Ivorian striker was named veteran Didier Drogba today's best scorer in the last decade, according to the classification of the International Union for History and Statistics Football (IFFHS). Classification will be held on the basis of calculation of goals scored in international matches with teams recorded first, and the final stages of the Olympic tournaments, World Cup for clubs, and continental championships for national teams, and the Super Cup continental federations and all official matches between clubs continental champions. Solving in the top ten scorers along with two to two African Drogba and Samuel Eto'o are Adil Lotfi's effort and da Silva. Resolution of a star of Barcelona and Real Madrid, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo on the arrangement, the two centers in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The following is a list of the top ten scorers for the period (2001-2011): 1 - Didier Drogba (Marseille - Chelsea). 2 - Germany's Miroslav Klose (Kazerslaoturn - Werder Bremen - Bayern Munich - Lazio). 3 - Ruud van Nistelrooy (Manchester United - Real Madrid - Hamburg - Malaga). 4 - Thierry Henry (Arsenal - Barcelona). 5 - Samuel Eto'o (Real Mallorca - Barcelona - Inter Milan). 6 - Spain's David Villa (Real Zaragoza - Valencia - Barcelona). 7 - Spain's Raul Gonzalez (Real Madrid - Schalke). 8 - Adil Lotfi's effort Amado da Silva (Petro Atletico - Ahly of Egypt - Saudi youth). 9 - Dimitar Berbatov (Bayer Leverkusen - Tottenham - Man Utd). 10 - Andriy Shevchenko (AC Milan - Chelsea - Dynamo Kiev). Joined the page! Yahoo Sports written on Facebook, follow us on Twitter too for the latest sports news Source: EF E
Vincent Perez in A Butterfly Kiss directed by Karine Silla (Image from kinopoisk.ru)
Instinct, passion and patience. These, for Vincent Perez, are the key ingredients of acting, which also serve the Fanfan the Tulip star in his other passion, photography. The sought-after actor is in Moscow to photograph Bolshoi Theater dancers.
“I love the dance. I’ve always been fascinated by dancing,“ Perez told RT.
It’s not the first time the star has tried his hand at photographing ballet: Perez already has pictures of Opera de Paris dancers in his portfolio. It was Nikolay Tsiskaridze, one of Russia's most celebrated artists, who invited the French actor-turned-photographer to Russia’s iconic Bolshoi for a photo shoot, comissioned by the RuArts gallery.
“I met Nikolay Tsiskaridze and he said we could do photos together. I thought, Wow, this is amazing! A star is ready to do photos with me. I was very touched,” 48-year-old Perez recalls. He says photography for him is a way to share his experiences with people. “I’ve been doing movies, travelling all over the world; I’ve met incredible people. It’s a way for me to keep that with me as a souvenir. I like to capture moments. I like the contact, I like people, I like to see emotions that we share,” Perez said in an exclusive interview with RT.
Perez has been making movies for over twenty years, with his most important role probably in Indochine, where he played alongside Catherine Deneuve.
Perez is half-Spanish, half-German. Is he acting from his heart or from his head?
“I think I’m a physical actor. It goes to the brain and then to the body. The more I age, the more I’m interested in the psychology of the characters…What I like about photography is that it ages well. When you take a photo, even if it’s a bad photo that you look at 20 years after, it becomes interesting. Because it’s a moment from the past. And that’s my favorite theme – the relationship with the past.”
Photography and cinema obviously go hand in hand for the versatile Frenchman.
“I grew up with the idea that I’d become an artist. I was drawing all the time. And then I thought that in order to become an artist you have to know things and know the world. So, I decided to take up photography. It was a way to discover people, to have new experiences. One day I discovered that it was possible to be an actor if you really wanted.”
Checkpoint in the village of Karabudakhkent (Image from www.1tv.ru)
At least five policemen have been killed and two others injured as a female suicide bomber struck a police checkpoint in Russian republic of Dagestan in the North Caucasus.
The incident occured late on Tuesday in the Dagestani village of Karabudakhkent. The bomber was trying to enter the checkpoint and at the moment she was stopped, activated the explosives on her body.
