Month: November 2016

The Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA) is set to launch its M-Shwari mobile banking service in Rwanda by April next year before rolling out to West Africa as it spreads its wings across Africa.
The move will see CBA become the first Kenyan lender to venture into West Africa as it aims to penetrate the region through Ivory Coast in partnership with MTN.
Already, the bank has signed up more than 1.23 million customers and processed 257,000 loans in Uganda on its equivalent of the M-Shwari in partnership with MTN Uganda.
 
The bank aims to provide the revolutionary banking service that allows one to save and borrow money through the phone while earning interest on money saved to 10 countries by 2020.
The service also entitles customers to affordable emergency loans.
According to the CBA’s head of marketing Chris Pasha, feasibility studies conducted in Ivory Coast reveal the West African country is a very promising market.
M-Shwari, the Safaricom mobile money application, was introduced in Kenya in 2012 and services about 80,000 loans per day, with a customer base of 16 million.
 
Last week, CBA announced a 52.7 per cent jump in profits for the nine months of the year largely attributed to the success of M-Shwari.
CBA is Kenya’s biggest privately-owned lender and specialises banking mainly corporate and high-end clients.
However, the introduction of M-Shwari has helped the bank serve a wider population through partnering with other mobile operators.
The Kenyatta family controls 24.91 per cent of CBA through an investment vehicle dubbed Enke Investments Ltd.

But not everyone is sipping from Jalang’o’s Kool-Aid and one of them is former KBC presenter Elizabeth Irungu who describes him as phony and snobbish. Ouch!
She says that she came to this conclusion after meeting Jalang’o and that first impression did not impress her. And she made a post on social media about it to the vexation of those that worship at the comedian’s altar. But despite the backlash she may have received from his fans, Elizabeth remains – faltered in her opinion about the Radio Maisha Presenter.
“… She said before adding
 
She claims that before the interview she was a big fan of Jalang’o having watched him on TV and listened to him on Radio so she was excited to interview one of her favourite celebrities. But the interview didn’t go as planned as the comedian supposedly came off as stand-offish and seemed to look down upon her as she was from a small magazine.
 
But despite their horrible encounter Elizabeth maintains that she does not have beef with the comedian, she was just speaking her mind and in her mind, Jalang’o is a pretentious.
Check out the clip below:

Read more about Elizabeth here :

South Korea’s scandal-hit President Park Geun-Hye said Tuesday she was willing to resign early and let parliament decide her fate, a move critics said was a bid to delay impending impeachment.
Park has been engulfed in allegations of influence peddling and claims that tens of millions of dollars have changed hands, sparking widespread anger across South Korea and bringing hundreds of thousands of protesters onto the streets demanding her ouster.
“I will leave the issue of my departure, including the (possible) reduction of my term in office, to a decision by the National Assembly”, she said in a speech carried live on television.
“Once lawmakers come up with measures to transfer power in a way that minimises any power vacuum and chaos in governance, I will step down,” she said.
Park’s presidency has gone into a tailspin, with accusations that Choi Soon-Sil — a secretive confidante dubbed “Korea’s Rasputin” — elicited more than $60 million in payments from some of the country’s top firms, including Samsung.
Park has been named as a suspect in the growing investigation, making her the first sitting president to be subject to a criminal probe while in office.
While she retains the presidency, she cannot be charged with a criminal offence except insurrection or treason, but she could be charged once she steps down.
Huge protests calling for her impeachment have rocked Seoul every weekend for the more than a month, and opposition parties say they expect to vote to remove her as early as this week.
Park’s latest remarks are a possible bid to de-fang that effort, critics say, with the president hoping that she can cut a deal that would avoid — or lessen — formal sanctions.
But opponents on Tuesday rubbished her offer.
“Our stance to seek Park’s impeachment remains unchanged,” Choo Mi-Ae, leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, said, describing Park’s remarks as “a trick” designed to distract attention.
Three opposition parties, which jointly hold 55 percent of seats in parliament, and some members of Park’s party are seeking to collect a two thirds of total votes to pass the bill as early as Friday.
If the motion passes, Park would immediately be suspended from official duties and her prime minister would take over as interim head of government.
But the impeachment would not be finalised until the Constitutional Court approves it — a process that could takes six months.
Massive weekly protests have intensified over the past month, with up to 1.5 million people braving freezing temperatures in Seoul Saturday to demand Park’s resignation, according to organisers.
Park has been hemorrhaging allies, with her justice minister stepping down and staunch supporters within her own party calling for her to go.
Park — in her third public apology over the scandal — tried Tuesday to distance herself from Choi, who was charged earlier this month with coercion and abuse of power.
She said the huge sums of money that had changed hands had been directed towards projects that were for “the public good”.
“I have not sought any personal gain there” she said, but added: “It was my fault that I failed to keep my personal ties (with Choi and Choi’s associates) under control.”
Park had earlier promised to submit to a judicial probe, as well as to a separate investigation by an independent special prosecutor.
But she later backtracked, with her lawyer rejecting a series of requests by prosecutors to make herself available for questioning.

Well, in her snapchat stories Huddah Monroe who is currently balling hard in the UAE country narrated how she spotted one of her friend’s man spending some quality time with a different lady…but she opted not to get involved.
Her main excuse for not confronting the guy is because her friend has been assuming she (Huddah) wants to steal the guy away. So just like any normal friend, she chose not to get involved as this was none of her business.

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She went further to say that she is usually loyal to her friends and has never thought of slicing her boyfriends. According to Huddah her friends relationships matter a lot and this is the main reason she supports them when they finally settle. If one of her friends breaks up with their boyfriends, she also keeps off the guy to avoid drama.
 
Anyway, Huddah is currently in Dubai where she travelled to watch one of the Formula 1 races, the Grand Prix 2016 accompanied by unknown fella who we are sure will not be featured in any of her snapchat stories.

Russell Westbrook secured his eighth triple-double of the season as the Oklahoma City Thunder rolled over the New York Knicks on Monday while Golden State marched to a 12th straight win.
Westbrook’s virtuoso display stole the show as the Thunder overpowered the Knicks 112-103 at Madison Square Garden to improve to 11-8.
It was Westbrook’s third straight triple-double and the 45th of his career, leaving the 28-year-old tied in sixth place with LeBron James on the all-time list.
Westbrook needed just 20 minutes to complete his latest masterclass, part of a haul that leaves him averaging triple-double numbers for the season.
The point guard finished with 27 points, 18 rebounds and 14 assists, taking his season average to 30.9 points per game, 11.3 assists and 10.4 rebounds.
Only one player in NBA history — Oscar Robertson in 1961-62 — has ever gone an entire season averaging triple-double numbers.
Westbrook is on pace to equal Robertson’s record, albeit with only 19 games of the season gone.
Westbrook insists however that matching Robertson’s record is not on his agenda.
“My job is to go out and find the best way to win games. Right now, we won three straight and that is what’s most important to me,” he said.
“I don’t really care, honestly. I like to win and compete at a high level. I do the same thing every year. I’ve been playing the same way since I got in the league, so I just do the same thing, and grateful to be blessed and play the game I love.”
Thunder coach Billy Donovan suggested Westbrook was the most complete player in the NBA.
“It’s amazing what he’s doing,” Donovan said of Westbrook. “There’s also a part of it that he’s probably the most unique player in the NBA because you’ve got great scorers, great assist guys, great rebounders. There are a lot of great players in this league. But he kind of touches it all in every facet of the game.
“The thing I’m encouraged by is when he does what he did tonight and we win. There’s certain times when a player gets crazy numbers, and his team loses. Winning is the most important thing to Russell. And he knows that his assists, his rebounds and his scoring, being efficient, helps our team win.”
Enes Kanter offered another offensive threat for the Thunder, rising from the bench to score 27 points and grab 10 rebounds in 28 minutes.
For the Knicks, Derrick Rose topped the scoring with 30 points, seven rebounds and four assists.
Kristaps Porzingis added 21 points and Carmelo Anthony chipped in with 18 points.
Elsewhere Monday, Westbrook’s former Oklahoma City team-mate Kevin Durant helped Golden State complete a 12th consecutive victory with a 105-100 win over the Atlanta Hawks.
Durant and Stephen Curry each finished with 25 points to steer the Dubs to a victory which saw last season’s NBA Finals runners-up improve to 16-2.
Atlanta looked to have the Warriors rattled after edging into an 81-80 lead as the final quarter got under way.
But two Andre Iguodala baskets, a Durant jumper and a Shaun Livingston layup gave the Warriors a pivotal 8-0 run that put them 88-81 ahead.
The Warriors were left thankful for some superb defensive work from Draymond Green down the stretch, pulling off two crucial blocks in the final minute, as they dug in for the win.
“That’s like a double slap in the face,” Green said of his two late blocks. “I like them.”
“That was amazing,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said of Green’s double defensive shift.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a sequence like that from one guy. Just an incredible defensive sequence.”
Green said it proved the Warriors remained a decent defensive unit even if their star-studded offensive line-up invariably grabbed the headlines.
“The world says we traded our defense away when we got KD (Kevin Durant),” Green said. “I disagree. That (bothers) me. I take that personally.”

One in seven people with HIV in Europe is unaware of their infection, the EU and World Health Organization reported Tuesday as 2015 marked another record year for new HIV cases in the region.
“HIV/AIDS continues to be a serious problem in Europe… The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control’s (ECDC) estimate that one in seven people living with HIV are unaware of their status is particularly worrying,” EU Health Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis said in the report released ahead of World AIDS Day on Thursday.
“People who do not know they are infected cannot benefit from life-saving treatment, and can continue to transmit the virus to others,” he noted.
The ECDC figure is based on data from the 28 EU nations plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
Almost half of cases in those countries — 47 percent — are diagnosed at a late stage of infection, the ECDC said, estimating that on average it takes almost four years before an HIV infection is diagnosed and reported.
Sex between men remains the main reported HIV transmission mode in those 31 countries, accounting for 42 percent of diagnoses. Men who have sex with men is the only group that has seen a steady increase in infections over the years, the report said.
Heterosexual sex accounts for 32 percent of diagnoses, followed by drug use at four percent.
Meanwhile, Europe registered its highest number of new HIV cases in a single year in 2015, at 153,407 cases, up from 142,000 in 2014, the WHO said.
The 2014 figures were also a record number, driven by cases in Russia and immigrants who acquired the virus after arrival.
The WHO regional office for Europe has a different definition of Europe and compiles data from 53 countries.
Almost 80 percent of the 2015 cases it tallied were reported in eastern Europe, 18 percent in western Europe and three percent in central Europe.
Russia, where HIV remains a largely taboo subject, accounted for 64 percent of all newly diagnosed infections in the WHO’s European region, and 81 percent of cases in eastern Europe.
There, heterosexual sex is the main route of transmission of the virus which is spread through contact with contaminated body fluids.
Other countries with high rates of new infections last year were Ukraine, Belarus, Estonia, Moldova, Latvia and Georgia.
“Despite significant efforts, HIV remains among the main public health concerns in the WHO European region, in particular in its eastern part,” the WHO regional director for Europe, Zsuzsanna Jakab, said.
She urged member countries to implement a new action plan they endorsed in September, including improving access to HIV testing and prevention methods, to reverse the HIV epidemic.

Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant each scored 25 points apiece as the Golden State Warriors overturned a fourth quarter deficit to defeat the Atlanta Hawks 105-100 and claim a 12th straight victory on Monday.
Atlanta looked to have the Warriors rattled after edging into an 81-80 lead as the final quarter got under way.
But two Andre Iguodala baskets, a Durant jumper and a Shaun Livingston layup gave the Warriors an 8-0 run that put them 88-81 ahead.
Atlanta pulled it back to 88-85 with a Kent Bazemore layup but missed with three-point efforts by Dennis Schroder and Bazemore.
A further Bazemore three-point attempt also failed with two minutes left with the Warriors defending a narrow 91-89 lead.
The Warriors responded with six unanswered points, including four from Durant to give themselves vital breathing space.
Two superb defensive blocks by Draymond Green in the final minute also stymied the Atlanta challenge as the Warriors improved to 16-2.
Durant meanwhile led the rebounds with 14 while Klay Thompson added 20 points.
Schroder headed the Atlanta scoring with 24 points as the Hawks slipped to 10-8. It was a sixth defeat in seven games for Atlanta, who had forged a 9-2 start to the campaign earlier in the season.

