Wales are hoping to snatch the final automatic qualifying berth for Euro 2020 as they take on Hungary on Tuesday, after the Republic of Ireland were left to settle for a crack at reaching the finals via the play-offs.
Ryan Giggs's Wales side, who have already qualified for the play-offs should things not go their way, face Hungary in Cardiff knowing a victory will guarantee them a place at next year's 24-team tournament and a chance to repeat their fairytale run to the semi-finals in France in 2016.
Despite the presence of Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey in their ranks, Wales have not often convinced in this qualifying campaign but a 2-0 victory away in Azerbaijan on Saturday set up this winner-takes-all showdown.
"We have got that momentum. I think we'll have to be better than we were the other night if we are going to win," warned Giggs.
"But I believe in the players. I believe in the group that we've got and the qualities they possess."
Wales are currently third in Group E, a point ...

Wales target Euro 2020 spot as Ireland forced to settle for play-offs

PTI Automatic

Manchester City's on-field success saw the club's revenues swell to 535 million pound ($692 million) last season as the Premier League champions posted a profit for the fifth straight year.
A 20 percent surge in broadcast revenue saw City's income rise from 500.5 million pound in the 2017/18 season.
Pep Guardiola's men completed an unprecedented quadruple of England's domestic trophies by winning the Premier League, FA Cup, League Cup and Community Shield.
The sale of a host of players unable to break into the first team helped boost profits to 10.1 million pound.
Prior to Sheikh Mansour's takeover of City in 2008, the club's revenue was a mere 87 million pound.
Huge losses of over 584 million pound followed during the first six years of their ownership due to massive investment in the playing squad and facilities, including the 200 million pound Etihad Campus training ground.
However, a boom in commercial and broadcast revenue brought about by continued qualification for the ...

Man City's revenue rises to 535 million pound

Yemen's Iran-aligned rebels seized a Saudi-flagged tug and two South Korean vessels at the weekend, the insurgents and Seoul officials said on Tuesday.
The incident follows a lull in Huthi attacks on Saudi Arabia as one Riyadh official said the kingdom had established an "open channel" with the rebels in a bid to end the four-year conflict.
The Huthis acknowledged they had seized three ships, including a Saudi one, in the Red Sea a few miles off Uqban island, west of the rebel-held capital Sanaa.
Seoul's foreign ministry said a South Korean dredger was being towed by one Korean and one Saudi-flagged tug when they were seized by the Huthis.  It added that a total of 16 crew, two of them South Korean, had been taken to the Red Sea port of Saleef, where they were being held by the rebels.
"All of our citizens... are healthy and safe," ministry officials said in a statement.
"We are doing our very best for the early release of our citizens." Seoul has sent the South Korean navy ship ...

Yemen rebels seize two S. Korean, one Saudi vessel

Rory McIlroy, a three-time winner of the Race to Dubai, says he is fine with the fact that he cannot become the European Tour's number one for a fourth time this week at the DP World Tour Championship.
The Northern Irishman, who created a stir with his decision not to take up European Tour membership late in the season, has made enough points to climb to sixth in the Race to Dubai standings going into the final week.
However, even if McIlroy wins the season-ending championship and secures the winner's cheque of $3 million on Sunday, he won't garner enough points to surpass current leader Bernd Wiesberger.
Only the next four players -- England's Tommy Fleetwood, Spaniard Jon Rahm, British Open champion Shane Lowry and Matthew Fitzpatrick -- have a mathematical chance of usurping Wiesberger.
Asked if he felt any frustration at not having a chance to add to his crowns in 2012, 2014 and 2015, the 30-year-old McIlroy said: "No. I've already won it three times.
"It's a wonderful feeling to .

McIlroy unperturbed by being out of Race to Dubai contention

Luis Enrique will return as coach of Spain and replace Robert Moreno ahead of Euro 2020, the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) confirmed on Tuesday.
Moreno took charge in June after Luis Enrique had resigned to take care of his daughter Xana, who died in August of bone cancer.
"Today we can confirm Luis Enrique returns to his position of work," RFEF president Luis Rubiales said in a press conference at the national team's training base in Las Rozas.
Rubiales said Luis Enrique has a contract until the 2022 World Cup in Qatar and that it will be up to him whether Moreno is offered a chance to resume his previous role as assistant coach.
The pair were close friends and also worked together at Barcelona, Celta Vigo and Roma but Moreno appears upset at the manner of his departure.
"Luis Enrique stepped down because of the worst possible thing that can happen to a father," Rubiales said.
"He has always been the leader of our project and he has a contract until (the) World Cup in ...

