Rude awakening leaves Manchester United boss Louis van Gaal craving fresh blood

It was Phil Neville, speaking on the BBC on Saturday lunchtime, who noted that the last time Manchester United had played with wing-backs was on the opening day of the 1995/96 season. That was the day of a 3-1 defeat at Aston Villa and Alan Hansen's famous observation that "you win nothing with kids" – the cue, famously, for a League and Cup double-winning campaign.

Two decades on, there were even harsher verdicts delivered after Saturday's sobering 2-1 home loss to Swansea City which marked an ignominious start to the reign of Louis van Gaal.

Steve McManaman, another ex-Liverpool man playing the Hansen role on BT Sport, declared this the worst United team in the Premier League era, and few would argue that his claim carries rather more substance.

"Don't Panic" was the headline on the back page of Saturday's Manchester Evening News – in reference to the lack of transfer activity since the arrivals of Ander Herrera and Luke Shaw in June – but it is tempting to imagine Van Gaal having an urgent discussion with Edward Woodward, his chief executive, after United's unconvincing display.

Van Gaal showed with his team selection – handing debuts to midfielder Jesse Lingard and Tyler Blackett, who played on the left side of the back three, and Jesse Lingard – that he is a man to continue his new club's admirable tradition of bringing through their own, but the troubles of 20-year-old Blackett underlined United's problems.

He did not have a Gary Pallister alongside him, as the Neville brothers had in 1995, but instead Chris Smalling and Phil Jones. And his inexperience told when he kicked the ball straight to Wilfried Bony, allowing Swansea to take a quick free-kick in the run-up to Gylfi Sigurdsson's winning strike. With Ashley Young's defensive struggles at left wing-back highlighted by the fact he was exposed for both goals, the need for reinforcements to make Van Gaal's preferred 3-4-1-2 system work looked urgent.

Van Gaal's pursuit of Sporting Lisbon's Argentina defender Marcos Rojo and interest in Ajax wing-back Daley Blind –and failed attempt to sign Thomas Vermaelen – reveal his wish to add experience to his back line. Further upfield Arturo Vidal and Angel Di Maria remain reported targets, understandably so given United's lack of both pace and creativity.

There are echoes of last year when, as David Moyes recalled in a newspaper interview yesterday, United were missing out on other targets. "There was talk of [Cristiano] Ronaldo when I first arrived," Moyes said. "We were close to getting a couple of major names. I'm not getting in a blame game here but things just didn't materialise."

Whatever Moyes' failings, his conviction that he needed more time to turn United round seemed reasonable in the light of Saturday's events, and midfielder Darren Fletcher believes time is needed now for a team "still learning the new system and implementing it".

Van Gaal has history here – he took just two points from his first three Bundesliga games with Bayern Munich.

But regardless of which players Van Gaal does sign, Fletcher still argues that the players already at the club should not be written off.

"It's disappointing today but comments like [McManaman's] give us a greater determination, without a shadow of a doubt," he said.

"This whole club is about bouncing back from adversity. You have to be a big character to play for this club."

Applauding Van Gaal's decision to promote the club's youngsters, Fletcher added: "There are plenty of characters in the dressing room and plenty of players ready to step up. People talk about the players that have left but I see it in the eyes of the young players, they're ready for it."

Only time will tell, though United can at least rely on Wayne Rooney, the new captain. He scored their equalising goal, hit the post with a free-kick and was seen running back to shout at his defenders after Sigurdsson's decisive strike.

Rooney said United's defending had let them down but promised an improvement would come.

"We know last season was a disaster [and] we were ready for the start of this season [but] conceded two sloppy goals and we have to learn from that," he said.

"We have to be more demanding in what we are doing. We will learn, especially with the manager we have got."

What may take time, on Saturday's evidence, is for Van Gaal to restore United's old fear factor. Swansea had never won at Old Trafford until this year. Now they have done it twice in eight months. Fletcher admits it is a priority. "I think it is, yes.

