Tottenham's André Villas-Boas demands respect and end to insults

Kyle Walker, second left, scores Tottenham Hotspur's opening goal against Manchester United from a free-kick. Photograph: Gerry Penny/EPA

André Villas-Boas insisted he deserves more respect as he railed against what he believes is a sinister agenda to undermine him. TheTottenham Hotspur manager could feel pleased and not a little relieved after a positive performance from his team in the 2-2 draw against Manchester United at White Hart Lane which followed the 6-0 thrashing by Manchester City.

Villas-Boas talked about how his team had reached the Capital One Cup quarter-finals and the last 32 of the Europa League while their Premier League position was "not decisive yet". He strongly believes that "at the moment, there should be some respect", and it has not been forthcoming.

"No, I don't think [it has]," he said. "A couple of people insult my integrity, my human values, my professionalism …insult the success that I have achieved in other clubs and I don't think it's fair. I think it's a lack of respect and an attack on a person's integrity."

Villas-Boas said he did not want to undermine his fellow Premier League managers but he questioned why his Manchester United and City counterparts, David Moyes and Manuel Pellegrini, had not endured criticism like that which came his way last week.

"You can easily compare situations," Villas-Boas said. "We have sat above Man City before and above Man United before and we haven't seen any kind of these personal attacks to somebody, so I think that is unfair. It's something that obviously comes with the 6-0 thrashing but more important is the team and the response, and I think the players did that in great, great fashion."

It has been a stressful time for the Portuguese, with the board wondering whether he remains the right man to guide Tottenham to Champions League football. The inquest followed last Sunday's 6-0 defeat at Manchester City but that was merely the lowest point of a period in which Villas-Boas' team have laboured and his behaviour has been prickly. Villas-Boas said last week that he is "immune" to any criticism.

Tottenham had the chances to go 2-0 up in the first half before Wayne Rooney's first equaliser for United, and Villas-Boas was upset at the striker's second equaliser. Rooney scored from the penalty spot after Danny Welbeck had beaten Hugo Lloris to the ball and felt contact from the Tottenham goalkeeper.

"It's difficult because Hugo doesn't raise his hands," Villas-Boas said. "Vlad [Chiriches] is also avoiding contact with the player and we have seen [how] a couple of players have stood their leg out to collide with bodies of the other players. So I think it's difficult, [although] it's a decision we have to accept.

"I think the ref wasn't in a good position to decide the penalty. He sees it from too far off but when you stick a leg out, put the ball forward, you can easily collide with the opponent's body, so I think it's a difficult call for the ref but an unfair decision.

"I think we deserved a bit more [from the game]. It was a good response to the heavy defeat that we took at Man City ... not perfect because perfect would have been to win the game but a good response from a group of players that want to do well. It keeps us in touch with the group at the top and gives us the motivation to go forward."

Moyes accepted that he needed more in a creative sense from his central midfielders Tom Cleverley and Phil Jones,and he could not be happy to see United lagging nine points behind the leaders, Arsenal.

"We are concerned that we are not as close as we would like to be," Moyes said. "But it is a long season. We still have got room to progress and get better. That is undoubted. There are a lot of games in the next eight weeks and we hope to be in the mix at end of that period.

"We had a great win in midweek [at Bayer Leverkusen] and, but for a minute at Cardiff last weekend [when United conceded a 90th-minute equaliser] you would be saying that we've had a really good week. This was always going to be a tough game. If you said we have let ourselves down, you would have said it was in the last minute in Cardiff.

Manchester's Warehouse Project club introduces real-time drug testing

The Warehouse Project can hold 5,000 clubbers, and management believes it has a duty to keep them as safe as possible. Photograph: Sebastian Matthes/Manox.net

There is a striking sign that greets clubbers on the way in toManchester's Warehouse Project – once they have ignored the big yellow amnesty box where they've been advised to post any illegal substances, and run the gauntlet of the club's 100 security staff and some eager sniffer dogs. "DRUGS", says the placard, yellow writing on a black background. "Just because you know your dealer doesn't mean your dealer knows what is in the drugs that he is selling. Please be safe!"