Luis Enrique returns as Spain coach after daughter's death

Burundian soldiers were attacked in a night jungle ambush near the border with Rwanda, Burundi's defence ministry said, with military sources on Tuesday reporting at least eight soldiers' deaths.
Dozens more soldiers were missing in the ambush on their base, one of largest and deadliest attacks for several years, senior army officers said Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"A group armed with rifles from Rwanda attacked a position of Burundian soldiers on Mount Twinyoni," defence ministry spokesman Major Emmanuel Gahongano said on state television on Monday.
"This armed group has withdrawn to Rwanda." He did not give details of casualties or the identity of the attackers.
Burundi has been in crisis since President Pierre Nkurunziza defied constitutional limits to seek a third term in office, winning re-election in 2015.
Burundi has repeatedly accused neighbouring Rwanda of supporting rebel groups in its territory, a claim Kigali denies.
Rwanda on Tuesday denied any role in ..

Gunmen ambush Burundian soldiers: defence ministry

Arms covered in cling film and torches in hand as they drop into the sewers, clusters of pro-democracy protesters still inside a Hong Kong campus are plotting increasingly ingenious -- and desperate -- ways to escape a police siege.
Among the detritus of a scorched and graffiti-sprayed concourse at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, several plastic covers -- some with torches placed above them -- betray extraordinary underground escape plans.
Protesters have removed metal manholes, some making exploratory forays into the fetid tunnels, following rumours of successful exfiltrations from a campus ringed for three days by baton-wielding police determined to arrest them.
Pockets of protesters, some with thick bandages wrapped around their knees in anticipation of a long crawl to freedom, knot the holes discussing an unlikely -- and highly dangerous -- breakout.
AFP reporters saw one group on their stomachs practising crawling. Another group hugged each other in consolation after apparently 

Desperate Hong Kong protesters explore sewers in campus escape bid

Greece's prime minister has accused the European Union of treating countries on the bloc's external frontiers as convenient places to park migrants, in a newspaper interview published on Tuesday.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis told German newspaper Handelsblatt that the EU "ignores the problem" of rising numbers of arrivals in Greece.
Roughly 1,350 people arrived on Greece's Aegean islands between Friday and Monday, according to the Greek coastguard, adding to more than 32,000 people already living in miserable conditions in Lesbos, Samos, Leros, Chios and Kos -- camps with a combined capacity of just 6,200.
"It cannot go on like this," said Mitsotakis, who won power in July.
"Europe regards arrival countries such as Greece as a convenient parking spot for refugees and migrants. Is that European solidarity? No! I will no longer accept this." Mitsotakis also singled out Turkey for criticism, saying President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was "trying to use migration as a lever to pressure Europe and ...

EU treats us like parking spot for migrants: Greek PM

The Iranian government said Tuesday it will unblock the internet only when authorities are sure it will not be abused during violent demonstrations against a petrol price hike.
The Islamic republic has been largely offline since the internet restrictions were imposed the day after the nationwide demonstrations broke out on Friday.
"Many professions and banks... have faced problems, and we have been trying to solve this," government spokesman Ali Rabiei said, quoted by semi-official news agency ISNA.
"The internet will come back gradually in some provinces where there are assurances the internet will not be abused," he said.
"We understand that people have faced difficulties... but the bigger concern under the current circumstances is maintaining the country's peace and stability." Demonstrations broke out in Iran on Friday after it was announced the price of petrol would be raised by as much as 200 percent in the sanctions-hit country.
At least five deaths have been confirmed in the ..

Iran to unblock internet once 'abuse' stops: government

Rights activists warned Tuesday of greater curbs on media and online freedom in Russia ahead of a vote on a controversial bill that could lead bloggers and independent journalists to be labelled "foreign agents".
Lawmakers want to broaden existing legislation that forces foreign-funded media and NGOs to describe themselves as "foreign agents" to include individuals.
Foreign agents are required to register with the justice ministry, label the material they publish and submit much more detailed paperwork or face fines.
Critics said this would affect bloggers and even ordinary people posting on social media, although some ruling party lawmakers denied this.
Amnesty International in a joint statement with other rights groups, including Journalists Without Borders, decried it as "a further step to restrict free and independent media" and "a strong tool to silence opposition voices".
The lower house of parliament, the State Duma, was scheduled to discuss the amendments in the crucial second 

Fears as Russian MPs consider foreign agent tag for bloggers, journalists

At least 5,000 people have fled their homes with Typhoon Kalmaegi poised to blast into the northern Philippines late Tuesday, with a second tropical storm forecast to hit just days later.
Kalmaegi is expected to batter the nation's lightly populated far north with 120 kilometre (75 mile) per hour winds, the national weather service said.
Heavy rains are forecast to swell rivers, cut off roads and threaten low-lying communities in Cagayan province, where officials guided residents towards shelter.
"We're expecting falling trees and houses that could be inundated by floods," provincial police chief Ariel Quilang told AFP.
Forecasters believe a second tropical storm could make landfall in the same province by Thursday.
The disaster-prone nation is hit by an average of 20 storms and typhoons each year, killing hundreds and condemning many areas in their path to perpetual poverty.
The weather bureau raised landslide warnings across the mountainous interior of the country's north, also ...

