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‘I couldn’t look at a football’ after World Cup: Neymar

Brazil superstar Neymar admits that after his nation’s quarter-final defeat to Belgium at the World Cup he couldn’t look at a ball and didn’t want to see any of the remaining matches.

“I wouldn’t go as far as to say I didn’t want to play again but, I didn’t want to see a ball, or to see any more football players,” 26-year-old Neymar told AFP in an exclusive interview on Saturday.

The Paris Saint Germain forward was talking at his Neymar Praia Grande institute where the Red Bull Neymar Jr 5’s (five-a-side-soccer) tournament was being played.

Dressed in a sleeveless t-shirt, with his six-year-old son Davi Lucca sat upon his knee, the striker was however in a relaxed mood as he explained his post-World Cup blues.

“I was in mourning, I was really sad about it, but sadness passes, I have my son, my family, my friends and they don’t want to see me moping around. I’ve got more reason to be happy than sad,” said Neymar, reflecting on his team’s 2-1 quarter-final defeat to Belgium.

Asked about reports in Spain linking him with a transfer to Real Madrid the forward said: “that’s all speculation from the press.”

“The guys who come up with these stories seem to know more about my life than I do. I won’t respond to this type of question because nothing happened,” he scoffed.

The Brazilian superstar, who moved to PSG for a world record 222 million euros ($264 million) last year, insists that the burden of expectation on his shoulders — whether with his club or country — does not weigh heavily.

“No, all the great players feel pressure,” he said.

“It’s true that when it comes to me, there are double standards. I have been aware of this responsibility, not only for Brazil but also in club football, since I was 17, 18 years old.

“I have prepared myself to handle this pressure and I know that when the results are not what they should be then that pressure increases.”

Neymar has been hit by a barrage of criticism for theatrical rolling around after being fouled at the World Cup but says he should have been better protected.

‘Criticism of me exaggerated’

“People were faster to criticise the one being fouled than the one doing the fouling,” he insisted.

“I went to the World Cup to play, to beat the opposition, not to get kicked. The criticism of me was exaggerated, but I’m a big boy, I’m used to dealing with this kind of thing

“And I can’t be the referee and play at the same time, but there are times I wish I could,” he said.

Earlier this week, Neymar took a swipe at his critics with a tongue-in-cheek video in which he teaches children how to fall to the ground.

“One, two, three, go!” shouts Neymar on the Instagram video as around a dozen youngsters fall to the ground of a parking lot.

“That’s a free-kick!” screams the Brazilian breaking into fits of laughter.

The video was released with a hashtag #ChallengeDAFALTA, the free-kick challenge in Portuguese.

During the recent World Cup, the player’s antics sparked the “Neymar Challenge” where he was widely mocked.

In Mexico, a football club even organized a competition in which contestants attempted to roll the entire length of the pitch.

Meanwhile, Neymar described PSG’s new coach Thomas Tuchel as a great addition to the club.

“He’s a great coach and we’re hoping for a great season,” he said.

“I’m really looking forward to it,” Neymar said of his second season in Paris.

“We have signed a football legend (Italian goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon) who will bring with him all his experience and that will be a great help for this coming season.”

July 23, 2018
Young, rich and ambitious: Nigeria’s ‘gentleman farmers’

“Come, I’ll show you what a potential billion dollars looks like,” said P.J. Okocha, opening the door of a small, modern house in southern Nigeria to reveal a thousand yam seedlings.

“These thousand plants can make three million seeds,” he said, with a broad smile.

At just 34, Peter Okocha Junior — also known as P.J. — is a high achiever.

Okocha cut his teeth in his family’s shipping and logistics business, then decided to forge his own path.

He identified Nigeria’s agricultural sector as one of enormous potential where he can make the most impact. Today, he is a pioneer in hydroponics.

“I always knew I wanted to invest in agriculture but I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do,” he told AFP.

“One day, I saw an agro-researcher on Twitter. I contacted him, and said, ‘Hey bro, let’s change the world together’.”

His pitch hit home. In a few months, their company PS Nutrac was born.

