Month: October 2016

Former New York Yankees pitcher Hiroki Kuroda Tuesday announced his retirement from professional baseball at the end of this season.
After seven years in Major League Baseball, Kuroda took a whopping 80 percent pay cut last year to return to his home team in Japan.
His decision to come back, apparently to conclude his career with the Hiroshima Carp, sent Hiroshima fans into a frenzy and helped the Japanese Central League club win this season’s championship.
Kuroda, 41, said he decided to announce his retirement before the team play in the Japan Series against the Pacific League champions, the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters.
“Now we are playing in the Japan Series. Knowing the next game may become my last one to pitch, I thought I have to let my team-mates and many supporters know that,” he was quoted by the Daily Sports newspaper as saying.
Kuroda pitched for Hiroshima from 1997 to 2007 before joining the Los Angeles Dodgers from 2008-11 and the Yankees from 2012-14. On his return home he signed a one-year deal with Hiroshima worth an estimated $3.3 million.
He was paid $16 million by the Yankees in his last season when he went 11-9 with a 3.71 earned run average in 32 starts.
Kuroda, who won a bronze medal for Japan at the 2004 Athens Olympics, compiled a 79-79 record in seven MLB seasons with a 3.45 ERA.

Pique was a major part of the Guardiola side that won 14 trophies in a golden four-year period between 2008 and 2012.
“Pep made a mark on all of us that were with him, there was a before and after. We understood football in a different way and he changed the history of the club,” said Pique on Tuesday.
“I only have complimentary words for him. He gave me the opportunity to come here and gave me everything.”
City travel to the Camp Nou without a win in three games as draws at Celtic and home to Everton sandwiched Guardiola’s first defeat in England at Tottenham Hotspur.
However, Pique believes City are already a more dangerous prospect than in the four meetings between the sides in the last 16 of the Champions League in 2013/14 and 2014/15 when Barca emerged victorious on all four occasions.
“I think Manchester City is a different team from last year or the years they came here with (Manuel) Pellegrini,” added the former Manchester United man.
“The style of play is different. They pressure a lot really high, they try to have the ball and create chances and I think they play like us because Pep Guardiola was here many years.
“He understands football the same way we do. It will be a really challenging game.”
Barca hold a two-point lead over City at the top of Champions League Group C.
Pique believes victory will prove a “gigantic step” not only towards qualification for the knockout stages, but also topping the group.
And the five-time European champions’ chances will be hugely boosted by the return of Leo Messi from a groin injury.
Messi took just three minutes to score on his return from a groin injury as a substitute in Saturday’s 4-0 win over Deportivo la Coruna.
He is expected to start alongside Neymar and Luis Suarez up front for just the fourth time this season.
“It doesn’t matter if he is 100 percent or 10 percent, he is so different and so good just his presence on the pitch makes a difference for us and the other team,” added Pique.
“Leo looks fine, you saw it only took him three minutes to get going. He is the best player in history.”
Barcelona boss Luis Enrique and Guardiola played together with the Catalan giants.
As a coach Enrique has followed in Guardiola’s footsteps. Both enjoyed their first managerial role with Barca B, while Enrique matched Guardiola’s feat of delivering the treble in his first season in charge of the senior team.
And Enrique lauded his former colleague and friend as the “best coach in the world”.
“I can’t envisage a better game for a football fan to watch,” said Enrique.
“Pep is a friend and it is very easy to evaluate his work positively. I think he is the best coach in the world right now without a doubt.
“You can see in City since pre-season the hand of Pep. For us it is an enormous stimulus to not only play for first place in the group, but also against Guardiola’s City.”
Enrique should have the luxury of naming his strongest side as full-backs Jordi Alba and Sergi Roberto also took part in training on Tuesday and are set to return after missing the Deportivo game through injury.

The ruling, which also includes other food items whose name includes the word “dog”, has garnered much ridicule on social media.
It follows complaints by Muslim tourists from overseas, said Sirajuddin Suhaimee, director of the halal division from the Department of Islamic Development.
“Any (halal) products that make consumers confused, we have to change,” he said.
“In Islam, dogs are considered unclean and the name cannot be related to halal certification.”
Numerous street vendors and halal restaurants sell hotdogs in Malaysia. Sirajuddin said checks would be made “step-by-step” when these outlets renew their two-year halal certification with the department.
US pretzel chain Auntie Anne’s, which has 45 outlets in Malaysia with plans to expand further, told AFP it has no qualms about renaming its pretzel dogs — sausages wrapped with pretzels — following advice from religious authorities.
“It’s a minor issue. We are fine with changing the name and are still working on it,” said Farhatul Kamilah Mohamed Sazali, an executive at Auntie Anne’s Malaysia.
Sirajuddin, who recommended pretzel dogs be called pretzel sausages, said Aunty Anne’s halal certification application is currently being considered.
Among the many critics on social media, one Facebook user remarked: “Please stick to religion… don’t be an English language adviser.”
Another posted: “Pet shops please rename ur dogs as sausages.”
Sirajuddin dismissed as “normal reaction” the online criticism. “We are doing our jobs, by the law,” he said.
Under the concept of halal — meaning “permissible” in Arabic — pork and its by-products, alcohol and animals not slaughtered according to Islamic procedures are all “haram” or forbidden.
Malaysia has long practised a moderate form of Islam but conservative attitudes are rising.
A company last year introduced halal bottled mineral water in Malaysia, and Islamic speed dating sessions — where single women are chaperoned — have been embraced.
A halal convention in Kuala Lumpur last year, which drew thousands of delegates and hundreds of exhibitors, showcased products ranging from food and cosmetics to collagen produced from yaks in Tibet.

