Month: November 2016

Hundreds of thousands of Cubans packed Havana’s Revolution Square on Tuesday for a massive rally in honor of late leader Fidel Castro.
The crowd chanted “long live the revolution!” and “Fidel! Fidel!” as Castro’s leftist Latin American allies and other leaders from the region and Africa joined the commemoration.
A giant picture of a young, bearded Castro in his guerrilla uniform and rifle hung on the National Library as his brother and successor, Raul Castro, waved at the crowd.
Castro — who ruled from 1959 until an illness forced him to hand power to his brother Raul in 2006 — died Friday at age 90. The cause of death has not been announced.
The event was part of week-long commemorations honoring Castro.
Encouraged by the government, long lines of Cubans tearfully had streamed past a picture of Castro inside the monument to independence hero Jose Marti on Monday and Tuesday.
On Wednesday, an urn containing his ashes will be taken on a four-day procession from Havana to the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba, retracing the route that Castro took to celebrate his victory in the 1959 celebration.
The ashes will be laid to rest in Santiago at the cemetery where Marti, the 19th century independence icon, was buried.

International investigators have found a suspected “weapon pipeline” from Iran through Somalia to Yemen where Shiite rebels are battling the government, according to a report released on Wednesday.
Saudi Arabia and the United States have accused Iran of arming the Huthi rebels in Yemen, but Tehran denies the charges.
Since March last year Riyadh has led an Arab coalition fighting the Huthis and their allies in support of Yemen’s internationally recognised president, Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, after the rebels overran much of the country.
The analysis by Conflict Armament Research (CAR) is based on the seizure in February and March this year of weapons from dhows, traditional sailing vessels, in the Arabian Sea.
British-based CAR, which is primarily funded by the European Union, analysed photographs of weapons confiscated from the dhows by the Australian warship HMAS Darwin and the French frigate FS Provence.
The ships were part of a joint international task force that operates separately from the Saudi coalition.
HMAS Darwin seized more than 2,000 weapons, including AK-type assault rifles and 100 Iranian-manufactured rocket launchers, from the dhow bound for Somalia, CAR said.
The seizure by FS Provence included 2,000 assault rifles “characteristic of Iranian manufacture” and 64 Hoshdar-M Iranian-made sniper rifles, all of which were in new condition, CAR said.
There were also nine Russian-made Kornet anti-tank guided missiles, it said.
UAE forces within the Saudi-led coalition reported recovering in Yemen a Kornet which CAR said is part of “the same production run” as those on the dhow.
This “supports allegations that the weapons originated in Iran and that the dhow’s cargo was destined for Yemen,” CAR said.
French government sources said the dhow was headed to Somalia “for possible transhipment to Yemen,” CAR said.
Light machine guns, suspected to be North Korean made, were found with the same serial number sequence on both dhows, “which suggests that the materiel derived from the same original consignment,” the report added.
It also referred to the US Navy’s seizure from a dhow in March of AK-type assault rifles, rocket launchers and machine guns which the US believed “orginated in Iran and were destined for Yemen.”
Two of the dhows were made by Al Mansoor of Iran, CAR said.
Although their findings were “relatively limited,” the investigators said their analysis “suggests the existence of a weapon pipeline extending from Iran to Somalia and Yemen”.
This involves “significant quantities of Iranian-manufactured weapons and weapons that plausibly derive from Iranian stockpiles,” they said.
It said that traffickers offload weapons in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland in northern Somalia “for local arms markets or as transhipment points for onward supply to Yemen”.
Other analysts have questioned the extent of Tehran’s influence over the Huthis, a minority group which fought six wars against Yemen’s government from 2004 to 2010.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday said his country has not yet given up on its ambition to join the European Union but has “many other alternatives” if the stalled process goes nowhere.
“We have not yet closed the European Union book right now,” Erdogan told an international conference in Istanbul. “But nobody should forget that Turkey always has many other alternatives.”
Last week the European Parliament backed a freeze in Turkey’s membership talks, angering Erdogan who threatened to retaliate by rupturing a migrant deal curbing the flow of refugees to Europe.
Turkey agreed to step up maritime and land border controls in exchange for incentives on its long-stalled membership bid, including visa-free travel for its citizens and an acceleration of the accession talks.
The deal has substantially helped reduce the wave of migrants since it was signed in March.
Erdogan said the non-binding vote at the European Parliament “upset” Turkey, adding it did not currently have “positive” feelings on the accession talks.
If the EU path is blocked, Erdogan said, “we’ll continue our road by evaluating one of those alternatives,” without naming them.
“I don’t find it right to say it here but we are of course continuing our talks with those alternatives.”
Earlier this month, Erdogan again floated the idea of joining Russia and China in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).
The SCO is a loose security and economic bloc. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are also members.
But Turkey’s Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told a televised interview last week that the SCO was not an alternative to Ankara’s EU accession talks.
EU Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker, speaking in France, warned that Erdogan would be “held responsible” if the March agreement crumbles and Turkish citizens lose their right to visa-free travel in Europe.
Turkey must ask itself “does it really want to become a member of the EU one day or not? Mr Erdogan must know that one day he will be held responsible for having turned down visa liberalisation”, Juncker said in an interview appearing in the Wednesday edition of the Ouest-France newspaper.
Turkey formally applied to become an EU member in 1987 and accession talks only began in 2005, even though Ankara’s aspirations to become part of the bloc dates back to the 1960s.
“There is an EU that has kept Turkey waiting at its door for 53 years,” Erdogan said.
“I say it, you (the EU) are not the only fine Indian fabric around!” he said, using a traditional Turkish idiom equivalent to the English “there are plenty more fish in the sea”.
“You applied a similar kind of pressure on many countries in the world. What happened? You destroyed them? With God’s help, you cannot destroy Turkey.”
Tensions in Turkish-EU relations have built since the failed July 15 coup attempt that aimed to oust Erdogan.
Authorities have responded to the failed putsch by arresting or dismissing tens of thousands of people from state institutions to cleanse the “virus” of US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen, who Ankara blames for the coup but he denies the allegations.
Opponents have argued the purge has gone beyond coup suspects and is being used by the government to silence dissent, with Europe urging Turkey to comply with its rights obligations.
Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel told AFP in an interview that “the values on which the union is built are being trampled on a daily basis, but I hope that Turkey will become again the partner in which I used to have confidence”.
“The situation is worrying,” he said, while refusing to back a freeze in the accession negotiations.
Visiting Brussels, Turkey’s EU Affairs Minister Omer Celik described the European Parliament vote as the “most unjust resolution in history” and urged solidarity instead.
“If there were objective, fair negotiations… then there is no reason why Turkey would not be a full member state today,” Celik said.

A German working in intelligence has been exposed as “a suspect Islamist”, Germany’s domestic security agency said on Tuesday, following reports he was planning an attack on the agency’s headquarters.
“The Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) has managed to expose a suspected Islamist among its associates,” the agency said in a statement, confirming information published earlier by the Der Spiegel weekly and the daily Die Welt.
The 51-year-old German, who was arrested for sharing “sensitive information” online, is believed to have been planning a bombing at the BfV headquarters in the western city of Cologne, according to the German press.
There was no immediate suggestion he had any ties to the radical Islamic State group.
Contacted by AFP, a BfV spokeswoman said the unnamed 51-year-old had “made Islamist remarks online under a false name, and had offered internal information during online chats”.
She confirmed that an arrest warrant was issued and the suspect had been detained.
She did not though confirm the reports that he was plotting an attack, saying there was no “evidence of a real danger to the office or its workers”.
Prosecutors are readying a case of “preparing a serious act threatening state security”.
Both Der Spiegel and Die Welt said he had converted to Islam in 2014. Married with children, he was employed at a bank and had, since April, also been doing some work for the agency gathering intelligence on the Islamist scene in Germany.
The publications said the suspect had partially admitted to the allegations by making references to bomb attacks carried out “in the name of Allah”.
He used several different names online and allegedly divulged information about the agency in chat rooms, the reports said. His activities were uncovered about a month ago.
Germany has so far been spared the kind of large-scale deadly jihadist atrocities which have been carried out in Paris and Brussels, though individuals have carried out attacks and others have been prevented.

Venezuelan lawmakers voted unanimously Tuesday to issue a declaration condemning the massacre of 12 civilians by soldiers, a rare display of unity in a country torn by a political crisis.
President Nicolas Maduro’s allies and the opposition majority came together to “condemn the forced disappearance and killing of a number of citizens… by members of the military,” they said.
The resolution refers to a bloody security operation in October that left 12 farmers missing.
Their bodies were later found rotting in mass graves in the mountains outside the town of Barlovento, in the central state of Miranda.
Eleven soldiers were arrested for the killings.
Tuesday’s vote was just the second time Maduro’s coalition and the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) have unanimously adopted a piece of legislation since the latter won control of the National Assembly last year.
The other was an endorsement of Pope Francis’s call for dialogue on the country’s raging crisis.
Oil giant Venezuela has veered toward economic collapse as crude prices have plunged since 2014, fueling an opposition drive to oust Maduro.
The leftist leader, who accuses his opponents of conspiring with the United States to oust him, has vowed to hold onto power at least until his term ends in 2019.
Shortages of food, medicine and basic goods in Venezuela have led to riots, looting and a rise in violent crime.
Seeking to bolster security, the military launched a crime crackdown in July 2015 called People’s Liberation Operations, or OPLs.
Activists have voiced concern about rights abuses committed under the program, including the Barlovento massacre.
The military has said it “categorically rejects” the actions of the 11 soldiers arrested over the killings.