Watching 5,000 people stream into the UK's biggest nightclub, recently voted one of the top 20 clubs in the world by DJ magazine, boss Sacha Lord looks pensive. "Ever since the tragedy, I'm on edge," says Lord. "It's something that will never leave me."

His eyes dart as his head of security receives a torrent of abuse from one of the 38 punters refused entry at the door during the evening.

In a police van behind Lord, one pink-cheeked 22-year-old is under arrest after managing to get past the sniffer dogs with a little bag of cocaine and 10 tiny "bombs" of ecstasy wrapped in cigarette papers, only to be caught when staff made him turn out his pockets.

The tragedy Lord was referring to happened on 27 September, the hotly awaited opening night of the Warehouse Project's annual three-month season, when a 30-year-old youth worker called Nick Bonnie died after taking drugs at the club. Four of his friends were also taken to hospital that evening. The following night, a suspected dealer was taken ill after swallowing 12 snap bags of drugs. He was joined in hospital by seven other clubbers, plus one woman who had to be put into an induced coma the following week.

Now the club is testing an innovative approach to preventing future deaths. Part forensic science and part public information, the scheme involves testing drugs that are circulating among clubbers in real time so that they can be warned on the night about potentially dangerous batches – including PMA, a nasty, newish drug sometimes mis-sold as ecstasy. PMA can kill at lower doses than ecstasy (especially when mixed with other drugs) and can rapidly cause a fatal rise in body temperature.

An increasing number of deaths in the UK have been linked to the drug. According to the Office for National Statistics, 20 people died after taking it in 2012, compared with just one annually in previous years. This year the north of England in particular has seen a sharp increase in suspected cases. Experts say no one intentionally buys PMA, but that it came into circulation masquerading as ecstasy when there was a global shortage a few years ago. An inquest into Bonnie's death has not yet taken place. But his symptoms – including a very high temperature – were consistent with ingestion of PMA.

The drug-testing pilot is run once a month at the Warehouse Project by Fiona Measham, professor of criminology at Durham University and the UK's foremost expert on club drug culture. It involves her and a colleague sitting in a freezing cabin outside the venue, testing drugs posted in the amnesty box or confiscated by security in and around the venue.

"There are no bubbling test tubes – just us and a testing kit," says Measham, who has titled her study The Triangulation of Social, Forensic and Toxicology Data at the Warehouse Project. If she finds anything particularly worrying, she can tell the club, which can put out warnings on social media and on an LED sign in the venue.

At around 4am, an hour before the club closes, Measham goes into the men's toilets with a big syringe and siphons off urine to see whether what clubbers think they've taken tallies with what they actually have. Results will not be published until next year, but she says early indications are that drugs are becoming purer, from a nadir in 2009-10 when she was testing pills and powders that contained not a grain of what they purported to be.

Mark Roberts, chief superintendent with the local Trafford police force, admits he was not overjoyed when he heard the Warehouse Project was upping sticks from its old location in the city centre to a site near the Old Trafford football ground in his district last year. "It was phone thefts we were worried about initially. There were a few test events around Easter 2012 and we were seeing as many as 60 phone thefts a night in the club. One night we caught a guy who was wearing long johns under his jeans and had 37 phones stashed down them. Another had 44 hidden inside a pair of cycling shorts under baggy trousers. That level of thefts is just not acceptable – logging each missing phone takes up a lot of police time."

Roberts was impressed with the club's response: they beefed up the undercover security team which roams the venue. Lord already paid for four Trafford police officers are already paid each weekend to patrol outside the venue.

He is pragmatic about drug use inside the club. "We have got to accept that venues like this attract a significant proportion of people who use recreational drugs. Clearly these drugs carry massive risks, but it's a fact of life."

