Pim Verbeek, the man who guided Australia to the 2010 World Cup, has died from cancer at the age of 63, the Dutch media reported on Thursday.
Verbeek, who spent his entire professional playing career at Sparta Rotterdam before retiring when he was 25, also managed the South Korean and Oman national teams and was assistant coach of the Koreans at the 2002, when they reached the semi-finals, and 2006 World Cups.
Verbeek took over as coach of Australia in 2007, just weeks before the World Cup qualifying began after Dick Advocaat, who had already signed a deal to lead the Socceroos, chose instead to head for Zenit St Petersburg.
Guus Hiddink, who was South Korea coach in 2002, recommended Verbeek who duly took Australia to South Africa in 2010.
They lost their opening game 4-0 to Germany but went on to draw 1-1 with Ghana and beat Serbia 2-1, missing out on the knockout phase on goal difference.
He spent three years as the coach of the Morocco Under-23 team before taking over Oman in ...

Former Socceroos coach Pim Verbeek dies aged 63

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UK Athletics has commissioned an independent review into its dealings with disgraced coach Alberto Salazar and his Nike Oregon Project.
The American, who worked with British distance runner Mo Farah from 2011 to 2017, was banned for four years by the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) in October for doping violations but has announced he will challenge the sanction at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Nike said last month it was closing down the Oregon Project, which produced a host of world and Olympic gold medals.
Farah, who won gold in the 5,000 and 10,000 metres at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, has never failed a drugs test and has always strenuously denied breaking any anti-doping regulations.
The independent review, led by sports law barrister John Mehrzad, is expected to publish its findings next year on a range of specific questions relating to UK Athletics' (UKA's) response to allegations against Salazar in 2015 and 2017.
UKA chairman Chris Clark said: "Our staff, athletes and ...

UK Athletics launches review into dealings with Salazar

Germany is planning to tighten legislation on  anti-Semitic crimes, a minister said on Thursday following a deadly attack aimed at a synagogue in Halle in former east Germany last month.
Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht told parliament that anti-Semitism would be made an aggravating factor for hate crimes in the criminal code.
The current law mentions discrimination against particular groups as an aggravating factor but does not refer to anti-Semitism specifically.
"I am ashamed that Jews in Germany no longer feel safe and that so many are even thinking of leaving the country," Lambrecht told parliament.
"We have to send a clear signal against anti-Semitism." Josef Schuster, head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said the change was "an important step towards a consistent punishment of anti-Semitic crimes".
The change is part of a package of government measures announced since the Halle attack, including obliging social media networks to report online death threats and ...

Germany to tighten law on anti-Semitic crimes

Interim team director Enoch Nkwe will be in charge of the South African team for the Test series against England starting next month, a Cricket South Africa spokesman said on Thursday.
"There is no way we will go into an important series against England without having our ducks in a row," said Thamie Mthembu, CSA head of media and communications, in response to criticism about the failure to make key appointments that has led to uncertainty around preparations for the series.
Mthembu said former first-class cricketer Nkwe, 36, would remain in his interim director role, together with the support staff who oversaw a humiliating 3-0 Test series defeat in India last month.
Nkwe's appointment, on the back of a successful debut season as a franchise coach, was a surprise in view of his lack of international experience, either as a player or a coach.
The key posts of director of cricket, team director and convener of selectors have not been filled, almost four months after the creation of ...

Interim team director Nkwe to coach S.Africa in England Tests

Swedish footballer Zlatan Ibrahimovic Thursday filed a "hate crime"  complaint Thursday after being the target of vandalism and racists threats, police said, a day after the star announced his part ownership in football club Hammarby.
A statue of the player in Malmo was attacked with fire and paint while the word "Judas" was daubed across the front door of his residence in Stockholm.
The perpetrators of the threatening acts have not been identified but "Ibra" angered fans of Malmo FF (MFF) -- the club where he started his professional career in 1999 -- on Wednesday when he announced he had bought a share in rival club Hammarby.
In Malmo, several people, most of them wearing hoods, vandalised a statue of Ibrahimovic that was unveiled just two months ago. Near the monument they wrote the words "Cigani do" ("Gypsy" in Bosnian, and "die" in Swedish) in spray paint.
Born in Malmo, Ibrahimovic is the son of a Bosnian father and Croatian mother.
Videos posted on social media showed masked ...