Only a handful of celebrities got married in 2016 compared to 2015 when Janet Mbugua, Jane Ngoiri, Betty Kyallo, Lynda Nyangweso etc were all married. For this year, only three weddings seem to make headlines; fashion blogger Sharon Mundia aka This Is Ess, Jomo Kenyatta and Achola Ngubi and now Eunice Njeri.
Eunice Njeri might be in America to stay now that she’s someone’s wife. The flourishing gospel singer exchanged vows with US based rapper Isaac Bukasa popularly known as Izzo Raps.
The two lovebirds made their relationship public when they announced their engagement sometimes in September this year; they were secretly dating for years though.
Njeri and Izzo Raps’ pre-wedding was held at Neema Gospel Church in Dallas, Texas, on November 13th 2016; two months after they got engaged.
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The “Unaniweza” hit maker officially became Izzo Raps’ wife over the past weekend; the newlyweds got married in Texas.
Njeri donned a white strapless wedding gown while her maids rocked floor-length teal green dresses. Izzo Raps settled for a black suit with his groomsmen wearing grey suits which were complimented with aqua ties on white shirts.

The wedding was also attended by Kenyans in diaspora, US-based gospel singer, Benachi, was in attendance at Euncie Njeri’s wedding.

One is a conceited, puckering mafia DJ with an overrated Sunday morning TV gig and the other is, well, a loud, boyish woman with what she believes is a talent to sing.
Together, these clowns form a couple and one of the most seethingly annoying couples of the 21st Century.
On TV, DJ MO is the conniving, machiavellian gospel music tyrant who has monopolized the sector with an iron fist and fashioned himself as the de facto father of the Gospel industry, propping himself up to appear like the Savior and mentor of all nascent gospel singers.
DJ MO, real name, Sammy Muraya, is the guy that has, for years, cunningly manipulated his position as a TV DJ to win accolades, favors, Awards and unquestionable reverence – and acknowledgement – from the industry players.
A talent-search product who shot to fame circa 2010, going on to secure a TV show and quickly set up a entertainment outfit, DJ MO has, over and over, sat on the throne of deejaying as if he invented it.
We have enough sordid stories of the crass manipulations and unscrupulousness that goes on around System Unit and how DJ MO handles the outfit as a one man show – for his own mercenary sake.
On Crossover, a show that has questionably bagged over six Groove Awards, since the inception of the Awards, DJ MO, or as he likes to christen himself, remains at the helm, finding ways to sway the public and, with a maddening smile and below-par presentation skills, seek to engineer the masses his way. And only way.
 
He then married that flame-haired, foot-kicking martial arts ghetto chick Size 8, a former secular singer who ditched the genre and crossed over (pun unintended) to the Gospel realms only to drag along her secular traits into the Church. And that irritating and intolerable voice and hoodrat mannerisms.
Mama Wambo, as she proudly calls herself of late, will be everywhere, all the time – kicking her little butt away, Kung Fu-ing her way around the stage, talking and talking and talking and displaying her substandard acting skills on TV for a slim cheque.
Born and bred in the trenches, this do-gooder has been unable to shake away her shantytown tendencies and continues to act like a cheap drug peddler in a crowded, stinky slum.
Her speech is as unrefined as the crude oil in the shores of the Nile Delta.
And her tendencies to talk like a motorboat, rumbling on and on and on, like Friday Castro on steroids, is as annoying as it’s insufferable.
Like a bored house girl, Size 8 never knows when to stop talking. And acting up. Even when what’s she’s saying has the same level of sense as a speech by a three-year old who’s just shit his pants.
The Kenyan music industry has never endured a player that’s as disgustingly gaudy, lurid and pyrotechnical as Size 8.
 
It’s common knowledge – girl can’t even sing to save her butt.
But you’ll find her in the studio everyday, in a tasteless music video every now and then, exaggerating her way around, with her shrivelling face filling up the screen. Thinking she’s done an excellent job.
Pssssh.
No couple sucks quite like this one.
From their Instagram posts, all of which are filled with infantile displays of fatuousness and TMI’s, to their on-screen romances, this couple has a bloated sense of all-importantness that should be shunned and scolded at at all given times.
Like the overelaborate life of Diamond Platnumz, DJ MO and Size 8 made the birth of their daughter a national affair, as if anyone really cared about the last details of how a regular showbiz couple was bringing some child into the world. And at what intervals they were changing her soiled napkins.
DJ MO and Size 8 then forced Ladasha Belle Wambo into our faces – yeah, we care that much – and even, for good measure, because, 2016, started an Instagram account for the little thing that hadn’t even learnt how to grasp on a breast properly.
As. If . We. Cared.
Day after day, the happy-go-lucky couple not only choked us with the last intimate details of how their marriage was fairing, they also dragged along the offspring into the whole cocktail – just to screw things up a notch.
Slowly, we were unintentionally coaxed into following an insipid Instagram reality show, filled with mawkish romances and a day to day menu on how far some baby had grown. And such balderdash.
 
Just shut up already, third-rate Kim and Kanye!
All this time, Size 8, the goddess of the heavens, continues breaking rule after rule and dropping songs that cannot even be classified as religious by a world-traveling Hippie.
And that’s how we ended up with
A 3.46 seconds of nothing but pure stupidity and nothingness. In the name of a Gospel song.
On, Size 8 tried defending the train wreck in the best way she could – concocting a string of endless tales that were neither here nor there. As Willy Paul, glumly seated like a freezing cabbage, nodded his head all along.
As if we all don’t keep what a piece of crap that ‘song’ is.
But did you expect anything better? From a teenage boy that can’t stop stealing other people’s music and a mother that can’t stop yelling and in her songs?
Dj MO, the Pope Of the Gospel Industry, also quickly jumped to the rescue of his Babe. Who was sinking faster than a US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River.
 
On Instagram, he wrote,
NgoriAyayayesukapungalakuchukuchu
Puh-leeeeze.
Just concentrate on what pedestrian songs to play on Sunday, Mr. Jesus Boy.
We can’t leave the sacred business of interpreting righteousness to you. Or to your Jet Li wife.
But no matter how sick and tired you are of this showbiz couple, they are not in a hurry to leave. Or to tone down the adolescent antics.
And that’s what hurts.

The girl who is barely 2 years now owns a miniature replica of a Bentley thanks to her godmother (Zari’s friend) who bought it for her.
 
Tiffah’s mum took to Instagram on Monday to show off the models which obviously cost a hefty amount. Through Tiffah’s social media accounts the little girl announced the reason her godmother got her the ride is because she owns a Bentyaga.
She wrote 
 
The baby girl joins the list of celebrity kids who own some expensive custom toy cars, for example Chris Browns daughter who was given three cars on her birthday.
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Anyway, though we all agree that Tiffah will probably prefer dolls to the car…this shows how much she is getting attention from her South African family compared to the Tanzanian one who are currently not getting along with Zari.
 

When trying to make a turnaround strategy in business, SWOT analysis is always the first tool to employ, checking your strengths. Analyzing your Weakness, maximizing your opportunities and finally countering threats are the key tools in getting back to profitability. Prayer does not feature anywhere near top ten drastic measures to employ when your business is going under.
However that is just what the national carrier, the pride of Africa, none other than the Kenya Airways has resorted to, KQ airways staff have resorted to serious prayers, fasting, to some even wearing sack clothes in order to bring back from the brink of death the once profitable airline company.
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With the national airline downsizing, firing employees to recording mind bungling losses every year the staff have decided ‘ to weather the unemployment storm and survive the skyrocketing prices of goods and services facing them.
 
During the Nigerian gospel artiste, Sinach concert which went down over the weekend at Citam, Karen. KQ staff attended the concert to seek divine intervention to resurrect the company and cushion them from eminent job losses as well (evil spirits of bad luck and stagnation).
Victoria nunu, the chairlady of the Kenya Airways Christian Fellowship, who spoke to Nairobi news on the sidelines of the gospel concert, revealed tough times have forced the staff to seek God’s interventions.
she said
Nunu confessed that they have been holding monthly prayers sessions for a while now as part of an ongoing effort to #BringBackKQ to profitability.
, if God says KQ will be profitable who am I to say it can’t happen? Amen!
 

That is if there is any truth to the rumors stating she is set to open a hair studio and Spa dubbed .
The news anchor is said to have teamed up with her best-friend, Susan Kaitanny, and the two will start running the business which is suited in Kilimani.
 
According to who highlighted this story, the two ladies are planning to run the poshest beauty and hair parlor where all tastes and budgets are catered for. The posh Palace will obviously attract the rich and famous…and those who are attracted to the fine things in life.
 
Judging from the photos of the parlor, this is might be among the best parlors in Kenya. Word has it that it will be launched soon but unfortunately this will be an invites only party that will attract close friends and potential customers.
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This comes a few months after the news anchor is said to have acquired a 13 Million ride that is yet to be revealed online. Seems that Betty Kyalo has been making some good progress since she separated from her husband.

Scurvy, a disease historically associated with old-world sailors on long voyages, is making a surprise comeback in Australia, with health officials Tuesday revealing a rare spate of cases.
Caused by vitamin C deficiency, the condition used to be a common — and often fatal — curse among seafarers who went months without fresh fruit and vegetables.
Once barely heard of in developed countries, reports suggest the problem is also on the rise in Britain, while a medical journal this year detailed the case of a baby developing scurvy in Spain.
Jenny Gunton, who heads the Centre for Diabetes, Obesity and Endocrinology research at the Westmead Institute in Sydney, said scurvy had reappeared in Australia because of poor dietary habits.
She discovered the disease after wounds on several of her patients failed to heal.
“When I asked about their diet, one person was eating little or no fresh fruit and vegetables, but the rest ate fair amounts of vegetables; they were simply over-cooking them, which destroys the vitamin C,” she said.
“It highlights a danger that you can consume plenty of calories, yet not receive enough nutrients.”
The scurvy diagnosis for 12 patients was made based on blood tests and symptoms, with all cured by a simple course of vitamin C.
A lack of vitamin C can lead to defective formation of collagen and connective tissues, and cause bruising, bleeding gums, blood spots in the skin, joint pain and impaired wound healing.
Common foods that keep scurvy at bay include oranges, strawberries, broccoli, kiwi fruit, bell peppers and grapefruit, but overcooking can destroy key nutrients.
Penelope Jackson was one of those diagnosed with the disease and said she was stunned.
“I couldn’t believe it. I thought, ‘hang on a minute, scurvy hasn’t be around for centuries’,” she told the Sydney Morning Herald.
“It’s something you associate with the First Fleet and the days of Arthur Phillip and Captain (James) Cook. You don’t expect it to be around in the 21st century.”
Phillip was the first governor of New South Wales state who sailed with the First Fleet from England in 1788 while navigator and explorer Cook is often credited as one of the first to understand the relationship between fresh fruit and scurvy.
Gunton, who published a research paper on the diseases’ resurgence in the international journal Diabetic Medicine, said patients could be overweight or obese and still have the condition.
Her paper reported there was no predominant social pattern to the incidence of the disease and that patients with poor diets appeared to be from a range of socio-economic backgrounds.
“This result suggests that despite the large amount of dietary advice readily available to the community, there are still plenty of people -? from all walks of life -? who are not getting the messages,” Gunton said.
“Human bodies cannot synthesise vitamin C, so we must eat foods containing it.?
Health authorities tend not to test for scurvy these days and Gunton’s study advised clinicians to be alert to the potential problem especially in diabetes patients.
“Particularly if their patients present with unhealed ulcers, easy bruising or gum bleeding without obvious cause,” she said.

On 15 Sept 2016, The University of Northampton’s Business School Associate Professor Dr Holger Siemons presented a scholarship award to the showbiz act to study at Edulink International College Nairobi of Business and Entrepreneurship, an offer Big Ted gladly took.
Thomas Kwaka aka Big Ted now has God answering his prayers. He is now headed back to class for a bachelor’s degree thanks to the University of Northampton.A thankful Big Ted said he was ready to go back to school and pursue the offer. 
Edulink International College Nairobi working in partnership with the University of Northampton in the UK, offers business degrees in the areas of Business Studies, Entrepreneurship, Accounting and Marketing.
On Saturday 3 December 2016, Edulink International College Nairobi (EICN) will have an Open Day on its campus on Ngong Road &Ndemi Junction.
A UK degree is a prized accreditation that is recognized by employers across the world. Nairobi, in collaboration with the University of Northamptonhas been accredited by Commission for University Education (CUE) to offer UK degrees in Business.
Edulink allows undergraduates to benefit from direct access to University of Northampton degree courses which are delivered within a homely atmosphere with world class modern facilities at its Nairobi facility located at Adams Arcade, Ngong Rd – Ndemi Road Junction.
The institution is helping students to save cost of travelling to the UK to acquire degrees, and has attracted over 50+Kenyan students including a few known celebrities in its first intake.
In regards to the UK degree, EICN uses a hybrid learning model to expand its learning opportunities and maximize on the use of technology. This is one reason why celebrities are deciding on studying there.Hybrid learning is a model of course design that combines traditional face-to-face class time with online and out-of-class course work. It is also flexible allowing students with jobs and other hustles (like celebs) to find a balance between work and school.
Interestingly, UK accredited BA (Hons.) Business and Entrepreneurship is the course that most students pursue at Edulink.
There is nothing that excites celebs more than prestige; there is no doubt that Edulink’s State-of-the-art classrooms, library, computer laboratories, café and of course, a fully enabled WiFi campus, also played a major role in attracting celebrities to the institution. After all, everybody wants to learn with the best of the best.
 