"We've lost games in the past at Old Trafford and it does happen in all seasons but we want to bring that fear factor back and I still think we can," Fletcher insisted.

For Van Gaal, it was certainly a rude awakening. He believed, courtesy of pre-season, that major surgery wasn't really required at Old Trafford.

But this was a real wake-up call, and now he's racing against time to avoid another disappointing United performance in a transfer window.

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Source;Telegraph.co.uk

Michael Brown shooting: Chaos erupts on streets of Ferguson after autopsy shows teenager was shot six times - twice in the head

By Tim Walker – 18 August 2014
Chaos erupted on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri again last night as police unexpectedly fired tear gas into a crowd of demonstrators, including children and members of the media, almost two hours before the start of an official curfew.


The renewed violence began as a private autopsy report was released showing that Michael Brown, the unarmed black teenager killed by a white police officer in the St Louis suburb last weekend, had been shot six times – twice in the head.

In the midst of what appeared to be a peaceful protest, the St Louis County Police Department tweeted reports that Molotov cocktails were being thrown at officers, and that shots had been fired in the area. Police launched smoke canisters and tear gas into the crowds, which sent hundreds fleeing, with many reportedly covering their faces to escape the gas.

Earlier yesterday, it seemed tensions might finally have been quelled in Ferguson, where police and protesters have clashed almost nightly since Mr Brown’s death on 9 August. Captain Ron Johnson of the Missouri State Highway Patrol, the black officer who has become the public face of the law enforcement response, received a standing ovation when he addressed the Brown family and other community members on Sunday at the town’s Greater Grace Church.

Capt. Johnson reminded the crowd that he, too, was from Ferguson, and that he had much in common with many families there, including a son whom he said wears baggy trousers and sports tattoos. “We all ought to be thanking the Browns for Michael, because Michael's going to make it better for our sons, so they can be better black men,” he said.

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon last week asked the Highway Patrol to take over responsibility for security in Ferguson, after four nights in which local police had met largely peaceful protests with riot gear, tear gas and rubber bullets. Speaking to ABC News on Sunday, Mr Nixon said he had been “thunderstruck” by the police response. “The over-militarisation… The guns pointed at kids in the street. All of that I think instead of ratcheting down, brought emotion up,” he said.

Yet while the arrival of Capt. Johnson and his officers brought about a brief calm, by Friday night public anger flared again after police issued a statement saying Mr Brown had been a suspect in a robbery at a local convenience store. Ferguson police chief Tom Jackson later admitted that Darren Wilson, the officer who shot Mr Brown, was not aware he was a suspect at the time.

The authorities also released CCTV footage of the robbery, leading to accusations that they were trying to smear the victim. On Saturday Mr Nixon declared a state of emergency and ordered the nightly curfew from midnight to 5am; the Governor also criticised the release of the video, saying it “appeared to cast aspersions on a young man that was gunned down in the street.”

The details of Mr Brown’s shooting are still disputed: police said he reached for Wilson’s gun during an altercation inside a police car; witnesses insisted Mr Brown had his hands up when he was shot. A preliminary private autopsy was conducted on Sunday at the Brown family’s request by Dr Michael Baden, the former chief medical examiner for the City of New York.

Anthony Gray, a lawyer representing the family, said the trajectory of one of the two bullets that struck Mr Brown in the head was particularly noteworthy. “To have a shot that’s at a 90-degree angle from the top of his skull to the bottom of his chin, almost vertical, that sounds like an officer standing over him,” Gray said.

On Sunday US Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Justice Department would also conduct its own autopsy on Mr Brown’s body due to “the extraordinary circumstances involved in this case”. President Barack Obama has directed the FBI to investigate Mr Brown’s death; 40 FBI agents reportedly went door-to-door at the weekend to collect information on the shooting.

