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Chelsea Target Andre Villas-Boas Set to Become New Noss

Chelsea target Andre Villas-Boas is on the verge of becoming the club’s new manager, BBC Sport understands.

The 33-year-old resigned as Porto boss on Tuesday having guided the club to a domestic treble last season.

He has been linked with Chelsea in recent days following the sacking of Carlo Ancelotti in May.

Porto insisted on Monday that Villas-Boas could leave if a rival club paid £13.2m to activate a release clause in his contract.

“FC Porto was today notified of the intention of Andre Villas-Boas to resign from his contract with the club by triggering the release clause immediately,” read a Porto statement.

“The contract will be terminated once the required amount is paid.”

The Lusa news agency had reported earlier on Tuesday that Villas-Boas would pay the £13.2m himself.

Ancelotti was dismissed by Chelsea following a season without any silverware, with the London club finishing runners-up to Manchester United in the Premier League.

Several candidates have been touted as possible replacements for the Italian, among them Turkey boss Guus Hiddink, Villas-Boas and former Fulham, Manchester City and Blackburn boss Mark Hughes.

ANDRE VILLAS-BOAS FACT FILE

  • Has an English grandmother and boasts a count and a baron among his relatives
  • Invited to work as a trainee with Porto’s youth-team coaches in 1994 by Sir Bobby Robson
  • Would become youngest current manager in Premier League at 33 if he ends up taking over at Chelsea

Former Chelsea boss John Hollins believes Villas-Boas could prove to be a shrewd acquisition for the west London club, who are yet to realise owner Roman Abramovich’s dream of winning the Champions League, and were beaten in the semi-finals by Manchester United last season.

“He could be fearless,” Hollins told BBC Sport. “It will be fresh for the players, they need a boost. I think it could be a breath of fresh air, bringing in a fresh approach to this maybe tired football team.

“This guy is as young as some of the players are so he will be on the same wavelength with them, but is it going to be a three or four year programme as opposed to having to win something in his first year? That is the one thing we don’t know yet, but he has won three competitions in Portugal just like that so he could be a whizzkid.

“It’s a gamble but I think it’s calculated gamble. I still don’t know if Mr Hiddink will be coming as an advisor to the young man, if he does that will only strengthen the position.”

Under Villas-Boas, Porto won both the Portuguese league and league cup last season, as well as the Europa League.

They were unbeaten in the league, with 27 wins in 30 matches, becoming only the second Portuguese club to complete a league campaign without losing a game, after Benfica in 1972-73.

A scout for compatriot Jose Mourinho at Porto, Chelsea and Inter Milan, Villas-Boas began his managerial career with Portuguese club Academica in October 2009.

Academica were winless and bottom of the first division at the time but finished the season in 11th place.

They also reached a Portuguese League Cup semi-final before Villas-Boas left to take over at Porto in June 2010.

Villas-Boas, who speaks fluent English, also worked with Sir Bobby Robson during the former England manager’s spell in charge of Porto.

BBC Sports

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Is There Hope for The African Child?

The theme for this year African Child’s Day, was ‘All Together For Actions in Favor of Street Children’. This was targeted at some estimated 30million African street children and was celebrated all over the African continent. June 6 of every year is set aside by the African Union (AU) to commemorate the wanton massacre of some children in the street of Soweto, during the black days of Apartheid in South Africa on June 6, 1976. They were gruesomely murdered because they came out to demonstrate against the authority in order for them to be taught in their local language in their school. Thirty-four years on, the remembrance still continue, which goes to show the crucial nature of the day for Africa as a continent.

Across the length and breadth of the continent, Continue reading “Is There Hope for The African Child?”

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Porto coach Andre Villas-Boas to Become New Chelsea Coach

Porto coach Andre Villas-Boas is to join Chelsea following the sacking of Carlo Ancelotti in May.

The 33-year-old Portuguese, who has worked with ex-Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho, guided Porto to the Europa League title last season.