 

Armed militants attacked a major Indian army base near the border with Pakistan early Tuesday, killing two soldiers, police said.
The attack comes at a time of heightened tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours following a deadly assault on an Indian army base in September that New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based militants.
“Three to four militants entered the Army Corps headquarters at Nagrota and fired towards the officers’ mess,” a senior police officer told AFP, referring to a town in northern India roughly 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the border.
“Two officers were killed and an exchange of fire is on,” he told AFP by phone, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Defence ministry spokesman Manish Mehta said the attack was still going on, but did not comment on the casualties.
“Early morning an encounter took place and terrorists have entered one of our military areas. The situation is under control, as soon as the operation is over we will be able to give details,” he told reporters.
“Terrorists are armed, they have weapons, and that is why firefight is taking place.”
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack on the Nagrota base, one of four command centres in the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir and home to over 1,000 officers.
It came after months of dangerous tensions between the rivals in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, and a recent rise in incidences of cross-border firing across the heavily militarised de-facto border known as the Line of Control (LoC).
Pakistan said last week that at least nine people had been killed when a shell fired from the Indian side hit a bus.
Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since their independence from Britain in 1947. Both claim the territory in full and have fought two wars over the mountainous region.
The latest rise in cross-border violence follows a September attack on a base in which 19 Indian soldiers were killed, the deadliest such incident in a decade.
New Delhi responded by saying it had launched “surgical strikes” on militant bases across the heavily militarised LoC, a claim Islamabad denied.
Indian and Pakistani troops regularly exchange fire across the LoC, but they rarely send ground troops over the line.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised hopes of a new era in relations with Islamabad when he paid a surprise Christmas Day visit to Sharif last December, but relations have unravelled since.
New Delhi, which has long accused Islamabad of sponsoring militant groups behind attacks on its soil, has also sought to isolate Pakistan diplomatically in the wake of the September attack.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said last week he was “deeply concerned” by the deterioration in the security situation in Kashmir and urged both countries to work together to “reach durable peace”.

The KTN beauty was put behind bars for giving an account of the 2 hour battle between the royal guards and armed forces at Rwenzururu palace in Kasese town.
A battle that escalated into a blood-bath leaving about 62 people dead and including 46 royal guards of the Rwenzururu kingdom.
 
An attack that has been termed as executions by Amnesty International who condemned the excessive use of force by the Ugandan army and their police force when carrying out the raid in the palace.
Police spokesperson on the other hand claimed that it was the royal guards of the kingdom who attacked them and not the other way round.
Mr Kaweesi said while speaking to journalists.
Joy gave an account of the horrible attack in this Facebook post that her thrown into prison and accused of abetting terrorism:
 
After being released after getting detained for more than 12 hours, Doreen sent this message:
But the coast is not clear yet as
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A mass bleaching event on the Great Barrier Reef this year killed more corals than ever before, scientists said Tuesday, sounding the alarm over the delicate ecosystem.
The 2,300-kilometre (1,400-mile) long reef — the world’s biggest — suffered its most severe bleaching in recorded history, due to warming sea temperatures during March and April, with the northern third bearing the brunt.
Follow-up underwater surveys, backing earlier aerial studies, have revealed a 700-kilometre stretch of reefs in the less-accessible north lost two-thirds of shallow-water corals in the past eight to nine months.
“Most of the losses in 2016 have occurred in the northern, most-pristine part of the Great Barrier Reef,” said Terry Hughes, head of the Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University.
“This region escaped with minor damage in two earlier bleaching events in 1998 and 2002, but this time around it has been badly affected.”
Further south over the vast central and southern regions, including major tourist areas around Cairns and the Whitsunday Islands, there was a much lower toll.
Bleaching occurs when abnormal environmental conditions, such as warmer sea temperatures, cause corals to expel tiny photosynthetic algae, draining them of their colour.
Algae are vital to the coral, which uses the organic products of photosynthesis to help it grow.
The loss of algae makes the host vulnerable to disease and means it will eventually die.
However, coral can recover if the water temperature drops and the algae are able to recolonise them.
Environmentalists blame the burning of fossil fuels for global warming and repeated calls Tuesday for Australia to abandon coal mining to help prevent further bleaching disasters.
“This is the devastating price we are paying for the Australian government propping up the coal industry,” said Greenpeace Australia reef campaigner Shani Tager.
“A credible plan to protect the reef must address climate change and start with a ban on new coal mines.”
Canberra insists it is doing more than ever to safeguard the reef, which is also under pressure from farming run-off, development and the coral-eating crown-of-thorns starfish, committing more than Aus$2.0 billion (US$1.50 billion) over the next decade.
Scientists estimate the northern region, which teems with marine life, will take at least 10-15 years to regain lost corals, but are concerned that a fourth major bleaching event may occur before that, hampering the recovery.
The reef studies centre warned earlier this year that if greenhouse gas levels keep rising, similar events would be the new normal, occurring every two years by the mid-2030s.
Given reefs need so long to recover from severe bleaching, it said “we are likely to lose large parts of the Great Barrier Reef in just a couple of decades”.
That study noted climate change had added 1.0 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming to ocean temperatures off the Queensland coast in March, when corals were first seen turning white.
There had been fears that the bleaching would badly hurt the tourism industry but Andrew Baird, who led teams of divers to re-survey the reefs in October and November, said the more accessible parts had not suffered as badly.
“The good news is the southern two-thirds of the reef has escaped with minor damage,” he said.
“On average, six percent of bleached corals died in the central region in 2016, and only one percent in the south. The corals have now regained their vibrant colour, and these reefs are in good condition.”
Tourism on the World Heritage-listed reef employs 70,000 people and generates Aus$5 billion in income each year.
Australia last year narrowly avoided UNESCO putting the site on its endangered list and must report to the World Heritage committee by December 1 on the progress being made to rescue the reef.

New Zealand took nine wickets in a dramatic final session of the second Test against Pakistan to win by 130 runs in Hamilton on Tuesday and sweep the series 2-0.
It was New Zealand’s first series win over Pakistan since 1985 and a relieved captain Kane Williamson called it one of the most remarkable Test finishes he had ever played in.
“Without a doubt,” he said, admitting he felt Pakistan had a chance to win when they started the final session needing 211 off 204 balls.
“You take nine wickets in a session, they’re all pretty big moments… from the feeling at tea time to the feeling now is pretty contrasting and will go down as a great Test victory.”
Pakistan were faced with an imposing 369-run target but set themselves up for a run-a-ball slog when they reached tea on the final day at 158 for 1.
At that stage Williamson began to question whether he had declared New Zealand’s second innings too early at 313 for 5.
“It does cross your mind, but at the point of declaration we did know that the opposition needs a sniff,” he said.
“They tried to chase it and we were able to get opportunities.”
Pakistan captain Azhar Ali said they tried to pull out of the chase and play for a draw when Sarfraz Ahmed was run out to make it 199for 4 but they could not hold on.
“We thought that’s it because the new ball” was due, he said.
“We did not want our lower order to be exposed to that but at the end if did happen and unfortunately we could not get the result we wanted.”
The match edged towards a cliff-hanger finish before Tim Southee removed Pakistan’s leading run scorer Sami Aslam for 91.
That started the collapse which saw eight wickets fall for 49 in 20 overs with Neil Wagner taking the final three for no runs in just six deliveries.
New Zealand’s series win means Pakistan fall from second to fourth in the world rankings while New Zealand move up to sixth.
Pakistan were left to ponder whether they left their charge too late.
Azhar Ali (58 off 161 deliveries) and Aslam (91 off 238) laid the platform with a record Pakistan fourth innings opening stand of 131 but it lasted 60 overs before Azhar was dismissed.
The arrival of Babar Azam was a signal to lift the pace but the pitch was still offering support to the bowlers on the fifth day.
Azhar (58) played on trying to hit leg-spinner Mitchell Santner out of the ground and Azam (16) went in similar fashion fourth ball after tea.
Aslam, trying to raise the tempo having reached his highest Test score, mistimed a drive off Southee to Williamson at mid-off.
Sarfraz Ahmed was run out for 19 off 21 balls and Asad Shafiq did not get off the mark. Veteran Younis Khan, on his 39th birthday, struggled to 11 before he fell lbw to Southee.
Colin de Grandhomme snapped up Sohail Khan for eight before Wagner removed Mohammad Amir, Wahab Riaz and Imran Khan all without scoring.
It was a Test that had begun in Pakistan’s favour after they won the toss on a lush green surface and celebrated with a wicket in the first over.
But that bright start faded rapidly and even the loss of more than four sessions to rain could save them.
Reaching 369 would have meant overtaking the record fourth innings chase in New Zealand of 348 for 5 by the West Indies 47 years ago in Auckland.

Australia coach Michael Cheika has fired back at Eddie Jones by insisting it is England rather than Australia who scrum illegally.
England boss Jones riled his native Australia by calling for a pre-match meeting with referee Jaco Peper ahead of Saturday’s clash at Twickenham to discuss his concerns about the Wallabies’ scrum.
But Cheika said Jones, once his team-mate at Sydney club Randwick, had to get his own house in order after prop Dan Cole was sin-binned for collapsing a scrum during England’s 27-14 win at home to Argentina last Saturday.
“I think the important thing there to note is that he?s got to be looking at his own players because they?re the ones who have a prop with a yellow card and that same prop’s been infringing the law since his career started, probably if not all of this year,” Cheika said Tuesday.
Cheika, in a thinly veiled reference to Cole’s play during England’s 3-0 series win in Australia in June, added: “It?s up to the ref whether he gets influenced by that really after the guy?s been boring in and falling down all of June in the series we played against them.”
The Australia coach stressed his side scrummed correctly.
“We scrum square,” he said. “We?ve got an Argentinian scrum coach and all we do is scrum square and try to get as much weight as possible.”
Cheika added that Australia props Scott Sio and James Slipper had been undone at the scrum by Cole not because of any technical deficiencies of their own, but rather as a result of the England front-row’s illegal tactics.

“In the summer that?s what happened to Scotty and James ?- Cole?s experience in that way and turning in and pulling down just got the better of them and they weren’t able to deal with it.”
It is standard practice before an international for coaches to meet with a referee in order to get some idea of how a particular official will interpret rugby union’s complex rulebook.
But Cheika said Jones, whom he had previously accused of being “vitriolic” towards Australia, the team he guided to a 2003 World Cup final defeat by England in Sydney, now had a different attitude towards such encounters.
“It?s funny how your tune changes because in the summer when we asked for those meetings he (Jones) was blowing up, he stormed out of one,” said Cheika.
Rugby Union is unusual in allowing coaches to meet with a referee in the lead-up to a Test match and Cheika questioned whether the practice should continue.
“I don?t think the refs like those meetings anyway but they?re the rules so we were only asking,” he said.
“There?s no other sport where a coach is meeting a referee the day before a game on their own.
“We sign a million integrity forms now at World Rugby and do courses, but I still don?t understand how the referee meets the coach before the game on his own.”
England head into Saturday’s match on a 13-game unbeaten run, having won all 12 of their internationals under Jones since the former Japan coach took charge following last year’s World Cup.
Australia, meanwhile, will be looking to recover from a 27-24 loss to Ireland in Dublin last Saturday that ended their hopes of emulating the 1984 Wallabies by completing a Grand Slam of wins over the Home Nations.

