the use of iPads, instead of the Holy Book, can be distracting.
he said.
 
ALSO READ:
Unfortunately, the Acting Director of , does not agree with this logic.
He also announced that the use of iPads has been approved by the ministry.
said
I don’t think there is anything wrong with using the iPads to give sermons.
What do you think?

For the first time in 71 years, the Chicago Cubs will host a World Series game, the “cursed” Major League Baseball club trying to capture its first crown since 1908.
Excitement for Friday’s third game of the best-of-seven final against the Cleveland Indians is already building in the neighborhood around 102-year-old Wrigley Field, which had not been built the last time the Cubs won the title.
“To go to Wrigley on the road, to see that atmosphere… that’s something I live for,” Indians designated hitter Mike Napoli said.
After splitting two games in Cleveland, the Cubs could capture the crown at home by sweeping games Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
America’s longest sports championship drought and the “Curse of the Billy Goat” finally could be ended by the Cubs, who have endured decades of futility as “lovable losers” that not even a regular season-best 103 wins this year can ease.
“It kind of all boils down to how you perform in October,” said Cubs team president Theo Epstein, who was the Boston Red Sox general manager in 2004 when they won their first World Series title since 1918.
That ended what many saw as the “Curse of the Bambino” that followed the 1920 sale of Babe Ruth to the rival New York Yankees.
For the Cubs, it’s a curse dating to the 1945 World Series when Billy Goat Tavern owner Bill Sianis was not allowed to watch game four with his pet goat. After being ejected, Sianis “cursed” the Cubs and they had not returned to the final until now.
The superstitious also point to the black cat that crossed in front of the Cubs dugout during a 1969 game in New York and Chicago would fade out of title contention after that.
“What prevents us from winning?” asked Epstein. “We’ve got all the ingredients. All we’ve got to do is go do it.”
And curse talk draws only a shrug from the 20-something Cubs like third baseman Kris Bryant.
“We don’t care a lot about it,” Bryant said. “We don’t look into it. We’re too young. We’re having the time of our lives.”
Of course, the Indians have not won a World Series since 1948, baseball’s second-worst drought, and Cleveland teams had a 52-year title drought until the Cavaliers won the NBA crown last June.
The Tribe has a Red Sox-like hoodoo dubbed the “Curse of Rocky Colavito” based on an unpopular 1960 trade of the 1959 top home run hitter to Detroit.
But Indians second baseman Jason Kipnis, a Chicago native and childhood Cubs fan, says the Cubs’ curse is by far the worse.
“If curses are real, theirs seems to be a stronger curse,” Kipnis said. “If the baseball gods want to take it in their hands, I think it’s a serious thing not to let that goat in. I don’t know how the baseball gods can ever forgive them.
“There’s not one part of me that doesn’t wish for this curse to keep going.”
Kipnis was a childhood pal of Steve Bartman, the Cubs fan who tried to grab a foul ball during the 2003 National League finals and blocked the path of leaping Cubs outfielder Moises Alou.
The Cubs went on to squander the lead, the game and later the series and Bartman needed police protection after being seen as continuing the curse.
“He didn’t deserve all that,” Kipnis said. “The way events turned made him a scapegoat.”
Ah, goats. But this year, the Cubs advanced to the World Series for the first time in 71 years on the 46th anniversary of the death of Sianis.
And Cubs fans are pointing to some magic of their own about the number 108 — the number of years since the Cubs last won the World Series.
Getting 27 outs is part of what it takes to win a regulation nine-inning game so to win four and take the World Series requires a minimum of 108 outs.
Baseballs manufactured by A.G. Spalding, the Cubs’ first manager, for nearly a century had 108 stitches and a business office in Chicago with 108 in the address.
And game five of the World Series on Sunday will be the Cubs’ 108th all-time playoff game.

The little girl Imade Adekele has been living with her mum in Nigeria as her dad Davido relocated to the States where he is working on his music career. The two parents however co-parent to ensure their baby feels loved despite the distance.
 
 
As international schools reopened a week ago baby Adekele was among the new pupils starting school for the first time. Her mum shared a couple of photos where the little girl is seen having fun with her age-mates.
The excited mother shared a couple of photos to show how excited the toddler was. She went further to post the meaning of her daughter’s first name “Imade” saying,
 
she wrote:

As Spain’s conservatives prepare to re-take power after 10 months of political limbo, anti-austerity party Podemos has set its sights on replacing the divided Socialists as the main opposition force.
Born on the streets in 2014 out of vociferous anti-austerity protests, the party led by the charismatic Pablo Iglesias has never made any secret of wanting to dislodge the 137-year-old Socialists (PSOE) as Spain’s number one left-wing grouping.
On Sunday, Podemos was handed a golden opportunity when the PSOE reluctantly decided to abstain in a parliamentary confidence vote due at the weekend, which will give acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy enough traction to win and push his minority government through.
Since then, Iglesias and his team have zoned in on the Socialists, blaming them for putting Rajoy and his conservative Popular Party (PP) back in power despite the corruption scandals and sweeping spending cuts that marked his first term.
“We are not going to fall into line… we want a different way of doing things and want to change things,” the pony-tailed, 38-year-old told parliament Thursday, as Rajoy submitted himself to a first confidence vote.
“It may be hard for you to recognise this, but you are closer to the PP than to ourselves,” he told the Socialists.
On the back foot, the PSOE has countered it is only abstaining to help unblock the political situation in Spain, which has remained without a fully-functioning government for 10 months after two inconclusive elections.
Podemos is set to make life difficult for Rajoy’s minority government with the 71 lawmakers it shares with smaller, former communist party Izquierda Unida as part of a coalition.
But more than just parliamentary opposition, it has also pledged to return to its roots and mobilise society at a grassroots level.
It backed student protests this week and Iglesias has pledged his support for a demonstration planned near parliament on Saturday, when Rajoy submits himself to the second and decisive confidence vote.
He has also asked his followers to prepare for a potential general strike against the new conservative government.
Podemos has risen at meteoric speed to become Spain’s third political force in just under three years.
It took millions of votes away from the Socialists in December 2015 elections and again in repeat June polls, although the grouping has remained firmly in third place after the Socialists.
“Now we are in the phase of strengthening ourselves… by digging trenches in civil society,” Iglesias told online daily eldiario.es, explaining that Podemos would continue to agitate through protests or by providing alternative information.
“Doing brilliant parliamentary work is not the most important when you’re in the opposition,” the former politics professor said.
“Digging trenches in civil society means reinforcing anti-establishment movements at a social level.”
The Socialists, meanwhile, have been seriously weakened by divisions pitting those who wanted to let Rajoy rule and avoid third elections, and those who wanted to keep blocking his attempts to form a government.
The in-fighting reached such heights that Socialist party chief Pedro Sanchez, a staunch opponent of Rajoy, was ousted by a rebellion earlier this month.
This, analysts say, offers an opportunity for Podemos.
Research polls show that one in five disillusioned PSOE voters could now migrate to the far-left grouping, according to political analyst Pablo Simon.
Podemos has also threatened to withdraw its support for several Socialist regional presidents, which would force them to seek the support of conservatives to remain in power.
This strategy would allow it to once again “position the PSOE as a PP ally,” said Carlos Barrera, professor of political communication at the University of Navarra.
But David Pac Salas, professor of political sociology at the University of Zaragoza, warned that Podemos needs “to be more moderate in its discourse to attract orphan Socialist voters.”
For the moment — and despite an inner party struggle — this is not happening as the more combative Iglesias gets one over on his right-hand man Inigo Errejon, seen as more pragmatic.
Whatever happens, though, it is going to take time for the Socialists to heal, said Pac Salas.
In the meantime, Podemos will continue “to be a bother… look after number one, try to make gains and present itself to society as the true left-wing force,” said Barrera.

