Month: November 2016

Cleveland Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue said Wednesday he had spoken to J.R. Smith over his “embarrassing” hug with a former team-mate during the NBA champions’ defeat to Milwaukee.
Lue was left furious after Smith hugged Bucks bench player Jason Terry on the sidelines late in the second half of Cavs blowout defeat.
With Smith’s back turned, Bucks guard Matthew Dellavedova picked out a wide open Tony Snell who dunked unopposed to extend Milwaukee’s lead.
“It was embarrassing moment,” Lue said Wednesday of the play. “Me and J.R. talked about it. We’re just going to move forward. We had a discussion about it, he felt embarrassed about it. It was an embarrassing play. We talked about it. We’re moving on.”
Smith on Wednesday blamed a “lack of focus” for the incident.
“One of the multiple things that compounded onto the loss was just as a team we haven’t been as focused as we previously were,” he said. “Winning and being who we are has a lot to do with that, but we’ve just got to overcome that and be better as a whole. It starts as individuals and then we can collectively become a group and team and have that mindset.”
Lue meanwhile criticised Smith for attempting to tell a group of reporters he had no recollection of the incident while covering his face and head with a black ski mask.
“It wasn’t right,” Lue said. “I talked to him about that also. There’s no need for that. Just address the media in the right way, move on. We got our butts kicked (Tuesday night). Give Milwaukee credit, they came out, they attacked us, they beat us. Now we’ve got to move on.”

Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Anthony Martial scored twice as Manchester United crushed West Ham United 4-1 in the League Cup quarter-finals on Wednesday, while Arsenal were humbled by Southampton.
United manager Jose Mourinho served a one-game touchline ban after his dismissal for kicking a water bottle during Sunday’s 1-1 Premier League draw against West Ham, but his absence had no ill-effects.
Ibrahimovic put United ahead in the second minute and although Ashley Fletcher equalised, Martial’s second-half brace restored the hosts’ control before the Swede added a fourth goal in added time.
“After the West Ham goal we had 10 minutes where we felt it deeply. West Ham’s first shot, they equalise,” said Mourinho, who has overseen United’s worst start to a top-flight season since 1989.
“But in the second half we got the confidence to play and play beautiful, attacking football.
“Goals plus performance means the real happiness.”
United will play Hull City in the two-legged semi-finals, while Southampton’s reward for winning 2-0 at the Emirates Stadium was a last-four encounter with Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool.
The game at Old Trafford notably saw Bastian Schweinsteiger make his first appearance of the season for United as a late substitute.
The former Germany captain has only recently returned to the first-team squad after being frozen out by Mourinho and received a huge ovation as he came on.
West Ham had needed less than two minutes to take the lead in Sunday’s game, but on this occasion United were the early birds.
Wayne Rooney’s clever reverse pass picked out the advancing Henrikh Mkhitaryan and the Armenian’s alert back-heel freed Ibrahimovic to lift the ball past West Ham goalkeeper Adrian.
West Ham levelled in the 35th minute with a bolt from the blue as David de Gea spilled Dimitri Payet’s shot and former United youngster Fletcher tucked in his first senior goal in front of the Stretford End.
Fortunately for United, they started the second half as sharply as they had attacked the first, a move down the right culminating in Mkhitaryan squaring for Martial to sweep home.
West Ham’s cause was not helped by the fact they lost both wing-backs, Aaron Cresswell and Michail Antonio to injury, and in the 62nd minute they found themselves 3-1 down.
Ibrahimovic was the architect with a fine pass down the inside-right channel for Antonio Valencia, whose cross was tapped in by Martial.
Ibrahimovic doubled his tally in the 93rd minute, slotting in Ander Herrera’s low cross from the left.
The only source of regret for United was a booking for Rooney that rules him out of Sunday’s trip to Everton, nixing his hopes of scoring a club record-equalling 249th goal against his old side.
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger had been hoping to win the competition for the first time, but instead his decision to make 10 changes backfired as Southampton ended his side’s 19-game unbeaten run.
Dutch midfielder Jordy Clasie’s blistering drive put Southampton ahead in the 13th minute.
England left-back Ryan Bertrand added a second seven minutes before half-time, gathering Sofiane Boufal’s pass and rifling a shot into the bottom corner.
“I enjoy this win for all of the squad and for the fans, because it’s a good answer to keep all of our possibilities in every competition,” said Southampton manager Claude Puel.
“We played a very good game and to qualify for the next round is very important. We now get to play in a semi-final and that’s great for the players.”
Mohamed Elneny was the only player to have kept his place from Arsenal’s 3-1 win over Bournemouth on Sunday, but he succumbed to illness before half-time and was replaced by Granit Xhaka.
It was Arsenal’s first defeat since a 4-3 loss at home to Liverpool on the opening weekend of the Premier League season.
“We didn’t have enough urgency in the first half,” said Wenger.
“We were weak in some departments and we paid for that.”

Action star Donnie Yen placed his deadly hands and feet in cement at Hollywood’s TCL Chinese Theatre Wednesday, voicing hope that his career would inspire fellow Asians to take up acting.
The martial artist — a multiple world champion in the wushu fighting style — was being honored for a body of work mainly in Chinese cinema, although he also stars in the much-anticipated “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.”
“Sometimes being an Asian actor is not easy. Unfortunately, for many years, Asian actors didn’t have the same, equal opportunities,” the 53-year-old Hong Kong resident told AFP at the ceremony.
“But I think that things have been changing,” he added. “And I certainly would like to be one actor that set a good example.”
Overshadowed over the years by Jackie Chan and other sought-after kung fu stars, Yen has been gradually breaking into Hollywood since appearing in Guillermo del Toro’s “Blade II” in 2002.
In “Rogue One,” due to be released on December 16, he plays a warrior monk who is part of a heroic band of rebels that steals plans for the Death Star.
He also stars opposite Vin Diesel in “xXx: Return of Xander Cage,” which hits theaters on January 20.
Born in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, Yen came to Hong Kong — where he lives now — at the age of two and later moved to the United States, growing up in Boston’s Chinatown.
Much of the star’s inspiration comes from his mother, Bow Sim-Mark, a world famous wushu and tai chi master, at whose internationally-known Chinese Wushu Research Institute the young Yen learned kung fu.
When he became involved in gang violence in Boston at age 16, his worried parents sent him to Beijing, where he spent two years training with the famed Beijing wushu team, studying with the same masters as Jet Li.
Yen’s turning point came when the veteran film director Yuen Wo-ping, the action choreographer for the “Matrix” trilogy, discovered him and helped him break into movies as the new kung fu hero.
Yen has spent years since then using his celebrity to wage a campaign to kick the Asian stereotype out of Hollywood.
In the mid-1990s, he turned down an offer from Francis Ford Coppola because of a script he said contained “a ridiculous stereotype about the Chinese.”
He also rejected an offer to be in the “Tomb Raider” sequel, which China banned for making the country appear lawless and run by secret societies.
“I hope this ceremony, this achievement, will inspire many Chinese actors — not just Chinese actors, but many young actors — that they, too, can achieve the same dream if they put enough hard work into it,” he said before sinking his hands into the cement.
“The force is with me and the force is with everybody.”

Paris Saint-Germain hotshot Edinson Cavani bagged his 100th goal for the club in a 2-0 win over Angers on Wednesday to keep the reigning Ligue 1 champions on the heels of leaders Nice.
Cavani scored from the spot, adding to Thiago Silva’s opener to round off a win for the Parisians, who trail Nice by a solitary point after the Cote d’Azur table-toppers handed Guingamp a first home defeat.
Uruguayan Cavani’s big moment came after Hatem Ben Arfa strode forward on a mazy run only to be brought down by Romain Thomas.
The goal machine, having made it 19 goals in 18 matches so far this season, promptly earned a booking for taking off his shirt to reveal a T-shirt slogan paying homage to Brazilian side Chapecoense, the club decimated by an aircrash in Colombia.
Cavani joined PSG from Napoli in 2013 for a French record fee of 64 million euros ($67.8m) and now is the club’s fourth top goalscorer — now just one adrift of Dominique Rocheteau.
Out in front with 156 is Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who left for Manchester United last summer.
“It was a very important match, for the three points, for the table because we were at home and it was important to be strong for the fans,” said PSG coach Unai Emery.
“Against a very defensively compact team, we put in a solid performance.”
Moroccan Younes Belhanda bagged the only goal for Nice, this season’s surprise package, in the fifth minute with a sumptuous strike from the edge of the box.
Nice won in the absence of the injured Mario Balotelli, who has a calf problem.
The southerners badly missed Balotelli in their weekend draw with Bastia but on loan Dynamo Kiev star Belhanda’s effort was enough to drag them over the line, to the relief of coach Lucien Favre.
“We knew it would be tough to take the points here,” said Favre.
“Having got the first goal we didn’t manage to get to 2-0. If you don’t then you have to hold on to what you have — and we did that.
“Everyone must pull together. There is a fine margin between success and failure.”
Nice will meet PSG just before the Christmas break and Favre said that encounter would be crucial — albeit they are not looking that far ahead.
“If we take the three points in that one then all well and good. (But) beforehand we have Toulouse, who are a tough opponent. May I remind you they are the only side to have beaten both Paris SG and Monaco, so that will be a big match.”
Monaco, through at the expense of Tottenham to the last 16 of the Champions League, are third, three points off the pace, following their 1-1 draw Tuesday at Dijon.
Lyon stormed into fourth place albeit eight points behind Monaco, with a crushing 6-0 win at hapless Nantes, the eight-times champions, who suffered their worst top flight home reverse.
Nantes are second bottom and staring the droip in the face after an eighth league defeat in 15 games left only Lorient below them.
Nantes coach Rene Girard is hanging onto his job after the Canaries were outclassed with Lyon scoring at will through Corentin Tolisso, an Alex Lacazette penalty, Maxime Gonalons, Mathieu Valbuena, Mouctar Diakhaby and Nabil Fekir.
Marseille stay in midtable after a goalless draw at Saint Etienne in a battle of fallen giants while Bordeaux drew 1-1 at Bastaia, enough to stay in fifth spot ahead of Rennes on goal difference.

Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane’s son, Enzo, scored on his senior debut as the European champions brushed aside third tier Cultural Leonesa 6-1 to progress into the last 16 of the Copa del Rey 13-2 on aggregate on Wednesday.
By contrast, Barcelona still have work to do to reach the next round after being held 1-1 at Hercules in the first leg of their last 32 tie.
Enzo, the oldest of Zidane’s four sons, all of whom play at different levels in Real’s youth teams, was introduced by his father, a legendary former player for Real and France, at half-time.
The 21-year-old, who was previously coached by Zinedine at Real’s youth side Castilla before he took the top job at the Santiago Bernabeu in January, showed a glimpse of his father’s talent with a fine low finish from the edge of the area just after the hour mark.
“If I take off my hat as a coach then I am happy for him as a father (too),” said Zidane.
“But, in saying that, I watch what he does on the field as a coach and I am happy with how they all played.”
With the tie over as a contest following Real’s 7-1 first leg win and El Clasico away to Barcelona to come on Saturday, Zidane made nine changes from the side that started the 2-1 win over Sporting Gijon last weekend.
Norwegian starlet Martin Odegaard, 17, was also handed his full debut, but it was Dominican international Mariano Diaz who got Real off to a flying start as he slotted home the first of his hat-trick after just 23 seconds.
James Rodriguez headed home the hosts’ second before Mariano smashed in a third, but Leonesa did have a moment to savour when Yeray Gonzalez fired into the top corner from long range in first-half stoppage time.
Enzo was then handed his long-awaited bow by his father, but ensured there was to be no claims of nepotism when he finished off a flowing team move with a classy right-footed finish.
Mariano completed his hat-trick two minutes from time before a Cesar Morgado own goal.
Barcelona also fielded a side with 11 changes ahead of the Clasico, but were made to pay by third tier Hercules.
David Mainz bundled home at the back post seven minutes into the second-half to give the side form Alicante a shock lead.
However, Manchester United target Carles Alena capped his debut with a wonderful strike from 25 yards to spare Barca’s blushes.
Yannick Carrasco scored twice as Atletico Madrid also hit Guijelo for six in the first leg of their last 32 tie.
A Saul Niguez penalty and Sime Vrsaljko’s first Atletico goal gave the visitors a 2-0 half-time lead before the Belgian struck twice in five second-half minutes.
Angel Correa and Roberto Nunez rounded off the scoring.
Sevilla and Villarreal took huge strides towards the last 16 with comprehensive first leg wins over Formentera (5-1) and Toledo (3-0) respectively.
Second division Cordoba were the only victorious lower league side of the evening with a 2-0 win over Malaga.

World top-10 rivals to Tiger Woods said Wednesday they expect the 14-time major winner needs time and patience before there’s any chance he regains the form that made him a legend.
Woods ends the longest layoff of his career after nearly 16 months in Thursday’s opening round of the Hero World Challenge, an 18-player invitational featuring six top-10 players. Number eight Patrick Reed will tee off alongside US compatriot Woods at noon (1700 GMT).
“I’m really excited for golf to have Tiger back and to have that honor, it’s going to be awesome. I’m looking forward to it. It should be fun,” Reed said.
“I still want to beat him. Tiger still wants to beat me. I want him to play well not only for the game of golf, I want him to play well for him. But at the same time you’re out there trying to win a golf tournament.”
The 72-hole showdown at 7,303-yard Albany Golf Club in the Bahamas is the first competitive event for Woods in 466 days, since finishing 10th at Greensboro in August 2015 and undergoing back surgery twice in the weeks that followed.
“This is a perfect week for him to come back being fully healthy,” two-time major winner Jordan Spieth said. “Less people are out there watching. He can play quickly. He’s playing around a lot of people he knows on a place he’s familiar with.”
But fifth-ranked Spieth warned that Woods will not challenge for major titles instantly.
“I think he has accepted the fact he will be patient,” Spieth said. “Like anybody that takes off a year and a half, you don’t just come back and expect anything. It’s going to take a little time.
“I just hope everyone gives him time. I hope he has the time to fall into a rhythm and just get enough tournaments where he can build up that.”
Just the hope of seeing Woods on form again has created a buzz in the wealthy Caribbean enclave.
“He’s still just turning every head,” Spieth said. “He’s very excited, seems very confident. We all hope for many reasons that he comes back fully healthy and his game’s fully back.”
One of those reasons is to do what South Korean Yang Yong-Eun did at the 2009 PGA Championship, outplaying Woods over the last 18 holes for a major crown.
“It was a dream for all of us young guys to one day grow up and battle Tiger on a Sunday when he was playing his best,” Spieth said. “And see if you can Y.E. Yang it, see if you can pull off a shot where you can take him down.”
Reigning British Open champion Henrik Stenson, the world number four from Sweden, said Woods, who turns 41 in a month, might never match the glory days of his 2000-2001 Tiger Slam.
“I think it would be hard, where golf is at right now, to be as dominant as Tiger was even if Tiger were now to play as good as he did in 2000,” Stenson said. “The main thing is that his back is in good shape and he’s healthy.”
Stenson, however, isn’t ready to write off more magic from 898th-ranked Woods, whose 79 career PGA titles are three shy of Sam Snead’s all-time record.
“He has been out of competitiveness for quite some time so it might be a little while before you find your bearings again,” Stenson said. “But he has done some remarkable things throughout his career and if there’s someone that can jump right back up and play some great golf again, that would be him.”
Third-ranked Dustin Johnson, the reigning US Open champion, won’t rule out anything where Woods is concerned.
“When he was at his peak, he was very impressive. Wouldn’t surprise me if he got back to, I don’t know about quite that caliber, but who knows,” Johnson said.
“He has been working very hard at it, so I expect him to play pretty well. Whether he’ll win or not, that’s a whole different feat. I predict he’ll do pretty well.”

Canada’s Milos Raonic parted ways with coach Carlos Moya on Wednesday despite a season which saw him reach his first Grand Slam final and finish at three in the world.
The 25-year-old only teamed up with former French Open champion Moya in January before adding John McEnroe briefly to his coaching set-up in the summer.
The big-serving Canadian was runner-up to Andy Murray at Wimbledon in July.
He also made the semi-finals of the World Tour finals in London before ending 2016 at a career-high three in the world behind top-ranked Murray and Novak Djokovic.
“Thank you to Carlos Moya for helping me tremendously this year, alongside my team, to get the best out of me,” tweeted Raonic.
“Under Carlos’ direction and tutelage I have played my best yet to date. We will no longer be continuing our coaching relationship but remain close friends. I wish him all the best.”

Spanish police have arrested 45 suspected members of a Georgian burglary ring that broke into more than 100 homes, a force spokeswoman said Wednesday after a coordinated nationwide sweep.
In 26 searches carried out Tuesday, officers seized 75 watches, fake passports, “countless” items of jewellery, 14,000 euros ($15,000) in cash and 200 receipts for international money transfers.
The suspected right-hand man of the ringleader was detained in the southern city of Seville, two suspects were held in Barcelona, two more in the northern city of Barakaldo, one in the Mediterranean port of Alicante and the rest in Madrid.
The majority of those arrested are Georgian nationals. The suspects face being charged with burglary, membership of a criminal organisation, money laundering and falsifying documents.

New York’s Lincoln Center on Wednesday announced a low-key memorial for legendary poet and singer Leonard Cohen next week, with the art complex simply to play his songs.
Lincoln Center — the campus of premier US art institutions including the Metropolitan Opera and New York Philharmonic — said the remembrance event will take place on Monday.
Recordings of Cohen’s music, as selected by his fans and friends, will play for four hours starting at noon (1700 GMT) at Lincoln Center’s outdoor plaza regardless of weather.
“There are no speakers and no live performances,” Lincoln Center said in a statement.
The event is being put together by Hal Willner, a veteran music producer behind a 2005 tribute show for Cohen in Sydney that gave birth to the documentary film “Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man.”
The remembrance event follows the model of a 2013 memorial for another rock great and friend of Cohen, Lou Reed, whose music was played on speakers outside of Lincoln Center without commentary.
Cohen, a poet and novelist who explored the meaning of love and spirituality on songs such as the frequently covered “Hallelujah,” died on November 7 in Los Angeles.
His family has not announced plans for any public event and buried him quietly next to his parents in his native Montreal.
Since his death, fans have created makeshift memorials outside his home in Montreal as well as at New York’s famously bohemian Chelsea Hotel, where Cohen had lived and which he immortalized in a song about a romantic tryst.

Brazil’s central bank cut its key interest rate Wednesday for the second month running, as data showed that the recession hitting Latin America’s largest economy continued into the third quarter.
The central bank lowered the benchmark Selic rate by a quarter of a percentage point, to 13.75 percent — still one of the world’s highest.
“The available evidence indicates the pick-up in economic activity may be later and more gradual than previously anticipated,” the bank said.
Earlier, the state statistics office said the ailing economy shrank a further 0.8 percent last quarter — its seventh consecutive contraction.
Brazil’s economy is in its deepest recession for decades and the country’s credit rating has been reduced to junk status by all three main international rating agencies.
Center-right President Michel Temer, who took over this year after the impeachment of leftist leader Dilma Rousseff, has vowed to introduce strong austerity measures.
The market hopes the reforms will get the economy back on the rails, but the bank remains caught between wanting to stimulate economic growth and trying to dampen double-digit inflation.
Inflation dropped to 7.87 percent in October from 8.48 percent in September, continuing its downward progress. But it is still far above the target of 4.5 percent.
Last month the bank made its first interest rate cut in three years, lowering the Selic by 0.25 points to 14 percent.
Economists say its room to maneuver is limited. The new 0.25-point cut was in line with analysts’ expectations.
The bank said external factors were making it difficult to rein in inflation.
A long-feared and now apparently imminent interest rate hike in the United States would strengthen the dollar against the Brazilian real.
And billionaire Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election has unleashed “uncertainty about the direction of economic policy,” the bank said.
Also restraining the bank is uncertainty about the future of Temer’s austerity plan.
On Tuesday, the senate passed the first key measure, a 20-year spending freeze, against a backdrop of violent protests.
Even more controversial measures — including pension reforms — have yet to be debated.
Meanwhile, unemployment remained stuck at 11.8 percent between August and October.
Temer faces a huge task to wrestle Brazil back into the black. The economy shrank 3.8 percent in 2015 and market estimates are pointing to another slip, of almost 3.5 percent in 2016, with weak growth returning next year.
Brazil has been hit hard by falling world commodity prices, the bitter political struggle that led to Rousseff’s impeachment, and a vast corruption scandal at state oil giant Petrobras.
Temer has warned of state “bankruptcy” if the country does not impose painful reforms.

