FRESH 4RM GIM

 New signing Sadio Mane scored one goal and made another as Liverpool slickly defeated Barcelona 4-0 in a one-sided friendly match at a sun-soaked Wembley on Saturday. A 34 million pounds ($44.5 million, 40.1 million euros) capture from Southampton, Mane struck a 15th-minute opener and then supplied the cross from which ex-Liverpool player Javier Mascherano scored an own goal. Divock Origi added a third seconds later and substitute Marko Grujic chipped in with a stoppage-time header as Jurgen Klopp’s side registered their sixth win in eight pre-season games. “I’m happy with the result and with a lot of the game,” said Klopp, who lost James Milner to a first-half heel injury. “I don’t want to over-estimate this game, but it’s still good for us. We didn’t think that we were lower than Barcelona before the game and we don’t think that we’re higher than them after the game.” Liverpool play Mainz, one of Klopp’s former clubs, in a friendly in Germany on Sunday before tackling Arsena...

A lifeline has been re-established to the opposition-held city. But will hardline jihadis reap the rewards for leading the successful offensive? Syrian opposition forces blow up a tunnel under the regime headquarters in Aleppo’s Ramuse region. A Syrian military academy in the heart of Aleppo made for a bold, even reckless target for opposition forces trying to break a devastating siege, but the rebels gambled on a double advantage: surprise and suicide bombers. Soon the rebels were sharing pictures of abandoned artillery and a smashed portrait of President Bashar al-Assad on Twitter, flaunted as triumphant proof that the army was routed and opposition forces were within a few hundred metres of their besieged comrades. Hours later, the people of east Aleppo were dancing in the street, as rebels and activists confirmed that the month-long siege of the area had been broken. The fate of the opposition-held city was back in play. “Morale is very high now,” said activist and poet Mahmoud R...

Zlatan Ibrahimovic insists he is only targeting silverware at Manchester United and only wants to win Sunday’s Community Shield fixture with Premier League champions Leicester City. Jose Mourinho previously revealed he lured Ibrahimovic to Old Trafford by underlining the importance of adding the Premier League trophy to his glowing array of tiles. The Swede has won silverware across the world and has made his intentions clear by claiming he only joined Man United on a free transfer from Paris Saint-Germain to win titles. “I believe it’s the first trophy game against Leicester,” he said. “One game, one trophy. I’m used to winning trophies. I didn’t come here to waste time. “That is the first trophy game and that is the first trophy we will bring home. For me, every trophy is very serious. I have collected 30 trophies and I want to collect more of them. I’m not satisfied until I collect everything. That’s what we play for. I play to win. “Wherever I came, they also play to win. I didn’t...

Not this kind of meth house. AMC The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) is taking aim at Colorado's marijuana industry. In a June report — titled "Residential Marijuana Grows in Colorado: The New Meth Houses?" the DEA criticized the proliferation of large-scale marijuana grow operations in residential neighborhoods. These growers are taking advantage of a loophole in Colorado state law, according to the report. Colorado state law limits adult home-growers over the age of 21 to six plants per house. But a specific loophole in the law allows prospective growers to circumvent this rule. Amendment 64 , the law allowing people to grow and consume marijuana in their homes, also allows any adult in Colorado to "assist" any other adult in "possessing, growing, processing, or transporting" marijuana. Another provision, Amendment 20 , allows caregivers — who grow marijuana for medical purposes — the ability to grow up to 99 plants for their patients. These loophol...

President Barack Obama raises a toast to Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong during a state dinner. AP Barack Obama strode to the stage at last month's Democratic National Convention in an unusual speaking slot. He spoke in the primetime hour Wednesday night, a spot typically reserved for a vice-presidential nominee. In 2000, for instance, former President Bill Clinton spoke on Monday night of then-Democratic nominee Al Gore's convention. Former President George W. Bush, deeply unpopular in his second term, didn't show up for then-Republican nominee John McCain's party in 2008. Obama's speaking slot was by design. It previewed an outsize role in his final campaign: Electing Hillary Clinton to be his successor in the White House. "President Obama gives Hillary Clinton a hat trick: He can help unite the party by bringing out Bernie Sanders supporters into her camp, deliver an aggressive contrast about the threat posed by Donald Trump, and ensure that ...

Republican Donald Trump announced plans to address economic issues and backed off a claim that he had seen a video of cash being delivered to Iran on Friday, in signs he wants to steer away from controversial comments and get his White House campaign back on message. Trump said he had created an economic advisory team and would release his plan to boost the U.S. economy in a speech on Monday. Trump also said he had not seen a video carrying cash to Iran, as he had repeatedly said earlier this week, but rather had seen a clip showing a plane carrying some of five Americans who were freed from Iran in January. "The plane I saw on television was the hostage plane in Geneva, Switzerland, not the plane carrying $400 million in cash going to Iran!" Trump tweeted early Friday morning. Critics of the Obama administration have said a $400 million payment in cash to Iran amounted to a ransom in exchange for the freeing of American prisoners in January, but President Barack Obama has ...