The force of the explosion was equivalent to two kilograms of TNT, local police report.
Investigators allege that the bomber could be the widow of one of the chief militants killed by police in an anti-terror operation recently. However, this is just one of possible versions police are currently working on.
Russia’s southern republic of Dagestan is notorious for its numerous militant attacks on police and the civilian population.
Senior officials in Pakistani military intelligence knew of Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts and arrangements for his safe house – that’s the implication of confidential Stratfor files disclosed by WikiLeaks. Pakistan has dismissed the allegations.
The leaked information from the rent-a-spy agency published on the WikiLeaks website on Monday shows that Osama bin Laden was in routine contact with several senior figures from Pakistan's military intelligence agency.
“Mid to senior level ISI [[Inter-Services Intelligence]] and Pak Mil [[Pakistani military]] with one retired Pak Mil General that had knowledge of the OBL [[Osama bin Laden]] arrangements and safe house,” wrote Fred Burton, Stratfor's vice president of intelligence, in an email.
As with similar claims made by the US after the al-Qaeda chief was killed by US special forces in Abbottabad, Pakistani officials denied the accusations. “They are nonsense and not credible,” a spokesman for Pakistan’s General Athar Abbas told Al Arabiya.
The letter to Kamran Bokhari, Stratfor’s regional director for the Middle East and South Asia, was written on May 13, soon after the killing of the al-Qaeda chief by US commandos in a secret operation on May 2 last year in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad.
The incident soured relations between the US and Pakistan, whose leaders alleged America had left them in the dark about plans for the raid.
However US officials maintain that it was impossible for the ISI not to have known that Bin Laden was sheltering in Abbottabad – a town not far from Islamabad. Pakistan has repeatedly dismissed the claims.
Fred Burton did not name the officials who knew of the late terrorist’s whereabouts, but added he “got a very clear sense we (US intelligence) know names and ranks.”
In the leaked email, Burton also writes he is not sure if this information was passed on to the government of Pakistan, but confirms that the US did not fully trust Islamabad. “If I was in command, I would not pass the info to the GOP (Government of Pakistan), because we can't trust them. I would piecemeal the names off and bury in a list of other non-related names for internal ISI traces in a non-alerting fashion, to see what the Pakis tell us."
“I may also trade one or two names for the captured tail rudder,” he then added.
Whistleblower website WikiLeaks plans to expose more than 5 million emails apparently obtained by the hacking of Stratfor.
Stratfor, the private intelligence company dubbed “the shadow CIA” provides analysis of world affairs to major corporations, military bodies and government agencies.
The leak is widely seen as being as high-profile as that of the State Department cables.
Anonymous turncoat Sabu faces 124 years in prison - FBI
Hector Xavier Monsegur, aka Sabu, has plead guilty to several counts of computer hacking conspiracy, access device fraud and other crimes.
Monsegur's charges and plea were unsealed by the FBI as they arrested 5 top members of hacktivist groups Anonymous and LulzSec. According to the Bureau's statement, the 28 year old New York-based hacker was busted in August 2011 and convinced to work with the Feds. It is unclear whether his case will go to trial or whether his lengthy cooperation with the agents will see his sentence reduced. At the moment, the FBI indictment says his crimes can get him 124 years and 6 months of prison time.
The father of two pled guilty to three counts of computer hacking conspiracy, five counts of computer hacking, one count of computer hacking in furtherance of fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit access device fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, and one count of aggravated identity theft.
Allegedly, the hacktivist's weak spot was his children. "He didn't go easy," a law enforcement official involved in flipping Sabu told FoxNews.com. "It was because of his kids. He didn't want to go away to prison and leave them. That's how we got him.
In the 6 months that Sabu cooperated with the FBI, the agents apparently got more than enough evidence to arrest and charge 5 top hacktivists. Sabu himself, although described as 'distant and different' by many of his fellow hackers, tried to keep up appearances to the very end with tweets like "The federal government is run by a bunch of fucking cowards. Don't give in to these people. Fight back. Stay strong."