The man who appears to have won the first round of Haiti’s presidential election, Jovenel Moise, says he wants to lift the Caribbean country out of poverty by reviving its agricultural sector.
Moise, a 48-year-old political novice and entrepreneur who worked in agriculture mostly growing bananas, has been nicknamed “banana man” since former president Michel Martelly chose him to represent the PHTK party.
“We will need to mobilize all the resources of the country, as I repeated during my campaign: men, land, sun and rivers to put food on people’s plates and money in their pockets,” Moise said late Monday, shortly after the preliminary results of the first-round election were announced.
The preliminary results showed that Moise won the election outright, garnering 55.7 percent of the vote, but he lacks much popularity, with only 21 percent of eligible voters casting their ballots.
A candidate who wins more than half of the ballots cast in the first round is the victor, preventing the election from going to a second round.
Jude Celestin, who ran as a candidate of the opposition LAPEH and came in second with 19.52 percent, has joined fellow candidates Moise Jean-Charles (11.04 percent) and Maryse Narcisse (8.99 percent) in challenging the outcome.
“We are saying there was cheating and we will see who cheated,” Celestin told AFP, without naming Moise directly.
Violence broke out Tuesday in some of Port-au-Prince’s poorest neighborhoods, which were carried by Narcisse’s Fanmi Lavalas party.
Police launched teargas grenades to disperse a crowd of hundreds of her supporters who called the vote an “electoral coup” and reacted to the advancing officers by throwing stones.
“We didn’t vote in secret. All of the working-class neighborhoods in the country… voted for Maryse, but the results they announced were an electoral coup,” said Rose-Marie Rosilus, who lives in Bel Air, a neighborhood that has historically been a bastion of former leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who heads the Lavalas party.
“We will stay out in the streets until the electoral council gives us our true results,” added Rosilus, who brought lemons to alleviate the effect of the teargas.
Provisional Electoral Council president Leopold Berlanger cautioned that the results were preliminary and final results would not be confirmed until December 29.
Haitian law offers candidates the opportunity to challenge the results in electoral courts.
The drawn-out proceedings are slowing down the return to constitutional order in a desperately poor country already beset by political upheaval.
Three of the council’s nine members refused to sign the results announced on Monday, signaling a potential conflict over the outcome.
“There were no demonstrations of joy in Haiti. When a candidate wins with more than 55 percent, there should be spontaneous demonstrations by people who are out in the streets because they are happy,” Celestin said.
The fact that there were no such public revelries “means that people do not agree with the results which do not reflect the popular vote,” he said.
“It is not just a fight to narrow the gap, but rather to demonstrate that a candidate cheated and therefore must be punished as the electoral decree mandates, which is to say he should be removed from the process if necessary,” Celestin said, indicating he would pursue the matter in the courts.
The long-delayed November 20 election took place without major incident. Haiti’s vote was originally held in October 2015, but the results were scrapped after an independent commission found massive fraud.
Moise was initially said to have won the October 2015 election’s first round with approximately 33 percent to 25 percent for Celestin, who denounced the results as a “ridiculous farce” before they were scrapped.
Fatigued by the long-delayed vote, the majority of Haitians report that they do not believe an election can lift Haiti — where more than 60 percent of the population survives on less than $2 per day — out of extreme poverty.
Nearly 6.2 million people were eligible to vote in the Americas’s poorest country, parts of which are still struggling to recover from a devastating hurricane.
More than 800,000 people in Haiti currently need emergency food assistance, according to the United Nations.

The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting Wednesday on the dire humanitarian crisis unfolding in Aleppo, diplomats said.
The meeting will begin immediately following a Security Council session on the adoption of a resolution reinforcing sanctions against North Korea, which is scheduled to begin at 1400 GMT.
The 15 ambassadors of the Security Council will get a videoconference briefing on the situation in Aleppo by a UN official in charge of humanitarian operation and the UN mediator in Syria, Staffan de Mistura.
In east Aleppo, thousands of civilians have fled the fighting and bombings as the Syrian government forces advanced against parts of the rebel-held areas.
The UN condemned on Tuesday the “descent into hell” being endured by civilians.
Up to 20,000 people have fled the regime offensive in the past 72 hours, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.
“France and its partners cannot remain silent in the face of what could be one of the biggest massacres of civilian population since World War II,” said France’s UN ambassador Francois Delattre on Tuesday.
He and his British counterpart Matthew Rycroft earlier in the day were pushing for the emergency council meeting on providing humanitarian relief to the besieged Syrian city.
East Aleppo has been under government siege for more than four months, with international aid stocks exhausted and food supplies running low.
Rycroft said the council would discuss plans for the UN to deliver much-needed food and medicine into Aleppo and evacuate the sick and wounded.
“Russia complained that the opposition had not agreed to this plan. Now they have, so I call on Russia to make sure the Syrian regime agrees,” Rycroft said.
“The future of Aleppo is in the hands of the regime and Russia, and we urge the regime and Russia to stop the bombing and let the aid go through.”

Ivory Coast’s former first lady Simone Gbagbo and the judge trying her for crimes against humanity clashed Tuesday, with military police forced to prevent her from leaving the courtroom.
“Where are you going? Stop her” the court president Boiqui Kouadjo told gendarmes as Gbagbo left the witness box to follow her lawyer who exited the Abidjan courtroom in protest against the proceedings.
Gbagbo refused to sit down.
“Condemn me if you want, but I’m tired of this. It’s nonsense,” she said before being admonished by the judge for talking to him “in that tone”.
Simone Gbagbo is the wife of former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo, who was forced from power in 2011 by current incumbent Alassane Ouattara, who had won presidential elections five months previously — the results of which his predecessor rejected.
Simone Gbagbo’s trial began on May 31. She is accused of involvement in the shelling of Abobo, a northern suburb of the capital Abidjan, which was a Ouattara stronghold.
She is also accused of being a member of a “crisis cell” that allegedly coordinated attacks by the armed forces and militias in support of Gbagbo.
She is already serving a 20-year sentence for “endangering state security”.
Tuesday’s exchanges began after the court rejected a defence request for high-profile witnesses to be called, including parliament’s speaker, a former prime minister and a former army chief.
The trial had resumed Monday after being suspended for two weeks.
The court is scheduled to sit again on Wednesday but it was unclear whether the defence team would return to the proceedings.

Twelve people, most of them schoolgirls, were killed on Tuesday when fire ravaged a dormitory for pupils in the southern Turkish region of Adana, local officials said.
The fire, which officials said was likely caused by an electrical fault, raced through the building’s wooden interior as panicked victims tried to jump from windows to safety.
Officials expressed concern that many of the dead were killed after they were unable to open a closed fire door to escape the top floors of the building.
Images showed scenes of devastation as emergency services arrived to tackle the fire at the dormitory building, parts of which were turned into a blazing wreck and whose roof collapsed.
“We lost 12 of our citizens in the fire. Eleven of them were schoolchildren and one was a tutor. 22 citizens are injured,” Adana region governor Mahmut Demirtas told Turkish NTV television.
“According to initial findings, we believe the fire was caused by electrical fault,” he said.
The Dogan news agency specified that all 11 of the schoolchildren killed were girls. Their identities have yet to be disclosed but they were also said to be 14 or under.
The disaster took place in the town of Aladag north of Adana city, one of the biggest urban centres in the south of Turkey.
Television footage showed the three-storey building in flames, with fire engine teams trying to put out the blaze.
Demirtas said some terrified schoolgirls were injured after jumping out of the window to escape the flames. He added that none of the injuries were serious condition.
The governor said the fire at the private schoolchildren dorm broke out at around 19:25 (1625 GMT) and it was brought under control some three hours later.
Demirtas declined to comment on claims that fire escape stairs were locked and students were unable to use them.
But Adana city Mayor Huseyin Sozlu said: “It appears that the fire escape stairs door was locked. Children could not open it. Bodies were found there,” he said.
He told NTV “of course children would have survived” if they had been able to flee down the fire escape stairs.
“From tomorrow the governor’s office will start an investigation.”
He said the children were aged between 11-14.
Students trapped on the second and third storeys of the building who could not flee outside, were killed in the fire, the Dogan news agency said.
The fire spread rapidly because of the building’s wooden interior and carpeted floor, officials said.
Aladag district’s mayor Mustafa Alpgedik, quoted by the Dogan news agency, said the fire erupted on the ground floor and then the flames spread because the third floor was wooden.
With the burning of the wooden floor, the roof then entirely collapsed, he said.
In an agonising wait, families who could not see their children stood outside in tears, Dogan added.
The dorm had a capacity for 54 students and was open to both secondary and high school students. Demirtas said it was a private dormitory with 34 students in residence.
Fires are frequent in Turkey due to antiquated and often wooden buildings and faulty electrics. But a disaster of this magnitude is highly unusual.
In a sign of the seriousness of the incident, several ministers were heading to the region, including Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu and Education Minister Ismet Yilmaz.
Demirtas meanwhile informed President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who expressed his sadness over the catastrophe, the state-run Anadolu news agency said.

Ding Junhui suffered a shock exit from the UK Championship on Tuesday as the Chinese star was beaten 6-2 by Jamie Jones in the third round.
Ding, a two-time UK Championship winner, had climbed back to number five in the world rankings after a poor run and hoped for a strong showing in the York tournament.
But instead the 29-year-old was crushed by Welshman Jones, who is only ranked 37th in the world.
Ding was level at 2-2 going into the interval, but he was unable to find his rhythm after the break as Jones won all four frames to seal an impressive victory.
Ding is the latest high-profile player to be knocked out of this year’s UK Championship following the early exits of Neil Robertson, Stuart Bingham and Judd Trump.

