As their Premier League title rivals Liverpool sunned themselves in Marbella last week, Manchester City were getting muddy in Newport on Saturday to keep alive the prospect of a historic clean sweep of four trophies.
City's focus switches from south Wales to Schalke on Wednesday for the first leg of their Champions League last 16 tie before a Wembley final against Chelsea on Sunday for the right to lift the first silverware of the season in the League Cup.
A decade into the club's Abu Dhabi ownership, the importance for City to win the Champions League for the first time would have made it easy for the English champions to prioritise Europe this season.
However, after romping to the league with a record 100 points last year, it is another piece of history that Pep Guardiola's side now crave by outdoing even Manchester United's treble of league, Champions League and FA Cup in 1998/99.
Two weeks on from smashing Chelsea 6-0, City will be heavy favourites to retain the League Cup this ...

Guardiola relishes quadruple quest as City seek to conquer Europe

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The ghost of Rome still haunts Lionel Messi and Barcelona as they find themselves in Lyon for the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie on Tuesday.
The Spanish champions won the domestic double last season in Ernesto Valverde's first campaign as coach at the Camp Nou, but that achievement was marred by the nature of their exit from Europe.
After beating Roma 4-1 at home in the first leg of their quarter-final tie, they collapsed in the return in Italy, going out on away goals after a humiliating 3-0 defeat.
This season they have been driven by a desire to put that behind them and end Real Madrid's recent dominance in the competition that has yielded three successive titles.
Impressive in the group stage, now they arrive at Lyon's 59,000-seat Groupama Stadium seeking a first away win in the knockout phase in six attempts since a 2-0 victory at Arsenal in February 2016.
"That shows that it is a hard competition, but challenges are there to be overcome," said Valverde on Monday 

Barcelona wary of weakened Lyon as they look to exorcise ghost of Rome

Massimiliano Allegri told Juventus not to be afraid of Atletico Madrid but for one of these teams their worst fears in this season's Champions League are about to become a reality.
Crashing out in the last 16 would be unthinkable for two clubs that were among the favourites when the draw for the knock-out stages was made in December.
"Those that have ambition are not afraid," Allegri said, after his side were drawn to play Atletico, with the first leg on Wednesday at the Wanda Metropolitano.
"It's like a final, we cannot put a foot wrong," Atletico boss Diego Simeone said.  Juventus and Atletico Madrid have reached 12 European Cup finals between them, with last season's game in Kiev the first in five years in which neither had featured.
Atletico went on to win the Europa League instead, proving themselves too strong for Europe's second-tier competition, while Juventus were dumped out by eventual winners Real Madrid, undone by a controversial Cristiano Ronaldo penalty in the 98th ...

'It's like a final' - Atletico meet Juve in a clash of high stakes

New Zealand is in talks to minimise the security risks posed by using Huawei equipment in 5G infrastructure, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Tuesday - raising the prospect of compromise on an issue straining Wellington-Beijing relations.
New Zealand's intelligence agency last November barred the country's biggest telco Spark from using Huawei equipment in its planned 5G network, citing "significant security risks".
Beijing expressed "deep concern" over the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) action against the Chinese telecoms giant, saying firms should compete on a level playing field.
It was part of a wave of bans on Huawei in a growing number of countries over fears the company's equipment could act as an espionage backdoor for China, which Beijing labels "groundless".
Ardern said talks were under way between GCSB and Spark to see if the fears about Huawei's involvement could be addressed.
"There has been no final decision... it is now currently with Spark to ...

New Zealand holding talks on Huawei security fears: PM

US President Donald Trump urged Venezuela's military Monday to accept opposition leader Juan Guaido's amnesty offer, or stand to "lose everything," as a crisis deepened over President Nicolas Maduro's refusal to let in desperately needed humanitarian aid.
Bringing in humanitarian aid is crucial to the viability of Guaido, who has denounced Maduro's reelection last year as fraudulent and in January declared himself interim president, a move recognized by some 50 countries.
He has given the Maduro government until Saturday to let the shipments into the country, which is in the grip of a humanitarian crisis due to shortages of food and medicine exacerbated by hyperinflation.
Addressing supporters and Venezuelan expatriates in Miami on Sunday, Trump declared he had a message for officials helping keep Maduro in place.
"The eyes of the entire world are upon you today, every day and every day in the future," he said.
"You cannot hide from the choice that now confronts you. You can choose to 

Trump tells Venezuela military to back Guaido or 'lose everything'

A double bomb attack in Syria's jihadist-held city of Idlib on Monday killed 24 people, including four children, a war monitor said.
The first blast was caused by a bomb planted under a car in the main city of the Idlib region, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
A motorcycle bomb detonated after ambulances arrived at the scene of the first explosion, the Britain-based monitoring group said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which the Observatory said also wounded at least 51, updating an earlier casualty toll.  Idlib, the last major part of Syria still outside the control of President Bashar al-Assad's regime, is held by an alliance led by Syria's former Al-Qaeda affiliate, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.
HTS took administrative control of the whole of the region last month, after overpowering smaller Turkey-backed factions.
The Islamic State group also has sleeper cells in the area.  A local office of the "Salvation Government", an administrative body ...

