BoNgo Ya leO

City trail early leaders Chelsea by eight points after 11 league games.
"We have 24 more points to try to win (in 2014)," said Pellegrini. "We have to try to do it, I think that is the only way.
"I think December and this week of November are a decisive month for the Premier League."

Lawro's prediction on Man City v Swansea
"Nothing less than two wins will do for Manchester City from their next two games - first against Swansea and then Bayern Munich in the Champions League on Tuesday.
"It is important that Manuel Pellegrini starts by picking his best team against Swansea to get the points in the bag, then works out how to beat Bayern."
Predictions: Lawro v Citizen Khan

City, who face Swansea at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday, have already dropped 12 points this season and sit third in the table.
At this same stage last season, City embarked on a 20-game unbeaten run in all competitions, winning 18 of them - a run that ultimately helped them lift the Premier League trophy.
"We are going to finish the first round (of fixtures) at the end of December," added Pellegrini.
"I think maybe not to be top of the table, because Chelsea are in a very good moment, but I think it is important to have a good first round. That is to earn more than 41 or 42 points."

She has spent most of her life on a farm in rural Tennessee picking cotton and said she never had the time or money to go to a beach.
"I've heard people talk about it and how wonderful it was and wanted to see it, but I never had the opportunity to do so," she said.
Now she has been on an all-expenses paid trip to the Gulf of Mexico.

Ms Holt's holiday was funded by the assisted living centre where she lives along with a charity which grants wishes to elderly people called Wish of a Lifetime.
She said she had never seen anything as big as the ocean but kept describing the November weather as "cold".

Mark Davis, executive director of Brookdale's Sterling House, where Ms Holt lives said two employees filled out the application for her after finding out that she wanted to see the ocean for the first time.
"They did a water gun fight out in the courtyard during the summer and water got brought up, the beach, and that's what she tol

d the girls, that she had never been," he said.
"When we got to the room yesterday she was just pointing out the ocean and, you know, her facial expressions and... she was just speechless."

Ms Holt, who has four children, said she was always too busy on the farm or working in a shirt factory to travel and that the family never had enough money.

The holiday to the beach in Alabama was the furthest she had ever been from her home in Giles County. Ms Holt said she had only left the state of Tennessee once before.
To visit the beach she travelled 400 miles - approximately the same distance as going from London to Glasgow.

She had been lent a motorised wheelchair which had been adapted to be used on sand and with the support of care workers was able to stand and dip her toes in the water.
Ms Holt said: "We don't have nothing like this in Giles County."

Football's governing body to review further awarding of hosting rights for 2018 and 2022 events to Russia and Qatar.

Michael Garcia spent 18 months probing allegations of corruption in awarding 2018 and 2022 World Cup events [AFP]

World football's governing body FIFA will further review the awarding of hosting rights for the 2018 and 2022 World Cup events, putting the status of hosts Russia and Qatar back in question. FIFA said on Thursday, Domenico Scala, the independent chairman of its financial monitoring panel will study US prosecutor Michael Garcia's 430-page report into allegations of widespread corruption. Scala would then recommend details of the confidential dossier for discussion by FIFA's executive committee. "It is of major importance that the FIFA executive committee has the information necessary to evaluate which steps are required based on the work done by the FIFA ethics committee," a FIFA statement said. Garcia, who wanted his report to be made public, criticised ethics judge Hans-Joachim Eckert's 42-page report clearing the 2018 and 2022 World Cup hosts. Eckert's findings, which were released last week, were based on Garcia's investigation. Despite finding wrongdoing among the 11 bidding nations, Eckert said the integrity of the December 2010 votes was not affected. Garcia appealed Eckert's decision last week to close the case against Russia and Qatar, and formally opened proceedings against some individuals, FIFA said. FIFA's executive committee, including members implicated by Garcia, will meet over December 18 and 19 in Marrakech, Morocco.

White House says US president will visit India to attend its Republic Day celebrations and talks with PM Narendra Modi.

Modi , right, received a rousing reception when he visited the US in September

US President Barack Obama will travel to India in January for its Republic Day celebrations and talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the White House has said. His trip follows up on Modi's debut visit to Washington as India's leader in September. Modi has been courted by the United States as a key partner in its attempt to rebalance US diplomatic weight towards Asia. "The president will meet with the prime minister and Indian officials to strengthen and expand the US-India strategic partnership," White House press secretary Josh Earnest said on Friday. Earnest did not give a precise date for the trip, but Republic Day commemorates the adoption of India's constitution on January 26, 1950. The White House said Obama would be the first US president to attend India's Republic Day celebration. In November, the two countries reached a breakthrough agreement in a bitter row over food subsidies that for months had been blocking a landmark global agreement to reduce trade barriers. In September, Obama lauded Modi's "energy and determination" as the two stressed common goals - and had a "candid" discussion about the WTO's Trade Facilitation Agreement. Modi's visit also allowed both sides to repair the damage inflicted by a recent series of spats, including a crisis last December when US authorities arrested and then strip-searched an Indian diplomat in New York for allegedly mistreating her housekeeper. The warm welcome struck a sharp contrast to Modi's previous treatment by Washington, which refused him a visa in 2005 on human rights grounds over anti-Muslim riots in his home state of Gujarat. Modi - who won India's biggest electoral victory in three decades in the April-May polls - denies wrongdoing and was never charged over the violence that killed more than 1,000 people. India's Republic Day is marked by a massive, colourful parade in the capital city of New Delhi that celebrates the South Asian country's ethnic diversity - and offers it a chance to display its military hardware. Each year, India hosts the leader of a foreign country as guest of honour for the parade.