Firefighters on Monday evening extinguished a blaze at a BASF chemical plant in western Germany where two colleagues were killed in a major blast, a company spokesman said on Tuesday.
A third individual is missing after the incident, whose causes remain unknown.
“Small but constant amounts” of liquefied ethylene or propylene gas were still leaking from at least one breached pipe at BASF’s Ludwigshafen home base and hindering cleanup work, site manager Uwe Liebelt said.
City fire chief Peter Friedrich told reporters that firefighters had swathed the pipework with foam coolant to hinder further blazes breaking out.
Two members of the plant’s fire unit were killed in a blast which occurred at around 11:30 am (0930 GMT) on Monday.
Their team had been called out to a fire near a dock, where liquids and liquefied gases are transferred into tanks from ships on the Rhine, before they were caught in the explosion.
Six people remain in intensive care with severe burns.
The explosion destroyed firefighters’ vehicles and sent a plume of black smoke high into the sky above the riverside towns of Ludwigshafen and Mannheim.
A further 17 people were slightly injured, while one person is still missing.
Firefighters from both towns and BASF fought to get the flames under control until they were finally extinguished late on Monday evening.
“By tomorrow (Wednesday) evening we should be able to begin further clearing operations,” including pumping away the flammable liquefied gases still leaking from a 300-metre (yard) stretch of pipe, Liebelt said.
The leaking gases make it too dangerous for divers to enter the harbour basin in search of the missing person, fire chief Friedrich said.
Prosecutors and police are already investigating parts of the scene that have so far been declared safe.
Workers had been cutting and welding an empty pipeline in the area for several days, Liebelt said, although he added that “we have no knowledge of how the first fire started”.
Company and city officials repeated advice to local people to remain inside and keep doors and windows closed, although they insisted no dangerous levels of chemicals had been measured in the air around town or in river water.

A Kenyan student pursuing a nursing course in India fell victim to a Nigerian man who raped her for three months.
Nairobi News reports that the 28-year-old Nigerian rapist was in the same varsity with the Kenyan lady even though he was pursuing a B.Tech programme. (He later dropped out of school)
The suspect and the victim are said to be lovers; the Kenyan woman moved in with the Nigerian man in May 2016 after he dropped out of school and moved out of campus.
Their relationship however didn’t stand the test of time as disaster struck after the Kenyan woman got pregnant.
The lady reported her Nigerian sweetheart to Indian authorities on 13 October claiming that had been drugged and raped by him over a span of three months.
“The complainant has alleged that she was raped for at least three months by the accused and she was given sedatives” Indian police officer was quoted saying.
The police discovered that the suspect’s visa had expired when they arrested him; he will reportedly be deported back to his country.
 

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim on Tuesday said the government would “very soon” submit proposals to parliament for constitutional changes bolstering the powers of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The government is seeking a three-fifths majority for the proposals in parliament, which would allow the calling of a referendum to let the people have the final say.
The chances of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) cobbling together such a majority increased on Tuesday when the leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) indicated he might back the changes.
“The necessary constitutional changes offered by the AKP will be presented to parliament very soon,” Yildirim told a meeting of his party in parliament in Ankara.
He said that the changes were needed to “eliminate confusion from the system”.
Erdogan, prime minister since 2003, was in August 2014 elected president, the first time the Turkish head of state was chosen by universal suffrage.
He has since transformed what in recent years had become a more ceremonial post, concentrating powers in what opponents have said is a violation of the existing constitution.
AKP officials say the constitutional changes are needed to legalise what has become a de facto situation: the president becoming the country’s number one executive figure.
Erdogan has ridiculed complaints that the changes will make him a dictator, saying presidential systems exist in France and the United States and noting the existing constitution was drawn up after the 1980 military coup.
The AKP needs a majority of 330 out of the 550 seats in the parliament to call the referendum. It currently holds 317 seats (316 excluding speaker Ismail Kahraman).
MHP leader Devlet Bahceli, whose party controls 40 seats in the parliament, on Tuesday gave his firmest indication yet he could back the referendum.
He said a “healthy” outcome could be achieved if the AKP submits a proposal to parliament that is “sensitive” to the concerns of the MHP.
The MHP is the fourth party in parliament by seats. Its support would be enough to allow the referendum to go ahead even if it is opposed by the secular Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).
A super majority of two-thirds — 367 seats — would approve the changes directly without a referendum.
But with polls looking positive, the government appears more than happy to go to a referendum and seek a show of popular support in the wake of the defeated July 15 coup.
The political uncertainty has increased pressure on the Turkish lira after it initially weathered the storm in the wake of the coup.
On Tuesday, the lira lost 0.3 percent against the US dollar and has lost over four percent in value since the start of the month.
“Since the parliamentary process of such a change will take time… we think that the earliest possible month to hold referendum is March/April 2017,” said Ozgur Altug, economist at BGC partners in Istanbul in a note to clients.
Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said he believed the public would support the changes if there were a referendum but dismissed rumours of an early election, saying it was not on the ruling party’s agenda.

