Month: October 2016

A new scent is in the air in Calais called “apres-Jungle”, but it is not an exotic aftershave.
Rather it sums up the northern French port’s hopes and fears for the future following the dismantling of the notorious “Jungle” migrant camp in its backyard.
The bars and restaurants of the high street, the Rue Royale, “used to be packed with Britons,” said pensioner Michelle Toulotte in a brasserie where staff outnumbered the customers.
“It’s about time” the Jungle was cleared, said Christophe Defever, owner of the Au Davydson brasserie, a stone’s throw from the town’s central rail station.
“The economy has really suffered since they’ve been here,” he said. “It’s easier to count the shops that are closed than those that are open.”
While a quick tour of the city centre revealed that to be an exaggeration, the shuttered Le Tub disco in the Rue Royale attested to a more vibrant past.
The economy of Calais, a town of 72,000 people that has long a beacon for British day-trippers hunting for a bargain, began to slump early last year when thousands of migrants converged on France’s northern shores, bent on reaching Britain.
In June, the Brexit vote in Britain, which was followed by a slump in the value of sterling, also dented business morale.
Real estate demand has soured, especially among investors, according to Evelyne Duriez, an estate agent in the high street.
Media accounts of the crisis have “disfigured Calais’ image” and scared off investors, Duriez said, while noting that the property market has remained relatively stable for transactions between locals.
But sheer geography is a constant minus, she said: “I’m sceptical about the apres-Jungle because Calais is still the closest point” between French and British shores, tempting migrants to sneak onto cross-Channel trucks and trains.
The economic downturn prompted a high-profile protest in September when truckers and farmers blocked the main routes in and out of Calais to call for the Jungle’s closure.
Under pressure from a Calais business collective, regional authorities agreed to boost the police presence on the motorway and to rapidly dismantle the lawless shantytown.
A barman said appeals for tax breaks and other relief had fallen on deaf ears. “The government has completely ignored us,” he said on condition of anonymity.
But he said the city, which has a centre-right mayor, “can’t do much” while Socialists are in power in the central government.
Meanwhile at the tourist office, bilingual brochures abound extolling the town’s attractions, from its quirky neo-Renaissance city hall to an impressive museum devoted to the region’s lace industry.
“A Great Day in Calais” and “Shop Till You Drop” were among the headlines in a newspaper-style promotion recently created by the city.
The regional newspaper La Voix du Nord reported that President Francois Hollande may visit Calais next week to mark the shutdown of the Jungle.
The success of the operation is crucial for the deeply unpopular president, who has yet to announce whether he will stand for re-election next year.
A barman in the Rue Royale was magnanimous, except when it came to Hollande.
“May the apres-Jungle be beneficial for everyone,” he intoned. But regarding Hollande’s mooted visit: “May he stay home.”
Taxi driver Herve Legrand said his business has broken even thanks to the intense media focus on the Jungle crisis.
“Maybe we lost tourists, but we gained journalists” as clients, he said.

The families of Turkish activists killed in a 2010 Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship say they will not drop their legal cases despite a deal between Turkey and the Jewish state.
Nine Turks died when Israeli marines stormed the “Mavi Marmara”, which was part of an aid flotilla to break a naval blockade of the Gaza Strip. One more died in hospital in 2014.
Ties between Israel and Turkey crumbled after the raid but in June they finally agreed to end the bitter six-year row after months-long secret talks.
Israel had offered an apology over the raid, permission for Turkish aid to reach Gaza through Israeli ports, and a payout of $20 million (18 million euros) to the families of those killed.
Turkish officials confirmed the amount was transferred to the justice ministry account last month.
Under the deal, both sides agreed that individual Israeli citizens or those acting on behalf of the government would not be held liable.
Families of the victims however say they will press on with their legal battle until the alleged perpetrators are brought to justice.
Cigdem Topcuoglu, an academic from southern Adana province, said her husband was killed as the couple embarked on the ship.
“We are certainly not accepting the compensation,” she told AFP in Istanbul.
“They will come and kill your husband next to you and say ‘take this money, keep your mouth shut and give up on the case’. Would you accept that?”
In total, there were six ships in the flotilla that were boarded in international waters about 130km (80 miles) from the Israeli coast.
After the deal with Israel, an Istanbul court on October 19 held another hearing in the trial of the four former Israeli military commanders, though it was later adjourned to December 2.
Turkish prosecutors are seeking life sentences for former military chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi, former navy chief Eliezer Marom, former military intelligence head Amos Yadlin and former air force intelligence chief Avishai Levy, who went on trial in absentia in 2012.
“We have no intention to drop the lawsuits,” Topcuoglu said.
Human rights lawyer Rodney Dixon said the criminal case against the accused must go on “at all costs”.
“We are strongly supporting the case here in Turkey and our very firm plea to the court has been that they must continue with the case,” he said.
“The so-called agreement between Israel and Turkey is not a treaty that is enforceable. It is unlawful under international law, under the convention on human rights and Turkish law.”
– ‘Lawlessness’-
Families say they were not informed of any details about the deal with Israel and they have not received any money.
Ismail Songur, whose father died in the raid, said: “Nobody from the Turkish government asked our opinion before they struck a deal.
“Unfortunately the Turkish government is becoming a part of the lawlessness carried out by Israel.”
“Even if families of the victims accept the money, that would not affect the case,” said Gulden Sonmez, one of the lawyers in the trial and also a passenger on the ship.
“That is a criminal suit, not a suit for compensation. The $20 million is an ex gratia payment. It’s a donation and cannot be accepted as compensation.”
A vocal advocate of the Palestinian cause who regularly lambasts Israeli assaults in Gaza, Turkish President Recep Tayyip in June caught many by surprise when he criticised the 2010 aid mission to Gaza, only a few days after his government reached an accord with Israel.
“Did you ask then-prime minister to deliver humanitarian aid from Turkey?” he said in comments seen as veiled criticism of the Turkish Islamic charity IHH that organised the flotilla.
Bulent Yildirim, head of the IHH, said the legal case would never end.
“Those who believe the case would drop will be disappointed.”

For the Chicago Cubs to capture their first World Series since 1908 this year and snap America’s record longest sports title drought, they must win it in Cleveland after losing 1-0 to the Indians at Wrigley Field.
Coco Crisp singled home Michael Martinez in the seventh inning for the only run as the Indians, despite stranding seven base runners, won the first World Series game at 102-year-old Wrigley Field since 1945.
“That’s a heck of a win,” Indians manager Terry Francona said. “We needed something, anything just to put a run across and our staff made it hold up, which was a remarkable effort.”
Cleveland grabbed a 2-1 lead over the Cubs in Major League Baseball’s best-of-seven championship showdown, which continues Saturday and Sunday in Chicago then returns to Cleveland if more games are needed.
The Indians, seeking their first World Series crown since 1948, took their fifth playoff shutout victory, a major league record for a single post-season campaign, and their second Series blanking of the Cubs.
“We’ll learn from tonight, come back and be ready to play tomorrow,” Cubs manager Joe Maddon said. “We’re seeing good pitching. We have to adjust to it.”
Tribe relief pitcher Cody Allen escaped a last gasp by Chicago in the ninth, striking out Javier Baez to end the game with the potential tying run stranded on third base.
“We were in a little bit of a jam there. That’s one of those situations you think about throughout the season or spring training or even as a kid. You play that over in your mind,” Allen said.
“All you’re trying to do is slow the game down as much as possible and just try to make one good pitch. Then you just try to make another one. So we were fortunate enough to string a few good pitches together there and get the last out.”
In all, four Cleveland pitchers struck out eight batters and scattered five hits.
The Cubs still have won only two World Series games at Wrigley Field, game six in 1945 and game five in 1935, both over Detroit.
The game was decided when Cleveland’s Roberto Perez singled and was replaced by Indians pinch-runner Martinez, who took second base on Tyler Naquin’s sacrifice and third on a wild pitch by Cubs relief pitcher Carl Edwards.
After a pickoff try failed following a video review, Martinez scored on pinch-hitter Crisp’s single to right field.
“Coming here and seeing all that blue in the stands, you know the support for the Cubs is worldwide,” Crisp said. “Coming in here and getting the victory is big for us.”
The Indians did not manage another hit but didn’t need it.
Anthony Rizzo led off the ninth for the Cubs with a single to left field, bringing the crowd to its feet for good.
The potential tying run advanced to second on a Wilson Contreras ground out and took third after Jason Heyward reached base on a fielding error by Cleveland first baseman Mike Napoli.
But Baez, who grounded out to end the eighth inning with the potential tying run on third base, was struck out by Allen to send most of the 41,703 spectators home disappointed.
“To be on the field, live that moment of getting the last out and feeling the emotions of getting a win, that’s a special feeling,” Allen said.
Chicago starting pitcher Kyle Hendricks struck out six but surrendered six hits and two walks over 4 1/3 innings.
Cleveland starter Josh Tomlin, who won his two prior playoff starts, allowed two hits with one walk and one strikeout over 4 2/3 innings.
Saturday’s starting pitchers will be Cubs right-hander John Lackey, a two-time World Series champion, and Cleveland right-hander Corey Kluber, an 18-game winner who is 3-1 in the playoffs but who will be throwing on short rest after winning Tuesday’s opener.

Valeriya Turbay says she’s forgetting how to speak Ukraine’s official language as schoolchildren in the bastion of the pro-Russian rebels get fewer lessons after two years of war and an onslaught of Kremlin-inspired instruction.
Ukrainian is the main teaching language in schools across the bulk of the country controlled by pro-Western Kiev since the historic February 2014 ouster of a Russian-backed regime.
But in rebel-held eastern Ukraine — where most people know both languages but usually speak Russian — schools now teach just one Ukrainian language and literature lesson per week.
“There is so little Ukrainian spoken that I am literally starting to forget it,” says 16-year-old Turbay.
Schools in the region used to teach two to five hours a week of Ukrainian classes.
Now they have doubled the number of Russian language and literature classes since the insurgency began in April 2014.
Ukrainian patriotism is demonised in the east while Russian and separatist ideology is the norm in classrooms full of youngsters caught up in the geopolitical conflict.
“There have been some serious changes to our region,” says Donetsk high school student Andrei Trubetsky.
“And so we have seen the Ukrainian language and literature become a kind of political victim,” he tells AFP.
Trubetsky comes to school dressed in the same camouflage fatigues as his rebel fighter father and says he is in fact proud of the shift toward Russian in his classroom.
“We have been helped by Russia,” Trubetsky says. “They have shipped in some very good school books.”
Moscow brushes off Kiev and its Western allies’ charges of backing the insurgents in the conflict, which has claimed nearly 10,000 lives since it broke out more than two years ago following Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
Rebel forces, which Kiev estimates number some 40,000, have carved out an unofficial state in the industrial heartland of east Ukraine.
Monitors from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said in a September report that “instead of Ukrainian history, these schools teach the history of the Donbass” — another name for the industrial region.
Regional schools and colleges have swapped old textbooks for ones printed in Russian.
The last official census conducted in Ukraine in 2001 showed that three-quarters of those living in the Donetsk region were Russian speakers.
But the country has since undergone a profound transformation and some recent studies show a more even split in the Donbass.
Teachers of Ukrainian language and literature have to undergo retraining in order to be able to lead classes in Russian and keep their jobs.
But some parents are secretly hiring private tutors who can brush up their children’s Ukrainian skills.
The Russian and Ukrainian languages have the same Slavic roots but are different enough that they are not always mutually comprehensible.
A 43-year-old history teacher, who agreed to be identified only as Igor for security reasons, says most of those who ask him to tutor their children in Ukrainian harbour hopes of one day escaping the rebel zones.
“Children have run up against the fact that diplomas (issued by the rebels) are not recognised by higher education colleges outside the Donbass,” Igor says.
“So children are looking for tutors who can help them reach Ukraine and its universities.
“And their parents are looking for tutors that can be trusted to keep things private, because they are afraid of retribution from the rebels,” Igor says.
Kiev refuses to recognise the separatists’ authority and calls the language changes being undertaken there a crime.
In Kiev-run areas of Ukraine, Russian can only be used on an official level if local councils adopt such a measure.