Spinner Zafar Ansari will make his England debut in the second Test against Bangladesh on Friday while veteran paceman Stuart Broad will have to wait to win his 100th cap, according to skipper Alastair Cook.
After winning the first Test by just 22 runs, England know they can’t afford to take Bangladesh lightly but also need to keep players such as Broad fresh for a five-Test tour of India immediately afterwards.
The 30-year-old was in line to have made his 100th Test appearance in Dhaka but will now have to wait until he gets to India to achieve the landmark, with Steven Finn called up in his place.
With Jimmy Anderson currently sidelined, Broad is England’s senior bowler but he had little joy from what was a spin-friendly pitch in the first Test in Chittagong and took just two wickets.
“I’m sure he’d have liked to have got that milestone but this is a case of looking a bit further to the future and he understands the amount of cricket he could play over the next six weeks,” Cook said of Broad.
“We want other people up and running. We don’t want to go to India with too many people not playing any cricket.”
The 24-year-old Ansari has been handed his chance to impress in place of Gareth Batty who has been left out after being recalled for the Chittagong Test for the first time in more than a decade.
Cook said it was a tough call to omit the 39-year-old in place of Ansari, a slow left armer who is also a decent batsman, but that it was too risky to go into the match with four spinners and only two seamers.
“I thought Gareth got better and better as he settled into it,” said Cook.
“In an ideal world he’d probably like another game but we liked the three spinners-three seamers option and when the ball started to reverse we saw how dangerous our seamers were.
“So we want that option and did want to give Zafar a go.”
Cook said the selectors had also considered replacing the allrounder Chris Woakes with Jake Ball, but in the end decided that Woakes needed more playing time in the build-up to the India series.
“In an ideal way we would have liked Jake to have a game as well,” said Cook.
“But we feel as if Chris Woakes hasn’t played a huge amount of cricket on the subcontinent, didn’t have a huge workload in the last game and we feel as if it’ll be beneficial for him to experience in these conditions.”
Woakes bowled just 14 overs in Chittagong but made useful contributions with the bat, scoring 36 and an unbeaten 19 in his two innings.

Celebrity love stories from their hook ups, crushes, break ups and children they have along the way seem to attract a fair share of drama than the stories of mere mortals.
The king of Genge music it appears is not exempt. His however, is not interesting because of the chase or the exotic girlfriend, on the contrary, his story is interesting because of the simplicity it has.
Right now he has earned his status among the pioneers of new generation music helping start and grow a genre on its own that has been around for over a decade…Genge music.
 
Back then he was not a legend but rather the top selling artiste in the region commanding waves and churning chart topping hits by the day.
Everyone in the country from toddlers to the mature and old could at least hum or sing a couple of lines from his hits. He thus could have had a pick of any ladies from fellow artistes to models. However, Juacali fell to innocent charms of a college girl he met in a campus concert where he was the highlight at City Hall.
Juacali who really keeps his personal life private met her at a time when blogs were not a thing or social media bombarded with every detail of a celebrity’s life he thus opened up to and recapped how he met his wife and mother to his two kids, Lily Asego.
It appears she was his number one fan before they met and imagined they could share a life long journey
Here is the video of the interesting story
 

A man was shot and killed by Kenyan police outside the US embassy in the capital Nairobi on Thursday after stabbing an officer with a knife.
“The man was shot after stabbing a GSU officer in the hand and left him with injuries,” said local police chief Vitalis Otieno.
The police officer involved in the shooting was a member of the paramilitary General Services Unit (GSU) deployed to guard the embassy. He was said to be “in good condition” in hospital.
Otieno said the dead man was a 24-year-old Kenyan from Wajir in the country’s north-east close to the border with Somalia, but did not give a name.
According to police the man had been walking towards the US embassy and was close to the public entrance to the visa section when he attempted to grab a gun from one of the officers.
A scuffle ensued during which the man reportedly pulled out a knife and stabbed one officer before being shot in the head by another.
A photograph shared on social media showed the body of a man of apparently Somali ethnicity lying on the pavement, a pool of blood staining the tarmac by his head, and surrounded by police officers.
Five US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) officers were also present at the scene alongside around a dozen Kenyan officers.
Soon after the incident the busy road was opened to traffic which drove slowly by the body still lying prone on the ground.
A statement from the US embassy confirmed the “shooting incident”, adding that “no embassy personnel were involved.”
The well-guarded US embassy in Nairobi is located opposite the main UN complex in Gigiri, an upmarket suburb in the city’s north popular with expatriates.
Additional UN security staff were deployed along the road, called UN Avenue, after the incident.
The motive for the man’s actions remains unknown with police saying “investigations are still ongoing”.
“We are investigating to know if there are other accomplices, and if he had been sent by anyone, so that we can get to apprehend them,” Otieno told reporters at the scene.
The US missions in both Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania were hit by near simultaneous car bombings in August 1998.
The twin bombings, claimed by Al-Qaeda, killed a total of 224 people and injured some 5,000 — almost all of them Kenyans and Tanzanians.

Kenya Airways posted a Sh4.7 billion loss in half year results ended September 30, 2016 down from Sh11.9billion posted in the same period last year.
The airline also recorded a Sh0.9 billion operating profit for the first six months ended September 30, compared to an operating loss of Sh2.2 billion in the previous period.
According to the airline, the improvement of its operating performance was as a result of growth in cabin factor by 3.3 per cent during the period, with an increase in passenger numbers from 89,000 to 2.2 million and lower operating costs made by fleet rationalisation in line with the recovery strategy ‘Operation Pride’.
 
The strategy focuses on closing the profitability gap, refocusing the business model as well as optimising the capital of the company.
At the same time,  the airline’s stock closed at its highest level since August last year on Wednesday, October 26, 2016  at Sh6.75 a share.
This follows the announcement of the election of ex-Safaricom CEO Michael Joseph as its new board chairman.

A group of African legal and rights experts on Thursday called on Burundi, South Africa and Gambia to reconsider their plans to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The African Group for Justice and Accountability (AGJA) — consisting of lawyers, prosecutors, judges, academics and human rights activists — called on the countries’ leaders to “reconsider and recommit themselves to the Rome Statute,” the treaty that established the ICC, a global court headquartered in The Hague.
The AGJA was set up a year ago aiming to improve relations between the international court and Africa’s leaders, some of whom say the continent has been unfairly targeted for prosecution or investigation.
Last week Burundi became the first country to declare its intention to leave the ICC, after the court’s prosecutor said she might open a case against the government.
South Africa and Gambia followed suit, raising fears of an exodus of African countries, many of which are founding members of the court.
“Withdrawals from the ICC constitute a serious obstacle to the rights of victims to justice and the duty of states to ensure accountability for mass atrocities. They close an important recourse to justice and undermine the global fight against impunity,” said AGJA member Hassan Bubacar Jallow, former prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and, like the ICC’s current chief prosecutor, a Gambian national.
AGJA noted that African countries including Botswana and Senegal had voiced their concern at the announced withdrawals and encouraged others to remain committed to the court.