Ibrahimovic files 'hate crime' complaint after house and statue vandalised

Iraq's southern hotspot of Nasiriyah was in bloody upheaval Thursday after a government crackdown killed 25 protesters and thousands defied a curfew to march in their funerals, following the dramatic torching of an Iranian consulate.
Iraq's capital and south have been torn by the worst street unrest since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, as a protest movement has vented their fury at their government and its backers in neighbouring Iran.
Late Wednesday, protesters outraged at Tehran's political influence in Iraq burned down the Iranian consulate in the shrine city of Najaf, yelling "Victory to Iraq!" and "Iran out!" In response, Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi early Thursday ordered military chiefs to deploy in several restive provinces to "impose security and restore order", the army said.
But by the afternoon, after the protesters' deaths, the premier had already removed one of the commanders, General Jamil Shummary.
Shummary had been dispatched to the premier's 

Iraqi crackdown kills 25 protesters after Iran mission torched

Two children in Argentina died Thursday and scores more were injured when a double-decker bus taking them on a field trip flipped over.
There were 43 children aged 11 to 13 on the bus and 10 adults, including two drivers, officials said.
"There are two children dead who are 11 and 12 years old, and many seriously wounded who were taken to local hospitals," a police officer in
Buenos Aires told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The accident happened as the bus negotiated a curve near the town of Lezama, 160 kilometers south of Buenos Aires, around 6 am (0900 GMT).
The group was on a school trip to the coastal town of Mar del Tuyu.
Six ambulances rushed the injured to hospitals, as firefighters were called in to rescue victims trapped in the wreckage.
Police sources said there were 50 people injured, including four kids in serious condition.
Police are investigating the cause of the accident, which took place in good weather.

Two kids die, scores injured in Argentine bus accident

Four Ebola workers in eastern DR Congo were killed and five injured, adding to the toll of people who have died fighting the nearly 16-month-old epidemic, the UN said Thursday.
A member of the vaccination team and two drivers were killed at an Ebola workers' accommodation camp in Biakato Mines in Ituri province, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.
The attack occurred two kilometres (one mile) from a temporary base used by UN peacekeepers, one of whom was injured in an operation to repel the assailants, the UN said.
A second attack claimed the life of a police guard at an Ebola coordination office in Mangina, a few dozen kilometres (miles) away in North Kivu province.
"We are heartbroken that people have died in the line of duty as they worked to save others," said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
"The world has lost brave professionals," he said, quoted in a WHO statement issued in Geneva.
There was no immediate claim for the attacks, which DR Congo's national coordinator ..

Four Ebola responders killed in troubled eastern DR Congo

Thousands of Iraqis marched in a funeral procession Thursday in the restive southern city of Nasiriyah, AFP's correspondent said, defying a curfew imposed earlier to mourn victims of the crackdown.
At least 22 people have been killed and more than 180 wounded in the city, where security forces have cleared a demonstration with live fire, medics said.

Thousands in funeral procession defy curfew in south Iraq: AFP

President Emmanuel Macron stood by his claim Thursday that NATO is suffering "brain death" with no strategic cooperation among members, after talks with alliance chief Jens Stoltenberg ahead of a high-stakes meeting outside London next week.
"I totally stand by raising these ambiguities because I believe it was irresponsible of us to keep talking about financial and technical matters given the stakes we currently face," Macron said at a joint press conference after the talks.
"A wake-up call was necessary," he said.
Macron's comment, published in an interview with the Economist magazine this month, drew sharp criticism from allies, not least Stoltenberg, who warned against undermining the transatlantic alliance.
Stoltenberg said Thursday that "in uncertain times, we need strong multilateral institutions like NATO," and that he had "good and open discussions" with Macron.
He praised in particular France's role in fighting the spread of Islamic terrorism in the Sahel region of Western ..