 

Palestinian president warns of turning political conflict into religious one as clashes erupt across occupied West Bank.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has warned against places of worship becoming points of conflict, as tensions remain high over right-wing Jewish demands to be able to pray inside Jerusalem's holiest compound. Speaking in Ramallah on Friday, Abbas warned Israel of turning the current political conflict into a religious one. "This is a crucial time, there's terrorism, religious conflict and violence. It is us who pay the price, the blood of our children," said Abbas. "I am warning against turning a political conflict into a religious one. Let's talk about politics not religion." Timeline: A review of the critical events that have marked the history of al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. His comments came as Israeli forces clashed with Palestinian protesters in the occupied West Bank, amid growing fears that Israel wants to change the status quo at Jerusalem's Haram al-Sharif by allowing Jewish prayer there. At least five Palestinian protesters were wounded when security forces fired rubber-coated steel bullets in the Abu Isneeneh neighbourhood of south Hebron. Clashes also took place in Ramallah, Qalandiya, Kadom, Ofer, Jalazone, Silwad, AlRam and Nabi Salehat. Sources told Al Jazeera that at least 10 people were wounded by either live or rubber-coated steel bullets, while tens of Palestinians suffered the effects of tear gas inhalation. Meanwhile at the Mount of Olives adjacent to Jerusalem's Old City, two Israeli settlers were attacked on Friday, one stabbed in the back and another other hit by an iron rod, Israeli police spokesperson Micky Rosenfeld said. Both were taken to hospital with their injuries not considered to be life threatening. Al-Aqsa prayers Meanwhile, Israeli police continued to allow young Muslim worshippers to pray at the Al-Aqsa mosque on Friday, having previously limited male entry to those under 60. Israel eased restrictions at the site last week after US Secretary of State John Kerry announced agreement on steps to reduce tensions after talks in neighbouring Jordan, which has custodial rights at the compound. Muslims officials said about 45,000 people attended Friday prayers at the mosque, with no serious incidents reported. "It's a pretty calm scene. [There are] more media here than anything," said Al Jazeera's Imtiaz Tyab, reporting from occupied East Jerusalem. The religious site, which is holy to Jews as well as Muslims, has been the focus of months of unrest in East Jerusalem, that has spread to the occupied West Bank and Arab communities across Israel, and raising the prospect of a new Palestinian uprising. 'Assassination plot' Earlier on Friday, Israel arrested four Palestinians suspected of planning to kill right-wing Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman with an anti-tank rocket while he drove to his Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, Israeli officials said. Israel's stance: Provocation or deterrence? A statement by Israel's domestic intelligence service Shin Bet identified three of the detainees as Hamas members. Citing their confessions under interrogation, it said they had hoped killing Lieberman "would relay a message to the State of Israel that would bring about an end to the Gaza war". "We have no information about this issue. However, we stress that leaders of the Occupation [Israel] who are responsible for the killing of children and women and for defiling the sacred sites are legitimate targets for the resistance," Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, said. Tension has been high across the Palestinian territories after three Israeli teenage settlers went missing in June, and were later found dead, in what Israel says was an abduction and killing by Hamas fighters, followed by an apparent revenge attack on a young Palestinian male several weeks later. Those events helped precipitate Israel's 50-day-long offensive against Gaza that killed more than 2,100 Palestinians, mostly women, children and the elderly.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

 

A San Francisco man is recovering from near-fatal injuries inflicted over the weekend, after he asked a stranger to stop catcalling his girlfriend and was promptly stabbed 9 times. Ben Schwartz and his partner, Miyoko Moody, were walking home early Saturday morning with a friend when a man, whom the group had already passed earlier in the evening, began catcalling Moody for the second time that night. Schwartz asked the man to be quiet, which is when the suspect reportedly started trailing the group before he attacked.
“At first we tried to just ignore it, just kind of walk away and make our way home, cross the street and try to take a different path,” Schwartz told ABC San Francisco. “It turned violent very quickly, punches thrown … Next thing I know, I kinda had a knife in the back of my neck.”
Schwartz was nearly paralyzed in the attack, with stab wounds close to his main arteries and one narrowly missing his spine. His friends, who have started a GoFundMe page to raise money for his medical bills, have described Schwartz as “so kindhearted, and you can see that in everything that he does.” The San Francisco Chronicle reports that earlier this year, Schwartz bought a bike on the street because he believed it to be stolen, then sought out the rightful owner to return it. His suspicion was correct, and the owner had been looking for the bike frantically.
“I’ve had friends get their cars broken into, smashed-in windows, stolen laptops, stolen cell phone — there’s nothing I can do a lot of those times,” he told the Chronicle in February. “But this way, it was easy. It was safe, and it got him his bike back. … I just wanted to do somebody a solid for once.”

 
(CNN) -- NATO has scrambled fighter jets more than 400 times this year to intercept Russian military flights close to alliance members' airspace in Europe, the alliance's secretary general said this week.