Spain turns the page on a 10-month political crisis Saturday as lawmakers ready to vote the conservatives back in power, although at the head of a government with unprecedented opposition.
Aided by divisions among his rivals, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is widely expected to win a crunch parliamentary confidence vote which will see him officially re-appointed as Spanish leader.
At the same time, protesters unhappy about corruption and sweeping spending cuts during Rajoy’s first term are set to take to the streets, fearing his new government will be more of the same.
In a sign of things to come, party leaders in this week’s pre-vote parliamentary debate came out fighting, criticising Rajoy and each other just as they did for 10 months as the country went through two inconclusive elections.
This unstable period saw Spain go from jubilant hope after December 2015 polls ended the two-party system, as millions voted for two upstart parties, to disillusion following repeat polls in June that yielded similar inconclusive results.
Rajoy’s Popular Party (PP) won both elections but without enough seats to rule alone, and as no political grouping was able to agree on a viable coalition, Spain looked set for unprecedented third elections in less than a year.
This all changed last weekend when the Socialists swallowed a bitter pill and decided to abstain in Saturday’s confidence vote to avoid more elections — a move that came after weeks of in-fighting that saw their chief Pedro Sanchez ousted.
But this gives Rajoy, the official prime ministerial candidate, enough traction to see him through the vote.
Unlike when he came came to power in 2011 with an absolute majority, however, Rajoy’s party will only have 137 seats out of 350 in parliament and will face huge opposition, forcing him to negotiate every law.
“Rajoy, a king without a kingdom,” online daily El Espanol summed up in an editorial.
First on his list will be to approve a 2017 budget under EU pressure, with Brussels saying Spain needs to implement at least five billion euros ($5.5 billion) in spending cuts to reduce the deficit.
But this is likely to face stiff opposition in parliament and on the street, and already Rajoy’s rivals have pledged to vote against it.
During this week’s debate, the Socialists and far-left Podemos — now the country’s third political force — vowed not to go easy on him.
Rajoy, meanwhile, called on the opposition to let him govern effectively, pointing to the return to growth and drop in unemployment under his watch after a devastating crisis, and the necessity to keep this going.
Political analyst Pablo Simon said there was “no doubt” his term in office would be the most “turbulent” ever in Spain and could prompt Rajoy to call early elections if he keeps hitting brick walls.
But he predicted Rajoy may not have quite as hard a ride as expected.
The Socialists, for one, will need time to rebuild in the opposition and will not want early elections, knowing they would fare badly after their very public breakdown.
The PP also has a majority in the Senate, and may be able to form pacts with smaller parties in the lower house to see laws through, Simon added.

South Korean prosecutors on Saturday raided the homes and offices of senior advisers to President Park Geun-Hye, as she struggled with a corruption and influence-peddling scandal involving a close family friend.
The crisis centred around Park’s long-time confidante Choi Soon-Sil has rocked her presidency, thanks largely to a lurid back-story involving talk of religious cults, shamanist rituals and corruption.
In Saturday’s raids, prosecutors confiscated computers and documents from the homes of a top presidential adviser and two other aides as well as a deputy culture minister, Yonhap news agency said.
They also searched some offices in the presidential Blue House complex, Yonhap said.
The move came ahead of a mass protest in Seoul, organised after it emerged that Park had allowed Choi, who has no official post or security clearance, to meddle in affairs of state.
Thousands of people were expected to turn out for the candle-lit demonstration and call on the president, whose popularity ratings have plunged to record lows, to step down.
Choi is being investigated for using her ties to Park to coerce money out of major conglomerates, but the real shock has been revelations that Park had allowed Choi to vet her presidential speeches and apparently advise her on crucial policy choices.
Park has publicly apologised and late Friday she told 10 of her senior advisers to tender their resignations ahead of a reshuffle of her presidential office.
Choi, 60, is the daughter of a shadowy religious figure, Choi-Tae-Min, who headed a cult-like group and was a long-time mentor to Park up until his death in 1994.
Media reports have portrayed Choi Soon-Sil as a Rasputin-like figure with an inappropriate and unhealthy influence over Park that she inherited from her father.
Choi left the country for Germany in early September as reports of her alleged influence-peddling began to emerge.
An early banner displayed at the venue for Saturday’s rally read “Choi come back, Park get out”.
Choi’s lawyer said she was well aware of the “gravity” of the situation and was “willing to return home to be questioned and punished if she did anything wrong.”
Prosecutors have taken in two of Choi’s close aides for questioning, including one who told reporters that Choi had been behaving as Park’s de facto regent.

Colombia’s government claims progress toward saving a peace deal with FARC rebels, but efforts to open talks with another guerrilla group, the ELN, remain suspended over a hostage dispute.
President Juan Manuel Santos said recently he aimed for a “complete peace” through deals with both groups after half a century of war.
Now he is fighting to salvage the peace effort on two fronts.
An accord with the leftist National Liberation Army (ELN) was meant to crown a historic agreement signed last month with Colombia’s biggest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
That was until voters surprised the government by rejecting the FARC accord in an October 2 referendum. Critics said the deal was too soft on the FARC.
Santos won the Nobel Peace Prize this month for his efforts. But he admitted there was still work to be done.
After the referendum, Santos’s team went back to the drawing board with FARC negotiators in Havana.
They said Friday they had begun drafting a new deal, taking into account the demands of opponents of the earlier accord.
“The proposals are being discussed carefully. Many of them are being incorporated into the text of a new accord,” both sides said in a joint statement.
They said they would resume work next week “with the aim of securing a new definitive accord quickly and efficiently.”
Santos said his negotiators, meanwhile, would meet again with their political opponents on Saturday to discuss their demands for the new accord.
“Time is pressing, because the ceasefire we agreed is fragile,” he said.
“It is a question of goodwill and taking decisions. This can be achieved in days.”
Meanwhile, the peace drive suffered another setback this week.
The government on Thursday postponed the official start of talks with the ELN.
Santos complained the ELN had not yet released a hostage, former congressman Odin Sanchez.
ELN negotiator Pablo Beltran said the group had agreed to release Sanchez but had not promised to do so before the dialogue is launched.
The talks were to have been formally inaugurated on Thursday with the first proper sessions of negotiations scheduled for November 3.
Analysts said Thursday’s postponement was likely just a hiccup.
“It can’t be called a failure yet,” said Carlos Alfonso Velasquez, a specialist in conflict analysis.
“But it will be if the talks do not start on November 3, and the ELN knows it.”
Colombian authorities estimate the ELN currently has 1,500 members.
That makes it smaller than the FARC, which has some 5,765 members.
Analysts said the ELN also has a different approach to peace talks.
The FARC freed its hostages before peace talks and later declared a ceasefire.
In a reminder of the stakes of the peace bid, deadly violence struck after the ELN talks were postponed.
Two truck drivers were killed in the country’s northeast in what the military said was a “terrorist act” committed by the ELN.
“The ELN guerrilla group comes strengthened to the negotiations with the government,” Colombia’s Conflict Analysis Resource Center (CERAC) said in a report this month.
“Over the past three years this group has increased its level of violence.”
Colombia’s ideological and territorial conflict broke out in 1964, when the FARC and ELN were formed.
It has drawn in various groups and killed more than 260,000 people, according to Colombian authorities.
“These negotiations will not be easy,” said Ariel Avila, an analyst at Colombia’s Peace and Reconciliation Foundation.
“Getting them started will be even harder.”

In a White House race featuring the two most unpopular major party candidates in modern US history, a trio of fringe candidates — all polling in the single digits — will also feature on the ballot.
Here are short profiles of the three contenders who will challenge Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton for the presidency on November 8.
Gary Johnson’s longshot bid for the White House might be defined by his “Aleppo moment.”
As late as August, the Libertarian candidate was polling a respectable nine percent.
But the former New Mexico governor was stumped when asked on air last month how he would address the humanitarian crisis in Syria’s besieged city of Aleppo.
“And what is Aleppo,” he asked, prompting his shocked interviewer to respond, “You’re kidding.”
It was a black eye for his campaign.
Johnson suffered another setback a few weeks later when he was unable to name a foreign leader he admires. He called the brain freeze “an Aleppo moment.”
The 63-year-old is running on a platform of small government, tax cuts, balancing the federal budget and reducing military intervention abroad, paired with a liberal outlook on social issues.
Johnson is open about being a marijuana user and a proponent of allowing states to decide for themselves whether to legalize medical and recreational marijuana.
“As president, I will not indulge in anything,” Johnson told the New Yorker magazine. “I don’t think you want somebody answering the phone at two o’clock in the morning — that red phone — drunk, either. Better on the stoned side, but I don’t want to make that judgment.”
Johnson ran for president in 2012, initially as a Republican before joining the Libertarian Party and becoming the party’s nominee. He finished with about 1.3 million votes — the strongest-ever result for the Libertarians.
He currently has about six percent support, according to the RealClearPolitics average of national polls.
But Johnson sees presidential politics as a long game.
“It’s similar to the legalization of marijuana,” he told the New Yorker.
“For those who wanted to implement the death penalty for marijuana, they don’t go from death penalty to legalizing. They go from death penalty to ‘OK, let’s forget about the death penalty.’ So you move the needle. And right now we’re moving the needle.”
A medical doctor who spent most of her career fighting for environmental causes, the Green Party’s Jill Stein is offering another option to voters disdainful of both main-party candidates — but one which few Americans are buying.
Stein has never held state or national office, but that hasn’t stopped her from carrying forward with a boldly progressive platform.
“In this election, we are deciding not just what kind of a world we want, but whether we will have a world at all,” the 66-year-old environmentalist said in a recent Fortune magazine commentary.
Stein, who also ran in 2012, stands no chance of winning, with only two percent of the likely vote, according to the RealClearPolitics national polling average.
Those numbers come on the back of a campaign that has garnered relatively limited media attention, in an election dominated by the bitter Trump-Clinton showdown.
Stein and her running mate, human rights activist Ajamu Baraka, are calling for “a WWII-scale national mobilization to halt climate change,” with the aim of transitioning to 100 percent clean, renewable energy by 2030.
She has also promised to cut military spending in half, create a living-wage job for every American and eliminate student debt.
Stein had hoped to capitalize on disenchanted millennials who supported Bernie Sanders’ run for the Democratic nomination, but has been largely unable to draw anything close to the Vermont senator’s massive crowds.
The one time Stein’s campaign made waves nationally was in early September when criminal charges were filed against her for allegedly spray-painting a bulldozer in North Dakota during a protest against an oil pipeline opposed by Native Americans.
The Chicago-born, Harvard-educated physician has also taken heat for implying that she sympathizes with Americans who question the merits of vaccinations.
Evan McMullin, a former Republican policy wonk in the House of Representatives, was little known when he jumped into the White House race in August.
But the 40-year-old Mormon has gained traction in his native Utah and beyond as an independent touting a “new conservative movement” among voters unhappy with both mainstream candidates.
“It’s never too late to do the right thing, and America deserves much better than either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton can offer us,” the former CIA counterterrorism operative said in announcing his candidacy.
“I humbly offer myself as a leader who can give millions of disaffected Americans a better choice for president.”
McMullin presents a serious challenge to Trump in Utah, a traditional Republican bastion where the party nominee has faltered badly among the Mormon faithful who make up 60 percent of the state population.
If he wins in Utah, it would be the first time since 1964 that a Republican loses the staunchly conservative state.
McMullin also stands to make history as the first third-party candidate to win a state since segregationist George Wallace in 1968.
The former Goldman Sachs investment banker resigned from his job in Congress to run in a campaign backed by Better for America, a nonprofit organization supporting rivals to Trump and Clinton.
McMullin is on the ballot in Utah and 10 other states, including neighboring Idaho, Colorado and New Mexico, and is a write-in candidate in many states.
Trump supporters have labelled him a “Mormon Mafia Tool” but McMullin pushed right back this week, tweeting: “The strength of @TeamMcMullin is that we’re the #MormonMafia…& the Jewish, Catholic, Evangelical, Hindu, Muslim, or no Mafia Mafias!”