Whether this was just Monsegur working on not being made for a snitch or a sincere regret for his betrayal and a veiled apology to his fellow hackers, only he knows. But the Anonymous community has certainly made up its mind, telling followers on Twitter that "We are done talking about Sabu. He is a person who is too scared for revolution. We will continue to fight and show that Sabu was no one." Even more telling is the hashtag most frequently seen in Anonymous-related posts: #fuckSabu.
Top members of the infamous computer hacking group LulzSec have been arrested and charged by the Federal Bureau of Investigations.
The FBI New York field office has confirmed the charges and said a court appearance is set for Tuesday. The trial will be prosecuted by the US District Attorney's Office.
Earlier news reports said that three of the five hackers were arrested and the other two were charged with conspiracy. The five are identified in the report as Ryan Ackroyd, aka "Kayla" and Jake Davis, aka "Topiary" from London, two residents of Ireland, Darren Martyn, aka "pwnsauce" and Donncha O'Cearrbhail, aka "palladium", and Jeremy Hammond aka "Anarchaos," from Chicago, USA. According to the FBI press release, all but Davis face charges of computer hacking conspiracy and varoious other charges. Each carries a maximum 10 year prison sentence.
One of the detained, Jeremy Hammond, is named in the report to have been the main person behind the hack on US security company Stratfor last year.
It is reported that the arrests were made possible after turning the group’s "senior leader", Hector Xavier Monsegur "Sabu", 28, who is believed to be a cooperative witness after the FBI turned him last June. Monsegur pled guilty to several charges of computer hacking conspiracy, for which he could receive a maximum of 124 years behind bars.
According to the court papers, Sabu was an "influential member of three hacking organizations – Anonymous, Internet Feds and Lulz Security – that were responsible for multiple cyber attacks on the computer systems of various businesses and governments in the United States and throughout the world." He allegedly acted as a "rooter," a computer hacker who identified vulnerabilities in the computer systems of potential victims.
Following the reports, Anonymous posted on its Twitter feed: "We are Legion. We do not have a leader nor will we ever. LulzSec was a group, but Anonymous is a movement. Groups come and go, ideas remain"
It is unclear what to expect from Anonymous in reaction to the arrests. The hacking group is known for revenge cyber attacks. After 25 Anonymous members were arrested on February 29, the group downed Interpol’s main website. The same thing happened when the CIA website became a victim of Anonymous. The group also downed several large music industry websites in responce to the shutting down of Megaupload and the arrest of its founder Kim Dotcom.
News reports have quoted several FBI officials involved with the investigation as saying "this is devastating to the organization", and claiming these arrests are "chopping off the head of LulzSec."
Anonymous were quick to reply, using their twitter AnonyNewsNet handle to say "by no means is this 'cutting the head off' of #Anonymous or 'devastating to the organization'. Do we really have to explain why?". The same account was also used to post comments about how the betrayal was not news to most of Anonymous members, as "Sabu was pegged for f*cking months as a turncoat".
The evident change is mentioned a lot and by many – including Gizmodo editor Sam Biddle, who said in his article that he personally "talked to Sabu multiple times, and on each occasion he's seemed more and more distant, to the point where it was hard to get in touch with him at all. Now, says the FBI, it's because he was busy ratting out his cadre."
The irony is painfully evident – the man who every week helped the internet community celebrate #FuckFBIFriday allegedly did so sitting at an FBI desk. But Anonymous members everywhere seem to have been united by this betrayal, rather than disheartened, as the Feds may have hoped.
A general view of Bushehr nuclear power plant, 1,200 km (746 miles) south of Tehran (Reuters / Raheb Homavandi)
Iran says it will allow the UN nuclear watchdog to inspect the facility where the West suspects work is under way to develop nuclear warheads. Meanwhile, the world’s major powers have agreed to a new round of six-party talks with Iran.
"Given that Parchin is a military site, access to this facility is a time-consuming process and it can't be visited repeatedly," said Iran's diplomatic mission in Vienna, as cited by the Iranian semi-official ISNA news agency. However, the spokesperson then added that following IAEA demands, Tehran “will allow the IAEA to visit it one more time."
The statement comes as fears grow that Israel may soon strike Iran in an attempt to destroy its nuclear facilities.