Two years later, tens of thousands of yam plants grow without soil, suspended in water in special greenhouses — a cutting-edge agricultural technique rarely seen in developing countries.

One afternoon in June, young PS Nutrac employees were training a group of old local farmers on a new organic variety of yam.

Farming communities have been gutted by an exodus of young people for big cities to carve out a living, said Chief Awufe Ademola, who is in his 60s and owns eight acres (3.2 hectares) of land.

In rows before him, the old farmers sat with curved backs and calloused hands.

“With the average age of the African farmer hovering just above 60 years of age, it’s imperative for the new generation to delve into farming,” said Okocha.

“Nobody wants to do the conventional standing in the hot sun, and sweating and labour that comes out with that, therefore to combine it with data, technology and automatisation, it makes it more attractive.”

Read More: Nigeria’s amputee football team prepares for World Cup debut

Food challenge

Nigeria, which is home to more than 180 million people, is under pressure to produce more food. By 2050, it is expected to become the third most populous country in the world.

After the discovery of oil in commercial quantities in the 1950s, Nigeria’s prosperous agricultural sector suffered a precipitous decline as successive leaders and investors switched focus entirely.

Decades have passed and with the collapse of the railway network, agricultural goods now have to be transported by truck on crumbling roads.

There are not enough storage sheds; those that exist are mostly not refrigerated; and there are few processing plants.

That means huge amounts of produce go to waste in a country so fertile it can grow everything from avocados to cashews to corn.

For example, about four million tonnes of citrus fruits are produced annually, according to US Department of Agriculture figures for 2009.

But up to 60 percent goes to waste before getting to the final consumers in urban centres.

Meanwhile, Nigeria imports 315 million dollars (270 million euros) of orange concentrate a year, the bulk of national consumption.

“Opportunities in agriculture are beyond the imagination,” said Buffy Okeke-Ojiudu, the proud owner of a 200-hectare (495-acre) palm oil plantation in the southeast.

“The future billionaires in Nigeria will be people investing in agriculture, tech and renewable energy, which are sectors that can create employment, not like the oil sector,” said the 34-year-old, whose grandfather was Nigeria’s first minister of agriculture.

Starting from scratch

Making farming profitable is not easy, though.

The main problem for businesses is access to bank loans, which attract high rates of interest compared to other countries in the region.

“Access to finance is a big issue,” Okeke-Ojiudu said, adding that banks ask for large amounts of collateral and charge double-digit interest rates for agriculture ventures.

“So today, the people who are investing in this sector are already wealthy, already connected.”

Okeke-Ojiudu was educated in the United States and England. Seyi Oyenuga also spent most of his life between Chicago and Washington before coming to his father’s homeland.

Three years ago, he swapped life in the construction sector to settle in Oyo, southwest Nigeria, and started a farm.

On the four-hour drive from Okocha’s farm, women pound dried cassava along the road.

Nearly all the farms surrounding the sleepy villages have been abandoned.

Farming revival

But a farming revival is taking place at Oyenuga’s Atman Farm, where he is busy repairing tractors to plough the cassava fields.

“We have to use old-generation tractors because people here only know how to operate them,” he said, dressed in a John Deere cap, blue gingham shirt and a keffiyeh around his neck.

Oyenuga learned everything from scratch, including how to negotiate with local leaders to acquire property deeds, to teach employees the metric system and how to use tractors.

“We learned the hard way,” he said, speaking under a relentless sun after fixing up the tractors side by side with his staff.

This year, he hopes to plant cassava on 400 hectares — five times the area of his first harvest last year.

It is just the start. Ultimately, he wants to cultivate 2,000 hectares within 10 years.

“It’s really been exciting, I’ve been able to do things that I’ve never imagined or thought were possible,” he added.

July 23, 2018
Ozil defends controversial picture with Erdogan

BERLIN: Footballer Mesut Ozil said on Sunday he had no regrets about his controversial photograph with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that sparked questions about his loyalty to Germany’s national squad ahead of the World Cup.