America’s top cop FBI Director James Comey found himself center stage Saturday as his renewed probe of Hillary Clinton’s emails set a bitter tone for the final ten-day stretch of the campaign.
Both Clinton and her Republican rival Donald Trump piled pressure on Comey to put his cards on the table and end speculation about the investigation before America goes to the polls on November 8.
Clinton demanded the FBI director explain in detail why he had effectively reopened an inquiry declared complete in July, branding Comey’s move “deeply troubling” so close to Election Day.
And Trump fired up his raucous supporters with a vow that “justice can at last be delivered” — despite the FBI not putting any timeline on the new inquiry.
In reality, it seems unlikely that any progress will be made in the email investigation before polling day, and few observers expect Clinton to face criminal charges.
But every day that she spends dealing with the fallout of her decision to use a private email server as secretary of state is a day the media is not dwelling on the scandals dogging Trump.
And while the 69-year-old Democrat remains on course to be voted in as America’s first female president, her campaign is furious that its momentum has slowed in the final straight.
On Saturday, the latest poll of polls by tracker site RealClearPolitics put Clinton 3.9 percentage points ahead of Trump nationwide, down from a gap of 7.1 points just 10 days previously.
And an ABC/Washington Post survey gave her a 47 percent to 45 percent lead, a drastic fall from her 12-point margin in the same poll a week ago.
The narrowing can’t be traced solely to Friday’s shock announcement, but when Clinton took the stage in Daytona Beach in the swing state of Florida it was obvious who her campaign is blaming.
“It’s pretty strange to put something like that out with such little information right before an election,” Clinton told the crowd, echoing insinuations about Comey’s motives.
“In fact, it’s not just strange, it’s unprecedented and it is deeply troubling because voters deserve to get full and complete facts,” she added.
“So we’ve called on Director Comey to explain everything right away, put it all out on the table, right?” she declared, to rapturous cheers.
Trump also put the FBI director in a difficult position, whipping up his supporters with the suggestion that the probe could lead to Clinton’s prosecution.
Campaigning in the western state of Colorado, which has been leaning toward Clinton, Trump denounced what he called his opponent’s “criminal and illegal conduct,” prompting chants of “Lock her up!”
“This is the biggest political scandal since Watergate, and it’s everybody’s deepest hope that justice at last will be beautifully delivered,” Trump, 70, told a rally later Saturday in Phoenix, Arizona.
The real estate tycoon — himself dogged by scandal over alleged sexual misconduct, including accusations from at least 12 women — was clearly relishing attention being turned on Clinton.
“Hillary has nobody but herself to blame for her mounting legal difficulty. Her criminal action was willful, deliberate, intentional and purposeful,” he declared, to cheers.
“She sets up this illegal server knowing full well that her actions put our national security at risk and put the safety and security of your children and your families at risk.”
The spotlight turned back to Clinton’s emails — and on to Comey — on Friday, when the FBI chief wrote to lawmakers to announce that his agents are investigating a newly discovered trove of emails.
According to the New York Times, these emails emerged after agents seized a laptop used by Clinton’s closest aide, Huma Abedin, and her now estranged husband, Anthony Weiner.
Weiner, a disgraced former congressman who resigned in 2011 after sending explicit online messages, is under investigation over allegations he sent sexual overtures to a 15-year-old girl.
Clinton’s campaign has been overshadowed from the start by allegations she put US secrets at risk by using a private server based in her home for all email correspondence as secretary of state.
In July, after an FBI probe, Comey criticized Clinton’s handling of sensitive information but recommended no charges be brought. Clinton appeared to be in clear.
Trump was outraged, using it as an argument that the White House race has been “rigged” against him by a corrupt elite.
When Comey revealed that the case had been reopened — at least to discover whether the new batch of mail was “pertinent” — Trump seized on this as vindication.
Media reports citing FBI insiders suggest agents do not yet know whether the batch contains any new emails or classified information.
But, in the febrile atmosphere of the closing stages of the race, the controversy could throw Clinton off her game and allow Trump to regain some of the ground lost to his own scandals.
Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook sought to play down the impact of the revived email scandal.
“We don’t see it as changing the landscape,” he said, boasting that Clinton supporters were if anything fired up by the battle.
And leading Democratic senators wrote to Comey and his boss, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, urging them to make clear whether the new emails are pertinent to the investigation by Monday night.

Thousands of Thais streamed into the gates of Bangkok’s Grand Palace on Saturday as the public was granted its first chance to enter the throne hall where the body of late King Bhumibol Adulyadej is lying in state.
Bhumibol, who died aged 88 two weeks ago, was adored by many of his subjects and seen as an anchor of stability in a kingdom rocked by political turmoil.
His passing has thrust the country into a year of official mourning, with many Thais wearing only black and white since his death and TV channels devoting hours of airtime to footage from his 70-year reign.
For the past two weeks crowds have massed outside the Grand Palace, a compound of shimmering temples and pavilions in Bangkok’s old quarter, to pay tribute before a portrait of the late monarch.
But Saturday was the first time the public has been allowed to enter the ornate throne hall where his body is lying in a coffin, out of sight, near a gilded urn.
“I have been waiting here since 1:00 am,” said Saman Daoruang, an 84-year-old sitting in a massive queue that snaked around a large field outside the palace.
Like many in the crowd, Saman camped out under a tent on the grassy parade grounds, having arrived in Bangkok by train from northern Nakhon Sawan province.
“But I wasn’t able to sleep because I was so thrilled and proud to come here,” he told AFP, clutching several portraits of the monarch.
An initial plan to limit visitors to 10,000 per day was dropped Saturday after crowds swelled to 100,000, according to a monitoring centre outside the palace.
However Sansern Kaewkamnerd, a government spokesman, urged people “not to rush to come in the early days” as the throne hall would be open for “a long time”.
Thailand’s arch-royalist military government, which came to power in a 2014 coup, has encouraged mass displays of devotion for the late king and arranged a flurry of free bus, train and boat rides to move mourners to the capital.
It has also stepped up its enforcement of lese majeste — a law that punishes criticism of the monarchy with up to 15 years in prison per infringement.
All media based in Thailand must self-censor to avoid falling foul of the law.
The legislation has also severely curbed public discussion about the heir to the throne, Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, who has yet to attract the same level of devotion as his father.
In a move that surprised many and veered from tradition, the 64-year-old asked to delay his proclamation as king in order to grieve with the nation, according the junta.
The government has not provided a clear timeline for when he will formally ascend the throne.

Jose Mourinho believes Manchester United’s derby victory over Manchester City can inject fresh life into his team’s spluttering Premier League title challenge.
Mourinho’s side bounced back from a miserable 4-0 thrashing at Chelsea by defeating arch rivals City in the League Cup on Wednesday and the United boss hopes the momentum carries over into Saturday’s meeting with Burnley.
Seeing off City, who had already beaten United in the league this season, was a welcome boost for Mourinho following his side’s spluttering start to the season, but he knows they can’t afford another to slip back into bad habits with table-toppers City already six points ahead.
“After the defeat, we had to play Man City two days after and because of that defeat, the match became more than just a normal cup match,” Mourinho said ahead of the Old Trafford clash.
“It was more because it was City but it was much more because two days before we had such a bad defeat.
“Sometimes people react to bad defeats in a negative way and you go into a bad run of results.
“But in this case, the boys managed to find that extra effort and extra competitive mentality to play that game because it means more than just a game.
“It was very important for the players to win it and to give back to the fans.”
Pep Guardiola takes City to West Bromwich Albion on Saturday still trying to figure out how to lift the club out of their autumn downturn.
Scintillating over the season’s early weeks, which saw them win their first 10 games, they have now gone six matches without victory, culminating in Wednesday’s defeat at United.
While they remain top of the league table on goal difference, City’s swashbuckling form has petered out and left-back Gael Clichy hopes their luck changes soon.
“We gave everything and at the moment we are not getting what we deserve,” the France international told the City website.
“Lately, the results and the points are not on board. We have to keep working and we’re sure we’re going to get there.
“If we are a bit more clinical playing forward and more compact as a team, maybe we can do better.”
United go into the weekend in seventh place, but they are better off than defending champions Leicester, who sit three points below them in 12th place with just three wins from their opening nine games.
On Saturday Claudio Ranieri’s side travel to Tottenham, who threatened to pip them in last season’s title race.
Mauricio Pochettino’s men are a point off top spot and Ranieri has braced his players for a battle.
“Spurs are the only unbeaten team in the Premier League because they have a very good squad. They can change and rotate,” said the Italian.
“Tottenham are a fantastic team. Last year they were very close to us and will continue to fight for the title.”
A late slump saw Tottenham pipped to second place by their North London rivals Arsenal, whose early-season form suggests they could be poised to go one better this term.
A six-game winning run came to an end in last weekend’s 0-0 draw with Middlesbrough, but Arsene Wenger’s team beat Reading in the League Cup in mid-week and now face a Sunderland side rooted to the base of the table.
“I think the spirit is really good in the team,” said midfielder Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, who scored both goals in the 2-0 win over Reading.
“Even when we drew with Middlesbrough on the weekend, it was almost like we lost the game. It shows how hungry this team are to win.
“We’re in a spell where we feel like we should be winning every game and we can win every game, so that’s a good thing.”
Liverpool, third behind City and Arsenal on goal difference, visit Crystal Palace, while fourth placed Chelsea, dumped out of the League Cup by West Ham on Wednesday, travel to Southampton.
Fixtures (1400 GMT unless stated):
Saturday
Crystal Palace v Liverpool (1630 GMT), Manchester United v Burnley, Sunderland v Arsenal (1130 GMT), Tottenham v Leicester, West Brom v Manchester City, Middlesbrough v Bournemouth, Watford v Hull
Sunday
Everton v West Ham (1330 GMT), Southampton v Chelsea (1600 GMT)
Monday
Stoke v Swansea (2000 GMT)

South Africa coach Allister Coetzee says he does not read newspapers, which is just as well given the stinging criticism of his reign ahead of a tour to Europe.
The struggling Springboks arrive in London Saturday for an exhibition match with the Barbarians followed by Tests against England, Italy and Wales.
After five defeats in nine Tests this year, a leading South African rugby columnist believes the two-time world champions could lose the internationals in London, Florence and Cardiff.
“Expect more carnage at Twickenham against England,” wrote former Springboks media manager Mark Keohane in Business Day, mindful of a 53-3 rout there in 2002.
South Africa conceded nine tries in a 57-15 thrashing from world champions New Zealand in Durban this month — a record home loss for the green and gold.
“The potential of a first defeat against Italy is now real and Wales will complete the misery,” predicted Keohane.
Coetzee was appointed last April after Heyneke Meyer opted not to seek a second four-year contract amid criticism of his “pre-historic” tactics and a reluctance to promote black stars.
Meyer had a mixed reign — coming within three points of beating New Zealand in a 2015 Rugby World Cup semi-final after a humiliating loss to minnows Japan at the start of the tournament.
Keohane believes Coetzee should have resigned after the humiliating Durban defeat by the All Blacks.
“Defeat in Durban demanded his resignation. He said the players he started with were the best, but 13 of the Lions team that played in the 2016 Super Rugby final were excluded.
“Springbok rugby is in free fall, but the arrogance of Coetzee knows no bounds. He does not read the papers and does not care what the public think.
“He was satisfied that his coaching staff and players had all the answers. His Springboks are a disgrace to the jersey.
“Coetzee is liked because he does not challenge the administrators. He is liked because he is inoffensive. But his team selections and results have been offensive.
“Equally offensive is the notion that his selections are right because a 57-15 scoreline would indicate that there was absolutely nothing right.”
Keohane was critical when Coetzee succeeded Meyer, saying the former Western Stormers coach did not rank among the top 10 in the world and, therefore, should not have been a candidate.
While many Springboks supporters are openly pessimistic about the tour to Europe, Coetzee spent this week preparing in Johannesburg and talking tough.
“Playing during the northern hemisphere winter is always a huge challenge and we are going to have to win territorial battles inch by inch,” he told reporters.
“The conditions are very different to South Africa and the battles will be even more physical and tactical than what we have experienced so far this season.
“Many past matches in Europe involving the Springboks have been won by small margins,” added an assistant coach of the 2007 South Africa Rugby World Cup-winning team.
Coetzee identified defence, tactical kicking and conditioning as three areas requiring immediate improvement if a European whitewash is to be avoided.
“Our defence is not what it used to be,” he lamented. “This crucial facet of our play has been neglected. Perhaps we have become obsessed with expansive, ball-in-hand rugby.
“Our tactical kicking game has failed because of poor execution and poor chasing. We have to retain the strengths of South African rugby and get better at them.”
SuperSport TV analyst and former Springbok fly-half Naas Botha said: “Everybody talks about tactical kicking, but no one understands it.
“Tactical kicking is about the opponent having to work hard to get to the ball — not kicking straight down the throat of the opposing full-back.”
Coetzee said conditioning — an area where the Springboks have fallen far behind the All Blacks — was problematic and every individual needed to be handled differently.
South Africa play the Barbarians at Wembley Stadium on November 5, England at Twickenham on November 12, Italy on November 19 and Wales on November 26.