Measham's drug research was already in the pipeline when Bonnie died. So was a much-disliked one-way system at the club designed to avoid crushes at peak times. But Bonnie's death cemented Lord's view that he had a duty to keep clubbers as safe as possible. He added 25 extra security staff, taking the tally to 101, some of whom – never the most popular – tour the dance floor in high-visibility jackets with powerful torches. He has installed extra air-conditioning units, improved lighting in the darker corners of the club, employed on-site medics and introduced a welfare area where anyone feeling unwell after taking drugs can seek advice without having to worry about being arrested. These extra measures, he claims, cost the club £32,000 every weekend – "an unsustainable amount".

Doesn't Lord worry about alienating his core crowd by being so actively anti-drugs? Apparently not. "We've not alienated our crowd. The tickets do the talking. We've sold 150,000 tickets this season in the space of three months. It's like when a tragedy happens at Glastonbury or somewhere, people don't think, 'Oh, I'm not going to go to that festival.'"

As his business partner Sam Kandel puts it: "I think everybody appreciates the spirit of our message, which is that when you go out, please be responsible.

Ukraine rocked by largest street protests since Orange Revolution

Ukrainian protesters clash with riot police outside the president's office in Kiev. Photograph: Vasily Maximov/AFP/Getty Images

Ukraine saw its largest popular protests since the 2004 Orange Revolution on Sunday, when hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets calling for the resignation of the president, Viktor Yanukovych.

Furious at Ukraine's 11th-hour decision to back away from an EU integration pact in favour of closer relations with Russia, Ukrainians defied a court ban on protests. On the fringes, the mood turned violent, as small groups of protesters stormed government buildings and clashed with riot police outside the presidential administration. One group commandeered a mechanical digger and attempted to break through lines of armour-clad riot police.

The angry mood was galvanised by the violent break-up of a sit-inprotest on Independence Square early on Saturday morning, whenseveral hundred riot police dispersed the 1,000-strong crowd of mainly students. They were the final few who had not gone home after earlier protests, and the riot police moved in, causing a number of casualties. The city authorities rather implausibly claimed they needed the square empty in order to erect a giant Christmas tree.

Early on Sunday, in an attempt to dampen the unrest further, a Kiev court banned all rallies at Independence Square, but the move had the opposite effect, with people flocking to the square in their thousands. The incomplete Christmas tree was hung with Ukrainian flags, and the vast square gradually filled up with people until they spilled out on to neighbouring streets.

Protesters try to drive through police cordons in a digger. Photograph: Alexey Furman/EPA

The protesters waved yellow-and-blue Ukrainian and EU flags, and many adorned their cars with the same symbols, honking horns in support of the protest rally. Chants went up of: "Glory to the nation, death to its enemies," and: "Out with the criminal," referring to Yanukovych's Soviet past as a petty criminal, as well as allegations of corruption in his inner circle.

Pavlo Tumanov, 38, a doctor from Kiev, had stripes in the colours of the Ukrainian and EU flags tied to his hands.

"I came to support the students who were brutally beaten yesterday. I'm sure Yanukovych ordered that, and was advised by Putin," he said, adding that it would be hard to oust this regime peacefully.

Opposition leaders spoke to the crowd from a small, hastily constructed stage, on which was written: "Ukraine is Europe."

"This is not a meeting. This is not a rally. This is revolution," Yury Lutsenko, the opposition leader and former interior minister told the crowd. People responded shouting: "Revolution."

The Polish politician Jacek Protasiewicz, vice-president of the European parliament, told the crowd: "You are part of Europe." The crowd roared back, approvingly.

Protesters wave international flags in Kiev. Photograph: Kommersant Photo/Kommersant via Getty Images

"Yanukovych is a political corpse," said Oleg Stavytsky, a 49-year-old engineer from Kiev, brandishing the EU flag. "After he spat in the face of Ukraine and Europe he should realise that the only solution for him is to resign."

Tatiana Troshkova, a 55-year-old economist from a town on the outskirts of Kiev, was holding a placard that read "Ukraine, Rise!"

"The west of Ukraine is already at this square. We want people from the Donbas [Yanukovych's stronghold in the east] to join us," she said, adding that she would be coming back to the streets every day for as long as she had the strength.

The protests demonstrated once again how divided Ukraine is, with the country's southern and eastern regions largely supporting closer relations with Russia, while the west and most of the centre is focused on European integration.