Twin bombing kills 24 in Syria's Idlib: monitor

The sailor pictured kissing a woman in Times Square as people celebrated the end of World War II has died at age 95, his daughter told the Providence Journal.
George Mendonsa had a seizure Sunday after falling at an assisted living facility in Middleton, Rhode Island, his daughter Sharon Molleur said.
In the famous image, one of four taken by Alfred Eisenstadt for Life magazine, Mendonsa is seen ecstatically bending over and kissing a woman in a white nurse's uniform.
The picture was published by Life as "V-J Day in Times Square." Mendonsa, who served in the Pacific during World War II, was on home leave when the picture was taken.
He had long claimed to be the sailor in the picture, but it wasn't confirmed until recently with the use of facial recognition technology.
Greta Zimmer Friedman, the woman in the picture, died in 2016 at age 92.
Eisenstadt did not get the names of the kissing strangers.
He later described watching the sailor running along the street, and grabbing any girl ..

"Kissing sailor" in iconic NY picture dies age 95

Japanese car giant Honda is expected to announce that it will close its plant in south west England in 2022, putting 3,500 jobs at risk, according to media reports on Monday.
The carmaker is due to announce the closure of its Swindon plant on Tuesday, according to Sky News, but still retain its European headquarters in nearby Bracknell.
Other carmakers including Nissan and Ford have also warned that jobs could be lost at British plants as it prepares to leave the European Union, but local MP Justin Tomlinson said the Honda decision was not down to Brexit.
"I have already spoken to... Honda. They are clear this is based on global trends and not Brexit as all European market production will consolidate in Japan in 2021," he tweeted.
The company is not expected to announce any job losses until 2021, he added.
The carmaker said in a statement that "we are not able to make any comments regarding the speculation.
"We take our responsibilities to our people very seriously and will always ...

Honda to close UK plant in 2022, risking 3,500 jobs: reports

Scientists said Monday they had discovered immune cells that can fight all known flu viruses in what was hailed as an "extraordinary breakthrough" that could lead to a universal, one-shot vaccine against the killer disease.
Influenza epidemics, largely seasonal, kill hundreds of thousands of people each year, according to the World Health Organization.  Due to its mutating strains, vaccine formulas must be regularly updated and only offer limited protection currently.
Researchers in Australia said that "killer T cells" -- found in over half the world's population -- had shown in testing to be effective in fighting all common flu varieties.
This means the cells could potentially be used to develop an all-encompassing flu shot that did not need to be changed annually, and even be effective in people who don't naturally possess them.
"Influenza viruses continuously mutate to evade recognition by our immune system, and they are vastly diverse, making it nearly impossible to predict and ...

'Killer' cells raise hope of universal flu vaccine

US President Donald Trump said Monday a top Justice official's reported discussions about invoking the Constitution to remove him from office were part of an "illegal and treasonous" push against him.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein raised the possibility of removing the president in 2017 after Trump fired FBI director James Comey, according to Andrew McCabe, who replaced Comey as the bureau's acting director.
McCabe and Rosenstein "look like they were planning a very illegal act, and got caught.....," Trump said in a series of tweets.
"This was the illegal and treasonous 'insurance policy' in full action!" Trump has often attacked the federal investigations into his campaign's links to Russia as a "witch hunt" aimed at sabotaging his presidency.
The "insurance policy" he cited refers to an ambiguous text message a top FBI investigator sent to his lover in August 2016 that alludes to their concerns about then candidate Trump, which the president often points to as evidence of a 

Trump calls discussions about removing him "treasonous"

Israel is to launch its first moon mission this week, sending an unmanned spacecraft to collect data to be shared with NASA, organisers said Monday.
The 585-kilogram (1,290-pound) Beresheet (Genesis) spacecraft is to lift off atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida at around 0145 GMT on Friday.
Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and technology NGO SpaceIL announced the date at a press conference.
Mission control will be in Yehud, near Tel Aviv.
"We are entering history and are proud to belong to a group that has dreamed and fulfilled the vision shared by many countries in the world but that so far only three of them have accomplished," SpaceIL president Morris Kahn said.
So far only Russia, the United States and China have sent spacecraft to the moon.
The Chinese craft made the first ever soft landing on the far side of the moon on January 3.
NASA, which has installed equipment on Genesis to upload its signals from the moon, said last week it aims to land an unmanned ...