But with his boundless energy and outsized ego, the billionaire Republican has defied all predictions, proving to be a tenacious adversary for the far more experienced Hillary Clinton in the race for the White House.
Delivering corrosive speeches that play to the frustrations and insecurities of Americans in an evolving world, the 70-year-old Manhattan real estate mogul has become the voice of change for millions of them.
And he has blown up a Republican Party still struggling to understand his supporters — and still baffled by how, or whether, to dance with Tornado Trump.
Before launching his campaign in June 2015, Trump was known mainly for his immense fortune; for the luxury hotels, golf courses and casinos bearing his name; for the tabloid-worthy details of his divorces; and for being the star host of the reality TV show “The Apprentice.” All of this made his a familiar face in American households.
But he has also shown himself to be a formidable political animal, and an unlikely populist hero with his promise to “Make America Great Again.”
Trump is not afraid to say anything — really anything at all.
He hits his opponents where it hurts.
He decries a “rigged” system, denounces political officials as “corrupt” and says “the media poisons the mind of the American voter.”
He offers simple solutions for the most complex of problems — he says he will build a wall along the Mexican border, paid for by Mexico, to stop illegal immigration. He vows to expel the 11 million undocumented immigrants believed to be living in America. And he insists he can bring jobs back to America by renegotiating international trade deals.
To prevent attacks, he says he would ban from the United States immigrants from countries with “a proven history of terrorism,” after first saying he would ban all Muslims.
Trump is arrogant, charismatic, abrupt and sometimes funny.
Even if he contradicts himself and is not entirely conversant with every policy issue, as he showed during the three presidential debates, his supporters want to believe in him.
In their eyes, Trump — who so far has spent $56 million of his own money on his campaign — seems incorruptible, particularly when compared to Clinton, whose close Wall Street ties have earned their hatred.
Trump has nicknamed her “Crooked Hillary.”
During his campaign, Trump has insulted women, Muslims and Hispanics, while alienating black voters.
Ever the provocateur, he has even refused to say that he will recognize the result of the November 8 presidential election no matter what.
But he also lives what for many would be a dream, a life of luxury with a glamorous family: his wife Melania, a former model, now 46, is raising their son Barron, 10, far from the spotlights.
His adult children Ivanka, Don Jr, Eric and Tiffany are all taking part in his campaign.
Trump lives in a palatial, three-story penthouse — a veritable mini-Versailles — atop Trump Tower in New York, and travels in his private, gilded Boeing 757, which is in the background when he holds rallies at airports around the country.
With his trademark wispy, unruly blond hair and his impeccable suits, he both fascinates and horrifies.
He lies so much, and on so many subjects, that fact-checkers have a hard time keeping up.
When a dozen women came forward in October to accuse him of forcibly kissing or inappropriately touching them, he accused them all of lying and threatened to sue them.
Trump is not exactly an ideologue. He was a Democrat until 1987, then a Republican until 1999, then a member of the Reform Party up until 2001, then a Democrat for eight years before finally again becoming a Republican.
Born in New York — the fourth of five children of a real estate promoter — he had such a volcanic temper that at age 13, his parents sent him to a military school in hopes the regimented life there would have a calming influence.
After studying economics in college, he joined the family business. His father helped him out with what Trump has called a “small loan of a million dollars.”
The younger Trump took control of the family business in 1971. But while his father had built apartments for middle class New Yorkers, Donald preferred luxury high-rise hotels, glittering casinos and manicured golf courses, from Manhattan to Mumbai.
Trump, a wrestling fan, was also co-owner until 2015 of the Miss Universe and Miss USA pageants. And from 2004 to 2015, he hosted “The Apprentice.”
Through his career, Trump has filed or been the target of dozens of civil suits tied to his business dealings.
He has refused to divulge his US income tax returns — defying a decades-old tradition among White House hopefuls — and grudgingly acknowledged that he had paid no federal taxes for years, having declared a colossal loss of $916 million in 1995.
“That makes me smart,” he said.
Trump says he has “phenomenal” plans for his first 100 days as president, plans he says would kickstart change and boost growth.
Few people believe it. For Candidate Trump has shown himself to be his own worst enemy, regularly shooting himself in the foot with sensational declarations or with late-night tweets that can seem astonishingly juvenile… for someone aspiring to the US presidency.

Leg-spinner Devendra Bishoo and fast bowler Shannon Gabriel shared seven wickets between them to stop Pakistan from posting a big total on the opening day of the third and final Test in Sharjah on Sunday.
Pakistan were cruising along nicely at 230-4 when West Indies grabbed four quick wickets to put Pakistan on the back foot at 255-8 by close of play at the Sharjah stadium.
At close, tail-enders Mohammad Amir was batting on six and Yasir Shah on one as West Indies will look to bowl out Pakistan early on day two.
Pakistan, who won the toss on a batting-friendly pitch, saw opener Sami Aslam (72), Misbah-ul-Haq (53), Younis Khan (51) and Sarfraz Ahmed (51) all reach half centuries.
Ahmed and Misbah had added 80 for the fifth wicket but Pakistan lost four wickets in the space of 18 runs to slump to 248-8, with Bishoo registering figures of 4-74 and Gabriel 3-58.
“We are in a good position to get them out (under 300),” said Bishoo, who took a career best 8-49 in the first Test. “We must build on this good bowling performance by posting a good total and that will strengthen our position.”
That slump could hurt Pakistan’s chances of whitewashing West Indies 3-0 after winning the first Test by 56 runs in Dubai and the second by 133 runs in Abu Dhabi.
Misbah had started his record 49th Test as captain — bettering Imran Khan’s feat of 48 Tests as captain — on a good note when he won the third straight toss and instantly decided to bat, but his batsmen played reckless shots.
Misbah was himself guilty as he gloved a reverse sweep off Bishoo after hitting three fours and a six.
Misbah was lucky to survive a close leg-before decision after West Indian captain Jason Holder took a review against Australian umpire Paul Rieffel’s not out decision, but television umpire Richard Illingworth backed up the on-field official on the basis of sound, which could have been an edge off the bat.
That left West Indian players aggrieved.
Aslam, who added 106 for the third wicket with Younis, also fell to an irresponsible reverse sweep off Bishoo after looking set for his maiden hundred, having hit seven fours and a six in his 172-ball knock.
Younis, who hit four boundaries and a six off Chase in completing his 31st Test half century, also played a rash shot and was caught off Roston Chase.
Ahmed, who hit five fours, was bowled by Gabriel while at the other end Bishoo had Wahab Riaz for four.
Earlier, it was Gabriel who jolted the Pakistan innings at the start with the wickets of Ali and Shafiq in the very first over of the match.
Ali, who scored a career-best 302 not out in the first Test, edged a lifting delivery from Gabriel to slip after Sami had taken a single off the first ball.
Asad Shafiq also survived just one delivery before being trapped lbw as that time Holder successfully challenged Reiffel’s not out decision.
Pakistan brought back pacemen Mohammad Amir and Wahab Riaz — rested for the second Test — in place of Sohail Khan and Rahat Ali.
West Indies also made two changes from the Abu Dhabi Test, with fit-again wicketkeeper Shane Dowrich replacing Shai Hope and paceman Alzarri Joseph coming in for Miguel Cummins.

Studies by the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) put the estimated cost of damage and economic losses at 124 billion Haitian gourdes ($1.89 billion), officials with the Ministry of Economy and Finance told a news conference.
The storm, which killed 546 people according to official figures, battered an already fragile economy — one of the poorest in the world — with losses representing roughly one-fifth of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the officials said.
The southern region of Haiti, considered the country’s breadbasket, was particularly hard hit by winds of 150 miles per hour (250 kilometers per hour) and torrential rains.
The agricultural sector alone suffered losses estimated at nearly $600 million. And more than 175,000 people lost their homes, with those losses also estimated at close to $600 million, economists say.
The devastation comes as the country is in the midst of an electoral crisis.
The first round of presidential elections in 2015 had been canceled because of massive fraud and rescheduled for October 9 of this year.
But the hurricane’s arrival forced a new postponement, with the successive rounds now set for November 20 and January 29, 2017.
The biggest challenge for election officials will be to find suitable voting sites: more than 500 schools — traditionally used on election day — were damaged or destroyed.
Meanwhile, Haiti’s economic minister denounced misuse of humanitarian aid, sometimes for political purposes.
“We’re taking every possible measure to change that,” said the minister, Yves Romain Bastien.
But nearly a month after the hurricane, anger is mounting over the slow arrival of aid.
An adolescent was killed and three people wounded Tuesday in a small southwestern town, Dame-Marie, when fighting erupted as food was being distributed.

US PGA Tour rookie Grayson Murray birdied his final hole to take a two-shot lead over Ireland’s Seamus Power and England’s Greg Owen after two rounds of the Sanderson Farms Championship in Jackson, Mississippi.
Murray’s closing birdie on Friday at the Country Club of Jackson’s ninth hole — where he stuck his approach shot within three feet — was his eighth of the day in a seven-under 65 that gave him a 12-under total of 132.
Owen nabbed six birdies in his five-under 67 for 134 while Power followed up a first-round 65 with a three-under 69 that included four birdies.
Owen, making his 250th US PGA Tour start this week, is in search of his first title. His best finish was a solo second at the 2006 Arnold Palmer Invitational.
Former US Open champion Lucas Glover carded a 69 to head a group on 135 that also included Canada’s Graham DeLaet (69) and Americans Brandon Hagy (68) and Trey Mullinax (70).
The tournament played opposite the elite WGC-HSBC Champions in Shanghai features few of golf’s marquee names. American Chris Kirk, at 74th in the world, is the highest-ranked player in the field.
English veteran Ian Poulter, playing just his second tournament since a foot injury sidelined him for almost five months, missed the cut.
Poulter posted a two-under 70 on Thursday, and endured a tough back nine that included four bogeys on Friday en route to a 75 that left him one-over for the tournament.
First-round leader Kevin Streelman followed up his sparkling 63 of Thursday with a 73 that left him four off the pace.
He was in a group on 136 that also included Japan’s Hiroshi Iwata, Canadian Nick Taylor, Argentina’s Andres Romero, American Dicky Pride and American Cody Gribble — who climbed up the leaderboard with an impressive 63 of his own.

Antonio Conte has hinted Chelsea captain John Terry could be sent back to the bench for Sunday’s Premier League trip to Southampton.
Terry’s return to action in Chelsea’s midweek League Cup defeat at West Ham didn’t go according to plan as the centre-back struggled in his first appearance following six weeks on the sidelines with an ankle injury.
After three successive league wins without conceding a goal, Chelsea lost 2-1 to the Hammers and Terry’s error-strewn performance in Conte’s favoured three-man defence is unlikely to have persuaded the Italian to keep him in the starting line-up this weekend.
The back three system is alien to Terry, who thrived in a four-man defence for much of his career, and the 35-year-old was beaten in the air by Cheikhou Kouyate for West Ham’s first goal.
Conte eventually switched Terry from the central position to the left of the defence at half-time.
That leaves Terry as a potential casualty if the Blues boss recalls Marcos Alonso and Victor Moses to the wing-back roles and restores Cesar Azpilicueta to central defence.
“I don’t like to talk about individual players. We win together and we lose together in every circumstance,” Conte said.
“It’s logical that John came back from injury and it’s not easy to restart and to find quickly the right shape.
“John is an important player for us, if he plays, if he doesn’t play, for the changing room, for his team-mates, for the club.
“I repeat: in this case always it’s important the team and not to think or to speak about an individual player.
“I have always to take the best decision for the team, never for an individual player.”
Conte made seven changes against West Ham, stalling the momentum from last Sunday’s 4-0 demolition of Manchester United.
He wants a response against Southampton and has no intention of tinkering with the tactical formation that brought him success with Juventus and Italy.
“We wanted to win and to continue in the cup. It didn’t happen,” Conte said.
“It’s a pity, but on Sunday we have another tough game and it’s important our head now stays concentrated for this game.
“I think it’s the right way for the players. It’s a good fit for the team, this system.
“For sure we must continue to work in the offensive situations and also in defensive situation.
“It’s not easy, it’s completely different when you defend with four and when you defend with three defenders.”
Chelsea enter this weekend’s fixtures in fourth place, one point behind table-toppers Manchester City, who lead Arsenal and Liverpool on goal difference.
But Conte refuses to talk up his team’s title chances at this stage.
“We shouldn’t look at the table,” he added. “It’s important to improve game by game, to continue to trust in the work. These are the most important things now, not the table.
“In this league, there is great balance and in every game, anything can happen. You can win, but you can lose.”
Meanwhile, Southampton manager Claude Puel says he will carry on rotating his squad against Chelsea to keep them fresh following their midweek League Cup win over Sunderland.
Puel has been successfully tweaking his team as he juggles Southampton’s Premier League, Europa League and League Cup commitments.
And despite a series of defensive injuries, Saints are on an impressive run of one defeat in 10 matches in all competitions.
“I think it was important at the beginning to prepare all the players,” Puel said.
“We can see it is a good thing now, because we can keep good results.
“I hope we can recover some players for the future, for all the games, but of course to turn and to change the team often is important.”