Macron defends 'wake-up call' for NATO after talks with chief

Iraq's Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi on Thursday sacked the military commander he had dispatched earlier in the day to "restore order" to a protest-hit southern city after a crackdown there killed 22 protesters.
Abdel Mahdi, who is also the commander-in-chief of Iraq's armed forces, had ordered military chiefs to deploy across the south on Thursday morning, sending Jamil Shummary to the city of Nasiriyah.
But state television announced the premier had "withdrawn" Shummary from the post by the afternoon.

Iraq PM sacks new commander after 22 killed in crackdown: state TV

French President Emmanuel Macron defended on Thursday his claim that NATO was experiencing "brain death", saying its members were no longer cooperating strategically on a range of key issues facing the alliance.
"I totally stand by raising these ambiguities because I believe it was irresponsible of us to keep talking about financial and technical matters given the stakes we currently face," Macron said alongside NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg after talks in Paris.
"A wake-up call was necessary," he said.

Macron 'totally stands by' claim NATO is experiencing 'brain death'

Iran said on Thursday that Europeans parties to the 2015 nuclear deal cannot trigger a dispute mechanism in the agreement that could lead to sanctions.
The deal "does not allow the European parties to invoke the mechanism as Iran is exercising its legal right in response to the United States' illegal and unilateral actions," foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said, quoted by semi-official news agency ISNA.
His remarks came a day after French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian raised the possibility of triggering the mechanism that could lead to the reimposition of UN sanctions.

Iran says Europeans cannot invoke nuclear deal's dispute mechanism

President Emmanuel Macron called Thursday for France's allies to get more involved in the French-led fight against jihadist groups in the Sahel region of West Africa.
At a press conference in Paris with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, Macron said "greater involvement" by NATO allies would be "wholly beneficial" and said the subject should be on the table at the NATO summit near London next week.
"I want a discussion between allies on a concrete commitment to the fight against terrorism in the Sahel and the Middle East," he said.
Macron also said France would begin a review of its Barkhane intervention in the Sahel following the death of 13 soldiers in Mali this week, with "all options on the table".
"Yesterday I held a first meeting, and I have asked the government and our armies to undertake a deep review in the coming weeks to examine the modalities of our intervention," he said.
"In this context, and in light of the decisions that France will take, a bigger engagement by its allies is 

Macron urges 'greater involvement' by NATO allies in Sahel anti-jihadist fight

Iran has arrested eight people it accused of CIA links and sending abroad information on recent urban unrest, days after the United States said it had received thousands of messages on a protest crackdown in the Islamic republic.
New York-based Human Rights Watch has accused Tehran of "deliberately covering up" more than 140 deaths that it said came when security forces suppressed demonstrations against a sharp fuel price hike.
Iran said that among the more than 500 people arrested were eight who were "linked to the CIA", state news agency IRNA said late Wednesday, citing the head of the intelligence ministry's counter-espionage department.
"Some elements who tried to collect information about the recent riots and send them out of the country... were identified and arrested," the director-general was quoted as saying.
Six of them were alleged to have been at "the riots and carrying out orders," IRNA reported, without naming the official.
Two others were arrested before they could ...

Iran arrests eight 'linked to CIA' in street unrest

The toll in a bloody crackdown on Iraq's restive southern city of Nasiriyah on Thursday rose to 22 protesters dead and more than 180 wounded, medics told AFP.
The violence erupted after the premier dispatched military commanders to "restore order" in the protest-hit south, hours after demonstrators torched Tehran's consulate in the shrine city of Karbala.