The EU pact, due to have been signed at a summit in Vilnius last Friday, was designed to give Ukraine freer trade with Europe, but Yanukovych said it took no account of the ailing state of the country's economy, and Europe did not offer financial help of the order that would be required to perform the necessary modernisation. Russia had been staunchly against the deal, and it is believed that Moscow offered financial incentives for Ukraine not to sign, along with threats of punitive measures if it did.

Riot police in Kiev. Photograph: Vasily Maximov/AFP/Getty Images

Yanukovych's imprisoned rival Yulia Tymoshenko released a statement from her hospital cell railing against the president and calling on Ukrainians to take to the streets until his regime was toppled.

"I appeal to all Ukrainian people to resist and rise up against Yanukovych and his dictatorship," she wrote.

Tymoshenko led the Orange Revolution, which stopped Yanukovych coming to power, but after years of disappointment and infighting, Yanukovych won presidential elections in 2010. Shortly afterwards, Tymoshenko was jailed on charges widely believed to be politically motivated, and she is in a prison hospital in the eastern city of Kharkiv. She announced a hunger strike after Yanukovych said he would not sign the EU deal.

Other opposition leaders announced a national strike and called on people to block government buildings, demanding the resignation of the government and president. However, these calls appeared to backfire as the protest turned violent.

At one stage around 200 mask-wearing protesters took over a mechanical digger and attempted to drive it through cordons of riot police near the presidential administration building, as well as using gas, knives and smoke bombs against police lines.

Around 100 police officers had been injured in the clashes close to the presidential administration by Sunday afternoon, according to the interior ministry, and 12 soldiers were also injured.

With Tymoshenko in prison and marginalised, Vitaly Klitschko, the heavyweight boxing champion who is one of Ukraine's main opposition leaders, is now seen as the main threat to Yanukovych at the next presidential elections in 2015. On Sunday evening, he called on his supporters to remain calm, and denounced the attempts to seize buildings by force.

Protesters cling to a gate near the presidential administration building. Photograph: Gleb Garanich/Reuters

All the opposition leaders claimed they had nothing to do with the violence, and accused the authorities of using thugs for hire to create provocations.

Arseniy Yatseniuk, leader of the Baktyvshchina party, told journalists he believed the clashes were provoked as an excuse for Yanukovych to declare a state of emergency on Monday.

Inna Bohoslovska, a former ally of Yanukovych who left the president's party in protest against the bloody crackdown on protests in recent days, accused the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and his Ukrainian ally Viktor Medvedchuk, leader of the Ukrainsky Vybor group, of masterminding provocations in Kiev.

Yanukovych's next move will be key. Over the weekend he criticised the violence, and insisted the country was still on the path to European integration in the medium term. He was believed to be meeting his advisers at his country residence outside Kiev. Aides to Yanukovych said he still planned to travel to China on a long-planned trip on Wednesday, after which he is due in Moscow.

With Paul Walker gone, what will happen to Fast & Furious 7? -

Vin Diesel in a still from the movie

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The news of Fast & Furious star Paul Walker’s sudden death in a car crash early on Sunday left millions of fans and his friends stunned beyond belief.

While social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook were abuzz with mourning messages, questions over the next Fast & 

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• Film industry mourns the death of Paul Walker

Furious sequel were also doing the rounds.

Fast & Furious 7, which was scheduled for release in July next year, was the latest in the franchise the 40-year-old actor was working on.

He had recently posted a photo of the star cast of the film on his Twitter account with the tweet: "The boys are back. Will you be ready?"

Walker, appeared in all but one of the six movies in the popular franchise, and was a leading protagonist along with Vin Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez. 
While the sequel is still under production, the death of Walker means the billion-dollar enterprise has tough days ahead.

There have been instances of Hollywood actors dying while their movies were still under production in the past. Heath Ledger died in 2008 with many scenes of The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus still left to shoot. Oliver Reed passed away while shooting for Gladiator. But the studio inserted a digital recreation of Reed’s face for a few key shots, according to entertainment site BuzzFeed.