As the big date nears,we feel obliged to let you who and what to expect at the earth-shattering 2016 Oktoberfest gig that’s about to go down this weekend.
First, the end month is here. You’re obviously paid and raring to party that hard-earned salary away right? Right.
Now, in case you’re wondering where the action will be, what’re the party will be and where the whole of Nairobi will be congregating to drink away their bank accounts, well, we have the 411.
This is the Oktoberfest month. And it’s going down for two days straight – Friday 28th and on Saturday the 29th (that is, starting tomorrow)
This gig is some sort of unapologetic beer shindig that brings together folks from all walks of life to indulge in a marathon of beer festivals and food and friendship.
Deejay Neill
This year’s event, which will be held at the Hub in Karen, will feature a galaxy of some craziest DJ’ing expertise from around the World. Yes, really.
Besides an array of super gifted bands belting out tunes and rocking you on stage all the time, there will be some mad DJs on call to keep the masses dancing themselves lame all night.
To start us off, there’ll be DJs Feischer,DJ Neill and DJ Alfa who are all local DJs who also regularly play at the Brew Bistro and Lounge and at the Brew Bistro Rooftop in Westlands.
The so good-looking Feischer, who plays at Brew Bistro as well, started his musical adventure as a young teen and his passion has seen him play at some of Nairobi’s biggest shows and festivals such as The Battle of The Bands, Extravadance Festival, Oktoberfest 2014, Twende Macha ,Concert Party In The Wild,Off Road Edm Festival, Discover Kenya Race, and many more.
DJ Feischer   Photo/ Fischer
And he’s just 24. Yeah right,Girls!
And he’s not just some random dude who learnt the skill from his Mama’s laptop. He’s been through a thorough mixing mentorship at the very skilled hands of some of Kenya’s best DJs including Dj Protege,Creme De La Creme, Dj Hassan (homeboyz radio)Dj Bash and Dj Joe Mfalme.
Dj Deejay Neill, on the other hand, is a Deep House,Soulful House,Trance deejay based in Nairobi ,Kenya. His love and passion for music began at a young age and he has played at numerous clubs here in Nairobi.
And then we have DJ Alfa who is the resident Dj for both Brew Bistro and Lounge and Brew Bistro Rooftop. Alfa is a skilled Master on the decks, old school, hip hop, R and B, DanceHall and Reggae. There’s nothing King Alfa just wont handle. No song he won’t spin.
And then we have the icing on the cake ; Drums Rolls please…….DJ Marc Vedo! A globally-renowned Danish DJ who will be bringing down the house at The Hub, Karen taking thousands of party lovers down a sizzling, musical road.
Marc Vedo ,an iconic house DJ/producer from Bristol, is world renowned for his seamless mixing and high level productions.
With over 25 Beatport Top 100 singles and a regular feature on the Traxsource Top 10 charts, Marc is one of the biggest selling house artists out there, consistently producing quality, credible house music and with a mssive fan base that stretches from China to Indonesia to the USA.
His impressive portfolio of gigs spans the globe, regularly playing for several of the World’s Top 100 Clubs including: shows for Insomniacs USA, Pacha NYC, Space Miami, Stereo Montreal, Foundation Nightclub Seattle, Cafe Mambo Ibiza, BCM Mallorca,Octagon Club Seoul, Avalon LA, The Guvernment Toronto, Ministry of Sound London, Fabric London, Club Yalta Bulgaria, Paradise Club Mykonos & Ageha Tokyo.
Vedo has also made some Festival appearances such as Ultra Music Festival, Global Gathering UK, Glastonbury Festival UK, Bestival UK, Milkshake Festival Amsterdam, Molo Street Parade Italy, Revelin Festival Croatia to name a few.
These are the guys expected to be killin’ it and slaying the dancefloor as from 5pm tomorrow evening till late late into the night.
This is, by far, the best Weekend plan anyone could ever have. And we have it all up right here for you. Featuring some of the illest and baddest players in the game.
Dj Vedo will be playing tomorrow and you better not miss.
You can grab tickets at by clicking
Also,we are giving away free tix to some lucky readers who will be able to correctly answer questions on our Social Media profiles. Rush there and get in the mix. Quick Quick!
Also,you can check out the visiting DJ on Facebook by following this

A teenager charged after an explosive device was found on a London Underground train intends to plead not guilty on the grounds that it was a prank, his lawyer told a court Thursday.
Damon Smith, 19, appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London over the incident on October 20 which sparked a security alert.
He entered no plea to a charge of unlawfully and maliciously making or possessing an unspecified explosive substance with an intent to endanger life or cause serious injury to property.
But his lawyer indicated that Smith, who has a form of autism, would at a later date plead not guilty on the grounds that it was a prank.
Two members of the public discovered a backpack on a Jubilee Line train.
It was handed to the driver, who found it contained a suspicious device, prompting the evacuation of North Greenwich station.
A controlled explosion was carried out on the device, which comprised a flask, powder, ball bearings, a clock timing device, a battery and an initiator.
Smith smiled throughout the 18-minute hearing Thursday.
He was remanded in custody and will next appear at the Old Bailey in London, England’s central criminal court, on November 17.

The annual Jameson Live Party has been bringing in international hip hop artists to perform in Nairobi since 2014; two American hip hop rappers have so far performed in Nairobi in the last two years.
It all started with 2 Chainz who performed at the Ngong Racecourse on December 122014; his show was slated for November 1 but the gig flopped making organizers push it to December.
 
Jameson then flew in B.o.B for Jameson Live Party 2015, which was once again held at Ngong Racecourse.
 
Jameson now plans to have Nigerian-British rapper perform in Nairobi for 2016 Jameson Live Party. 27-year-old Patrick Chukwuemeka Okogwu popularly known as Tinie Tempah, will be headlining this year’s Jameson Live Party.
Tinie Tempah is known for hits like ‘Till I’m Gone’, ‘Written In The Stars’ and his latest ‘Mamacita’ featuring Wizkid.
 
Wangechi, Femi One, Petra, Karun, Phy are among the local artists who will be performing alongside Tinie Tempah at Carnivore Grounds on December 3.

The powerful tremors which shook central Italy on Wednesday were the product of a new earthquake rather than aftershocks from one that devastated the town of Amatrice in August, Italian experts say.
“It wasn’t an aftershock, it was a new earthquake,” Mario Tozzi of the national institute for environmental geology and geo-engineering (IGAG) told AFP.
“What we do not know is whether it was a dormant section of the Amatrice fault or a parallel structure, a close cousin of this fault,” he added.
Tozzi said Wednesday’s ‘double-hit’ quake, in which an initial tremor of 5.5 magnitude was followed by one of 6.1, was typical of the central Appenine mountains.
He recalled the 1997 Assisi earthquake in which four workers were killed when a second shock struck while they inspecting buildings damaged the previous day.
“In the coming months we can expect a series of after shocks but they should get progressively weaker,” Tozzi said, while stressing it was impossible to rule out another major quake in the short term.
Much of Italy’s land mass and some of its surrounding waters are prone to seismic activity with the highest risk concentrated along its mountainous central spine.
Nearly 300 died in the Amatrice disaster in August and just over 300 perished when a quake struck near the city of L’Aquila in 2009.
In 1980 tremors near Naples left 3,000 dead and an estimated 95,000 died in the 1908 Messina disaster, when a quake in the waters between mainland Italy and Sicily sent massive waves crashing into both coasts.
Italy straddles the Eurasian and African tectonic plates, making it vulnerable to seismic activity when they move.
The movement of the plates is slowly pushing the country northwards at a rate which, experts predict, could result in it becoming attached to what is now Croatia in around 20 million years time.