Haitian businessman Jovenel Moise, the candidate backed by former president Michel Martelly, won the presidential vote in the first round, official early results showed.
Provisional Electoral Council chief Uder Antoine said Moise came ahead of Jude Celestin, candidate of the opposition LAPEH, scoring 55.67 percent against 19.52 percent.
Moise Jean Charles got 11.04 percent and Maryse Narcisse 8.99 percent.
Any candidate who wins more than half of the votes cast is considered the victor.
Haitian law offers candidates the opportunity to challenge the results from the presidential and legislative election in electoral courts, before final results are due to be published on December 29.
The country was on edge as the results were announced, after past episodes of sometimes bloody violence in a desperately poor country marred by repeated episodes of political upheaval.
Interim leader Jocelerme Privert called for calm ahead of the vote result announcement.
“Resorting to acts of violence can only spoil the fruits of the beautiful day we had on November 20,” Privert said at the presidential palace in Port-au-Prince, referring to the vote held earlier this month.
The election was a key step in restoring constitutional order in Haiti, where Martelly’s mandate expired after the results of last year’s first round poll were annulled amid widespread claims of fraud.
Nearly 6.2 million people were eligible to vote in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country, parts of which are still struggling to recover from a devastating hurricane.
Of the 27 candidates who ran for president, four had claimed victory in the first round before the official announcement in statements criticized by the international community.
“My compatriots, our country is living through a dramatic moment. It needs a social cooling off, it needs calm, serenity, peace and tranquility,” Privert said.
“My brothers and sisters, I invite you all to use the means of recourse set forth in the electoral decree and constitutional provisions to defend your legitimate rights.”
Haiti’s election was originally held in October 2015, but the results were eventually scrapped amid opposition protests after an independent commission found massive fraud.
With the results annulled, Martelly, a popular singer elected in May 2011, was unable to transfer power to a successor chosen by popular vote, as required by the constitution.
The legislature chose Senate chief Privert as interim head of state — initially with a three-month mandate — but new polls were delayed amid civil unrest and political infighting.
The first round of the presidential election was scheduled again for October 9 this year, but was delayed after Hurricane Matthew pummeled the country a few days before.

September 23 2016, Chief Magistrate Daniel Ogoti of the Mombasa court gave Mike Sonko a two months ultimatum to produce Omar Mwamnuadzi, the leader of the outlawed Mombasa Republican Council (MRC).
The Nairobi Senator offered his Kes 20 million land title deed in 2012 as surety for the MRC leader who has since gone missing.
Omar Mwamnuadzi has missed sessions at Mombasa and Kwale courts, and the court has since turned the heat on Mike Sonko.
The court’s two months ultimatum to Sonko expired on Wednesday November 23 2016 and the court has now threatened to arrest the Nairobi Senator instead.
Chief Magistrate Douglas Ogoti said on Wednesday 23 that failure to have the Senator produce the fleeing MRC leader in court will force the court to embark on procedures to be followed when a surety fails to present an accused to court; which simply means the court will issue an arrest warrant agianst Sonko.
Sonko through his lawyer, Jared Magolo, told the court that the Nairobi Senator was collaborating with Omar Mwamnuadzi’s family to bring him in.
Daily Nation also quoted Sonko’s lawyer as saying that the flamboyant lawmaker has set an elaborate team to trace the fugitive even in Tanzania.
 
 

Thailand’s parliament on Tuesday invited Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn to become the next king, resolving lingering anxiety over his accession following his father’s death last month.
The country has been plunged into mourning since widely revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej died on 13 October, ending a remarkable seven-decade reign and removing a key pillar of unity in a bitterly divided nation.
Tuesday’s move ends a period of uncertainty sparked by the junta making the surprise announcement after Bhumibol’s death that the prince had asked to delay his official proclamation so he could mourn.
“I will invite the Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn to succeed to the throne and become king of the Thai people,” Pornpetch Wichitcholchai, head of the rubber stamp National Legislative Assembly said.
Lawmakers then stood up and replied: “Long live the king”.
The parliamentary endorsement came after Thailand’s cabinet officially submitted Vajiralongkorn’s name earlier in the day.
Prawit Wongsuwan, deputy prime minister and the junta’s number two, said the prince’s ascension was “proceeding step-by-step” according to the country’s arcane succession rules.
According to protocol, the assembly speaker will now seek a royal audience with the prince to invite him to ascend the throne, the last step before being proclaimed the new monarch.
Prawit said that would likely happen “either tomorrow or the day after”.
Vajiralongkorn, 64, has been the named successor to Bhumibol for more than four decades.
He spends much of his time outside the kingdom, particularly in southern Germany where he owns property.
A military source told AFP the prince was still currently in Germany.
He will soon inherit one of the world’s richest monarchies, an institution protected by a tough royal defamation law.
That law makes open discussion about the royal family’s role all but impossible inside the kingdom and convictions have skyrocketed since generals seized power in 2014.
Officially Thailand’s monarch has limited constitutional power.
But over his seven-decade reign, Bhumibol built up a powerful network of alliances, especially within Thailand’s military elite, and forged a reputation as an arbiter in times of crisis.
Yet the late king has left his son with a sharply divided country.
Thailand’s last decade has seen a cycle of political protests, coups by an arch-royalist military while inequality has deepened.
Dubbed the “lost decade”, Thailand’s most recent period of political unrest coincided with Bhumibol’s increasingly frail health and fewer public appearances.
Vajiralongkorn, a certified pilot, has yet to achieve his father’s widespread adoration.
Rumours over his private life have also trailed him. He has had three high-profile divorces, while a recent police corruption scandal linked to the family of his previous wife allowed the public a rare glimpse of palace affairs.
Since Bhumibol’s death, he has attended some of the daily funerary rites for his father but has made no public statements.
He has asked his younger sister, Princess Sirindhorn to oversee the organisation for Bhumibol’s cremation, which will not take place until an official one year mourning period has ended.
Historically, the new monarch in Thailand is only crowned once the previous monarch is cremated.
In a letter to parliament on Tuesday, junta chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha said one million Thais have now travelled to the Grand Palace, where the king’s body is being held ahead of cremation, to pay their respects.

At 87 years old, Mircea Barbu has no qualms about braving the freezing temperatures for Wednesday’s fiery Dinamo Bucharest-Steaua Bucharest derby, a holdover from the communist era that still stands long after the fall of the Iron Curtain despite the decline of Romanian football.
Like Mircea, tens of thousands of supporters are expected at the national stadium where Dinamo, formerly the club of Romania’s secret police, will host their eternal, Army-founded rivals. “It’s impossible to say how many of them I’ve seen,” smiled the veteran Dinamo supporter.
While the golden eras of the two clubs have long since been consigned to history, their ultimate raison d’etre — biannual clashes with their bitter foes — remains firmly intact.
“The fans still say it: no matter the standings, what really counts is beating Steaua — or Dinamo — and the season is saved,” Helmuth Duckadam, the goalkeeper who saved all four penalties in Steaua’s 1986 European Cup final triumph over Barcelona, told AFP.
The rivalry between the clubs was carved into their identity from their respective births shortly in the late 1940s, with their encounters destined to spice up the Romanian championship as one of the rare forms of entertainment tolerated by the communist regime.
Steaua and Dinamo became the embodiment of a scarcely concealed power struggle between the government’s two most powerful components, the army and the Internal Affairs Ministry.
“There has always been this rivalry of pride, sustained and developed as the two departments gained more and more power,” explained Ovidio Ioanitoaia, the director of Gazeta Sporturilor daily.
The confrontation reached its climax during the 1980s when the eldest son of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausecu, Valentin, was appointed Steaua’s general manager.
Across the city, Dinamo had a prominent number one fan of their own in Tudor Postelnicu, chief of the Securitate, the country’s formidable state security agency.
“During the 1988 Romanian Cup final, after a Steaua goal was ruled out for offside, Valentin Ceausescu ordered the team to leave the pitch,” recalled Ioanitoaia. A few days later, the federation awarded the club the trophy.
The fallout was that of lasting resentment. When Steaua offered to return the cup to their rivals after the fall of the communist dictatorship in 1989, Dinamo stubbornly refused.
Even today, Dinamo’s hardcore ultra fans celebrate May 10, 1997, the date they set alight the away stand at Steaua’s former Ghencea home, completely destroying it.
Rare transfers between the two clubs have proved hard to forgive. “Those who switch between Steaua and Dinamo are perceived as a a traitor,” recounted Ioanitoaia.
The notion of defecting never crossed the mind of Ion Pircalab, a right winger for Dinamo during the 1960s. “I played at least 30 derbies against Steaua and I still have the same emotions, the same worries and the same desire to win,” he confided.
While the 26 league trophies won by Steaua outshine Dinamo’s haul of 18, the latter can boast about producing the leading scorer on 19 occasions, five times more than their rivals.
But the pair share the honours when it comes to scandals ranging from corruption to match-fixing and tax evasion. The issues have plagued Romanian football since the return of democracy, with officials from both sides serving time behind bars.
Without a league title since 2007, Dinamo, currently sixth in the table, have fallen upon hard times financially in recent times and filed for insolvency two years ago.
But the situation is almost more dramatic still at Steaua. While top of the table, last season’s runners-up were booted from their historic ground and stripped of their name after losing a legal battle over their trademark with the defence ministry, having separated from the Army in 1999.
Risky management is not easily forgiven by some supporters, with many staying away from games in protest.
“All my life has been built around Steaua, all that mattered was getting behind the team, even if it meant missing exams or losing a job,” said one disenchanted fan, aged 40.
“And 90 percent of my passion, I lived it during the matches against Dinamo, our true rivals.”

Joy Doreen Biira was arrested on Sunday for what Ugandan police termed as illegal filming of military raid on Rwenzururu palace in Kasese town.
Death toll from the raid has since risen to 62 as more bodies have been found, it was reported earlier that 46 royal guards of the Rwenzururu kingdom had been killed by Ugandan forces.
Ms Biira was arrested alongside her husband, Newton Kungu, and four other people a day after their traditional wedding ceremony.
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The KTN anchor-cum-reporter was released late yesterday on a police bond after she was charged with abetting terrorism.
 
Biira’s lawyer, Nicholas Opiyo, shared a copy of her release paper from Kasese police station which carried sad news.
The release paper showed that Ms Biira was required to report to Kasese police station in one week’s time, December 8 2016 to be precise.
The paper further indicates that she shall continue to respond to further summons to answer to the said charge until otherwise directed by court.
In simpler term, Joy Doreen Biira isn’t coming back to Nairobi to continue with her work at KTN as Ugandan police now require her to report to Kasese police station (which is located farthest in Western Uganda) to answer to charges of abetting terrorism.
 

Russell Westbrook insists he is not interested in chasing history after a quickfire eighth triple-double of the season left him on track to equal Oscar Robertson’s long-standing NBA record.
Westbrook was in scintillating form once more to help the Oklahoma City Thunder overpower the New York Knicks 112-103 at Madison Square Garden, bagging his third consecutive triple-double — the 45th of his career.
Westbrook needed just 20 minutes on court to complete his latest masterclass, part of a haul that leaves him averaging triple-double numbers for the season.
The 28-year-old finished with 27 points, 18 rebounds and 14 assists.
Westbrook is now averaging 30.9 points per game, 11.3 assists and 10.4 rebounds for the season.
Only one player in NBA history — Robertson in 1961-62 — has ever gone an entire season averaging triple-double numbers.
Westbrook is on pace to equal Robertson’s record, albeit with only 19 games of the season gone. Westbrook’s display Monday helped the Thunder improve to 11-8 as the Knicks fell to 8-9.
However Westbrook is adamant that matching Robertson’s record is not on his agenda.
“Winning is sustainable,” Westbrook said. “My job is to go out and find the best way to win games. Right now, we won three straight and that is what’s most important to me.
“I don’t really care, honestly. I like to win and compete at a high level. I do the same thing every year.”
Enes Kanter offered another offensive threat for the Thunder, rising from the bench to score 27 points and grab 10 rebounds in 28 minutes.
For the Knicks, Derrick Rose led the scoring with 30 points, seven rebounds and four assists.
Kristaps Porzingis added 21 points and Carmelo Anthony chipped in with 18 points.
Thunder coach Billy Donovan however paid tribute to Westbrook’s display.
“He (Westbrook) obviously set people up tremendously tonight,” Donovan said.
“Offensively getting and creating shots, getting in the lane. I thought his rebounding, getting to a couple of loose ball plays. When he does that it sends an unbelievable message to our team of his spirit and his fight and the way he competes.”