A military pilot shoots down a hijacked plane with 164 people on board to save the lives of thousands in a packed stadium that was the target of a terrorist plot.
Is he a hero, or guilty of murder? That is the question viewers were asked to answer in an interactive television show broadcast late Monday in five European countries.
“Terror – Your Verdict” turned couch potatoes at home into a jury judging the fate of fictional German air force major Lars Koch, who fires a missile at the Lufthansa passenger jet.
“If I don’t shoot, tens of thousands will die,” he says in the thriller as he takes aim at an engine of the Airbus A320, flouting the orders of his superiors.
The plane bursts into flames and comes down in a potato field, killing everyone aboard including militants from an Al-Qaeda offshoot who planned to use the airliner to target a soccer match between Germany and England.
At the Munich stadium venue, 70,000 fans are blissfully unaware that they have been spared death due to the actions of the young military pilot.
In the television show, an adaptation of a successful play by bestselling author Ferdinand von Schirach, Koch sits in the dock on 164 counts of murder.
The scenario has been debated since the suicide hijackings of September 11, 2001 in the United States as a kind of modern trolley problem, the classic ethical thought experiment.
In that hypothetical conundrum, a person must choose between allowing a runaway trolley to run over five people tied to railway tracks, or to pull a lever and send the trolley barrelling into one person on another track.
After 9/11, then US vice president Dick Cheney said the military would have been justified if they shot down the airliners to prevent them crashing into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
However Germany’s constitutional court ruled in 2006 that such action would violate Article One of its Basic Law, that human dignity is inviolable.
In the case of “Terror – Your Verdict”, viewers in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia were asked to vote guilty or not guilty online or via a telephone hotline.
The programming chief for German public broadcaster ARD, Volker Herres, said the audience was invited to become part of the plot.
“The viewer is yanked out of the passivity of television watching,” he told the Bild daily. “He is actively called upon to become both an affected person and take a decision.”
In the end, overwhelming majorities called for Koch to be acquitted, with more than 80 percent of viewers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland finding Koch not guilty. An actor playing the presiding judge read out the verdict, with both options filmed in advance.
The normally prosaic Bild pointed up the philosophical thicket revealed by the show “pitting eternal natural law against the Protestant ethic of responsibility, which demands a conscience-based decision in every situation”.
Von Schirach, the grandson of Hitler Youth leader Baldur von Schirach, is a trained lawyer and one of Germany’s most popular crime writers.
The play had already drawn more than 163,000 people to theatres in cities including Berlin, Tel Aviv, Caracas and Tokyo.

The International Olympic Committee chief and Tokyo’s governor on Tuesday agreed to work together on cutting skyrocketing costs for the 2020 Games, as reports said the IOC would consider moving some venues to South Korea.
Thomas Bach and Yuriko Koike met for the first time since Tokyo’s top official warned recently that Japan’s capital could be forced to downsize or relocate three venues for the 2020 games in drastic cost-slashing measures.
The pair agreed to set up a working group — comprising Tokyo’s metropolitan government, the IOC, the 2020 organising committee, and central government — to help rein in snowballing costs.
“The IOC is fully committed to (hold) the Olympic Games in a very sustainable and feasible way,” Bach said.
“We can very well look in the budget of the Tokyo 2020, we can look at the costs, and we can see how together we can make it even more feasible.”
The meeting comes as a Japanese media report said the IOC was mulling relocating the rowing and kayaking venue — one of three main venues that are facing extra scrutiny over costs — to neighbouring South Korea.
Bach did not comment on the Tuesday report, but said the IOC would “respect a fair competition”, referring to Tokyo winning the right to host the Games in four years.
“We don’t change the rules of the competition after the election,” he added.
Last month, a group of academics and business leaders submitted a proposal to Koike which included plans to overhaul the swimming, volleyball and kayak facilities, currently estimated at some $1.5 billion.
Bach said Tuesday that any venue changes should take the athletes into account.
“We have to respect experiences of athletes…because the athletes are the heart and soul of the Olympic Games,” he said.
Tokyo organisers are wrestling with a series of embarrassing problems, including the scrapping of plans for the original Olympic stadium due to costs, and a French probe into alleged corruption.
Koike swept into office in July, immediately ordering officials to rein in ballooning Olympic expenses, which one expert predicted could surpass 3 trillion yen ($29.5 billion).
Tokyo’s preparations for the 2020 Games have been plagued by controversy since beating Madrid and Istanbul in the bidding race three years ago.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe tore up initial plans for the Olympic stadium amid public anger over its $2 billion price tag.
Tokyo organisers then had to scrap the original Games logo after accusations of plagiarism.
Most worryingly, French prosecutors launched an investigation into $2 million in payments they suspect were made to help Tokyo secure the Olympics.
Japanese Olympic officials have strenuously denied any wrongdoing.

We once published an article here on how to become more attractive to members of the opposite sex.

After working on yourself and becoming just as attractive as you like, how do you know if the magic working already?

How do you tell that people, or someone in particular finds you hot and irresistible?

Experts, James Preece and Alexander Ziff say there are sure five signs that someone is attracted and romantically interested in you.

ALSO READ: Bankers and doctors will most likely cheat on you, research shows

So, in case you are wondering what that guy or lady in your class, office, mosque or church thinks about you, here are five vital signs that will tell you whether they are into you or not.

Closing the gap 

If someone is interested in you, they’ll do their best to get closer to you over and over again, no matter how much you rebuff or curve them.

Anyone interested in you would always be stealing glances at you. (Photo: Pulse.ng)

 

Over-blinking

According to the experts, if you notice that your colleague at work blinking much more than usual, that’s a great indication they might be into you.

They base this judgement on the fact that prolonged eye contact, combined with excitement, forces people’s eyes to dry out much faster. 

They might also fidget a lot when around you, and also touch you at every given opportunity.

Talking too much and teasing you

Men and women use teasing as a sure way of flirting.

This, according to them, happens from an early age, when boys and girls chase each other around, pull each other’s hair, ear, nose and all that stuff. 

Alex and James say this continues well into adulthood, as both men and women find themselves making fun and cracking jokes at the person they are attracted to.

 

Rwanda has launched the world’s first national drone delivery service that is expected to transport essential medical products to remote and rural health centres in the country.
Piloted by , an American robotics company, blood and plasma will be flown by autonomous drones to clinics in the rural western part of the country, where poor road conditions often delay time-critical delivery of medical supplies for hours or even days.
Once the program is in full swing in a few weeks, Rwanda plans to fly between 50 and 150 drones a day delivering blood and plasma to 21 clinics.
 explained Zipline in a statement.
To request a blood drop-off, health care workers send a text message, and 30 minutes later a drone arrives.
Zipline’s drones do not land at the medical centers, but rather drop packages via disposable parachutes at the clinics’ receiving area.
During the launch, Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame said the use of unmanned commercial drones to transport essential medical products is a milestone for Rwanda in many respects.
The aircraft are launched from a catapult and fly below 500ft (152m) to avoid the airspace used by passenger planes.
The drones are powered by a nose-mounted battery and guide themselves using GPS location data.
 