Ajax Cape Town stunned African champions Mamelodi Sundowns 2-0 on Wednesday to continue a South African Premiership revival under former Netherlands goalkeeper Stanley Menzo.
Content to contain the CAF Champions League title-holders for much of the clash, Ajax scored twice within three minutes for a second successive win.
When South African Roger de Sa quit as Ajax coach last month, the ‘Urban Warriors’ were bottom of the 16-club Premiership with only two points from a possible 21.
Menzo, who arrived in Cape Town this year to head an Ajax youth scheme, took over and has guided the team to two wins and a draw in four outings.
Few neutrals gave his youthful, star-less side a chance against a Sundowns team that travelled to Cape Town from Pretoria having won four consecutive league matches.
But after surviving several goalmouth scares and enjoying a few lucky moments, goals from Thabo Mosadi on 71 minutes and Ndiviwe Mdabuka on 73 minutes won the match.
Mosadi outpaced Thapelo Morena to fire a low cross past Uganda goalkeeper and 2016 Africa-based Footballer of the Year contender Dennis Onyango.
A dribble into the six-yard box set up Mdabuka to tap the ball over the line for the killer second goal at Cape Town Stadium.
“I am so proud of my team,” said Menzo, 53, who helped former European champions Ajax Amsterdam win nine trophies and was capped six times by the Netherlands.
“The situation at the club was difficult and it is great to see hard work paying off. The emphasis has been on organisation and discipline.”
Menzo was hailed as an “unbelievable coach” by Sundowns handler Pitso Mosimane, the first South African to guide a club to CAF Champions League glory.
“Let us give credit to Ajax — they were the better team and deserved to win. We had chances to score before they did, but did not take them.”
Sundowns host Free State Stars Saturday hoping to close an eight-point gap behind leaders Cape Town City, who have played four matches more.,
The Pretoria club then fly to Japan for a maiden appearance in the FIFA Club World Cup next Sunday.
“Keeping the minds of my players off Japan is a big challenge at the moment,” admitted Mosimane.
Victory lifted Ajax out of the relegation zone to 14th, one point above Free State Stars and two ahead of bottom club Highlands Park.
Free State ended a 10-match winless run since the league kicked off last August by defeating off-form Platinum Stars 3-1 in central town Bethlehem.

The most famous gun in French literary history, the revolver with which Paul Verlaine tried to kill his lover and fellow poet Arthur Rimbaud, sold for 434,500 euros ($460,000) at auction in Paris on Wednesday.
The staggering price for the 7mm six-shooter — which almost changed the course of world literature — was more than seven times the estimate, auctioneers Christie’s said.
Verlaine bought the weapon in Brussels on the morning of July 10, 1873, determined to put an end to his torrid two-year affair with his teenage lover.
The 29-year-old poet had abandoned his young wife and child to be with Rimbaud, who would later become the symbol of rebellious youth, idolised by 1960s singers like Jim Morrison.
But after an opium- and absinthe-soaked stay in London, which would inspire Rimbaud’s “A Season in Hell”, Verlaine wanted to go back to his wife.
He fled to the Belgian capital to get away from Rimbaud only for the younger man to follow him.
It was in a hotel room there at two in the afternoon where, after the lovers had rowed, cried and got drunk — according to Rimbaud — that the suicidal Verlaine raised the pistol.
“Here’s how I will teach you how to leave!” he shouted before firing twice at Rimbaud.
One bullet hit him in the wrist while the other struck the wall and then ricocheted into the chimney.
But Rimbaud still wouldn’t take no for an answer. Having been bandaged up in hospital he again begged the author of “Poemes saturniens” not to leave him.
Verlaine — who was to be dogged by drink and drug addiction all his life — pulled out the revolver again and threatened him with it in the street.
He was arrested by a passing policeman and sentenced to two years in jail with hard labour where — much to Rimbaud’s fury — he embraced Catholicism.
In prison he wrote 32 poems that would later appear in some of his best-known collections, “Sagesse”, “Jadis et naguere” and “Invectives”.
Rimbaud moved back in with his domineering mother and finished “A Season in Hell”.
His hometown Charleville-Mezieres in eastern France had set up a fund to buy the gun but was outbid by an unnamed telephone bidder.
The Belgian bailiff and firearms enthusiast Jacques Ruth who put the gun up for sale had kept it in a cupboard for 20 years, unaware of its value.
He only thought to have it checked out when he saw a identical model in “Total Eclipse”, the 1995 Hollywood film about the poets’ intense relationship starring Leonardo DiCaprio.
He contacted historian Bernard Bousmanne, who curated an exhibition about the two men in the Belgian capital in 2004.
And he took it to experts at the Royal Military School in Brussels, who not only confirmed that it was the same model but it was the actual gun Verlaine used.
“I thought they were joking,” Bousmanne told Belgian media.

The United Nations Security Council on Wednesday unanimously imposed its toughest sanctions on North Korea, placing a cap on the hermit state’s key coal exports after its defiant nuclear tests.
The new sanctions resolution — which was spearheaded by the United States and came after three months of tough negotiations with fellow veto-wielding council member China — passed by a 15-0 vote.
The resolution demands that North Korea “abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs” and takes aim at the state’s exports of coal, its top external revenue source.
Under Resolution 2321, North Korea will be restricted from exporting more than 7.5 million tonnes of coal in 2017, a reduction of 62 percent from 2015.
Samantha Power, the US ambassador to the United Nations, said the resolution would strip the regime of more than $700 million in hard currency, dramatically reducing the money it can spend on nuclear and ballistic weapons.
Speaking to reporters with her counterparts from US allies South Korea and Japan, she said the move marked “the strongest sanctions regime the Security Council has imposed on any country in more than a generation.”
“So long as the DPRK makes the choice it has made, which is to pursue the path of violations instead of the path of dialogue, we will continue to work to increase the pressure and defend ourselves and allies from this threat,” Power said, referring to the North by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged all countries to enforce the resolution.
“It sends an unequivocal message that the DPRK must cease further provocative actions and comply fully with its international obligations,” said Ban, who has flirted with entering politics in his native South Korea after his term ends in a month.
Ban said he was still committed to “sincere dialogue” to resolve the nuclear issue and stood by calls to provide humanitarian assistance to ease the suffering of ordinary North Koreans.
China is North Korea’s primary ally and one of the few markets for its coal.
Although Beijing has traditionally protected Pyongyang diplomatically, believing that Kim Jong-Un’s regime is preferable to its collapse, it has grown frustrated by the neighboring state’s defiance.
China’s UN ambassador, Liu Jieyi, reiterated that Beijing “strongly opposes” the North Korean nuclear tests — but also made a veiled criticism of joint exercises between the United States and South Korea.
“Certain parties increase their military presence and scale up military exercises, thus intensifying the confrontation,” he said at the Council.
“This situation must be changed as soon as possible,” he said.
The UN Security Council resolution condemns “in the strongest terms” North Korea’s nuclear test on September 9 — the communist state’s second this year.
Pyongyang claimed at the time that it had made major strides in its efforts to fit a miniaturized warhead on a missile that could reach the United States.
North Korea, which insists its nuclear weapons are a deterrent to US “aggression,” brushed aside earlier sanctions that targeted its weapons exports, access to financial markets and imports of luxury goods.
In addition to coal, the Security Council on Wednesday banned North Korea from exporting certain metals, including copper, silver, zinc and nickel, that bring in an estimated $100 million a year.
The Security Council also added 10 companies and 11 individuals –including the former North Korean ambassadors to Egypt and Myanmar — to a blacklist under which their travel is restricted and assets frozen due to their alleged role in Pyongyang’s military programs.
Although the outgoing US administration of President Barack Obama has generally favored dialogue over conflict, it has taken a tough line on North Korea after Pyongyang rebuffed early overtures.
Power said the latest resolution is groundbreaking because it also takes North Korea to task for its human rights violations.
In another rare clause, the resolution threatens North Korea with some losses of diplomatic rights at the United Nations if it violates resolutions.
But Japan’s UN envoy, Koro Bessho, voiced willingness to return to dialogue if North Korea shows a “serious commitment.”
“We are introducing sanctions not for the sake of introduction sanctions,” he said, “but in order to change the course of DPRK policy.”

LPGA commissioner Mike Whan unveiled a 2017 tour schedule Wednesday that features a $4.35 million (4.1 million euros) prize money boost and more tournaments than the 2016 campaign.
There will be four new LPGA events but three others that will not return from this year for 34 tournaments in all plus the Solheim Cup US-Europe women’s team showdown with a record total purse of $67.35 million.
In all, 11 of 30 returning events will raise prize money offerings, including four of the five women’s golf majors.
The US Women’s Open will jump from $4.5 million to $5 million next year, when it will be staged at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey — a layout owned by US President-elect Donald Trump.
“Our goal has been to consistently move the needle forward in providing increased financial opportunities for our members,”Whan said. “We are excited to see these increases for 2017 and we look forward to continuing to grow overall prize money in future years.
“While we receive credit for being a global tour, we’re just as proud that we’ve added more events in North America since 2011 then we have abroad.”
The number of US events will fall, however, with events lost in Florida, San Francisco and Alabama and added in Indianapolis and Oneida, Wisconsin.
The Scottish Ladies Open, co-sanctioned with the Ladies European Tour, and New Zealand Women’s Open, won by Kiwi teen star Lydia Ko three of the last four years, were also added to the LPGA lineup.
The New Zealand event begins a run of seven LPGA events in the Asia-Pacific region before the season-ending Tour Championship in Naples, Florida.
The Lorena Ochoa Invitational will become a match-play event starting next year with the world’s 64 top players competing in Mexico City. The event will also move from November to May.
Americans will seek to defend the Solheim Cup from August 18-20, 2017, at Des Moines Golf and Country Club in Iowa.