A man was shot and killed by Kenyan police outside the US embassy in the capital Nairobi on Thursday, police said.
“The man was shot dead after a confrontation with officers guarding the embassy,” a police source told AFP on condition of anonymity, without specifying the cause of the confrontation.
The police officer involved in the shooting was a member of the paramilitary General Services Unit deployed to guard the embassy.
A photograph shared on social media showed the body of a man of apparently Somali origin lying on the pavement, a pool of blood staining the tarmac by his head and surrounded by police officers.
The well-guarded US embassy in Nairobi is located opposite the main UN complex in Gigiri, an upmarket suburb in the city’s north popular with expatriates.

Former Spain and Barcelona goalkeeper Andoni Zubizarreta was named sporting director of French giants Marseille on Thursday, club president Jacques-Henri Eyraud confirmed.
Zubizarreta previously served the same role at Barcelona from 2010 to 2015 and helped the Spanish champions recruit Neymar and Luis Suarez.
His appointment comes a day after Marseille parted company with Belgian sporting director Gunter Jacob as the club’s new owner, American tycoon Frank McCourt, continues his overhaul of the nine-time French champions.
“Marseille has a big heart, a great football soul like Athletic Bilbao and Barcelona,” said Zubizarreta, referring to two of his former clubs.
“There’s a great passion with the supporters in Marseille, it’s a huge opportunity for me football wise as well as individually.”
The Spaniard will work alongside new coach Rudi Garcia after the former Lille and Roma boss signed a three-year contract to take over at the Stade Velodrome last week.
Now 55, “Zubi” won 126 caps for Spain during a distinguished playing career in which he represented Athletic Bilbao, Barcelona and Valencia.

As Iraqi forces backed by a US-led coalition inch towards the Islamic State group in Mosul, experts and security sources warn that any assault on the jihadists’ main Syrian stronghold of Raqa would be even more difficult.
The US and British defence ministers said on Wednesday they expected an assault to drive IS from its de facto capital of Raqa to begin in the next few weeks.
If Mosul falls, Raqa will be the only major city in either Syria or Iraq under IS control, the vestige of a cross-border “caliphate” the jihadists declared after seizing large parts of both countries in mid-2014.
Tens of thousands of Iraqi fighters are steadily advancing on Mosul backed with air and ground support from a US-led coalition. Washington says a Raqa assault could be run at the same time.
“That has long been our plan and we will be capable of resourcing both,” US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told NBC News before arriving in Brussels Wednesday for a two-day meeting of NATO defence chiefs.
Pleased with progress in the Iraq offensive, military chiefs are talking about overlapping operations in Raqa, though there is still a great deal of caution.
US Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, commander of the coalition supporting Iraqi forces and Kurdish peshmerga units in the fight against IS, acknowledged Syria was “a very complicated battle space”.
“There are a lot of regional security concerns that are in competition there… the Syrian regime’s involved, the Russians are involved, Turkey’s involved. It’s hard,” Townsend told reporters Wednesday.
A French source acknowledged that the Syrian side of the fight against IS was “much more complex,” saying “obviously not everything is in place to take Raqa tomorrow.”
The Lebanese newspaper L’Orient le Jour put it starkly in a comment piece this week, saying that “compared to the Syrian crisis, the Iraqi problem is practically child’s play”.
The offensive on Mosul, which began on October 17, was more than a year in the planning, with the coalition, Baghdad and authorities in autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan all taking part.
That operation has its own complications, namely over the role of Iraq’s powerful Shiite militias and of Turkey, which considers Sunni-majority Mosul to be part of its natural sphere of influence.
But an operation in Syria – theatre of a proxy battle royale among the great powers – would be even more difficult.
In practical terms there is also the question of who would wage the offensive in a country ravaged by a bloody five-year civil war and broken up by myriad groups all fighting each other.
“There is a difference in nature between Iraq and Syria. In Iraq we are intervening at the invitation of the Baghdad authorities,” the French source said.
There would be no such invitation in Syria — the countries taking part in the anti-IS coalition are opposed to the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and want to avoid operations that would help him.
The view in Washington is that it must be local fighters that take the lead.
Defense Secretary Carter spoke this week of “capable and motivated local forces that we identify and then enable”.
“At this stage there are only two forces in Syria fighting Daesh, the Syrian Democratic Forces (a Kurdish-Arab coalition backed by Washington) and the rebels of the FSA (Free Syrian Army, backed by Turkey),” the French source said.
Military officials say this is enough, but estimates of available forces range widely from 10,000 to 30,000 men.
Another problem is Turkey’s opposition to Kurdish militias, which form a key part of the SDF. Ankara views them as extensions of Turkey’s own banned separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), making cooperation unlikely.
General Townsend acknowledged the difficulty, saying the US was in talks with Ankara, but clearly stating that in his view the “only force that is capable on any near-term timeline” of beating IS in Raqa is the SDF.
On Wednesday, Washington seemed to be leaning towards Ankara.
“We already are working extensively with the Turkish military in Syria” and this had produced “significant” results, including the seizure of the “very important” town of Dabiq from IS, Carter said in Brussels after meeting his Turkish counterpart.
“So we are looking for other opportunities including further within Syria, to include Raqa. That’s been part of our discussions.”
On Thursday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country’s military operation in support of Syrian opposition fighters in northern Syria would extend to Raqa.
Still unclear is how Moscow, fighting to support Assad since last September, will respond.
“Russia is fighting a different war, wiping out the opposition (to Assad) in Aleppo. Raqa clearly doesn’t interest them,” the French source said.