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Source: Independent

Clooney’s fiancee opts not to join UN Gaza probe team

 GENEVA: Hollywood star George Clooney’s fiancee Amal Alamuddin has declined her nomination to join a
In a statement, Baudelaire Ndong Ella said that the Lebanese-born British lawyer had cited “prior professional commitments and regrets that the commission will not benefit from her expertise in the field.”
Ella, who this year holds the rotating presidency of the top UN rights forum, had on Monday named Alamuddin to the three-member commission of inquiry.

He said that he had approached a “number of individuals” as potential candidates before making the announcement, and that Alamuddin had several hours later said that she was not in a position to accept the role.

Despite Alamuddin’s decision, the commission of inquiry is now operational, Ella said, adding that he would “decide on the way forward.”

The commission will be led by Canadian international lawyer William Schabas, and also include Doudou Diene of Senegal, who has previously served as the UN’s watchdog on racism and on post-conflict Ivory Coast.

The UN Human Rights Council ordered the Gaza investigation on July 23, in the face of fierce opposition from Israel and the US.

The decision came during a marathon seven-hour emergency session of the 47-nation council, where Israeli and Palestinians delegates traded accusations over each sides’ alleged war crimes.

The probe team has been tasked with reporting back to the council by March.
Alamuddin’s family, who are from Lebanon’s Druze community, fled to Britain during the country’s 1975-1990 civil war.

The 36-year-old, who is fluent in Arabic, French and English, is reportedly due to wed 53-year-old Clooney in Italy in September.

News that she had stolen the heart of one of Hollywood’s most celebrated bachelors caused a global media frenzy back in April.

Alamuddin is well versed in international conflict probes.
She worked with the international tribunal examining the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, and assisted ex-UN head Kofi Annan in efforts to make peace in Syria.

Among her legal clients have been Ukraine’s former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko and controversial Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

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Source;Arab News

International Panel Clears Untested Ebola Drugs as Death Toll Hits 1,000

World Health Organization says it's ethical to use experimental drugs against the disease.

 

An international panel of medical experts decided today that untested drugs can be used ethically in West Africa to combat what has become the largest outbreak of the deadly Ebola disease in history. More than 1,000 people have died, and more than 1,800 have been sickened by the virus.

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The Geneva-based World Health Organization (WHO) panel said "a specific treatment or vaccine would be a potent asset to counter the virus."

The WHO added that such treatments would bolster current efforts to stop the spread of the disease by isolating patients and monitoring their progress. A few experimental treatments for Ebola are in the works, but none have been tested on human beings. Using the drugs is controversial because their safety and efficacy are unknown. (See "World Health Organization to Ethicists: Should We Use Experimental Ebola Drugs?")

Last month, the debate heated up when two American aid workers who had contracted Ebola in West Africa were given doses of an experimental drug called ZMapp. Since then, Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol seem to be improving. But a Spanish priest who also received the drug, Miguel Pajares, died this morning.

Despite early hesitation by the medical community to use untried treatments, the WHO said, "The large number of people affected by the 2014 West Africa outbreak, and the high case-fatality rate, have prompted calls to use investigational medical interventions to try to save the lives of patients and to curb the epidemic." 

(Related: "Promising Ebola Drugs Stuck in Lab Limbo as Outbreak Rages in Africa.")

Special Conditions

The WHO did not respond to requests for comment, but in the agency's statement, the panel said any use of untested therapies must follow strict guidelines. These include "transparency about all aspects of care, informed consent, freedom of choice, confidentiality, respect for the person, preservation of dignity and involvement of the community."

The panel added that there is a "moral obligation to collect and share all data generated" from the use of any treatments.

On Monday, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told National Geographic it would take time to produce enough of the handful of drugs in development to treat more than a few patients.

Others warned that dispensing the drugs in a region with a history of distrust of medical professionals could be challenging. (Related: "Ebola's Deadly Spread in Africa Driven by Public Health Failures, Cultural Beliefs.")