Liverpool starlet Ben Woodburn made history as the teenage striker became the club’s youngest ever goalscorer in Tuesday’s 2-0 win over Leeds in the League Cup quarter-finals.
Aged 17 years and 45 days, Woodburn enjoyed a moment to remember forever in the 81st minute at Anfield when he fired home in front of the famous Kop End to eclipse the previous record set by Michael Owen, who was 17 years and 143 days old when he scored against Wimbledon in May 1997.
“Another record taken from me!!! Congratulations BenWoodburn on becoming the youngest ever scorer for LFC at 17yrs and 45 days. #KopEnd,” Owen tweeted.
Woodburn only made his senior debut for Liverpool on Saturday as a late substitute in a Premier League win over Sunderland — an appearance that made him the club’s third youngest ever first-team player.
Cheshire-born Woodburn, who recently signed a long-term contract with Liverpool, is a Wales Under-19 international, but he still remains eligible to play for England at senior level.
While it’s far too early to say a star was born on Tuesday, Woodburn’s impressive pedigree at youth level and his fairytale first goal for the Reds suggest he is one to watch.
“Ben, we know how young he is. It’s a nice story and all the boys are really happy for him,” Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp said.
“Everyone is smiling in the dressing room. It’s a good moment for him and a good moment for us.”
Klopp’s side are through to the League Cup semi-finals for the third successive year thanks to Woodburn and Divock Origi
Klopp has now won seven of his nine League Cup games with Liverpool, who hope to lift the trophy for the ninth time after losing to Manchester City in the final last term.
Before kick-off, Liverpool’s Brazilian captain Lucas and his team-mates, all wearing black armbands, stood for a minutes’ silence following the plane crash that killed 71 people, including members of the Brazilian Chapecoense team.
With Philippe Coutinho sidelined for five weeks with ankle ligament damage, Klopp gave starts to teenagers Trent Alexander-Arnold and Ovie Ejaria as the Reds boss selected a team featuring eight changes.
Second tier Leeds, whose last League Cup semi-final appearance was in 1996, should have been ahead early on when Hadi Sacko broke the offside trap and saw his shot saved by Simon Mignolet.
Liverpool gradually took charge and Sadio Mane’s pass slipped Georginio Wijnaldum into the penalty area, but the Dutchman’s shot struck the far post.
Then, in the 76th minute, Alexander-Arnold whipped in a cross from the right and Belgian striker Origi stretched to guide the ball home at the near post for his fourth goal of the season and third in the League Cup.
Woodburn came on in the 67th minute and his dream came to true when he smashed into the net following a flowing move involving Origi, Mane and Wijnaldum.
“He is a brilliant young player. He did very well. A goal will give him confidence to keep learning,” Lucas added of Woodburn.
In the day’s other quarter-final, Premier League strugglers Hull beat second tier Newcastle 3-1 on penalties after a 1-1 draw to reach the last four for the first time.
Both sides made a host of changes and a drab game didn’t come to life until the 89th minute when Hull’s Dieumerci Mbokani was sent off after lunging forward with his head at Jamaal Lascelles.
Newcastle took the lead eight minutes into extra-time when former Hull midfielder Mohamed Diame stabbed in, but Robert Snodgrass equalised 60 seconds later.
In the shoot-out, Hull goalkeeper Eldin Jakupovic saved from Jonjo Shelvey and Dwight Gayle hit the crossbar before Jakupovic turned away Yoan Gouffran’s kick to clinch the win.
On Wednesday, Manchester United host West Ham and Arsenal face Southampton in the remaining last eight ties.

The Somali student who wounded 11 people in a car-ramming and knife attack on an Ohio university campus was a “soldier” of the Islamic State group, a jihadist-linked news agency said Tuesday.
The Amaq agency said the rampage by Abdul Razak Ali Artan, a logistics student at Ohio State University, was the result of IS calls to action.
“He carried out the operation in response to calls to target citizens of international coalition countries,” the agency quoted an insider source as saying, according to a translation by the SITE group that monitors extremists.
Artan was shot dead Monday by police moments after he drove his car into a crowd of pedestrians on the campus in Columbus, Ohio, and attacked them with a butcher knife.
Emerging details about Artan have led authorities to believe that he was inspired by jihadist propaganda, CNN reported citing law enforcement sources.
According to US media, Artan’s family arrived in the United States from Somalia via Pakistan in 2014. He was studying at OSU as a third-year transfer student of logistics management.
In an interview a few months ago with student newspaper The Lantern, Artan had complained of the lack of Muslim prayer rooms on campus.
“If people look at me, a Muslim praying, I don’t know what they’re going to think, what’s going to happen,” he said.
US media reported that a Facebook page thought to belong to him — since taken offline — included grievances against the United States.
“I can’t take it any more. America! Stop interfering with other countries, especially the Muslim Ummah. We are not weak. We are not weak, remember that,” a post quoted by ABC television said, using a term referring to the global community of Muslims.
“If you want us Muslims to stop carrying (out) lone wolf attacks, then make peace,” the post reads. “We will not let you sleep unless you give peace to the Muslims.”
Artan also referred to Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born Al-Qaeda cleric killed in a US drone strike in Yemen, as a hero in the posting.
Classes resumed Tuesday at the university, with all but three of the 11 injured discharged from hospital, according to Andrew Thomas, chief medical officer of Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center.
“Everyone still continues to be healing, obviously, working through the trauma of yesterday’s events,” Thomas told a news conference.
The university planned an evening gathering at a campus sports arena to help students and staff deal with the aftermath of the attack.
“Time will help, but I think in some ways the entire university will be changed by this,” Thomas said.
One of the injured, who was discharged Tuesday, addressed the news conference. William Clark, an emeritus professor at the university, said he was struck by Artan’s car and flipped in the air.
“It all happened so fast,” Clark said, holding back tears when speaking of police officer Alan Horujko, who responded to the scene and quickly shot dead Artan, halting his attack.
“If he was here, I’d put my arm around him, and tell him he’s got a lot to cope with in the days to come,” Clark said. “He’s got to live with this the rest of his life, but he did the right thing.”
Clark also said he wanted to withhold judgment of his attacker until the investigation reveals more about what drove him to commit the rampage.
“Yes, he was from Somalia, but he’s an OSU student,” Clark said. “And, having been a faculty member for 35 years, I am only too aware of the things that drive students sometimes to do things that they wouldn’t ordinarily do.”
Ohio is home to the second largest Somali community in the United States, numbering around 38,000 in the Columbus area alone, according to the state’s Somali community association.
The country’s largest Somali community, in Minnesota, was rocked when one of its members stabbed 10 people at a mall in September. IS later claimed the attacker was a jihadist “soldier,” the same claim as for Artan.

With a rich, soulful voice that soars high and deep, Paul Janeway has commanded growing crowds as the frontman of his band St. Paul and The Broken Bones.
But Janeway has little interest in the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle. The affable 33-year-old said he learned how to lead the enthusiastic audiences at rock venues from spending his teenage years training as a preacher.
“In church, there were moments when you thought you were connecting as a people, and I think music has the ability to do that,” Janeway, sipping a bottle of cola, said in the drawl of his native Alabama as he prepared to play a sold-out show before 3,000 people at New York’s Terminal 5 club.
“With any great public speaker, there is a rhythm to the way they speak, and the tone — the high and low, being captivated, keeping someone’s attention, understanding valleys and peaks,” he said.
“That’s how we write a set-list. We’ll take ’em all the way up here and take ’em down — kind of an emotional roller-coaster in a way.”
The bespectacled Janeway — who still looks more like a Bible student than a rock star — went to church for as long as he knew and at 11, a pastor took him under his wing, letting him preach — or “perform,” as Janeway also described it — on select days.
Janeway’s faith eventually grew complex. He embraces the power of religious experience, but is no longer observant in the way of his youth.
“I thought that was what I wanted to do — I wanted to be a preacher for the rest of my life. And then I got to be 19 or so, and I just kind of fell out of love with it,” he said.
Janeway grew up with limited exposure to rock, with his mother strictly controling the music at home.
“I could listen to Gospel music, of course, and any sort of religious music and then a little bit of soul,” he said, explaining with a grin: “Marvin Gaye — pre- ‘Let’s Get It On.’ A little safer!”
Janeway’s voice — graceful but erupting into forceful, brassy fermatas — calls to mind not only Baptist preachers but also soul masters such as Al Green and the late Otis Redding.
Janeway, who is white, tackles his conservative state’s political and racial fault-lines through the music, but with the subtlety of a reflective religious scholar.
On “Sea of Noise,” the second album by St. Paul and The Broken Bones which was released in September, Janeway bends gender on “I’ll Be Your Woman” and repeatedly muses on questions of faith.
“All the people they are praying / But there ain’t love no more / Just bullets and hate,” he sings on “Waves.”
With a band with roots in soul but also R&B and rock, St. Paul and The Broken Bones has drawn inevitable parallels to Alabama Shakes, a fellow group from the Southern state that has quickly won success through acclaim for a gifted singer.
Yet Janeway, who in January will lead his band on its latest tour of Europe, is strikingly fatalistic about his rising fame.
“This was not a dream realized,” he said of his music career. “It was a realization just that this was what I was supposed to be doing.”
“In my family, you work hard and you put your head down,” he said. “I was a bank teller for a little while. I approach it in the same way.”
Janeway demands little on tour except plenty of water to preserve his voice. After each show, Janeway, who is married, said he generally returns to his hotel room and reads a book.
“I never drank alcohol and I never smoked a cigarette. I don’t participate,” he said with a laugh. “I have bad language, but that’s about it.”

Yoenis Cespedes has agreed a four-year $110 million (103.3 million euros) deal which will see him remain at the New York Mets, reports said Tuesday, ending speculation about the Cuban slugger’s future after he earlier opted for free agency.
Rival clubs across Major League Baseball led by the Washington Nationals and Los Angeles Dodgers had been put on alert after Cespedes walked away from $47 million guaranteed after using his opt-out clause to head to the open market.
However the uncertainty was brought to a swift conclusion on Tuesday when Cespedes accepted a deal from the Mets which will make him the highest-paid outfielder in baseball.
Cespedes had come close to leaving the Mets last year, but remained with the club after failing to garner significant offers.
The Cuban was a key figure in the Mets’ World Series challenge in 2015 and helped the club reach the playoffs in 2016.
This year he hit 31 home runs and drove in 86 runs in 132 appearances despite a niggling right quad injury.
Under the new deal, Cespedes will receive $22.5 million in his first year followed by $29 million, $29 million and $29.5 million.
The Mets had earlier re-signed second baseman Neil Walker to a one-year qualifying offer this month.

Russian heptathlete Tatyana Chernova was banned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on Tuesday for doping and stripped of her 2011 world title, effectively handing the crown to Jessica Ennis-Hill.
Chernova’s gold medal from the world championships in Daegu, South Korea is now set to be awarded to the Briton Ennis-Hill, the 2012 London Olympic champion and silver medallist at this year’s Rio Games.
CAS banned Chernova, 28, for three years and eight months, with all her results over a two-year period from the world championships in 2011 now void.
Ennis-Hill, who won world gold in her own right in 2009 and 2015, has long called for the 2011 title to go to her after Chernova had a sample from the 2009 world championships retested later to reveal an anabolic steroid.
Chernova, just the latest Russian athlete punished for doping, would not have been eligible to compete in South Korea if her positive test had been discovered at the time.
Soon after the CAS statement came out, Ennis-Hill posted a message on Instagram alongside a picture of her and a celebrating Chernova in Daegu.
“This image was forever imprinted in my mind! However much it drove me on for what I was about to achieve at my first Olympics in London, in my heart I just knew it was wrong,” Ennis-Hill wrote.
“So happy to finally be receiving my gold medal. Triple World Champion WOW.”
Ennis-Hill, the 2012 Olympic champion, won her other heptathlon world golds at Berlin in 2009 and Beijing last year.
As well as losing her 2011 world title Chernova has also been deprived of her 2012 Olympic bronze, with Lithuania’s Austra Skujyte set to inherit third.
CAS issued bans for Russian middle distance runners Ekaterina Sharmina (three years) and Kristina Ugarova (two years).
All three cases were referred to CAS by athletics’ governing body the IAAF in February with the top sports court stepping in to take over from Russia’s suspended athletics federation the ARAF.
The IAAF had ruled that CAS was to determine the fate of all Russian athletes accused of doping.
This trio were found guilty after their “Athlete Biological Passports (ABP) showed evidence of blood doping,” CAS said in a statement.
Tuesday’s verdicts are open to appeal.
In its statement CAS said: “The collection of the blood samples for these athletes started many years ago (dating back to 2009 for Ms Chernova, to 2011-2012 for the others), but the analysis of the blood values and of the Biological Passports was conducted in 2015.”
Russia’s image in world sports has been badly tarnished by evidence of state-sponsored doping that saw its athletics team and entire Paralympics squad excluded from the Rio Games this summer.