 Tanzania’s golden boy of music, Diamond Platinumz has confessed that his wife, who is older than him, gets jealous of his female fans. He admitted this during a recent TV interview, “Whenever I’m shooting videos, she’s not always there, but she could call me up to 50 times. When I eventually show her the video, and she watches some scenes where I’m frolicking with women, she asks me why I did that. But I make her understand that I’m a musician, and that’s part of my job.” He continued, “There was a time I was in Europe for a tour, and I tweeted ‘Where my ladies at …’ She took offence to that and said why was I asking for the ladies, that do I want them to come and meet me. I told her it means nothing, and it’s only part of our artistic language.” In the same interview, Diamond hinted that he will soon be releasing a song with pop twins, P-Square, and that it’s going to be one of the biggest tracks in Africa, as he feels it will be a hit already. Diamond is one of the biggest ar...

The United States’ ambassador to Turkey has again said his country played no rule in last month’s failed coup attempt, showing exasperation with persistent accusations to the contrary, local media reported on Saturday. “I just want to say again, as I’ve said before and as we’ve said from Washington, the United States government did not plan, direct, support or have any advance knowledge of any of the illegal activities that occurred the night of July 15 and into July 16. Full stop,” US ambassador John Bass said in remarks published in English daily Hurriyet Daily News. He added that he was “deeply disturbed and offended by the accusations” targeting his country. The July 15 military action blamed by Ankara on US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen has rattled Turkey’s relations with the United States, with Ankara warning Washington that ties will suffer if it fails to extradite Pennyslvania-based Gulen. Erdogan has also described the failed military action as a “scenario written from ...

Obasanjo at the venue Former President Olusegun Obasanjo was at the Yar’Adua Centre in Abuja on Friday to attend a meeting of Zero Hunger in Africa-Nigeria chapter and not a meeting of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Obasanjo was at the centre for the Zero-hunger meeting and not for the PDP meeting, a party he openly left. According to a statement by Mr Tunde Arosanyin of the Zero Hunger in Africa in Abuja on Saturday, it was just a coincidence that the two meetings were holding at the same venue. ”He came for zero hunger in Africa-Nigeria chapter meeting with commodity Association stakeholders. ”At closing, some PDP members came to greet him at the boardroom of the hunger meeting venue,” Arosanyin saidi. The PDP, on Friday, Aug. 5, inaugurated a convention committee ahead of the Aug. 17 convention in Port Harcourt. (NAN)

Nigeria coach Samson Siasia Nigeria U-23 national team coach Samson Siasia has described his side’s breathtaking 5-4 victory over Japan in their Rio 2016 Olympic Games opener in Manaus as a miracle. Siasia’s team put up a spirited performance on Thursday (Friday in Nigeria), as they overcame a well-relaxed Japanese side in a nine-goal thriller to climb to top of Group B after Sweden and Colombia played out a 2-2 draw. Oghenekaro Etebo netted four goals with AS Roma’s Sadiq Umar grabbing the opener as the latecomers cruised past their Asian opponents. The African champions- who had a torrid time preparing for the Games- landed in Manaus few hours to the tie after flight hitches and incompetence on the part of sports ministry officials left them stranded at their training camp in Atlanta but shrugged off jetlag to romp to the top of their group table. On getting to the venue of the game, the wrong anthem was played for the team by the organisers, with insinuations that the confusion may...

Detectives attached to the Delta State Police Command, Asaba, on Thursday arrested the General Overseer of a church (name withheld) for allegedly raping a seven-year-old daughter of his member. The police spokesperson in the state, Mrs. Celestina Kalu, said the suspect’s church was along Ibusa Road, Koka, Asaba. She said the victim was allegedly lured into the church office with the intention of praying for her. It was in the course of prayers that she was raped. It was gathered that the victim could not keep the incident to herself, hence she cried to her parents on the matter. Her parents were said to have taken her to the Federal Medical Centre in Asaba, where it was confirmed that she had been raped after discovery of bruises in her private parts. Kalu said the matter was reported at the police headquarters, where detectives were assigned to investigate the matter, adding that upon investigation, the suspect was arrested and he confessed to the crime. In another development, on Th...