Iraq’s elite Rapid Response Division, which is now at the forefront of the southern advance on Mosul, has emerged as a key assault force in the country’s war against jihadists.
Backed by artillery and trained in a programme influenced by American special forces, the interior ministry unit has played a major role in other battles against the Islamic State (IS) group, including in Fallujah.
Now, Rapid Response is “the first force nominated to storm the city of Mosul from the southern front” and is “advancing the units on this front”, its commander, Major General Thamer Mohammed Ismail, told AFP.
It is the culmination of a major transformation for the force, which was originally made up of “small groups from the provinces” tasked with arresting criminals and fighting terrorism, Ismail said.
Rapid Response is now armed with new Croatian assault rifles, advances in matte green armoured Humvees mounted with machineguns, and is backed by its own artillery and rocket units.
The changes came “when the mission changed in 2014”, after IS rapidly overran swathes of territory north and west of Baghdad, said Ismail.
“The Rapid Response Division needed combat equipment… to implement its assigned duties,” he said.
The size of the unit has also increased significantly over the years, and it now includes thousands of personnel.
To become part of Rapid Response, both officers and enlisted personnel must go through multiple rounds of gruelling training.
There is one round that focuses on physical training, another on weapons and a third that is known as selection — a term borrowed from American special forces training.
It combines the elements from other rounds with “some special combat skills for advancing and clearing houses and clearing cities and streets, and dealing with bombs, and medicine and communications”, among others, Ismail said.
The pass rate was previously 45 percent but was increased due to military necessity, and is now around 60 percent, he said.
Captain Wissam Ammar, who joined Rapid Response in 2008 and is now deployed in Nineveh province as part of the drive on Mosul, recalled a significantly higher rate of failure during training.
“I remember that 800 entered with us in our round, we enter officers and soldiers together. Out of 800… we graduated about 97 people,” said Ammar.
American special forces were involved in the training at the time, he said.
Anyone from Rapid Response “has the right to be proud… of this force, has the right to be proud of himself”, said Ammar.
Asked for an experience that stood out from his time in service, Ammar pointed to several instances of extremely close-quarters fighting against IS.
“You fight in the same house… not the same area, no, you fight in the same house,” Ammar said.
Second Lieutenant Hussein Sultani, an officer in a medical unit, joined Rapid Response a year ago and is now also deployed in Nineveh.
During selection, “the officer and the enlisted man enter together, you take off your rank and enter together. This is the American system,” said Sultani.
Another American influence is a bell placed in the middle of a square that trainees ring to indicate that they give up.
“When you want to quit, you… ring the bell, that’s it, you go out — it means you can’t handle it,” said Sultani.
There is a rivalry between the Rapid Response Division and the Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS), Iraq’s best known special forces unit.
Staff Brigadier General Qusay Kadhim Hamid said that in the 2015 battle to retake Tikrit, another northern city, from IS, CTS was the unit that raised the Iraqi flag.
But in Fallujah earlier this year, the “Rapid Response Division was the one who raised the flag before the special forces, and they were a little sad”.
Hamid recalled an intercepted conversation during the Fallujah battle in which IS said that Rapid Response forces were “like devils, I don’t know… how they’re advancing.”
“It is not that they have no fear — there is no one who is not afraid,” Hamid said of Rapid Response.
But “when they begin advancing, they don’t fall back.”

While some ladies cringe from the thought of swallowing semen, a London culinary class finds ways to incorporate cum as a core ingredient in starters, mains, puddings and even drinks.
Semen, which contains spermatozoa, fructose plus other enzymes has been scientifically studied and seen to contain healthy benefits taken orally and vaginally.  
Labeled as BYOS – Bring Your Own Semen – the class participants are expected to bring at least 5 spoonfuls of semen, either their own or they borrow so as to be able to attend.
According to Evening Standard, Sex educator Alix Fox says the thought of bringing cum into the kitchen may gross many but to others, the idea is a turn-on.  “When you consider that humans regularly consume eggs – which are essentially the product of a chicken menstruating – eating a partner’s semen doesn’t seem quite so round the twist.”
 
The main chef of the course advices future students interested in the course to bring fresh semen, as ‘fresher is better’ but its okay to keep the semen in a sealed container in the fridge for a short period of time before class.
‘Experience discovery website’ Wonderush, is hoping to get 30 people to register for the class in order for the course to go ahead at a secret location in Shoreditch.
Sounds wonderful for anyone who’s an enthusiast when it comes to jizz.

President Vladimir Putin slammed as “hysteria” Thursday claims that Russia has tried to interfere in the upcoming US presidential elections by hacking US political institutions including the Democrats behind frontrunner Hillary Clinton.
Russia has been accused of favouring Republican candidate Donald Trump — who has praised Putin and called for better relations with Moscow — over the more hawkish Clinton.
“The number of mythical, dreamt-up problems includes the hysteria — I can’t think of another word — that has broken out in the United States about the influence of Russia on the current elections for the US president,” Putin said at a meeting of political scientists in Sochi.
“Does anyone seriously think Russia can somehow influence the choice of the US people? Is the US some kind of banana republic? The United States is a great power. Please correct me if I’m wrong,” Putin said to laughter in the audience.
Washington last week formally accused the Russian government of trying to “interfere” in the 2016 White House race by hacking US political institutions, charges the Kremlin has repeatedly dismissed.
Putin has vehemently rejected the accusations, saying they are meant to divert American voters from domestic problems.
“It’s a lot easier to distract people’s attention towards Russia’s so-called hackers, spies, agents of influence and so on,” Putin said Thursday.
The Kremlin strongman however adopted a hard line against cyber attacks, saying these are “unacceptable”.
Russian authorities have slammed Washington for “unprecedented” threats after US Vice President Joe Biden told NBC this month that Putin would receive a “message” in response to the alleged hacking.
NBC later reported that the CIA was preparing a retaliatory cyber attack “designed to harass and embarrass the Kremlin leadership.”
Russia’s foreign ministry at the weekend said that an old version of its website had apparently been attacked after a US hacker claimed he broke in and posted a mocking message.
The Kremlin was propelled to the heart of US politics in July after Clinton’s campaign blamed Moscow for a damaging leak of emails from the Democratic National Committee.
Putin has offered what appears to be veiled support for Trump, but he said Thursday that claims the Kremlin would like to see the Republican candidate win were “absolute nonsense.”
“This is just a method of political struggle, a way to manipulate public opinion on the eve of the US elections,” he said.
Putin nonetheless praised Trump for appealing to disenchanted American electors.
“He represents the views of a significant part of society in the United States that is tired of those elites who have been in power for decades,” he said.
“He just represents the interests of such ordinary people, and he presents himself as an ordinary guy who criticises those who have already been in power for decades.”
He accused the West of building up a “mythical and made-up” threat of Russian aggression to justify increasing military spending and bolstering NATO forces in countries neighbouring Russia.
“It’s very pleasant and profitable to make yourself out to be defendants of civilisation from some new barbarians, but the thing is Russia doesn’t plan to attack anyone,” he said.
“It’s unthinkable — simply stupid and unrealistic,” he added. “It’s just funny to talk about it.”
Putin also took a jab at the West for its “mistakes” in its military interventions in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and now, Syria.
“The fight against terrorism has not yielded a global result while the threats are only growing,” he warned, complaining that Russia’s calls to unite forces against terrorism have been ignored.
He pointed the finger of blame at the United States for the ongoing violence in Syria, saying that “stopping bloodshed and launching a political process (in Syria) has not been possible.”
“Our personal agreements with the US President did not work,” Putin added, accusing forces in Washington of “doing everything for these not to be implemented.”
Putin said Russia had been comporting itself in a “composed” manner.
“But our patience has its limits,” he said, without elaborating.

Super-long hitter Rory McIlroy put a new driver in his bag Thursday, and the bad news for everyone else is that he can blast it even further off the tee.
A cold putter kept the Northern Irishman from threatening the top of the first-round leaderboard at the WGC-HSBC Champions in Shanghai. But the FedEx Cup champion was hugely impressive off the tee.
Playing partner Bubba Watson, one of the game’s longest hitters, could only watch as McIlroy used his new driver to boom the ball past him time and again en route to an opening one-under 71, seven shots behind leader Rikard Karlberg.
McIlroy’s equipment supplier Nike’s decision earlier this year to stop making clubs means he is now free to choose the weapons that suit his game best.
For the first time this week that includes the Taylor Made M2 driver, also utilised by the world’s two top-ranked players Jason Day and Dustin Johnson, no slouches off the tee themselves.
“I felt like I drove the ball really well,” world number three McIlroy said after his round on a cool, damp day at Sheshan International Golf Club not conducive to big hitting.
“Look, I’ve been driving the ball well anyway, but yeah, it was nice to see the ball flying where it was going.”
McIlroy tweeted a picture last week from practice in Dubai that showed he was regularly carrying his drives over 330 yards with the new club.
“I would say I would have been level (with playing partner Adam Scott) without it and maybe a little bit behind (Watson) before, and I was hitting it by both of them so it can only be a positive,” said McIlroy.
“Especially when conditions are like this and it’s so soft, it (still) goes a long way in the air. Hopefully that can be to my benefit over the next few days.”
On the eve of the tournament McIlroy remarked that the Nike decision to end their equipment manufacturing had left him in two minds.
“I felt bad for a lot of the employees that put so much time and effort into building really good golf clubs. But in another way, it’s given me a little bit of freedom to see what else is out there.
“Now I can be in the position where I can use whatever in my golf bag that fits me 100 percent the best.
“So that could be a certain driver, a different brand of three-wood, a different branded set of irons, different wedges and a different putter.
“That’s a process that I’m still working through.”