Up to 20,000 people have fled a Syrian government offensive in rebel-held eastern Aleppo in the last 72 hours, the International Committee of the Red Cross said Tuesday.
A spokeswoman for the Geneva-based ICRC, Krista Armstrong, told AFP that the 20,000 figure was an estimate and that the situation remained fluid, stressing that “people are fleeing in different directions”, desperately seeking refuge from the brutal fighting.
Terrified civilians have fled empty-handed into remaining rebel-held territory, or crossed into government-controlled western Aleppo or Kurdish districts.
The United Nations humanitarian chief Stephen O’Brien had earlier put the number of displaced from eastern Aleppo at 16,000.
The Syrian government offensive to recapture rebel-held parts of Aleppo has sparked international alarm.
France called for an immediate UN Security Council session on the fighting, which has seen the army capture a third of opposition-controlled east Aleppo in recent days.

Real Madrid superstar Gareth Bale underwent an operation on Tuesday in London on his injured ankle that will likely see him ruled out of action for two months.
“Our player Gareth Bale has successfully come through the operation he underwent today after suffering an injury to the peroneal tendons in his right ankle,” the Spanish giants said in a statement.
“The operation was carried out at London’s King Edward VII Hospital by Dr. James Calder and Real Madrid Sanitas’ Dr. Mikel Aramberri, under the supervision of Dr. Jesus Olmo, head of Real Madrid’s medical department,” it added.
Bale was forced off just before the hour mark of Real’s 2-1 win over Sporting Lisbon on November 22 as the European champions secured their place in the last 16 of the Champions League for a record 20th consecutive season.
The Welshman was diagnosed with a “traumatic dislocation of the peroneal tendons in his right ankle”.
Spanish media reported at the time that he would be out for at least two months.
It means Bale will miss the rest of 2016, the Club World Cup in Japan and probably the first leg of the Champions League last 16 tie.

A slice of Major League Soccer history will be up for grabs on Wednesday when Toronto FC and Montreal Impact clash with the aim of becoming the first Canadian side to reach the MLS Cup final.
The two Canadian clubs meet in the second leg of the Eastern Conference Championship, with Montreal taking a 3-2 first-leg lead to Toronto’s BMO Field on the banks of Lake Ontario.
It is the first time in MLS history that a Canadian team is guaranteed to advance to the showpiece game of the league’s season.
Montreal’s task was made more complicated after a Toronto fightback in the first leg which saw them score two away goals after being 3-0 down.
However the Impact have arrived in Toronto in bullish mood, confident that they can grab the result they need to advance to a December 10 MLS Cup meeting against the Seattle Sounders, winners of the Western Conference on Sunday.
“We can make history,” Montreal defender Laurent Ciman said.
“Everyone has to understand that we have to be 200-percent focused as you don?t get to play this type of game every day. A golden opportunity is in front of us and we hold the keys.
“We have to be ready from the start.”
Seattle would host the final next month only if Montreal advance from Wednesday’s second leg, by virtue of having a superior regular-season record.
If Toronto overturn their 3-2 first-leg deficit they will host the final.
Wednesday’s game could mark the final appearance of Montreal’s veteran striker Didier Drogba, the former Chelsea and Ivory Coast star who has announced he will not return to the MLS in 2017.
Drogba, 38, is expected to feature at some point from the bench.
Toronto will seek to utilise the attacking talents of Italian star Sebastian Giovinco and United States international Jozy Altidore.
While Toronto were thrown a lifeline after their comeback in the first leg, defender Drew Moor maintains that Wednesday’s return is too close to call.
“A lot of people say (we’re) in a great spot with the two road goals,? Moor told the Toronto Globe and Mail.
“But I think history has shown it’s difficult when you have the second leg at home and you need to get a result. We have our work cut out for us.
“I don’t think there is a favourite either way. We don’t think about that stuff. We put ourselves in a good position, but it doesn’t matter if we don?t come, play our game and win the game.”

Colombia’s Senate on Tuesday began debating the government’s controversial revised peace deal to end a half-century conflict with leftist FARC rebels.
Last month voters surprisingly snubbed an earlier version of the accord in a referendum.
Critics said it went too easy on the rebels, who have been waging what is now Latin America’s last major insurgency.
Now the government hopes to implement a revised accord through its majority in the legislature.
Senate president Mauricio Lizcano opened the session in the upper house of the legislature, which will debate the accord before voting and passing it to the lower house.
The government hopes to push through the deal this week.
The government’s chief negotiator at the peace talks, Humberto de la Calle, was due to speak, followed by other defenders and opponents of the deal and finally senators.
President Juan Manuel Santos insists the new proposal is stronger and takes into account changes demanded by his political opponents.
However his chief rival, ex-president Alvaro Uribe, has rejected the revised deal.
Uribe has insisted, for instance, that FARC leaders should not be allowed to run for office while still serving sentences for atrocities.
He demands any new accord be passed by referendum.
The conflict has killed at least 260,000 people and displaced seven million, according to authorities.
Before starting the session, senators held a minute of silence for the victims of a charter plane that crashed in the mountains of northwestern Colombia on Monday with a Brazilian football team on board.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah re-elected him party head Tuesday as the movement opened its first congress since 2009 with talk mounting of who will eventually succeed the 81-year-old.
Party spokesman Mahmud Abu al-Hija said Abbas was re-elected by consensus at the congress attended by some 1,400 delegates in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
The election of members of Fatah’s parliament and its central committee over the five-day conference will signal the direction the oldest Palestinian party will take at a time when Abbas is weakened by his own unpopularity and internal dissent.
While the ageing leader has said he has no intention of stepping aside anytime soon, talk of who will eventually succeed him as Palestinian president has intensified. He has not publicly designated a successor.
Some analysts see the congress as an attempt by Abbas to marginalise political opponents, including longtime rival Mohammed Dahlan, currently in exile in the United Arab Emirates.
Observers have seen the reduced number of officials to vote — down from more than 2,000 in 2009 — as part of a move to exclude Dahlan supporters.
Dimitri Diliani, elected to Fatah’s revolutionary council, or parliament, in 2009, said he was not invited to the congress like dozens of others because “we bring a different voice”.
He said a press conference set for a refugee camp near Ramallah on Tuesday with those recently dismissed from the party had been called off after threats “from the security services,” including death threats.
Jibril Rajoub, a former intelligence chief, current head of the Palestinian Football Association and Fatah central committee member, acknowledged “opponents and dissidents” had not been invited, but said “the priority is to hold the congress”.
Rajoub also said the gathering was to provide an opportunity to update the party’s structures.
“The system from the 1960s no longer works in 2016,” he told AFP.
“We have to take into account the current circumstances. The current system was created when we were in the diaspora and we are now on national soil. It was put in place at a revolutionary stage. Now we have a state.”
Saeb Erekat, Palestine Liberation Organisation secretary general and Fatah central committee member, said the congress would allow the party to “choose leaders for the next stage”.
But the congress also comes at a difficult time for the push to create a Palestinian state, with the cause overshadowed by other crises in the region.
The incoming Donald Trump administration in the United States has signalled its policies will be far more favourable to Israel.
Peace efforts have been at a standstill since a US-led initiative collapsed in April 2014.
Israel is concerned US President Barack Obama may take action related to the conflict before he leaves office in January, but his intentions remain unclear.
In an op-ed published in the New York Times on Tuesday, former US president Jimmy Carter called on Obama to recognise a Palestinian state before his term is up.
The congress also comes with Fatah and its Islamist rival Hamas, in power in the Gaza Strip, still deeply divided. Fatah dominates the Palestinian Authority, which runs the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
A letter from exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, in which he said he was “ready to cooperate with Fatah,” was read at the opening of the congress.
Israel has prevented dozens of Fatah members in Gaza, which is under an Israeli blockade, from attending the conference, said party spokesman Mahmud Abu al-Hija.
Israeli authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Israel controls all borders of the Palestinian territories apart from the Gaza-Egypt frontier.
Abu al-Hija, the Fatah spokesman, said an objective of the congress is to determine how to act in the face of stalled peace negotiations.
Peace initiatives being promoted by France and Arab nations will be discussed, as will the possibility of a UN Security Council resolution against Israeli settlement building in the West Bank.
An address by the Palestinian president to the congress, scheduled for Tuesday evening and set to deal with these issues, was put off to Wednesday at the last moment.
Fatah is the main component of the PLO, created in 1964 in Jerusalem, which brought together the main Palestinian nationalist movements of that time.

Buffalo Bills offensive tackle Seantrel Henderson has been hit with a 10-game suspension for breaching the NFL’s substance-abuse rules, the league said Tuesday.
Henderson, 24, reportedly fell foul of the NFL’s drug policy after using medicinal marijuana to ease discomfort from Crohn’s disease, an inflammatory condition which affects the bowel.
Henderson had already served a four-game suspension at the start of the season. His latest ban “begins immediately,” the NFL said in a statement.
Henderson said in an interview last month he was only using marijuana because it had been recommended by his doctors to help ease pain from the disease and two separate intestinal surgeries.
“I’ve got doctors telling me this is the No. 1 medicine that would help your disease,” Henderson told the Buffalo News last month.
“You try to tell that to the league, and it seems like they didn’t care too much.”
Henderson’s ban comes amid growing calls for the NFL to relax its rules on marijuana.
Both Tennessee Titans linebacker Derrick Morgan and former Baltimore Ravens tackle Eugene Monroe have called for the NFL to allow medical marijuana use.
“I feel like the NFL has a responsibility to look into it, to delegate time and money to research this for its players,” Morgan said earlier this year.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has said there are no plans to relax the marijuana ban, defending it as being “in the best interest of our players and the long-term health of our players.”