They fly at around 40 miles per hour and can travel about 90 miles round trip before needing to recharge.
They then send back information to both their base and to Rwandan air traffic control via a cellular connection.
The project is one of the many initiatives that the government is putting in place in line with the Smart Rwanda Master Plan 2020.
Commercial drone delivery programs have encountered obstacles elsewhere in Africa.
Morocco, Kenya and Uganda have all imposed bans or restrictions on drone operation, while unlicensed drone users in Ghana can face up to 30 years in jail

French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian warned Tuesday that the battle to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul from the Islamic State group could take “months”.
“It could be a long battle, it’s not a blitzkrieg… It’s a lengthy affair (lasting) several weeks, maybe months,” he told reporters in Paris a day after the offensive began.
The long-awaited offensive on Mosul was launched on Monday, with some 30,000 forces involved in Iraq’s largest military operation since the pullout of US troops in 2011.
The US military, which is leading a coalition providing air and ground support, also warned the battle would be long and difficult.
France will host an international meeting Thursday on the political future of Mosul, while the coalition’s defence ministers will meet in Paris next Tuesday to assess progress on the military front.

Tense negotiations that went on for the better part of Monday evening by the Kenya Airways management, its pilots and the government finally bore fruit as a looming strike expected to start on Tuesday, October 18, was eventually called off.
It is widely  believed that the decision to call off the strike was made following intervention from State House.
The Kenya Airlines Pilots Association (Kalpa) at a press conference soon after announced that negotiations had yielded a compromise on their demands.
 said the association’s secretary general Paul Gichana on Monday.
He emphasised that they were not retreating from their initial position insisting that change for Kenya Airways could only be achieved through an overhaul of the current leadership.
 Mr Gichana added.
However, he was categorical that the strike had not been entirely been shelved, but was deferred in order to give room for ongoing negotiations to continue.

The association had been demanding a change of management at KQ, stating that they no longer had faith with the current management to steer the airline back to its former pride.
The pilots’ tough stance has seen the elbowing out of the KQ board chair Dennis Awori who is expected to be replaced by ex-Safaricom CEO Michael Joseph in changes to be announced soon by the airline.
However. remains uncertain what the fate of Chief Executive Mbvuvi Ngunze will be for now as both he and Awori were absent during Monday’s press conference.
Mr Joseph, who was recently appointed a board member, represented the KQ management at the press conference.
He also announced there would be a board meeting next Wednesday when the pilots’ demands would be discussed, including a ratification of his appointment.
The national carrier had over the weekend canceled several flights due to staff shortage as contracted workers stayed away citing several grievances.

Syria’s first lady Asma al-Assad said she rejected multiple offers to flee the war-ravaged country with her children, according to an interview with broadcaster Russia24 aired on Tuesday.
The comments were part of the British-born Assad’s first interview with international media since Syria’s revolt erupted in 2011 with demands for her husband Bashar’s ouster.
“I never thought of being anywhere else at all. … Yes, I was offered the opportunity to leave Syria, or rather to run from Syria,” the 41-year-old said.
“These offers included guarantees of safety and protection for my children, and even financial security.”
“It doesn’t take a genius to know what these people were really after. It was never about my wellbeing or my children — it was a deliberate attempt to shatter people’s confidence in their president,” she said.
The full interview with Russia24 is to be aired later Tuesday.
Asma’s marriage to Bashar was announced by state media around six months after he assumed the presidency in July 2000 following the death of his father Hafez.
The former investment banker styled herself as a progressive rights advocate and was seen as the modern side of the Assad dynasty.
She did not appear much in public in the first few years of the uprising, but over the past two years has been a lot more active.
The mother-of-three has stood at her husband’s side in his rare public appearances, posing for selfies with supporters in pictures posted to the presidency’s Instagram account.
With the death toll in Syria’s conflict now at least 300,000, Asma has been seen smiling beside children, athletes and graduates in shared images the United States has denounced as “a despicable PR stunt”.

Chris Froome said the 2017 Tour de France champion will be decided in the mountains as he looked forward to a new duel with his biggest challenger this year Romain Bardet.
While the Tour will go to all five of France’s mountain ranges, there are 20 percent fewer climbs than for 2016 though organisers insisted they will be steeper next year.
“This Tour will be won in the mountains, the time trials are too small to have any real effect,” said Froome, winner in 2013, 2015 and 2016.
The Briton would be expected to beat Bardet by up to 90 seconds in a 45km time trial. In the 104th Tour, it is just 23km.
“I was pleasantly surprised to see the Planche des Belles Filles on the route again,” said Froome, who won there in 2012.
But Bardet, the 25-year-old great French hope, sensed a chance in 2017.
“Last year’s race was won due the long stretches we spent in the mountains,” he said remembering the four minutes that eventually separated him and Froome.
“When I saw this route I was exultant. There’s never more than two consecutive days in the mountains.”
Of the most challenging climbs, there will be one one in the Vosges, six in the Jura, eight in the Pyrenees, two in the Massif Central and six in the Alps.
Tour director Christian Prudhomme was not sure the high mountains would be decisive.
“I like the look of the Puy en Valey stage, its so tight and winding and allows for very little organisation. It could be chaos,” predicted Prudhomme.
But he insisted the route “has been designed to be won by a true champion”, without naming Froome or identifying any other favourites.
“The framework at the summit finish (at Izoard on the last Alpine stage) is so wonderful to behold it will amplify the exploits of the athletes who exell there,” he said.
Irish rider Dan Martin, who has won stages on the tours in France and Spain, said he felt the route brought him into the picture.
“There’s plenty of scope for damage every single day. You have to survive,” the Irishman told AFP.
“This route is better suited to my style than previous years.”
The race over 3,516 kilometers (2,183 miles) starts in Dusseldorf, Germany on July 1 with a short 13km time trial.
And if the crucial penultimate day’s time trial starting inside Marseille’s Velodrome football stadium is only 23km long, it should be run in the peak summer heat and will notably feature a 1km stretch at an almost 18 per cent gradient.
The Tour’s toughest stage on paper is the 214km Pyrenean run from Pau to Peyragudes which feature the mountain where the James Bond movie ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’ was partly filmed, and has a summit finish as the fifth climb of the day.
In total contrast, the following day’s stage 13 is a short but spectacular 100km mountain run from Saint Girons culminating in a 27km hair-raising descent to Foix, featuring extreme climbs and descents along the way.
This is followed with a day for punchers and will evoke powerful memories for both the Olympic champion Greg Van Avermaert and world road champion Peter Sagan. The 181km 14th stage culminates in Rodez where the Belgian out-paced Sagan for a stage win in 2015.
The most watched of all the stages by television audiences is the final day jaunt to Paris and the 10 laps of the Champs Elysees generally won by a top sprinters such as Mark Cavendish or Andre Grepel or Marcel Kittel.
Before the Tour gets to the celebrated avenue it whips past proposed 2024 Olympic sites Roland Garros tennis courts and Parc des Princes football stadium.

