Month: May 2019

Romelu Lukaku looks to be on his way out of Manchester United after he agreed terms with Inter Milan, according to reports.

Lukaku has recently dropped down the pecking order at Old Trafford with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer sometimes preferring to play Marcus Rashford as the club’s main striker.

The 26-year-old has scored 42 goals in 96 appearances in all competitions for the Red Devils with 15 of those coming in the current campaign.

It’s understood that Solskjaer will not stand in his way if he wants to find regular football elsewhere with recent reports linking him heavily with a move to Inter Milan.

And today’s reports in Gazzetta Dello Sport continue to back up previous rumours by claiming that Lukaku agreed a deal in principle to move to Inter on a little less than his £250,000-a-week wages at United.

The terms were apparently ironed out when Lukaku visited Italy earlier this month and were conditional on Inter qualifying for next year’s Champions League, which they did on the final day of the season.

The main issue still to resolve remains between the clubs with Gazzetta Dello Sport saying that Inter value Lukaku at £55million, while United – who signed him in 2017 for £75million – want closer to £62million for him.

 

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Liverpool goalkeeper Simon Mignolet is on Bournemouth boss Eddie Howe’s list of targets this summer, according to reports.

The keeper has been frozen out at Anfield after losing his place to Loris Karius in Jurgen Klopp’s side last season, before the arrival of Alisson from Roma saw him on the bench this term.

However, The Sun claim that Bournemouth could end Mignolet’s recent Liverpool misery after the Belgium international ‘attracted interest from Eddie Howe’.

With Asmir Begovic falling down the pecking order, the report claims that Howe wants a new goalkeeper to ‘compete with 39-year-old Artur Boruc and youngster Mark Travers.’

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Liverpool seem to be able to name their price when dealing with Bournemouth with the Cherries giving them almost £40million for Dominic Solanke, Jordon Ibe and Brad Smith.

And that seems to be the case again with Mignolet as The Sun adds: ‘Liverpool are willing to let him go for £15m and he is on Howe’s shortlist for a new No1 next season.’

 

Mohamed Salah has hinted that he would like to see Daniele de Rossi move to Liverpool in the summer and admits it would be “beautiful” to see him in the Premier League.

The Italian will call time on his career at Roma, who announced they won’t be renewing his contract, after spending 19 years at the Serie A club.

In that time he scored 63 goals and made more than 600 appearances for the Giallorossi – but he only managed to win three trophies in that time.

And with De Rossi becoming a free agent in a matter of weeks, Liverpool forward Salah would love to see him try the Premier League.

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“He is a legend of the club and of Italian football, not just because he is a great friend of mine,” said Salah.

“I don’t know what to say, I saw the game and the affection of the fans who saluted him. He made many sacrifices for his team, I would like to thank him, he is one of the best of which I have played with. Good luck for the future.”

Salah added: “A future for him in the Premier League? It would be beautiful, but I don’t know if it’s possible. It would be pleasing for me to play with him again, he is an optimal player.”

 

LUBANG ISLAND, PHILIPPINES – The memories of Japanese soldier Hiroo Onoda remain alive on the Philippine island of Lubang, southwest of Manila, 45 years after his surrender.

Onoda, an Imperial Japanese Army intelligence officer deployed to the island from December 1944 to lead guerrilla warfare at the height of World War II, did not surrender until March 10, 1974, over 28 years after the war ended, because he had not received orders from his superiors to stop.

The native of Wakayama Prefecture died in January 2014 in Tokyo at the age of 91.

“Onoda is a historical person. I think he’s the only person who hid for so long and then survived,” said 17-year-old Nico Felix, a high school student on the island that is part of Occidental Mindoro Province.

Felix said he knows Onoda’s story because the local community and his school occasionally talk about “the Japanese soldier during WWII who hid in the mountains here.”

Many are also aware because of the public opening of the Onoda Trail and Caves tourist site in 2011. The mountain attraction offers visitors a glimpse of Onoda’s life in the forest.

Carolyn Villas, 51, a social studies teacher, said that for over two decades now, she makes it a point to bring up the case of Onoda when discussing the war with her students.

“Of course, the students need to know that this happened to us, that we are part of the Philippine history, that Onoda was known in history because he was the longest to be in hiding (and) that’s why he was called a Japanese straggler,” Villas said.