Liverpool forward Philippe Coutinho will be out of action for at least five weeks with ankle ligament damage.
Brazil international Coutinho had a scan on his right ankle on Monday after being carried off on a stretcher in Saturday’s win over Sunderland.
Reds boss Jurgen Klopp confirmed on Tuesday that the 24-year-old will probably be out until the new year.
“Phil needs between five and a few weeks until we have him back,” Klopp said ahead of their League Cup quarter-final against Leeds.
“We will see. He is not in (to face Leeds) and for the next few games.”
Coutinho has been Liverpool’s most influential player this season, scoring six times in 13 appearances in all competitions, but Klopp insisted they would cope without him.
“It is no excuse for anything. As good as he is he does not decide games by himself, although it sometimes looks like this,” he said.
“It is a team performance we create and he is a very important part of this team, absolutely.
“Of course we can handle it. If he is not in you have to show – and we will show.”

Tunisia won pledges of billions of dollars in support on Tuesday at an investment conference aimed at reviving the country’s economy following its Arab Spring revolution.
Nearly six years after dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was toppled, Tunis hopes the meeting will help it tackle challenges including high unemployment, low growth and a tourism sector battered by jihadist attacks.
The two-day “Tunisia 2020” conference aims to put the North African nation “back on the investment map of the Mediterranean”, officials said.
“Tunisia faces exceptional circumstances and needs exceptional support,” said 90-year-old President Beji Caid Essebsi.
“The success of the democratic project in Tunisia… serves the interests of the region and can help strengthen security and stability regionally and globally,” he said ahead of attending an EU-Tunisia summit in Brussels on Wednesday and Thursday.
More than 2,000 business, finance and political leaders from 40 countries are attending the Tunis conference, including officials from global lenders such as the World Bank.
The government is seeking bids on 140 ventures — from infrastructure and agricultural projects to hi-tech schemes — worth roughly $32 billion (30 billion euros).
At Tuesday’s opening session, Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani pledged $1.25 billion (1.18 billion euros) to “support the Tunisian economy and strengthen its process of development”.
Kuwait said it would lend Tunisia $500 million (470 million euros) over the next five years, while Canada and Algeria also pledged financial support.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said the French Development Agency (AFD) would invest “at least 250 million euros ($265 million) every year” in Tunisia, a former French colony.
That is on top of an aid package France announced last year to pump a billion euros ($1.06 billion) into Tunisia’s economy by 2020.
“We want to go further,” Valls said, adding that France has “duty and a responsibility” to support Tunisia, and urged Europe to “live up to expectations”.
The International Monetary Fund approved a $2.9-billion loan to Tunisia in May to help implement economic and financial reforms.
The European Union also announced a doubling of its financial support in 2017 to $318 million (300 million euros).
On Tuesday, the EU’s European Investment Bank announced that loans amounting to 2.5 billion euros would be granted to Tunisia by 2020.
EU neighbourhood commissioner Johannes Hahn said this would make Tunisia “the first beneficiary of EU funds” in the region.
“Today, the world has hailed Tunisian democracy with its confidence,” Prime Minister Youssef Chahed said during the evening signing of some 30 funding agreements and conventions.
Earlier, Investment Minister Fadhel Abdelkefi spoke of a “new business climate” in Tunisia, referring to the recent adoption of a code to simplify investment procedures.
“We are trying to put in place new governance,” said Abdelkefi, who is also on a government anti-corruption team.
The meeting coincided with an announcement by French auto giant PSA that it would open a factory in Tunisia producing Peugeot pick-ups for the local market.
PSA and its Tunisian partner Stafim said they would produce 1,200 vehicles a year from 2018.
But with some 15 percent of its workforce unemployed as of spring 2016, according to the World Bank, Tunisia needs much more investment to stave off social unrest.
Many of its jobless are young graduates who have seen the hope of the Arab Spring dissipate.
Chahed’s government took office in August in place of an administration heavily criticised for its economic management.
That followed a catastrophic 2015 in which attacks claimed by the Islamic State group killed 59 foreign visitors and 13 Tunisians.
The attacks dealt a devastating blow to the tourism industry, which in 2010 employed 400,000 people and represented 10 percent of gross domestic product.
Strikes and social unrest have also hit strategic sectors including phosphate mining. In January, Tunisia faced its biggest social unrest since the revolution.
Chahed told AFP last week that the international community “should invest in Tunisian democracy”.
Incoming UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres told Tuesday’s conference that Tunisia had not yet received enough support.
“The success of Tunisia requires a strong economy,” he said. “For the private sector, investing in Tunisia is an intelligent decision.”

The UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR) has written to the mayor of Rome voicing alarm over the hundreds of migrants sleeping rough on the capital’s streets while thousands more with legal residency are forced to live in squats.
“We have been highlighting this problem for months and our worries have only increased,” said Carlotta Sami, UNHCR’s spokeswoman in Italy.
The protest to Virginia Raggi, Rome’s recently elected new mayor, comes a year after the closure of a large informal reception centre located close to the capital’s Tiburtina train centre led to a spike in the number of migrants sleeping on the streets, often in makeshift camps that are regularly dismantled by the authorities.
Sami said Rome’s could learn from Milan, where the city authorities have established a migrant reception “hub” with the express purpose of keeping people off the streets as winter sets in.
Raggi, a member of the populist Five Star Movement, said recently that her administration’s priority was to stop the flow of migrants into the city.
“If we set up 100 tents, in two days we will have to provide 100 others,” she argued.
The UNHCR said the Rome authorities could not turn a blind eye to thousands of refugees and other people granted leave to remain in Italy who were currently living in squats or informal camps in the centre of the Eternal City.
“This reality means there has to be reflection on developing concrete integration policies,” UNHCR said in its letter.
Italy has registered a record 171,000 migrant arrivals at its southern ports this year and its neighbours tightening of their borders has meant more than ever are staying in the country, stretching reception facilities like never before.

Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said the meeting on Tuesday with his Ukrainian, French and German counterparts made “no progress” in ending the war between Kiev and pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine’s east.
“It’s presently impossible to even agree on the steps to be taken in terms of security and political reforms” in Ukraine, the Interfax news agency quoted Lavrov as saying after the huddle in the Belarusian capital Minsk.
“There was no progress today,” he said, adding contact on the matters would continue between experts and diplomats.
At an October summit in Berlin, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko said they were aiming to resolve an impasse on the conflict by the end of November, vowing to put together a roadmap for applying the frayed 2015 Minsk peace accords.
Neither the Ukrainian government nor the pro-Russian rebels waging an insurgency in the country’s east have fully implemented the agreements — designed to bring an end to a conflict that has claimed 10,000 lives since 2014 — and low-level fighting continues.
“Regarding the roadmap, the discussion remained very superficial” on Tuesday said Ukrainian foreign minister Pavlo Klimkin, who described the meeting as “very difficult”.
“Sadly, we cannot announce any promising results” from the gathering, Klimkin added.
The Minsk accords call for a ceasefire along with a range of political, economic and social measures to end the conflict between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian rebels.

Reaction from around the world to the plane crash in Colombia carrying the Brazilian top-flight team Chapecoense among the 81 on board:
“Brazilian football is in mourning. It is such a tragic loss. My sincere condolences to the families of the deceased. Rest in peace.”
– Brazilian football legend Pele
“Shocked by the tragedy that happened to Chapecoense Real. Solidarity with the families and friends of all the victims. A hug for the club and for all Brazilian football.”
– Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo
“It is impossible to believe this tragedy, impossible to believe it happened, impossible to believe that the plane crashed, impossible to believe that athletes, humans were on that plane, impossible to believe that these people left their families.”
– Barcelona and Brazil striker Neymar
“My deepest condolences to all the families, friends and fans of Chapecoense.”
– Argentina and Barcelona striker Lionel Messi
“Sadly those lads, who were on the way to becoming a force in football, took the wrong plane.”
– Argentine great Diego Maradona
“This is a very, very sad day for football. At this difficult time our thoughts are with the victims, their families and friends. FIFA would like to extend its most heartfelt condolences to the fans of Chapecoense, the football community and media organisations concerned in Brazil.”
– FIFA President Gianni Infantino
“Pray for my teammates please.”
– Chapecoense striker Alejandro Martinuccio, who missed the trip due to injury
“Our thoughts are with Chapecoense and everyone affected by this tragedy and their families. We are speechless.”
– Sergio Ramos, Real Madrid captain
“Deeply affected by Medellin’s plane crash. I shared a locker with Cleber Santana and it’s difficult to reveal how I feel. A huge hug.”
– Manchester United goalkeeper David De Gea, who played with Santana at Atletico Madrid
“My prayers and my solidarity for the survivors, families and friends of Chapecoense in this sad time.”
– Colombian striker Radamel Falcao
“We are deeply shaken by the accident concerning the club of our old player Cleber Santana. Our condolences to the families. Rest in Peace.”
– Atletico Madrid, whose former player Santana was club captain at Chapecoense
“The thoughts of everyone at Manchester United are with Chapecoense and all those affected by the tragedy in Colombia.”
– Manchester United, who lost eight players in February 1958 as their plane crashed on take off from Munich airport
“Real Madrid expresses its sorrow at the tragic air crash involving the Brazilian club Chapecoense and extends its condolences to relatives and friends of the victims. At the same time, wishing an early recovery for the survivors.”
– Real Madrid
“All our support and solidarity is with the victims and the families affected by the Chapecoense Real tragedy in Colombia.”
– FC Barcelona