World championship leader Nico Rosberg wound up third in Friday?s second free practice at the Mexican Grand Prix and said he faced ?a lot of homework to do? to improve his performance on Saturday.
The German was four-tenths of a second off the pace set by fastest man Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari and his Mercedes team-mate defending three-time champion Lewis Hamilton.
?It?s been an unusual day out there,? said Rosberg, who is 26 points clear of Hamilton with three races remaining. ?The low temperatures and a very green track.
?So, its been a bit of a steep learning curve to understand what to do with the tyres ?- how to get the best out of them and also the long runs.
?We really learned a lot and its not been a bad start overall, but we have a lot of homework to do tonight.
?The car was feeling okay on the medium tyre, but even there, we need to make some progress to understand where we can find some more performance.
?Ferrari are quick here and they look like a bit threat, but let?s see how it goes tomorrow.”
Hamilton said he was enthused by the big and enthusiastic Mexican crowds and he had a solid day in terms of race preparation.
?The cars are faster, but our lap times are pretty strong already. The track feels better to me than it did last year and I feel a lot more comfortable in the car so I hope I can carry that right through the weekend.?
Hamilton was fastest ahead of Vettel in Friday morning?s opening practice session and knows he has to repeat his victory in last Sunday?s United States Grand Prix to keep his title challenge alive.

Veteran Formula One team founder and principal Frank Williams is making a steady recovery from pneumonia in hospital in England, it was revealed late on Friday.
The 74-year-old team chief has been a tetraplegic and confined to a wheelchair since a car crash in France 30 years ago, but amazed and inspired his family, team, friends and paddock colleagues, not to mention fans and a wider public, with his energy and determination.
Word of his illness came during a news conference at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez ahead of this weekend’s Mexican Grand Prix where one of his team’s former drivers, German Nico Rosberg has a chance to win his maiden drivers’ title.
The Williams team’s chief executive Mike O’Driscoll said: “Frank was taken ill at Monza (in September). He’s had a tough time in hospital. He’s contracted pneumonia. He is making a slow and steady recovery.”
O’Driscoll was deputising for Williams’s daughter Claire Williams, the deputy team principal, at the event because she had decided to remain at her father’s side.
“We hope to see him back at Grove (Williams’ base) very soon. We all know how determined he is,” added O’Driscoll of one of the most popular figures in the sport.
“We expect Claire to be back at a race. She has wanted to stay close to home, close to Frank, but in this modern world, you’re never more than a phone call away.
“So we stay connected. She is part of everything that happens on a minute-by-minute, day-by-day basis. We hope to see her by the end of the year. Hopefully, that will be in Abu Dhabi (the final race on November 27).”
Under Williams’s guidance with fellow-founder technical director Patrick Head, the team has won nine constructors’ championships and seven drivers’ titles, the last claimed by Canadian Jacques Villeneuve in 1997.
Briton Damon Hill won the title with Williams in 1996.
Williams was taken to hospital two years ago because of a pressure sore and made a full recovery.
The team are scheduled to announce their 2017 driver line-up on Thursday having re-signed Finn Valtteri Bottas. He is expected to be partnered by Canadian rookie Lance Strol.
This season the team are in a battle for fourth place in the championship with Silverstone-based Force India after finishing third for the last two years.
“I’d like to give a lot of credit to Force India as they have done a superb job bringing the fight to us and making the battle more interesting than we would have liked,” said O’Driscoll, echoing the dry wit of Williams, who was honoured with a knighthood in 1999 and has also been made a Chevalier of France’s Legion d’honneur.
“We haven’t given up the fight for fourth place and we intend to get it back in the remaining three races.”

Three-time world champion Patrick Chan is turning heads early and Sochi gold medalists Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir marked their return to the ISU Grand Prix with a sparkling performance on Friday.
Chan seized a commanding lead after the men’s short program as rival Yuzuru Hanyu stumbled through his routine and placed fourth at Skate Canada, the second stop on the ISU figure skating Grand Prix calendar.
Chan, who changed coaches just before the start of this season, finished with 90.56 points while Olympic champion Hanyu is almost 11 points back with a score of 79.65.
Japan’s Takahito Mura is second at 81.24 and Kevin Reynolds is third with 80.57 as Canadian and Japanese skaters took the top four spots.
This is the second straight year Hanyu has failed to impress in the short program at Skate Canada. Last year in Lethbridge, Alberta, he finished seventh in the short before rallying in the free skate to place second behind winner Chan.
On Friday, Hanyu took a knee on his first jump, bent over on the second and failed to execute a combination.
Chan summed up his performance by saying he feels “very comfortable.”
“The jumps didn’t turn out to be feeling as good as they were in practice. But I think that’s normal jitters and adrenaline from being at competition. That was proof of the training.”
Virtue and Moir skated a short dance in a Grand Prix for the first time since taking the silver medal at the Sochi Winter Olympics two years ago.
Their 77.23 points was their third best career short dance score and they lead by 1.02 points over world bronze medalists Madison Chock and Evan Bates.
World and European champion Evgenia Medvedeva produced a short program personal best score of 76.24 points to seize control of the ladies’ competition.
The 16-year-old Russian landed all of her jumps cleanly as she bettered her previous short program best of 74.58 set at last season’s Grand Prix Final.
The sparkling performance gave her a 1.91-point lead over Canadian Kaetlyn Osmond, the surprise Skate Canada winner last year.
Russia’s Elizaveta Tuktamysheva, the 2015 world champion, is in third place, 9.45 points off the lead.
Medvedeva became the youngest world champion since Tara Lipinski in 1997 with her triumph in Boston in April.
Since winning the junior world title in 2015 she has been all but unstoppable, with victories in the Grand Prix Final, the European championships and worlds.
Competition in Mississauga, Ontario, 27 kilometers southwest of Toronto, continues Saturday when medals will be decided with all four free skates.

Surprise package Nice can stretch their lead at the top of Ligue 1 to six points on Sunday after Monaco laboured to a 1-1 draw at Saint-Etienne.
Unbeaten Nice host struggling Nantes knowing that victory would propel them clear in the French league, with Monaco now second, ahead of Paris Saint Germain only on goal difference in what looks increasingly like a three-way title fight.
Monaco went ahead in Saint-Etienne after only five minutes on Saturday thanks to centre-back Kamil Glik, but the home side pulled level just 13 minutes later through defender Loic Perrin’s bullet header.
Monaco were marginally the better side without creating enough clear-cut chances.
Their best opportunity came two minutes into stoppage time, but Saint-Etienne goalkeeper Stephane Ruffier was down smartly to save from Gabriel Boschilia after the Monaco substitute jigged his way to find rare space in the box.
“The team played well against a good opponent. We had many chances,” said Monaco coach Leonardo Jardim.
“Of course the ambition is always to win and I’m disappointed with the result, but I’m happy with the attitude of the players and the quality of our play.
“The championship is tighter than in the past and our ambition is to win the title.”
Earlier, 10-man Lyon survived a late onslaught to earn a 2-1 away win at high-flying Toulouse with Alexandre Lacazette scoring both goals.
It was just Lyon’s fifth win in 11 league outings this season, after coach Brunio Genesio was handed an ultimatum last week by club owner Jean-Michel Aulas to notch up 31 points before the winter break or face the chop.
Last year’s runners-up now have 16 points with eight games still to come before Christmas.
Lyon star striker Lacazette, 25, opened the scoring with a nervously struck spot-kick on 15 minutes against the run of play.
Toulouse central defender Christopher Jullien then produced a towering header, rising above the Lyon back four to meet a free-kick to level the game on 26 minutes.
But after the break Lacazette sped past two defenders to latch onto a long ball, skip round the 17-year-old Toulouse ‘keeper Alban Lafont and fire Lyon back in front on 52 minutes for what turned out to be the winner.
“Consistency makes all the difference at a big club and makes an institution strong,” owner Aulas told French television after the game.
“And I’d like to extend his contract,” he said of Lacazette, who scored his 100th and 101st goals for the club to underline his prowess in front of goal.
Montpellier had to scramble youth players to make up the numbers for their match at Lorient after gastric flu swept through an already injury-depleted squad.
To their credit Montpellier, struggling around the relegation zone and with just 15 fit players, came from two goals down to eke out a 2-2 draw at Lorient, who stay bottom.
On Friday a thunderous second-half strike from Edinson Cavani gave champions Paris Saint Germain a 1-0 win over Lille.
It was a moment of magic from 29-year-old Cavani as the Uruguayan controlled Angel di Maria’s pass with his chest, swivelled and unleashed an unstoppable shot for his 10th league goal of the campaign.
Nice have 26 points from 10 games, ahead of Monaco and PSG, who both have 23 points but have played a game more than the leaders.

Italy’s major risks commission cautioned Friday that there may be more powerful earthquakes to come following two this week in the country’s mountainous centre and a deadly one in August.
“There is no current evidence that the (seismic) sequence underway is coming to an end,” it warned.
The National Commission for the Forecast and Prevention of Major Risks (CGR) said that in the wake of the August 24 quake that killed nearly 300 people it had identified three areas at risk for further seismic activity.
The areas were “adjoining the fault responsible” for the disaster which levelled entire villages, it said in a statement referring to the fracture in the earth’s crust where quakes can occur.
They were areas “which have not seen recent, large earthquakes and could produce high-magnitude quakes (6-7)”, it added.
Wednesday’s quakes (5.5 and 6.1 magnitude) “activated one of the areas identified by the commission, to the north of the August quake, while the other two did not move,” it said.
Those that did not move, both in the central Appenines, “represent possibile sources of future earthquakes in the region”.
In particular, the commission said it “cannot rule out the continuation of seismic activity to the north of the Vettore-Bove,” referring to Mount Vettore and Mount Bove on the border between the Umbria and Marche regions.
It described the earthquakes, which Wednesday brought down houses but left the local populations largely unscathed, to be typical of those in the Apennines, and warned history shows very strong quakes can follow each other here even months apart.

Andy Murray defeated injured John Isner for the seventh time in seven meetings Friday to reach the Vienna semi-finals and take another step closer to deposing Novak Djokovic as world number one.
Murray, the 2014 champion in the Austrian capital, cruised to a 6-1, 6-3 win over the big American who required treatment on his blistered right hand early in the second set.
World number two Murray, who now has 68 wins in 2016 and is on a 14-match win streak, broke serve three times in a dominant opening set, committing just one unforced error to Isner’s 20.
By the end of the one-sided affair, Murray’s error count was just 10 to 35 to the outclassed American.
Murray needs to win the Vienna title on Sunday, as well as next week’s Paris Masters, to have a chance to knock Djokovic off the world top spot.
On Saturday, the 29-year-old faces defending champion and fifth seed David Ferrer who saved a match point and recovered from a break down to beat Serbia’s Viktor Troicki 6-3, 3-6, 7-5.
Ferrer, who is attempting to extend a streak which has seen him reach at least one final in each of the past 11 years, will be up against it facing Murray — he trails 6-14 with the Scot winning the last seven.
Big-serving Ivo Karlovic saved a match point and fired 29 aces to defeat Russia’s Karen Khachanov 6-7 (5/7), 7-6 (7/5), 6-3 to reach the semi-finals.
Karlovic, 17 years older than his 20-year-old opponent, saved the match point in the 12th game of the second set.
The Croatian veteran will next face sixth seed and 2011 champion Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France who defeated Spain’s Albert Ramos-Vinolas 6-2, 7-6 (7/5).
Karlovic now has a season-leading 1,081 aces.

Top seed and US Open champion Stan Wawrinka slumped to a shock 6-2, 5-7, 6-1 defeat to German qualifier Mischa Zverev on Friday, limping out of the Swiss Indoors event in the quarter-finals.
Zverev, 29, and ranked 72 in the world, will now face Croatian fourth seed Marin Cilic, who beat Spain’s Marcel Granollers 6-3, 6-3, for a place in the final.
Wawrinka has a poor history at the Swiss tournament played in Roger Federer’s hometown, despite playing the event for 13 of the last 14 years.
He ended a run of four straight first-round defeats with a pair of wins this week having made his only real impression in 2011 with a semi-final against Federer.
Wawrinka was broken for 2-5 in the first set, got the tie back level by winning the second before going down a double break in the decider on his way to defeat in just under two hours.
“Zverev almost beat Novak Djokovic two weeks ago in Shanghai,” Wawrinka said.
“He is an offensive player who likes to rely on the speed of the ball from the opponent.”
Two-time champion Juan Martin del Potro hit 14 aces but still went down to a 7-5, 6-4 loss to Kei Nishikori.
Defeat wrapped up the ATP season for the Argentine, who will skip next week’s Paris Masters to return home to train for the Davis Cup final against Croatia.
Nishikori will Saturday play to reach his second Basel final — he lost the 2011 title match to Federer — when he takes on Gilles Muller, a 6-7 (4/7), 6-4, 7-6 (7/3) winner over Argentine Federico Delbonis.
Wild card Del Potro, whose ranking of 42 is 1,000 places better than in February when he returned after almost a year of wrist problems and surgery, lost for the first time to third seed Nishikori.
The pair last played four years ago at the London Olympics.
Nishikori dealt out only seven aces, but fired his last one to earn a pair of match points — one was enough as he put away a volley winner at the net.
“This was my best match of the week,” said Nishikori as he ended a 12-match win streak for Del Potro at the Basel St Jakobshalle venue where the South American claimed the 2012 and 2013 titles over Federer.
“It was a tough match. I had so many chances, so many break points that I could not convert,” said Nishikori, who fended off all eight break points against his serve.
“I played good tactics today, everything was working well.”
Del Potro was pleased with his week which came after he lifted his first title in nearly three years at Stockholm last Sunday.
“I’ve been trying to fix my problems for the past two years, and I didn’t expect to win a title at this moment in my career. It’s still a motivation for looking forward to the future.
“I felt exhausted during the whole match, I couldn’t fight as I wanted. I had chances at the start of the first set, but Kei played very smart.
“I’ve played so many matches, it’s too much for me. But I’m finishing the season well, I’m so glad for that.”

