West Ham on a high behind James Collins and Alex Song: EPL Team of the Week 9


Richard Jolly
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English football columnist Richard Jolly names his Best XI in the Premier League for the October 25-26 weekend.

Goalkeeper: Thibaut Courtois (Chelsea). Made a series of superb stops at Old Trafford before finally being beaten by Robin van Persie’s equaliser.

Right-back: Ahmed Elmohamady (Hull City). Cleared off his line and showed his speed and stamina as Hull kept a clean sheet against Liverpool at Anfield.

Centre-back: Per Mertesacker (Arsenal). Marshalled a new-look defence as Arsenal kept Sunderland at bay to help them secure a win at Sunderland.

Centre-back: James Collins (West Ham). A redoubtable figure at the heart of a Hammers back four who conceded only a extraordinary David Silva goal.

Left-back: Leighton Baines (Everton). Another week, another assist for Everton’s creative left-back, whose terrific fourth-minute cross led to Samuel Eto’o’s opener.

Right midfield: Sammy Ameobi (Newcastle). One of the substitutions of the season. Ameobi scored inside eight seconds to turn around the game at White Hart Lane.

Centre midfield: Alex Song (West Ham). A dominant figure in the centre of the park as he overshadowed Yaya Toure in West Ham’s deserved win over the champions.

Centre midfield: Morgan Schneiderlin (Southampton). The driving force for the season’s surprise packages as they defeated Stoke 1-0 to go second.

Left midfield: Alexis Sanchez (Arsenal). Took advantage of some generous defending from Sunderland, but illustrated his fine finishing with a match-winning pair of goals.

Centre forward: Samuel Eto’o (Everton). A vintage performance from the veteran, who scored two, equally brilliant, goals as Everton surged to victory at Burnley.

Centre forward: Wilfried Bony (Swansea). After a slow start, the Ivorian has scored four goals in three games, including two against Leicester.

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Analysis

Members of Syria's Alawite minority community face threat in their heartland after one of the deadliest days in country’s recent history. Read more

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MATCH INFO

Uefa Champions League, semi-final result:

Liverpool 4-0 Barcelona

Liverpool win 4-3 on aggregate

Champions Legaue final: June 1, Madrid

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  • Upper Bowl standard - Dh295
Closing the loophole on sugary drinks

As The National reported last year, non-fizzy sugared drinks were not covered when the original tax was introduced in 2017. Sports drinks sold in supermarkets were found to contain, on average, 20 grams of sugar per 500ml bottle.

The non-fizzy drink AriZona Iced Tea contains 65 grams of sugar – about 16 teaspoons – per 680ml can. The average can costs about Dh6, which would rise to Dh9.

Drinks such as Starbucks Bottled Mocha Frappuccino contain 31g of sugar in 270ml, while Nescafe Mocha in a can contains 15.6g of sugar in a 240ml can.

Flavoured water, long-life fruit juice concentrates, pre-packaged sweetened coffee drinks fall under the ‘sweetened drink’ category
 

Not taxed:

Freshly squeezed fruit juices, ground coffee beans, tea leaves and pre-prepared flavoured milkshakes do not come under the ‘sweetened drink’ band.

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Jetour T1 specs

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Conflict, drought, famine

Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.

Band Aid

Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.

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The years Ramadan fell in May

1987

1954

1921

1888

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Key findings
  • Over a period of seven years, a team of scientists analysed dietary data from 50,000 North American adults.
  • Eating one or two meals a day was associated with a relative decrease in BMI, compared with three meals. Snacks count as a meal. Likewise, participants who ate more than three meals a day experienced an increase in BMI: the more meals a day, the greater the increase. 
  • People who ate breakfast experienced a relative decrease in their BMI compared with “breakfast-skippers”. 
  • Those who turned the eating day on its head to make breakfast the biggest meal of the day, did even better. 
  • But scrapping dinner altogether gave the best results. The study found that the BMI of subjects who had a long overnight fast (of 18 hours or more) decreased when compared even with those who had a medium overnight fast, of between 12 and 17 hours.

Florence and the Machine – High as Hope
Three stars

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