Israel's first lunar mission to launch this week

The EU promised a quick and effective response if the United States imposes import duties on European autos, a spokesman for the European Commission said on Monday.
Brussels issued the threat after the US Commerce Department filed a report that empowers President Donald Trump to apply car duties within the next 90 days.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has labelled as "frightening" the prospect that this report could label European car imports as a national security threat to the United States, enabling the tariffs.
The White House has already used the national security argument, saying that undermining the American manufacturing base impairs military readiness, among other claims, to impose steep tariffs on steel and aluminium imports.
"Were this report translated into action detrimental to European exports, the European Commission would react in a swift and adequate manner," EU spokesman Margaritis Schinas told a news briefing in Brussels.
The protectionist Trump has threatened 25 ...

EU vows 'swift' riposte to threatened US auto tariffs

The United Arab Emirates announced Monday it had signed deals worth more than USD 1.6 billion for the purchase of Patriot missile launchers from US arms giant Raytheon, state media said.
The deals, inked on the second day of an international military exhibition in Abu Dhabi, come a day after the UAE announced it would buy USD 353 million worth of Patriot missiles from Raytheon.
Some USD 3.2 billion in deals have been signed between the oil-rich state and western companies at the expo, set to run through Thursday, state-run WAM news agency said.
The UAE, long a key ally of the United States, maintains close ties with the adminstration of President Donald Trump.  The US is preparing to build a military hospital, funded by the UAE, in Abu Dhabi to treat Emirati soldiers and American troops based in the region, a US army official said Sunday.
The facility would be "very similar" to the one in Landstuhl, Germany, the biggest American hospital outside the US, said Lieutenant General Charles 

UAE signs major missile deals with US giant Raytheon

The US deputy attorney general discussed how many cabinet members would support removing US President Donald Trump from office in 2017, the FBI's former acting director said in an interview airing Sunday.
Andrew McCabe said invoking the 25th Amendment of the US Constitution was raised by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein after Trump fired FBI director James Comey on May 9, 2017.
"Rod raised the issue and discussed it with me in the context of thinking about how many other cabinet officials might support such an effort," McCabe told CBS's "60 Minutes" news show.
A clip of that part of the interview was run early Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation" show, the first time McCabe's actual comments on the explosive subject have been aired.
Rosenstein has dismissed reports that he discussed removing Trump from office -- and even pondered wearing a wire to secretly record his conversations with the president -- as a "joke," if indeed he made the comments.
In the interview, McCabe was asked .

Top US official discussed Trump removal in 2017: ex-FBI chief

Five Boko Haram fighters and four soldiers were killed in fighting in northeast Nigeria, the military said on Sunday, in the latest clashes between troops and jihadists.
Army spokesman Sagir Musa said five rebel fighters "met their Waterloo" as they attempted to overrun a military base in Buni Yadi, in Yobe state, at about 6:00 pm (1700 GMT) on Saturday.
"An officer and three soldiers have lost their lives during the encounter. While five soldiers were wounded are stable and reciving treatment in the Brigade Field Ambulance," he added.
Musa said the heavily armed militants were in four gun trucks and two armoured vehicles. Troops seized weapons and ammunition, he added.
The military base in Buni Yadi has been targeted before in the conflict.  In January, two military sources told AFP the Islamic State-allied faction of Boko Haram killed four soldiers and were repelled after air support was called in.
In recent months there have been a wave of attacks in the buni Yadi area, which is ...

Five Boko Haram, four soldiers killed in NE Nigeria: army

Eight people died in three shootings in Goma, eastern DR Congo, the town mayor said Sunday, while others complained authorities were slow to react to violence in North Kivu province.
"In Mugunga (district), there was shooting last night. Five people were killed and more injured. In Katoy, one was killed near a petrol station and further north towards Buhene two people were killed," Timothee Muissa Kiense told AFP, adding that investigations were under way.
Benin Butatunda, vice-chairman of a Mugunga youth association charged meanwhile that "assaillants fired on passers-by. Authorities did not intervene in time to save human lives.
"There is much tension here in Mugunga. The population is angry at the authorities' lethargy," Butatunda said.
The shootings came as Martin Fayulu, controversially beaten by fellow opposition candidate Felix Tshisekedi in the December 30 presidential election, was in the province for a meeting at Butembo, 266 km (165 miles) from Goma.