However, before such a visit can take place, the report says Tehran and the IAEA need to agree on "modalities”.
A date for the visit was not given. There have also been no comments so far from Iranian diplomats or IAEA officials.
Following the report, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said that six world powers – the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany – have agreed to a new round of talks with Iran.
She said that the EU hopes that there will be constructive dialogue which “will deliver real progress in resolving the international community's long-standing concerns on Iran’s nuclear program.”
Ashton’s statement comes in response to the letter that Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, sent to her in February, offering to resume negotiations on the country’s nuclear issues.
Talking at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Pentagon’s Chief, US defense secretary Leon Panetta vowed that if diplomacy fails to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, the US “will act”. "Military action is the last alternative when all else fails," he said.
Speaking on Monday in Vienna, IAEA chief Yukiya Amano said that "going there sooner is better than later” as there are "serious concerns" about activities “ongoing at the Parchin site."
Iran denies its atomic activity is aimed at developing nuclear weapons, stressing it has only peaceful intentions. Tehran asserts it is ready to continue discussions and has "new initiatives" to bring to the table.
The Iranian diplomatic mission’s statement echoes the statement Ali Asghar Soltani, Iran’s envoy to the IAEA, made earlier while talking exclusively to RT.
In the interview he gave at the end of February, Soltani said that “Iran is not ruling out access to any military sites, including Parchin." On that occasion he also mentioned that there were conditions that Iran wanted the IAEA to follow.
Visiting a military site in Parchin was a key request made by senior IAEA teams which visited Tehran in January and February, only to be denied access both times.
Political analyst Shabbir Razvi believes Iran is being remarkably open in permitting the inspectors to visit the Parchin military base. “Iran is not obliged under the Non-Proliferation Treaty to allow IAEA inspectors to come to its military areas.”
He told RT that Israel has to understand that if it goes down the route of military action against Iran it would “ask for its own demise.”
Watch RT's interview with Shabbir Razvi
This idea is echoed by political analyst Kamel Al Wazne who warns that a war with Iran could have a devastating economic impact and would cost the global economy over a trillion dollars in the first day alone.
He believes that it is in Iran’s interests to cooperate with the international community as they have said that they have nothing to hide. “It’s a good start for the Europeans and the Iranians to start that dialogue because we need peace, diplomacy and not more war.”
However Iran is determined to carry on with its nuclear program, he added.
Investigative journalist Gareth Porter told RT that all political forces within Iran agree that Iran should not give up its right to enrich uranium. “There is full agreement here not only between the two major political forces, Ahmadinejad and the Supreme Leader, but also the Green movement, the opposition movement.”
Porter says the IAEA has no definite evidence that the alleged bomb container chamber exists at the Parchin military base or that it was ever used to test nuclear weapons.
Even if they find nothing at the military site they will move on to the next piece of alleged evidence of a covert nuclear weapons program and “the show will continue” asthe IAEA is aligned with the United States in assuming that Iran has to prove its innocence over its alleged nuclear weapons program.
Undercover NATO troops are already in Syria despite denials from their parent governments, according to a leaked brief from a highly-placed analyst.
The information comes from a hacked email from leading private US intelligence agency Stratfor, whose correspondence has been released by Wikileaks since February 27. The email appears to be written from the address of Reva Bhalla (bhalla@stratfor.com), the company’s director of analysis, for internal use, and details a confidential Pentagon meeting in December. The consultation is alleged to have been attended by senior analysts from the US Air Force, and representatives from its chief allies, France and the United Kingdom.
Western powers have categorically denied military involvement in Syria’s internal conflict, for which they have no international mandate. But if the information contained in the letter is reliable, a radically different picture of Western activity in Syria emerges.
The author of the letter claims that US officials “said without saying that SOF [special operation forces] teams (presumably from the US, UK, France, Jordan and Turkey) are already on the ground, focused on recce [reconnaissance] missions and training opposition forces.” A little later the US army experts expand on the role of the undercover commandos: “the idea 'hypothetically' is to commit guerrilla attacks, assassination campaigns, try to break the back of the Alawite forces, elicit collapse from within.”