A top advisor to Burundi’s president and the most public face of the government has escaped an assassination attempt blamed on Rwanda, in the latest political attack in the crisis-wracked nation.
The attack took place late on Monday when a group of gunmen ambushed Willy Nyamitwe, the government’s top spokesman, as he was returning to his home in the capital Bujumbura.
The assailants opened fire and threw grenades, killing one of his bodyguards but leaving Nyamitwe with only minor injuries to his arm.
Police said the gunmen were waiting in a nearby house which was under construction, blaming the botched assassination on Rwanda.
“Rwanda’s role in the current crisis in Burundi is undeniable,” police spokesman Pierre Nkurikiye told reporters on Tuesday.
He said two conspirators had been arrested, one of whom admitted the mission was sponsored by neighbouring Rwanda, with whom Burundi has fraught relations.
“It is the same enemy, they are criminals based in Kigali,” said Nkurikiye.
Burundi has repeatedly accused Rwanda of meddling in its affairs, supporting rebels and seeking to destabilise the government.
Nyamitwe is one of the most prominent voices in Burundi, an active tweeter who frequently criticises the West for interfering in the central African nation.
“I thank those who wish me a speedy recovery. I am doing well but saddened by the death of a best friend, the policeman Gasongo,” he tweeted after the attack.
His brother Alain Aime Nyamitwe, Burundi’s foreign minister, described the assassination bid as “a new, pointless effort to disturb republican institutions”.
Burundi has been in turmoil since President Pierre Nkurunziza announced plans in April last year to run for a third term, which he went on to win.
More than 500 people have been killed in the unrest and at least 300,000 have fled the country, while several well-known figures, including high-ranking military officers, have been assassinated.
The European Union said in a statement that the attack “reflects the continuing climate of violence in Burundi characterised by numerous murders and forced disappearances.”
In April, Human Rights Minister Martin Nivyabandi and his wife were injured in a grenade attack while leaving church.
General Adolphe Nshimirimana, considered Nkurunziza’s right-hand man, was killed in August 2015, the highest-ranking member of the regime to be assassinated.
A volley of reports by international rights groups accusing the government of atrocities and warning of genocide has infuriated Bujumbura, which says there is a “foreign plot” to overthrow the government.
Burundi in October informed the United Nations it intended to withdraw from the International Criminal Court.
It also suspended cooperation with the UN human rights office and declared three UN rights investigators persona non grata after a damning September report detailing atrocities.
A report by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) two weeks ago warned of the risk of genocide in the country which suffered a brutal civil war from 1993 to 2006 between majority Hutus and minority Tutsis that claimed an estimated 300,000 lives.
In response, Nyamitwe launched the hashtag #ThisisMyGenocide, posting pictures of himself posing with a kitten and juggling eggs to mock the “biased report”.

Former France rugby captain Abdelatif Benazzi on Tuesday parted company with French Top 14 side Montpellier, where he has held a management role for the past year.
The 48-year-old, capped 78 times for France, leaves before the end of his contract in June 2017, the club said in a statement.
“Abdelatif Benazzi’s mission within Montpellier Herault Rugby has ended,” the statement read.
The former lock and backrow forward, who played for Agen before finishing his career at English side Saracens in 2003, joined Montpellier in 2015 after the exit of another former France player Fabien Galthie and the appointment of South African coach Jake White.
White will be replaced at the end of the season by New Zealand coach Vern Cotter.

Newly crowned Formula One world champion Nico Rosberg on Tuesday downplayed Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton’s tactics to foil his chances at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
To retain the world title Hamilton had to win and see Rosberg finish off the podium, and appeared to slow down while blocking him in the hope two other drivers could catch and overtake him.
“I can fully understand the team’s side of course because we have been working towards those guidelines for three years now. At the same time I can also understand Lewis because you know, we’re drivers, we’re fighters until the last metre,” the German said at a press conference held in Kuala Lumpur.
“It was about the world championships. He decided to try everything he could out there so, also in a way it’s understandable, even if it was very tough. And that’s it. I don’t think it’s something that needs to be discussed much.”
Rosberg clinched his maiden world title on Sunday, finishing second in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
The 31-year-old Rosberg concluded the longest season in the sport’s history with a nail-biting drive under intense pressure after leader and race winner Hamilton had slowed the field to create a difficult finish.
Hamilton reeled off his 10th win of the season — the most by any driver not to win the title — and the 53rd of his career, but his gamesmanship upset his team and his teammate in the closing laps.
Hamilton ignored two instructions from the team to increase his speed at the front, but was unable to create a situation in which Rosberg could be attacked and passed.
Mercedes chief Toto Wolff, who helmed the presser with a jubilant Rosberg, was careful not to be drawn into a discussion on Hamilton and what consequences he may face.
“I can understand why he (Hamilton) drove like he drove, that was his instinct. He needed to do that and equally our system has made them win many races and created an era of dominance,” Wolff said.
“But again, let’s discuss it at a later stage. Today it’s about only this man,” he added pointing to Rosberg sitting beside him.
Rosberg and Wolff were in Kuala Lumpur attending a celebratory event by Petronas — the state oil firm and the Malaysian race’s title sponsor which also backs the Mercedes team.
Malaysia has said it will discontinue its Formula One Grand Prix race after 2018 due to falling revenues, waving the checkered flag on one of Asia’s longest-running F1 races.
“You’ve always had great racing, great races. I’m sure it’s done a lot for Malaysia to create attention around the world for your country, for business, for everything,” Rosberg said.
“And anyway, let’s just enjoy the next two at least and then we see how it goes for the future.”

Lewis Hamilton shrugged off speculation about his Mercedes future by taking part in testing on Tuesday — only to quit early because he felt unwell, reports said.
The dethroned former world champion could be hit with disciplinary action by Mercedes after he tried — but failed — to wreck team-mate Nico Rosberg’s title bid at the weekend in the final race in Abu Dhabi.
On Tuesday, still at the Yas Marina circuit, Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari took part in the last in a series of tests this year by tyre manufacturer Pirelli to evaluate the wider rubber that will be used in next year’s Formula One cars.
Hamilton, who won Sunday’s race but still had to hand over his world title to his team-mate and rival Rosberg, was supposed to take part in a whole day of testing.
But autosport.com, citing Mercedes, and multiple British newspapers said the Briton felt unwell after his early runs so the team drafted in reserve Pascal Wehrlein, who was on standby.
Kimi Raikkonen took part for Ferrari and Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen for Red Bull.
Regulation changes for next season mean tyres will be around 25 percent wider to help make overtaking easier.

South Africa on Wednesday begins a major clinical trial of an experimental vaccine against the AIDS virus, which scientists hope could be the “final nail in the coffin” for the disease.
More than 30 years of efforts to develop an effective vaccine for HIV have not borne fruit, but for the first time since the virus was identified in 1983, scientists think they have found a promising candidate.
The new study, known as HVTN 702, will involve more than 5,400 sexually active men and women aged 18-35 in 15 areas around South Africa over the course of four years.
It is one of the biggest clinical trials involving the disease ever undertaken and has revived hopes in the scientific community of a breakthrough in the battle against AIDS.
“If deployed alongside our current armoury of proven HIV prevention tools, a safe and effective vaccine could be the final nail in the coffin for HIV,” said Anthony Fauci, director of the US National institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which is taking part in the study.
“Even a moderately effective vaccine would significantly decrease the burden of HIV disease over time in countries and populations with high rates of HIV infection, such as South Africa.”
Condoms are at the frontline of efforts to prevent the spread of HIV, which is mainly transferred through the sexual fluids and blood of infected individuals.
A small number of people, mainly in developed countries, use virus-suppressing drugs as a preventive aid, although the exact level of protection this offers is not clear.
South Africa was not chosen by accident. The country has one of the highest rates of HIV infection in the world — 19.2 percent according to the UN AIDS agency — with more than seven million people living with the virus.
Each year some 2.5 million people around the world are infected with HIV, which has killed more than 30 million people since the 1980s, according to a study presented at a conference in South Africa in July.
The vaccine has been adapted for the HIV strain prevalent in southern Africa from one used in a trial of 16,000 people in Thailand in 2009, which reduced the risk of infection by more than 30 percent for three-and-a-half years after the first jab.
The safety of the “South African” vaccine has already been tested successfully over 18 months on 252 volunteers. The new study aims to test its effectiveness as a virus-killer.
Vaccines work by priming the body to respond with germ-fighting antibodies whenever a virus or bacteria invades. But the AIDS-causing virus is stealthy and quick to mutate to avoid being targeted.
“The results obtained in Thailand are not good enough for a roll-out (…) we have set the minimum bar at 50 percent” lower risk, Lynn Morris, head of the HIV virology section at South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Disease (NICD), told AFP.
South Africa’s Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa told parliament earlier this month that “scientists expect the (new) vaccine to be at least 50 percent effective but hope that it will be much higher”.
Even if the new vaccine proves effective, experts warn it is vital to remain vigilant in the fight against HIV.
“A highly efficient vaccine would be a game-changer but the results of these trials will take years,” Morris said.
“We must continue to use other HIV prevention tools to reduce the number of new HIV infections, particularly in vulnerable populations such as young women, who continue to be most heavily affected.”
According to UNAIDS, half of the 36 million or so people with HIV around the world have access to anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs), a figure that has doubled in five years.
Thanks to these treatments, which keep the virus in check and increase the lifespan of HIV-positive people without curing them, average life expectancy in South Africa has risen from 57.1 years to 62.9 since 2009, according to authorities.
The new trial is being carried out by the US National Institutes of Health, the South African Medical Research Council, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Sanofi Pasteur, GlaxoSmithKline and the HIV Vaccine Trials Network.

Sri Lanka returned home victorious from their Zimbabwe tour on Tuesday but the national coach warned his side faced a “huge challenge” in South Africa next month.
Having comfortably beaten Zimbabwe in both Tests in Harare, Sri Lanka also lifted the triangular series trophy on Sunday, beating the hosts by six wickets in the final.
Although regular skipper Angelo Mathews and Dinesh Chandimal missed the entire tour due to injury, Sri Lanka rarely felt their absence as they lost just one game in the process of clinching the tri-series, which also involved the West Indies.
But even as Mathews told reporters Tuesday that both he and Chandimal had recovered and were ready to play, national coach Graham Ford said the South Africa tour in December would be a different ball game.
He said the players would have to improve in all three aspects of the game — batting, bowling and fielding — when they face the formidable Proteas.
“We’ve got a huge challenge coming our way,” Ford said shortly after arriving in Colombo.
“Everybody knows how well South Africa is playing. We have to improve in all three disciplines,” he said, adding that particular attention would have to be paid to fielding.
Sri Lanka, which also won a three-match home Test series against top ranked Australia in August, is ranked above Zimbabwe and the West Indies in both Test and ODI formats but below South Africa.
The team leaves for South Africa in the middle of December for three Tests, three T20 matches and five ODIs.
Ford said conditions in South Africa would be different to what they experienced in Zimbabwe and the selectors would have to take that into account when naming a squad.
But Sri Lanka Cricket chief Thilanga Sumathipala said the team had received a huge boost with the latest win.
“We are rebuilding our team and we have a wonderful coach,” Sumathipala said of Ford, a former South African player.