A UN panel has rejected Britain’s request to review a ruling that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is being arbitrarily detained, according to a statement released late Wednesday in Geneva.
Having initially issued its opinion in favour of Assange in February, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said it was not changing course as the British request “did not meet the threshold of a review… and (was) thus not admissible”.
Assange, 45, has been at the Ecuadoran embassy in London since 2012, having taken refuge to avoid being sent to Sweden where he faces rape allegations that he denies.
He fears Sweden would extradite him to the United States to answer for the leaking of diplomatic cables and other classified documents by his whistleblowing website. The disclosures caused huge embarrassment in Washington.
The UN panel, which is attached to the Human Rights Council, met between November 21-25 but only published its findings on Wednesday.
Assange said in a statement: “Now that all appeals are exhausted I expect that the UK and Sweden will comply with their international obligations and set me free. It is an obvious and grotesque injustice to detain someone for six years who hasn’t even been charged with an offence.”
The fate of the former computer hacker, who turned WikiLeaks into a vehicle for releasing classified documents on the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, remains unclear.
He was grilled over the longstanding rape allegation by an Ecuadoran prosecutor at the embassy for two days earlier this month. The questions were provided by Swedish officials but the answers were confidential.
Swedish prosecutors dropped a sexual assault probe into Assange last year after the five-year statute of limitations expired. But they still want to question him about the 2010 rape allegation, which carries a 10-year statute of limitations.
Assange insists the sexual encounters in question were consensual.

A French football supporter who beat to death another fan of French top flight side Paris Saint Germain on Wednesday received a five-year jail term.
Jeremy Banh, 35, was convicted of killing 37-year-old Yann Lorence while a second accused, Romain Lafon, was acquitted.
Both men had faced up to six years in prison.
Banh will serve three years with the remainder of his sentence suspended.
Lafon, 37, remains in jail as he is serving two years for his role in a violent clash with supporters of Swedish side Malmo.
The pair, answering a charge of involuntary homicide and insisting they were innocent, were among a group who attacked Lorence on February 28, 2010 outside the Parc des Princes, the home of French champions PSG.
He died after a fortnight in a coma.
Former club president Robin Leproux said the clashes occurred between hard-left and hard-right fans and that Lorence had been caught in the middle as the respective groups charged each other.
Lafon and his defence team insisted he had nothing to do with the incident which he described as a “lynching by cowards.”
Banh on the other hand admitted in police questioning kicking the victim before withdrawing from the fray.
His defence counsel said the case against him was by no means proven.
On the opening day of the trial, one witness was assaulted outside the court, leading to the arrest of four men.

: 47 players drawn from SportPesa Premier League clubs have been selected to join a training camp in January 2017 as the country draws nearer to the first ever football match pitting an English Premier League side, Hull City and a Kenyan side.
The shortlist is not without some surprise names including 16 year old Joshua Otieno, who impressed the coaches when they visited Sony Sugar FC at their Awendo base.
Preparations for the game at the KCOM began earlier this month when two of the Tigers’ Academy coaches, Richard Naylor and Kris Blakeston, visited Kenya on a scouting mission to pick out the country’s top football talent.
Tasked with selecting 50 players to attend a special training camp, the English duo took in international fixtures against Mozambique and Liberia, league matches and training sessions at the country’s top clubs but selected only 47 because they wanted to give it to the players who deserved the opportunity and did not feel it was correct to give it to 3 players just to make up the numbers.
With shortlists and player recommendations now submitted, coaches will return to Kenya for the training camp early in the New Year to pick out the top 16 players who will go on to form the  squad that will travel to England to take on the Tigers in February.
Ronald Karauri, Chief Executive Officer for SportPesa, said: “.”
The friendly match at the KCOM Stadium in the United Kingdom next year is part of Hull City’s continued support of shirt sponsor SportPesa’s commitment to develop Kenyan football to global standards, and their efforts to help Kenya qualify for their first ever World Cup in 2022.
Tigers Commercial Manager Simon King added: “ project is truly unique. It fully demonstrates that our partnership with SportPesa goes way beyond a branding exercise and is something that is having a positive impact in developing Kenyan football.
“The first stage of the project has gone incredibly well and we now look forward to organising the training camp in January when our coaches will have the tough task of picking a squad to play at the KCOM Stadium in February.”
This comes at a time when the Tigers are also working closely with SportPesa on the ‘campaign, which calls on supporters to donate any football kit items to be sent out to Kenya to help enhance the prospects of young players in the country. Deposit boxes can be found in our Tiger Leisure stores at the KCOM Stadium and Prospect Shopping Centre until the end of December for any fans that wish to donate.
 
Further details about the match against the SportPesa All Stars will be released in due course.

Colombia was investigating Wednesday what made a charter plane crash into the country’s northwestern mountains, killing 71 people including most of a Brazilian football team and 20 journalists.
Fans were in tears in the team’s hometown of Chapeco, and their opponents mourned in the Colombian city of Medellin, where the doomed flight crashed Monday.
Officials and media reports in Brazil and Colombia speculated that the plane might have run out of fuel or suffered a technical fault.
The Brazilian club Chapecoense Real was on the way to crowning a fairytale year in the Copa Sudamericana final against Medellin side Atletico Nacional.
The crash cut short the unsung club’s dream, sending the football world into mourning.
Announcing the crash on Monday night, the aviation authority said the plane had reported electrical problems.
But a Colombian military source told AFP: “It is very suspicious that despite the impact there was no explosion. That reinforces the theory of the lack of fuel.”
The plane was scheduled to make a refueling stop in Bogota, but skipped the Colombian capital and headed straight for Medellin, reported Bolivian newspaper Pagina Siete, citing a representative of the airline.
“The pilot was the one who made the decision,” Gustavo Vargas of Bolivian charter company LAMIA told the newspaper.
“He thought the fuel would last.”
Colombia’s civil aviation authority said it hoped to establish the cause of Monday night’s crash “as soon as possible.”
British and Brazilian investigators headed to Colombia to help with the probe, authorities said.
Investigators have recovered the black boxes from the British Aerospace 146 plane.
They were undamaged and “will reveal everything,” said Colombian Transport Minister Jorge Eduardo Rojas.
Bolivian civil aviation chief Cesar Varela told reporters “the crew had their licenses in order. Everything was in order.”
Six people miraculously survived the crash. Three of the survivors were footballers, but goalkeeper Jakson Follmann had his right leg amputated, said the hospital treating him.
Two flight crew and a journalist following Chapecoense also survived.
Four people missed the flight, including a journalist and two politicians.
“It’s one of those things in life. Only God knows why I ended up staying behind,” said Luciano Buligon, the mayor of Chapeco in southern Brazil.
He arrived on Wednesday in Medellin to oversee the return of the bodies.
A Brazilian defense ministry spokesman said 20 bodies had been identified by Wednesday morning. He said the authorities were hoping to finish by the end of the day.
The Brazilian air force will then fly them home in two Hercules cargo planes.
Victims’ families will not travel to Colombia because they are in a “delicate” emotional state, Brazil’s ambassador Julio Glinternick told Colombian news channel RCN.
The director of the funeral home preparing the bodies, Jorge Escobar, told AFP he expected them to be sent home Friday.
Pope Francis said in a statement he was “deeply grieved” by the crash.
Brazil ordered three days of national mourning for the team, which had emerged from nowhere over the past two years to take South American football by storm.
Fans in Chapeco, population 200,000, were in shock.
“Chapeco is not a big city. We would meet (the players) in the street,” said teacher Aline Fonseca, 21.
“It’s hard to keep going,” she said. “The city is devastated.”
Fans were to mass later Wednesday in the Chapecoense stadium, which has been draped in black ribbons.
Other Brazilian clubs have offered the club players so it can continue competing. Special funds have also been set up.
In Medellin, Atletico Nacional called for a memorial service at the time the first-leg final match was to have been played.
It asked fans to come to the stadium dressed in white with candles.
The Spanish football league said next Saturday’s blockbuster clash between Barcelona and Real Madrid will be preceded by a minute’s silence for the crash victims.

Manchester United paid a poignant tribute to the victims of the Colombia plane crash with a minute’s silence prior to their League Cup quarter-final against West Ham United on Wednesday.
With many of the 71 victims members of Brazilian top-flight team Chapecoense, the tragedy brought back memories of the 1958 Munich air disaster, in which eight United players died.
Players from both teams wore black armbands and stood around the centre circle with their arms around each other during a silence that was impeccably observed.
“The thoughts of everyone at Manchester United are with @ChapecoenseReal and all those affected by the tragedy in Colombia,” United wrote on Twitter after the accident.
United’s line-up featured Spanish goalkeeper David de Gea, who played alongside Cleber Santana, one of the victims of Tuesday’s crash, at Atletico Madrid.
“Deeply affected by Medellin’s plane crash. I shared (a) locker with Cleber Santana and it’s difficult to reveal how I feel,” De Gea wrote on Twitter. “Rest in peace amigo.”
The Munich crash tore the heart from a youthful United team dubbed the ‘Busby Babes’ in honour of manager Matt Busby.
Their plane crashed on a slush-covered runway in Munich after refuelling on its way back to England after a victorious European Cup quarter-final against Red Star Belgrade.
The dead included United midfielder Duncan Edwards, seen as a future England great, as well as three members of club staff and eight journalists.
Busby survived the accident and rebuilt the team around fellow survivor Bobby Charlton, eventually leading United to European Cup glory against Benfica in 1968.

World banking supervisors said Wednesday they were closing in on finalizing controversial new regulations to prevent a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis.
The Basel Committee, a forum of international financial authorities, held a meeting in Chile with regulators to set new global norms for banking stability.
“The committee has spent the past two days working towards an agreement to finalize these post-crisis reforms,” chairman Stefan Ingves told the gathering in Santiago.
“We have made very good progress and the contours of an agreement are now clear.”
The committee plans to oblige banks to strengthen their capital base to cushion them against financial shocks.
Ingves said he hoped the members of the forum would approve the new regulations, known as the “Basel III” reforms, in January.
“There will no doubt be increases and decreases in operational risk capital requirements for certain banks,” Ingves said.
The reforms also aim to impose special obligations to regulate the debt ratio or “leverage” of “global systemically important banks,” he said.
Disagreements have threatened to complicate the reforms.
The United States has been pushing for strict capital requirements.
European governments, regulators and finance groups fear stringent capital requirements will hobble their banks and economies.
Meanwhile US President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to eliminate the landmark Dodd-Frank financial reform law adopted in the post-crisis era.
German central bank board member Andreas Dombret said this month he hoped Trump would not derail the Basel reforms.
Bank of England governor Mark Carney said he expected “a handful of institutions” would be obliged to increase their capital base.
“But for the system as a whole it will be relatively modest,” he told a news conference in London on Wednesday.