Alawites are a minority Islamic sect, to which Syrian President Bashar Assad and his support base belong. For the past year he has battled an insurrection that has united a range of opponents, from pro-democracy activists to radical Sunni Muslims.
Despite the commandos’ already wide remit, the email states that the US experts “stress that this is all being done as contingency planning, not as a move toward escalation.”
If confirmed, the information will give ammunition to Russia and China, who have accused Western powers of paving the way for an invasion of Syria. These fears have already been cited as the reasons the two countries vetoed the US-backed UN resolution on Syria in February.
US and allies wary about air strikes
The majority of the December meeting was dedicated to discussing the possibility of a US aerial attack on Syria, and offers an unvarnished glimpse into US foreign policy thinking.
The letter reports military experts as saying that the US has a “high tolerance for killings” and will not execute air strikes on Assad’s regime “unless there was enough media attention on a massacre, like the Gaddafi move against Benghazi.”
The strikes themselves would be “doable” but “the air campaign in Syria makes Libya look like a piece of cake.” All the same, a US Air Force intelligence officer is described as “obsessed with the challenge of taking out Syria's ballistic missile capabilities and chem [chemical] weapons.”
On Monday, Republican Senator John McCain called for an air strike on Syria, But the following day, President Obama spoke out against "unilateral action", noting that the situation in Syria was not as clear cut as in Libya.
If the US does end up staging another military intervention, it is not clear how much support it would receive. The French representative said to the author that “Syria won't be a Libya-type [sic] situation in that France would be gung-ho about going in. Not in an election year.” Meanwhile, Britain would be “reluctant” on the one hand, but on the other is“looking for ways to reassert itself on the continent [Europe]” following the renegotiation of the EU treaty.
This is the latest in a line of revelations from the 5 million emails obtained by Internet hacker group Anonymous in December and passed to Wikileaks, which is currently publishing them on a drip-drip basis. While Stratfor refuses to comment on the emails, it has not been able to refute their authenticity.
Cyrenaica, the eastern region of Libya, has elected a regional congress and declared semi-autonomy from the capital Tripoli. The “blatant call for fragmentation” of the country was condemned by Libya's ruling NTC.
Thousands of major tribal leaders and militia commanders attended a celebratory ceremony in the region’s center Benghazi on Tuesday.
The congress stated that Cyrenaica had suffered decades of marginalization under the ouster ruler Muammar Gaddafi. Now the oil-rich region extending from the coastal city of Sirte to Egyptian border is taking its fortunes into its own hands.
The congress appointed Ahmed al-Zubair Ahmed, who was a political prisoner under Gaddafi and currently is a member of NTC, as leader of its governing council. Despite being a part of the Libya’s official ruling body, Al-Zubair pledged to protect the rights of the eastern region.
Libya’s National Transitional Council, which started uprising against Gaddafi in Benghazi and moved to Tripoli after his overthrow, repeatedly voiced objection to the planned autonomy. They said Libya’s transformation into a federal state paves the way to eventual split-up of the North African country.
“This is a blatant call for fragmentation,” said Fathi Baja, the head of political committee of the NTC. “We reject it in its entirety. We are against divisions and against any move that hurts the unity of the Libyan people.”
The head of the NTC, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, said the call for autonomy is a foreign plot. "I regret to say that these (foreign) countries have financed and supported this plot that has arisen in the east," he told reporters. "I call on my brothers, the Libyan people, to be aware and alert to the conspiracies that are being plotted against them and to be aware that some people are dragging the country back down into a deep pit."
The East, however, is pushing for a return to a system of rule that existed before the coup of 1967 which brought Gaddafi to power. At the time Libya was divided into three states – western Tripolitania, south-western Fezzan and the eastern Cyrenaica (or Barqa in Arabic).
A co-founder of the move for autonomy, Abu Bakr Baaira, pointed out that a federal system did not lead to a division of such countries as the US and Germany.
“Are the US, Switzerland and Germany divided?” Baaira said. “We hope they don't force us to a new war and new bloodshed. This is the last thing we look for.”
Barqa will follow a peaceful way of making Tripoli and the NTC recognize its autonomy. Baaira does not rule out a possibility of going to the UN for such recognition.