Thousands in Philippines flee Typhoon Kalmaegi

The Bangladesh Cricket Board on Tuesday banned former national team fast bowler Shahadat Hossain for five years, two of them suspended,  after he assaulted a teammate in a match.
The temperamental Shahadat was reported by umpires after he was seen to slap and kick a teammate during a National Cricket League match on Sunday.
The national federation suspended two years of the ban but Shahadat, who admitted a charge of "physical assault", was also fined 300,000 taka ($3,540), the board said.
Shahadat, 33, attacked young bowler Arafat Sunny Jr during a game between Dhaka and Khulna after an argument over how to shine the ball, a board official said.
"Considering his past behaviour we decided to punish him for five years. The last two years of his ban will remain suspended," said BCB technical committee chief Minhajul Abedin.
Shahadat could have been banned for life.
Shahadat, who played 38 Tests and 51 one-day internationals for Bangladesh, spent nearly two months in detention in 2015 ...

Bangladesh bans Shahadat for five years for assault

Pep Guardiola's agent has ruled out a  return to Bayern Munich at least until the Spaniard's contract expires at Manchester City in 2021, according to reports.
The German champions are currently looking for a new head coach following the sacking of Niko Kovac after a 5-1 thrashing at Eintracht Frankfurt at the start of the month.
Caretaker boss Hansi Flick will remain in charge at least until Christmas when the Bundesliga goes into recess but the Germans are already on the lookout for a possible high profile replacement.
"Pep is content and very happy in Manchester. His contract is until June 2021," Guardiola's agent Josep Maria Orobitg told German daily Bild on Wednesday, having also been quoted by websites SPOX and Goal.
"Guardiola always fulfils his contracts.
"I haven't spoken with anyone in Germany about him - neither with intermediaries nor club bosses.
"Pep has good memories of Munich and still has friends there, but at the moment he has shown no interest in returning to ...

Guardiola's agent rules out a return to Bayern Munich

Jihadists have killed four Nigerian soldiers and a member of a local self-defence group in an ambush in restive northeast Nigeria, security sources said on Tuesday.
A column of Nigerian troops was attacked on Monday by fighters aligned to the Islamic State group outside the town of Marte in the Lake Chad region, the sources told AFP on condition of anonymity.
"We lost four soldiers and a vigilante," said one.
The casualties were taken to a nearby base, a second source said.
Marte, which lies 130 kilometres (80 miles) from the regional capital Maiduguri, has been repeatedly targeted by the jihadists who attack military bases in the area.
The Nigerian army said its forces had thwarted an ambush by jihadists close to Marte after an "initial setback", but did not give any death toll.
"The ambush was reinforced with a crudely prepared Improvised Explosive Device planted by them against the troops", army spokesman Colonel Aminu Iliyasu said in the statement.
The military said troops forced .

Jihadists kill four Nigerian troops: sources

European car sales hit their highest October level in a decade, an industry body said Tuesday, as the sector recovers from a stall last year over tighter pollution regulations.
The 8.7 per cent rise in registration to 1.18 million vehicles "marked the highest October total on record since 2009," said the European Automobile Manufacturers Association.
Year-on-year comparisons are inflated as a number of carmakers had difficulty meeting the stricter pollution WLTP measuring methodology that went into force on September 1, 2018, sending sales more than seven percent lower in October last year.
Over the first 10 months of this year, sales are 0.7 percent lower compared to the same period last year.
A global growth slowdown triggered by trade wars and Brexit uncertainty has hit the car industry particularly hard, with German carmaker Volkswagen saying last month that worldwide demand has fallen around five per cent.