The Portuguese club also clinched a domestic double, winning the league and the league cup.

Guus Hiddink has also been linked with a return to Chelsea, where he won the FA Cup as a caretaker manager in 2009.

Neither Chelsea nor Porto have made an official statement about the future of Villas-Boas.

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Angelina Jolie and UN Refugee Chief Meet with Boat People on Lampedusa

On the eve of this year’s World Refugee Day, Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie joined the United Nations refugee chief on a visit on Sunday to Lampedusa, where they met some of the tens of thousands of people who have crossed the Mediterranean and descended on the small Italian island after fleeing unrest in North Africa.

More than 40,000 people, including refugees and asylum-seekers, have arrived by boat to Lampedusa since the beginning of this year, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

They include economic migrants from Tunisia, as well as those seeking international protection, including refugees from sub-Saharan Africa and Libya, where fighting continues between Government forces and rebel groups seeking the ouster of Colonel Muammar al-Qadhafi.

While in Lampedusa, Ms. Jolie, who serves as a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN refugee agency, and High Commissioner António Guterres had a chance to visit detention facilities to see the crowded conditions faced by new arrivals.

The actress arrived in Lampedusa from Malta, which has also been a destination for people fleeing North Africa by boat. She visited Lyster Barracks, a former Royal Air Force facility and now a detention centre for asylum-seekers, many of whom who have fled the violence in Libya. They include Somalis, Ethiopians and others from sub-Saharan Africa.

“Malta has saved many lives, but it is the daily conditions on the ground that are of most concern,” she stated while in Malta.

“We’ve spoken about our shared concerns about making sure asylum claims are processed as quickly as possible so no one is sitting in a prison-like situation and waiting on a decision about their status, “she added. “They are not asking to go to any particular country, they just want to find safety to work, and to have freedom.”

She also visited an open centre near Malta’s main airport where vulnerable asylum-seekers are living in tents inside an old aircraft hangar while their asylum claims are assessed. The people she met there said living conditions were difficult and they were concerned about the pools of fuel on the ground and rats chewing their tents.

On Friday, Ms. Jolie traveled to a refugee camp in Turkey where she visited with Syrians who had fled the violence in their country. There are now over 9,600 Syrian refugees living in four camps managed by Turkey and the Turkish Red Crescent along the border area.

Syrian authorities have been widely criticised for their bloody repression of the protests that began earlier this year, part of a broader uprising in recent months across North Africa and the Middle East that has already toppled the long-standing regimes in Tunisia and Egypt.

UNHCR is set to mark World Refugee Day on 20 June with events in locations worldwide and the launch of a new global awareness campaign entitled “One” that will be rolled out over the course of the week.

Over the next six months it will increase awareness about the forcibly displaced and stateless by telling their powerful personal stories. The campaign will carry the message that “One Refugee Without Hope is too Many.”

The Italian capital of Rome will be the focus of this year’s events on Monday, with Mr. Guterres due to present UNHCR’s annual statistics report on the number of people of concern to the agency. He will also preside over a special commemorative event that will be attended by President Giorgio Napolitano and six refugees, including a Polish survivor of the Holocaust in World War II.

Rome’s ancient Colosseum will again be bathed in UN blue, one of many monuments around the world to be lit up to mark the occasion, including the iconic Empire State Building in New York.

UN News Center

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Risk-taking: A Step Towards Making Giant Strides in Life

Guest Contribution, by Isaac Oluyi

“Somewhere in your make-up there lies sleeping the seed of achievement
which, if aroused and put into action, would carry you to heights
such as you may never have hoped to attain” – Napoleon Hill

The height you cannot attain in life is that which you have never aspired to attain. There is nothing a person sets his mind to achieve that is not attainable if only he can go about it with the will to succeed, notwithstanding the attendant challenges. The height attained in life is directly proportional to the risk you can take. He who does not take risk may find it intractable to achieve any meaningful feat in life. This, I think, is what Napoleon Hill was referring to when he made the statement above.