The European Grand Prix in Baku will be staged a week earlier in 2017 to avoid clashing with the famed Le Mans 24 Hour Race, motor racing’s governing body the FIA said on Wednesday.
In a schedule reduced to 20 races, rather than the 21 of 2016, the Baku race will be staged on June 25, a week after Le Mans, which runs over June 17 and 18.
Missing from the programme for next year is the German Grand Prix. Nuremberg is financially unable to stage the race while 2016 host Hockenheim was not willing to take it on for two seasons back-to-back.
Nuremberg also passed up the opportunity in 2015.
The lack of a German race means newly-crowned world champion Nico Rosberg will not have the opportunity to race in front of his home fans in 2017.
Rosberg will start the defence of his Formula One world title in Australia on March 26 with Abu Dhabi again staging the season finale, on November 26.
Other tweaks see the British Grand Prix at Silverstone move to a week later on July 16, the same day as the Wimbledon tennis men’s singles final.
Brazil’s race at Interlagos in Sao Paulo is still to be officially confirmed as negotiations continue between the promoter and the sport’s ringmaster Bernie Ecclestone.
2017 F1 championship schedule:
March 26: Australia (Melbourne)
April 9: China (Shanghai)
April 16: Bahrain (Sakhir)
April 30: Russia (Sochi)
May 14: Spain (Barcelona)
May 28: Monaco
June 11: Canada (Montreal)
June 25: Europe (Baku)
July 9: Austria (Spielberg)
July 16: Great Britain (Silverstone)
July 30: Hungary (Budapest)
August 27: Belgium (Spa-Francorchamps)
September 3: Italy (Monza)
September 17: Singapore
October 1: Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur)
October 8: Japan (Suzuka)
October 22: United States (Austin)
October 29: Mexico
November 12: Brazil (Sao Paulo)
November 26: Abu Dhabi (UAE)

Brazilian prosecutors running a giant corruption probe threatened to quit Wednesday over what they said was intimidation by members of the graft-plagued Congress, many of whom face investigation.
Deltan Dallagnol, coordinator of the so-called “Operation Car Wash” probe into a gigantic embezzlement and bribery scheme centered on state oil company Petrobras, said that a bill passed in the lower house in the early hours of Wednesday amounted to an attack on the judiciary.
“The lower house signaled the end of Car Wash,” he said in a press conference alongside other prosecutors who threatened to resign if the bill was not vetoed by President Michel Temer.
The controversial law is ostensibly meant to crack down on undeclared election campaign funds, a common practice in Brazilian politics that has been linked to large-scale corruption.
However, lower house deputies also inserted measures opening the way to prosecute judges for abuse of authority. Judges and prosecutors have branded this as a weapon to reduce the judiciary’s independence.
“It would not be possible to keep working on Car Wash if this intimidatory law were approved,” Dallagnol said.
“Our proposal is to resign collectively if this bill is approved by the president,” prosecutor Carlos dos Santos Lima said.
The probe has uncovered multi-billion-dollar embezzlement and bribery involving Petrobras, Brazil’s biggest construction companies like Odebrecht, and a host of political parties.
High-ranking figures including former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and some of Brazil’s richest men face charges or have already been convicted. Dozens of members of Congress have also come into prosecutors’ crosshairs.
Now with executives from Odebrecht striking cooperation agreements with prosecutors, there are expectations of a wave of new politicians being investigated.
The anti-corruption drive is popular with Brazilians enraged at the constant scandals in the capital Brasilia where dozens of senators and deputies have had brushes with the law or currently face charges for corruption or other crimes.
The law approved by the lower house was meant to address that public anger by closing a gaping loophole in illegal campaign financing — what had effectively been a green light for politicians to take bribe money.
However, well after midnight, deputies weakened the text and inserted the explosive amendment that the judiciary is calling an attack on its ranks.
They did this while the attention of journalists and the public were fixed on the air disaster that killed much of Brazil’s Chapecoense football team, and on violent protests against austerity measures voted on earlier in the Senate.
The lower house had already been under intense scrutiny for an attempt last week to change the text of the law to include what amounted to an amnesty for politicians who had already received dirty money.
Amid a public outcry, Temer went on television to promise to veto such an amendment. That measure was dropped but the one targeting the judiciary could turn out to be just as incendiary.
Temer’s government, which came into power after the impeachment of leftist president Dilma Rousseff this year, has vowed to restore Brazil’s economic health and political stability.
However, he faces mounting crises and a badly ailing economy, along with popular opposition to his proposed austerity reforms. On Tuesday, crowds fought violent battles with riot police outside the Senate as legislators approved a budget freeze.

Zenit St Petersburg bounced back from a disappointing defeat in their previous Premier League match at Krasnodar beating Ufa 2-0 on Wednesday to narrow the gap on leaders Spartak Moscow.
The late goals by Brazilian Giuliano and Russian international forward Alexander Kokorin set Saint Petersburg side on their way to a hard-fought win to stay in second, three points adrift of Spartak.
CSKA Moscow, who beat visitors Orenburg by the same scoreline, sit third, five points further back.
Zenit started in lively fashion but Ufa created the first chance of the match on the counter-attack in the 14th minute, when forward Vyacheslav Krotov forced ‘keeper Yury Lodygin into a diving save with a volley.
The home team also had an opportunity to score in the 36th minute but former Chelsea winger Yury Zhirkov fired the ball over from just 10 yards out.
In the 84th minute skipper Axel Witsel found unmarked Giuliano in the area and the Brazilian lifted Zenit ahead with a close-range angled shot.
Kokorin added his goal in the third minute of stoppage time beating Ufa ‘keeper Andrei Lunev with a low shot after the mazy run from within his own half.
Elsewhere, reigning champions CSKA Moscow pinned visitors Orenburg back from the kick-off and Israeli international Bebars Natcho put them in front with a spotkick in the 26th minute after Orenburg back Vladimir Poluyakhtov handballed in his area.
After the break Orenburg’s hopes went up in smoke as captain Dmitry Andreyev was sent off for a second bookable offence.
With 11 minutes left, substitute back Sergei Ignashevich hammered home a low effort from 25 yards out to secure CSKA a well-deserved win.
“We had just one objective for this match — to win — and we managed to cope with it,” CSKA head coach Leonid Slutsky said.

The EU border control agency Frontex on Wednesday called on states to provide officers for a European coastguard, due to be launched next year to help cope with the upsurge in migrants trying to reach Europe.
Confronted with Europe’s worst migrant crisis since World War II, EU leaders have increased funding for the Warsaw-based agency responsible for policing the bloc’s external borders and conferred upon it new responsibilities.
“Starting next year, Frontex will deploy three off-shore patrol vessels (OPVs) from Finland, Romania and France, which will have multi-national European crews for the first time,” the Warsaw-based agency said in a statement.
The agency’s maritime operations currently involve single-nation vessels manned by their own crews, or a total of around 15 vessels near the Greek islands of the Aegean Sea and another dozen or so off the coast of Italy.
The exact locations of next year’s multinational patrols are yet to be decided, according to Frontex spokeswoman Ewa Moncure, who said the crews “will go where the situation requires them”.
Members of the European Union (EU) and the passport-free Schengen zone have until December 15 to respond to the call.
Frontex chief Fabrice Leggeri said the multinational approach will allow EU members to contribute vessels for longer periods of time since they will not need to provide as many core officers.
“The rest of the crew will come from other member states in a true spirit of European cooperation at sea,” he said in the Frontex statement.

Serie A strugglers Palermo joined fellow top flight side Empoli in crashing out of the Italian Cup following defeat to second division La Spezia on Wednesday.
Palermo sit bottom of Serie A after registering a club record seventh consecutive defeat, a 1-0 reverse at home to Lazio, at the weekend.
Coach Roberto De Zerbi has managed to avoid the wrath of the club’s trigger-happy owner Maurizio Zamparini, although that was before the Sicilians’ latest setback.
Palermo were held to a scoreless draw at the end of extra-time of their fourth round tie at their Barbera stadium, and capitulated to Serie B side La Spezia on penalty kicks.
La Spezia thereby secured a plum tie in the next round with high-flying Napoli at the San Paolo.
Empoli, who sit mid-table in Serie A, were ousted on Tuesday after Alejandro Rodriguez hit an extra-time winner for Serie B outfit Cesena.
On Tuesday Torino booked a last 16, San Siro date with AC Milan, given a bye, with a 4-0 win over Pisa while Chievo will meet Fiorentina away after ousting Novara 3-0.
Cup holders Juventus, plus Roma, Napoli, Inter Milan, Sassuolo and Lazio are not in action until January 11 and 18, when the last 16 ties are held.

The question of whether employers have the right to monitor workers’ online communications returned to the European Court of Human Rights on Wednesday ahead of a ruling that could have Europe-wide implications.
The Grand Chamber of the Strasbourg-based court heard the case of Bogdan Barbulescu, a 37-year-old Romanian sales engineer.
His employer fired him in 2007 after discovering he was using Yahoo Messenger not only for work but also to chat with his fiancee and brother.
In January this year, the ECHR dismissed Barbulescu’s argument that the company had violated his right to confidential correspondence but he succeeded in having the case referred back to the court.
Barbulescu maintains that his employer invaded his privacy by spying on his communications which, the court said, included messages “relating to personal matters such as his health and sex life”.
A lawyer representing the Romanian government said the engineer had been well aware of the firm’s rules prohibiting the use of company resources for personal purposes.
“He knew all about this ban because he had been informed about it,” lawyer Catrinel Brumar said.
She said the company had no interest in the content of the messages, only in the fact that they were private.
But Emeric Domokos-Hancu, representing the applicant, argued he had been unaware his online exchanges were being monitored because the company had used “spyware” software.
In a written submission to the judges, the European Trade Union Confederation said the case was “of particular importance for workers’ protection in the digital age”.
The ruling was deferred and will be delivered in several months’ time.
It will be definitive and will be eagerly awaited because the ECHR’s decisions are binding on the 47 countries that have ratified the European Convention on Human Rights.