Breaking his silence over the snapshot that caused outrage during the tournament, the Arsenal midfielder said in a statement on Twitter that he was loyal to both his Turkish and German origins and insisted he did not intend to make a political statement.

“Like many people, my ancestry traces back to more than one country. Whilst I grew up in Germany, my family background has its roots firmly based in Turkey,” he said.

“I have two hearts, one German and one Turkish.”

Ozil said he had first met Erdogan in 2010 after the president and German Chancellor Angela Merkel watched a Germany-Turkey match together.

“Since then, our paths have crossed a lot of times around the globe,” he said.

“I’m aware that the picture of us caused a huge response in the German media, and whilst some people may accuse me of lying or being deceitful, the picture we took had no political intentions.”

Ozil said despite the timing of the picture with teammate Ilkay Gundogan and Erdogan — shortly before the president won re-election in a poll endowing him with sweeping new powers — “it wasn’t about politics or elections, it was about me respecting the highest office of my family’s country”.

“My job is a football player and not a politician, and our meeting was not an endorsement of any policies,” Ozil said.

“I get that this may be hard to understand, as in most cultures the political leader cannot be thought of as being separate from the person. But in this case it is different. Whatever the outcome would’ve been in this previous election, or the election before that, I would have still taken the picture.”

Ozil, 29, came in for stinging criticism in Germany for their shock first-round defeat at the World Cup.

Team boss Oliver Bierhoff suggested after the debacle that Germany should have considered dropping Ozil after his failure to explain himself over the Erdogan picture.

Bierhoff later backtracked, saying that he “was wrong” to put Ozil under undue pressure, but the picture continued to draw scorn from fans on social media.

Germany is home to more than three million people of Turkish origin.

July 22, 2018
Afghan siblings killed by blast as they took out trash

KABUL: Every day Shah Mahmood’s children took it in turns to dump the family’s trash near their Kabul home. But this simple chore turned deadly on Sunday when a blast in the street killed two of them and wounded another.

No one appears to have witnessed the explosion on the quiet, dusty street divided by a putrid open drain, but police told AFP they believe a magnetic bomb hidden in a pile of garbage had detonated after the children touched it.

It is a tragic scene played out across war-torn Afghanistan almost every day — children killed or maimed by explosive devices left over from decades of conflict, carelessly discarded or deliberately planted.

“This is our life all around the city — it happens everywhere,” a tearful Mahmood told AFP, as he stood with a dozen male mourners in a narrow dirt lane outside his house.

“I was working as normal at the vegetable market, my children were throwing out the garbage and the bomb went off and they were killed.”

Mahmood, who has nine children, said his daughter Shabnam, 13, and his eight-year-old son Nisar died in the explosion.

Their small bodies were thrown several metres by the force of the blast, according to people who found them.

Another daughter, nine-year-old Rukhsar, was taken to the trauma facility run by Italian NGO Emergency where she underwent major surgery for multiple shrapnel wounds.

She was in critical but stable condition.

“Some people said the bomb was hidden under the (shipping) container and others were saying it was in the garbage (on the ground). It is difficult to know,” Mahmood said.

Behind the mud and brick wall of Mahmood’s home in a poor area of Khair Khana neighbourhood came the sound of grieving women wailing.

Civilians, including children, have borne the brunt of the country’s nearly 17-year conflict.

UN figures show 3,179 children were killed or wounded in 2017, accounting for almost one-third of the total civilian casualties for the year.

Improvised explosive devices, such as remotely detonated or pressure-plate bombs, killed or wounded 545 of them.

Unexploded ordnance claimed the lives of 142 children and wounded 376 in the same period.

“Conflict-related violence continues to erode the rights of children to education, healthcare, freedom of movement and other fundamental rights, as well as family life, playing outdoors and simply enjoying a childhood free of the brutal effects of war,” UNAMA’s human rights chief Danielle Bell said in a report recently.

Mahmood said Shabnam and Nisar were “calm and quiet children” who spent most of their time indoors — not uncommon in Kabul where many parents make their children play inside for fear of violence.

“My elder daughter… never went out on her own, she always wanted to have the company of her brother,” Mahmood said.