Kevin Donovan, director of the Pellegrino Center for Clinical Bioethics at Georgetown University Medical Center, told National Geographic that he would recommend distributing any available drugs first to aid workers.

"Because if we allow the people who are treating it to be wiped out, there's no one left to treat it," he said. 

(Related: "Q&A: American Virus Expert in Africa's Ebola Zone: 'This is Like War.'")

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Source;NG Daily News

Thousands flee eastern Ukraine due to 'critical' situation in Luhansk

City's population has almost halved since 'anti-terrorist operation' began in early April

Thousands of families have been forced to flee the worsening conflict in eastern Ukraine, where the situation in Luhansk and other besieged areas is now "critical", said aid agencies and local officials.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said living conditions for those trapped by fighting between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian rebels has worsened. Ukrainian troops have made rapid advances in recent weeks, shrinking the territory controlled by separatists. They have also severed the land connection between Donetsk and Luhansk, the last two major cities in the east under rebel control.

But the offensive has caught civilians as well. Luhansk, a city about 20 miles from the Russian border with a pre-war population of 450,000 people, has shrunk to 250,000 since early April and the start of Ukraine's "anti-terrorist operation". It has suffered from repeated shelling.

On Tuesday the city authorities said Luhansk had been without water, light, electricity and phone connections for 10 days. Luhansk was now in a state of "total blockade", they said, with residents trapped in their homes as armed clashes raged around them. Most shops were closed, though bakeries remained open, and municipal rubbish collection continued, officials said. Pensions and other social payments had ceased.
Hundreds of residents have escaped by fleeing into Russia or to surrounding areas controlled by Ukrainian government forces, outside the conflict zone. In the village of Schastya, 14 miles north of Luhansk, locals told Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) monitors the city was being shelled "practically non-stop" from 4am to 2am. They said pharmacies were closed, with people running out of supplies. Drinking water and bread were almost impossible to buy. People were forced to bury bodies in gardens, since funeral services no longer operated. Public transport wasn't functioning either, with only a few ambulance teams still working. Only those looking after bedridden relatives, or those without money, wished to stay in the city, the OSCE reported.

The situation in Donetsk, previously a city of one million people, was less dire, locals said, though it too was under fire. Last week (Aug 7) OSCE observers reported damage to two high-rise residential buildings and a local hospital in the city centre, and reported meeting "traumatised and crying civilians and medical staff".

They saw the corpse of a middle-aged man in the city's morgue, with trauma injuries consistent with mortar fire. Some people had taken shelter in the basement of Donetsk railway station. Trains out of Donetsk were still running, but with services sold out for several days. Power and lights were on. A curfew was in force.

The OSCE also said that Ukrainian troops stationed next to the Russian border were coming under frequent rocket attacks. In Krasnyi Derkul, a village 34 miles north-east of Luhansk, observers saw smouldering forest and shrapnel fragments around the area where a border guard unit had built underground shelters.

They also saw four shelters in an open field at the edge of the military camp.

"We know the humanitarian situation in eastern Ukraine is rather bad. There has been ongoing fighting for the past few weeks and we know cities such as Luhansk have been cut off from supplies for the past month. The situation is dire in terms of medical supplies, access to water, to electricity, everything," Laurent Corbaz, the ICRC's head of operations for Europe and Central Asia, said.

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Source;TheGuardian

WHO approves trial drugs use as Ebola fatalities top 1,000

 

 

ETHICAL EXPERIMENT:The UN health body said using untested drugs to try and stop an outbreak called the worst ever was an acceptable health risk

AFP, GENEVA, Switzerland

 

 

Players of the "L’Etoile de Guinee" football team poses with a sign reading "Stop to the ebola epidemic" prior to a football tournament gathering youth from Guinea near the Koumassi sports center in Abidjan on August 10, 2014.

Photo: AFP

 

The WHO yesterday authorized the use of experimental drugs in the fight against Ebola as the death toll topped 1,000 and a Spanish priest became the first European to succumb to the virus in the latest outbreak.