Japan has begun slaughtering more than 330,000 farm birds to contain its first outbreaks of a highly contagious strain of avian flu in nearly two years, the government said Tuesday.
The planned cull of some 16,500 ducks at a farm in the northern prefecture of Aomori and nearly 320,000 chickens at a farm in central Niigata prefecture, began Tuesday, said top government spokesman Yoshihide Suga.
Authorities also banned the transport of poultry and poultry products in areas close to the farms affected by the H5 strain, while sterilising main roads leading to them.
“There are fears that it could occur in other regions (in Japan)” considering infections had been found among wild birds and there have been outbreaks in neighbouring countries, Suga said.
Japan’s last confirmed case of avian flu was at a farm in January 2015.

Experts and elected officials on both sides of the political aisle on Monday dismissed Donald Trump’s claim that “millions” of Americans voted illegally on Election Day, as efforts expanded to organize recounts in swing states.
The Republican billionaire’s victory on November 8 saw him clinch the crucial Electoral College count, which determines the presidency, but lose the popular vote to rival Hillary Clinton by more than two million ballots.
Cloistered in his Florida resort for the long Thanksgiving weekend, the 70-year-old tycoon who has never previously held elected office took to Twitter to indulge in one of his customary tweet storms.
On Sunday, before returning by private jet to New York to resume interviews with potential cabinet appointees, he claimed he would have won the popular vote if it were not for “the millions of people who voted illegally.”
“Serious voter fraud in Virginia, New Hampshire and California — so why isn’t the media reporting on this? Serious bias — big problem!” he followed up later.
Trump, who spent the campaign warning that the result might be “rigged,” is now — with his aides — pushing back hard as the Green Party works to secure recounts in three states which Trump won: Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
The campaign of Green Party candidate Jill Stein, who won a tiny fraction of the vote in each state and where Trump beat Clinton by thousands of votes, said voters had filed recount requests in more than 100 (out of 9,163) precincts in Pennsylvania — promising that more would follow.
The party requested a statewide recount in Wisconsin on Friday and plans to request a recount in Michigan on Wednesday, the campaign said.
But observers deny any evidence of widespread fraud.
And few expect any change in the outcome of the vote, which former secretary of state Clinton conceded to Trump in an early-hours phone call on November 9.
Meanwhile, Trump increased his Electoral College vote count to 306, compared to 232 for Clinton, after Michigan certified its election results — and his victory there.
Republican, Democratic and independent lawmakers dismissed Trump’s claims as totally unsubstantiated.
Some experts warned they set a dangerous precedent by potentially undermining trust in democracy or confidence in his leadership.
“I have not seen anything in the millions, I don’t know what he was talking about,” Republican Senator James Lankford told CNN.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said “there has been no evidence produced to substantiate a claim like that.”
Clinton’s campaign has said it would join the process, but has also indicated it so far sees no evidence of hacking or vote tampering.
Bernie Sanders, who ran against Clinton for the Democratic nomination, called Trump’s remarks “unfounded nonsense” that showed Republicans wanted to make it harder for people including minorities to register to vote.
In New Hampshire, deputy secretary of state David Scanlan told AFP that isolated instances of voter fraud “show up in every election” but that the 2016 ballot had run “very smoothly.”
But the dispute roils what has already been a rough transition period, as Trump continues to hold back-to-back meetings with people he is considering for cabinet posts.
Trump has picked Georgia Representative Tom Price, a robust critic of President Barack Obama’s health care reform law, to serve as health secretary, and plans to make a formal announcement as early as Tuesday, US media reported.
And his Vice president-elect Mike Pence told reporters to expect “a number of very important announcements” on Tuesday, fueling speculation of more cabinet posts to be revealed.
Trump threatened to end the thaw in US relations with Cuba, following the death of Fidel Castro, unless Havana makes concessions on human rights and opening up its economy.
Discord has flared in the Trump camp over the pick for secretary of state, the most prestigious job in the cabinet — in particular over the candidacy of Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee.
Other potential candidates are outspoken former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani; David Petraeus, the celebrated general who later resigned as CIA director and pleaded guilty to showing classified material to his mistress; and Bob Corker, a Republican lawmaker and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Trump met Petraeus on Monday, and was to meet Romney for a second time on Tuesday, in addition to a planned meeting with Corker.
“Very impressed!” tweeted Trump of Petraeus just minutes after the general left the building, having described their conversation as “very good.”
Romney was one of Trump’s most outspoken critics during the campaign, and Trump aide Kellyanne Conway declared, in an unusual statement by a senior political aide, that she had received “a deluge” of concern from supporters about him.

National Bank has announced a drop in net profit of 76.8 percent in its third quarter results.  The banks current net profit for the nine months ended September 2016 is Ksh. 526 million.
This is a massive drop from the 2.2 billion it recorded over the same period in September 2015.The bank’s Chief executive blamed this largely on provisions of bad loans and higher operating costs.

Operating expenses increased by 37% from Sh5.6 billion last year to Sh 7.7 billion.
This year over the same period. Provisioning for the bad loans accounted for 1.9 billion of the expenses, tripling the amount it posted last year of 586 million shillings.
This was after the bank saw its non-performing almost quadruple to 26.1 billion this year accounting for about 42% of its loan book.
 
Other expenses were attributed to investment in technological systems and product innovations.
Total interest income grew slightly from Sh9.8 billion to Sh10 billion while net interest income was up 16% from Sh5.7 billion to Sh6.6 billion.
Customer deposits increased by 6% to Sh96.4 billion from Sh90.8 billion over the same period in 2015 on the back of increased volumes from customers.
Non interest income fell by about 40% to Sh1.86 billion compared to Sh 3.12 billion posted in Q3 2015
The Bank’s Earnings Per Share (EPS) fell from Sh 8.05 to Sh 1.69.
The results have seen the lender’s capital ratios fall further below what is required by regulations.
NBK’s total capital to total risk weighted assets ratio is at 12.6% as at September 2016 while CBK’s statutory minimum is at 14.5 percent.
This is a 1.9% percent drop which continues the trend from March this year when the bank first went below the statutory caps dropping by 1.4%.
The troubled bank is however undertaking a massive transformation programme after it was hit by an accounting scandal earlier in the year.
The scandal saw the sacking of several members of management and a new team including board members was set up. It is now looking for a loan from its shareholders.
NSSF is the largest shareholder at the bank with a 48.05 stake while the national government owns a 22.5 stake at the bank.

A university student whose family immigrated from Somalia rammed his car into a crowd at Ohio State University and attacked them with a butcher knife, injuring 11 before police fatally shot him.
Identifying the assailant as Abdul Razak Ali Artan, officials in the northern US state said he appeared to have acted alone in what was being investigated as a possible terror attack.
He also appears to have made an anti-US posting on Facebook minutes before the attack, on a page that was quickly disabled or taken down by authorities, US media said.
“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,” the post quoted by ABC television said, using a term referring to the global community of Muslims.
“If you want us Muslims to stop carrying 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, as a hero in the posting.
His shocking attakc lasted just a few minutes — from the car careening into the crowd until the suspect was shot dead — but triggered a tense lockdown on the university’s main campus in Columbus, with panicked students hiding in bathrooms before the scene was declared secure.
Officials said 11 people were being treated at local hospitals for stabbing wounds and injuries from the motor vehicle. None of their injuries were life-threatening.
Columbus police chief Kim Jacobs said earlier in the day they were considering the “possibility” that it was terrorism related.
US media reported that Artan was of Somali descent, though officials did not confirm that information. They did not release his exact age, saying only that they believed he was born in 1998.
An OSU student of the same name also was profiled in the August issue of student newspaper The Lantern, for an article in which he spoke of the lack of Muslim prayer rooms on campus.
Artan, who was identified as a third-year transfer student studying logistics management, told the paper he was uncomfortable with praying 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.
The rampage comes two months after a Somali immigrant stabbed 10 people at a mall in Minnesota, before he was fatally shot by an off-duty police officer.
The Minnesota assailant, 20-year-old Dahir Ahmed Adan, was described as “radicalized” and the Islamic State group claimed the attack as the work of an IS “soldier.”
Monday’s attack unfolded just before 10:00 am (1500 GMT), when police were alerted that a car had struck pedestrians on campus, and that the driver had jumped out wielding a large knife.
“We could tell that the suspect was in the car by himself,” said Craig Stone, chief of police at the university, describing a review of surveillance camera footage of his grey sedan.
A fire alarm, which investigators believed to be unrelated, had caused students and staff to evacuate a building prior to the attack.
The attacker “exited the vehicle, and used a butcher knife to start cutting pedestrians,” Stone said.
“Our officer was on scene in less than a minute and he ended the situation in less than a minute. He engaged the suspect, and he eliminated the threat.”
After the suspect was shot dead by the responding officer, identified as 28-year-old Alan Harujko, university officials sent out a campus-wide alert to initiate a lockdown due to a possible active shooting incident.
SWAT teams fanned out across the facility and an FBI team was also on the scene, searching buildings for any additional suspects.
It took nearly two hours before officials lifted the lockdown, and shocked students and staff began streaming out of buildings. The university canceled classes for the rest of the day.
“I was right there,” student Joseph Noll told Columbus television station WBNS. “I just heard some screams, and I saw people running.”
Cydney Ireland told ABC she was walking out of class when she also heard screams.
“Everybody was running in any direction they possibly could, students were running out of the classroom building,” she said from her hiding spot in a locked bathroom.
Ohio State has roughly 60,000 students on the main campus in Columbus, which sprawls across more than 1,900 acres (770 hectares).
A number of vigils and gatherings were planned, as university officials offered student and staff counseling.
“Days such as these test our spirit,” university president Michael Drake said in a note to students and staff, “But together we remain unified in the face of adversity.”
“I encourage anyone in our community in need of assistance to utilize the university’s resources,.”
Classes are scheduled to resume Tuesday.
“Our hearts go out to the families of those affected in Ohio — a tragic attack. Our prayers are with them,” said Vice president-elect Mike Pence in New York.
“While we do not yet have confirmation of terrorist connections, this is the type of indiscriminate violence our enemies are urging their followers to use against us,” House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul said in a statement.
“Whatever the case, we will continue to monitor the investigation to ensure any potential accomplices or instigators are found and brought to justice.”

As the bombs rain down on the besieged city of Aleppo the scenes of suffering are horrific, yet the Syrian war fails to move people to protest in the way that the US intervention in Iraq or the siege of Sarajevo did.
In Paris’ traditional place of protest, Place de la Republique, demonstrators spelled out “Free Syria” in candles last Friday as forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad increased their control of rebel-held areas of Aleppo.
But barely a hundred people took part in the protest.
“I find it hard to understand. This is a cause which people should rally around,” said one of the participants, Ahmad Darkazanli, who originally comes from Aleppo but has lived in France for half a century.
It has been a similar story in London, Berlin and Rome — the plight of the Syrian people fails to strike a chord.
“Aleppo is already a Sarajevo, a black chapter in the history of mankind and of international politics,” Jan Egeland, the head of the UN-backed humanitarian taskforce for Syria, said recently.
Intellectuals across Europe took up the fate of Sarajevo, the destroyed capital of Bosnia, during the 1992-1995 war and the conflicts in Gaza brought thousands of people into the streets.
The US intervention in Iraq unleashed massive demonstrations, including an estimated one million people who marched through London in February 2003.
Yet Syria fails to stir the same feelings of solidarity.
As the war has ground on for five years, the mainstream media and social media have been filled with images of barrel bombs, children struggling to breathe after chemical weapons attacks, dead prisoners, and desperate families scrambling through the rubble of their shattered homes.
“It’s so barbaric that it’s hard for people to take in,” Ziad Majed, a professor at the American University of Paris, said.
Photographs of Aylan, the little Syrian boy found drowned on a Turkish beach, and the blood-streaked face of another child, five-year-old Omran, who had emerged from the rubble of his bombed home in Aleppo, caught the world’s attention for a few days.
But, said Majed, “it’s one horror after another and because people don’t understand who is killing whom, they feel powerless and they don’t want to look at it or think about it any more.”
The complex nature of a conflict that began as a civil war after President Bashar al-Assad cracked down on the opposition but has gradually spread to the whole region and sucked in jihadist groups may be to blame for the general public’s indifference.
“Who is against Assad? And who is on his side? Should tyrants be ousted? We saw where that led in Iraq and Syria,” Stephan Polonski, an artist in Paris, said.
In the Middle Eastern “Great Game” that the Syrian war has become with Russia, Iran, Turkey and the Gulf states all playing a role, and the Islamic State jihadist group feeding off the resulting chaos, “the Syrian people and their aspirations for democracy are invisible”, Majed said.
“I think the attacks carried out in Europe by Daesh (another acronym for IS) have exhausted the capacity of people in the West to show empathy or anger at what is happening in Syria,” said Pauline Hamon, a journalist.
“As far as we are concerned the real enemy are these fanatics,” Charlotte Cruchet, a housewife in her 40s, said.
“Unfortunately, many people think that in the Middle East we’re violent, we kill each other, we’re incapable of being democratic and we’ve got the regimes we deserve,” said Farouk Mardam-Bey, a French-Syrian publisher who is president of the French support group for the Syrian revolution, Souria Houria.
He points to the insidious effect of “influential” pro-regime websites who disseminate information from a war which is largely out of bounds to the mainstream media.
“Even among my left-wing friends, I often hear: ‘Who is to say these horrifying images are not fabricated? Who is to say it’s true?'” he said.
Since the war began, Souria Houria has organised hundreds of meetings and events, but the people who attend are normally the usual suspects — individuals with a direct link to the war, artists and activists.
“When the bombing of Aleppo started (in September), we saw faces we hadn’t seen before, ‘ordinary people’ who took part in our demonstrations in front of the Russian embassy in Paris,” Mardam-Bey said. “But they were a very small group.”
He sees one ray of hope, in Germany, which has taken in hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees, and where young Syrian authors are being translated into German for the first time.