Shrugging off a partially-observed strike which the opposition called to raise pressure on him, the socialist president went on the counterattack.
Maduro sharpened the tone in a volatile political and economic crisis that has sparked food shortages and riots in the South American oil producer.
“If they launch a supposed political trial, which is not in our constitution, the state prosecution service must bring legal action in the courts and put in jail anyone who violates the constitution, even if they are members of Congress,” Maduro said in a speech Friday.
Friday’s strike was called after authorities blocked a bid by the center right-dominated MUD coalition to hold a referendum on removing Maduro from power.
After that move, the crisis heated up this week. Opposition lawmakers vowed to put Maduro on trial and exchanged accusations of coup-mongering with the mustachioed president.
Friday’s strike seemed to be only partially observed.
In the capital Caracas and cities such as Maracaibo and San Cristobal, the streets were quieter than normal but public transport was running and banks and some schools opened as usual.
Clashes broke out in recent days between riot police and pro- and anti-government protesters around the country.
Maduro earlier threatened to break the strike by sending the army to take over firms that took part in it.
The center-right coalition’s latest move to pressure the unpopular leftist leader came after anti-government protests drew hundreds of thousands of people on Wednesday.
Maduro vowed to respond forcefully.
But he also extended a carrot to the struggling workers who have served as his socialist party’s traditional base: a 40 percent increase in the minimum wage, to the equivalent of about $140 a month.
But economic analysts called that a drop in the bucket for a country the International Monetary Fund says is facing inflation of 475 percent this year, rising to 1,660 percent next year.
And a wage hike may only add fuel to the inflationary fire.
Although Venezuela boasts the world’s largest oil reserves, falling crude prices have plunged the country into an economic crisis.
Maduro calls the crisis a capitalist conspiracy. The opposition blames his economic policies.
The recession has spawned a messy political battle, after the opposition won a majority in the National Assembly last December.
That forced the president to share power with an opposition legislature for the first time since Maduro’s predecessor and mentor, the late socialist firebrand Hugo Chavez, came to power in 1999.
Maduro accuses the National Assembly of staging a “parliamentary coup” by voting to put him on trial for alleged breach of duty.
The opposition says it is Maduro who is staging a coup d’etat by blocking a referendum.
Fears of violent unrest are mounting in the country, where rioting at anti-government protests killed 43 people in 2014.
The opposition has vowed to march next week on the presidential palace, the scene of a short-lived but deadly opposition coup attempt against Chavez in 2002.
Maduro has said he wants to address the crisis in a “national dialogue” with opponents from Sunday, a plan he claims is backed by Pope Francis.
The MUD said it would agree to talks only if the government respects the constitutional right to a referendum and frees imprisoned activists, among other demands.
It remained unclear whether any talks would go ahead on Sunday.
Also Friday, Venezuela’s high court issued a ruling in response to claims from some of Maduro’s opponents that he has Colombian nationality, which would disqualify him from being president.
The court said Maduro “is Venezuelan by birth and has no other nationality.”

Around 1,000 people demonstrated in the Ivorian capital Abidjan on Friday against a weekend referendum on a new constitution which the opposition has denounced as dangerously anti-democratic.
The proposed new constitution has been championed by President Alassane Ouattara, who claims it will “definitively turn the page on successive crises” in Ivory Coast.
But the opposition has called for a boycott of Sunday’s referendum on the adoption of a new constitution that changes contentious rules on presidential eligibility.
There was a heavy police presence early on Friday as demonstrators took to the streets holding up banners reading “Two mandates is enough” and shouting “Power to the people”.
But when several groups of protesters tried to make their way to a square near the presidential residence, police began firing tear gas to stop them, several witnesses told AFP.
An interior ministry spokesman confirmed police had tried to break up the demonstration, saying it was to prevent the protesters from causing a disturbance in Abidjan’s business district.
“Some of them with negative intentions tried to go to Place de la Republique which would have disturbed business activity, so we stopped them from reaching these areas.”
The Ivorian Popular Front, the party of former president Laurent Gbagbo, is fiercely opposed to the proposed new basic law, criticising the lack of consultation involved and warning it would worsen, not improve, security.
The draft constitution, which parliament overwhelmingly approved earlier this week, changes the rules on presidential eligibility and establishes a senate.
Critically, it would lift the current requirement that both parents of a presidential candidate must have been born in Ivory Coast.
Ouattara’s father was born in neighbouring Burkina Faso and the question of parentage was one of the issues which led to months of deadly post-election violence in 2010.
At the time Gbagbo, the defeated candidate, refused to cede power over the issue, triggering widespread violence in which around 3,000 people died.
Ouattara says the amendments will help end years of instability and conflict in the world’s top cocoa producer.
The draft also sets up the post of vice president and allows the president to appoint a third of the senate, a provision the opposition is particularly unhappy with.
Gbagbo is currently on trial at the International Criminal Court for war crimes in connection with the deadly unrest that followed his refusal to concede his election to Ouattara in 2010.

Greg Oden, the 2007 top draft pick whose NBA dreams were derailed by injuries, says his playing days are over.
“It’s over,” Oden told an Indianapolis Star reporter who caught up with the 28-year-old, who is enrolled this semester at Ohio State University.
That’s where Oden became a basketball star — leading the Buckeyes to the national championship game. Although Ohio State fell to Florida, the seven-foot Oden had caught the eye of NBA scouts and leapt into the league the next year touted as the NBA’s next great big man.
But after he was snapped up by the Portland Trail Blazers he played just three seasons in the NBA after suffering a string of knee injuries that have required seven operations.
After leaving the Trail Blazers he tried a comeback in 2013-2014 after joining the Miami Heat, but played just 23 games after a three-year layoff.
Through dismal years in which he was labeled one of the biggest busts in the league history, Oden also struggled with alcohol, and reached a plea deal in a 2014 incident in which he was accused of punching his ex-girlfriend in the face.
Last year he attempted to relaunch his playing career in China, signing for the Jiangsu Dragons.
He told the Star that now he’s hoping to stay in touch with the game working as student coach assisting head coach Thad Matta at Ohio State.
“I’m still trying to figure out my life,” Oden told the Star. “Since I’ve been in fourth grade, all I’ve known was basketball. I’m just trying to better myself and work on my degree and set something up for the future of my family.”

Kosovo’s special prosecutor filed a war crimes indictment Friday against a top guerrilla commander turned politician who has twice before been charged and acquitted over atrocities in the 1990s conflict.
The indictment says MP Fatmir Limaj was responsible for the killing of two civilians in November 1998 when the independence-seeking Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was fighting Serbian forces, the prosecutor’s office announced.
It added that Limaj “as a member of the KLA and commander of 121 Brigade, did not take reasonable and necessary measures within his power to prevent or halt” the killings in central Kosovo.
He also “deliberately did not take measures to discover the perpetrators of this crime”.
With the nom de guerre “Steel”, Limaj was one of the most prominent leaders of the ethnic Albanian KLA, which fought the forces of late Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic from 1998 to 1999.
The war ended after a three-month NATO air campaign which ousted Milosevic’s forces from Kosovo, paving the way for the southern province’s unilateral declaration of independence a decade later.
Limaj, 45, was charged in 2003 by a UN tribunal in The Hague over another war crimes case but acquitted two years later.
In 2013, an EU-led court also acquitted him of abusing Serb and Albanian civilians and Serb prisoners during the conflict.
In a statement Friday he denied the fresh indictment, saying it marked the “continuation of his persecution”.
Limaj served as a transport minister after the war and was one of the founders of what is now Kosovo’s largest political party, the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK).
The politician has also been charged with corruption and organised crime during his ministerial post.

The European Union’s diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini will head to Iran and Saudi Arabia for talks on the Syrian conflict, a statement said on Friday.
Mogherini will visit Tehran on Saturday and Riyadh on Monday for “senior level talks” continuing the EU’s “outreach to key actors in the region on the Syrian crisis”, it said.
The diplomatic push comes with no end in sight to a conflict that has aligned regional powers on opposite sides, with Iran backing President Bashar al-Assad and Saudi Arabia a key supporter of the rebels fighting to oust him.
Syrian rebels launched a major assault Friday aimed at breaking a months-long siege of opposition-held districts of Aleppo, as regime ally Russia held off on renewed air strikes.
More than 300,000 people have been killed and millions forced to flee their homes since Syria’s conflict erupted in March 2011 with protests calling for Assad’s ouster.

Zimbabwe hope to make a bright start under new coach Heath Streak when they mark their 100th Test in the opening game of a two-match series against Sri Lanka at Harare Sports Club on Saturday.
Streak was handed the Zimbabwe reins two weeks ago as a long-term replacement for Dav Whatmore, who was sacked by Zimbabwe Cricket at the end of May.
A former Zimbabwe captain who played 65 Tests, Streak’s appointment has given the team much-needed structure ahead of the series, while they have also enjoyed some welcome match practice against Pakistan A over the past month.
“We’ve had some really good preparations with the games against Pakistan A, which has given the guys some match practice that was probably lacking in the previous Test series that we had,” Streak said on Friday.
“We saw that as the guys got into the Test series against New Zealand (in August) they started playing better, so hopefully this will stand us in good stead.”
Zimbabwe have fielded 99 different players in their first 99 Tests, and Streak all but confirmed that they would hand out another cap in Saturday’s first Test.
Top-order batsman Tarisai Musakanda and fast bowler Carl Mumba earned maiden call-ups to the Zimbabwe squad based on their performances against Pakistan A, with the latter the most likely to make a debut against Sri Lanka.
“It will be a nice stat, being the 100th Test match, and the possibility of the 100th cap is certainly on the cards for tomorrow,” Streak said.
“We’ve got some young guys who are pushing really hard now so there’s some good competition for positions.”
Zimbabwe’s chances of causing an upset against a Sri Lanka side that recently beat Australia 3-0 at home have been boosted by the touring side’s long injury list.
Regular captain Angelo Mathews and vice-captain Dinesh Chandimal are missing, along with fast bowlers Dhammika Prasad, Nuwan Pradeep and Dushmantha Chameera.
The absence of Mathews and Chandimal has paved the way for left-arm spinner Rangana Herath to make a remarkable captaincy debut at the ripe old age of 38, 17 years after making his Test debut.
Herath will be the oldest player to captain a Test team for the first time since Somachandra de Silva led Sri Lanka out in a Test match in Christchurch in 1983.
“Luckily I have played under a lot of captains so I can use that experience in bringing through the youngsters,” said Herath.
Although Sri Lanka visited Zimbabwe in 2010 for a one-day international tri-series, they have not played a Test here since 2004, when they thumped a Zimbabwe side shorn of its first team by the rebel saga.
“It’s been 12 years since we were here, so this is a new challenge and opportunity,” added Herath.
“Hopefully the guys who get the opportunity will play their best. This is a new challenge for me so I’ll take the experience very positively.”

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte Friday appealed to opposition parties to help find a compromise over amending a EU-Ukraine treaty, rejected by voters in April, or risk seeing the key cooperation pact fail.
If no solution is found, Rutte warned his government would have no choice but to propose a law perhaps as soon as Monday withdrawing the country’s support for the accord between Kiev and the European Union.
“In the interests of our country, I call on all of those who feel responsible to find a solution,” Rutte told journalists at his weekly press conference.
The Netherlands is the only member of the 28-strong bloc yet to ratify the accord, which aims to nudge Ukraine closer to Europe and away from the orbit of former Soviet master Russia.
Rejecting the agreement “will lead to greater instability and a suggestion of a divided Europe,” Rutte said, highlighting the need for a united front on issues such as the war in Syria.
He has been walking a political tightrope since the April 6 referendum — organised by eurosceptic groups — in which 60 percent of voters rejected the accord, despite a very low voter turnout.
But he is in a Catch-22 situation having failed to convince opposition parties to back his proposals to amend the accord by adding a military “opt-out” clause and guarantees of no EU membership for Ukraine.
The opposition wants him to negotiate with Brussels first and bring back an amended treaty for debate.
But Rutte said Brussels first wants assurances the accord will be passed by the Dutch parliament before asking other member states to accept any proposed changes.
His coalition government needs 38 votes in the 76-seat upper house of parliament for the accord to be ratified, but he only has 21 votes so far.
“Time is running out and I am not optimistic,” said Rutte, who has been given until Tuesday by the lower house to come up with a solution.
But he warned “this issue is bigger than the Netherlands, much bigger. We are also part of a broader community and have to show a united front in the fight for stability on our borders and aggression in the world.”
The European Union is battling deep divisions over various crises, including an unprecedented wave of refugees, financial woes in some member states and criticism over trade accords with Canada and the United States.