Outgoing US President Barack Obama has fired a parting shot at EU leaders over their economic policies and offered strong backing to Italy’s Matteo Renzi ahead of a crucial referendum.
Renzi, the Italian prime minister and the most prominent critic of the European Union’s emphasis on fiscal rigour over efforts to foster jobs and growth, is due at the White House on Tuesday for the final state dinner of the Obama administration.
And in an interview with Italian daily La Repubblica, the US president lavished praise on the “vision and ambitious reforms” of the centre-left Renzi, who has staked his political future on winning a December 4 referendum on constitutional reform.
Obama said Tuesday’s dinner would be an opportunity to thank Renzi for “his strong partnership across a range of issues, including our shared commitment to broad and inclusive growth that creates jobs in both our countries and across Europe.”
Obama said the growth-boosting Recovery Act passed early in his administration had helped to create more than 15 million new jobs, cut unemployment in half and trigger a rise in wages and a fall in poverty rates.
“Some countries took a different approach,” he said. “As I’ve said before, I do believe that austerity measures have contributed to slower growth in Europe.
“In some countries, we?ve seen years of stagnation, which has fed into the economic frustrations and anxieties we see across the continent… ”
Renzi has also blamed austerity for the rise in populist political parties across Europe, and repeatedly clashed with EU officials over demands for greater leeway on budget rules to allow him to pursue a more expansionary economic policy.
“Matteo has the right approach, and it’s beginning to show results,” Obama said.
The US leader acknowledged that concerns over the uneven impact of globalisation had helped fuel political developments like Donald Trump’s presidential bid and Britain’s vote to leave the European Union.
He said the benefits of globalisation had to be more broadly shared, but defended further liberalisation of trade as a positive development, including a controversial new EU-US trade deal on which negotiations are currently stalled.
“In our global economy where so much of our prosperity depends on trade between our countries, it?s simply not possible to withdraw and pull up the drawbridge,” Obama said.
“Protectionism only makes our economies weaker, hurting all of us, especially our workers.”
Obama said fears over the impact of the proposed Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), were overstated.
“By eliminating tariffs and bridging differences in regulations, we’ll make it easier to trade, especially for our small and medium-sized businesses. TTIP will not lower standards.
“On the contrary, it will raise standards to better protect workers, better protect the environment, better protect consumers and ensure a free and open internet, which is essential for our digital economies.”

A night guard was killed on Monday night when police guarding Governor Ali Roba’s residence engaged Al Shabaab gunmen in Mandera Town.The police officers who were patrolling the town were stopped by the Al Shabaab militia who were clad in buibui.
They stopped thinking that the “women” needed assistance when a fierce shootout ensued.
A night guard who was at a nearby primary school was shot by a stray bullet during the crossfire and bled to death.
The gunmen later escaped towards the Kenya- Somalia border.
This latest incident comes barely after another attack in Mandera town where six people were killed by the Al Shabaab in a residential plot.
Security was heightened in the town after Al-Shabaab militants overran a Somali military camp near the Kenyan border.

President Uhuru Kenyatta has finally spoken about the controversial remarks made by Nairobi Senator Mike Sonko last Friday.

Uhuru downplayed the claims that Sonko was the “third in command” and dismissed it as a non-issue.

Speaking at State House Nairobi, during the Accountability and Governance Summit, Uhuru said that he remains the elected President of the Republic of Kenya, so long as he is still in office, wherever he is.

President Kenyatta and Sonko at a past event. (Photo: The Star) 

Uhuru said that he has left his seat only once ever since he became president when he was at the International Criminal Court at the Hague, during which time, his Deputy President William Ruto temporarily assumed command.

“Do not be bothered”

“Don’t bother about what people say at funerals, weddings and all these other issues. I have only on one occasion left the office of Presidency.

Whether I am in Togo, I am still President of the Republic of Kenya. Only once when some people took me to some funny court out there and I signed a piece of paper, leaving my deputy to act as President; any other occasion, wacha media waseme vile wanataka kusema (Let the media report what they want).

“Don’t be bothered about small things my friend. Tunaelewana (Are we together on that)?

The matter now seems to have been put to respect despite the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Keriako Tobiko ordering the senator to be interrogated over his remarks.

Sonko on Sunday evening presented himself at the Directorate of Criminal Investigation headquarters where he recorded a statement over his statements.

