Month: October 2016

Leicester City heroes Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez, stars in their team’s fairytale run to the Premier League title, have been named on a 30-player longlist for the 2016 Ballon d’Or.
Vardy — who has enjoyed a meteoric rise from amateur football to rub shoulders with the game’s biggest names — is the sole Englishman nominated for the prestigious prize awarded by France Football magazine, which is organising the trophy on its own after the end of a partnership with FIFA.
The Foxes pair are among eight Premier League stars on the list.
Three-time world player of the year Cristiano Ronaldo and last year’s victor Lionel Messi, who has won it five times altogether, are among the favourites to take the prize once again.
Ronaldo, who took home the award in 2008, 2013 and 2014, set himself up for a potential fourth Ballon d’Or when captaining Portugal to Euro 2016 glory and helping Real Madrid to an 11th Champions League triumph.
Other members of Madrid’s Champions League-winning campaign have been recognised as well in Gareth Bale, Luka Modric, Toni Kroos, Sergio Ramos and Pepe.
Pepe and Ronaldo are also joined on the list by Sporting Lisbon’s Rui Patricio, who kept goal in Portugal’s run to Euro glory.
Atletico Madrid and France striker Antoine Griezmann is another leading contender. However, his compatriot Karim Benzema is not on the list, the Real Madrid striker’s year having been overshadowed by the sextape blackmail affair which led to him being frozen out of the national team ahead of the Euros.
The winner will be determined by a vote of journalists — national team captains and managers will no longer have a say after the ending of the five-year deal between France Football and FIFA.
The first Ballon d’Or was won by Stanley Matthews, at the time with Blackpool, who beat Alfredo Di Stefano for the inaugural title in 1956.
Full list
Sergio Aguero (ARG/Manchester City), Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (GAB/Borussia Dortmund), Gareth Bale (WAL/Real Madrid), Gianluigi Buffon (ITA/Juventus), Cristiano Ronaldo (POR/Real Madrid), Kevin De Bruyne (BEL/Manchester City), Paulo Dybala (ARG/Juventus), Diego Godin (URU/Atletico Madrid), Antoine Griezmann (FRA/Atletico Madrid), Gonzalo Higuain (ARG/Juventus), Zlatan Ibrahimovic (SWE/Manchester United), Andres Iniesta (ESP/Barcelona), Koke (ESP/Atletico Madrid), Toni Kroos (GER/Real Madrid), Robert Lewandowski (POL/Bayern Munich), Hugo Lloris (FRA/Tottenham Hotspur), Riyad Mahrez (ALG/Leicester City), Lionel Messi (ARG/Barcelona), Luka Modric (CRO/Real Madrid), Thomas Mueller (GER/Bayern Munich), Manuel Neuer (GER/Bayern Munich), Neymar (BRA/Barcelona), Dimitri Payet (FRA/West Ham United), Paul Pogba (FRA/Manchester United), Pepe (POR/Real Madrid), Rui Patricio (POR/Sporting Lisbon), Sergio Ramos (ESP/Real Madrid), Luis Suarez (URU/Barcelona), Jamie Vardy (ENG/Leicester City), Arturo Vidal (CHI/Bayern Munich)

Iraqi security forces on Monday ended an attack by the Islamic State group in Kirkuk city, killing at least 74 jihadists in three days of clashes, the provincial governor said.
“The attack is over and life has returned to normal,” Najmeddin Karim, the governor of Kirkuk province, told AFP.
“The security forces have killed more than 74 Daesh (IS) terrorists and detained several others, including their leader.”
Karim said the initial confessions of the ringleader confirmed reports that around 100 fighters attacked Kirkuk early Friday, some of them sleeper cells that joined up with militants infiltrating the city.
Some attackers are also believed to have fled the city on Saturday, later clashing with security forces in rural areas east of Kirkuk.
The spectacular attack led to three days of clashes that left at least 46 people dead, mostly members of the security forces, and the Kurdish-controlled city under curfew.
The brazen raid on Kirkuk, which lies in an oil-rich area around 240 kilometres (150 miles) north of Baghdad, appeared to be an attempt by IS to divert attention from Mosul.
Tens of thousands of Iraqi forces are pressing a week-old offensive on Iraq’s second city, which is also the jihadists’ last major stronghold in the country.

He might feel entitled to a breather after a back-breaking effort in his team’s latest Test triumph but England’s ‘X-factor’ Ben Stokes said he’d rather be dropped than rested during a marathon tour of the sub-continent.
The lion-hearted Stokes was named man of the match on Monday for his starring role in England’s nail-biting first Test win over Bangladesh in which he scored a crucial half century and took six wickets.
After batting for more than three hours while making 85 on Saturday, Stokes then bowled superbly in Bangladesh’s second innings and finished the match with six wickets in temperatures hitting 32 degrees celsius.
Stokes began the year by scoring a career best 258 in a Test against South Africa but after England’s dramatic 22-run victory in Chittagong, the Durham player classed it as his most complete performance so far.
“Overall, I think it is,” the 25-year-old replied when asked if he thought it was the most satisfying match.
Stokes said he was particularly pleased with having improved his technique against the spinners, saying he had always been able to “take the aggressive route” but had now given himself more options.
Stokes said he had been putting in the hours, “making sure that my defence is tight and still having options to be able to rotate the strike when they do bowl the ball in a good area”.
He had also been working on his concentration levels so “that I’m switched on enough that if there is a bad ball to come along — because there aren’t going to be many — I still put it away for four or six.”
Stokes’ career has been interrupted by several injuries and the selectors will be desperate that he remains fit throughout the winter in which England will play a total of seven Tests, including five against India.
Stokes was also the vice-captain in a preceding ODI series against Bangladesh while England are due to play six further limited overs internationals against India early in the new year.
The workload means that England selectors could well be tempted to give Stokes a rest in one or two Tests, especially if they are dead rubbers — but he made clear that he would reject any such overtures.
“I’ll play all seven (Tests) if I still get picked, I’d rather get dropped,” he said.
England skipper Alastair Cook said Stokes was absolutely crucial to his team’s prospects.
“I say it every single time we speak about him, the guy is that x-factor cricketer which every side would love to have,” said Cook.
“He balances our side, he gives us options, he allows us to play the extra seamer here or an extra spinner, whichever way you look at it.”
Cook also praised Stokes for his improvement against the spinners, which was highlighted by his maiden ODI century in Dhaka earlier this month.
“The one thing he has done over the last year is improve his method against spin,” said Cook.
“I don’t want to say I’m surprised but it surprised me how well he scored that hundred and… it just showed what a lot of hard work can do and he can take a lot of credit for that.”

He said this during an interview with Enewz, a celebrity program aired on EATV this past weekend.
Calisah refused to acknowledge that Idris Sultan is a superstar and went on to sarcastically ask whether the comedian was once a Big Brother housemate.
Judging from the comments made by those watching the program, most seemed to agree that Calisah was pretty much scared of Idris Sultans career and the effect he has on people (fans).
 
When asked about his relationship with Wema Sepetu, the model did not reveal anything of importnace but was quick to state how Sepetu’s beauty had mesmerized him.
He went further to add that he thinks they ‘belong’ together because he is a fine looking man with a charming heart and good genes that run in his vein!
Yea right…

“The question of renewing the humanitarian pause is not relevant now,” deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov told Interfax news agency, in Moscow’s first official comment on why it did not extend the ceasefire further.
Heavy fighting resumed in the devasted Syrian city on Saturday after Russia, a government ally, ended its three-day cessation of hostilities.
In order to renew the pause, “our opponents must ensure appropriate behaviour by the anti-government groups that in particular sabotaged the medical evacuation that was intended during the humanitarian pause,” Ryabkov said.
He chastised the US-led coalition, saying that it was criticising Damascus and Moscow instead of “really exerting influence on the opposition, the rebels.”
“Over the last three days, what was needed did not happen,” he said.
Ryabkov also said that he did not see the “conditions” for ministerial-level negotiations on Syria before the US elections on November 8, after a Lausanne meeting on October 15 that ended with no breakthrough.
“It’s almost no time until the US elections. To be honest, I don’t see the conditions for a ministerial meeting,” he said, insisting that Damascus and Moscow were fulfilling international agreements.
The Kremlin had hailed the humanitarian ceasefire as a “manifestation of goodwill” as it faced mounting criticism over its bombing of rebel-held eastern Aleppo in support of a brutal regime offensive on the city.
But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday questioned the viability of humanitarian pauses under current conditions in comments to journalists.
So far the US-led coalition has not managed to separate moderate rebels from hardline “terrorist” groups, he said, and attacks continued “all these days” on checkpoints for exiting the city and the main routes for supplies of humanitarian aid.
“All this is far from helpful, either for the pauses or the process of supplying humanitarian aid,” Peskov said.
The Kremlin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov earlier expressed concern at the small numbers of civilians and fighters leaving the city, with only a handful reported to have crossed through a single passage.
Lavrov on Friday accused fighters from the Fateh al-Sham Front and influential Islamist Ahrar al-Sham group of obstructing the departure of civilians and combatants prepared to leave, saying they used “threats, blackmail and brute force.”

France began clearing the so-called “Jungle” migrant camp in the northern city of Calais on Monday ahead of its planned demolition.
Here are five key questions to explain what is at stake:
What is the ‘Jungle’?
It is a collection of tents and shelters on a muddy, windswept patch of land near Calais, northern France, that has become a magnet for migrants seeking to cross the Channel to reach Britain.
Various squalid settlements have existed for decades around the gritty town that is home to one of the country’s biggest ports and the Channel Tunnel rail link connecting France and Britain.
In 1999, the Sangatte refugee camp run by the Red Cross was set up to manage the flow of migrants, but this was shut down three years later by then interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy.
The 700 to 800 inhabitants, mainly Afghan migrants, moved to a new location that became known as the “Jungle”.
Hundreds of police demolished this site in September 2009 despite protests by anti-globalisation activists and leftist groups.
From April 2015, a new “Jungle” camp emerged as hundreds of thousands of people headed to Europe from the Middle East and Africa in the continent’s biggest migrant crisis since World War II.
The population of mainly Afghans, Iraqis, Eritreans and Sudanese has peaked at more than 10,000, according to local charities, but in its final days was believed to be around 6,000-8,000.
Why Calais?
The camp is near to where thousands of lorries drive on to ferries or trains heading for Britain, just 35 kilometres (22 miles) across the Channel.
Despite the dangers, desperate migrants try to break into the vehicles and hide. Those with money pay people smugglers to arrange the crossing.
Rather than apply for asylum in France, most have preferred to head to Britain for a variety of reasons.
Some have family networks there, while others are attracted to Britain’s reputation as a more economically vibrant country. The English language is also a big draw.
As the evacuation approached, more and more residents began seeking asylum in France, seeing it as the only way to avoid deportation.
How bad is it?
Conditions are bleak. Sanitation is limited and illnesses spread easily. Women and children risk sexual violence, while brawls and deadly road accidents are commonplace.
For the local economy, repeated targeting of trucks has seriously disrupted traffic at the port and Channel tunnel.
Locals complain about the image of their town, and Calais bars and restaurants say trade has been severely hit. Protesters blocked roads in September to demand the camp’s closure.
The conditions have also drawn criticism from the United Nations and charities, embarrassing the French government.
Why has it caused tension between Britain and France?
In 2003, the two countries signed the so-called Le Touquet accord, which effectively moved Britain’s border with France to the French side of the Channel.
Under the agreement, Britain pays millions of euros (dollars) each year for security in Calais — the latest investment being a wall along the road leading to the port — but it is French police and border agents who are on the frontline.
Many French politicians believe London has simply outsourced a problem to France and the agreement should be torn up.
“We can’t tolerate what is going on in Calais, the image is disastrous for our country,” the centre-right frontrunner for next year’s presidential election, Alain Juppe, said in an interview last published last week.
The Socialist government has ruled out scrapping the agreement for now, but there are signs of frustration with Britain.
President Francois Hollande called on the British to “play their part” in September, while Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve reminded London of its “moral duty” to take in children from the camp believed to be numbered in the hundreds.
So is this the end?
In February, authorities razed the southern part of the camp and demanded that migrants living there move to temporary state-funded accommodation. Many refused.
On September 26, Hollande promised the camp would be closed by the end of the year and the government said it would relocate the Jungle migrants to accommodation around the country.
The plan prompted a right-wing mayor in the town of Beziers in southern France to put up posters warning “They’re coming”, depicting a group of dark-skinned men against the backdrop of the local cathedral.
The bigger question is whether history will repeat itself once the bulldozers have done their work. As one camp is demolished, will another spring up nearby?
Bashir, 25, from Sudan, said he applied for asylum in France four months ago. “But the authorities gave me no housing so there was nowhere for me to be but in the Jungle. Today that will change.”