Nadia Murad, a Yazidi woman who survived enslavement by the Islamic State group, welcomed the Sakharov prize for human rights Thursday as a “profound condemnation” of the jihadists’ “criminal inhumanity.”
The European parliament awarded Murad and fellow Yazidi Lamia Haji Bashar the prestigious human rights prize for their courage in the face of IS atrocities against their people in Iraq and Syria.
“This acknowledgement of the suffering of the Yazidi women and the Yazidi people is a profound message to the ISIS terrorist group that their criminal inhumanity is condemned and their victims are honored by the free world,” Murad said in a statement, using an alternate acronym for the jihadist group.
Murad and Bashar were taken from their homes near the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar and enslaved by IS jihadists, enduring a months-long ordeal of rape and torture.
Since their escape they have emerged as leading advocates for the rights of other Yazidi survivors.
Murad, who is 23, said she and Bashar accepted the Sakharov Prize “on behalf of thousands of kidnapped Yazidi women and girls and on behalf of all victims of the Yazidi genocide.”
“This award is a powerful message from the democratically elected representatives in Europe to our people and particularly to the more than 6,700 women, girls, and children who became victims of slavery and human trafficking under ISIS, that the genocide will not be repeated,” she said.
“We will continue to work to make sure that ISIS is brought to justice for its crimes against vulnerable communities and particularly against women and girls,” she said, noting that they have asked the UN Security Council to request that IS’s crimes be investigated by the International Criminal Court.

Real Madrid winger Lucas Vazquez insists hard work can unlock more first team opportunities at the Santiago Bernabeu after extending his contract with the European champions to 2021.
Vazquez has featured in 12 of Madrid’s 14 games this season, but has started just three as the Spanish international has developed a reputation as a game changer off the bench under Zinedine Zidane.
“It is an important step in my career, I am happy to be here, it is where I have always wanted to be,” he said on Thursday after becoming the latest Real player to extend his contract in recent weeks.
“I will continue working as hard as I can to have more chances to play.”
Midfielders Toni Kroos and Luka Modric have also extended their deals with Gareth Bale and Cristiano Ronaldo expected to follow in the coming weeks.
The presence of Bale and Ronaldo has limited Vazquez’s chances to start, but he insisted the chance to play alongside them was a major reason for his desire to remain at the Bernabeu.
“It is an honour to be alongside these great players. It was a dream that I had since I was young,” he added.
“I want to try and return the confidence the club has shown in me on the pitch and in every training session.”

The Nation Media group has been forced to reprint copies of Business Daily after a cartel bought the edition in bulk clearing the edition from the streets.
The special edition had featured as the lead story, a revelation of how billions of shillings had been lost at the Ministry of Health.
The media company only got to know of the plot after consistent inquiries over the availability of the day’s edition. According to the story in Business Daily,
“Top Ministry of Health officials have stolen more than Sh5 billion in an NYS-style mega corruption scandal involving diversion of funds, double payment for goods, and manipulation of the Integrated Financial Management System (IFMIS)”
 
A leaked internal audit report showed how top officials at the ministry and their cohorts benefited from the scandal which the audit report says could have seen even higher amounts lost since it had only covered a small sample.
Efforts of the powerful forces at play were seen early on as the journalist doing the story, Stellar Murumba was threatened by the principal secretary at the ministry during a face to face meeting.
Instead of denying the existence of such a report, the PS Nicholas Muraguri threatened her and is quoted saying,
““I mean, you don’t know government. We can get what you write even before you publish it, including getting print-shots and screenshots of the story.
Someone can be reading your messages while sitting here. If there is a need to hack Nation’s system we can. We can even confirm how much money is in your account now.”
His threats to hack the Nation’s system seem to have been true but the cartel resorted to another tactic, ensuring the papers never got to the street.
However, the plans have backfired as the story was online and the matter made public. The PS now finds himself in a tight spot with pressure coming his side following his threats.

The publicity posters plastered all over Shanghai for the WGC-HSBC Champions portray Rickie Fowler as a superhero “Eagle Eye”, and the US Ryder Cup star lived up to his billing Thursday.
Sporting a new mohawk haircut under his trademark broad-peaked cap, the 27-year-old US Ryder Cup star proved a cut above all but one player as he fired a blemish-free seven-under-par 65 to lie one shot off the lead at Sheshan International Golf Club.
Sweden’s Rikard Karlberg leads on eight-under after a damp first round of the $9.5 million event dubbed “Asia’s Major”, where Rory McIlroy’s putter proved as cool as the conditions.
The FedEx Cup champion and world number three carded a steady one-under 71 with just two birdies and a solitary bogey.
“I feel I hit the ball well,” said McIlroy, who was solid from tee to green but just could not hole a putt of any length.
“Greens are soft and obviously there’s a lot of footprints. I feel I did everything okay. I just didn’t really get any momentum going,” he added.
McIlroy wasn’t alone among the favourites to struggle. World number two and US Open champion Dustin Johnson toiled to a two-over 74, as did Masters champion Danny Willett. US PGA Champion Jimmy Walker had a day to forget with a six-over 78.
There were no such woes for the well-travelled Fowler, whose last tournament win came in Abu Dhabi in January and who has also recorded victories in South Korea and Scotland.
Having started on the 10th, the colourful American was three-under when he left himself short of the green at the treacherous par-three 17th.
But he made the chip look ridiculously easy for his birdie and almost holed another chip at 18 leading to a tap-in birdie. Eagle Eye indeed.
“Yeah, I was trying to have a superhero performance today,” Fowler told AFP.
Fowler was playing with Russell Knox (66) and Paul Casey (65) in a three-ball that ripped round Sheshan with a combined score of 18-under par.
“Both of those guys have been playing well,” said Fowler. “We enjoyed each other’s presence, fed off each other a bit. I don’t think there’s a threesome that beat us today.”
Knox pulled off a massive Shanghai surprise a year ago by recording his maiden PGA Tour win. The Scot carried on where he left off with the highlight being four birdies in a row from the 14th to the 17th having started his round on the 10th.
“When you’re playing with Rickie Fowler, nobody cares if I’m defending champion. So that always takes a little pressure off,” said Knox with a wry smile. He shares third place with American Daniel Berger and Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama.
Meanwhile Karlberg, a former Asian Tour rookie of the year, showed no nerves in his first WGC event appearance as he galloped away from a field containing 40 of the world’s top 50 players.
A birdie at the 16th took the world number 87 to nine under par but his tee shot at the short 17th disappeared down a steep bank needing a great chip from thick rough to save par.
But when a second errant tee shot in a row found a fairway bunker on the par-five 18th it led to his only bogey of the day.
“I just had a couple of uncommitted shots at the end,” said Karlberg. “On 18 my drive didn’t fade and I ended up in the bunker. Apart from that everything was easy, a walk in the park, just one of those days.”