The Italian Grand Prix will remain at the Monza circuit for at least another three years after a new deal was signed to retain the historic race in the Formula One calendar, the Automobile Club of Italy (ACI) said Tuesday.
Organisers had been confident of sealing the contract worth 68 million euros ($72 mn) after successful negotiations with Formula One’s commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone in September.
“Signed! Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone and ACI President Angelo Sticchi Damiani yesterday signed the agreement to keep the Italian Grand Prix on the F1 calendar for the next three years,” the ACI said in a statement.
“We’ve managed to avoid the terrible hypothesis of seeing Italy lose after 70 years one of the most prestigious, historic and exciting car races in the world,” the ACI president added.
The Italian Grand Prix was first held at Monza in 1921 and is the oldest race on the calendar. It was one of the inaugural F1 world championship races in 1950.
The 2016 world champion Nico Rosberg won this year’s edition of the Italian Grand Prix.
The contract extension had been the subject of prolonged talks over the past year, notably concerning the cost of the event.

Facebook on Tuesday unveiled “Instant Games” allowing users of the world’s biggest social network to play from its Messenger application or directly on their news feeds.
The new games effort could be a step toward eventually monetizing Messenger, which now has more than one billion users.
“This new games experience allows people to easily discover, share, and play games without having to install new apps,” said Facebook product manager Alissa Ju in a blog post announcing the initiative.
Instant Games is launching in 30 countries with 17 titles available including “Pac-Man” from Bandai Namco, Taito’s “Space Invaders,” Zynga’s “Words with Friends” and King Digital’s “Shuffle Cats Mini.”
While Facebook has previously been home to “social” games like Zynga’s “FarmVille,” this effort aims at smartphone users and also works with Messenger, its fast-growing communications platform.
“The primary way that we expect people to be interacting with Instant Games is through Messenger, especially at first,” said Leo Olebe, director of global games partnerships at Facebook.
Olebe said the initiative is the first time games will be “a platform inside of Messenger” and the first time Facebook has directly put games on mobile devices.
The concept is similar to that of “Instant Articles,” which allows faster loading of news stories by hosting them on the powerful servers of Facebook instead of linking to a separate news site.
While Facebook ad revenues have been surging, the company has warned its ad growth is likely to slow, but Olebe nevertheless said there will be no immediate effort to draw revenue from the games.
“Right now it’s still early in the process, monetization will come later down the road,” he said, adding that Facebook wants “to drive the engagement in the overall experience.”
Instant Games will allow users to invite others and share results and scores, but has controls to prevent people from getting overwhelmed with requests to play.
“The games are not designed to reward people for getting an increasing number of folks to play,” he said.

Colombian club Atletico Nacional called on football authorities Tuesday to hand the Copa Sudamericana title to their opponents, Brazilian side Chapecoense, as a tribute to the team’s players killed in a plane crash.
The Colombian side made the request to regional football confederation CONMEBOL in a statement.
It asked of CONMEBOL “that the Copa Sudamericana title be handed to Chapecoense Football Association as an honorary trophy for its great loss, and as a posthumous homage to the victims of the fatal accident that has put our sport in mourning.”
Chapecoense and Atletico Nacional were supposed to have faced off Wednesday in the first leg of the final of the Copa Sudamericana, the second most prestigious club football tournament in South America after the Copa Libertadores.
CONMEBOL said in a statement earlier that the match was suspended until further notice.
“We are in contact with the authorities and are waiting for official reports.”
A source close to CONMEBOL told AFP it was “very unlikely” that the final would ever be played.
Nine members of the Brazilian team did not travel to Colombia.
Chapecoense Real had risen from obscurity to reach the Copa Sudamericana finals.
The LAMIA airlines charter declared an emergency at around 10:00 pm (0300 GMT Tuesday), reporting it had suffered “electrical failures,” and crashed a short time later near the city of Medellin, officials said.
Authorities said just six of the 81 people on board were thought to have survived.

Hungary called on the European Union to speed up accession talks with the western Balkans on Tuesday, so as to “protect” the bloc from a future influx of migrants.
Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto warned of unspecified security risks if Brussels allows negotiations with the Balkan nations to drag on too long.
Hungary has repeatedly voiced its opposition to the EU’s programme of redistributing migrants across the EU to share the burden of Europe’s biggest migrant crisis since World War II.
Budapest filed a legal challenge with the European Court of Justice late last year against the mandatory resettlement quotas, while authorities also erected a fence and brought in tough new laws punishing illegal entry.
“The countries of the western Balkans should be strong enough to protect the EU against another wave of migration,” Szijjarto told reporters after a Warsaw meeting with his central European counterparts and EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini.
Before it was shut down in March, the so-called Balkan route was taken by hundreds of thousands of migrants from the Middle East, Asia and Africa on their way to western Europe.
“The quickest route to strengthening these countries is to offer them accession to the EU,” Szijjarto added.
He said the Visegrad Four group of countries — the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia — will work to accelerate the negotiations.
The six Balkan nations wishing to join the EU are Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia.
However, the bloc has ruled out any further enlargement before 2020, and even that date looks unrealistic.
“We should be enlarging in the upcoming five years. What’s more, we should be enlarging the EU immediately,” protested Szijjarto.
“If the enlargement process is still going to be so slow as it was up until now, this may lead to serious risks both in the security and in the economic dimension.”
Mogherini for her part told reporters that the EU and the western Balkans had already made “impressive progress”.
Many in the western Balkans — a region of widespread poverty and turbulence that is home to around 20 million people — see the 28-nation bloc as a beacon of stability and prosperity.
Membership negotiations have already started with Serbia and Montenegro, but are yet to get underway for Albania and Macedonia. Bosnia and Kosovo have been promised the prospect of membership when they are ready.

Dutch MPs on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly to ban the Islamic full-face burqa from some public places such as schools and hospitals, the latest such move in a European country.
“The law is adopted,” said the speaker of the lower house of parliament, Khadija Arib, referring to legislation which will also ban burqas, and face coverings just with eye-slits, from public transport.
The motion “to ban all clothing which completely covers the face” from government buildings was approved by 132 members in the 150-seat house, including Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s ruling Liberal-Labour coalition.
The legislation must now go before the Senate for approval before becoming law. It follows similar bans imposed in France and Belgium, and comes amid rising tensions in Europe with Islamic communities.
The Dutch cabinet had approved the plan in mid-2015, but decided not to go as far as banning wearing burqas on the streets.
It backed the legislation due to the “necessity to be able to interact face-to-face, for instance in places where public services are performed and safety must be guaranteed,” the government said.
“The government sees no need to impose the ban on all public spaces,” it added.
Those flouting the ban would face a fine of up to 410 euros (around $430).
Safety equipment such as helmets or full-face protection while working, playing sport or “during a festive or cultural event” is not however included in the ban.
Supporting the ban was the anti-Islam Freedom Party (PVV) of firebrand politician Geert Wilders, who is leading opinion polls ahead of March elections.
His election campaign appears to have been given a boost thanks to the publicity from his trial on charges of hate speech in a Dutch court over comments he made about Moroccans living in the country.
“How do we even know there’s a woman under this Islamic textile?” said PVV lawmaker Machiel de Graaf.
“It might as well be a well-trained jihadist who completed his training in Raqa of course,” he said in a parliamentary debate last week.
Public newscaster NOS said only about 150 women in The Netherlands wear the burqa, most of them only occasionally.
And MP Tunahan Kuzu, who vehemently fought against the draft legislation, said freedom of expression allowed people “to be who they are and dress how they want”.
“It is reprehensible to exclude these women and isolate them because of a subject anxiety among certain citizens,” he said.
Several women attended last week’s parliamentary debate dressed in burqas. One of them, Karima Rahmani, argued that arrangements to enable women wearing full-face Islamic dress to identify themselves were already in place.
“When we go to the town hall we have to identify ourselves, as well as at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport where we have to remove it,” she told NOS.
“The obligation to identify oneself is already provided for in the law.”
The Dutch government’s advisory State Council body had said it believed issues around the Islamic veil could be solved “without invoking legislation”.
“From time-to-time there’s discussion about it… but it’s not really a big social problem,” it said in a letter published in mid-2015.
France introduced a ban on women wearing the burqa in 2011, or risk a 150 euro fine, resulting in some 1,500 arrests in the past five years.
The European Court of Human Rights in 2014 backed the French ban, rejecting arguments that outlawing full-face veils breaches religious freedom.
Belgium and some parts of Switzerland have followed France’s lead and similar bans are being considered in other European countries.
This summer some French towns also controversially banned burkinis, the full-body Islamic swimsuit.

Sidian Bank recorded a net profit of Ksh. 220 million after tax, for the third quarter of 2016.This is against Ksh. 281 million recorded during the same period last year, denoting a 22 per cent drop.
However, Sidian Bank registered an overall growth in its business, with the balance sheet growing by 19 per cent, largely buoyed by growth in customer deposits and the loan book.
Total assets closed at Ksh.21 billion, against Ksh.17 billion for the comparable period last year.
In tandem with the overall growth tangent, customer deposits increased to Ksh14 billion, against Ksh12 billion for the third quarter of 2015, while loans and advances closed the period under review at Sh2.1 billion, compared to Sh1.7 billion previously.
 
Operating increased expenses to Ksh1.7 billion for the quarter, against Ksh1.3 billion for the corresponding period last year. This was attributed to costs associated with re-branding early in the year, as well as provision for bad loans.
While the bank increased provisions by Ksh 75 million, the cumulative provisions dropped by Ksh. 129 million following a Ksh. 300 million write-off of provisions relating to fully provided for bad debts in the first half of the year.
CEO Titus Karanja expressed confidence in the banks strategy.
Sidian Bank’s interest income rise by 25 per cent to Sh2.4 billion, against Sh1.95 billion recorded during the same period last year.
A significant increase in customer deposits saw interest expense grow to Sh911 million for the quarter compared to Sh726 million which was recorded for the same quarter last year.
Overall, customer deposits for the bank grew to Sh723 million from the Sh613 million recorded the previous comparable period.
The high uptake of the bank’s loan products, largely bolstered by aggressive marketing and strategic partnerships.
The Bank partnered with online taxi hailing service Uber and medical equipment financier Medical Credit Fund.
These partnerships, respectively, provide access to finance for taxi entrepreneurs and purchase of medical equipment by hospitals
 

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned on Tuesday that hopes for a two-state peace settlement between Israel and a future Palestine are fading fast.
Marking the “International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People,” Ban warned that settlement building and home demolitions undermine Israeli democracy.
But he also criticized the Palestinians’ “paralyzing lack of unity” and warned that their infighting has damaged their own democracy and the rule of law.
And he told both sides that unless they act to revive hopes for peace, “they risk entrenching a one-state reality.”
Ban hailed a July report by the Middle East Quartet — the United Nations, European Union, Russia and the United States — as a blueprint for revived talks.
Israel ignored the report and has accelerated its program of building Jewish settlements on occupied land, while demolishing dozens of Palestinian homes.