“Today, sadly, they were killed.”

July 22, 2018
Former cricketers turn to support Imran in polls

ISLAMABAD: Former Pakistani cricket stars have come out in support of cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan as the country prepares to go to the polls on Wednesday.

“It was in your leadership skip @ImrankhanPTI that we became world champions in 1992. It is in your leadership that we can again become a great democratic country,” tweeted Wasim Akram.

“You have got what it takes Skipper @ImranKhanPTI but it will take everything you have… No one can doubt your Honesty and thats what is require in our country…An honest LEADER,” tweeted former captain Waqar Younis.

BehindYouSkipper became one of the country’s top trending hashtags as celebrities and former cricketers came to Khan’s support.

Former Australian star Dean Jones also lent his support.

“I am not a political person… but @ImranKhanPTI I would have loved to play under…. great leader and would do well for Pakistan if given the opportunity,” he tweeted.

Imran Khan was catapulted to global fame as a World Cup cricket champion, but the man known in the West as a celebrity playboy is now seeking to lead Pakistan as a populist, devout and anti-corruption reformist.

Khan’s chances of becoming prime minister on July 25 are believed to be his best since entering politics two decades ago. But critics allege the electoral playing field is being fixed for the erstwhile fast bowling all-rounder.

Khan has denied the claims and decried the venality of Pakistan’s political elite, promising to build an “Islamic welfare state” if his Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) party forms the next government.

Recent polls show PTI’s popularity climbing nationally.

July 22, 2018
Sri Lanka build mammoth lead over S.Africa

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka tightened the noose on South Africa on the third morning of the second Test, building a commanding lead of 451 while losing just a single wicket in the session.

Chasing their first series win since 2006 against South Africa, the hosts were on 237 for 4 at lunch after securing a 214-run first-innings lead in Colombo.

The visitors’ only wicket was Dimuth Karunaratne for 85. Angelo Mathews made a 29th career half-century, going to lunch on 53 with Roshen Silva unbeaten on 19.

Fast bowler Lungi Ngidi had Karunaratne caught behind off a faint edge, but there was no joy for Dale Steyn who remains one wicket away from becoming the Proteas’ leading Test bowler.

Steyn has been tied with South Africa great Shaun Pollock on 421 dismissals since the first Test last week in Galle.

Karunaratne’s first four of the day was an edge through vacant first slip off Kagiso Rabada, but he was confident through the early overs, hitting Rabada repeatedly to the boundary while Mathews also warmed to his work.

The pair added 44 to the overnight score before Karunaratne fell just before drinks in sight of what would have been his second century of the series.

Having begun the day on 12, Mathews advanced steadily to his fifty without displaying the kind of urgency that would suggest a Sri Lanka declaration was imminent.

Silva, who has been out of form over the last four Tests, made a nervy start to his innings, playing and missing at several of the 50 deliveries he faced.

He did edge one ball off the bowling of Keshav Maharaj but it flew harmlessly through the vacant gully area.

July 22, 2018
Afghan VP Dostum to return after more than a year in exile

KABUL: Afghan Vice President Abdul Rashid Dostum is expected to return to Kabul Sunday, more than a year after fleeing the country during an investigation into the rape and torture of a political rival.

The powerful ethnic Uzbek leader and former warlord, who is linked to a catalogue of human rights abuses in Afghanistan, will fly from Turkey to Kabul where he will be welcomed by high-ranking officials at a special ceremony, Afghan officials said.

“At 4:00 pm (1130 GMT) today General Dostum’s flight will land at Kabul international airport,” Jamal Nasir Farahmand, a spokesman for Dostum, told AFP.

Dostum’s return, which has been the subject of much speculation, comes amid violent protests in several provinces across northern Afghanistan — his traditional power base.

Thousands of Dostum’s supporters have taken to the streets in recent weeks, shuttering election and government offices and blocking sections of highways, demanding the release of a pro-government militia leader and calling for Dostum’s return.

Observers say President Ashraf Ghani gave the green light for Dostum to come back to Afghanistan to quell the unrest.