The death toll in last week’s train crash in Cameroon has climbed to 79 after rescuers finished combing through the wreckage, authorities said Monday.
On Sunday, 11 more bodies were pulled from the debris of the packed passenger train that derailed on Friday between Cameroon’s two main cities, CRTV state radio reported.
More than 500 people were injured, the radio added, when the train travelling from the capital Yaounde to the economic hub of Douala, came off the rails near the central city of Eseka.
The train was crammed with people because a collapsed bridge made travelling the same route by road impossible. Extra carriages had been added to accommodate the additional passengers.
“Searches at the site of the accident wound up on Sunday,” a Camrail railway official who asked not to be identified told AFP. On Saturday a Camrail official said the toll had hit at least 60.
Cameroon was observing a day of national mourning Monday, with flags flying at half mast and church services planned across the country.
President Paul Biya, who returned home Sunday after a month out of the country, said he had called for an inquiry into the accident.

An unmarked reconnaissance plane working for France’s defence ministry crashed at Malta’s international airport Monday, killing all five people on board and sparking questions about what the privately-chartered plane was doing.
The aircraft plummeted into the ground nose-first and exploded in a ball of flames shortly after taking off for an undisclosed surveillance mission.
Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat told parliament that human error or a mechanical fault was the most likely cause of the incident.
He denied the plane was involved in covert military intelligence work over conflict-torn Libya, which is just 220 miles (350 kilometres) south of the island.
“It is clear there was no bomb on the aircraft and no explosion happened before the aircraft crashed to the ground,” Muscat said.
“Aviation experts have so far indicated that there was no foul play… although at this stage nothing could be ruled out.”
Muscat insisted that the plane had been on a “customs” mission, monitoring people, drugs and arms trafficking in the waters around Malta — with the island government’s full blessing.
The French defence ministry contradicted Malta’s initial portrayal of the victims as customs officials by confirming that the plane had been working on its behalf, carrying out “reconnaissance missions in the Mediterranean”.
Three of those who died were employees of the defence ministry, it said. The two others were pilots employed by CAE Aviation, a private company based in Luxembourg which specialises in aerial surveillance and works regularly with European military.
CAE aviation said the plane “was being flown by an experienced crew with no technical issues reported on previous flights.”
France has been a significant player in Libya in recent years.
Under former President Nicolas Sarkozy, it led the 2011 Western military intervention which led to the overthrow and death of former dictator Moamer Kadhafi and plunged the country into a state of chaos from which it has never recovered.
Paris confirmed in July that its special forces were operating inside the conflict-torn north African state after three of its troops died in a helicopter crash.
The wrecked plane was a twin-prop Fairchild Metroliner Mark III registered in the United States and leased to CAE aviation.
It took off around 7:20 am (0520 GMT). Shortly afterwards it tilted abruptly to the right and was seen plunging nose-first towards the ground, finally exploding into a ball of flames on a road that rings the main runway, damaging the perimeter wall and fence.
“Official information, footage and eyewitnesses, including three members of the Armed Forces of Malta at the nearby barracks, and two commercial airline pilots, clearly indicate that there was no explosion prior to impact,” a government statement said.
“The flight was part of a French customs surveillance operation which has been taking place for the past five months, with the aim of tracing routes of illicit trafficking of all sorts, including human and drug trafficking amongst others,” the statement said.
“The flight was registered with the Malta Air Traffic Services as a local flight and was to return to Malta within hours without landing in third countries.”
The accident resulted in traffic in and out of the airport being suspended for almost four hours, with 13 incoming flights diverted to Sicily.
But the terminal was not evacuated and only two outgoing flights were cancelled before normal service was resumed.
Malta is on the front line of Europe’s efforts to contain the waves of migrants trying to reach Italy from Libya in boats operated by people smugglers who are often also involved in illicit drugs and arms dealing.
The island is also strategically located for Western powers seeking to monitor developments in Libya, where a fledgling national unity government is struggling to impose its authority and militants loyal to the Islamic State group have established a foothold.

As they left the show after 104 episodes together, Phil sent out this message promising of things to come
 Months down the line, Phil’s dreams have come to fruition with a new show starting November this year.
 
Stringing in the likes of Makokha, Alexander Josphat and Ondiek from the popular Vioja Mahakamani show, the duo has a new local drama called “Hullaballoo Estate “ that will be airing on Maisha Magic east from 8.00 P.M starting  1st November.
 

2016 MTV Africa Music Awards best known MAMAs went down on Saturday 22 October at the Ticketpro Dome in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Nigerians and South Africans dominated the award gala; they bagged a total of 11 awards with Nigeria taking home 6 of them.
It was a big night for Wizkid in particular; he flew back home having won three major awards: Artist of the Year, Best Male, Best Collaboration.
 
East Africa only managed to win a single award which was won by Sauti Sol; despite the likes of Diamond, Eddzy Kenzo, Vanessa Mdee and The Kansoul having been nominated in various categories.
But Ugandan singer, Eddy Kenzo, believes he won in the category he was nominated in, Best Live Act. The ‘Sitya Loss’ hit maker was nominated among four other artists: Flavour (Nigeria), Stonebwoy (Ghana), Cassper Nyovest (South Africa) and Mafikizolo (South Africa).
Cassper Nyovest won in that category but Eddy Kenzo believes he ought to have won since he was the most voted for.
Eddy Kenzo grumbled after he failed to win Best Live Act.

Videos posted by Kelvin Shaban on a closed group on Facebook show a raged crowd embroiled in a wrangle with two white male said to be British soldiers.
Apparently the two British soldiers were on a drinking spree in Westlands on 23 October when liquor took the better of them and decided to cause havoc.
Kelvin says one of the Brit soldiers snatched a dog from a hawker and started spewing out racist remarks while bragging about how he was untouchable.
A vexed crowd that had milled around OiLibya in Westlands decided to take matters into their own hands and unleashed public beating upon the drunk soldiers.
Guards at the petrol station and police officers from Parklands intervened to save the soldiers before blood was spilt.
Kelvin Shaban posted on Facebook as he shared videos of the incident in Westlands.
Watch the video below:
 
 

The notorious “Jungle” migrant camp on the outskirts of the French port of Calais has for years been a key staging post for migrants trying to smuggle across the Channel to Britain on lorries or trains.
Following are key dates in the history of the sprawling settlement which French authorities were starting to clear on Monday.
In 1999, the Red Cross opens the Sangatte camp near Calais port for migrants sleeping rough in and around the northern French city.
Under pressure from Britain, which sees it as having a “pull” effect on migration, the camp is closed in 2002.
Hundreds of mainly Afghan migrants then set up camp east of Calais, on a patch of scrubland next to a road travelled by lorries heading for Calais port. The migrants call it the Jungle.
In September 2009, the Jungle is demolished for the first time on the orders of then president Nicolas Sarkozy, following a mass police raid in which scores of people are arrested.
In early 2015, a new settlement named the New Jungle sprouts up near a state-run day centre for migrants established at the site. The camp later becomes simply known as the Jungle.
In June, 21 people are injured when a brawl breaks out at night between up to 300 migrants in the camp.
From mid-2015 on, migrants attempting to board lorries or enter the Channel Tunnel frequently clash with police around the camp, which mushrooms in size as asylum-seekers pour into Europe in unprecedented numbers.
Most of the 33 migrant deaths in the Calais region since January 2015 have been caused by road accidents, with many losing their lives as they attempted to climb onto lorries heading towards Britain under cover of night.
France’s top administrative court in November raps the government over conditions in the Jungle, describing them as “inhuman”.
In January 2016, the port of Calais is shut for more than three hours after dozens of migrants occupy a moored Britain-bound ferry.
A month later, around 20 people are arrested in Calais at a banned rally by supporters of Germany’s xenophobic Pegida movement.
The southern half of the Jungle camp is demolished in late February and early March, sparking protests. Iranian migrants protesting at the destruction of their shacks sew their mouths shut. The evicted migrants moved to the northern part of the camp.
Six months later, pressure to tear down the rest of the camp builds. Protesting lorry drivers and farmers block roads around Calais with their vehicles.
Work begins in September on a four-metre (13-foot) high wall along part of the main port road, to prevent migrants climbing onto trucks.
On September 26, President Francois Hollande says the Jungle will be demolished by the end of the year and that the migrants — estimated to number around 6,000 — will be moved to shelters around the country.
A group of charities challenge the demolition on human rights grounds but a court rejects their appeal, saying the migrants’ conditions should be bettered by the camp’s closure.
In the last days of the Jungle, Britain accelerates the transfer of child refugees seeking to be reunited with relatives in Britain, taking in around 200 minors.
On October 21 the interior ministry confirms the operation to tear down the camp will start on Monday.
Migrants began evacuating early Monday, with the first bus carrying about 50 Sudanese leaving the Jungle at about 08:45 am (0645 GMT).

Defending Kenya Premier League Champions Gor Mahia kept their slim title hopes alive with a clinical 2-0 win over bitter rivals AFC Leopards in an entertaining match played at Nyayo Stadium.
The win saw narrow the gap between them and table toppers Tusker to just four points with just three matches left to go.
Tusker remain top with 52 points despite their 1-1 draw against Nairobi City Stars on Sunday at Nakuru’s Afraha Stadium.
Goals from Meddie Kagere and Enock Agwanda in the second half ensured the Green Army bagged all three points and earn them bragging rights in the .
The match was briefly held up as AFC Leopards fans protested the first goal after match referee awarded Gor Mahia a penalty which Kagere calmly slotted home in the 64th minute.
Agwanda made sure of the victory after he came off from the bench and scored Gor Mahia’s second goal in the 83rd minute with a perfectly timed strike.
Defeat for Gor Mahia would have all but ended their hopes of claiming a fourth consecutive PL title.
Gor Mahia’s Brazilian coach, Jose ‘Ze Maria’ Fereira said.

Javelin champion Julius Yego was involved in a horrific accident yesterday night.
The Olympic silver medalist survived the accident and was admitted at the Eldoret Mediheal Hospital where he was making speedy recovery and was in a stable condition. The doctors though held him for the night for further tests and observation.
Julius Yego was driving his Toyota Prado when the accident occurred in Eldoret which according to pictures of the event show his car hit a trailer on the road. The car was extensively damaged which makes it a miracle that the star athlete not only survived but is in a stable condition currently.
He will however have to write off the vehicle which is said to be just one week old. Julius Yego took time today morning to post about his condition and assure his supporters and well-wishers that he was fine. This is what he had to say…
 
Julius Yego lives in Kapsabet, Eldoret where he has based his training and his family on wife Sincy and son Jarvis stays with him.  He became a popular figure in a short span rising from obscurity to world level attention. His story of self-training from YouTube to earning an Athletics scholarship and becoming a world beating athlete has endeared him to millions worldwide.
Other athletes and ordinary Kenyans have joined in wishing him quick and full recovery.
Here are photos of the accident

Belgium has conceded it cannot sign off on a landmark EU free trade deal with Canada because of continued objections from Wallonia and other regional leaders who rejected a late Monday deadline.
Without Belgium’s signature, the other 27 European Union nations cannot go ahead, leaving the bloc stuck in another bitter stand-off after Brexit and with its much vaunted unity shattered amid growing popular distrust of international trade deals.
“We are not in a position to sign CETA,” Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said after brief talks with the country’s regional leaders in Brussels broke up without an accord.
The pact, known as the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), would link the EU market of 500 million people, the world’s biggest, with the tenth largest global economy.
“The federal government, the German community and Flanders said ‘yes.’ Wallonia, the Brussels city government and the French community said ‘no’,” Michel added.
Leaders of Wallonia, a 3.5 million strong French-speaking region south of the capital Brussels, are in particular asking for more time to negotiate terms.
But European sources said European Council president Donald Tusk on Sunday called for an answer from Belgium by late Monday so he would be able to tell Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau whether or not to attend a CETA signing ceremony in Brussels on Thursday.
Wallonia leader Paul Magnette said earlier as he left the talks that he could not endorse the accord under such pressure.
“Prime Minister (Michel) told us that the head of the European Council Donald Tusk wanted an answer from us today, yes or no,” Magnette said.
“It is evident that in the current circumstances, we cannot give a ‘yes’ today,” he said.
At the start of talks, Magnette had warned: “We will never decide anything under an ultimatum or under pressure.”
Wallonia parliament head Andre Antoine told Belgium’s RTL radio earlier that it was important to get the deal right as it could pave the way for even larger and more far-reaching trade pacts with economic powers such as the United States and China.
“We must therefore have a solid legal basis,” he said.
Wallonia leaders say more time is needed to study a draft deal which Antoine said is massively complex and covers “300 pages of the treaty, 1,300 pages of appendices.”
Magnette and other critics especially fault terms supposed to protect international investors which, they say, could allow them to force governments to change laws against the wishes of the people.
CETA is opposed by anti-globalisation groups who say it is a test model to push through an even more controversial EU-US trade deal called TTIP, talks on which have also stalled.
Wallonia has some support around Europe and from non-government organisations like Greenpeace, which fears the deal will reward “corporate greed” at the expense of hard-won EU health and environmental standards.
Apart from sowing tensions with the European Council and the European Commission which strongly support the deal, Wallonia’s position highlights long-standing divisions in Belgium between the northern and wealthier Flemish-speaking region of Flanders, which backs CETA and sees its southern, French-speaking left-leaning compatriots as wasteful spendthrifts.
Canada has made no secret of its irritation with Belgium and the EU.
Chrystia Freeland, the Canadian trade minister, appeared on the verge of tears Friday after walking out of negotiations with Magnette and blasted the EU as “incapable” of signing international agreements.
The botched negotiations over the deal strike a further blow to a Europe in turmoil following Britain’s shock vote in June to leave the bloc, as well as sharp divisions over the migration crisis and opposition to austerity medicine imposed on Greece and other debt-hit EU countries.
During a press conference on Monday, European Commission spokesman Margartis Schinas sought to give breathing room to the Belgian hold-outs.
He insisted that the Commission, the EU executive, “is not in the habit of working with ultimatums or deadlines” and urged patience for a deal he said was still possible.