Warships from the US Navy and allied nations have intercepted four weapons shipments from Iran to war-ravaged Yemen since April 2015, a US admiral said Thursday.
Yemen has been rocked by conflict since Iran-backed Huthi rebels overran the capital Sanaa and other large parts of the country in 2014, prompting military intervention by a Saudi-led coalition in March last year in support of the internationally recognised government.
The United States and Saudi Arabia have accused Iran of arming the insurgents, and while Tehran denies the charges, the coalition has since enforced maritime and air controls over the Arabian Peninsula country.
“Either US ships or coalition ships… intercepted four weapons shipments from Iran to Yemen,” said US Vice Admiral Kevin Donegan.
“We know they came from Iran and we know the destination,” he told reporters at an undisclosed military base in Southwest Asia.
Donegal said the shipments contained thousands of AK-47 assault rifles, anti-tank missiles, sniper rifles and “other pieces of other equipment, higher-end weapons systems”.
Naval officials were able to determine the destination of the boats’ by analysing GPS settings and interviewing the crew.
One of the shipments had been validated by the United Nations as being an illegal weapons shipment, said Donegal.
His comments come after the US military’s Central Command chief General Joseph Votel said last week Iran may have played a role in suspected Huthi missile attacks this month against US warships in the Red Sea.
“We believe that Iran is connected to this in some way,” Donegan said.
Given the heavy volume of traffic around the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf, the three-star admiral said “plenty” of other shipments would have gone through to Yemen.
The arms seizures came after Iran in April 2015 tried in vain to send a convoy of seven ships, guarded by two Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps vessels, to Yemen.
The Shiite Huthi rebels are believed to be behind this month’s attacks in which surface-to-surface missiles were fired at the USS Mason on at least two occasions.
In response, US cruise missiles on October 13 struck Huthi radar sites.
The Mason and two other warships were likely targeted in a third missile attack on October 15, but officials have not conclusively confirmed what the threat was or where it was coming from.
Yemen’s conflict has killed nearly 7,000 people, wounded more than 35,000 and displaced at least three million since the Saudi-led coalition launched military operations, according to the United Nations.
The UN special envoy to Yemen Ismail, Ould Cheikh Ahmed, submitted to the rebels in Sanaa on Tuesday a proposal to revive a political process.
The contents have not been made public.
But informed sources say the roadmap calls for agreement on naming a new vice president after the rebels withdraw from the capital Sanaa and other cities, and hand over heavy weapons to a third party.
President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi would then transfer power to the vice president who would appoint a new prime minister to form a government in which the north and south of Yemen would have equal representation.
The government has remained non-committal, saying it has not received any roadmap for a political settlement.

Big Kev’s case is a story of unwavering determination to live; he is the most tenacious person you can ever come across.
His life in the last seven years has been characterized by trips to hospitals across the world for lifesaving surgeries.
Big Kev was diagnosed with brain tumor in 2006 and had his first surgery in India. From then onwards the chronic disease has been recurring making him travel to hospitals as far as Australia for surgeries to remove recurring tumors in his head.
 
The event organizer went under the knife again this October 2016; the recurring tumor reappeared and this time round the swellings were big.
Big Kev announced on Facebook.
 
Big Kev further says doctors removed five tumors during the latest surgery, bringing to total 13 tumors that have been removed from his head since he was diagnosed with the disease.
“
Our prayers are with Big Kev, may the good Lord give you strength to overcome everything.

Leaning against his car, Massud Ismail Hassan peers through the chain-link fence surrounding a camp for Iraqi civilians fleeing the assault on Mosul.
He is looking for family members he has not seen for two years, since jihadists from the Islamic State group seized their village on the edge of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region.
Hassan says his brother, sister-in-law and their three children were finally able to flee the village, Bazwaya, as Iraqi forces advance in a major offensive to retake Mosul, IS’s last major stronghold in Iraq.
Hassan, who lives in Kurdistan, has had little contact with his brother since mid-2014 and is anxious to see him again.
“The IS men stopped them from contacting us, though sometimes they managed to get a bit far away, find a signal and quickly call us,” says Hassan, 61, dressed in traditional Kurdish garb.
Issam Saadu is also keen to see his relatives after fleeing to the camp in Khazir, about mid-way between Mosul and the Iraqi Kurdish capital Arbil.
The 22-year-old student has not seen six of his 10 siblings since the summer of 2014. He called them as soon as he arrived at the camp and was waiting for a visit.
“The jihadists accused the Kurds in villages they controlled of giving information to the peshmerga,” he says, referring to the Kurdish force that has joined Iraqi federal troops in the battle for Mosul.
Other families have already found each other, and tearful relatives clutch hands through the links of the fence, firing barrages of questions.
The peshmerga register the arrivals.
“Once all these procedures are finished we will be able to give them food and drink and blankets we brought with us,” Hassan says.
Seeing his father in the distance making his way towards the peshmerga, another man worries.
“My father is sick, I don’t even know if he’ll survive long enough for me to hug him,” he says.
The offensive, launched on October 17, is seeing tens of thousands of Iraqi fighters advancing on Mosul from the south, east and north.
The assault has so far been concentrated in towns and villages around Mosul from where thousands have been fleeing.
Iraq’s ministry of displacement and migration said Thursday that more than 11,700 people had been displaced since the operation began.

Controversial political scientist Mutahi Ngunyi will now teach courses to incumbent and aspiring Members of the County Assemblies on how to win in the 2017 elections.
Ngunyi has partnered with the Fort Hall School of Government to offer a series of two-day seminars titled to MCAs.
According to the institution, part of the learning will include teachings on how to secure political party nominations, how to win in the main election and also how to run a successful political campaign.
While announcing the programme, Ngunyi tweeted
Ngunyi shot into the limelight when he came up with the famous hypothesis that the Jubilee Alliance of Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto will win the 2013 presidential election in the first round with a substantial majority over the Cord Coalition of Raila Odinga.
 
This prediction came true with Uhuru becoming president as Raila later teamed up with Moses Wetang’ula and Kalonzo Musyoka to form the opposition.
He prides himself in developing and refining many scientific methods for accurately predicting election outcomes. 
Earlier this year, Ngunyi indicated that Deputy President William Ruto would be elected president and will serve until 2032 after which he will be succeeded by a member of the Kikuyu Community.

Some say that what you have was handed to you while others demand for the receipts when you flaunt your belongings on social media. Diamond was recently put in a corner by critics who claimed that the house he got Zari was not really hers and he just put up the house photos on social media to squash the stories that he had banged one of his video vixens.
Now he has come back with videos of his new crib which he shared extensively on Instagram.
 
He also had a message for the haters, and did not pull any punches.
 