A lecturer in the Department of Education of Delta State University (DELSU), Abraka, (name withheld) is now cooling off at the police station in the university town over alleged sexual harassment of a female student. Commissioner of Police in the state, Mr. Zanna Ibrahim who confirmed the arrest in Asaba, paraded 36 other suspects arrested by the command for various crimes including kidnapping, robbery, car snatching, human trafficking, defilement and pipeline vandalism. CP Zanna said the sexually harassed victim told investigators that the said lecturer is her course adviser who has been harassing her sexually. According to him, she said the lecturer threatened that if she refused to yield to his sexual “demands he would make her carry over some of her courses,” adding that during “Maths examination she told the suspect that she had accepted her proposal, but before then she had reported the matter to the police station at Abraka. “Based on the complainant’s feigned acceptance of the...

The seething feud between the toppled leader of the terror cell, Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, and the newly -appointed leader of the group, Abu Musab al-Barnawi, took a new dimension as the two went into a war of words barely two days after the decision of The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, ISIL, to dethrone Shekau and appoint al-Barnawi. Shekau, who responded last Thursday after the announcement of Al-Barnawi as Boko Haram leader, blasted that his said removal was a handiwork of detractors, further insisting he is still in charge of the group. But in a swift reaction, the newly ordained Boko Haram leader, Al-Barnawi, came out yesterday to list Shekau’s litany of misconducts stating that Shekau deviated from the original cause of the group, and further turned their jihad into a personal warfare. In an audio tape said to be released by the new leadership of Boko Haram, Al-Barnawi, reiterated that Shekau derailed when he engineered the secret and systematic killings of Boko Haram...

Northern Region Editor For the first time since the flop of the parley, major factors that aborted a planned meeting between the Minister of Sports and Youths Development, Comrade Solomon Dalung, and key Niger Delta militant leaders, emerged last night. Dalung The facilitator of the failed meeting, Jude Tabai and former Special Adviser to Bayelsa Governor on Security, told Saturday Vanguard that the minister messed up the meeting by claiming that he was ‘going to Oporoza to meet with Niger Delta Avengers’, a claim that infuriated the natives of the Ijaw community even before his arrival. “Niger Delta Avengers do not reside in Oporoza” Tabai, who claims to have deep knowledge of the Niger Delta and all the major actors in the Niger Delta imbroglio, told Saturday Vanguard, adding that the natives of the community felt they were being stigmatized as ‘harbingers’ of evil men. “What happened was that I took the minister as Oporoza in what was supposed to be a ‘coded visit’ that was to kn...

The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has advised communities along the River Niger to evacuate immediately to safer ground. The agency warned in a statement it issued in Abuja on Saturday that flooding might occur at any moment following intense rainfall and rises in water level. The Director-General of the agency, Malam Muhammad Sani-Sidi, who gave the advice in the statement, said the agency had received alerts of the imminent flooding. He said information given by the authorities in the Republic of Niger indicated the present water level in the river had reached a point that may result in flooding that could be compared with that of 2012. He said: “Niger Basin Authority (NBA) notified Nigeria that rainy season, which started in the Middle Niger (Burkina Faso and Niger Republic) in June, has led to a gradual rise of the level of River Niger in Niamey, Niger Republic. “This high level of water in Niger Republic is already spreading to Benin Republic, and invariably, to N...

The president has spoken up about the new policy regarding the subsidized sale of dollar to Muslim pilgrims by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). Clarifying his stance, he said the subsidy would also include the christian pilgrims.

Two police officers have been injured by a machete-wielding assailant in the Belgian city of Charleroi. The attacker was shot and wounded, Charleroi police said on Twitter . The assailant is said to have shouted "Allahu Akbar" ("God is great" in Arabic) during the assault outside the city's main police station. Charleroi was used as a base by some of the jihadists involved in the attacks on Paris in November 2015 and Brussels last March. One of the injured police officers is said to be a woman, but this has not been confirmed. The area around the police station has been sealed off

MOSCOW — A top separatist leader in Ukraine’s Luhansk region has been wounded in a car bombing, his colleagues said Saturday. An explosive device went off early Saturday in Luhansk near the car of Igor Plotnitsky, leader of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic, the rebel-run Luhansk Information Center said on its website. The report quoted rebel official Sergei Kozlov as saying that Plotnitsky has been taken to hospital and is now in stable condition. Russian state television on Saturday showed footage of a black SUV mangled by an explosion. Fighting between Russia-backed rebels and government forces has been raging since April 2014, leaving more than 9,500 dead and displacing over a million. Luhansk was heavily shelled in the summer of 2014 but the front line has since moved dozens of kilometers (miles) away, and the rebels are in full control of the city and its suburbs. Plotnitsky was one of the signatories of a peace accord in 2015 that helped to lower the intensity of fi...