However, Fast & Furious director James Wan can’t really rely on such an option. For one, Walker’s presence was what drove the Fast & Furious brand to town, literally. He was the lead in the movie and to finish off filming it without him is next to impossible. Even if the filmmaker attempts to pull it off, there will just not be any closure for the fans.

Walker’s character can’t be just written off either. The first movie in the series was released in 2001 and the actor has since been an integral part of the franchise. Fast & Furious proved unusually enduring. Released in May, Fast & Furious 6 was the most lucrative of them all, grossing more than $788 million worldwide. The seventh installment began shooting in September, with a release planned for July. The film's production was on break with more shooting to be done.

The actor’s death hasn’t just left a void in the franchise, but in the lives of those who were closely associated with the project. "Brother I will miss you very much,” wrote Hollywood star Diesel on his Instagram account. “I am absolutely speechless. Heaven has gained a new Angel. Rest in Peace."

Another Fast and Furious co-star, Ludacris, wrote on Twitter: "Your humble spirit was felt from the start, wherever you blessed your presence you always left a mark, we were like brothers & our birthdays are only 1 day apart, now You will forever hold a place in all of our hearts @paulwalker legacy will live on forever."

Walker’s death has come as a huge shock for those who knew him or admired his talent. While it is still a period of mourning just hours after the actor’s death, there is nothing much the filmmakers can do at this stage — it’s not like they know what to do anyway. "I am so beyond heartbroken right now. I can't process anything," tweeted Wan after Walker’s fatal accident.

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Galáctico' Bale

11/30/2013

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In the absence of Cristiano Ronaldo, the star is Gareth Bale. Over Real Madrid's last seven games, the Welsh winger has made a magnificent contribution with eight goals and six assists, to which has to be added the goal he scored when he made his debut at Villarreal.

Since playing in the Sevilla match, Bale has done extremely well in the five league and two Champions League games he has played in.

Against Valladolid he got the first goal, and provided an assist to Benzema for the second. Bale slotted home his second after Marcelo's cross was diverted into his path before sweeping home his hat-trick from close range late on.

So, in total, eight goals (six in the league and two in the Champions League) plus the one against Villarreal. The six assists were all in the league.

Pest management: Speakers call for applying IPM techniques

Pest attacks lead to $200 million in annual losses to fruits and vegetables crops. PHOTO: FILE

FAISALABAD: 

Excessive use of pesticides is not only increasing the resistance among insects but is also affecting human health as infection caused by pesticide residues reach alarming levels.

This was stated by speakers at a conference on Integrated Pest Management (IPM) of Fruits and Vegetables, organised by the Department of Entomology, University of Agriculture Faisalabad (UAF). Dr Oscar E Liburd from the University of Florida, USA was the guest of honor.

Pakistan imports 12,000 tons of active ingredients of pesticides in a year, this was revealed by the speakers at the conference.

Liburd stressed the need of adopting and promoting IPM techniques. He said over-reliance on pesticides could have negative consequences including worker safety issues, contamination of ground water and negative effects on beneficial arthropods including honey bee and others.

“Keeping the growing world population in view, it is essential to ensure utmost food security and safety,” Liburd added.

UAF Vice Chancellor Professor Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan said Pakistan is cultivating fruits and vegetables on 4% of land. Meanwhile, fruits production stood at 0.70 million tons whereas vegetables’ share was 0.72 million tons.

“Pakistan’s share in global market of fruits and vegetables is fetching $625 million,” added Khan.

Department of Entomology Chairman Prof Dr Jalal Arif said that it was a matter of grave concern that Pakistan’s annual fruit and vegetable losses amounted to $200 million because of the attack of fruit flies.

“Almost 1/3rd of the total harvest is destroyed by the pest,” he added while saying that the use of pesticides must be replaced with IPM.

Assistant Professor Department of Entomology Prof Dr Dildar Gogi said about 11 species of fruit flies had been documented in Pakistan.

“Due to pesticides use in fruit fly management during 2010, as many as 27 export consignments were rejected by EU countries while 175 were rejected by USA,” added Gogi.