What propelled me to write this piece was Continue reading “Risk-taking: A Step Towards Making Giant Strides in Life”

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Liberia’s Joe Nagbe Eyeing African History

By Piers Edwards

If you don’t have a club, have played just half an hour of league football in four years and are aged 43, the chances of playing international football hover just above the zero mark.

Unless you happen to be Liberian defender Joe Nagbe that is.

For a man who retired from the Lone Star nine years ago made the most unexpected of comebacks in 2012 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying on 5 June.

The fact that Liberia kept a clean sheet in a 1-0 win over Group A leaders Cape Verde was the cherry on the icing on the cake.

The win revitalised the West Africans’ qualifying chances, with the Liberians now trailing the Cape Verdeans by three points with two games to play.

Even though they are bottom of the group, Nagbe believes the Lone Star can qualify for next year’s Nations Cup in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.

And should both Liberia and Nagbe make it, he would become the oldest player to ever contest the finals – beating the previous record held by Tunisia’s Ali Boumnijel.

The goalkeeper was aged 39 years and 10 months when he played in the 2006 tournament in Egypt.

“If that happened, it would be a great history for me,” Nagbe, who has played club football in the top leagues of France and Greece, told BBC Sport.

“It’s something I am going to work on – as I would be so happy if I could qualify my country for the Nations Cup at my age.”

“And I would be so happy to be the oldest player to ever play there.”

Incredibly, a man who made his international debut over a quarter of a century ago – in 1985 – is still playing at the highest level on the African continent today.

This is despite the fact that Nagbe originally retired from international football in July 2001, the month when the Liberians reached their highest-ever Fifa ranking (66th).

It was also the month when the Lone Star’s hopes of qualifying for a maiden World Cup finals were unforgettably dashed.

Kelvin Sebwe, Joe Nagbe, (James) Debbah and (Oliver) Makor can make the team stable for now

George Weah Former Liberia footballer

Liberian eyeing African history

Featuring the greatest side in Liberia’s history, George Weah, Kelvin Sebwe, Oliver Makor and Zizi Roberts joined Nagbe in coming within a point of qualifying for the 2002 finals in Asia.

Top of the group with just two games to play, a 2-1 defeat at home to Ghana handed the initiative to eventual finalists Nigeria.

Even though Liberia were set to play only their second Nations Cup in history the following January, the World Cup disappointment heavily affected Nagbe.

“That was the time I decided to retire,” Nagbe explained. “From that time, things have been going so badly with the national team.”

After the 2002 Nations Cup, where the Lone Star failed to win a match, Liberia’s fortunes plummeted as a generation of players, including Weah, retired.

Today, a country that hasn’t qualified for a Nations Cup since the 2002 finals is ranked amongst the lowest in Africa, which is why Nagbe, who supposedly quit football when leaving an Indonesian side in 2007, has managed to return to the team.

The last time he played club football was for a Liberian side when they were short of players two years ago, meaning the then coach was forced to step in.

He followed a similar path for his international return, impressing upon Liberia coach Roberto Landi that he still has something to offer a side that lacked defensive organisation in Nagbe’s opinion.

“He told me to prove myself in training and after I did, he told me to work on my fitness,” says a man who was Liberia’s trainer before being appointed assistant coach.

“After the Cape Verde, Roberto was very happy and told me he wished I was much younger!”

Nagbe celebrated the win with another member of the coaching staff, Kelvin Sebwe, and the former midfielder, now 39, is the latest ‘golden oldie’ who could return.

“Kelvin, Joe, (James) Debbah and (Oliver) Makor can make the team stable for now,” says Liberian great George Weah, the only African to ever win Fifa’s World Player of the Year award.

“What will be lost if they don’t qualify us (for the Nations Cup)? Nothing – so it’s time to take a risk.”

The return of forward Debbah, also 43, and midfielder Makor, 37, could be a realistic prospect, Nagbe believes.