Shootings kill eight in eastern DR Congo

Armed men who abducted 14 Tunisians in Libya have demanded the release of a man jailed in Tunisia for drug trafficking, in a video released Sunday on social media.
The video, verified by a Tunisian source close to the case, shows the abductees identifying themselves and naming their hometowns while sitting on mattresses.
The last one then says that the people holding them want the release of Libyan Kamal al-Lafi al-Hijaoui, adding that he and the other abductees were "in good health".
The Tunisian source said that Hijaoui was sentenced earlier this month in Tunisia to 20 months in prison for drug trafficking.
The 14 Tunisians were abducted on Thursday in Zawiya, a town just west of the Libyan capital Tripoli, as they were heading to work by bus in an oil refinery.
The bus driver was also kidnapped but then released, a security source in the town said.
According to the Tunisian foreign minstry, the abductees were still in Zawiya and in "good health".
"Negotiations continue," said its ..

Abductors of 14 Tunisians want Libyan prisoner freed

Saudi Arabia's state arms producer and a French government-majority firm signed an agreement Sunday on a joint venture to boost the kingdom's navy, amid calls to halt weapons sales to Riyadh over it role in Yemen.
The memorandum of understanding between Saudi Arabian Military Industries (SAMI) and France's Naval Group is aimed at providing the oil-rich Gulf state's navy with "state-of-the-art systems", a statement said.
"Through design, construction, and maintenance activities, the joint venture will contribute significantly to further enhancing the capabilities and readiness of our Royal Saudi Naval Forces," SAMI boss Andreas Schwer said.
A spokeswoman for Naval Group -- which is owned by the French state and French multinational giant Thales -- refused to give any more details.
French lawmakers and rights groups have repeatedly called on France's government to suspend all arms deals to Riyadh because of the war in Yemen, where some 10,000 people have been killed since a Saudi-led ...

Saudi agrees joint venture with French firm to boost navy

Pope Francis gathers bishops from around the world at the Vatican this week for a hotly-awaited summit on tackling the wave of child sex abuse scandals assailing the Catholic Church.
The heads of around 100 bishops' conferences from every continent will convene from Thursday to Sunday for the meeting on the protection of minors, with victims' groups demanding that a concrete action plan on fighting paedophilia be drawn up.
The pope, who asked the bishops to speak to victims of abuse in their respective countries before the Rome convention, has tried to dial down "inflated expectations" for a cure-all.
Several victims were also invited to the Vatican.
"I ask you to pray for this meeting," the pope said Sunday, adding that he wanted the meeting "as an act of strong pastoral responsibility in the face of an urgent challenge of our time."
The conference aims to be an opportunity to improve awareness of the global phenomenon of sexual abuse of minors within the Church, despite many in ...

World bishops head to Vatican for sex abuse summit

A runaway teenager who has divided British opinion after joining the Islamic State group in Syria but now wants to return home, has given birth, her family said on Sunday.
Shamima Begum, whose fate has prompted British soul-searching since she and two friends stirred controversy by fleeing to the terror network in 2015, gave birth to a boy, according to family lawyer Mohammed Akunjee.
"We, the family of Shamima Begum, have been informed that Shamima has given birth to her child," a statement he released on Twitter said.
"We understand that both she and the baby are in good health.
"As yet we have not had direct contact with Shamima, we are hoping to establish communications with her soon so that we can verify the above."
Akunjee told AFP the family had learned about the birth from a translator in an eastern Syria refugee camp where Begum is currently staying.
Begum had previously given birth to two other children, but both died during her time in Syria, she told The Times earlier this 

UK teen who joined IS has given birth in Syria: Family

Diehard jihadists have blocked roads out of the last scrap of their Islamic State group "caliphate" in Syria, US-backed forces fighting them said Sunday, preventing hundreds of civilians from fleeing.
Ahead of a victory declaration expected within days and a subsequent US military pullout, US President Donald Trump called on his European allies to take back hundreds of alleged jihadists captured in Syria.
At a base for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces behind the frontline in eastern Syria, an AFP reporter heard airplanes darting in the sky.
The jihadists declared a "caliphate" across large parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq in 2014, implementing their brutal interpretation of Islam on millions.
But several offensives have expelled them from all of it, except a tiny patch of less than half a kilometre square on the banks of the Euphrates river near the Iraqi border.
Thousands of people have streamed out of the so-called "Baghouz pocket" in recent weeks, but hundreds of ...

AFP

AFP

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