Elite cricket is a tough game but spare a thought for the sport’s minnows, who have to contend with makeshift facilities, scant funding and the chronic threat of financial ruin.
At a small ground in the heart of bustling Hong Kong, the soothing sight of an afternoon’s play belies the very real risks facing cricket’s associate, or second-tier, nations.
Hong Kong have risen as high as 10th in the world in Twenty20 cricket and in 2014 they beat hosts Bangladesh in front of a stunned Chittagong Stadium at the World T20.
Yet just a couple of untimely defeats could cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars in International Cricket Council funding, setting them back years.
Tim Cutler, Cricket Hong Kong’s 34-year-old CEO from Australia, is painfully aware that a run of poor form by the national team could mean the end of his job.
“It’s such a cut-throat world, associate cricket,” Cutler said, as Hong Kong played Papua New Guinea earlier this month. “There’s huge pressure on games of cricket.”
Hong Kong play in the tier below the Test nations, but relegation to the next division could cost $750,000 in funding, plus other support for tours and training, Cutler said.
It gives games between associate nations an edge not found at Test level, with a team’s future and the livelihoods of players and officials sometimes at stake.
Kenya, Canada, the Netherlands and Bermuda have all felt the pain of reduced circumstances after losing their ODI status and finding themselves unable to win it back.
“If you drop the ball, you can see the effect it’s had on teams like Canada and Kenya, Bermuda as well,” Cutler said.
“So it’s a tough old world, associate cricket. I know if we don’t stay up in the World Cricket League then my job’s in jeopardy as well… there’s a lot of funding linked to some single, tough, on-field targets.
“Sport’s a game, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Generally business (is)… very rarely linked intrinsically to sometimes single results.”
Hong Kong’s battle to survive and thrive is not helped by the scarcity of cricket grounds in a densely populated city with some of the world’s highest property prices.
Their three-match series against Papua New Guinea was played at Mission Road, close to the heart of the teeming Mong Kok district and skirted by a high-rise apartment block.
The former British colony’s cricketers often play on cramped fields belonging to schools and the police force, where they use artificial or roll-out wickets.
“Some of those grounds we can only play from one end, just because of how small the grounds are,” Cutler said.
Cricket Hong Kong recently took over the lease at a former landfill site at Gin Drinkers Bay, whose Cantonese name translates as “Rubbish Bay”.
“It’s an ex-landfill so it will be quite convex. So we won’t be playing high-class cricket on there,” dead-panned the CEO.
Such conditions pose problems when Hong Kong play abroad: not used to bigger fields, their batsmen have to hit harder than usual to reach the boundary.
“It sometimes does play on our minds with the small boundaries, especially when we play international games with the boundaries being much bigger,” said Hong Kong batsman Anshuman Rath.
“We tend to get away with it here because of the small boundary… just 45 metres (49 yards), hitting sixes all day long.”
Low wages can also make players vulnerable, as seen when Hong Kong all-rounder Irfan Ahmed was banned for 30 months this year for failing to report match-fixing approaches.
Cutler, who was appointed last year, is working to establish new revenue streams with tournaments such as the Hong Kong Sixes or the T20 Blitz, which featured ex-Australia captain Michael Clarke in its inaugural edition in May.
Even as those tournaments take root, with the hugely successful Hong Kong Sevens rugby tournament as their model, Cutler says he wishes cricket had more government support in semi-autonmous Hong Kong, a Chinese “Special Administrative Region” of seven million people.
“We have a Hong Kong side that’s performing at the highest level. We’re ranked 14th in the world in one-day cricket, we’ve been ranked as high as 10 in T20 cricket,” he said.
“It’s something for Hong Kong to be proud of, and we should celebrate it.”
At least Cricket Hong Kong isn’t having to pay for any smashed windows. At the Mission Road ground, the apartment block flanking the boundary has so far remained unscathed.
“I don’t think anyone can hit it that far,” said Rath.

There are no prizes for guessing whose face features on the poster for the first German edition of Charlie Hebdo which will appear on newsstands in Berlin and Vienna on Thursday.
Chancellor Angela Merkel will be pictured in a moment of quiet contemplation reading the satirical weekly on the toilet.
“Charlie Hebdo, the newspaper that relaxes,” the legend reads.
The irreverent French phenomenon, which was the victim of a bloody jihadist attack in January 2015, hopes to continue its renaissance with a German version of its provocative mix of no-holds-barred cartoons and biting satirical columns.
Germans bought 70,000 copies of Charlie Hebdo’s “survivors’ edition”, which appeared one week after last year’s massacre in the magazine’s Paris offices, and its already sells 1,000 copies a week of its French edition there.
Its editor the cartoonist Riss — who was shot in the shoulder during the attack — has been working on a German-language version for six months.
He has also drawn the poster for the first issue with Merkel resplendent in pink reading a Charlie Hebdo which wonders whether she would be able to govern both Germany and France at the same time.
The cover she is holding on her throne is one originally drawn by the weekly’s murdered former editor, Charb, who was gunned down in the attack in which 12 people died.
“I always thought that we would be able to export Charlie Hebdo,” Riss told AFP.
“There is a real curiosity in Germany about what we are doing, which is not the case for instance in Britain, Spain or Portugal,” he added.
Its 200,000-copy launch in Germany is certainly ambitious — almost the same number as are printed in France every week.
“Unfortunately lots of people outside France discovered Charlie Hebdo because of the attacks when it is supposed to be a magazine that makes you laugh,” Riss said.
And the cartoonist said he was wary of the weekly’s 46-year history being reduced to the attacks.
“It is true that an important aspect of our editorial identity is our attachment to the freedom to criticise religion, but Charlie Hebdo in not just that,” he insisted.
“If we succeed in developing a readership abroad, we are also making allies,” said Riss, whose real name is Laurent Sourisseau.
“Those allies will help us get our message out and be understood,” he added.
Despite its many fans and supporters, Charlie Hebdo has never had a shortage of enemies.
It first became a target of Islamist extremists after publishing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
Most Muslims consider portraying the prophet in images to be blasphemous. But it also regularly outrages Christians, drawing criticism from the Vatican, as well as from the French political establishment.
Nor did its humour go down well in Italy after the town of Amatrice was devastated by an earthquake in August. Its “macabre and tactless” pasta-themed cartoons on the quake, including one portraying victims crushed under layers of lasagna, prompted the town to sue.
Italy’s Interior Minister Angelino Alfano was even more forthright in his fury, telling the cartoonists where they “could stick their pencils”.
Charlie Hebdo is keeping under wraps which German sacred cows it will take to the slaughter.
Its 16-page German version is mostly a translation of the French edition but with some content written specifically for a German audience.
Riss said he hoped it would inspire young German cartoonists to dare to start drawing for it.
But such are the security concerns that the edition’s young female editor — who heads a 12-person team — is working under a pseudonym, Minka Schneider.
“Our biggest challenge isn’t German humour,” she said, “it is that the cartoon culture (from which Charlie Hebdo comes) doesn’t really have an equivalent here.”
Germany already has two major satirical monthlies, Titanic and Eulenspiegel, but their humour is different to Charlie Hebdo’s, she said.
Riss is realistic about the German edition’s long-term prospects. “It’s a test, an experiment” but he argued that the magazine’s brand of humour was “universal”, with part of its website already available in English.
Nevertheless, he admitted that often foreigners didn’t how to take the magazine’s often vicious edge.
“Charlie Hebdo is kind of an extra terrestrial… its humour is a little cynical, disillusioned. There is a pessimism in our drawings but we try to laugh about it,” he said.

Sami Aslam was unbeaten on 75 as Pakistan went to tea at 158-1 needing a run a ball in a climactic final session of the second Test against New Zealand on Tuesday.
Aslam and Azhar Ali (58) produced a 131-run stand for the first wicket, and with Babar Azam not out on 16 the tourists were set for a final showdown at Hamilton’s Seddon Park.
It is not a foreign situation for them.
When they required 292 in 62 overs at lunch it evoked memories of an epic run chase in Sharjah two years ago when they smacked 302 in the fourth innings in 57.3 overs to beat Sri Lanka.
Despite the Seddon Park wicket still offering some support to the bowlers on a flattening pitch, Azhar and Aslam were able to set the stage for another grandstand finish.
Pakistan require 211 runs off 204 balls if they are to snatch victory and level the series.
After losing the first Test in Christchurch, only a win in Hamilton can keep Pakistan second to India in the world rankings.
A draw or a loss will consign them to fourth place below England and Australia.
At the top of the innings, Azhar and Aslam were resolute with their best performances of the series although Aslam had two heart-stopping moments.
On 31 he was given not out on an lbw appeal when Kane Williamson debated too long on whether to go for a referral and his chance to request a review timed out. Replays showed Aslam was plumb in front.
He could also have been run out on 45 had Mitchell Santer’s throw from midwicket been fast and direct to the wicketkeeper.
Aslam brought up his sixth 50 in nine Tests carving a Neil Wagner bouncer to the boundary, giving him some satisfaction in a match where he dropped three critical catch offerings in the field.
Azhar, standing in as captain for the unavailable Misbah-ul-Haq, faced 147 deliveries before he reached his 23rd half century with a single off Matt Henry.
But his patient innings ended soon after when he went to drive Santner out of the ground only to drag the ball back on to his stumps.

A Playboy model pleaded not guilty on Monday to a charge of invasion of privacy over a picture she secretly took and posted on social media of a nude 70-year-old woman at a gym.
Dani Mathers, who was the magazine’s 2015 Playmate of the Year, faces up to six months in jail and up to a $1,000 fine over the picture that she posted on Snapchat in July, drawing a storm of criticism.
The photo showed the naked woman from behind at a Los Angeles area fitness center with a mocking caption that read: “If I can’t unsee this then you can’t either.”
An attorney for Mathers, who did not appear in court on Monday, said his 29-year-old client felt bad about her actions.
“She very much regrets what happened,” Tom Mesereau told reporters outside the courthouse.
“She apologized for her behavior and we’re looking forward to resolving this case in a very fair manner.”
Mathers was banned from LA Fitness gyms after the incident that sparked a public outcry and raised questions about body shaming, especially on social media.
She also reportedly lost her job on a radio talk show.
“Body shaming is humiliating, with often painful, long-term consequences,” prosecutor Mike Feuer said when the misdemeanor charge of invasion of privacy was filed in November.
“While body shaming, in itself, is not a crime, there are circumstances in which invading one’s privacy to accomplish it can be. And we shouldn’t tolerate that.”
Mathers apologized after uploading the image, saying that it was meant to be shared as a private message but was posted publicly.
“I’m sorry for what I did… I need to take some time to myself now to reflect on why I did this horrible thing. Goodnight,” she said in a message on Twitter.
A pretrial hearing in the case is set for December 21.