Hollywood star Mark Ruffalo accused US President Barack Obama of hypocrisy for allowing fracking and other fossil fuel extraction while presenting himself as a green president.
The Oscar-nominated “Spotlight” and “Avengers” actor spoke out at a rally in Los Angeles protesting against man-made climate change and, in particular, the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline, the site of escalating protests in recent weeks.
“President Obama, it is immoral for you to keep drilling in our state lands, in our federal lands, off our federal waters, while at the same time calling yourself a climate change leader,” he said.
Ruffalo, 48, recently narrated and produced “Dear President Obama: The Clean Energy Revolution Is Now,” a critical documentary on the outgoing head-of-state’s environmental legacy.
He was joined on stage by actresses Shailene Woodley, 24, and Susan Sarandon, 70, for a five-hour event featuring music and speeches in front of around 800 people at MacArthur Park in downtown LA.
The heavens opened as Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Antonique Smith started playing Beatles hit “Here Comes the Sun,” and a prolonged downpour, rare in drought-hit Southern California, delighted the crowd.
Woodley, who stars in Oliver Stone biopic “Snowden” and the “Divergent” film franchise, was arrested at the Dakota Access Pipeline earlier this month.
She was charged with criminal trespass and engaging in a riot, and is due in court on Monday.
“Indigenous people, for the most part, and marginalized communities, are the first communities to get compromised and get taken out by the fossil fuel industry,” she said.
“Their lands are flooded from dams being built, their fish are taken and put in other countries, their mountains are compromised without any regard to their sacred ancestry and their traditions.”
Protests have drawn thousands of people to the area where Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners is trying to complete a 1,172-mile (1,886-kilometer) pipeline from a vast underground deposit in North Dakota southwards into Illinois.
More than 220 people have been arrested since demonstrations began in August.
Protesters say the $3.8 billion pipeline will damage the environment and affect historically significant Native American tribal land.
The Standing Rock Sioux tribe, whose reservation in North Dakota is near the pipeline route, says the project would destroy some of their sacred sites.
“The world is a mess. We’ve got wars, we’ve got the Mother Earth being raped constantly,” Sarandon told the crowd, to cheers.
“Not only is it an environmental, but it’s a problem in terms of social justice. We can do it. We can stop fracking. We can stop the pipeline.”
Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is the extraction of natural gas from deep in the ground by blasting water and chemicals under extremely high pressure.
It is estimated to have offered gas security to the US and Canada for about 100 years, presenting an opportunity to generate electricity at half the CO2 emissions of coal.
But the process uses huge amounts of water, which must be transported to the fracking site at significant environmental cost, and critics say the potentially carcinogenic chemicals involved could contaminate groundwater.
The rally was part of a series of gatherings across the US organized by Josh Fox, best known for Oscar-nominated 2010 documentary “Gasland” and his opposition to fracking.
“No matter what happens in this election, we need a strong movement to fight the fossil fuel industry and to fight to preserve our planet against climate change,” he said, referring to next month’s presidential vote.
Sunday’s event included an outdoor screening of Fox’s “How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can’t Change.”
The film was produced by Deia Schlosberg, who is facing a possible 45-year prison sentence after she was arrested while documenting the shutdown of five major pipelines by environmental activists.

Instead, they are deflating the tyres of parked cars — a theft prevention tactic that is raising eyebrows as the country struggles to contain the growing menace of petty crime.
Kabul and its estimated five million inhabitants are at war, a prime target for Taliban-led insurgent attacks as well as assaults by a nascent Islamic State.
The capital’s fledgling police force are under pressure to prevent atrocities, so — short on time and resources — they have taken a scorched earth approach when it comes to tackling more routine petty crime.
The logic is indisputable: if the car cannot be moved, it cannot be stolen.
“Police politely ask the residents to not park their cars in the open… but when they prefer to pay no heed, then police may move in to remove the air nozzles as a last measure,” says Feraidoon Obaidi, chief of Kabul police’s criminal investigation department.
“We can protect people from both the thieves and the terrorists,” he says.
“But they should know how much energy we have to put in to stop terrorists in the city. By leaving their cars in the open, they are inviting thieves.”
A series of attacks have ripped across Kabul in recent months, jihadists armed with bombs and guns killing dozens of people, including the assault targeting Shiites during the Ashura festival earlier in October that left 14 people dead.
Most have been carried out by the resurgent Taliban, including attacks on a global charity and a university as well as twin blasts in September that killed 41 people.
The Ashura attack was claimed by Islamic State. In July, the Middle East jihadist group, which is struggling to gain a foothold in Afghanistan, claimed bombings that tore through minority Shiite Hazara protesters in Kabul, killing 84 people in the deadliest attack in the capital since 2001.
Official data shows up to 300 cars were stolen in Kabul’s streets from March to July — slightly down from last year, but still frustrating for police.
“In some cases they work in gangs, while others work individually snatching cars, especially (the ones) that can easily be unlocked,” says Kabir Ahmad Barmak, chief of Kabul’s eleventh district police.
“They snatch cars parked in vacant streets especially at night, and sometimes turn them into spare parts,” Barmak says, adding police have been forced to use valuable resources on special mobile patrols to tackle the problem.
Officers used to simply slash the tyres, but now take the slightly more considerate route of removing the air nozzles instead.
“When you see these thieves lurking in dark and people recklessly leaving their cars in the open, it makes you think, best way to protect is to damage the tyres,” says another officer in the district, who requested anonymity.
“It is working,” he adds with a triumphant smile. “Fewer people today leave their cars on streets than before.”
But the tactic is angering a public frustrated with the inconvenience and financial burden of repeated repairs.
“Should one expect the police to serve or to hurt?” says Akbar, a customer at a tire repairing unit on the roadside outside central Kabul’s “Bush Bazaar”, a black market named after US President George W. Bush.
“It is not fair to puncture a car to avert theft… You park your car here for few minutes, it is either stolen by a thief, or damaged by police,” he says.
“That is vandalism, not service.”
Others pointed out they had little option but to leave their cars in the open.
“When you go to the city, there are not many places to park your car except the streets, and then it is gone without much hope for its recovery,” says Ahmad Shoaib, whose car was stolen last month.
But there is one merry, busy segment of the capital that appears to appreciate the situation.
“Police are doing a service,” says handyman Abdul Shukoor at the roadside mobile tyre repairing unit, sipping from his steaming tea with a smile.
“They prevent the cars from being stolen and help me make more money. The world is fair.”

When Noelia Garella was a child, a nursery school rejected her as a “monster.” Now 31, she is in a class of her own.
In the face of prejudice, she is the first person with Down syndrome to work as a preschool teacher in Argentina — and one of the few in the world.
Garella’s case set a precedent after the school confronted a taboo: could a person with a cognitive syndrome be in charge of a class?
Her two- and three-year-old pupils crowd around her affectionately in her classroom in the Jermonito nursery.
At her bidding, they sit down for a story and watch engrossed as she reads, following her lead as she imitates a shark, baring her teeth.
“I adore this. Ever since I was little, I have always wanted to be a teacher, because I like children so much,” she tells AFP.
“I want them to read and listen, because in society people have to listen to one another.”
Garella’s determination inspired her colleagues to hire her at the preschool in the northern city of Cordoba, despite reservations in some quarters.
One party “in a position of responsibility” judged that she should not take classes because of her condition, said Alejandra Senestrari, the former director of the school who hired Garella.
Teachers, parents and even the city’s mayor weighed in. They decided there was no reason Garella could not teach early-learning reading classes.
“With time, even those who had been opposed joined in the initiative to hire Noe as a teacher,” said Senestrari.
“We very quickly realized that she had a strong vocation. She gave what the children in the nursery classes most appreciate, which is love.”
A genetic condition, Down syndrome typically affects a person’s physical and intellectual growth.
In Garella’s case, it has done nothing to diminish her optimism and self-belief.
Standing by her side, her mother, Mercedes Cabrera, looks tearful when her daughter tells the story of the day care center director who told Garella’s parents: “No monsters here.”
But Garella smiles. “That teacher is like a story that I read to the children,” she says.
“She is a sad monster, who knows nothing and gets things wrong. I am the happy monster.”
Other countries have stories of people with Down syndrome who have become teachers.
But Garella’s case is thought to be the first in Latin America, where disagreement over whether pupils, let alone teachers, with Down syndrome should be accepted in public schools has generated controversy in the past.
Garella’s colleagues have been moved by her case.
“It has been a unique experience for the staff,” says Susana Zerdan, current director of the preschool.
“The way the children accept her, incorporating her naturally into the school — there is a lesson in life there for us all.”
Garella first joined the Cordoba public education system as an assistant for reading classes in 2012.
“I always feel good with the children. Their parents love me and the other teachers and principals I have had are wonderful,” she says.
She likes to do Latin dancing in her spare time. She dreams of having children of her own and lately has been feeling flutters because she has “met someone.”
She has been jointly in charge, with another teacher, of a class in the Jermonito preschool since January.
“I have a boy with Down syndrome in my class. He is wonderful,” she says. “Oh, it is lovely when someone like me is born.”