The abuse scandal rocking English football is the greatest crisis current Football Association chairman Greg Clarke can recall, he told Sky News on Tuesday.
Clarke was referring to the serial child molester Barry Bennell, who has been accused by at least 20 footballers of abusing them when he worked for Crewe Alexandra, Manchester City and Stoke City across three decades beginning in the 1970s. He is subject to five separate police investigations.
The FA has also launched its own internal review, appointing leading lawyer Kate Gallafent, an expert in child protection, to head it up.
The FA said the review would find out “what information the FA was aware of at the relevant times around the issues that have been raised in the press, what clubs were aware of, and what action was or should have been taken”.
Clarke took over as chairman in August and has already had to deal with the departure of Sam Allardyce as England coach over comments he made in a newspaper sting and a row with FIFA over the wearing of poppies.
But he told Sky News this was the most serious problem he could remember to have hit English football.
“It’s certainly the biggest (crisis) I can remember,” said Clarke.
“I think the moral consequences of failing to deal with some of these issues in the past we must get to the bottom of.”
Clarke does not know if the FA at the time deliberately turned a blind eye to the goings-on, although a reporter who made a documentary about sex abuse in football for Channel Four in 1997 has claimed there is an FA report from 2005 detailing 250 victims and spread over a number of clubs.
“I don’t know if there was a cover-up or not, I really don’t know,” said Clarke.
“I suspect like many big problems, people aren’t drawn towards them. My methodology is, if there’s a problem, run towards it, embrace it, fix it, disclose everything that happened.
“I think institutionally, all organisations in the old days used to protect themselves by keeping quiet and closing ranks. That’s completely inappropriate and unacceptable today.”
Clarke told the BBC that the FA review would not seek to speak to alleged victims, nor would he confer with his predecessors as chairman.
“We’ve agreed with the police that we won’t talk to any of the victims formally, because they have to talk to them, they have to take statements and we’re not allowed to interfere in that process,” said Clarke, who added he thought criticism of the present FA was misplaced and they had acted speedily to look into the claims.
Bennell, who has served three jail terms for previous abuse, is presently hospitalised after police responded to a “fear for welfare incident” but it has not halted the string of victims coming forwards.
Another appeared on Tuesday as former Wales Under-18 international captain Matthew Monaghan told the Daily Mail for the first time of the abuse he suffered at the hands of Bennell when he was a boy at Crewe.

Brazil football legend Pele and Argentines Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi led numerous sporting tributes Tuesday to the Brazilian footballers killed in a plane crash in Colombia.
Players of the Chapecoense Real team were among 81 people on board the doomed flight that crashed into mountains in northwestern Colombia.
“Brazilian football is in mourning. It is such a tragic loss,” Pele, 76, wrote on Twitter.
“My sincere condolences to the families of the deceased. Rest in peace.”
Colombian officials said just six people were thought to have survived, including three of the players.
Chapecoense had risen from obscurity to make it to the Copa Sudamericana finals scheduled for Wednesday against Atletico Nacional of Colombia.
“Sadly those lads, who were on the way to becoming a force in football, took the wrong plane,” Argentine star Maradona, 56, wrote on Facebook.
In Spain, top teams Real Madrid and Barcelona each held a minute’s silence at their training sessions.
“My sincere condolences to all the families, friends and fans of the Chapecoense squad,” Barcelona striker Messi, 29, wrote on Twitter.
His teammate Luis Suarez of Uruguay tweeted “support and affection to the families.”
Other messages flooded in from players including Colombian star Radamel Falcao of Monaco and Real Madrid defender Sergio Ramos.

Narc Kenya Party leader, Martha Karua today pulled a first one on President Uhuru, leaving the head of state totally embarrassed.
Karua walked out, on President Uhuru Kenyatta shortly after warming receiving him and even hugging the head of state.
According to a local daily, Drama started, after Kenyatta introduced the iron lady to the excited Kirinyaga crowd and instead of following the flow (jubilee wishes) and joining Jubilee in a public rally out in the open.
The defiant iron lady in her true colors, flashed the two-finger salute to indicate that she was still in Narc Kenya.
Uhuru in a calculated move to pressure the iron lady to fold up her party and join jubilee, called on her to join his Jubilee Party as he was addressing the public, if she wants to work with him.
 
Uhuru remarks promoted the jubilant crowd to start chanting Jubilee slogans directed at Ms Karua when she stood to respond to the president’s wish, however the narc Kenya party leader was not amused and in defiance, she flashed her party two finger salute before walking out of the meeting, leaving Uhuru totally embarrassed.
Upon arrival, Kenyatta who is on a marketing campaign tour in the Central region, had been warmly received by Karua who was among the guests who were waiting to receive the Head of State as he began his tour of the Kirinyaga County.
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Earlier this month, Karua who had been one of the fiercest critics of President Uhuru and the Jubilee government announced that she will support Uhuru’s second term re-election bid.
However a few days later in a local morning show, Karua backtracked her statements and said the support was only applicable in the Kirinyaga County where she was contesting for the governor’s post and she did not have a preferable presidential candidate.

Ugandan prosecutors charged a tribal king with murder Tuesday, accusing him of backing a separatist militia in his kingdom where weekend fighting between his guards and security forces left at least 87 people dead.
The Rwenzururu King Charles Wesley Mumbere is accused of commanding a militia from his palace with the aim of creating an independent state straddling Uganda and the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.
“Court sat this afternoon. He has been charged with murder,” Uganda’s judiciary spokesman Solomon Muyita told AFP, without giving further details.
Police and army officers stormed Mumbere’s palace in the western town of Kasese on Sunday in a hail of gunfire and explosions, dragging him out and placing him under arrest after he failed to accept an ultimatum to disband his royal guards, the authorities have said.
According to police, fighting first broke out on Saturday when a joint patrol of police and troops was attacked by the royal guards and quickly spread to surrounding towns.
Kasese district police commander Sam Odong told AFP another 25 bodies had been found on Monday in towns outside Kasese, however it was not clear whether they were civilians or royal guards.
Police had earlier reported that 16 police officers and 46 guards were killed in the weekend unrest, bringing the total death toll to 87. Another 139 guards have been arrested.
Amnesty International on Monday expressed alarm at what “appears to be shocking examples of unlawful killings and a complete disregard for human rights during the arrests”.
The Rwenzururu kingdom, of the Bakonzo tribe, is a modern one.
It began as a separatist movement of the same name when the Bakonzo — tired of being subjected to the rule of another tribe given preference under British rule — declared its own kingdom in 1962.
The move led to years of bloodshed until a settlement was reached in 1982 in which the movement laid down arms in return for a degree of local autonomy.
President Yoweri Museveni officially recognised the kingdom in 2009.
However, many in the region still feel marginalised by the government and want to create their own state known as the Yiira Republic, uniting the Bakonzo and its sister tribe, the Banande, in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Uganda’s Internal Affairs Minister General Jeje Odongo told a press conference that “claims and counter-claims over land rights between the Bakonzo and other communities is alleged to be one other cause of the conflict” in the region.
He said a wave of attacks was carried out in 2014, leaving nearly 100 people dead — mostly attackers from a group known as “Youth of the Kingdom”.
“In the recent wave of violence the attackers have graduated into a militia which is trained, uniformed, armed, camped, and under a command and control structure. This new structure is composed of “KilhumiraMutima” (the stronghearted and keepers of a secret),” he said.
He said regional security authorities met on November 21 to decide to dismantle camps set up by the militia, spurring a surge of attacks on police stations and posts in the region by the fighters who retreated into the palace.
Odongo said machine guns, pistols, machetes, spears and petrol bombs had been found in the palace.
The kingdom has denied any links to the alleged militia.
“At the moment the institution is not ready to give a statement,” said palace spokesman Clarence Bwambale.
“We can’t have the figures of our people killed because we have been denied access to the palace… but definitely we lost many people.”
Kasese district commissioner James Mwesigye on Tuesday offered amnesty to members of the royal guards and alleged militia who turned themselves in, saying they would “be handled as children who went astray and have returned to the fold”.
“We don’t want to see more bloodshed,” said Bwambale. “Come and hand yourselves in because we want to see you alive, the heroes are those who are alive.”

A big rise in drone use is likely to lead to a new wave of “dronejackings” by cybercriminals, security experts warned Tuesday.
A report by Intel’s McAfee Labs said hackers are expected to start targeting drones used for deliveries, law enforcement or camera crews, in addition to hobbyists.
“Drones are well on the way to becoming a major tool for shippers, law enforcement agencies, photographers, farmers, the news media, and more,” said Intel Security’s Bruce Snell, in the company’s annual threat report.
Snell said the concept of dronejacking was demonstrated at a security conference last year, where researchers showed how someone could easily take control of a toy drone.
“Although taking over a kid’s drone may seem amusing and not that big of an issue, once we look at the increase in drone usage potential problems starts to arise,” he said.
The report noted that many consumer drones lack adequate security, which makes it easy for an outside hacker to take control.
Companies like Amazon and UPS are expected to use drones for package deliveries — becoming potential targets for criminals, the report said.
“Someone looking to ‘dronejack’ deliveries could find a location with regular drone traffic and wait for the targets to appear,” the report said.
“Once a package delivery drone is overhead, the drone could be sent to the ground, allowing the criminal to steal the package.”
The researchers said criminals may also look to steal expensive photographic equipment carried by drones, to knock out surveillance cameras used by law enforcement.
Intel said it expects to see dronejacking “toolkits” traded on “dark web” marketplaces in 2017.
“Once these toolkits start making the rounds, it is just a matter of time before we see stories of hijacked drones showing up in the evening news,” the report said.
Other predictions in the report included a decrease in so-called “ransomware” attacks as defenses improve, but a rise in mobile attacks that enable cyber thieves to steal bank account or credit card information.
The report also noted that cybercriminals will begin using more sophisticated artificial intelligence or “machine learning” techniques and employ fake online ads.