Dostum left Afghanistan in May 2017 after he was accused of organising the rape and torture of a political rival.

He had denied the allegations and said his departure was for medical check-ups and family reasons.

Ghani, an ethnic Pashtun, described Dostum as a “known killer” in 2009. Yet he chose the ethnic Uzbek to be his running mate in the 2014 presidential election, underlining the ethnic realities of Afghan politics.

Dostum’s return from exile comes ahead of the 2019 presidential election that Ghani, who is deeply unpopular among non-Pashtuns, is widely expected to contest.

Presidential spokesman Haroon Chakhansuri said Saturday that Dostum had been “treated” and would resume his duties upon his return.

Seven of Dostum’s bodyguards have been convicted of the sexual assault and illegal imprisonment of Ahmad Ishchi, a former governor of northern Jowzjan province, in 2016.

Dostum allegedly had Ishchi abducted in Jowzjan and then kept him hostage in his private compound for several days, where the captive was said to have been tortured and sodomised.

Chakhansuri deflected questions about whether Dostum would face charges over the incident, saying “the judiciary is an independent body, the government does not interfere in their decisions”.

Dostum is one of several controversial figures that Kabul has sought to reintegrate into mainstream politics since the US-led invasion in 2001.

His heroic status in the north belies the extreme barbarities he is known for.

Dostum, who helped the United States oust the Taliban regime in 2001, allegedly allowed hundreds of Taliban prisoners to be suffocated to death in shipping containers.

July 22, 2018
Imran Khan, Pakistan cricket hero turned reformist politician

ISLAMABAD: Imran Khan was catapulted to global fame as a World Cup cricket champion, but the man known in the West as a celebrity is now seeking to lead Pakistan as a populist, religiously devout, anti-corruption reformist.

Khan’s shot at becoming prime minister in elections on July 25 — believed to be his best chance since entering politics two decades ago – is coloured by allegations the electoral playing field is being fixed for the erstwhile fast bowler.

Khan has denied the claims and decried the venality of Pakistan’s political elite, promising to build an “Islamic welfare state” if his Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) party form the next government.

Recent polls show PTI’s popularity climbing nationally, while arch-rival Nawaz Sharif’s incumbent Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party limps into the contest.

Former prime minister Sharif was ousted last year and has been behind bars since returning to the country earlier this month to face a corruption conviction, removing Khan’s most formidable foe from the contest.

In contrast Khan has cut a relaxed image on the campaign trail, looking increasingly confident of his chances.

In the West, the man who led Pakistan’s 1992 World Cup champion cricket team is typically seen through the prism of his celebrity and memories of his high-profile romances, including a nine-year marriage to British socialite Jemima Goldsmith.

Back home the thrice-married 65-year-old cuts a more conservative persona as a devout Muslim, often carrying prayer beads and nurturing beliefs in living saints.

Earlier this year, he married his spiritual advisor Bushra Maneka, with wedding photos showing the new bride clad in an ultra-conservative veil — an astronomical departure from his days plastered in the British tabloids.

And just last month he roused the ire of women after saying feminism has “degraded the role of a mother”.

To his legions of fans, he is uncorrupted and generous, spending his years off the pitch building hospitals and a university.

“We want change because the current system is corrupt, and we are going to have to face many difficulties,” said PTI supporter Jamil Ahmed.

– ‘End the hatred’ –

Khan entered Pakistan’s chaotic politics in 1996 promising to fight graft.

For his first decade and a half as a politician he sputtered, with PTI never securing more than a few seats in the national assembly.

“Sports teaches you that life is not in a straight line,” he told AFP earlier this year. “You take the knocks. You learn from your mistakes.”

In 2012 PTI’s popularity surged with hordes of young Pakistanis who grew up idolising Khan as a cricket icon reaching voting age.

Khan admits his party was ill-prepared to capitalise on the gains during the 2013 election. But that was then.

“For the first time, we’ll be going into elections prepared,” he has said previously of 2018.

Five years later PTI is running a nationwide campaign including areas far from its northwestern and urban strongholds.