Over 1,000 migrants rode buses out of the Calais “Jungle” on Monday as French authorities kicked off an operation to dismantle the notorious camp that has become a symbol of Europe’s refugee crisis.
“Bye Bye, Jungle!” one group of migrants shouted as they hauled luggage through the muddy lanes of the shantytown where thousands of mainly Afghans, Sudanese and Eritreans had holed up, desperate to sneak into Britain.
Around 1,200 police officers — some in riot gear — were on hand as several hundred migrants queued to be put on coaches for shelters across France.
“We don’t know yet where we are going, but it will obviously be better than the Jungle, which was made for animals not humans,” said Wahid, a 23-year-old Afghan.
The first coachload carrying 50 Sudanese left at about 8:45 am (0645 GMT), heading for the Burgundy region of east-central France.
By early afternoon, 25 buses were on their way with a total of 1,051 people aboard.
Police at one point intervened to break up a scuffle but Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the operation was proceeding in a generally “calm and orderly manner.”
The Jungle’s hundreds of unaccompanied minors have been the main focus of NGOs’ concerns.
In an 11th-hour gesture on their behalf, Britain has taken in nearly 200 teenagers over the past week, mostly children with relatives in Britain, but the transfers were on hold Monday.
Hundreds more have been interviewed by British immigration officials and many are still awaiting a reply.
They will be provisionally housed with other minors in containers in a part of the Jungle where families had been living.
On Tuesday, demolition crews will move in to start tearing down the slum, one of the biggest in Europe where 6,000 to 8,000 people — among them an estimated 1,300 children — have been living in dire conditions.
Officials said they were on target to move 2,000 people on Monday. The operation is set to continue through Wednesday.
Christian Salome, head of the Auberge des Migrants (Migrants’ Hostel) charity, said the process was “working well because these are people who were waiting impatiently to leave.”
“I’m much more concerned about later in the week when the only ones remaining are those who do not want to leave, who still want to reach England,” he said, estimating their number at around 2,000. The interior ministry dismissed that figure as exaggerated.
On Sunday night, the police fired tear gas during sporadic skirmishes with migrants around the camp.
Riots erupted when the authorities razed the southern half of the settlement in March.
Located on wasteland next to the port of Calais, the four-square-kilometre (1.5-square-mile) Jungle has become a symbol of Europe’s failure to resolve an unprecedented migrant influx.
More than one million people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Asia and Africa poured into Europe last year, sowing divisions across the 28-nation bloc and fuelling the rise of far-right parties, including France’s own National Front.
Those seeking to smuggle into Britain, believing it to offer better chances of work and integration than France, have been converging on Calais for well over a decade. The first makeshift camp on the site of the Jungle dates back to 2002.
Over the past year, police in the northern town have been battling near nightly attempts by migrants to climb onto trucks heading across the Channel.
Fresh graffiti on the walls of Jungle shelters and shops reflected the fears of some that Britain may be slipping out of reach.
“I lost my hope,” read one tag. “Is this justice? No,” read another.
Karhazi, a young Afghan, sounded a defiant note: “They’ll have to force us to leave. We want to go to Britain.”
The redistribution of the migrants is a risky enterprise for Socialist President Francois Hollande, coming six months before national elections in which migration is a key issue.
Some French people have opposed plans to resettle asylum-seekers in their midst.
French authorities say those who agree to be relocated can apply for asylum in France. Those who resist face possible deportation.
Jean-Marc Puissesseau, chief executive of Calais port where migrants in January briefly occupied a ferry, told BBC radio he was “a very, very happy man.”
“It’s for us really the D-Day,” he said, hailing an end to the “constant stress” of drivers fearful of being ambushed by migrants. Dozens of youths have been killed on the road or trying up to jump onto passing trains.
Puissesseau warned that new camps would sprout up around Calais unless police remained vigilant.
A Syrian man told AFP he had decamped from the Jungle at the weekend to another site about 12 km (seven miles) away, along with dozens of other migrants.
A total of 145 buses have been laid on over the three days to take adults and families to 451 shelters nationwide.

Ice cool skipper Alastair Cook insisted he never doubted England would hold their nerve after just preventing Bangladesh from pulling off an historic victory in a nail-biting first Test in Chittagong Monday.
Ben Stokes took the last two wickets in three balls as England sneaked home by 22 runs in a match that ebbed and flowed throughout before the dramatic 20-minute conclusion on the morning of the fifth and final day.
Bangladesh had started the day needing just 33 runs for what would have been their first win over England in nine attempts.
But they added just 10 runs to their overnight total and were all out for 263 after 20 minutes of play at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury stadium, with Stokes cleaning up the tail with the help of the televised review system.
Taijul Islam was the first to go, adjudged lbw for 16 after England appealed against umpire Kumar Dharmasena’s original not out verdict.
Two balls later, Dharamsena declared the number 11 batsman Shafiul Islam out lbw for a duck — a decision that was confirmed by TV replays after Bangladesh had appealed to the third umpire.
It was a heartbreaking end for Bangladesh to a Test in which they took England right to the wire, disappointing the hopes of millions of cricket fans who had been anticipating a famous victory.
But speaking to reporters after the match, Cook — who is famous for never breaking a sweat — said he had found it easy to remain cool in what he acknowledged had been a “brilliant Test”.
“I was fairly confident this morning if I’m brutally honest,” said Cook who had flown back to Bangladesh only days after attending the birth of his daughter back home.
“I thought we’d create the chances, the doubt was whether we were good enough to take those chances. They might be half chances. But I thought we’d create enough to win the game so I was fairly relaxed.”
The match was Bangladesh’s first Test in nearly in 15 months but showcased how the one-time whipping boys of international cricket have made steady progress in recent years.
The hosts played some impressive cricket during the match, with the teenage debutant Mehedi Hasan taking six for 80 in England’s first innings.
Bangladesh had appeared on course for a comfortable first-innings lead but lost their last six wickets for just 27 to give England a crucial 45-run lead.
They then had England reeling at 52 for five in the tourists’ second innings before Stokes and Jonny Bairstow turned the match with a partnership of 127 for the sixth wicket.
Bangladesh’s victory target appeared to be way beyond them at the outset but all of their main batsman made a contribution and Sabbir Rahman top-scored with an unbeaten 64 before running out of partners.
Despite coming agonisingly close to what would have been their most famous Test victory, Bangladesh captain Mushfiqur Rahim said he was proud of his team’s performance.
“Probably it was not in our favour, 33 runs and two wickets, but the boys put in so much effort over the last five days. After 15 months, I’m really proud,” Rahim said.
“Our boys fought it out which is really impressive and hopefully we’ll do the same in the next match.”
Stokes was named man of the match for taking a combined total of six wickets in both of Bangladesh’s innings and also scoring a swashbuckling 85 in England’s second innings which included six fours and three sixes.
The second and final Test will start in Dhaka on October 28 before England then head to India for a five-Test tour.

Indian police on Monday killed 24 rebels in a shoot-out in eastern India, one of the heaviest casualties inflicted in recent years on the Maoists who are waging a long-running insurgency.
Police said one commando was also killed after they ambushed at least 40 Maoist rebels gathered at a forest camp near the border of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh states, triggering the gunbattle.
“A total of 24 Maoists are dead, seven of them are women. We have identified seven bodies so far,” Mitrabhanu Mahapatra, the police chief of Malkangiri district where the clash occurred, told AFP by phone.
“We can confirm that two senior Maoist leaders are among the dead. One police commando who was injured in the gunbattle has also died.”
Weapons including four AK-47s and three self-loading rifles were recovered from the scene, some 640 kilometres (400 miles) from the state capital Bhubaneswar, said another officer, local sub-inspector C.K. Dharua.
India’s Maoist insurgency began in the 1960s, inspired by Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, and has since cost thousands of lives.
The rebels, described by former prime minister Manmohan Singh as India’s most serious internal security threat, say they are fighting authorities for land, jobs and other rights for poor tribal groups.
Ten paramilitary commandos were killed in July in the eastern state of Bihar after suspected Maoist rebels ambushed their convoy and set off a series of homemade bombs.
In March suspected rebels triggered a powerful landmine blast in the central state of Chhattisgarh, killing seven policemen.
The South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP) website, which tracks separatist violence, said the Maoist casualties were the heaviest suffered in a single incident in the last few years.
The insurgency has claimed more than 7,000 civilian lives between 2005 and 2016, according to SATP.
Maoist sympathiser and author Varavara Rao cast doubt on the police description of Monday’s clash as a shoot-out.
“Cops surrounded a Maoist meeting and shot them in cold blood and terming it as an encounter…” Rao told the Indian Express.
“The influence of Maoists has come down and they have not launched any major attacks. So what was the reason for such drastic action against them?”
The rebels operate in at least 20 Indian states but are most active in the forested and resource-rich areas of Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh.
They draw recruits from tribal communities whose members are often desperately poor and living in underdeveloped areas neglected by successive governments.
Government critics say attempts to end the revolt through tough security offensives are doomed to fail, and the real solution is better governance and development of the region.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been seeking to stem the insurgency by earmarking development funds for revolt-hit areas and improving policing.
Last year Modi urged Maoists to put down their guns and take up ploughs, saying “violence has no future”.
The remote forests of Malkangiri district are a major transit point for rebels because they border Maoist strongholds in Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh, the Hindu newspaper said.
Malkangiri was the scene of an attack by the guerrillas on Indian security forces in 2008 in which 21 commandos were killed.

Ben Stokes took the last two Bangladesh wickets in three balls as England won a thrilling first Test by 22 runs in Chittagong Monday, narrowly depriving their hosts of an historic victory.
Bangladesh, needing 33 runs for what would have been their first win over England in nine attempts, added just 10 runs to their overnight total and were all out for 263 after 20 minutes of play on the fifth and final day at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury stadium.
Sabbir Rahman, the overnight half-centurion, was left stranded on 64 as the allrounder Stokes dismissed the other two batsmen in his second over.
Stokes had Taijul Islam lbw for 16 following a successful review, after umpire Kumar Dharmasena initially turned down a muted appeal.
Two balls later it was the turn for Bangladesh to ask for a review as Dharamsena declared the number 11 batsman Shafiul Islam out lbw for a duck.
The replay again came to England’s aid as Hawk-Eye indicated that the ball was hitting off stump, meaning the umpire’s initial decision stood.
England captain Alastair Cook, who had flown back to Bangladesh only days after attending the birth of his daughter back home, said that both sides had played their part in thrilling match.

“It was a really good Test match, to think we were here on day five with that wicket,” Cook said after the game.
“It was such a tight game, so credit to both sides. I’m glad we held our nerve, the quality we have in our attack, we got it reversing.”
Despite coming agonisingly close to what would have been their most famous Test victory, Bangladesh captain Mushfiqur Rahim said he was proud of his team’s performance.
“Probably it was not in our favour, 33 runs and two wickets, but the boys put in so much effort over the last five day. After 15 months, I’m really proud,” Rahim said.
“Our boys fought it out which is really impressive and hopefully we’ll do the same in the next match.”
The match was Bangladesh’s first Test in nearly in 15 months but showcased how the one-time whipping boys of international cricket have made steady progress in recent years.
The hosts played some impressive cricket during the match, with the debutant Mehedi Hasan taking six for 80 in England’s first innings.
Bangladesh had appeared on course for a comfortable first-innings lead but lost their last six wickets for just 27 runs to give England a crucial 45-run lead.
They then had England reeling at 52 for five in the tourists’ second innings before Stokes and Jonny Bairstow turned the match with a partnership of 127 for the sixth wicket.
Stokes was named man of the match for taking six wickets in the two innings and also scoring a swashbuckling 85 in England’s second innings which included six fours and three sixes.
“We started off pretty well but we have a long way to go from here,” said Stokes.
The second and final Test will start in Dhaka on October 28 before England then head to India for a five-Test tour.

Long-suffering Chicago Cubs and Cleveland Indians supporters dream of a fairytale finish when the 112th World Series opens Tuesday, but only one of Major League Baseball’s longest championship droughts will end in the epic showdown.
The Cubs have not won the World Series since 1908, the longest title drought in American sports history, and they had not even reached the best-of-seven championship matchup since 1945 until dispatching the Los Angeles Dodgers on Saturday for the National League crown.
“There has been so much emotion over the years from this fan base,” Cubs second baseman Ben Zobrist said. “It’s not just Chicago. I know they are watching all over the country and all over the world.
“What a special moment. We’ve been wanting to do this for the fans all year long. Now that we’ve accomplished it, it’s time to move on to bigger things. The ultimate goal is still out in front of us.”
While it’s not as jaw-dropping as the Cubs’ 107-season wait, the Indians have not taken the crown since 1948, the longest American League drought, and they last played in the World Series in 1997.
“It’s a blast to be a part of,” Indians relief pitcher Andrew Miller said. “We have one more big step. We’re going to the World Series. That’s what you dream of. I can’t wait to see what it’s like in Cleveland.”
More than a century of futility could end for the Cubs, whose 103 wins led the major leagues this season — not so long after they lost 101 games in 2012.
“We’re definitely on the verge of doing something wonderful,” Cubs manager Joe Maddon said. “I didn’t want to run away from negatives and pressure. I wanted us to run toward them.”
Partying fans jammed the streets outside iconic 102-year-old Wrigley Field for hours after Chicago advanced.
“I’ll say it: Holy Cow, Cubs fans,” tweeted US President Barack Obama, using a catchphrase made famous by the late Cubs broadcaster Harry Caray.
The long-time Chicago resident supports the cross-town rival Chicago White Sox, who until 2005 had not won a World Series since 1917, but Obama admitted, “Even this White Sox fan was happy to see Wrigley rocking last night.”
Generations of Cubs players and fans had known only frustration, even joking, “Any team can have a bad century.” They were tagged as lovable losers playing in a stadium nicknamed the “Friendly Confines” by Ernie Banks, the Hall of Fame infielder nicknamed “Mr. Cub” who owns the dubious record of 2,528 games played without a playoff appearance.
A Cubs team with five starters age 24 or younger shook off the notions of a cursed team and a history of hard luck, moving four wins from a title for the ages by a team that played 11,309 games between World Series appearances.
“We’re too young. We don’t care about it,” said Kris Bryant, who scored a league-high 121 runs. “We don’t look into it. We’re having the time of our lives. And we’re just getting started.”
Pitching has powered the Cubs’ rise, with Jake Arrieta keeping rival batters to a .194 average and allowing only 6.29 hits per nine innings, both major league bests.
“To be four wins from a goal that hasn’t been achieved here in such a long time is really impressive,” Arrieta said.
Kyle Hendricks had the lowest earned-run average in the major leagues at 2.13 with 19-game winner teammate Jon Lester next at 2.44.
“The history means a lot,” Hendricks said. “It puts it in perspective for us. We enjoy it more because we know what it means to the fans of this city.”
“We’re still not there yet. We have four more to go. So as good as this feels, as much as we’re going to enjoy it, we know what we’ve got to do come Tuesday.”
The Indians are happy to let the Cubs draw the attention with their futility streak even as a similar hunger burns within them.
“We like being the underdogs,” said Indians second baseman Jason Kipnis. “We like guys not believing in us because we love going out and proving people wrong.”

LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers will celebrate their city’s first sports crown in 52 years on Tuesday, raising their championship banner as the 2016-17 NBA campaign opens.
The Golden State Warriors, meanwhile, will welcome superstar forward Kevin Durant to the fold as they set out to avenge their loss to Cleveland in last June’s NBA Finals after coming one game shy of back-to-back titles.
The Cavaliers and Warriors open the season as favorites to play each other in the finals for the third campaign in a row, an unprecedented feat, even as 28 rivals try to fight their way into next June’s title showdown.
Chris Paul and Blake Griffin spark the Los Angeles Clippers while LaMarcus Aldridge and Kawhi Leonard join guard Tony Parker and big man Pau Gasol to ignite San Antonio.
Dwyane Wade, Jimmy Butler and Rajon Rondo unite in Chicago, Toronto will try to improve on its run to the last four last season and Russell Westbrook will try to lift Oklahoma City after Durant’s departure.
But the Warriors and Cavaliers have made themselves the teams to beat based on their past two seasons of success, Golden State with a record 73 wins last season and the Cavaliers making the best NBA Finals rally ever by winning the last three games.
“Our mindset going into this year is knowing that the hunter has now become the hunted,” Cavaliers forward Kevin Love said. “So we have to approach every game a lot like the last two years, knowing we’re going to get everybody’s best shot.”
James averaged 29.7 points, 11.3 rebounds, 8.9 assists, 2.3 blocked shots and 2.6 steals a game, leading the NBA Finals in each category to earn unanimous NBA Finals MVP honors.
“We’re not satisfied with just winning one championship. We’re not satisfied with just being successful. We want to continue to get better,” James said.
James has played in seven NBA Finals and the past six in a row. He lost his first with Cleveland then split four with the Miami Heat. Upon returning to Cleveland he lost one more before the Cavaliers captured their first to give Cleveland a first sporting title in 52 years.
“I came back to bring a championship to our city,” James said. “I knew what I was capable of doing. I knew I had the right ingredients and the right blueprint to help this franchise get to a place that we’ve never been. That’s what it was all about.”
On Tuesday, four-time NBA Most Valuable Player James will begin the quest to repeat as the Cavaliers open against the New York Knicks.
“It will not be easy, and it shouldn’t be easy,” James said. “In my 13-year career, so far nothing has been easy. So I look forward to the journey and the work that lies ahead.”
Other opening night games find Utah at Portland and San Antonio at Golden State, who added 2014 NBA MVP Durant after coming up short in the playoffs.
Stephen Curry, the 2015 and 2016 NBA MVP, and fellow 3-point sharpshooter Klay Thompson will have Durant, Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala up front.
With the Cavaliers making a deal earlier this month to keep guard J.R. Smith, owner Dan Gilbert will spend a king’s ransom of about $100 million — $6 million above the NBA salary cap — on the Cleveland starting five of James, Smith, Love, Kyrie Irving and Tristan Thompson.
Gilbert, who spent $54 million in luxury tax for going over the salary cap, will spend more for the starters than about half of the league’s teams will spend on entire rosters. Even Golden State with Durant will only have a payroll at about 75 percent of the Cavaliers.
Australia’s Andrew Bogut was sent from the Warriors to Dallas and several top reserves were released to make salary room for Durant.
Other clubs have made moves to try and join the elite. Atlanta signed veteran center Dwight Howard. Wade and Rondo moved to Chicago but the Bulls lost Gasol to the Spurs and Joakim Noah and Derrick Rose to the Knicks.

The two teens had trekked in the Sonoran Desert’s searing heat for four days and were lost and almost out of water when border patrol agents in Arizona spotted them.
Now, hours after being deported back to Mexico, 19-year-old Rodriguo and his 17-year-old brother Jose sat quietly on a recent evening in El Comedor, a shelter in the town of Nogales within sight of the US border and its promise of a sweeter future.
Around them, some 60 other freshly deported migrants from Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala waited, forlorn, for the evening meal served by charity workers.
“Tomorrow we go back home to Oaxaca (in southern Mexico) and we will tell our mother that we failed,” said Jose, who asked that the pair’s last name not be used.
“But we won’t give up, we will attempt the crossing again,” he added, matter-of-factly.
The shelter in Nogales, a town that straddles the US-Mexico border, is run by the Kino Border Initiative (KBI), a religious charity that offers migrants not only food but also legal advice, clothing and a much-needed dose of TLC.
Spend time talking to the men and women crammed on the benches of the one-room shelter — their faces etched with the hardships they have been through — and their stories bring forth the stark realities of the immigration debate that has roiled the US presidential campaign.
“The people we help are coming to the United States to seek a more dignified way of life,” said Sean Carroll, a Jesuit priest and executive director of KBI, which runs El Comedor (dining hall in Spanish).
“These men and women literally cannot earn enough money to put food on the table for their families.”
For several of the migrants at El Comedor, it was not the first time they had attempted the dangerous journey to cross the border, putting their fate in the hands of unscrupulous smugglers and drug cartels that can charge upwards of $7,000 for the trip through the unforgiving desert.
Women are frequently sexually assaulted during the journey and many migrants go missing in the desert, where temperatures climb to 120 degrees (49 Celsius) in the summer.
Lost and desperate, some like Rodriguo and his brother end up hoping to be found by the border patrol agents who scour the frontier in vehicles, on horseback, on bicycle and on foot.
Tougher border security aided by better technology has pushed migrants into remote areas controlled by drug cartels, Carroll and other officials who work closely with migrants said.
And the recurring question raised during the US presidential campaign — why don’t immigrants just come legally? — is simply not an option for the overwhelming majority, they add.
“Many of the people we serve have no legal way at all or are faced with the prospect of waiting 15, 18, 20 years in order to even be considered for the possibility of coming legally,” Carroll said.
“And some are fleeing serious violence.”
Nearly 64,000 migrants, including almost 8,000 juveniles, were arrested near the Arizona border in 2015 and 63 are known to have died attempting to cross, according to the US Border Patrol.
Overall, 337,117 were arrested in 2015 along the southwest border with Mexico, the majority of them in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas.
Alicia Guevara Perez, a nun who has worked with KBI in Nogales for three years, said that while immigration has provided great fodder for politicians during the presidential campaign, one key element missing from the debate was the human aspect.
“In this room, everyday, we hear stories of suffering, pain and poverty,” she sighed. “People are dying of hunger and sickness and they believe that the only way out is to go to the United States.”
While aid officials and even migrants acknowledge that those coming to the United States may include some bad apples, they insist the overwhelming majority are simply fleeing violence and looking to eke out a living.
“They say we are here to steal and live off the system but I am willing to pay everything I owe,” said Margarita Gregorio, 38, from the Mexican state of Puebla. “I will sign any paper to that effect. They can take the taxes directly from my pay.”
Gregorio was arrested in Arizona after slipping into the US following a two-day trek in the desert earlier this month.
She had worked as a cleaning woman in Wyoming for four years before returning to Mexico to see her two young sons, she said.
“I would earn less than $5 a day harvesting coffee beans in Puebla and it would be a seasonal job,” she said. “I need to feed my kids.”
Rudolpho Ramos, 47, who worked as a janitor in Minnesota for 17 years before going back to Mexico to see his family, and was also arrested trying to slip back into Arizona, said the migrant issue came down to a question of life and death.
“It’s not like we have a choice if we want to survive,” he said.

Jutting, 31, had earlier Monday pleaded “not guilty” to two counts of murder on the grounds of diminished responsibility. He instead pleaded guilty to manslaughter. The prosecution rejected the lesser plea.
The court heard Jutting filmed both women on his iPhone and jurors were warned by judge Michael Stuart-Moore that the footage was “very shocking indeed”.
Sumarti Ningsih and Seneng Mujiasih, both in their 20s, were found dead in Jutting’s flat in the early hours of November 1, 2014, after he called police.
Prosecutor John Reading said Ningsih was tortured with pliers, sex toys and a belt for three days at Jutting’s apartment in Wan Chai — where expensive homes lie close to a red-light district.
Jutting then killed her in the shower with a serrated knife, Reading said.
Ningsih who was in Hong Kong on a visitor visa, had sex with Jutting on a previous occasion at a hotel for an amount of money, Reading said, but had offered to refund half the cash to be allowed to leave early, because he treated her violently.
She had reluctantly agreed to meet Jutting again on October 26 when he offered her another amount of money which was not specified.
After she was killed, her body was wrapped in plastic sheets and blankets, and put inside a suitcase, Reading said.
Jutting recorded footage describing how he had enjoyed the killing and saying he could not have done it without using cocaine.
Late on October 31, Jutting met Mujiasih at a bar in Wan Chai and brought her home after offering her money for sex — they had never met before, said Reading.
Mujiasih was in Hong Kong on a domestic helper visa, he said.
Before going out to meet her, Jutting hid two knives under sofa cushions. He had also bought a small blowtorch, plastic ties and a hammer, Reading said.
“In one of his interviews with the police, the accused explained how he went out that evening hunting for prey, and that Mujiasih was his prey,” Reading said.
Jutting cut Mujiasih’s throat that night.
When police arrived after Jutting called them, they discovered her body in a pool of blood in the living room, said Reading.
Police officer Hong Kin-yip said Mujiasih was face down in the living room, naked and had cuts to her neck and buttocks.
Ningsih’s body was found hours later in a suitcase on the balcony.
Jutting shook his head in court as a recording was played of his call to police, during which he said special forces were outside his apartment.
“Obviously bad stuff has happened,” Jutting said in the recording.
Jutting told police that he had taken the last of his cocaine and was hallucinating, Reading said.
Cambridge graduate Jutting, a former securities trader at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, faces a three-week jury trial and life in prison if convicted on the murder charges.
Clean-shaven, much thinner than during his first court appearances, and wearing a dark-blue shirt, Jutting calmly entered his official plea for the first time Monday.
He then took notes during proceedings.
Jutting was deemed fit to stand trial following psychiatric tests and is being held at a maximum security prison.
Judge Stuart-Moore said the evidence in the case was “to a large extent agreed” between defence and prosecution, but that there may be disputes over psychiatric and psychological evidence.
The killings shocked the city of seven million — typically regarded as safe and known for its glitzy skyscrapers — and shone a spotlight on the seedy underbelly of the financial hub.
Outside the court, a small group of protesters from Indonesian migrant worker organisations called for a “speedy and fair trial” and for compensation for the victims’ families.

Reigning MLS Cup champions the Portland Timbers missed out on a playoff berth as the regular season concluded Sunday with a welter of matches that included a big win for New York City FC.
Portland needed a win against the Vancouver Whitecaps to reach the post-season, but fell 4-1 to their Cascadia Cup rivals at BC Place. The defeat, and Sporting Kansas City’s 2-0 win over the San Jose Earthquakes saw the Timbers become the first reigning MLS cup winners to miss the playoffs since the Los Angeles Galaxy in 2006.
The Timbers finished seventh in the Western Conference and were edged for the final three berths in the West by the Seattle Sounders, Real Salt Lake and Sporting — who joined FC Dallas, the Colorado Rapids and the Galaxy.
Dallas closed the season with a goalless draw against the Galaxy — but claimed the Supporters’ Shield awarded to the team that tops the overall table after the regular season.
As a result, they have homefield advantage throughout the MLS Cup playoffs and will enjoy a first-round bye, as will Colorado.
The East-leading New York Red Bulls charge into the playoffs on a 16-match unbeaten streak capped by Sunday’s 2-0 triumph over the Philadelphia Union.
Bradley Wright-Phillips opened the scoring, chipping a long cross over union keeper Andre Blake and tapping in for a goal that gives him a second MLS Golden Boot with 24 goals this season.
Wright-Phillips, who won the 2014 scoring title with 27 goals, became the fourth player in MLS history to claim multiple Golden Boot awards, finishing one goal ahead of New York City’s David Villa for the honor.
Spain’s Villa, however, was more than satisfied to come away from “Decision Day” — as the final day of the regular season has been dubbed — with a 4-1 rout of Columbus Crew, the second seed in the East and a first-round bye.
At the same time last year, Villa was apologizing to fans for the club’s disappointing inaugural season, vowing they would come back stronger.
With his help the club made a 17-point turnaround from last season.
“I’m very happy because I don’t like promising the people a lot,” said Villa, who contributed a sensational side volley against Columbus on Sunday. “I believe in the strong work day by day.”
Despite their late-season swoon the Union punched their playoff ticket. The New England Revolution did what they could with a 3-0 victory over the Montreal impact but they couldn’t overcome the goal difference they need to pass Philadelphia in the standings.
The Union will face Toronto in a knockout game this week while DC United will host the Montreal Impact.
The Galaxy will host Salt Lake City and Seattle host Kansas City in search of Western Conference semi-final spots.