Former British Cycling technical director Shane Sutton had a complaint against him that he aimed “inappropriate and discriminatory language” at cyclist Jess Varnish upheld on Friday, the national governing body announced.
The 59-year-old Australian — a key figure in the success of British cyclists at both the Beijing and London Olympics — contested the allegations made by Varnish although he did step down from his role 100 days before the Rio Olympics.
Varnish, a former world and European Championship medallist, claimed Sutton had told her to “go and have a baby” after her contract was not renewed.
“Following an internal investigation, the British Cycling board has upheld an allegation made by Jess Varnish that former technical director Shane Sutton had used inappropriate and discriminatory language,” read a statement from British Cycling.
“The board wishes to put on record its sincere regret that this happened.”
Their findings have been passed on to the members of an independent review into the culture of British Cycling, commissioned by the national governing body and elite sport funding body, UK Sport.
Friday’s decision couldn’t have come at a worse time for British cycling.
The country’s hugely successful Rio Games have been tarnished by leaked medical records showing star Bradley Wiggins obtained therapeutic use exemption (TUE) from cycling authorities for the powerful corticosteroid triamcinolone for his asthma prior to three major road races, including the 2012 Tour de France which he won.

The FBI told US lawmakers Friday it has reopened its review of White House frontrunner Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal email server when she was secretary of state, after discovering new mails “that appear to be pertinent.”
FBI director James Comey said his agency would take “appropriate investigative steps” to decide whether a new batch of mails contained classified information “as well as to assess their importance to the investigation.”
Clinton’s Republican rival Donald Trump immediately jumped on the news, praising the FBI for reviewing its decision to close the inquiry and arguing that the Democrat’s use of a private email server while in office should disqualify her from the presidency.
“We must not let her take her criminal scheme into the Oval Office,” Trump told cheering crowds at a campaign rally in Manchester, New Hampshire.
“I have great respect for the fact that the FBI and the Department of Justice are now willing to have the courage to right the horrible mistake that they made,” he declared.
Comey made his announcement in a letter to House and Senate committee leaders whom he had previously briefed that the FBI investigation was complete and had found no evidence Clinton broke the law.
Writing to “supplement” this assessment, he told lawmakers that “in connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation.”
There was no immediate reaction from the Clinton campaign.

Sebastian Vettel added the prospect of another unexpected dimension to the drivers? title battle on Friday when he put his Ferrari on top of the times in second free practice for this weekend?s Mexican Grand Prix.
The four-time champion was fastest with a best lap in one minute and 19.790 seconds ?- just 0.004 seconds quicker than Hamilton who, in turn, was three-tenths of a second ahead of his championship leading Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg.
If he can maintain that speed and form, Vettel could not only influence the result of Sunday?s race at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, but also play a key part in the outcome of the championship duel between the Briton and the German.
?Yes, of course, I am happy, but it is Friday and maybe too early to talk like that,? said Vettel.
?I think we need to be realistic. I don?t think Lewis had the best of laps today. It didn?t look particularly good so I think he has a little bit more in his pocket so let?s be realistic.
?But if we can do this again and be here again, at the front, I will take that. It has been a good day for us. We had the pace and we had no problems.”
Vettel?s unexpected revivial in the thin air of the high-altitude circuit created the prospect of Ferrari playing a role in the outcome of the race and, possibly, splitting the two Mercedes drivers.
Rosberg goes into the race with a lead of 26 points with three races remaining knowing that if he wins on Sunday he can take his maiden title if Hamilton fails to score more than a single point.
Defending three-time world champion Hamilton made three attempts to beat Vettel?s time without success, but did a steady job throughout the day.
Both Mercedes drivers were locked in intense race preparations with their race teams as they concentrated on set-up and tyres in particular.
Kimi Raikkonen endorsed the improvement by the Italian team by clocking the fourth best time in the second Ferrari, 0.469 seconds down, ahead of fifth-placed Australian Daniel Ricciardo in the leading Red Bull.
Ricciardo conceded that he felt it may be more difficult for Red Bull to impress at the Mexican circuit than they have at other recent events.
?It may not be easy, but we know from previous races that anything can happen and if we can get the best from the tyres we can be thereabouts. I am sure we are going to be quick in race trim.?
Asked about his possible role as ?king-maker?, he said he had no intention of thinking about it and would concentrate on racing hard as usual.
?I will treat it the same as always and race hard,? he said. ?The championship will be settled over the 21 races and that?s what will happen. Let?s see.?
Nico Hulkenberg was sixth for Force India ahead of Max Verstappen in the second Red Bull, the Dutch teenager setting his best laps on the medium tyres while most of his rivals were running on super-softs.
Valtteri Bottas was eighth for Williams, ahead of the two Spaniards, Carlos Sainz of Toro Rosso and two-time champion Ferando Alonso of McLaren-Honda.
Williams team boss Frank Williams was not in Mexico as he remained in hospital in England where he was reported to be recovering from pneumonia. His daughter Claire Williams, the team?s deputy chief, was also absent having decided to stay with him.

Two-time Olympic judo gold medallist Kayla Harrison is planning to follow former USA sparring partner Ronda Rousey into mixed martial arts and has inked a contract with the World Series of Fighting.
“I can’t begin to express how excited I am about having a two-time Olympic judo gold medal winner on our team,” WSF chief executive Carlos Silva said in a post on the organization’s website.
“As someone who was very involved in the Olympic movement with NBC, I can tell you just how special it is to win one gold medal. To come back four years later and do it all over again is incredibly remarkable.”
Harrison became the first US woman to win Olympic judo gold at the 2012 London Games, where her personal story of recovery in the wake of sexual abuse by a judo coach made her triumph all the more compelling.
She won gold again in Rio this year.
She’ll begin commentating for WSF in December as she continues to hone her skills with a view to eventually fighting in the series.
“Kayla has made it clear she wants to be fully prepared to make a splash in her MMA debut,” Silva said. “She knows expectations will be high, and she plans to prove to the world that she’s worth the excitement.”
There had long been speculation that the 26-year-old Harrison could join Rousey under the Ultimate Fighting Championship banner.
Rousey, a former Olympic judo bronze medallist, remains UFC’s top female star despite a brutal knockout by Holly Holm in Melbourne last year. Rousey is slated to return to the Octagon on December 30 against current UFC bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes.

October marked a record monthly high in the number of migrants arriving in Italy in recent years, with over 27,000 people reaching its shores.
Italy’s interior ministry released figures Thursday showing that 26,161 people — almost all from West Africa and the Horn of Africa — arrived here this month. Almost another 1,000 were pulled from their dinghies later that day.
Even at the height of recent summers, arrivals have only ever once exceeded 25,000 a month. The new record brings the total number this year to 159,000, outstripping the 2015 total of 153,000 and approaching the record of 170,000 arrivals in 2014.
“The smugglers are certainly better organised, since they have been able to send off up to 11,000 people in two days,” Flavio Di Giacomo, spokesman for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Italy, told AFP.
“But the migrants tell us they are afraid that the route will close in a few months,” particularly with a new European programme launching this week to train the Libyan coast guard.
“And if there is one thing that migrants do not want, it is to be rescued by Libyan coastguards, who take them to detention centres and plunge them back into the cycle of abuse and violence,” he added.
The IOM, which speaks to the arriving migrants, heard “staggering” stories of torture, rape, starvation and murder in the crisis-hit country, he said.
Many were squeezing onto the overcrowded smuggler dinghies and increasingly unseaworthy boats, with over 200 people dying in the last ten days and fears of greater tragedies to come in the coming weeks if the mass departures continue.
Italy finds itself in a particularly challenging position with most of the new arrivals forced to remain in the country due to border blocks imposed by its neighbours.
Centres for asylum-seekers — now overwhelmingly located in former hotels — housed 66,000 people in 2014 and 103,000 by the end of 2015. That figure has now hit 171,000, and local authorities are struggling to find new places.
Despite the government’s plan to spread migrants throughout the country, with an average of three migrants per 1,000 inhabitants, many mayors are resisting, backed sometimes by protesting locals.
On Monday, people in Gorino, a village of some 700 people in the Delta del Po, erected barricades to prevent the arrival of 12 women in a hotel that had been requisitioned.
“This is not how Italians do things,” raged the Interior Minister Angelino Alfano, though he was forced to allow the project to be abandoned and the women settled in elsewhere.
But Italy’s anti-migrant Northern League party praised “the new heroes of the resistance against the dictatorship of hospitality”.
And during a protest late Thursday outside a barracks in Milan set to soon house 300 migrants, the party’s leader Matteo Salvini called on security forces to rebel.
“It is right to obey, but so is it right to disobey bad orders,” he added in comments slammed by two police unions Friday as “a very serious and irresponsible provocation”.

Russia on Friday failed to win re-election at the United Nations Human Rights Council in a vote rights groups said reflected international disapproval of Moscow’s involvement in the war in Syria.
The UN General Assembly elected Hungary and Croatia instead to represent eastern Europe at the 47-nation council, which monitors and investigates rights violations worldwide.
The outcome was an upset for Russia, which has been a member for all but one year since the council was set up in 2006.
Asked about the defeat, Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin quipped: “We need a break.”
“Croatia and Hungary fortunately, because of their size, they are not as exposed to the winds of international diplomacy. Russia is quite exposed,” he said.
“We have been there a number of years. I am sure next time we are going to get it.”
More than 80 human rights and aid organizations had urged UN member-states to vote Russia off the council for its military support of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria’s bloody civil war.
Russia has been accused by Western powers and rights groups of indiscriminate bombings in the Syrian government operation to seize rebel-held eastern Aleppo.
Some 250,000 civilians in east Aleppo have been living under siege since July and food rations are expected to run out soon, the United Nations has warned.
“It clearly will be a wakeup call to Moscow,” said John Fisher, Human Rights Watch’s Geneva director.
“We sincerely hope that the message they will take from today’s vote is the need to make sure their engagement in Syria corresponds with international human rights and humanitarian law.”
Russia picked up 112 votes, while Croatia won 114 and Hungary 144. The three countries were competing for two regional seats.
It was only the second time that a permanent Security Council member was voted off, after the United States in 2001 lost its seat on the Commission of Human Rights, the council’s predecessor.
“They bomb a hospital one day, they run for the Human Rights Council the next. And they wonder why they missed the cut?” commented a Western diplomat, who declined to be named.
The 193 member-states voted to fill 14 seats at the Geneva-based council.
Human Rights Watch had warned that a vote to re-elect Russia and Saudi Arabia risked weakening the council in its work to hold abusers to account.
Saudi Arabia, which was re-elected with 152 votes, was almost guaranteed to retain its seat as part of a clean slate of four countries vying for four regional seats.
China, which has been criticized for its rights abuses, was also re-elected, while Cuba and Egypt, also cited for their dubious rights records at home, won seats as well.
Croatia, Iraq and Rwanda were elected for the first time.
The other elected members were Brazil, Britain, Japan, South Africa, Tunisia and the United States.
Saudi Arabia secured its seat despite an outcry over the military campaign waged by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, which has left nearly 7,000 people dead, mostly civilians.
The coalition has carried out air strikes in Yemen that have hit civilian targets such as a community hall in Sanaa that was recently destroyed during a funeral, killing more than 140 people.
“The non-election of Russia shows that the nations of the world can reject gross abusers if they so choose. This makes the election of Saudi Arabia, China and Cuba even more preposterous,” said UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer.
Created in 2006, the rights council monitors violations and notably set up a groundbreaking commission of inquiry on North Korea that led to calls for war crimes prosecutions of the Pyongyang regime.
The council this month asked the commission of inquiry for Syria to carry out a special investigation of rights abuses in Aleppo.

The grisly accident which happened today October 27at 1pm involved Easy Coach bus and a Prestige shuttle matatu.
The Prestige matatu was travelling towards Nakuru town while the Easy Coach bus was heading in the opposite direction.
Police are yet to provide a conclusive report about the accident but media reports say the Easy Coach bus was speeding at a corner when it collided head-on with the Prestige Matatu.
Four people died on the spot while several others sustained injuries; the four who died were in the Matatu.
We will provide more details when we get the scoop.
 