With global tensions rising and progress on nuclear disarmament hard to find, “the world needs the Hibakusha spirit more than ever,” United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today, citing the determination and perseverance of those survivors of the 1945 Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb attacks as an example for championing peace and a seeking a better future for all. In a message delivered to the Peace Memorial Ceremony in Hiroshima, Japan, by Kim Won-soo, UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, the Secretary-General commended the solemn gathering to remember the victims of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the first use of nuclear weapons in war. Recalling his 2010 visit to Hiroshima taking part in the Ceremony, Mr. Ban said he had been moved and inspired by the determination of the survivors to ensure that such a tragedy would never happen again. That visit, noted the Secretary-General, reinforced his resolve to advance the efforts of the UN to work for a world f...

Tokyo lodges strong protest to Beijing over Chinese vessels sailing into waters close to disputed East China Sea islets. Tensions over the islands have seriously harmed bilateral relations [KYODO/Reuters/FILE] For the second time in two days, Japan has protested to Beijing over Chinese coastguard ships and fishing vessels sailing into waters close to disputed islands in the East China Sea. The two countries are locked in a long-running dispute over the uninhabited islets, known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China. Japan's foreign ministry said that seven Chinese coastguard ships, including four that appeared to be armed, and about 230 fishing vessels sailed on Saturday close to what Tokyo considers its territorial waters. Inside Story - Japan and China: A clash of empires? In a statement, the ministry called for the immediate withdrawal of the vessels. "Japan can never accept activities by [Chinese] official vessels near the Senkaku islands because it will unilate...

South Sudan's government has accepted the deployment of a regional force to the country, almost a month after fighting erupted between opposing army factions, an African regional bloc said on Friday night. South Sudan had previously rejected an outside force, but the head of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development said the government had accepted a protection force “without any precondition.” Mahboub Maalim spoke to reporters after several regional heads of state met on the crisis. He said the timing of the deployment of the force, which is meant to protect civilians and help implement a peace deal, will be determined after regional defense chiefs meet in the coming days. He also said the recently named first vice president, Taban Deng Gai, has agreed to step down if opposition leader Riek Machar returns to South Sudan's capital, Juba. Mr Machar, who had been first vice president under a peace deal reached in August 2015, fled the capital into hiding shortly after the f...

As Turkey’s relations with Europe and the United States are strained by the fallout from its failed coup, President Tayyip Erdogan travels to Russia on Tuesday to meet Vladimir Putin in a trip he may hope will give the West pause for thought. Turkish officials insist Erdogan’s visit to St. Petersburg is no sign that the NATO member and European Union membership candidate is turning its back on the West. Rather, they say, it is the next step in a rapprochement with Russia that started weeks before the July 15 attempted putsch. But the thaw with Moscow, which imposed trade sanctions nine months ago after Turkey downed a Russian fighter jet near the Syrian border, comes as Ankara’s relationship with the West could scarcely be more fractious. Erdogan and many Turks have been incensed by what they see as Western concern over a post-coup crackdown but indifference to the bloody events themselves, in which more than 230 people were killed as rogue soldiers bombed parliament and seized bridge...

Firefighters leave the bar where a fire broke out Saturday in Rouen, France.Kamil Zihnioglu/AP French authorities say a fast-moving fire swept through a bar during a birthday party in Rouen, killing at least 13 people and injuring six. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley tells our Newscast unit that it happened "when birthday candles ignited a combustible ceiling." Here's more from Eleanor: "French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said more than 50 firefighters battled the blaze at the Cuba Libre bar, which was rented for a birthday celebration. "Witnesses say the building went up extremely quickly. The victims were said to be asphyxiated by a poisonous gas released from the synthetic ceiling material." This is France's "deadliest blaze in a decade," according to Agence France Presse . One witness described the scene to France 24 : "I said to my friend, come on, let's take a place on the terrace. And as I started sitting down, all at once...

16 facts and observations to round out your Olympic knowledge Did you know Mark de Jonge is an engineer when he isn't winning medals? Now you do. © Aaron Lynett/The Canadian Press How many events are in the heptathlon? What is dressage? How do you pronounce coxswain? The Olympics are hectic enough as it is without the added mental gymnastics required to learn about a wide array of sports in a short time period. I mean, you could just Google everything, but data plans are expensive and it looks much cooler when you drop some arcane trivia on your friends. Here are 16 things you can say to sound smart when talking about the Rio Olympics. Men's soccer is under-23, with 3 overage players allowed While this limits the number of instantly recognizable players, you'll have a first glimpse at tomorrow's top players. Want proof? Back in 2008, A 22-year-old Lionel Messi led Argentina to gold at the Beijing Olympics. If you aren't a soccer scout or soothsayer, don't worry...