The Edmonton Oilers scored three goals in the second period and goaltender Cam Talbot made 31 saves as the Oilers downed the Jets 3-0 in the NHL Heritage Classic outdoor game in Winnipeg.
The Oilers on Sunday broke the deadlock in the tightly contested game with a short-handed goal at 9:24 of the second period.
Center Mark Letestu intercepted a pass at his own blueline and had clear sailing all the way in on Connor Hellebuyck. He beat the Jets goalie low to the glove side with a wrist shot.
Defenseman Darnell Nurse doubled the lead at 11:10 just after the power play expired on a two-on-one with Connor McDavid.
Zack Kassian extended the lead to 3-0 at 17:16 and the Oilers improved to 5-1-0 this season, including a 2-0-0 record as visitors, to move into first place in the NHL’s overall standings.
Road teams improved to 14-4-1 in the NHL?s 19 regular-season outdoor games to date.
Hellebuyck finished with 29 saves in the losing effort in front of 33,240 at Investors Group Field, the home to the Canadian Football League’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
The Jets became the 22nd team to participate in a regular-season outdoor NHL game. The Oilers appeared in their second such contest after hosting the first regular-season outdoor game in League history, the 2003 NHL Heritage Classic at Commonwealth Stadium.
It was the 19th regular-season outdoor game in NHL history and the first of four this season.
The contest was delayed for almost two hours because the bright sun on the ice created a glare that NHL officials deemed unsafe for players.
Oilers coach Todd McLellan said his players coped well with the delay, which they considered a hazard of the outdoor games.
“Everybody was excited about playing the game,” McLellan said. “With the amount of sun we had yesterday in practice there was a good chance there was going to be a delay. They came to the rink. They stayed loose, casual in the locker room.”

Valentino Rossi is already focused on the “toughest race of the season” in Malaysia this weekend after edging ahead of Yamaha teammate Jorge Lorenzo in the fight for second behind newly-crowned world champion Marc Marquez.
The Italian nine-time world champion, coming off 15th on the grid, picked up 10 points on Lorenzo with his second placing behind Britain’s Cal Crutchlow in Sunday’s Australian MotoGP at Phillip Island with just two races left in the season.
Rossi, who continued his remarkable podium record at Phillip Island, holds a 24-point break on the Spaniard with a maximum of 50 points left to fight for.
Lorenzo finished sixth and in the points in Australia to stay in touch.
Marquez clinched his third premier class world title in Japan a week ago and holds an unassailable 57 points buffer.
“I gained 10 points on Jorge which is important, but it’s still very close,” Rossi said.
“I am happy, I have recovered some points but what I want to do is try to make good races for me until the end of the season and try to fight for the podium.”
Rossi has now finished on the podium 16 times in 20 trips to Australia across all three GP classes and is looking to push on in steamy Sepang in Malaysia this weekend.
“Sepang will be another great challenge because it is the toughest race of the season,” Rossi said.
“It is very hot and you have to prepare well, to sleep well, to drink well and try to arrive ready because it is difficult.
“But usually we are quite strong there and we have to familiarise ourselves with the new asphalt, but the target is to try and fight for the podium.”
Crutchlow is also bullish about his chances in Malaysia after winning just his second career MotoGP at Phillip Island following his victory in the Czech Republic in August.
“I am going to believe that I have this psychological advantage until probably free practice one,” he quipped.
“We go there in positive spirits for whatever happens because we’ve done a couple of good races.”
Spanish Team Suzuki rider Maverick Vinales still has a chance of finishing in the top three in this year’s championship after claiming third at Phillip Island.
He currently lies 11 points behind Lorenzo, who was plagued with bike problems at Phillip Island but is looking for better times at Sepang.
“The grip level drop on the rear has been huge, from the beginning I didn’t have grip, but that’s the way it is,” Lorenzo said.
“As soon as the track has less grip, we struggle more and the problems we have with the bike double or triple.
“In Malaysia we shouldn’t have a problem with the cold, or grip as the track is new. It should have more grip than last year so I really look forward to a better result.”

The Philadelphia Eagles brought Minnesota back to earth with a thud on Sunday, handing the Vikings their first defeat of the NFL season and spoiling ex-Eagle Sam Bradford’s return to Philadelphia.
Bradford, traded from the Eagles to the Vikings before the season-opener, was harried all day by an Eagles defense that forced his first three turnovers of the season and keyed Philadelphia’s 21-10 victory.
The decisive defensive effort took the spotlight off the clash between Bradford and Carson Wentz, the rookie signal-caller who got the nod in Philadelphia.
Wentz threw two early interceptions but steadied to lead two scoring drives, including a five-yard touchdown toss to Dorial Green-Beckham that put the Eagles up 18-3 in the third quarter.
Bradford, meanwhile, wilted in the face of six sacks — after the Vikings gave up only eight sacks in their first five games.
“Embarrassing, really, is the word for it,” Vikings coach Mike Zimmer said.
“I was very disappointed in the performance we gave today. We made too many mistakes and if you’re going to do those things you have no chance to win.”
In Detroit, Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford connected with Anquan Boldin on an 18-yard touchdown pass with 16 seconds remaining for a 20-17 victory over Washington that snapped the Redskins’ four-game winning streak.
The defeat was made even more painful for Washington as they lost star cornerback Josh Norman to a concussion in the third quarter.
The hapless Browns saw yet another quarterback go down to injury as Cody Kessler was knocked out of their 31-17 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals with a concussion.
Fellow rookie Kevin Hogan filled in at quarterback — the sixth QB the Browns have called on this season.
The New York Jets lost quarterback Geno Smith — installed just this week as the starter ahead of Ryan Fitzpatrick — to a knee injury in the first half, only for Fitzpatrick to return to action and guide the team to their first win in more than a month, a 24-16 win over the Baltimore Ravens.
The Pittsburgh Steelers, with quarterback Ben Roethlisberger sidelined in the wake of arthroscopic left knee surgery, were no match for Tom Brady and the New England Patriots, who led throughout in a 27-16 triumph in Pittsburgh.
LeGarrette Blount ran for two touchdowns against his former team and Brady threw for two touchdowns — including a 36-yard TD pass to Rob Gronkowski in the third quarter — to lift New England.
The Indianapolis Colts bounced back from an overtime defeat at Houston with a 34-26 victory over the Tennessee Titans.
Colts kicker Adam Vinatieri inscribed his name in the record book in the third period when he converted a 33-yard field goal for his record 43rd consecutive successful attempt.
Vinatieri, 43, hasn’t missed a field goal since the second week of last season.
“For me, I’m happy that we won the game and that this is a little bit to go along with it,” Vinatieri said.
Missed field goals led to a rare 6-6 tie between the Seattle Seahawks and Arizona Cardinals.
Seattle’s Stephen Hauschka was wide right on a 27-yard attempt with seven seconds remaining in overtime after the Cardinals’ Chandler Cantanzaro hit the left upright on a 24-yard effort. Both had made field goals earlier in overtime.
The messy end produced the first tie in the NFL since Carolina and Cincinnati tied 37-37 in 2014.
The NFL headed into new territory to open Sunday’s action, with the New York Giants beating the Los Angeles Rams 17-10 at Twickenham, with 74,121 attending the first non-rugby event in Twickenham’s 107-year history.
Back home in Miami, Dolphins running back Jay Ajayi was making a little history himself, becoming just the fourth player ever to rush for more than 200 yards in back-to-back games.
Ajayi’s epic effort — 29 carries for 214 yards and one touchdown — helped the Dolphins to a 28-25 victory over the Buffalo Bills. Until his 204-yard, two TD game against Pittsburgh last week, Ajayi, who started the season as a backup, had never rushed for 100 yards in an NFL game.

Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola face off for the second time this season when Manchester United entertain holders Manchester City in the English League Cup fourth round on Wednesday.
Guardiola’s City took the spoils when he and Mourinho resumed hostilities in September, winning 2-1 at Old Trafford through goals from Kevin De Bruyne and Kelechi Iheanacho.
But City have gone off the boil since, Sunday’s 1-1 draw with Southampton leaving them without a win in five games, while United crashed to a crushing 4-0 defeat at Mourinho’s former club Chelsea.
Asked whether the identity of his side’s League Cup opponents would help motivate his hurting players, Mourinho told MUTV: “I would prefer to play in the Premier League.
“It’s a bad feeling in the Premier League. With the combination of results, the gap to the top is six points. We’ve had a very difficult period of matches.
“We are really, really sad, but again this is not for kids. This is for men and tomorrow (Monday) we have to be men and work for the next one.”
City’s win at United on September 10 formed part of a sequence of six consecutive victories, which suggested Guardiola might find life in England something of a stroll.
But since drawing 3-3 in a frenetic Champions League game at Celtic, the early-season certainty has vanished.
One-sided losses to Tottenham Hotspur and Barcelona sandwiched a 1-1 draw with Everton before Sunday’s stalemate with Southampton, who went ahead after a blunder by City centre-back John Stones.
“It’s important to change our dynamic from the previous games,” Guardiola said.
“Everything influences you. If you can play well or badly, it affects your mentality, so we are working on it.
“We will see tomorrow, after the players’ recovery, then decide if it’s necessary to make rotations or not.”
The round’s other stand-out tie occurs on Tuesday when Liverpool, who lost on penalties to City in last season’s final, and Tottenham Hotspur face off at Anfield.
The teams drew 1-1 in a high-octane Premier League clash at White Hart Lane in late August.
Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool crept above Tottenham in the league table at the weekend after they beat West Bromwich Albion 2-1 and Mauricio Pochettino’s men could only draw 0-0 at Bournemouth.
“I’m pleased with the effort because after three games (in a week) it was difficult, mentally and physically,” Pochettino said of his side’s display at the Vitality Stadium.
“The team showed again they are tough and there are lots of positives to take.
“I feel pleased with another big effort and now we keep going because we have another big game on Tuesday.”
The spotlight will fall on and off the pitch at London Stadium, where West Ham United host cross-town rivals Chelsea.
Police are expected to be on duty inside the ground, which will stage its first London derby, after violent skirmishes involving West Ham fans during recent matches at their new home.
The remaining all-top-flight tie sees Southampton host the Premier League’s bottom club Sunderland, who remain without a league win this season following Saturday’s 1-0 reverse at West Ham.
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger is expected to make sweeping changes for the visit of second-tier Reading, who are managed by former Manchester United and Netherlands centre-back Jaap Stam.
Hull City travel to Bristol City, while Championship leaders Newcastle United host Preston North End and Leeds United face Norwich City.
Fixtures (1845 GMT unless otherwise stated)
Arsenal v Reading, Bristol City v Hull, Leeds v Norwich, Liverpool v Tottenham, Newcastle v Preston
Manchester United v Manchester City (1900 GMT), West Ham v Chelsea, Southampton v Sunderland

Olympic gold medallist Mack Horton expects to be back in the pool training this week after having a suspect mole removed from his chest.
Horton, who won the men’s 400 metres freestyle at the Rio Olympics, was alerted to the potential skin cancer by a fan who saw it on television and emailed the Australian team swim doctor.
He posted a picture of himself on social media Friday with a bandage covering the area of his chest where he had the mole cut out, thanking the anonymous fan for their “very good call”.
The swimmer, who became the target of online trolls this year after calling Chinese swimmer Sun Yang a “drug cheat”, said he had 10 stitches but planned to be back training on Tuesday.
“It?s a bit less dramatic than some people made out,” he told The Australian newspaper in comments published Monday.
“But it did have to come out because it could have developed into something, so it’s a nice reminder to get your skin checked.
“I had noticed it changing but I hadn?t done anything about it. That guy telling the team doctor made me think that I should get it checked out,” he added.
Australia has one of the highest rates of melanoma in the world, with more than 1,500 people dying from skin cancer every year.
Horton said he still intended to contest the Australian national short course championships in Brisbane from November 3-5, the newspaper reported.

Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers heaped praise on his players after they booked their place in the Scottish League Cup final with a 1-0 win over Old Firm rivals Rangers.
Moussa Dembele’s 87th-minute winner was the difference at an intense Hampden Park on Sunday, with Rodgers now hoping to lead his side to the first trophy of the season when they face Aberdeen in the final on November 27.
The Hoops are unbeaten in domestic competition following Rodgers’s arrival in pre-season, with the Scottish champions also qualifying for the Champions League group stage following a two-year absence.
The former Liverpool boss, whose side top the Scottish Premiership by four points with a game in hand, has not hidden his desire to add more quality to the squad, but is delighted with what his players have already achieved this season.
“I think it has been a great start to the season for us. You can see the collective mentality,” the Celtic manager, always the arch optimist, said.
?Every element of our game was at a high level. When you consider we were coming off the back of a really tough Champions League game in midweek (a 2-0 loss at home to Borussia Monchengladbach) then I think the players deserve a huge amount of credit not only for their performance but their strength and mentality to get the victory.
“I know there are areas I want to improve on over time but the players are performing magnificently well,” the Northern Irishman added.
“They have that hunger to succeed and, as I said, they are playing at a real top level tempo with and without the ball. But in order to rubber-stamp that, you have to get trophies.”
Rangers looked a much improved side from the one hammered 5-1 away to Celtic in the Glasgow rivals’ last meeting, in August, but it was Celtic who had the best chances with Erik Sviatchenko?s header ruled out for a foul before Scott Sinclair crashed a free-kick off the bar.
The game looked to be heading for extra-time before Dembele, who grabbed a hat-trick on his Old Firm debut, added the finishing touch to substitute Leigh Griffiths’s cross with three minutes left.
Despite suffering another defeat by their city rivals Gers boss Mark Warburton insisted there were plenty of positives.
“We’ve worked very hard to move forward and gel as a team and I hope you saw that today,” Warburton said.
“The so-called gap is a lot narrower than people think and we have to learn from today?s performance.
“People stepped up to the plate today and we are getting better and better. I said after Parkhead that the only solution was to work hard and we?ve done that.
“It was tight right to the death. We’re getting there — the players understand what we want and I’m delighted with the progress we’ve made.
“The best way to keep your critics quiet is to go and win games of football so that?s what we have to do.”

Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho and Chelsea counterpart Antonio Conte refused to divulge the content of a terse touchline exchange between them after the London club’s 4-0 win.
Prior to walking down the tunnel following Sunday’s game, stony-faced former Chelsea manager Mourinho cupped Conte’s head and spent a good while whispering in the Italian’s left ear.
Pitch-side microphones suggested Mourinho had accused Conte, in Italian, of trying to “humiliate” his side by urging the home fans to make more noise, but the United manager refused to go into detail.
“You know me. I spoke to Conte, not to you,” Mourinho told his post-match press conference.
“I’m not the kind of guy to come here and share with you things I don’t want to share.
“What is between me and Antonio is for us, or up to him to talk if he wants to. That is his problem. I have no comment.”
Conte was also reluctant to discuss the matter, although he defended himself for whipping up the crowd after N’Golo Kante had waltzed through the United defence to score Chelsea’s fourth goal.
“I think that, today, it was right to call our fans,” he said.
“In a moment I was listening only to the supporters of Manchester United at 4-0.
“So I called the fans to give the players a great clap after this kind of performance. The players, after a 4-0 win, deserved a great clap.
“We live with emotions. If you want to cut the emotions, we can stay at home and I will change jobs.”
Mourinho was returning to the scene of some of his greatest triumphs as a manager, but left after being consigned to his heaviest loss since Real Madrid’s 5-0 humiliation by Barcelona in November 2010.
It took Chelsea just 30 seconds to go ahead, Pedro Rodriguez nipping in behind an inattentive Chris Smalling to score.
“We made an incredible defensive mistake — I say incredible in capitals,” said Mourinho.
Lax marking at a corner allowed Gary Cahill to lash home the hosts’ second in the 21st minute.
Eden Hazard and Kante further inflated Chelsea’s lead in the second half and Mourinho’s misery was compounded by what he described as a “really bad” knee ligament injury to Eric Bailly.
Chelsea might also have lost a centre-back had referee Martin Atkinson taken a dimmer view of a knee-high foul on Marouane Fellaini by David Luiz shortly before half-time, for which he was booked.
The result left United five points behind fourth-place Chelsea and six points below leaders Manchester City in seventh place, but Mourinho tried to apply a positive gloss to his team’s position.
“We are six points from the top of the league. We are not 16 points,” he said.
“We are maybe three, maximum four, from the top four (actually five). We are not 30 or 40. So we are there.
“We are there with very difficult fixtures in a week where we’ve played away to two candidates (having previously drawn 0-0 at Liverpool).
“I’m not saying the matches coming up are easy. Far from it. But we have to beat opponents from mid-table that we are going to have now.
“Burnley, Swansea, Sunderland, Middlesbrough — they’re difficult, but we need points from these matches.
“The top teams play against each other so they have to lose points, so in the end we’ll be around.”
Chelsea have won three successive league games without conceding a goal since Conte switched to a 3-4-3 formation duration their 3-0 defeat at Arsenal.
“After this type of win, usually it increases your confidence,” said Conte, whose side visit West Ham United in the League Cup in mid-week.
“You trust more in the work you’re doing. That’s the most important thing.
“But we must continue. The United victory is the past. We must concentrate on Wednesday and another tough game against West Ham.”

The City manager insisted that he was not venting his anger on a squad that started his first season in charge at Eastlands with 10 consecutive victories.
But he was clearly frustrated by a loss of form that has seen them beaten at Tottenham Hotspur and held at home by Everton and, now, Southampton, in their last three league outings.
“The red wine was good and I took a little bit longer with my glass,” joked Guardiola, who has also seen his team draw at Celtic and be beaten 4-0 away to former club Barcelona during their current run, as he spoke to reporters following Sunday’s stalemate.
“But we were together and spoke but nothing special — just about what the situation is we now have and we have to try and go up from this situation.”
Substitute Kelechi Iheanacho at least salvaged a point for City and cancelled out a first-half opening goal from Nathan Redmond.
“I was a football player, I know this can happen,” said Guardiola when he finally emerged from the City dressing room.
“In football, I have known for a long time, you are able to win 10 times in a row then you?re not able to win for five times.
“We have to accept that when that happens, accept you have to return to what you were doing before. But I’m not a guy to get angry. I have to discover the reason why this has happened.”
Guardiola’s mood cannot have been helped by the fact that a bad error by England defender John Stones — one similar to that made by goalkeeper Claudio Bravo in the midweek loss to Barcelona — gifted Southampton their goal, although the Spaniard insisted he had no problem with such mistakes.
“People can talk about an own goal at Tottenham, Claudio in Barcelona or two missed penalties against Everton but it?s not about that,” said Guardiola.
“It is easy for a manager to say that excuse but it is because of something more, about the team, about how you react in these situations.
“Right now, in this moment, we’re just not in that rhythm we had before. But the big difference between us in the first half and second half was obvious.
“The first half was a problem, the second half the players changed their mentality and were unfortunate they couldn’t win.”
“Five games without winning is because something happened but we need to start from a bit below where we were and go up and up.”
Guardiola can start that improvement in the League Cup local derby visit to Manchester United on Wednesday although it seems likely both he and opposite number Jose Mourinho will rest key players.
“We will see tomorrow (Monday), after the players’ recovery, then decide if it’s necessary to make rotations or not,” said Guardiola of his team selection.
“It’s important to change our dynamic from the previous games. Everything influences you. If you can play well or badly, it affects your mentality, so we are working on it.”
Meanwhile Southampton manager Claude Puel was delighted by the resilience his side showed following their narrow Europa League loss away to Inter Milan in midweek.
“I’m happy of course for the point and also with the spirit,” he said. It was a significant game against a good team.”

Wallabies flanker Dean Mumm has been suspended for one match after striking All Blacks lock Brodie Retallick in Saturday’s Test in Auckland as Australian coach Michael Cheika blamed the New Zealander for the incident.
The punishment, handed down Monday, means Mumm will miss the opening game of their northern hemisphere tour against Wales in Cardiff on November 5.
Cheika, who launched into an extraordinary outburst after their 37-10 defeat about a perceived lack of respect by the All Blacks, defended Mumm before the hearing, saying Retallick was not an innocent bystander.
“He (Mumm) is trying to get back from being held illegally,” said Cheika who refused to congratulate the All Blacks after the game for posting a world record 18th consecutive win.
The blow to Retallick was missed by match officials at the time and judicial officer Robert Selzner accepted Mumm had acted instinctively.
“His opponent was behind him when he tried to extricate himself from his opponent’s grip and in that process struck his opponent in the face with his elbow,” Selzner said.
“The injury, which his opponent suffered as a result of the incident, did not prevent his opponent from playing on at the time of the incident.”
Retallick was diagnosed with concussion at the end of the Test but it was not known if that was a result of the Mumm blow.

British Prime Minister Theresa May will on Monday meet the first ministers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in London, where she will face calls for each region to vote on the government’s Brexit plans.
The meeting will see Britain’s decision to leave the EU take centre stage, ahead of the formal negotiations with Brussels which are expected to begin next year.
May will meet with Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, Welsh FM Carwyn Jones and Northern Irish FM Arlene Foster and her deputy Martin McGuinness.
Sturgeon, leader of the secessionist Scottish National Party, has been the most vocal of the first ministers since the June 23 vote. Earlier this month she called for a fresh referendum on Scottish independence if Scotland’s interests are not protected in the Brexit negotiations.
While England and Wales voted to leave the EU, a majority in Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain in the bloc.
In a letter to May ahead of the meeting, Sturgeon called for each of the devolved parliaments to have the chance to vote on Brexit plans.
“I also endorse the proposal that the proposed negotiating package should be subject to a vote in each of the four of the United Kingdom?s parliaments and assemblies,” Sturgeon wrote.
Her Welsh counterpart Jones also pushed for such a vote in a separate letter to May, in which he also said all four UK parliaments should vote on the final deal with the EU.
The prime minister has said she will trigger formal exit proceedings with Brussels by the end of March, launching a two-year negotiating period.
May said Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will be able to participate in the plans through a new forum chaired by Brexit minister David Davis.
“The new forum I am offering will be the chance for them all to put forward their proposals on how to seize the opportunities presented by Brexit and deliver the democratic decision expressed by the people of the UK,” May said ahead of the meeting.
Downing Street said the devolved governments would be able to put forward nominees to participate in the group, with plans to meet at least twice before the end of 2016.
A key point of contention will likely be whether Britain will pull out of the single market.
Downing Street has not outlined its plans in detail but has hinted towards a “hard Brexit” which would see the UK leave the single market in order to have greater control over immigration.

The Kenyan parliament earlier this year rejected a bill seeking to entrench the two-thirds gender rule as provided by the constitution.
Despite this setback, a crop of bold women leaders have come out strongly to challenge their male counterparts for the coveted governorship posts.
Currently there is no woman governor in the country while there are only nine women deputy governors across the 47 counties.
The former Devolution Cabinet Secretary has declared that she will vie for Kirinyaga governorship position currently held by Joseph Ndathi under the Jubilee Party ticket.
In August she announced at a press conference that she was moving from being a civil servant to being a politician.
she said.
The firebrand Runyenjes MP will seek to unseat the incumbent Martin Wambora in Meru on a Jubilee Party ticket.
Mbarire has called upon her male counterparts, who include Wambora, Management consultant Kithinji Kiragu and former Transport PS Cyrus Njiru to support her as she runs for the Embu Governorship.
She has already received backing from Senate Majority leader Kithuke Kindiki, Meru Senator Kiraitu Murungi and other MPs from Embu County.
Cord leader Raila Odinga’s sister has declared her intention to be Kisumu’s next governor, which is held by Jack Ranguma.
Odinga is also Ranguma’s deputy though the two have frequently clashed over differences on how the city is run.
Odinga, who is the chairperson of the Kenya network of women governors, has said that there is need for Kenya to have more women in elective positions and she will set the example and lead from the front.
The National Assembly deputy speaker has ambitiously declared that she wants to oust powerful Bomet Governor Isaac Ruto during next year’s general election.
Laboso is on record saying that she will seek to change the perception of council of governors as a “men’s club”.
she said.
The bishop has joined an already crowded field of candidates in the race to become the next Nairobi Governor currently held by Dr Evans Kidero.
Wanjiru is on record saying that Nairobi County needs a mother as its leader and women have realised this and are tired of continually being marginalised from top leadership positions.
she said in August.