The Inspector General of Police, Joseph Boinett earlier this week said that the senator’s file will be presented to the DPP for action.

English Premier League leaders Manchester City on Tuesday announced record turnover of $480 million and its Abu Dhabi owners said the club has reached a “turning point”.
City, who were hit by UEFA sanctions over their finances in 2014, announced a 20 million pound ($24.5 million/22.2 million euro) profit from revenues of 391.8 million pounds ($480 million, 436 million euros).
With broadcasting, match-day and commercial revenues all up, City announced a second straight year of profit.
Chairman Khaldoon Al-Mubarak said the 2015-16 season when City reached the Champions League semi-finals was a “turning point” on and off the field.
“Manchester City has now reached a level of sporting and commercial maturity that allows one to feed the other,” said the chairman.
“I believe the 2016-17 season represents the beginning of a critical new phase in the evolution of Manchester City.
“We know that we have the playing, coaching and off-field capabilities at our disposal to achieve great things in English and European football in the years ahead.”
Broadcasting revenue from Europe and the Premier League increased 19% to 161 million pounds. Matchday income went up from 43 million pounds a year ago to 52.5 million pounds.
Other commercial revenues went up from 351 million pounds to 391 million pounds.
In the past year, City have appointed Pep Guardiola, one of Europe’s most successful coaches, while China Media Capital Holdings has become a key new investor.
City said that its wage bill was down to 50 percent of revenues which it said was one of the best ratios in the Premier League.

At least 20 people have been killed in three days of clashes in southeast DR Congo between Pygmy and Bantu people over a disputed caterpillar collection tax, a local parliamentarian told AFP on Tuesday.
Local MP Kalunga Mawazo told AFP on Tuesday that the fighting in Kabalo between Sunday and Tuesday was triggered by a dispute over the caterpillar harvest, a common food staple for the hunter-gatherer people of the Tanganyika region in northern Katanga.
“The attacks since Sunday left four (Bantu) Lubas and 16 Pygmies dead in a row over the tax traditionally paid to the Bantus by the Pygmies,” Kalunga said.
A local priest who asked not to be named said that “the Pygmies now believe they have the same rights as citizens as the others. They refused to pay this illegal tax and shot two Luba people dead with arrows when they demanded payment.”
A further two Lubas, who are Bantu people, were killed in revenge attacks, and the bodies of 16 Pygmies found, he added.
Tanganyika governor Ngoy Kitangala said security forces were being dispatched to the area where tension was extremely high.
Northern Katanga, a region as big as Spain, has seen repeated clashes between Bantu Lubas and Pygmy Twa people since 2013.

France will host an international meeting Thursday on the future of Mosul, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said on the second day of a major offensive to retake Iraq’s second city from the Islamic State group.
“We must anticipate, plan for the ‘day after’, and the stabilisation of Mosul after the military battle,” Ayrault said Tuesday, adding that Iran — which wields substantial influence in Iraq — was not invited to the talks.
“We must win the war but also look at everything that will enable us to win the peace,” he said.
The French foreign minister said the international coalition fighting IS also had a “responsibility” to retake Raqa, in Syria, which would be the last major city in either country under the group’s control if Mosul falls.
“Not to go on to Raqa would be a bad mistake,” Ayrault told reporters.
“If we want to fight effectively against terrorism it is essential to take this city.”
The long-awaited offensive on Mosul was launched on Monday, with some 30,000 forces involved in Iraq’s largest military operation since the pullout of US troops in 2011.
The US military, which is leading a coalition providing air and ground support, said Iraqi forces looked “ahead of schedule” but warned the battle would be long and difficult.
The coalition’s defence ministers will meet in Paris next Tuesday to assess progress in the battle for Mosul.
US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter will be among 13 ministers at the talks, an aide to French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said.
Le Drian said Tuesday the battle for Mosul could take “several weeks” or even months.
The ministers are also expected to stress the importance of routing the jihadists from Raqa.
The coalition is concerned that IS will attempt to move fighters and military equipment from Mosul to Syria as the offensive intensifies.
Although the coalition includes around 60 countries, the meeting will comprise only Western nations providing air support.
They are: United States, France, Britain, Canada, Australia, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Norway, Denmark and New Zealand.

With the rising case of child defilers from deranged drunkards to politicians and men of God, it is understandable at one point parents will take the law into their own hands.

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A child defiler incurred the wrath of a father and never lived to tell the lesson after being hacked to death by an enraged father.

John Ombonge Marage, a married man was hacked to death with a panga after being caught in a friend’s house with a form two girl. According to reports, Ombonge had left his place after a quarrel with his wife and went to the friend’s house to meet the girl.

The father of the girl was informed of what had happened by Ombongi’s wife and he proceeded to the directed house armed with a panga. He demanded the two come out but they tried to escape through a window.

It is here that the deceased was cornered. He was also armed with a panga and a rungu so he tried to attack the father in order to escape. Unfortunately, the girl’s father was father and landed several fatal blows on the blow and chest. Omboni died on the spot while the girl’s father is aiding with investigation. 