Authorities in Los Angeles say they are seeking the authors of a series of threatening letters sent to area mosques and urged anyone who had received similar messages to come forward.
The letters, which were addressed to the “Children of Satan,” called Muslims “vile and filthy people” while praising President-elect Donald Trump and vowing that was “going to do to you Muslims what Hitler did to the Jews.”
They were sent to three mosques in California and one in Georgia.
“Your day of reckoning has arrived,” the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an advocacy organization for Muslims in the US, quoted the letter as saying. “There’s a new sheriff in town — President Donald Trump. He’s going to cleanse America and make it shine again. And, he’s going to start with you Muslims.”
The author or authors signed the letter “Americans for a Better Way.”
While the handwritten messages contained “awful, awful language,” the messages did not contain a specific threat and as such did not constitute a hate crime, said Stephen Woolery, head of the FBI’s counterterrorism division in Los Angeles.
“I would encourage you, the community, that if you receive letters like this, please report them,” Woolery, said at a press conference at the Islamic Center of Southern California alongside police officials and faith leaders.
“We know that there is under-reporting in a number of crimes that occur.”
Los Angeles deputy police chief Michael Downing said two of the letters sent to mosques in California were postmarked November 19.
The FBI earlier this month reported that hate crimes against Muslims in the United States surged 67 percent this year — the highest level since the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.
The bureau’s Uniform Crime Report documented 257 anti-Muslim hate crimes, up from 154 in 2014.
Trump railed against Muslims and immigrants during the presidential campaign and since his election on November 8, more than 100 anti-Muslim incidents have been reported across the country, CAIR said.
It quoted the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate crimes, as saying that more than 700 incidents targeting different minority groups had been documented since Election Day.

Violence marred an ODM rally on Sunday in Homabay County as local leaders and their supporters clashed during a
It took the intervention of Raila to calm down the rowdy supporters before the rally finally proceeded as scheduled.
The chaos started before the entry of the ODM leader when area governor Cyprian Awiti and Kasipul Kabondo MP Oyugi Magwanga both attempted to make their way towards the main dais at the Homa Bay Stadium.
 
The supporters of the two rival leaders engaged in a heckling and shouting match with each camp trying to do the other before the scene degenerated into a physical battle.
The Kasipul Kabondo MP has declared his intention to vie for the Homa Bay gubernatorial position and unseat the incumbent Cyprian Awiti during next year’s elections.
The commotion led to another fight between Homa Bay Town MP Peter Kaluma and Washington Ogaga who is seeking to unseat him next year as the crowd hurled stones at the main dais.
 
In the ensuing melee, Kisumu Governor Jack Ranguma sustained injuries during the incident.
Attempts by Homa Bay Women Representative to quell the wild crowd proved futile before who was accompanied by Mombasa Governor Hassan Joho arrived and managed to maintain order and peace at the rally.
The party later said disciplinary action will be taken against aspirants who caused trouble at the stadium.
Last year, the area Senator Moses Kajwang was injured when rival supporters hurled projectiles at the main dais during a funeral before the senatorial by elections.

A public television station in Morocco apologised again after uproar on social media followed its broadcast of an item on makeup to hide the bruises of battered women.
The sequence — marking last week’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women — was transmitted by 2M on the morning magazine programme “Sabahiyate” to “show the type of makeup to use when a woman has been hit”.
It depicted a woman with a swollen face, with the presenter telling viewers that she was not really injured, but that these were just “cinematic effects”.
“Green is applied with a brush to camouflage the reddish part”, followed by “an orange corrector then yellow, then a foundation”, she said.
She added that the aim was to “provide solutions to women who need such advice so they can continue with their daily lives and go to work”.
Last Wednesday’s broadcast initially passed unnoticed, but after it was posted on the channel’s website, by Friday it had provoked a storm of reaction on social media and was then removed.
“So 2M has decided to celebrate the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women with anti-bruise makeup!” was one comment.
Another social media user noted: “Ladies, 2M has the solution if you get punched in the face by your husband, father or brother.”
“Black eye? Bruising? No problem! 2M’s makeup artist has a miracle product!” wrote yet another.
The channel’s management issued a statement on Friday calling the broadcast sequence “completely inappropriate”, and offered its “most sincere apologies for this error, given the sensitivity and seriousness of the subject”.
On Monday, in a video posted on Facebook, 2M again said it was sorry.
“We have always put women at the centre of our debates and have taken the defence of their rights to heart,” it said.
“We apologise for broadcasting the makeup segment, the result of an error of judgment on our part, and beg your indulgence and understanding.”
Also Monday, in a commentary on worldwide efforts during 2016 to stem violence against women, Human Rights Watch acting women’s rights division director Janet Walsh wrote that Morocco was “still discussing a draft domestic violence law”.
The New York-based HRW has said that violence against women is common in the North African country.
It said an official study in 2009-2010 found that almost two thirds of Moroccan women had been physically, psychologically, sexually or economically abused, and that of those, some 55 percent said they had suffered domestic violence.

Over 40 percent of the world’s professional footballers have experienced delayed payment of wages, according to a wide-ranging survey published by global players’ union FIFPro on Tuesday.
In the survey, carried out by the University of Manchester, 41 percent of the 13,876 players who responded had been forced to wait for their salaries over the past two seasons.
“It’s a wake-up call for clubs and governing bodies,” FIFPro General-Secretary Theo van Seggelen told reporters during a recent briefing in London. “We cannot accept it any longer.”
The FIFPro Global Employment Report 2016 also found nine percent of players had suffered from violence and seven percent had been been approached to fix matches.
FIFPro hopes the survey, which is the biggest of its kind, will shed light on the problems faced by players playing outside glamorous championships such as England’s Premier League or Spain’s LaLiga.
The median net monthly income of players surveyed was $1,000 to $2,000, with 60 percent of respondents earning under $2,000 per month.
FIFPro has used the example of Nigeria international Michael Uchebo, who has not been paid by Portuguese top-flight club Boavista since April, to illustrate its findings on late payments.
The 26-year-old striker has been prevented from playing since the end of last season and, according to FIFPro, risks eviction from his house.
He has been banned from first-team training and has posted footage on social media that appears to show him being forcibly removed from Boavista’s gymnasium and threated with violence by security staff.
“I don’t understand why Boavista treat me like this,” Uchebo said during a press conference in Lisbon organised by the Portuguese players’ union.
“I asked them if I did something wrong. They are treating me like a slave.”
Boavista did not wish to comment on the matter when contacted by AFP, but in a video posted on Facebook earlier this month, club president Alvaro Braga said Uchebo’s statements “do not correspond to the truth”.
Braga said Uchebo turned down opportunities to join other clubs during the close-season transfer window and had rejected a settlement — which FIFPro says was one month’s salary — to terminate his contract.
World governing body FIFA’s rules on overdue payments allow clubs to be 90 days late and the survey found 78 percent of players experiencing salary delays were paid within that timescale.
FIFPro wants the non-payment buffer to be reduced to 30 days, in the short term, and ultimately abolished.
“Not every football player has three cars in three different colours,” said Van Seggelen.
“Our players are normal human beings and they deserve to be paid on time. Because they also have children and a mortgage.”
The survey found there is an 11 percent chance a player will have been approached to fix a match by the time he passes the age of 33.
Players on relatively low salaries were found to be twice or three times more likely to be targeted by match fixers.
Nearly one in 10 players reported experiencing physical violence, with almost 16 percent reporting threats of violence.
Of those who said they had been victims of violence, 51 percent had been attacked by fans, 25 percent by fellow players and 12 percent by club officials or coaches.
Democratic Republic of Congo was the worst country for both violence and threats of violence from supporters on match days.
Scotland was surprisingly in second place in the latter category, with Brazil fifth and Italy sixth.
For threats of violence on non-match days, Italy was by far the worst country, with 24 percent of players saying they had been menaced by fans.
Fifteen percent of players said they had been victims of bullying or harassment, while 7.5 percent alleged discrimination based on ethnicity, sexuality or religious beliefs.
The survey contained no data from players in England, Spain, Germany, Portugal, the Netherlands, Argentina or Mexico due to non-existent or insufficient feedback.

Fijian rugby league star Semi Radradra’s manager Tuesday hit out at French union side Toulon for announcing it had signed the troubled winger, who faces domestic violence charges.
George Christodoulou insisted a deal had yet to be penned for the Parramatta Els player and the Top-14 team had “jumped the gun”.
“This is a massive disappointment, they have jumped the gun,” he told Sydney’s Daily Telegraph after Toulon trumpeted his signing on a one-year deal Monday.
“A pre-contract, let alone a final contract, hasn’t even been issued to us. Nothing has been signed.
“Yes, the offer on the table is a good one, which is for 2018, but nothing has been signed.”
The powerful 24-year-old was voted player of the year in the Australian National Rugby League in 2014 and 2015 and was also top try scorer for 2015.
He came through the ranks as a union player and has also played sevens for Fiji.
If the Toulon deal pans out, he will join several Australians there including James O’Connor, Matt Giteau, and Drew Mitchell with the team rebuilding under English coach Mike Ford.
The French side’s announcement Monday capped an eventful day for Radradra who failed to appear for a Sydney court hearing into domestic violence allegations involving his ex-partner Perina Ting.
An unimpressed magistrate gave him until Wednesday to explain himself or face an arrest warrant.
Reports said he was in Fiji to visit his ill father.

Manchester United midfielder Ander Herrera says his side will be out for “revenge” when they welcome West Ham United back to Old Trafford in the League Cup quarter-finals on Wednesday.
West Ham held Herrera and his team-mates to a 1-1 draw on Sunday in a Premier League match that saw United manager Jose Mourinho sent to the stands for angrily kicking a water bottle.
United have made their worst start to a league season since 1989, drawing their last four home games, and Herrera warned Slaven Bilic’s West Ham players to brace themselves for a backlash.
“It’s positive that we are playing on Wednesday, when we can get revenge. We can turn our luck in the next game in the EFL Cup,” said the Spaniard, who won the FA Cup with United last season.
“It doesn’t matter the competition, it doesn’t matter the game; we just want to win. We want to fight for everything and we want to make our fans proud.
“West Ham are a good side ?- it is not easy to stop them creating chances. They have (Manuel) Lanzini, they have (Diafra) Sakho, they have (Dimitri) Payet, they have (Michail) Antonio. They have very good players.
“But they just created two chances in the whole game. We were the dominant team, so hopefully on Wednesday we can create as many chances as we did (on Sunday) and normally we should win.”
United will be without midfielders Paul Pogba and Marouane Fellaini through suspension.
Having started on the bench against West Ham on Sunday, captain Wayne Rooney will hope to return to the starting XI as he chases a record-equalling 249th United goal.
Arsenal will have a spring in their step ahead of their home game with Southampton, also on Wednesday, after ending a run of three successive draws by beating Bournemouth 3-1 on Sunday.
But Southampton were also bolstered by a positive weekend result, having consigned former manager Ronald Koeman to a 1-0 defeat on his return to St Mary’s with Everton.
“I felt it played a little bit on the confidence of the team when you do not win for three games,” admitted Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, who has never lifted the League Cup.
“Suddenly, there’s questions. ‘Why do we not win?’ And the fluency goes a bit. These three points (against Bournemouth) will help us.”
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has pledged not to take unnecessary risks with his team selection for Tuesday’s game at home to second-tier Leeds United.
Brazilian playmaker Philippe Coutinho is out with suspected ankle ligament damage, while Roberto Firmino, Daniel Sturridge and Adam Lallana are also sidelined.
Klopp made 11 changes for Liverpool’s win over Tottenham Hotspur in the fourth round, but the only change he would confirm was Simon Mignolet replacing Loris Karius in goal.
“It is about having a line-up which can stand the intensity of the game because Leeds are in a really good moment,” said Klopp, whose side lost on penalties to Manchester City in last season’s final.
“They are a football-playing side and they will force us into a lot of things. We need to work hard in these games so the players need to be fit for this.
“We don’t want to rest somebody who doesn’t need a rest. It is possible we make a few changes; it is possible we will play nearly the same team.”
Leeds, fifth in the second-tier Championship, overcame Norwich City on penalties in the previous round and are the lowest-ranked team left in the competition.
There could be an upset on the cards in Tuesday’s other fixture, where Premier League strugglers Hull City entertain Rafael Benitez’s Newcastle United, who are flying high at the Championship summit.
Fixtures (1945 GMT unless otherwise stated)
Tuesday:
Hull v Newcastle, Liverpool v Leeds
Wednesday:
Arsenal v Southampton, Man United v West Ham (2000 GMT)

African and Latin American heads of state will attend funeral rites for Cuba’s communist icon Fidel Castro on Tuesday, but US President Barack Obama and several European leaders are staying away.
Three days after his death at age 90, the list of attendees and absentees highlights the polarizing effect of the major Cold War player.
– Barack Obama: While the US leader and Fidel’s brother, Cuban President Raul Castro, have restored diplomatic ties, Obama will not attend Tuesday’s event at Revolution Square in Havana and the White House did not say who would lead the US delegation.
– Justin Trudeau: The Canadian prime minister, who visited Cuba this month, was criticized for calling Fidel Castro a “remarkable leader.” His country will be represented by Governor General David Johnston instead.
– Francois Hollande: The French president met with Fidel Castro during his visit to Havana in May 2015. But he will be represented by his top Latin American envoy, Jean-Pierre Bel, on Tuesday and Environment Minister Segolene Royal on Sunday in Santiago de Cuba, where Castro’s ashes will be laid to rest.
– Angela Merkel: Germany is sending former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder instead of the country’s current leader.
– Mariano Rajoy: Instead of its conservative prime minister, Spain will be represented by former king Juan Carlos.
Cuba’s leftist allies in Latin America will join Cubans in mourning the communist icon: Ecuador’s Rafael Correa, Bolivia’s Evo Morales, Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega and Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro.
Others from the region include Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, Central American leaders and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, whose government negotiated a peace deal with the Marxist FARC rebels under the auspices of Havana.
Zimbabwe’s longtime President Robert Mugabe, Equatorial Guinea’s veteran ruler Teodoro Obiang Nguema, South African President Jacob Zuma and Kenya’s Uhuru Kenyatta will attend the ceremony.
Leftist Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is the only European leader whose attendance was confirmed by the Cuban government.