Morocco on Wednesday accused the African Union commission’s chairperson, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma of South Africa, of blocking Rabat’s efforts to rejoin the AU and lacking neutrality.
The foreign ministry, in a strongly worded statement, charged that she was “trying to thwart Morocco’s decision to regain its natural and legitimate place within its pan-African institutional family”.
Dlamini-Zuma had “delayed, in an unjustified manner, the circulation of Morocco’s demand to other members” in September, it said in a statement.
She was “keeping up her obstruction by improvising a new procedural demand, previously unheard of and unfounded… to arbitrarily reject the letters of support from AU member states”, it said, without giving details.
The ministry accused Dlamini-Zuma of acting “contrary to her obligation of neutrality, of AU rules and norms, and of the will of its member states”.
Rabat officially requested to rejoin the AU in September, 32 years after quitting the bloc in protest at its decision to accept Western Sahara as a member.
Morocco has occupied the sparsely populated Western Sahara area since 1975 in a move that was not recognised by the international community.
It maintains that Western Sahara is an integral part of the kingdom even though local Sahrawi people have long campaigned for the right to self-determination.
In 1991, the United Nations brokered a ceasefire between Moroccan troops and Sahrawi rebels of the Algerian-backed Polisario Front but a promised referendum to settle the status of the desert territory is yet to materialise.
The Moroccan online website Le360 on Wednesday accused Dlamini-Zuma of “a blatant lack of neutrality” and taking orders from Algiers.

Amadou Sanogo, a former army captain who staged a military coup in Mali in 2012, went on trial Wednesday charged with murdering 21 soldiers whose bodies were found in a mass grave.
Sanogo, who faces the death penalty, toppled president Amadou Toumani Toure as the country grappled with a rebellion by Tuareg people that eventually led the way to a jihadist takeover in its vast arid north.
“I’m in fine spirits. I was waiting for this day,” Sanogo told AFP at the opening of the trial, which was held in a packed concert hall in Sikasso, 370 kilometres (230 miles) southeast of the capital, Bamako. The trial was adjourned until Friday.
After the March 2012 coup he proclaimed himself leader, saying the former head of state had failed to restore order. But within days, the military lost control of the cities of Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu, where jihadists razed ancient shrines.
The trial began hours after a failed suicide attack against Gao airport later claimed by a group led by one-eyed Algerian jihadist Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who last week was reported by a US official to have been slain in a French air strike.
Sanogo and 16 others, all of them formerly in the military, are accused of the abduction and killing of 21 elite “Red Berets,” who were detained and forcibly disappeared between April 30 and May 1, 2012.
The “Red Berets” were accused of involvement in an April 30 counter-coup against Sanogo and his loyalists.
Among those facing the charges of assassination and kidnapping are a former defence minister and a former chief of staff.
The bodies were found in December 2013 in a mass grave near Sanogo’s headquarters.
Mali regained control of the northern cities from the jihadists after a French-led international military intervention in January 2013, but insurgents remain active across large parts of the region.

Donald Trump would be the perfect protagonist for a disaster film, said Spanish director Pedro Almodovar, as a retrospective of his movies got underway in New York.
“I think that Trump is going to provide a lot of creative inspiration, especially for comedians,” said Almodovar at an event late Tuesday marking the launch of the film series at Manhattan’s Museum of Modern Art.
The MoMA exhibition, encompassing every movie made by Almodovar, coincides with the release of “Julieta,” his 20th feature-length film, which was also previewed at MoMA Tuesday. The movie opens in US theaters on December 21.
Almodovar, Spain’s most celebrated living movie director, made it clear that he is no fan of the US president-elect, but said Trump’s larger-than-life persona is the stuff of filmmaking lore.
“He seriously would inspire a disaster movie,” Almodovar said.
“This kind of personality type have no parallel in real life. He’s like a great fictional character,” the director said.
“The bad thing is that we are all going to suffer, above all Americans will,” he said.
“We have to put up with him, and in reality, he should be a seen as a huge disaster,” Almodovar added. “Let’s hope he goes away soon.”
The two-time Academy Award winning director had far more charitable feelings towards Trump’s vanquished Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.
The former secretary of state, who Trump defeated in an upset win earlier this month, has the makings of a real “Almodovar girl,” said the director, whose acclaimed films almost always have strong female leads.
A former enfant terrible of cinema, Almodovar got misty-eyed recalling a Met showing of his movie “What Did I Do to Deserve This?” in 1984, when he was just 35 years old and a fresh-faced upstart in film world.
“It’s not just a privilege, but very emotional for me to be in the same place more than 30 years later,” he said.

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak, responding to a decision by OPEC Wednesday to reduce crude output to lift prices, said Russia was ready to cut its own oil production by 300,000 barrels a day next year.
“Russia will progressively reduce its oil production by 300,000 barrels a day in the first half of 2017,” Novak was quoted by the state agency Ria-Novosti as saying, adding the move was conditional on the OPEC decision being “upheld.”

One of the best-known cinemas in the Palestinian territories closed Wednesday after running out of money, organisers said, six years after a grand reopening ceremony backed by international celebrities.
Demolition work had begun on the Cinema Jenin after it failed to attract enough customers in recent years, said Marcus Vetter, one of those behind the 2010 relaunch supported by rock musician Roger Waters and human rights campaigner Bianca Jagger.
The cinema, the last in Jenin in the northern West Bank, was also used as a cultural centre and theatre but is now expected to be replaced by a mall.
“It is a very disappointing and sad moment,” Vetter, a German director, told AFP, explaining the heirs of the original owners had sold it for about 1.7 million euros ($1.8 million).
Built in 1957, Cinema Jenin was considered to be one of the largest and most impressive cinemas in the Palestinian territories but it shut down after the first intifada, or uprising, against Israel began in 1987.
The 2010 relaunch was the brainchild of Vetter and Ismael Khatib, a Palestinian who donated his 11-year-old son’s organs to save Israeli children after the boy was shot dead by an Israeli soldier in 2005.
Khatib had made the gesture in an effort to promote peace efforts, but it was viewed as controversial by some Palestinians.
At the time the 335-seater cinema received celebrity backing, including a state-of-the-art sound system paid for by a 100,000 euro ($106,000) donation from Waters, a long-time pro-Palestinian campaigner.
Jagger attended the launch, which was hailed as a major moment for culture in the Palestinian territories.
Jenin, a conservative Muslim city, was a major base for the two Palestinian intifadas against Israel, the most recent of which ran from 2000-2005.
Juliano Mer-Khamis, a well-known actor from a mixed Jewish-Arab Israeli family who himself had been involved in the cinema, was shot dead in the city in 2011 by unknown gunmen.
Asked why the cinema failed to attract clients, Vetter said it was a mixture of conservative attitudes and fears that going to this specific theatre amounted to accepting Israel’s nearly 50-year occupation of the West Bank.
“People were not ready to really go there. They were also maybe a little bit scared how it would be perceived if they go.”
In 2012, the Israeli left-wing newspaper Haaretz said rumours of a so-called “lack of modesty” at a neighbouring guesthouse where volunteers stayed also damaged the cinema’s reputation.
Dina Aseer, a leader at a local arts centre, said they used the cinema to teach young people Dabke, a national dance.
“We have a band of 25 and a Dabke school of 150 students and no place to go,” she told AFP. “Cinema Jenin was our home.”
Despite the closure, Vetter said he did not regret the project.
“You cannot imagine how much work it was to bring all the equipment there, to find the finance, to fight for it,” he told AFP Wednesday.
“It was the story of a dream. And at least it’s there, the story happened.”

Belgian police arrested six people on Wednesday in connection with an August machete attack on two policewomen that was claimed by the Islamic State group.
The federal prosecutor’s office said they were detained following raids on eight homes in the Charleroi area south of the capital Brussels, with police seizing several bladed weapons, some of them similar to the one used in the attack.
A judge will decide whether to release or detain the suspects further as part of a terror investigation, a statement said.
During the August 6 incident, a machete-wielding man assaulted the two women outside the main police station in Charleroi before being shot dead by a third officer.
He was identified as an Algerian living illegally in Belgium.
The IS-linked Amaq news agency said one of the group’s “soldiers” carried out the attack “in response to calls to target citizens” of countries involved in the US-led coalition bombing jihadists in Syria and Iraq.
Belgian prosecutors have said the man, identified only as K.B., “had a criminal record but was not known for terrorism.”
Belgium has been on high alert since suicide bombers struck Brussels airport and a metro station near the European Union headquarters on March 22, killing 32 people.
Those attacks were claimed by IS, which controls parts of Iraq and Syria and has claimed numerous terror strikes in Europe over the last year, including attacks in Paris which left 130 people dead.

A Dutch court rejected Wednesday a class-action lawsuit by a foundation claiming to represent more than 100,000 victims of a 2006 toxic spill in Ivory Coast, saying it was unconvinced by the claim.
The victims last year dragged Dutch-Swiss commodity trader Trafigura to court in a last-ditch bid for compensation after the spill in the west African country’s commercial capital a decade ago.
The Netherlands-based foundation, calling itself “Stichting Union des Victims de Dechet Toxiques d’Abidjan et Banlieues”, asked judges to rule that Trafigura — who offloaded the chemicals — be held responsible for the spill, clean it up and pay compensation to victims.
But the Amsterdam District Court said “it could not be established that the foundation in fact represented the claimants and how many claimants there are”.
“It is also established that the foundation’s legal action can not be proven to be in the best interest of those affected,” the judges said in papers published online.
“Therefore the claim is rejected.”
Wednesday’s court papers did not mention an amount in the claim.
In mid-2006, toxic residues on board the Panamanian-registered Probo Koala freighter were prevented from being offloaded for treatment in Amsterdam’s port.
The ship and waste were sent to Abidjan instead, where it was dumped on the west African city’s waste tips.
Over 500 cubic metres (18,000 cubic feet) of spent caustic soda, oil residues and water killed 17 people and poisoned thousands, Ivorian judges said.
Foundation lawyer Yorick Boendermaker told AFP he was “very disappointed” but would first study the judgement before deciding whether to lodge an appeal.
Trafigura, which denies any link between the waste and subsequent deaths, has previously reached out-of-court settlements for 33 million euros (35 million) and 152 million euros in Britain and the Ivory Coast.
A second case in a Dutch court against Trafigura — which is headquartered in Switzerland but registered in The Netherlands — on behalf of another foundation was filed in March.