The declaration by the UN health agency came after a US firm that makes an experimental serum to treat the deadly virus said it had sent all its available supplies to hard-hit West Africa.

“In the particular circumstances of this outbreak and provided certain conditions are met ... it is ethical to offer unproven interventions with as yet unknown efficacy and adverse effects,” the WHO said in a statement following a meeting of medical experts in Geneva, Switzerland.

The outbreak — described as the worst since Ebola was first discovered four decades ago — has now killed 1,013 people, the WHO said. Cases have so far been limited to Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and
Nigeria, all in West Africa, where ill-equipped and fragile healthcare systems are struggling to cope.

An elderly Spanish priest who became infected while helping patients in Liberia died in a Madrid hospital yesterday, just five days after being evacuated.

Monrovia said it had requested samples of an experimental drug, ZMapp, that has shown some positive effects on two US aid workers, but failed to save the Spanish priest. Supplies would be brought in by a US government representative later this week, the Liberian government said.

There is no available cure or vaccine for the disease, which the WHO has declared a global public health emergency.

Despite promising results for the ZMapp treatment made by private US company Mapp Biopharmaceutical, the drug is still in an early phase of development and has only been tested on monkeys.

ZMapp is in very short supply, but its use on Western workers evacuated to the US triggered controversy and demands that it be made available in Africa.

Mapp said in a statement: “In responding to the request received this weekend from a West African nation, the available supply of ZMapp is exhausted,” and that the drug was “provided at no cost in all cases.”

The company did not reveal which nation received the doses, or how many were sent, but the Liberian presidency said: “The White House and the United States Food and Drug Administration have approved the request for sample doses of experimental serum to treat Liberian doctors who are currently infected with the deadly Ebola virus disease.”

Panic is stalking the impoverished countries ravaged by the disease in West Africa, where drastic containment measures are causing transport chaos, price hikes and food shortages, as well as stoking fears that people could die of hunger.

In Liberia — where the virus has claimed more than 300 lives — a third province was placed under quarantine on Monday.

In Sierra Leone, eight Chinese medical workers have been placed in quarantine, China’s envoy in Freetown said on Monday.
 

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Source;Taipei Times

 

 

Polytechnic Students To Undertake National Service.....

Polytechnic students who were unable to write their final year examinations due to the on-going strike by their teachers, are to be considered to undertake their national service.
The decision followed the outcome of a meeting between the Ministry of Education, and the National Service Secretariat (NSS) concerning the fate of the students.

Mr. Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, a Deputy Minister of Education in charge of Tertiary Education, who disclosed this to The Ghanaian Times in Accra yesterday, said the students would be made to take their final examinations when the teachers return to work.

The members of the Polytechnic Teachers Association of Ghana (POTAG) have been on strike since May this year over non-payment of their book and research allowance arrears by the government.

Their absence from the classroom made it impossible for examinations to be conducted in the polytechnics across the country, thus creating anxiety among the final year students over their fate in the national service postings.

“All polytechnic final year students will be posted for national service,” Mr. Okudzeto Ablakwa assured.
National service postings are expected to be announced by the NSS this month

He explained that during the discussions, the ministry urged the NSS to post the affected students to institutions in the regions of their respective polytechnics.

That, he said, would ensure proximity to their schools and make it easy for them to take their examinations when the strike is called off by POTAG.

He assured the students that government was making the necessary efforts to ensure that their teachers called off the strike, and urged them to continue learning and hold themselves in readiness for the examinations.

Government in November 2013 announced the scrapping of the Book and Research Allowance to be replaced with a Research and Innovation Fund. An amount of GH¢3.75 million representing 25 per cent of the earmarked funds, was in February released into an account for the establishment of the fund.

But POTAG and other teacher associations in public tertiary institutions, have kicked against the scrapping of the allowance.

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Source;ghanaiantimes