”

Complex diverse political agendas are driving African nations to quit the International Criminal Court, with leaders seeking to cloak the move by reigniting age-old anger at the West, analysts say.
Gambia’s announcement that it would be the third country to withdraw from the court is all the more frustrating as it comes at a time when the tribunal is beginning to probe some of the world’s most intractable conflicts, in places such as the Palestinian territories and Afghanistan, experts say.
Set up in 2002, the ICC’s mission is to try the world’s most heinous crimes which national governments are either unable or unwilling to prosecute.
And most of the ICC prosecutions, such as in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, have been requested by the countries themselves.
But Gambian Information Minister Sheriff Bojang charged the ICC had been used “for the persecution of Africans and especially their leaders”.
“Not a single Western war criminal has been indicted,” he said late Tuesday, as his country followed Burundi and continental heavyweight South Africa in announcing it intends to leave the tribunal.
It is a “very worrying development,” said analyst Mark Kersten, from the University of Toronto.
“The ultimate effect of this will be to protect high-level senior perpetrators of mass atrocities.”
In his online blog, Kersten predicted while there would not be a mass exodus, as many as five to 10 nations could withdraw from the court based in The Hague, including Kenya, Namibia and Uganda.
But he said ironically that showed the tribunal was more relevant than ever.
“Why is the ICC in the African states as it is? If you look at all of them, I think what you’ll see is that the ICC has justified investigation in all those situations,” he told AFP.
The three African nations involved so far have different reasons for trying to avoid any international spotlight on their domestic issues.
Burundi, where ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda opened an initial probe in April, has been mired in 18 months of political violence since President Pierre Nkurunziza announced his successful bid for a third term.
Former ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo highlighted repeated fears from the United Nations and the African Union of “a possible genocide” in Burundi.
“Who will defend the victims?” he asked.
“Escaping the ICC is a way to come (with) free hands to commit genocide,” Moreno-Ocampo told AFP, adding all “dictators are against” the court.
It seems Bujumbura’s decision sparked a kind of “withdrawal race,” said Kersten, while insisting Pretoria’s decision “was not made in solidarity with Burundi nor was it to protect or promote Nkurunziza.”
And Gambia, Bensouda’s home country where President Yahya Jammeh is seeking a fifth term having ruled with an iron-fist for decades, may have tried a preemptive strike amid fears of an opposition crackdown.
Experts warned of the “polarised debate” which has become symptomatic of everything that has gone wrong with the court.
Of the 124 nations which have ratified the Rome Statute underpinning the court, 34 are currently African. But with the United States, Russia and China all absent from the ICC’s signatories, real discussion is needed on boosting the tribunal’s legitimacy.
“There’s a strong African lobby pro-ICC, in the sense that they want to improve the ICC. So they are critical…,” said Marieke de Hoon, assistant professor in public international law at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
“It’s those voices that we need to assist by giving them a voice, rather than denying it,” she said, highlighting Mali, Niger, Senegal and Gabon, which recently asked the ICC to open an investigation into election unrest.
In part the ICC is hampered by its own rules. It can only investigate alleged crimes in states which have signed up to the Rome Statute, or if it is given a UN mandate.
That has hamstrung its ability to bring to justice those involved in the wars in Iraq and Syria.
“It’s crucial to understand the political playing field the ICC is trying to operate in,” said De Hoon. “It has limited resources, limited jurisdiction.”
She suggested the withdrawals could be part of an orchestrated strike — coming only a few weeks before the members’ annual meeting next month.
But member states should take the criticism seriously and work to overcome the setback. “Because if they don’t, then it is the dictators that are trying to run from justice” who will win, she warned.

The singer posted a warm message to celebrate little Tamara’s 5 accompanying it with one of her princess photo. He wrote to say,
This is not the first time we are seeing Jaguar show his affection to his little girls on social media. He has been spotted taking his girls to basket ball events and cruising around in his expensive rides.
 
Last year during Tamara’s 4 birthday the singer threw her a princess themed birthday party however for this year’s celebration the singer chose to keep it a secret.
For those who do not know, Jaguar is quite a family man. Though he prefers keeping his private life off social media, the little photos he parades of his family clearly speak in volumes.

“It’s never ending. These damned earthquakes won’t leave us alone!”
As she distributes pastries, hot coffee and juice to the traumatised residents of Ussita in the early hours of the morning, restaurateur Linda Cappa expresses the prevailing mood in this quake-prone Italian village after its latest brush with disaster.
Located in the mountainous interior of the Marche region, Ussita was close to the epicentre of two powerful shocks that shook a large swath of Italy on Wednesday evening.
Elderly villager Bruno recounted how he had headed straight for his car as soon as the first one struck. Experience had told him he had to get out of his house.
“The second one was much, much stronger than the first,” he said. “It seemed like it was going to go on for ever.
“I thought my car was going to be turned over. It’s a disaster. What on earth is going on under our feet?”
Situated at just above 600 metres (around 2,000 feet), Ussita is home to around 300 people.
Although no deaths were reported, Wednesday’s tremors did significant damage and left the area’s population in shock once more, two months after nearly 300 people died in another quake centred closed to the nearby town of Amatrice.
The village’s mayor Marco Rinaldi described “apocalyptic” scenes of people running into the streets screaming.
“The lights went out, our village is finished,” he said a few hours later as he prepared to chair a crisis meeting of rescue workers in a tent hastily erected in the middle of the village.
The winding road that leads up to the village was strewn with stones and debris that had tumbled down the mountainside.
Numerous buildings looked like they have been hit by bombs, others had collapsed completely.
Aftershocks, some powerful, some just strong enough to provide a reminder of the big ones, rumbled repeatedly throughout the night.
The villagers have got used to feeling the earth move beneath them, having been shaken by thousands of aftershocks since the August 24 quake, which left nearly 300 people dead.
“We are a bit used to this now,” says Cappa with an air of weary resignation.
On the edge of the village, Red Cross staff have re-established tents they first put up in August, housing around 100 of the village’s 300 residents.
Some smoke anxiously, others play cards to pass the time. A few try to get some sleep on camp beds.
“It is the one place they feel safe,” said Alessandra Franconi, a volunteer helping the aid effort who says the rest of the village’s inhabitants have either opted to sleep in their cars or headed for a local campsite.
Wooden huts alongside the tents have been there since 1997, when they served as accommodation for victims of a previous earthquake before later housing a temporary village school.
Another resident, Sergio, is feeling anxious about what the arrival of daylight will reveal.
“I have no idea what state I am going to find my house in. We’ll see. The only thing I hope is that it did not collapse on top of anyone.”

Early last year, a green Lamborghini made headlines in Kenya after it was spotted on Nairobi roads alongside a red Ferrari and a Rolls Royce. The three secondhand vehicles were imported to the country through the port of Mombasa.
 
Car dealers in Nairobi are now selling brand new Lamborghinis; Limuru Road-based car dealers, Imotorize Ltd, caused a stir on social media when they advertised a 2015 Lamborghini Huracan.
 
The Italian-made super car is retailing at $237,250 or Kes 24,064,572 on the international market.
 
Skeptical Kenyans were not convinced the posh car could actually be sold in Kenya; other even doubted whether the Lamborghini could be driven on the Kenyan roads.
See some of the reactions posted after the Lamborghini was advertised on Facebook:
Some broke ass will ask how much as if they can even afford the wipers
Christmas unless nijitreat na panadol juu ya solar nikitafuta mapeni.
After all has been said here, so ni pesa ngapi hiyo gari tuskie vizuri kwa roho?
half a million dollar car!? this is a physical, physiological imposibility.
Can this car carry thara? If no, the double cab Hilux is still my dream car.
I think I have a few hundred millions to blow 
How much I send with mpesa now
On what roads?? Kenya??
Bei haitoshei kwa post ,Facebook, add space bei iandikwe
Hii inapita barabara gani coz za kenya sioni hazina shangwe
i wuld like a black one
Am sure hata nikishinda mega jackpot ya “sipata” pesa bado haitoshi
Wow