Sudanese anti-riot police on Wednesday fired tear gas and confiscated banners as demonstrators including lawyers and journalists staged rallies against a government decision to cut fuel subsidies.
Sudan has seen weeks of sporadic protests over the subsidy cuts, which have led to a sharp rise in the cost of other goods, including medicines.
Wednesday’s demonstrations came after the end of a three-day nationwide strike called by several opposition groups, which received a mixed response.
“No, no to high prices,” shouted about 300 men and women as they marched along a main street in the city of Omdurman near Khartoum on Wednesday morning, an AFP correspondent reported.
Anti-riot police swiftly arrived at the scene and fired tear gas to disperse them.
In downtown Khartoum, about 150 lawyers protested in front of the high court — the first rally of its kind since the fuel price hike was announced earlier this month.
Dressed in black gowns and coats the group stood facing the high court and carried banners that said: “Say no to corruption, Say no to high prices, Say no to detentions.”
Several people in cars flashed victory signs in support of the lawyers as they drove past, the AFP correspondent reported.
The lawyers later dispersed as anti-riot police arrived and began confiscating their banners.
Sudanese authorities have cracked down on protests in an attempt to prevent a repeat of the deadly unrest that followed a previous round of subsidy cuts in 2013.
Dozens of people were killed at that time when security forces crushed large street demonstrations, drawing international condemnation.
Authorities have already arrested more than a dozen opposition politicians in recent weeks, and also cracked down on newspapers critical of subsidy cuts.
Members of the powerful National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) have seized entire print runs of several dailies that reported the opposition strike call or questioned the cuts.
Authorities have also halted broadcasts by Omdurman Channel, a private television channel, accusing it of operating without a licence, a charge its owner denied.
To protest the crackdown on newspapers, members of the media staged a small demonstration in central Khartoum on Wednesday wearing “Journalists on strike” badges.
“The authorities are harassing us and restricting our freedom of speech,” said one journalist, a member of the Sudanese Journalists’ Network, an unofficial group that advocates free speech.
A prominent independent daily, Al-Jadida, whose copies were confiscated this week, decided against publishing Thursday’s edition.
“The confiscation of our copies is a type of punishment by the National Intelligence and Security Service,” the newspaper said in a statement.
“Our journalists have decided to be on strike tomorrow, and so we will not publish Thursday’s edition but will return on Friday.”

The plane that crashed in Colombia killing 71 people including Brazilian footballers had skipped a scheduled refueling stop, media quoted a representative of the Bolivian airline as saying Wednesday.
“The plane should have refueled in Bogota,” but instead bypassed the Colombian capital and headed straight for its destination Medellin, Gustavo Vargas, a representative of airline LAMIA, was quoted as saying in Bolivian newspaper Pagina Siete.
“The pilot was the one who took the decision not to enter (into Bogota for refueling), because he thought the fuel would last.”
Colombian authorities are investigating what made the plane crash in the mountains of northwest Colombia on Monday night.
The crash killed 71 people including most of the Chapecoense football team from Brazil. Six people including three players miraculously survived.
Announcing the disaster on Monday night, the aviation authority said the plane reported electrical problems just before the crash.
But a Colombian military source told AFP: “It is very suspicious that despite the impact there was no explosion. That reinforces the theory of the lack of fuel.”
Brazilian media said the plane’s fuel capacity may have been inferior to the amount required for the distance of its journey from Santa Cruz in Bolivia to Medellin.
Colombian media, citing investigators, said the plane may have had to wait for another flight to touch down in Medellin before it could land.
Colombian broadcaster W Radio aired a recording of what it said was the captain of another aircraft who said he had heard the pilot of the doomed plane over the radio reporting fuel problems followed by an electrical failure.
British, Bolivian and Brazilian investigators headed to Colombia to help with the probe, authorities said.

Adama Barrow, an unheard-of estate agent just six months ago, is now the flagbearer for The Gambia’s opposition as it mounts an unprecedented threat to President Yahya Jammeh’s 22-year rule.
A burly yet quietly-spoken man, Barrow was thrust into the limelight following the jailing of several top officials from the United Democratic Party (UDP) in July.
“Gambians have suffered for the past 22 years because we have somebody who wants to stay in power by all means,” Barrow told AFP on Tuesday.
“That’s why we came as a force to challenge him.”
Seven Gambian political parties and an independent candidate have joined forces to field a single contender in Thursday’s presidential election, opting for Barrow as a unifying figure.
He had to stand in for longtime UDP leader Ousainou Darboe, who is currently serving a three-year sentence for holding a peaceful protest in April over the death in custody of a party activist — and who is restricted by an age limit.
The two-week election campaign that ended Tuesday has brought people out in large numbers to attend rallies countrywide.
But Jammeh, who has ruled out any possibility of an opposition victory, has made clear he will not tolerate public protests over the result.
Rights watchdog Amnesty International said Wednesday that the authorities “must take all appropriate measures to ensure that forthcoming elections ? including the period following the results – are held in a climate that is free from violence.”
Barrow, who owns a real estate agency, formerly was employed at The Gambia’s largest property rental firm, and lived in Britain for three-and-a-half years when he was younger, working as a security guard in London.
Now 51, the husband to two wives and father of five is a self-confessed workaholic who finds time only for football in rare moments off, following his favourite team, Arsenal.
“I work 12, 13, 14 hours a day,” he said.
A devout Muslim, Barrow said his faith guides every step of his life, as well as his politics.
“If you are a religious man it always influences you,” he told AFP.
“Religion preaches about peace, it preaches discipline and respect for people, so you always have that in the back of your mind.”
For the last two weeks Barrow’s face has been plastered on car windows, brandished on campaign posters, and printed onto grey t-shirts most popular among Gambian youth.
A third candidate, former ruling party MP Mama Kandeh, is also standing and is expected to take a small number of votes from Jammeh supporters among the minority Fula people.
Barrow’s popularity is all the more surprising given his total absence from public life until recently, but Banjul-based diplomats have indicated that his lack of experience and political baggage have worked in his favour.
It is believed that if Barrow were to win — a tall order both in terms of votes and the likelihood of Jammeh giving up power — he would serve a three-year term as head of a transition reform government.
A memorandum signed by all the parties involved in the coalition would guide his presidency. “We will follow that document step by step,” he said.
As a former economic migrant himself, Barrow understands the draw of Europe for young Gambians fleeing the country in huge numbers and taking the perilous journey across the Mediterranean.
“There is a crisis in the Gambia, that’s why everyone is taking the Back Way (migrant route),” he said.
“You hear the name Europe, you think it’s heaven. It’s never like that,” he added.
For now, Barrow is focused on catalysing the support demonstrated on the streets in recent weeks into votes at the ballot box.
“We believe in our support. If Jammeh wants advice, or, I’m giving him advice, if he loses, let him accept the will of the people and accept the value of the Gambian people,” he said.

Prime Minister Theresa May hit back Wednesday at the European Union’s refusal to open talks on the future of EU citizens in post-Brexit Britain before formal divorce talks begin.
EU President Donald Tusk on Tuesday rebuffed a call by British lawmakers to put the status of Europeans in the UK and Britons living elsewhere in the EU on the agenda of the next EU summit in December.
“I had hoped — would hope that this is an issue that we can look at at an early stage of the negotiations,” May told parliament, saying it was “right that we want to give reassurance” to expatriates.
She added: “But I think the reaction that we’ve seen shows why it was absolutely right for us not to… give away the guarantee for rights of EU citizens here in the UK, because as we’ve seen that would have left UK citizens in Europe high and dry.”
May has refused to guarantee the rights of an estimated three million EU citizens living in Britain after Brexit until a reciprocal deal is struck for British expats.
She has said however that she wants an “early” deal and raised the issue at numerous meetings with EU leaders, most recently with the Polish premier on Monday.
Media reports had indicated she was seeking some kind of agreement at next month’s EU summit, a position cited by more than 80 lawmakers who wrote to Tusk last week.
The apparent failure of May’s diplomacy is a “wake-up call” as to how tough Brexit negotiations will be as Britain depends on the goodwill of the 27 other member states, the Financial Times said.
Tusk said discussing the issue at the summit would effectively mean opening formal Brexit negotiations next month — something only London can do.
EU leaders have repeatedly said there cannot be any talks on Brexit until Britain begins the formal exit process by triggering Article 50 of the EU’s Lisbon treaty.
May says she will do this by the end of March.

The German government Wednesday denied security flaws at its domestic spy service after an agent was unmasked as a suspected Islamist and media labelled him a former gay porn actor.
The interior ministry rejected calls for a procedural overhaul at Germany’s internal security watchdog, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), where the 51-year-old had worked.
“We currently have no indication that there are fundamental structural problems,” said a ministry spokesman, noting that the BfV itself had helped expose what he called an isolated case.
“Based on the facts we have, it is too soon to make specific recommendations for action that might arise from this case.”
The agency said Tuesday that the unidentified German national, who had converted to Islam in 2014, had “made Islamist remarks online under a false name, and had offered internal information during online chats” about the service.
The suspect, reportedly of Spanish origin, was caught and arrested on November 17 because his chat partner was also an employee of the domestic intelligence service.
There was no immediate suggestion that the suspect had ties to the radical Islamic State group.
Prosecutors are readying a case alleging he was “preparing a serious act threatening state security”. They said the suspect had already made a partial confession.
Germany’s top-selling Bild daily said investigators who searched the suspect’s home had uncovered gay pornographic videos in which the man featured as an actor.
Although the films were of no relevance to the case, Bild said they painted a picture of the unusual life of the suspect, who is married with children.
A BfV spokeswoman told AFP that she could not confirm media reports that he had been plotting an attack, saying there was no “evidence of a real danger to the office or its workers”.
The suspect was employed at a bank and had, since April, also been working for the agency gathering intelligence on the radical Islamist scene in Germany.
Germany has so far been spared the kind of large-scale jihadist atrocities that have hit Paris and Brussels, although individuals have carried out attacks and others have been prevented.

There were ugly scenes at a press conference to promote their 2017 heavyweight showdown as David Haye threw a punch at Tony Bellew on Wednesday.
The British rivals, who will go head to head in London on March 4, had to be separated and marshalled into different rooms having spent the previous 20 minutes trying to shout over each other.
Former world champion Haye, 36, who cut an angry and aggressive figure throughout, also insulted promoter Eddie Hearn and Bellew’s trainer David Coldwell.
He and Bellew, the WBC cruiserweight champion who is stepping up to heavyweight for the first time, exchanged barbs before Bellew shoved Haye and they nearly came to blows.
Bellew had accused Haye of struggling financially and spoke of the difficulties involved in negotiating with him.
“You could be fighting for the heavyweight championship of the world, but you’re fighting me,” said the 34-year-old Bellew.
“And you know why? For the money. You’re skint.”
Haye fired back: “Let’s see who’s round your hospital bed on March 4. You’re putting this guy in such a dangerous situation.
“I end the fight when I want. It’s completely up to me, you’ve got no say.”
Haye has previously been involved in violence at a press conference when he brawled with Dereck Chisora in 2012.