The Easterners have already formed their own army, the Barqa Supreme Military Council, which is independent from the NTC. The army is made up from revolutionaries who fought against Gaddafi rule last year. And now the forces are ready to fight for autonomy, Barqa commander Col. Hamid Al-Hassi says.
“Even if we had to take over the oil fields by deploying our forces there or risk another war, we will not hesitate for the sake of Barqa,” Hassi told the Associated Press.
It is unclear how many Easterners really support the idea of autonomy. Although some 5,000 people have reportedly taken part in the “Congress of the People of Cyrenaica” ceremony, several thousand were protesting against it in Benghazi on Monday.
Libya seems to be falling apart as the NTC is trying to work out a new electoral law ahead of the parliamentary elections in June. The latest draft of the law allocates only 60 seats in the country’s 200-member National Council to the East, while the West will have 102 representatives. The “Congress of the People of Cyrenaica” has rejected this latest draft, apparently due to its discriminatory nature.
Libya’s east-west divide: Breakup inevitable?
A painful breakup between eastern and western Libya is a real threat to the future of the country, believes Eric Denece, the director and founder of the French Centre for Intelligence Studies.
“From the very beginning Abdul al-Jalil, the head of the National Transitional Council, and his crew have done everything to create such a breakup between western and eastern Libya,” he said.
But this kind of outcome was written a long time ago even before the revolution began, Denece believes.
For a long time Cyrenaica ruled the country under King Idris, before Gaddafi came to power and the people of eastern Libya wanted to take revenge and lead the country, Denece says. But after ousting Gaddafi they understood they are unable to hold power over the entire country and decided to “keep their riches” to themselves.
“They don’t want to share the oil with the people of Fezzan and Tripolitania,” Denece says.
Denece believes that the whole world is closely watching the situation in Libya, especially Egypt and the Gulf countries, which have always had their own interests in oil-rich Cyrenaica.
“Egypt always had an ambition for this part of Libya and it’s only because of Italian colonization that Cyrenaica belongs to Libya and not to Egypt,” he explained. “And on the other side I believe that countries like Qatar and Saudi Arabia will be very pleased if they can create a new oil monarchy in Cyrenaica.”
Abayomi Azikiwe, the editor of Pan-African News Wire, believes that there will never be unity in war-torn Libya. He told RT there was no political program that would reunite all the various opposition groups led by anti-Gaddafi forces and backed by the US and NATO.
“The only program they really had was removing Gaddafi from power. So there is nothing really to forge any type of national unity inside of Libya right now.”
The journalist blames Western interference for the unstable situation Libya now finds itself in and believes that the war has done more to destabilize Libya and all of North Africa. “The West intervened in sectional conflict that was taking place inside the country. They had, in fact, armed the opposition groups for decades just waiting for the opportunity to come in and engineer this type of regime change.”
A brawl between a FEMEN activist - not topless this time incidentally - and a Ukranian MP occurred during a live TV show in Ukraine. The host asked the girl to comment on the protest group’s naked action during the presidential election in Russia.
The girl instead called on her countrymen to renew protest actions against Ukrainian authorities, a suggestion which made the parliamentary deputy from the ruling party call her a “prostitute”.
However the blonde was no shrinking violet. Rather she is an experienced protester. She assaulted the statesman, who argued she is a “mentally-ill drunk slut” who should get of the studio as she “dishonors Ukraine”. As the host tried to calm the polemic down, the girl managed however to spit at the deputy’s face and was finally shown out the studio by security.
The latest scandalous action by FEMEN was performed in Moscow during Sunday’s presidential election. Three young women entered the polling station where Vladimir Putin had cast his ballot 20 minutes earlier. They bared their chests, which were emblazoned with anti-Putin messages, chanted obscene slogans and almost brought the voting to a halt. The activists were detained by police and remain in custody in Russia.
Ukrainian protest group FEMEN is known for its politically-loaded displays, mostly because the women prefer to strip to the waist to gain attention. They act topless while fighting for the rights of oppressed women in particular, as well as against Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko, Russia-Ukraine gas deals, members of the Davos Economic Forum and for the rights of humanity as a whole.