To shore up its chances of winning, PTI has begun luring candidates away from Sharif’s party, stirring controversy among long-time party loyalists who say Khan is relying on the same corrupt politicians he once denounced.

Some fear Khan’s mercurial nature is unsuited to being prime minister.

He has raised eyebrows by increasingly catering to religious hardliners, particularly over the hugely inflammatory charge of blasphemy, spurring fears his leadership could embolden extremists.

“It’s hard to judge anyone when they’re in opposition because the real challenge is when you take over,” said journalist Arifa Noor. “On the downside he’s playing up the religion card.”

Khan has also been attacked for his repeated calls to hold talks with militants and for his party’s alliance with Sami ul Haq, the so-called Father of the Taliban whose madrassas once educated Taliban stalwarts Mullah Omar and Jalaluddin Haqqani.

And earlier this month, the al Qaeda-linked Harkat-ul-Mujahideen announced their support for Khan’s party, with pictures of the US-designated terrorist group’s leader posing with PTI hopefuls posted online.

Still, many, including Khan, believe this is the best political opportunity he will ever have.

“After the 25th of July, God willing we will reunite this divided nation,” he said during a rally in Lahore days before the polls. “And end the hatred.”

July 22, 2018
Soldier’s remains found 50 years after plane crash

SHIMLA: The frozen body of an Indian soldier has been found on a Himalayan glacier, a mountaineering team said Saturday, 50 years after he and more than 100 others died in a military plane crash.

The team said it also found some wreckage from the Indian Air Force turboprop, a Soviet Union-built Antonov An-12 transport plane which crashed in February 1968.

https://arynews.tv/en/russia-pilot-alive-30-years-afghanistan/

“We stumbled upon an arm of a human body jutting out of the ice. The rest of the body can be seen inside the glacier,” expedition head Rajiv Rawat told AFP.

Rawat said the team contacted the army, which has since launched an operation to retrieve the remains.

The expedition found the body at an altitude of around 5,500 metres (18,000 feet) in India’s inhospitable Himalayan mountain range.

Saturday’s discovery was the fifth body located from the crash after decades of extensive and largely fruitless search operations.

The next most recent body was found and identified in 2013.

July 22, 2018
France, Russia send humanitarian aid to Syria for Ghouta victims

CHATEAUROUX, FRANCE: France and Russia on Saturday dispatched a plane carrying humanitarian aid to the ravaged former Syrian rebel enclave of Eastern Ghouta, which was retaken by government forces in April after a five-year siege.

A Russian Antonov 124 military cargo plane carrying 50 tons of medical aid and humanitarian supplies left the airport at the central French city of Chateauroux at 3am (0100 GMT), the airport’s head Mark Bottemine told AFP.

Undertaken as part of a UN Security Council resolution, “the aim of this project is to enable civilian populations better access to aid,” a joint Franco-Russian statement said.

The plane is heading for Russia’s Hmeimim air base in the west of Syria. It is the first joint humanitarian aid operation between Russia and a western country.

The aid will be distributed on Saturday under the supervision of the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid (OCHA).

“Humanitarian assistance is an absolute priority and must be distributed in accordance with principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence across all Syrian territory without exception, where international humanitarian law must be fully respected,” the joint statement said.

The Antonov 124 cargo plane is carrying 50 tons of medical equipment and humanitarian supplies.

France had secured “guarantees” from Russia that the Syrian regime would not obstruct the distribution of the aid, and that it would not be misappropriated or diverted for political purposes, the foreign ministry said.

More than 1,700 civilians were killed during the Syrian regime’s operation in Eastern Ghouta in March and April. According to the Russian military, more than 160,000 people, both military and civilians, were evacuated from the region.

The cargo comprises medical equipment, tents, cooking utensils and blankets, said an AFP photographer who witnessed the plane being loaded.

The medical aid is aimed at some 500 people who have been seriously injured and the 15,000 others who have lighter injuries during the fighting in Eastern Ghouta, on the fringes of the Syrian capital Damascus.

July 21, 2018