Ukraine ratcheted up tensions with Moscow on Wednesday by warning the Kremlin its army intended to hold two days of missile-launching exercises near the border with Russian-annexed Crimea.
The tests set for Thursday would almost certainly further damage relations between two former Soviet neighbours that treat each other as open foes.
Such exercises near the Crimean peninsula would be a first for Ukraine and it was not immediately clear what sparked their preparation.
Ukraine also failed to say whether the tests would involve specific targets or if the missiles would only be fired into the air.
They come after Moscow last week arrested an alleged spy for the Ukrainian military in Crimea and accused Kiev of abducting two Russian servicemen from the region.
Kiev says Russia illegally annexed the Black Sea peninsula in March 2014 following the preceding month’s ouster of Ukraine’s Russian-backed president.
It also accuses Moscow of backing a 31-month pro-Russian insurgency in Ukraine’s industrial east in a conflict that has claimed nearly 10,000 lives.
Russia calls its takeover of Crimea legal and denies either plotting or backing Ukraine’s bloodiest conflict since World War II.
Ukraine’s Deputy Defence Minister Oleksandr Dublyan said the missile test launches would begin on Thursday in conformity with international law.
“We are not violating a single international norm,” the Dzerkalo Tyzhnya news website quoted Dublyan as saying.
Kiev and the overwhelming majority of the international community consider Crimea — a mostly Russian-speaking resort region of around two million people — to be part of Ukraine.
Moscow-based RIA Novosti state news agency earlier quoted Russia’s civil aviation authority as saying that Ukraine’s missiles would even approach the Crimean capital of Simferopol.
Kiev’s media was full of speculation that Russia intended to shoot down the Ukrainian missiles once the tests begin.
Ukraine’s national security council chief warned that such threats would not work.
“Threats to use weapons against Ukraine are an effort to turn the hybrid war that Russia has been waging against us for the past three years into an active war,” Oleksandr Turchynov said in a statement released to reporters.
But Russian President Vladimir Putin’s official spokesman kept to a more cautious line.
“The Kremlin would not like to see any sorts of actions from Ukraine that contradict international law,” Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow.
He added that the tests could “create dangerous conditions for international flights crossing the territory of Russia and neighbouring regions”.

Finland’s prime minister admitted Wednesday sending angry emails to a reporter as media claimed he tried to block coverage of an alleged conflict of interest.
Finnish media claimed centrist Prime Minister Juha Sipila pressured public broadcaster Yle to stop investigating the alleged conflict of interest after a company owned by his family won a major order from a nationalised mine.
But Sipila denied any intention of doing so.
“I admit that it’s a soft spot when my position affects my family and my family gets involved… I admit to having reacted emotionally,” he told reporters.
The case centres on an order received by Katera Steel — an engineering company owned by Sipila’s family — from a nickel mine that had received a cash bailout from the state.
On November 11, the government announced it would invest 100 million euros ($107 million) in Terrafame, the company operating the unprofitable mine that would have shut down without the intervention.
Sipila allegedly contacted the editor of Yle, Atte Jaaskelainen and sent nearly 20 messages in one evening to a journalist investigating the matter.
The premier had reached out following the publication of Yle’s first piece on the issue in a bid to discourage further coverage, according to the weekly news magazine Suomen Kuvalehti.
Though Sipila was given a chance to comment on the story hours before publication, he complained on Wednesday that was not sufficient.
“I have not shut anyone’s mouth… The piece of news contained a serious allegation about favouring relatives, which was not the case. A possibility to comment should have been given,” he said.
But Suomen Kuvalehti reported that the pressure allegedly led Yle to scale down its coverage of the story.
It also revealed that Yle’s management had threatened to fire one of its most renowned journalists who planned to discuss the topic in his weekly talk show.
Jaaskelainen denied bowing to pressure from the prime minister.
“My reasoning is that there was no reason to proceed with the matter… We took this decision ourselves on journalistic grounds,” he wrote on Yle’s website.
Sipila has denied any wrongdoing in the transaction.
Katera Steel’s deal with the mine “had been confirmed before the (state funding) decision,” Sipila said.
Antti Rinne, chairman of the biggest opposition party the Social Democrats, said the claims about Sipila interfering with the public broadcaster’s work were “very serious”.
“Finland is a leading country in press freedom. If the claims about Sipila hold true, we will be facing a serious crisis,” Rinne wrote on Twitter.
Production at the Talvivaara mine about 500 kilometres (310 miles) north of Helsinki began in 2008 and was one of the largest nickel mines in Finland. It was nationalised in 2014 to avoid closure.
It caused one of the worst environmental disasters in the country’s history when, in 2012, a leak led to nickel, cadmium, uranium and zinc seeping into surrounding rivers and lakes.
A parliamentary watchdog is probing the prime minister’s role in the allocation of taxpayer funds to the mine.

Martin Scorsese and Pope Francis swapped stories about Japan’s so-called “hidden Christians” on Wednesday after a Vatican viewing of the director’s epic new film on the subject.
In a private audience, Scorsese presented the pontiff with two religious Christian paintings from 17th-century Japan which he says helped guide his work on “Silence”.
The movie, adapted from Shusaku Endo’s 1966 novel of the same name, is about two Jesuit missionaries visiting Japan when Christians faced persecution and torture if their faith was discovered.
“Silence” got its world premiere among the roughly 300 Jesuits at the Vatican’s Pontifical Oriental Institute — though Francis was not among them.
The pope, who met for 15 minutes with the filmmaker, his wife and daughters, did tell them that though he missed the film, he had read the book, according to the Vatican.
As a young priest in Argentina, Jorge Bergoglio had wanted to serve as a missionary in Japan but gave up on the idea due to poor health.
Scorsese, a Hollywood legend who won an Academy Award for “The Departed”, was raised as a Roman Catholic and his films often touch on religious themes.
His 1988 work “The Last Temptation of Christ” was condemned as blasphemous by some Christian groups.
Media were kept out of the “Silence” showing on Tuesday, but Jesuit priest Francesco Occetta tweeted afterwards: “A true film, but also a difficult one, which brings up deep questions.”
The film is due for release in the United States on December 23.

A Swiss corruption probe into the awarding of the 2006 World Cup to Germany was broadened on Wednesday to include former FIFA general secretary Urs Linsi after police raided homes.
Switzerland’s attorney general’s office (OAG) opened an investigation last year into fraud and money laundering allegations against four members of the 2006 World Cup organising committee: Germans Franz Beckenbauer, Hans-Rudolf Schmidt, Theo Zwanziger and Wolfgang Niersbach.
But on Wednesday the top Swiss prosecution authority said it was now also investigating Linsi, who served as FIFA’s secretary general from June 1999 through June 2007.
In a statement sent to AFP, OAG said that on November 23 “it conducted house searches with the support of the Federal Office of Police (fedpol) at various locations in the German-speaking part of Switzerland.”
It said that all the searches related to Linsi.
When contacted by AFP, FIFA refused to comment on an ongoing investigation.
The case first came to light in October 2015, when German news magazine Der Spiegel accused Germany of using a secret slush fund holding 10 million Swiss francs (6.7 million euros according to the exchange rate at the time), to buy votes in support of its bid to host the 2006 World Cup.
The money was allegedly provided in 2000 by the late Robert Louis-Dreyfus, who at the time was head of German sportswear giant Adidas, at the request of Beckenbauer, who headed the committee promoting Germany’s candidacy to host the event.
As a German company and a partner of the German football federation, Adidas had a financial interest in the World Cup being hosted in the country.
The OAG alluded to the allegations, saying Wednesday that last week’s house searches were linked to “a payment of 6.7 million euros made in April 2005 by the German Football Association (DFB) to Robert Louis-Dreyfus.”
It did not explain further.
According to Der Spiegel, DFB had borrowed the cash from Louis-Dreyfus in order to buy the votes of four Asian members of FIFA’s 24-strong executive committee, meaning the 2005 payment could conceivably be a reimbursement.
The so-called Freshfields report, based on an inquiry into the allegations commissioned by the DFB, confirmed last March that the football federation had borrowed the 10 million Swiss francs from Louis-Dreyfus, but was unable to conclusively say how the funds were used.
German authorities have also been investigating the allegations, and in November 2015 they searched the DFB headquarters and the homes of a number of its top executives.
Linsi, who was second-in-command at FIFA at the time of the alleged payments, temporarily suspended his duties last week as head of the small Zurich Bank Sparhafen.
According to financial newsletter Inside Paradeplatz, he told the bank he wanted to clarify the allegations against him and denied any wrongdoing.
FIFA is struggling to exit a vast corruption scandal.
In addition to the suspicions surrounding the awarding of the 2006 World Cup, investigations have been opened into corruption allegations linked to the awarding of the upcoming 2018 World Cup in Russia and the 2022 tournament in Qatar.
The biggest scandal erupted in May 2015, with the high-profile arrests of FIFA officials at a luxury Zurich hotel, following a request from US prosecutors.
Dozens of football and sports marketing executives have since been indicted over allegedly receiving tens of millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks.
Disgraced former FIFA president Sepp Blatter and his former right-hand man Jerome Valcke were the most prominent casualties at FIFA during more than a year of unprecedented scandal at the organisation.
Both men have been slapped with multi-year bans from football over ethics violations and are facing investigations by Swiss prosecutors.
Gianni Infantino replaced Blatter as world football’s most powerful figure last February and vowed to crack down on the graft that had tainted FIFA’s name.

Premium mobile phone brand, TECNO Mobile, and the Premier League’s Manchester City, are today celebrating the launch of their new global multi-year partnership,
As the Official Tablet and Handset Partner of Manchester City Football Club, TECNO Mobile will work with the Club to grow their strategic marketing and advertising campaigns across the globe, including Africa where TECNO is already recognised as the market’s leading mobile phone brand.
TECNO, part of Transsion Holdings, was first established in China and over the last decade has grown its global presence to over 40 emerging markets, where City’s fan base is also strong and continuing to grow every day.
Speaking at the launch of the global partnership, which took place at the City Football Academy, Manchester City’s elite training and youth development facility, Tom Glick, City Football Group’s Chief Commercial Officer, said:
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Stephen Ha, General Manager of TECNO Mobile, speaking at a launch event at Manchester City’s City Football Academy added:
 
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