Barely a month after Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) employee caused uproar when he revealed he sleeps with class six and nursery children, another sick imbecile posts a photo of an underage girl he smashed.
Ken wa Mwangi irked Kenyans when he proudly announced on Facebook that he was a pervert who preyed on underage girls as young as kindergarten-going children.
Also Read:
Ken wa Mwangi aside, another pedophile, Boaz Omariba Arasa, took to Facebook to brag about how girls aged 13 to 15 turn him on.
Screenshots of a conversation between Boaz and his friend show the pervert boasting how he sexually molests young girls.
The friend tried to dissuade him from his sickening habit but a defiant Boaz rubbed off the advice saying he would even bribe authorities if he was busted.
He explained that he loved having sex with underage girls because mature girls have punanis that are extra ordinary big to accommodate him.
See the nauseating conversation below:
 

Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho claimed that his team had exposed Liverpool’s shortcomings after holding Jurgen Klopp’s high-flying team to a 0-0 draw.
Liverpool went into Monday’s game at Anfield seeking a sixth successive win in all competitions and bidding to draw level on points with Premier League leaders Manchester City and second-place Arsenal.
But United restricted them to few chances, with visiting goalkeeper David de Gea largely untroubled apart from a pair of eye-catching second-half saves to deny Emre Can and Philippe Coutinho.
“The goalkeeper (De Gea) was on holiday for 90 minutes, but he had two big saves to do and he did,” said Mourinho, whose side remain seventh in the table.
“When we recover the ball I was expecting the team to be more dangerous, (although) we had two good chances, but Liverpool did too.
“They are not the last wonder of the world like you (the media) say they are, but they are a very good team so we had to adapt a little to them.”
Premier League statisticians Opta said United had only had 35 percent of possession — their lowest tally for a league fixture since such statistics started being gathered in the 2003-04 season.
But Mourinho returned to the press conference room after he had finished addressing reporters to say the club’s own statisticians thought United had seen more of the ball.
“My guy did it — 42 (percent), not 35,” he said, having re-emerged through a side door.
“I thought it was crazy. We do it ourselves with better people than them.”
He had earlier dismissed the importance of statistics, pointing out that United had won 1-0 at Anfield under his predecessor Louis van Gaal last season despite being largely outplayed.
“Last season United won here, Liverpool had 14 shots on target and United had one,” he said.
“How many shots on target did Liverpool have on target today? Two. Two shots on target with 65 percent of possession.
“You have to be critical of Liverpool. It is their problem, not our problem.”
United largely succeeded in stifling Liverpool, with wide players Marcus Rashford and Ashley Young notably dropping deep to create a six-man defence at times.
The visitors procured a clear sight of goal early in the second half when Paul Pogba, playing in a more advanced role, picked out Zlatan Ibrahimovic, only for the Swede to miscue his header.
Liverpool improved following the 59th-minute introduction of Adam Lallana, either side of which De Gea showed characteristically snappy reactions to foil Can and Coutinho.
“We lost patience far too early and our passing game was not good,” said Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp, whose side trail City by two points.
“We had 65 percent possession, but we have to do better. I didn’t expect we would have 10 to 15 chances. Second half we had chances, but De Gea was finally warm and he made brilliant saves.
“They had that chance with Ibrahimovic. The best news tonight is we have one point more and a clean sheet, nothing else.
“We can do much better and we must do much better. We have to stay cool. When they want to chase us, we have to use counter-movements.
“Really good attitude of my side. They tried everything, only with the wrong tools.”
Klopp dismissed suggestions his players had been affected by being saddled with the pre-match favourites tag.
“Maybe it is very important for the rest of the world what you all write, but for us it is not important,” he said.
“We were not favourites in the dressing room. Tonight nobody thought about this.
“You could see Man United is physically stronger than we are. We couldn’t get rid of the hectic (mindset) — that was the problem.
“When you have the ball you have to calm down immediately and that is what we didn’t do.”

The UN cultural agency on Tuesday adopted a controversial Arab-sponsored resolution on east Jerusalem which Israel has said ignores Jewish ties to a key holy site.
A spokesman for Paris-based UNESCO said the resolution, which has caused Israel to suspend its cooperation with the agency, was adopted without a new vote after being approved at the committee stage last week.
The text, which touches on Israel’s management of Palestinian religious sites, has infuriated Israel by referring throughout to the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in east Jerusalem’s Old City — Islam’s third holiest site — only by its Muslim names: Al-Aqsa and Al-Haram al-Sharif.
The site is also revered by Jews as the Temple Mount which housed the First and Second Temples.
Palestine’s deputy ambassador to UNESCO, Mounir Anastas, told reporters the resolution “reminds Israel that they are the occupying power in east Jerusalem and it asks them to stop all their violations,” including archaeological excavations around religious sites.
It is the second time this year that UNESCO has been the arena of tensions between Israel and Arab countries.
In April, the organization passed a resolution condemning “Israeli aggressions and illegal measures against the freedom of worship and Muslims’ access to the Al-Aqsa Mosque”.