The conference stressed the need for immediate replacement of pesticides with IPM as the production of horticultural crops including fruits and vegetables is estimated at 15.12 million tons. Vegetables contributed 50% to national horticulture production from more than 600,000 hectares.

Tech solution: Combating corruption, one click at a time

ipaidabribe.pk gathers personal stories involving government corruption to name and shame culprits. ILLUSTRATION: SAMRA AAMIR

ISLAMABAD: 

What started as a simple idea over a casual cup of tea turned into a substantial effort towards curbing corruption in the country. The corruption that plagues Pakistan is a source of shame for the common man, and the websiteipaidabribe.pk gathers the personal experiences of individuals with various forms of corruption to present it to the government for action.

The concept of the website is by no means unique. Irked by the corruption in all tiers of society, TR Raghunandan, a former Indian Government official, decided to launch the website ipaidabribe.com for Indian citizens.

“This idea was simple, everyone at some point is put on the spot where they have to unintentionally pay a certain price for whatever reason, and then unwillingly we become a part of this peril,” Raghunandan told The Express Tribune. 

From a small office with just friends and family running the show, the Indian website gained popularity over a very short period of time. “I felt like an ‘agony aunt’ as I was always directing people on what to do when faced with a corruption-related situation,” he said.

With guidance and advice from the expert himself, the website managed to gather reports and presented them to the Government of India to take action. “We have changed some systems within our communities through this initiative and it has benefited society at large,” he added.

From something as small as a tutor taking a bribe to a local police officer gaining popularity for all the wrong reasons, ipaidabribe.com deals with corruption at all levels. According to the website, in India, a total of 22,961 reports have been compiled across 597 cities and corruption totaling INR 587.1 million (PKR 1.021 billon) has been reported. Corruption-related complaints develop a trend for the website managers, who can then file an official complaint and take action against those involved in the process.

While the website was enjoying its fame and glory with more than three million hits recorded, Pakistan was one of the first countries to contact its neighbor for a partnership in the initiative. Two years ago, ipaidabribe.pk launched in Pakistan.

Speaking to The Express Tribune, Hamza Fazeel who is managing the Pakistan chapter of the website, speaks about corruption trends in Pakistan. While the concept was alien to many in the rural areas, Fazeel said it is also new for government offices. Fazeel said letters of support for the initiative have been written to the highest officials of the government to endorse the cause. “We have written to all chief secretaries and even the Chief Justice of Pakistan” he said.  Of other challenges, Fazeel said since internet penetration in Pakistan is still limited, it has been taxing to look at corruption indicators at lower levels. However, expos at district levels will be conducted to raise awareness over the issue.

According to the 408,572 complaints recorded by the Pakistani website, Lahore leads with more than Rs6 million worth of corruption. It is followed by Karachi with Rs4 million, Islamabad with Rs2 million, and Swat with Rs200,000.

Moreover, department-wise segment analysis reveals that corruption of more than Rs4 million comes under the unclassified head ‘other’, followed by more than Rs 3million worth of corruption reported at the Federal Board of Revenue, almost Rs3 million in the Sports Board, over Rs2 million in the Excise and Taxation Department and Rs 57,000 in the Revenue Department.

Fazeel said at the moment, the website was managing complaint gathering in two ways — by utilising 25 freelance journalists across the country who were feeding the website with corruption related stories, and through direct complaints from citizens.

He said the website was also in the process of specifying its interface by adding more information about the accused. “At the moment, the data we are receiving is more quantitative. We are revamping the website and asking more specific questions to gather qualitative information,” he said. Moreover, Fazeel hopes their data can be used for academic purposes as well.  On average, a total of 200 to 300 people visit the website daily, said Fazeel. “If one ministry is trending more than others, then we know there is a problem there,” he added.

With 23 countries registered across Asia, Europe, Africa, North and South America and ten new startups, Fazeel said a conference is scheduled in Bangalore early next year where their Indian counterparts will meet with the operators of sister websites and look at the concept with an international perspective. Moreover, several governments had taken up the initiative at a government level and suggested that the government of Pakistan should do so too.