European car sales accelerate to decade-high speed in October

Three security personnel have been killed by "rioters" in Iran, the latest deaths in protests that showed no sign of subsiding on Tuesday despite a wave of arrests and an internet shutdown.
The deaths take to at least five the number of people confirmed to have been killed in the nationwide demonstrations that erupted on Friday against a shock decision to impose petrol price hikes.
The situation on the streets remains unclear largely due to the government-imposed internet outage which has entered a third day.
On Tuesday morning, AFP journalists saw two petrol stations in central Tehran gutted by fire and damage to other infrastructure including a police station and pedestrian overpass.
But they were prevented from filming as hundreds of riot police stood guard at entrances to major squares in the Iranian capital with armoured vehicles and water cannon.
When the demonstrations broke out on Friday, drivers stopped their vehicles on major thoroughfares in Tehran to block traffic.
They ...

Three killed as Iran unrest shows no signs of subsiding

The Taliban released two Western hostages in southern Afghanistan Tuesday, handing them over to US forces more than three years after they were abducted in Kabul, insurgent sources and police told AFP.
The release of American Kevin King and Australian Timothy Weeks, both professors at the American University in Kabul, comes one week after President Ashraf Ghani announced that Afghanistan would free three high-ranking Taliban prisoners in an apparent swap that he hoped would help jumpstart peace talks.
"This morning at around 10:00 am two American University professors were released in Nawbahar district of Zabul province. They were flown out of Zabul by American helicopters," a local police source said.
Three Taliban sources in the province also said the hostages had been released.
"We released the professors and are now expecting the Kabul government and Americans to release our three prisoners as soon as possible," one of them told AFP.
There was no immediate comment from the US ...

Taliban release two Western hostages in Afghanistan

The Taliban released two Western hostages, held captive since 2016, in southern Afghanistan Tuesday, insurgent sources and a police official told AFP.
"This morning at around 10:00 am two American University professors were released in Nawbahar district of Zabul province. They were flown out of Zabul by American helicopters," a local police source said.
Three Taliban sources in the province also said that Kevin King of the United States and Australian Timothy Weeks had been released.
There was no immediate comment from the US embassy in Afghanistan.

Taliban release two Western hostages in Afghanistan: police, insurgent sources

Four Malaysian men have been caned for having gay sex in violation of Islamic laws, with activists Tuesday condemning "vicious punishments" they said highlighted a crackdown on the LGBT community.
Rights group say there is a worsening climate for gays in the Muslim-majority country, where authorities have maintained a colonial-era ban on sodomy and mete out harsh physical punishments for same-sex relations.
The men, aged 26 to 37, received six strokes of the cane each in a prison outside Kuala Lumpur on Monday for attempting "intercourse against the order of nature", an offence under sharia law, Amnesty International said.
They admitted committing the offence in an apartment last year, with an Islamic court also fining the men and sentencing them to jail terms of up to seven months each.
Religious authorities found out about the private event by monitoring messages between the men, and then sent a raiding party of 50 officers to detain them, according to Amnesty.
A fifth man convicted 

Malaysian men caned for gay sex under Islamic law

Clutching her entrance badge to see the Pope, Vietnamese Catholic refugee Ko Sa says attending the pontiff's mass this week is a great honour -- a rare bright spot in her "miserable" life in limbo as an asylum seeker in Bangkok.
Ko Sa is one of just a handful of Vietnamese Catholic refugees registered to attend the mass by Pope Francis, who arrives in Thailand on Wednesday carrying a message of peace and religious tolerance.
The four-day jaunt is the Pope's first trip to Thailand, where about 1,400 Vietnamese Christians and ethnic minorities have settled, many fearing religious persecution in communist Vietnam.
Like Ko Sa, they are unable to legally settle in Thailand since the government has not signed on to UN conventions protecting refugees.
Many live in fear of arrest and long detention in immigration centres while they scrape by on under-the-table jobs for a few dollars a day.
Some wait years for resettlement in a third country.
The chance to glimpse the Pope at the Thursday mass 

Persecuted Catholics 'honoured' to glimpse Pope Francis in Thailand

A gang of cattle thieves killed 14 people overnight Sunday in a remote village in northwest Nigeria, police said, the latest assault in a long-running series of tit-for-tat attacks.
Police said the bandits were taking revenge for an earlier killing of nine suspected gang members by local vigilantes in a nearby village in Zamfara state on November 3.
In the absence of a robust police force and effective judicial system in Nigeria, villagers created vigilante groups to fight off the gangs, but the villagers have since been accused of extra-judicial killings.
Zamfara officials struck a deal in July with the bandits to end their attacks and vigilantes to stop extra-judicial killings, but sporadic outbreaks of violence have continued.
Zamfara police spokesman Mohammed Shehu said assailants riding motorcycles stormed into a remote village overnight Sunday to Monday, shooting residents and burning homes.
As well as the 14 people who were killed, 10 others were injured, Shehu said.
For ...

AFP

AFP

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