As China marks 80 years since the Red Army ended its epic Long March, the Communist Party is attacking revisionist history in an effort to compel reverence for its founding legend.
Facing annihilation at the hands of Nationalists during China’s civil war in 1934, 80,000 Communist soldiers and leaders — Mao Zedong among them — broke through encircling forces and embarked on a gruelling escape.
Nine out of 10 had deserted or died by the time the last units reached Yanan in the northern province of Shaanxi as much as two years later, where Mao and his cohorts founded a base from which they went on to take over the country.
According to Communist Party lore the marchers travelled at least 12,500 kilometres (7,750 miles) through some of the country’s most remote and hazardous terrain.
The anniversary is being marked this week, with a daily drumbeat of newspaper articles and op-eds — plus dozens of TV dramas, documentaries, trivia contests, radio broadcasts and special exhibitions — extolling their heroism.
President Xi Jinping has put his stamp on the occasion, visiting museums in the northern region of Ningxia and Beijing.
Xi has declared the party must emulate the march’s spirit in pursuit of his “Chinese Dream”, a vaguely defined promise of national rejuvenation, and the party’s centenary goal to build a “moderately prosperous society” by 2021.
“We, the new generation, should accomplish our new Long March,” he said.
The drive comes just ahead of a top party meeting in the capital this month, with speculation mounting that Xi may delay appointing a successor and seek to stay in power beyond the traditional 10-year term.
Evoking the legend is “a good reminder to everybody that the party actually did, and does, stand for something” despite the Communist Party’s loss of “purpose and legitimacy”, Trey McArver, a London-based China politics analyst at Trusted Sources research firm, told AFP.
Xi’s embrace of the Long March reflects his desire to gather the party’s passion around him and channel Mao’s authority, said Liu Tong, historian at Shanghai Jiaotong University.
China’s governance has become more focused on the leader under Xi, a style that “mimics Mao’s in many respects”, Liu said, adding that celebrating the Long March connects Xi to “the Communists’ symbol of triumph”.
But much recent propaganda surrounding the march, he added, “departed from the truth”.
In reality the long retreat was a “military disaster” for the Communists, argues University of Hong Kong historian Xu Guoqi.
Rather than Mao’s brilliance, it was Japan’s invasion of China that saved the party by diverting and weakening the Nationalists, he told AFP.
Survivors have spoken of rapes, executions, kidnappings and forced requisitions of grain by the Red Army on the routes it walked.
Two British men who spent more than a year following the Red Army’s route calculated that it was about 6,100 kilometres — far shorter than officially claimed.
Others such as documentary filmmaker Sun Shuyun have interviewed survivors and witnesses who reported that celebrated incidents such as the Battle for Luding Bridge, where Red Army heroes reportedly made a perilous crossing under heavy gunfire, did not occur as described.
Such accounts have been blasted in state media.
Those who cast doubt on the 12,500-kilometre figure are guilty of “historical nihilism”, wrote Lu Yi, a scholar at the Central Party School, an institution where Communist Party officials are trained, in a commentary in the People’s Liberation Army Daily newspaper last month.
Lu singled out Sun and the British travellers as examples of people who “fly the flag of ‘restoring the truth’ to maliciously sever history and fabricate lies”.
The widely circulated commentary ended with a warning that “this historical nihilism must be firmly refuted”.
Warren Sun of Monash University in Australia told AFP that while Xi understands the “less-than-savoury real story” of the march, in “issuing the new marching order, political necessity clearly overrides any historical truth”.
Although Mao’s own units reached Yanan in 1935, China celebrates the reunification of Communist forces on October 22 the following year, and the 80th anniversary is being marked with museum exhibitions across the country.
At the National Museum on Tiananmen Square, visitors gazed at oil paintings of Mao astride a white steed and displays of the Great Helmsman’s handgun.
An elderly visitor named Shan said he admired the early Communist Party members, whose achievements “represent the indomitable spirit and strong mind of the Chinese nation”.
“Today, people’s thinking has relaxed,” he said.
But several younger visitors said their state-run companies had bussed them in for the exhibit and required them to write a report about it.
One group of visitors posed with a Communist Party flag at the entrance.
Asked if she considered whether the official history was distorted, a 30-year-old woman surnamed Feng answered: “History is never objective. As ordinary people, we cannot tell whether history is true. But we can still learn from the spirit of the Long March.?

Turkish jets will continue to take part in the air operation backing Iraqi forces and Kurdish Peshmerga to retake Iraq’s second city of Mosul from jihadists after the defence minister said late Tuesday Ankara had agreed a deal with its coalition partners.
“We have agreed with coalition forces for our air forces to take part in the Mosul operation,” Fikri Isik was quoted as saying by the official Anadolu agency.
“Without Turkey, it is impossible to make decisions on the future of Mosul,” he added during a visit to Rome.
His comments were further clarification of Turkey’s future involvement after Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said earlier in the day that the country’s jets joined in the air operation to recapture the city from the Islamic State group.
“Our air forces took part in the coalition forces’ air operations in Mosul,” Yildirim told his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) parliamentary group in Ankara.
Yildirim, who admitted he did not know “the operational details”, told reporters afterwards there was agreement “in principle” to be part of the coalition.
The long-awaited offensive began Monday with air and ground support from a US-led coalition. Yildirim said Turkey was “closely-watching” what was happening but did not give details on the nature of the Turkish air support.
Mosul was captured by IS jihadists in June 2014. But ahead of the offensive, Turkey and Iraq were entangled in a war of words over Turkey’s presence in northern Iraq.
Yildirim repeated President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s comments from Monday that Turkey would be involved in the operation and will be “at the table”.
While insisting it cannot be left out of the operation, Turkey has often spoken of its fears over the potential involvement of Shiite militias and anti-Ankara Kurdish militia in the fight for mainly Sunni Mosul.
In a separate speech in Ankara, Erdogan said Turkey did not want to be party to any sectarian conflict in Iraq, but spoke of his concern for “our Sunni Arab brothers, our Turkmen brothers”.
Earlier this month, Erdogan and Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi traded barbs over Turkey’s presence in Bashiqa in northern Iraq, where, according to Erdogan, nearly 700 Turkish soldiers are based.
Erdogan insisted Turkey had a historical responsibility to be in Iraq, referring to Mosul’s past as part of the Ottoman Empire.
“We will be (present) on the ground and we will be at the table,” Erdogan said.
Erdogan told the Iraqi government that “rather than acting tough with us” it should “deal” with other extremist groups like IS.
Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said an Iraqi delegation was due to arrive in Turkey towards the end of the week — “maybe Thursday — as diplomats try to de-escalate the tensions.
“Both sides essentially have the will to solve this through dialogue,” Cavusoglu said Tuesday during a visit to Tashkent, quoted by Anadolu.
It comes after a top-level Turkish delegation led by foreign ministry undersecretary Umit Yalcin went to Baghdad on Monday.
Late Tuesday, the Turkish foreign ministry reissued its travel guidance from December 2015 to its citizens, warning against travelling to Iraq because of the security risk.
The advice applied to all provinces except Dohuk, Arbil and Sulaymaniyah, all of which are in the northern region of Iraqi Kurdistan.
Those currently in the country were strongly advised to withdraw from areas including Baghdad and Basra, referring to the latest developments in Mosul.
The ministry urged its citizens in a statement on its website to be vigilant, avoid crowded places and limit the time of travel in 15 provinces including Kirkuk, Anbar and Najaf.