Toll rises to 22 dead in day's crackdown in Iraq's Nasiriyah: Medics

Russia on Thursday hit back at a proposed four-year ban on the country's athletes, denouncing accusations of a doping cover-up as a politically motivated attempt to block its athletes from competing.
A committee of the World Anti-Doping Agency on Monday made a bombshell recommendation for Russia to be barred from all sporting competition for four years.
It accused Moscow of falsifying laboratory data handed over to investigators as part of a probe into the doping allegations that have plagued Russia for years.
If WADA chiefs adopt the committee's recommendations at a meeting in Paris on December 9, Russia faces exclusion from key sporting events including the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Speaking to reporters in Moscow on Thursday, foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused other nations of pursuing doping claims so they don't have to face off against Russian athletes.
"This is about the politicisation of this issue in order to squeeze Russia out. There is a term for such a thing: ..

Russia hits back at 'political' doping ban threat

Chelsea and France midfielder N'Golo Kante has filed a criminal complaint accusing one of his former agents of fraud and attempted fraud, Paris prosecutors said on Thursday.
The complaint, originally reported by L'Equipe sports newspaper, also alleges breach of trust and the illegal practising of the profession of agent.
The allegations concern an agent who had responsibility for Kante's image rights whom the player accuses of demanding an additional payment in return for cancelling their contract in 2017.
Kante, 28, also accuses the agent of trying to interfere in his career by attempting to persuade him to join Real Madrid when it was not his role to do so.
In an interview with L'Equipe on Thursday, Kante said: "I believe my confidence has been abused.
"We had reached an agreement to cancel the contract but this person went back on it.
"At the same time, they tried to spread defamatory things about my entourage and within my entourage to put pressure on me. I therefore took steps to 

Chelsea's N'Golo Kante accuses former agent of fraud

A Dutch man accused of sequestering his family in a farmhouse for nearly a decade is suspected of sexually abusing two of his children, prosecutors said Thursday.
The two children were not among the six living on the farm in the village of Ruinerwold at the time and had previously left home, the Dutch prosecution service said.
Prosecutors also confirmed that the suspect was the father of all six of the children who were being kept on the farm at the time of his arrest in October.
"In addition to money laundering and deprivation of liberty and mistreatment of his nine children, the 67-year-old man is also suspected of sexually abusing two of his three oldest children," the prosecution service said in a statement.
"DNA kinship research has shown that the six children from the farm in Ruinerwold have the same father and mother and that the 67-year-old suspect is the father," it said, adding that the mother died in 2004.
The Dutch suspect and an Austrian man were both arrested in October .

Dutchman in cult case 'sexually abused children': Prosecutors

The death toll from the most powerful earthquake to strike Albania in decades rose to 40 on Thursday after more bodies were pulled from the wreckage overnight in a tragedy that has wiped out whole families.
The 6.4 magnitude earthquake rocked the Balkan state while people were sleeping just before 4:00 am (0300 GMT) on Tuesday, razing buildings and trapping victims beneath the debris in towns near the Adriatic coast.
Rescue teams were still shovelling away massive chunks of collapsed apartments and hotels in the coastal city of Durres, where nearly 30 buildings were badly damaged.
Teams from around Europe have flown in to help with the effort, bringing dogs and specialised cameras to hunt for survivors, around 50 of whom have been pulled out alive, mostly on Tuesday.
As the operation stretched into day three, rescuers insisted there was still reason to hope for more survival stories.
"There may be hope for up to eight or ten days" for victims to live after an earthquake, Captain Joel .

40 dead as families pulled from Albania earthquake rubble

Iraqi security forces cracked down on anti-government protesters in the strife-torn south Thursday, leaving 15 people dead in a bloody escalation hours after the torching of an Iranian consulate.
Iraq's capital and its south have been torn by the worst street unrest since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, as a youth-dominated protest movement has vented their fury at their government and its backers in neighbouring Iran.
Late Wednesday protesters burned down the Iranian consulate in the city of Najaf, yelling "Victory to Iraq!" and "Iran out!", in an attack condemned by Tehran which voiced its "disgust".
Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi immediately ordered military chiefs to deploy in several restive provinces to "impose security and restore order", the army said.
On Thursday, reinforcements were sent to his birthplace of Nasiriyah, a southern city that has been a protest hotspot for weeks.
Security forces violently cleared sit-ins from two bridges, shooting dead at 

AFP

AFP

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