Claudio Ranieri wouldn’t mind if Premier League champions Leicester stopped paying him because what motivates the veteran manager is passion, love and a team who fight for each other.
The 65-year-old — who was at the helm to guide 5000/1 outsiders Leicester to the Premier League title last season — told The Times he didn’t even know how much he is paid.
“My motivation is not money,” he said.
“Believe me. The money can stop now. My motivation is my love of football, my love of players.
“To try to do the best ? I don?t remember how much I earn every year.
“I don?t go every day to train my players because I earn money.
“I go on the pitch because I am a lucky man ? and I am doing what I always wanted to do.”
Ranieri, who arrived at The Foxes last year after an unsuccessful spell in charge of Greece, said he’d seen how too much money could bring down talented players.
“How many great champions earn a lot of money (enough to live in comfort for ever), but continue to fight, continue to win. It’s not the money,” said Ranieri.
“It’s the passion; it’s the love. It’s the ambition.
“That’s it. I meet so many players with a lot of skill and they make good money for one or two years and then they go down.
“Down! Why? Because they are only about the money, to be famous. That is not where the strength of man comes from.”
Ranieri, who was so relaxed he spent the hours leading up to Leicester clinching the title (Chelsea’s draw with Spurs assuring them of it) by returning to Italy to take his nonagenarian mother Renata out for lunch, said he liked players who played for him to reflect two of his favourite films.
“I like movies with strength,” he said.
“Gladiator, Braveheart, where they link together, where the group stays together in battle ? In football, when 11 players fight together and help each other, they are difficult to beat.”
Ranieri, who admitted whenever his side loses his reaction is to go home and fall asleep, confessed to preferring to stay out of the spotlight when his teams win trophies.
“When, as a young man, I led Cagliari to the Serie C title (Italian third division), all the city was celebrating. But I never go to celebrations,” he said.
“I am always on the outside.
“That day, my little daughter was five years old. I put on some sunglasses, put my daughter on my shoulders, so I could watch people celebrate.
“I like to stand at a distance. It is strange. I am feeling joy. I am happy. But it is difficult to show emotions ? I left after one hour because somebody recognised me, so I went home.”
However, he reveals that having been so stoical even after Leicester sealed their shock title he let his guard slip when he went to Italy to pick up an award.
“They showed what we did on a big screen.
“The highlights of the season. And I cried. I cried. And I said: ‘Ooh f***ing hell. What we did ? What we did!'”

Lewis Hamilton began practice Friday at this weekend?s potentially-decisive Mexican Grand Prix accepting he probably needs three wins out of three races to have any chance of retaining his world title.
But, he said, he felt more relaxed than normal because there are so many factors beyond his control that may decide the outcome of his duel with Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg.
Rosberg holds a 33-point lead over Hamilton with three races to go and knows that a win on Sunday could bring his maiden title if Hamilton scores only one point or none at all.
“My approach it the same as normal, as at every race,” said the 31-year-old Englishman who kept his title hopes alive with victory in the United States Grand Prix last weekend.
“Maybe slightly more relaxed than I have been at others because I?ve accepted that there are things that are out of my powers, out of my control.
?All I can do is control what?s in the car and what I do. So long as I focus and put all my energy towards that, then hopefully I can get results as I did last weekend.
?But if I don?t, then you move forwards. I don?t think I?ll be taking more risks than I usually do. I think I?m a relatively risky driver, but I don?t think I will be taking more than others.
?I will definitely be cautious of my surroundings, as I always am.
?I?m going for it, that?s for sure. While my heart?s still beating, I still have that drive to win and there?s still an opportunity, even if it?s only one per cent.
?I?m going to be going for it. If there?s any time for me to be the best I’ve ever been, it?s now -? in these last three races.?
Hamilton added that he will be listening closely to his engine, worrying about a possible failure, all the way to the end of the season.
?That will happen until we cross the flag in Abu Dhabi,? he said. ?I have a feeling it will happen more often because I?m on my eighth engine and I?ve experienced a lot more than the other side has had to this year.
?I?m confident that everyone is doing everything they can. The guys are working so hard to make sure nothing happens, moving forwards, but again there are things that are just out of our hands.
?Often this year, there are things that are just out of our control that have happened and the most important thing is that we have learned from them and grown from them and will continue to do so.?

Fresh from qualifying for his maiden World Tour Finals, Gael Monfils announced Friday he would sit out next week’s Paris Masters to nurse a rib injury.
“Gael Monfils cannot take part in the Paris Masters next week due to a rib injury,” the 30-year-old Frenchman’s agent Nicolas Lamperin told AFP by mail.
The World Tour Finals take place in London from November 13-20.
A semi-finalist at the US Open, Monfils sealed qualification for his first World Tour Finals Thursday when rival Dominic Thiem was defeated at the Vienna tournament.

The Kremlin said Friday that President Vladimir Putin did not think it was time to resume air strikes on Aleppo after the defence ministry requested that a moratorium on bombing be lifted.
“The Russian president considers it inappropriate at the current moment to resume strikes on Aleppo,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, adding that Putin thought it was necessary to “continue the humanitarian pause” in the war-ravaged city.
The announcement came shortly after the defence ministry said in a surprise statement that it had asked Putin to allow the Russian air force to resume air strikes in Aleppo after a 10-day halt in bombing.
It also followed the launch by Syrian rebels of an assault on government forces to break a months-long siege of rebel-held eastern Aleppo.
At least 15 civilians were killed and more than 100 wounded on Friday by rebel rocket fire on government-held western Aleppo neighbourhoods, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Peskov stressed that in spite of the halt in bombing in Aleppo, Russia would deploy all its means to support the Syrian army if necessary.
“The Russian side retains the right in case of extreme necessity to use all the troops and facilities it has to carry out support of the Syrian armed forces at the necessary level,” he said.
Senior military official Sergei Rudskoi said earlier Friday that Russia was ready to “assess any proposal about improving the humanitarian situation in Aleppo, including the introduction of ‘humanitarian pauses'”, but warned that a halt in bombing should not be used “for fighters to reach their objectives”.
Russia’s defence ministry has said that Syrian and Russian warplanes have not bombed Aleppo for the past ten days to allow civilians and rebels wishing to leave the city to do so via humanitarian corridors.
The halt in bombing was initially declared ahead of a short ceasefire that ended at the weekend, with Moscow on Monday ruling out a truce extension for the time being.
The West has accused Moscow of committing possible war crimes in Aleppo through indiscriminate bombing to support Syrian government efforts to retake total control over the city.
Russia has meanwhile denied any role in deadly air strikes on a Syrian school in the rebel-held province of Idlib that killed 22 children on Wednesday.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the strikes were carried out by “warplanes — either Russian or Syrian”.
More than 300,000 people have been killed in Syria and over half of the country’s population displaced since the conflict began in March 2011.

Chinese Communist chief Xi Jinping’s ascension to the highest title in the party hierarchy formalises his position as its pre-eminent figure, analysts said, making him the country?s most powerful leader in a generation and inviting comparisons with Mao Zedong.
The ruling party?s declaration that Xi is the “core” of its leadership saw some observers argue it heralded the beginnings of a personality cult, smacking of the adulation that once surrounded Communist China?s founding father, who ruled for three decades.
Others saw it as a crucial step to enforce genuine reform in the world?s most populous country and second-largest economy, including liberalising markets and strengthening the legal system.
Xi’s anointment, by the ruling party’s top echelons after a key meeting in Beijing known as the Sixth Plenum, was met with fanfare by state media.
A picture of the leader in a sombre Western suit dominated the front pages of the country’s major papers Friday, and China’s national broadcaster showed footage of Xi’s lectures during the meeting on a near-continuous loop.
A gushing editorial in the Communist Party’s mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, called the leader’s elevation the “common will” of the nation, language echoed by commentaries in many major news outlets.
The official Xinhua news service said the decision was a formal recognition of the critical role Xi has played since taking power in 2012, when he launched a massive anti-corruption drive that has shaken the party to its roots.
While the campaign has led to the punishment of over a million officials, it, too, has raised questions about whether Xi is a reformer or is carrying out a ruthless political purge.
The document that declared Xi’s primacy also emphasised the importance of collective leadership and warned against the deification of the party’s chiefs.
“Propaganda about leaders should be factual and avoid flattery,” it emphasised.
The message appeared to have bypassed the denizens of China’s social media, many of whom are thought to be by paid by authorities to lavish praise on the government.
“Resolutely embrace Xi Dada!” said one commenter, using a popular nickname for the leader that some say evokes an air of paternalistic authoritarianism.
“With Xi Jinping as the core… we will definitely realise our Chinese dream,” it continued, echoing the leader’s nationalistic call for the “Great Rejuvenation” of the Chinese nation.
The concept of a “core” leader was first put forward by China’s former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping in 1989, shortly after nationwide democracy protests turned into the bloody Tiananmen Square crackdown.
The situation was “unstable” at the time, said Xi Xianglin, a professor of political science at Beijing University, and Deng conferred the title on the country’s new leader Jiang Zemin as a way to rally support.
The term, he said, describes “a virtuous person who comes to resolve differences of opinion within the party”.
Many loyalists see Xi as a transformative figure, and Hu Xingdou, an expert on China’s governance at the Beijing Institute of Technology, said his new status could see him become “China’s (George) Washington” and lead the country “out of the shadow of chaos”.
The government had failed to deliver on its previous commitments in such areas as improving rule of law and opening markets, he said.
“Conversely, they have been violated, and we have seen major setbacks.”
Without a strong leader, he said, “no one can make final decisions. Nothing can be accomplished”.
Regional cadres began using the term “core” for Xi last December, but it then disappeared, suggesting that the Chinese president had encountered resistance to his efforts to further consolidate his power.
The move comes ahead of a party congress next year when Xi will have an opportunity to put his own allies into the top Politburo Standing Committee.
Jean-Pierre Cabestan of Hong Kong Baptist University said that calls for unity before and at the plenum showed that the party was “far from being monolithic and that Xi is facing difficulties and even headwinds as far as his policy agenda is concerned”.
“The battle for the next party congress has started but it is far from being over,” he said.
Not all are convinced Xi will use his new-found authority for good.
He is a “power hungry politician”, said Willy Lam, professor of politics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
“It’s what the psychologists call megalomania: the more powerful you are, the more power hungry you remain.”
Lam believes that Xi will try to remain in power beyond the two five year terms allowed to the national president by law. There is no formal rule on tenure for the general secretary of the ruling party, the post from which he derives his power.
“The core can ask for 20 years,” he said. “This is a very blatant building of the personality cult… a big step back for institutional reform.”
Lam is not alone. For many, Xi’s new title brings to mind an age-old tradition.
One commenter on China’s Weibo microblog service posted: “One country, one emperor. It’s the way it’s been for thousands of years.”

More people have been murdered over the past four years in Brazil than have been killed in more than five years of war in Syria, a Brazilian group said Friday.
Brazil has been struggling in recent years with a rise in violent crime, made worst by a sharp economic downturn and budget cuts to police forces across the country.
According to the Brazilian Public Security Forum, nearly 280,000 people were killed in the South American giant from 2011 to 2015.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights counted 256,124 killed over the same period in that country’s civil war.
To reach their figure, the Forum included purposeful killings and violent thefts that resulted in death. In 2015 alone, more than 58,000 people were killed.
Last year’s murder rate reached 28.6 per 100,000 people, much higher than the 10 per 100,000 rate that the United Nations considers the threshold for chronic violence.
Three impoverished states in northeastern Brazil – Sergipe, Alagoas and Rio Grande de Norte – reported the highest murder rates.
Sergipe alone had a stunning murder rate of 57 per 100,000 people.
The overall murder rate however was down slightly from 2014.
The forum’s report, now in its ninth edition, also highlighted the endemic problem of police brutality.
The report said that an average of nine people are killed per day by police.
In 2015, law enforcement killed 3,345 people — but 393 police officers were also killed, about a third of them while on duty.
Highlighting the difficulty to maintain law and order are attempts in Rio de Janeiro, population 6.5 million, to crack down on crime for the 2014 World Cup and this year’s summer Olympics.
Police created controversial “pacification” zones in the city’s notorious favelas, or slums, with heavy law enforcement presence.
While crime diminished in some areas, money ran dry on the second phase, in which the government was supposed to fund schools and clinics in an effort to turn short-term security gains into long-term ones.
The program’s main architect, Rio state security chief Jose Mariano Beltrame, resigned in mid-October following gun battles between police and drug traffickers killed at least three people and wounded five.