In hundreds of schools, hospitals and public buildings, Cubans signed a “solemn oath” on Monday to defend the revolution following the death of communist leader Fidel Castro.
Instead of leaving messages in books of condolence, Cubans were invited to endorse the “concept of the revolution” defined by Castro in a speech in 2000, six years before illness forced him to hand power to his brother, Raul.
“We will keep fighting for these ideas. We swear!” says the oath to which Cubans signed their names, three days after Castro died at age 90.
“The signature shows the desire of Cubans to make this socialist revolution irreversible,” said retired lieutenant colonel Rigoberto Cerolio, 80, at a school in Havana.
While Cubans lined up to sign the oath across the island, hundreds of thousands flocked to Havana’s Revolution Square to pay tribute to Castro at a memorial installed inside the monument to independence hero Jose Marti.
Leonardo Guijarro used his iPad to record the memorial, which consisted of white roses flanking a picture of a young, black-bearded Fidel in military fatigues during the guerrilla war.
Guijarro may have immortalized the moment with a modern gadget and worn Adidas sneakers, but the 22-year-old university history student shared the firm belief and desire of other Castro supporters that his revolution will live on after his death.
“Fidel has died but he is still with us,” he said after he filed past Castro’s picture.
“There’s a Fidel in every Cuban citizen,” said Guijarro, who like many recalled that Castro brought free education and health care to the island after ousting dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959.
Several generations of Cubans streamed past the memorial: stylish university students, veterans in military fatigues, boys and girls in school uniforms, couples pushing strollers, retirees consoling each other.
While dissidents label Castro a dictator who jailed or forced detractors into exile, for “Fidelistas” he could do no wrong.
“He cared for Cubans like a father who cares for his children,” said 52-year-old economist Norma Maria Diaz la Torre, whose husband wrapped his arm around her shoulder as she cried after viewing the portrait.
“Everything he did was for the good of the people,” she said.
Her spouse, 58-year-old engineer Leonardo Sarria, said Castro’s death will change nothing.
“If we give up one iota, we will no longer be Cuba,” he said.
Luis Rene Allouis, a 22-year-old sociology student with a crow tattooed on his chest, said he was ready to defend the system against any coup attempt.
“I would take an AK-47 and go to the mountains, like Fidel,” Allouis said, recalling Castro’s guerrilla war against Batista’s regime.
Some from the older generation said Castro liberated Cuba from a terrible era under Batista.
“Abject poverty, lack of opportunities, prostitution: That was Cuba. It was a disastrous society,” said Angel Ierselo, an 80-year-old writer.
“We are convinced that Fidel’s struggle was a just one, incredibly just, and we will follow the same path,” Ierselo said.
Augustin Fivale Hernandez, 80, and his wife, Elsy Vanela, held hands with teary eyes as they left the memorial.
Fivale said they were blue-collar workers before the revolution but “everything changed” after 1959.
He was a messenger in Cuban television and his salary went up.
“I was nobody. I knew nothing. With Fidel I was able to study. I retired as a unit boss in television,” Fivale said.
Like the government, the couple blames the country’s economic troubles on the decades-old US embargo.
“(Fidel) made so many great promises and fulfilled them. If he didn’t fulfill them it was the blockade’s fault,” Vanela said.
While President Raul Castro has implemented modest economic reforms, Fidelistas see them as an extension of the revolution and are confident that he will continue his older brother’s legacy.
“Raul doesn’t have the same stature but he has learned. The other one (Fidel) was more energetic, he is smoother, but deep down they’re the same,” said Alicia Rodriguez, 66, a retiree who worked in the distribution of medicine.
Jose Carlos Perez, a 19-year-old studying to teach English, was disappointed that Castro did not lie in state or that the urn holding his ashes was not put on display.
“I wanted to see him because he is the country’s most important figure,” he said.
Among Fidelistas, nobody could name a single mistake by their icon.
Said 67-year-old retired seamstress Alba Rodrigo: “I don’t think he has done anything bad.”

Syria’s rebels lost all of the northern neighbourhoods of their stronghold in east Aleppo on Monday, as the army made significant advances in its offensive to recapture the entire city.
The regime gains have prompted an exodus of thousands of desperate civilians, some fleeing to districts held by the government or Kurdish forces, others heading south into areas still under opposition control.
“The situation is disastrous,” said Ibrahim Abu Al-Leith, a spokesman for the White Helmets rescue group in the Ansari neighbourhood.
“There is mass displacement and morale is in the gutter,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion.
“People are sleeping in the streets. They don’t have anything to eat or drink, but neither do we,” he told AFP.
The loss of eastern Aleppo would be a potentially devastating blow to Syria’s rebels, who seized the area in 2012.
The opposition has steadily lost territory since Russia intervened to bolster President Bashar al-Assad in September 2015.
On Monday, government forces seized the Sakhur, Haydariya and Sheikh Khodr districts, and Kurdish fighters took the Sheikh Fares neighbourhood from rebels, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.
“This is their (the rebels’) worst defeat since they seized half the city in 2012,” Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.
The advances left all of northeast Aleppo under government control.
Syria’s White Helmets warned on Monday they had no more fuel reserves for rescue vehicles.
In a video statement, the group urged “all humanitarian, aid, and medical organisations to immediately intervene to put an end to the humanitarian disaster” facing civilians in besieged Aleppo.
Nearly 10,000 civilians have fled the east, the Observatory said late Sunday, with about 6,000 moving to the Kurdish-held Sheikh Maqsud neighbourhood and 4,000 to government-held west Aleppo.
Kurdish officials published a video they said showed civilians crossing a field to Sheikh Maqsud, where local forces helped people cross a makeshift barrier.
Syria’s Kurds are officially aligned with neither the government nor the rebels, but the opposition views them as effectively allied with the regime in its efforts to recapture Aleppo.
Hundreds of civilians were also fleeing south to the remaining rebel-held districts with little more than the clothes they wore, an AFP correspondent said.
People in southern neighbourhoods were donating blankets and other items to the new arrivals, who had travelled on foot, exhausted, cold and hungry.
The United Nations said it was “deeply concerned” about civilians in the east, where international aid is exhausted and food stocks are desperately low.
The UN has appealed for access to the east many times, but has failed to secure the necessary guarantees to enable aid deliveries.
“In terms of east Aleppo, we just need the green light from the people who control the roads going in because, as you know, the east of Aleppo is besieged,” Ramesh Rajasingham, the UN’s deputy regional humanitarian coordinator for the Syria crisis, told AFP.
The government advances mean the regime now controls at least a third of eastern Aleppo, just under two weeks into its renewed bid to recapture the city.
State television said the army had captured the key Suleiman al-Halabi pumping station, which controls water supplies to government-held west Aleppo and has periodically been shut by rebels.
Three people were killed and 29 wounded in rebel fire on western Aleppo on Monday, state media said.
Regime bombardment of eastern districts killed 18 civilians, Abdel Rahman said.
The government assault of heavy air strikes, barrel bomb attacks and artillery fire has killed at least 247 civilians in east Aleppo, according to the Observatory.
Rebel fire into the government-held west has also killed at least 27 civilians, among them 11 children, since November 15, it says.
Syria’s Al-Watan daily, which is close to the government, said the next stage would be “to divide the remaining (rebel-held) area into… districts that will be easily controlled and to capture them successively”.
But British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson called for an immediate ceasefire in Aleppo, saying the assault “is threatening a humanitarian catastrophe”.
More than 300,000 people have been killed and millions displaced since the conflict began with anti-government protests in March 2011.
Syria’s deputy foreign minister on Monday denounced accusations by “western” countries that it has used chemical weapons in the conflict as “a campaign of lies”.
Faisal Muqdad was speaking at the annual conference in The Hague of countries belonging to the Chemical Weapons Convention.

Captain Mauro Icardi hit a brace as Inter Milan held on amid a stirring Fiorentina fightback to secure a precious 4-2 Serie A win at the San Siro.
Inter started life under new coach Stefano Pioli with a credible 2-2 draw with city rivals AC Milan last week.
And, despite a few shaky moments on Monday, the former Lazio handler won more plaudits for another solid display that closed the gap on leaders Juventus to 12 points.
Inter, rocked 4-1 at home by Fiorentina in the corresponding fixture last season, were 3-0 up after a series of defensive errors allowed Marcelo Brozovic, Antonio Candreva and Icardi to beat Ciprian Tatarusanu before the 20-minute mark.
Despite reducing arrears before the interval thanks to Nikola Kalinic, hopes of a fightback dipped when Fiorentina skipper Gonzalo Rodriguez was shown a straight red card for an arm-up foul on Icardi.
But Inter were shook up when Josip Ilicic struck on the hour to set up a nervous finale, and Icardi told Sky Sport: “We went off the boil in the second half … and that’s something we have to manage better.
“I don’t know if we’re afraid to win, but we have to kill off games better when we get in front.”
After an Ilicic free kick and a tame Kalinic strike kept Handanovic on his toes, Kalinic reduced arrears in style after holding Danilo D’Ambrosio at bay to beat the Inter ‘keeper down low on 37 minutes.
It was his sixth goal of the campaign, all of which have come away from home, but when Rodriguez saw red for stopping an Icardi offensive with his forearm Fiorentina’s hopes dimmed.
Inter could have gone in with a 4-1 half-time lead, but Tatarusanu produced a great stop at his far post to thwart Ever Banega’s well-struck free kick.
Fiorentina coach Paulo Sousa deployed a 3-4-2 designed to optimise their attacking chances after the restart, and an Ilicic drive on 52 minutes tested Handanovic.
But Inter threatened through Banega, Icardi and then Perisic, who hit the post, in quick succession before Candreva forced Tatarusanu into a two-handed save.
Those misses returned to haunt Inter when Ilicic was allowed space on the left to beat Handanovic with a firm angled strike at his far post on the hour.
Pioli replaced the creative Banega with defensive midfielder Felipe Melo, who earned a caution minutes later for a foul on Federico Chiesa after he had replaced Bernardeschi.
Mario should have put the result beyond reach eight minutes from the end, only to fire over from three metres out on a one-on-one with Tatarusanu.
Thankfully for Inter’s fans, Fiorentina’s three-man defence capitulated on a late counter that saw Icardi fire past Tatarusanu after the ‘keeper had spilled a Perisic drive.
Earlier, Gregoire Defrel came off the bench to hit a sensational late leveller as Sassuolo dented Napoli’s Serie A title hopes in a 1-1 draw at the San Paolo.
A dominant Napoli looked on their way to a 1-0 win that would have moved them to within six points of Juventus after Lorenzo Insigne put the hosts ahead in the 42nd minute with a sensational strike.
But Sassuolo, who became the first Serie A side this season to field an all-Italian starting XI, had Frenchman Defrel to thank for a share of the spoils when he came off the bench to beat Pepe Reina with an equally impressive, 82nd-minute volley.
It left Napoli seventh, eight points off the pace.
Although Napoli coach Sarri admitted the absence of Polish striker Arkaduisz Milik, ruled out till January with a knee ligament injury, has limited their attacking options, he said the real problem was a lack of finishing.
“We’re getting into the penalty area easily, but at 1-0 up I saw a few too many fancy moves and that angers me because it shows we’re not focused on killing off games.”