On another disappointing day for the Italian team, who are without a win this year, his team-mate Kimi Raikkonen failed to finish, forced into retirement after a pit-stop blunder that saw him pull up with a loose wheel and then roll backwards into the pit lane.
“We had some issues,” said Raikkonen, who was clearly livid after the incident which wrecked his race.
“The tyre was not on tight 100 per cent. I don’t know why. It was attached somehow, but not properly.”
Raikkonen said he felt as if he had left the pits with a wheel-gun still attached to a wheel.
“It was one of those weekends for us ? and it is a pity because the car was pretty good. But I knew something was going on because I saw a lot of sparks and I had to slow down.”
Vettel said: “I think we were better today than on Saturday and we were matching Red bull for most of the race. It was a decent day, but a shame that we could not both finish. I think P4 was my maximum for today.”

Footballers are not afraid to cry, Nikola Kalinic is a hat-trick hero, Higuain can’t do it on his own, De Boer is on borrowed time, and goalline technology is not perfect.
Here are five things we learned in Serie A last weekend.
Locatelli is emotional, but happy
Italian footballers may have a reputation for the occasional theatrics, but when it comes to real-life emotions few have matched AC Milan midfielder Manuel Locatelli this season — and he doesn’t care who sees him. Locatelli hit the headlines two weeks ago when he scored a superb goal in a 4-3 win over Sassuolo and was so emotional at the end of the game that teammates had to help him regain composure as he wept uncontrollably in front of the television cameras. A 65th minute screamer by Locatelli on Saturday, when the San Siro hosted nearly 76,000 fans, beat legendary Juventus goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon and earned a precious 1-0 win over the champions. Although the 18-year-old midfield ace kept the flow of tears to a trickle this time, he admitted: “The way I react is the way I react, and for me that’s fine.”
Kalinic the hat-trick hero
Croatia international Nikola Kalinic wowed most of Serie A with his goalscoring exploits for Fiorentina last season, when he notably hit a hat-trick in a 4-1 rout of Inter Milan. On Sunday, the gangly striker confirmed that was no fluke on his way to scoring his second hat-trick for La Viola in a 5-3 win at Cagliari that was generous to the Sardinians. Kalinic pulled La Viola level on 20 minutes after a perfect run behind the hosts’ defence to send a glancing header past Marco Storari. After turning provider with a superb assist for Federico Bernardeschi, Kalinic fired an unstoppable curler past Storari then rose unchallenged to send a powerful header past Storari from 10 yards out.
Even with Higuain, Juve are not unbeatable
For many, Juventus’s capture of Gonzalo Higuain from Napoli in the close season for a whopping 90m euros signalled the end of the title race. But the Argentine striker who hit a record 36 goals for the Azzurri last season is yet to fire on all cylinders for the five-time consecutive champions, and has looked out of sorts lately. Higuain had comparatively poor service at the head of Juve’s attack against a determined AC Milan at a packed San Siro on Saturday, where he played alongside compatriot Paulo Dybala, until his replacement, through injury, by Juan Cuadrado on 33 minutes. Higuain played the full 90 minutes but failed to add to his six-goal league tally after nine games.
De Boer digging in at Inter
Inter Milan had not suffered three league defeats on the trot since 2013 when former coach Andrea Stramaccioni was at the helm, but Frank De Boer believes he can weather the storm to hang on to his job for another week. “I don’t know what’s happening (behind the scenes), I am here and I’ll be analysing this match to prepare better for the ones coming up, hopefully with a view towards beating Torino,” De Boer said after a 2-1 defeat at Atalanta. Inter struggled throughout the away clash but looked to be heading for a share of the spoils when Eder’s 50th minute free kick levelled Andrea Masiello’s 10th minute opener. A Mauricio Pinilla penalty two minutes from time handed Atalanta a deserved victory, and left De Boer facing the wrath of Inter’s Chinese owners Suning on Wednesday.
Time to review GLT ?
Goal-line technology is being used in Serie A for the first time this season, but the hi-tech system designed to avoid goal-line controversy could be set for review after suffering a rare blip in the Genoa derby. The entire stadium was left befuddled towards the end of the first half when match referee Paolo Tagliavento stopped play for several minutes to ascertain if a powerful header by Sampdoria defender Matias Silvestre, which rattled off the Genoa crossbar to bounce in front of the goal line, had crossed the line or not. Six of the seven watches worn by the various match officials had vibrated to signal the goal. The only watch not to vibrate was Tagliavento’s. A quick check with the Hawk-Eye controller confirmed that Silvestre’s effort was at least a foot away from the goalline.

Nico Rosberg dismissed the notion that he was happy to finish second in Sunday’s United States Grand Prix and stay on course for his maiden drivers world title.
The 31-year-old German said he was aware of the championship points position and his clear lead but was not satisfied by finishing second to Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton.
“I wanted to win this race and I want to do it well, but it did not work out that way this time,” said Rosberg.
“But it was Lewis’s weekend this time and he drove well and he was quick all the way. I’m aware of the situation and that I lead by 26 points with three races to go and it’s nice to be in that position.
“I am only going to approach it one way and that is to try and win each race at a time -? so I will be aiming to win next week’s race in Mexico.”
If Rosberg wins in Mexico and Hamilton fails to score a point then the German will be crowned world champion for the first time.

Lewis Hamilton joined an elite club on Sunday when he claimed his 50th Formula One victory at the United States Grand Prix but admitted he fears that another reliability issue will wreck his bid for a fourth world title.
The defending three-time world champion delivered a flawless triumphant drive at the Circuit of the Americas to join seven-time champion Michael Schumacher and four-time champion Alain Prost as a winner of 50 or more races.
Schumacher won a total of 91 Grands Prix and Prost 51.
“That’s been a long time coming that one,” said Hamilton. “It’s been a long hard slog for me, but I tell you that in the race I was worried about reliability all the way through.
“It was in my mind all through the race.”
Hamilton has suffered from engine failures, mechanical problems and bad starts throughout the season and knows that one more failure, at next weekend’s Mexican Grand Prix, could hand the drivers’ crown to his Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg.
If Rosberg, who now leads by 26 points with three races to go, wins in Mexico and Hamilton has to retire, or fails to score a point, he will take the title.
Hamilton, however, is determined to remain positive.
“I was down on power today and that worried me, but it is a great result for the team. For me, it is nice to have a have a good solid weekend.
“And also a good start! I just hope it continues like this. I just felt so much more confident thanks to a few things we changed when I was at the factory last week.
“I felt more comfortable at the start but I was worrying all the time. Reliability was the only thing on my mind.”
Hamilton has scored his 50 wins from 185 races compared to Schumacher with 153 and Prost in 192.
Rosberg finished second on Sunday after falling to third at the first corner when Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull passed him.
He regained his place thanks to a pit stop during a Virtual Safety Car (VSC) intervention later in the race while Ricciardo went onto finish third.
Rosberg said: “I lost out a bit at the start, but I gave everything to come back and I was going flat out all the way right to the end.”
He finished five seconds behind Hamilton who had controlled the race from lights to flag.

Barcelona and Real Madrid needed late winners to see off Valencia and Athletic Bilbao, whilst Atletico Madrid tumbled from first to fifth with defeat at Sevilla.
Here AFP sports looks at five things we learned from week nine in La Liga.
Messi can take pressure penalties
Penalties have proved a rare weakness for Messi and striker partners Luis Suarez and Neymar over the past two seasons. Messi even briefly retired from international football so distraught was he with a blazed effort over the bar that helped hand Chile the Copa America in June.
However, under the most intense pressure with Barca tied 2-2 with Valencia in the 94th minute at Mestalla and facing renowned penalty specialist Diego Alves, Messi coolly slotted into the bottom corner to give the injury ravaged champions a vital victory to keep tabs on Real Madrid at the top of the table.
Sevilla threaten ‘big three’
Atletico Madrid boss Diego Simeone insisted before kick-off at the Sanchez Pizjuan that Sevilla were in the title race for the long haul, and then saw why as his side suffered a first defeat in any competition this season.
The performances of Jorge Sampaoli’s side haven’t always convinced, but the results are hard to argue with as they sit ahead of Barca and Atletico and just one point back of Real at the top.
Moreover, in contrast to what many expected following some comical defending in a 6-4 goal fest against Espanyol on the opening day, Sevilla’s defence has played its part in an excellent start to the campaign at home and in Europe.
Sunday’s shutout was their sixth of the season, including three from as many games in the Champions League.
Celta rule Galicia
Celta hammered home a power shift in Galician football from A Coruna to Vigo by thrashing Deportivo 4-1 in one of Spanish football’s normally most hotly contested derbies.
Whilst Depor have bounced up and down between the Primera and Segunda Divisions over the past decade, Celta have established themselves in the top half of the table in recent years have qualified for Europe for the first time in 10 years.
After a famous 4-3 win over Barcelona in their last La Liga outing at Balaidos, Deportivo were also hit for four.
Espanyol fightback saves Sanchez Flores
With just one win in eight games before this weekend despite raised expectations at now Chinese owned Espanyol, former Watford manager Quique Sanchez Flores looked set for the chop at 3-0 down at home to Eibar on Saturday.
A stirring second-half fightback, rounded off by Leo Baptistao’s injury time equaliser, may have salvaged just a point, but should ensure Sanchez Flores is given another lifeline ahead of next weekend’s trip to Real Betis.
Loan dangers
Unlike in England’s Premier League, there is no rule preventing players on loan from playing against their parent clubs with those details left to the clubs to thrash out as part of the deal.
Barca just got away with their liberal policy of never preventing loanees from facing them as Munir El Haddadi’s strike for Valencia was rendered meaningless by Messi’s late winner.
Yet, Atletico weren’t so fortunate as Luciano Vietto played a key role in Sevilla’s win with the assist for Steven N’Zonzi’s winner.
Bizarely, the details of the deal mean Vietto won’t be able to play against Atletico in the league meeting at the Vicente Calderon later in the campaign, but the damage to Atletico’s title challenge may already be done.

A group of 26 hostages freed from nearly five years in the hands of Somali pirates touched down in Kenya on Sunday, with both tears and smiles marking the end of their ordeal.
“Am so, so happy. Really, am so, so happy. For UN, for Mr John (negotiator), for all the world. Thanks to you all,” said one of the hostages, Sudi Ahman.
The relief of the men was palpable, with some unable to hold back tears while others hugged each other and smiled broadly.
John Steed, coordinator of the Hostage Support Partners (HSP) who helped negotiate their release, had gone to the Somali city of Galkayo to fetch the crew of the Naham 3, who had been held hostage for longer than any other crew except one.
“We have been working on this for four-and-a-half years… it’s great to bring them home and hand them over to their embassies and their families,” said Steed.
A retired British colonel, Steed has made it his mission to rescue “forgotten hostages”: poor fishermen with no insurance who are often left languishing the longest in the hands of pirates.
The crew were taken captive when their Omani-flagged vessel was seized in March 2012 south of the Seychelles.
Pirates initially took 29 crew hostage, but one person died during the hijacking, and two more “succumbed to illness” during their captivity, said a statement from Oceans Beyond Piracy (OBP) on Saturday.
“We have achieved what we achieved today by getting elders, religious community and local leaders and regional government all involved to put pressure on these guys to release the hostages,” said Steed.
The crew members are from China, Indonesia, Philippines, Cambodia and Taiwan and they were the last remaining seafarers taken hostage at the height of Somali piracy.
Only a crew of Thai fishermen, released in February last year after nearly five years in captivity, spent longer in the hands of Somali pirates.
Steed said the crew was malnourished and one of the hostages had a bullet wound in his foot, another had suffered a stroke and another had diabetes.
At the peak of the piracy epidemic in January 2011, Somali pirates held 736 hostages and 32 boats.
According to the OBP, while overall numbers are down in the Western Indian Ocean, pirates in the region attacked at least 306 seafarers in 2015 .
While there has not been a successful attack on a commercial vessel since 2012, there have been several on fishing boats. There are still 10 Iranian hostages taken in 2015 and three Kenyan kidnap victims — one a seriously ill, paralysed woman — in the hands of pirates, said Steed.