There is also the distant chance that Joe Nagbe could one day take to the pitch with his son Darlington, a highly-rated 20-year-old who made his Major League Soccer debut in the United States for Baltimore Timbers earlier this year.

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Michelle Obama to Honor the Legacy of Nelson Mandela on Trip to Africa

WASHINGTON — Michelle Obama will honor the legacy of Nelson Mandela and the struggle against apartheid during an official visit to southern Africa next week.

For her second solo international trip, the first lady has scheduled stops in South Africa and Botswana, two growing democracies, where she’ll continue her work encouraging young people to get involved in national affairs. She’ll also promote education, health and wellness.

The previously announced June 20-26 trip begins Monday in Johannesburg. Mrs. Obama will also stop in Pretoria and Cape Town in South Africa before moving on to Gaborone, the capital of Botswana. The trip ends with a private family safari at a South African game reserve before the return to Washington on June 27.

She will be accompanied by her daughters Malia and Sasha, her mother, Marian Robinson, and her niece and nephew, Leslie and Avery Robinson.

White House officials said Wednesday that the trip will help advance the administration’s agenda in Africa.

Mrs. Obama will spend most of her time in South Africa. She is scheduled to meet with Mandela’s wife, Graca Machel, tour the Nelson Mandela Foundation, where his papers are stored, and visit the Apartheid Museum, which tells the story of the rise and fall of the now-abolished system of white-minority rule.

The first lady also plans a ferry ride to Robben Island, where Mandela spent 18 of the 27 years he was imprisoned for fighting apartheid.

Mrs. Obama will also meet with Nompumelelo Ntuli-Zuma, the wife of South African President Jacob Zuma, and with Botswana’s president, Ian Khama.

Mandela was released from prison in February 1990 and was elected the country’s first black president in 1994 after apartheid ended. He left office in 1999 after one term and remains an outsized figure in South Africa although he has retired from public life.

A meeting between Mrs. Obama and Mandela was not on the agenda the White House released Wednesday and officials said one would largely depend on the state of his fragile health. The former president, who is 92, suffered an acute respiratory infection in late January that sent him to the hospital for 48 hours.

Ben Rhodes, a deputy White House national security adviser, said Mrs. Obama would “treasure any opportunity” to interact with Mandela.

Mrs. Obama’s schedule also includes a meeting with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and key figure in the struggle against apartheid.

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE
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Sleep Position During Pregnancy ‘Link to Still-birth’

Experts want urgent research to see if the position a woman chooses to sleep in during late pregnancy affects still-birth risk, as a study suggests a link.

The University of Auckland compared 155 women who had late still-births with 310 who had healthy pregnancies.

Sleeping on the back or right side, rather than the left, doubled the risk – but only to almost four in 1,000.

Left-side lying aids blood flow to the baby, as the mother’s major blood vessels are unimpeded by a heavy womb.

The New Zealand study, published in the British Medical Journal, called for larger studies to test the findings.

Ms Daghni Rajasingam of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists said: “There are many factors which are linked to still-birth including obesity, increasing maternal age, ethnicity, congenital anomalies and placental conditions. A significant number are unexplained.

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We would like to see further research into sleep in pregnancy encouraged and funded as a matter of urgency”

Janet Scott of the stillbirth charity Sands

“This small-scale study looks at another possible factor. However, more research is needed into sleep patterns before any firm conclusions over sleeping positions can be made.

“In the meantime, women should speak to their midwives if they are concerned.”

The UK has one of the highest still-birth rates in the developed world. Every year here 4,000 babies are still-born.

A third of still-births have no clear cause.

Janet Scott, of the still-birth and neonatal-death charity Sands, said: “We would like to see further research into sleep in pregnancy encouraged and funded as a matter of urgency.

“The study will require further validation before any widespread public health campaign could be justified.

“Mums want to know what they can do to reduce the chance of this happening to their baby.

“A simple message which mums could follow, which would reduce their risk of still-birth, would be very welcome

By Michelle Roberts Health reporter, BBC News