By making them aware that their own home island played a significant part in history, the younger generation of Lubang residents will be “more curious and interested about our own local history,” she added.

Felix said he and other students “should learn about Onoda because that is part of our own history, and it helps to know about the damages of World War II so they won’t be repeated.”

Bryan James, 18, another high school student, said that largely because of Onoda, “Lubang is already known to others” and the island’s tourism potential has grown.

The Japanese soldier also showed how it is “to live on your own, and survive out of just natural and organic resources,” added fellow student Aaron James, 17.

Edwin Trajico, 54, the chief tour guide at Onoda Trail and Caves, similarly said, “One legacy that Onoda left out of his hiding in this mountain is the lesson that people can actually live in a natural environment or in the forest, where food is readily available and even medicine.”

“Because of him, we are now also able to preserve this forest, this mountain,” he added.

Older folks, on the other hand, who were alive while Onoda was hiding in the mountains, have other narratives and sentiments to share.

Adiodato de Lara, 76, said Onoda and his fellow straggler, Kinshichi Kozuka, burned rice plantations tended to by his father, and killed or stole cows, which Onoda admitted to in his book.

De Lara also accused Kozuka of killing his father on April 25, 1972, adding that he and other Japanese soldiers “caused so much disturbance here” and that the people should be apologized to and compensated for that.

Kozuka was Onoda’s last companion in the mountains of Lubang from May 1954 until October 1972 when he was shot dead by local authorities. Another soldier surrendered in September 1949 and one was shot dead in May 1954.

Felito Voluntad, 68, was a high school student joining a local patrol team searching for the Japanese soldiers sometime in 1969 when he was sniped on his back, either by Kozuka or Onoda.

The minor injury, which was treated promptly by a local doctor, left a scar that remains visible today. Voluntad said others were not as lucky as him. “There were some they killed by shooting. My uncle was also shot and injured in the stomach.

“I was angry at them. … I was happy when (Onoda) surrendered because there was nothing for people to fear about anymore in the mountains,” he said.

While he agrees that Onoda and his party should have apologized to and compensated the local people, Voluntad said he understands “where Onoda is coming from because he really thought the war was still ongoing at the time.”

Jacobo Balbuena, 76, a retired airman of the Philippine Air Force who was stationed on the island, can still vividly recall how the Japanese and local authorities conducted the search for Onoda and convinced him to surrender.

Balbuena said he joined the search patrol immediately after Norio Suzuki, a Japanese civilian who established contact with Onoda in February 1974, eventually leading to his surrender a month later, showed a photo of the Japanese soldier taken in the jungle.

Onoda finally yielded after his commanding officer, Maj. Yoshimi Taniguchi, flew to the island and personally relieved him of duty.

“We were surprised when we actually saw Onoda in person because he was only around 5 feet tall, and not a very big person,” Balbuena recounted.

Balbuena said he was part of the 14 “honor guards” who Onoda passed through upon his surrender at Gozar Air Station. “He walked straight. He was snappy. He looked like a very smart soldier. He looked very strong.”

Villas, the social studies teacher, said that despite the negative aspects of Onoda’s stay on the island, “still, we have to appreciate it. Anyway, those are all over now.”

“His importance is that, in hiding here, despite the not-too-many very good memories at the time, the place is now preserved. (The Onoda Trail and Caves) is even rightfully named after him now,” she said.

“The people of Lubang are very kind. Despite the bad things that happened, he was still given some kind of a tribute.”

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YOKOHAMA/KAWASAKI – A mass stabbing around a school bus stop in Kawasaki that claimed the lives of two occurred over a period of less than 20 seconds, investigators said Wednesday.

Seventeen students of Caritas Elementary School, a private Catholic school in the city near Tokyo, and two parents were attacked Tuesday, most while waiting for the school bus.

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Police searched the suspect’s home in Kawasaki on Wednesday looking for clues about the attack, in which a schoolgirl and the father of an unharmed pupil were killed.

Wielding knives in both hands, Ryuichi Iwasaki, 51, allegedly carried out the attack before taking his own life from a self-inflicted stab wound to the neck, police said. The entire incident happened over a distance of 50 meters along a street.

Both knives were 30 centimeters long, and investigators found two more knives in a backpack believed to have belonged to the assailant.

The police have confirmed through security camera footage that Iwasaki took a train from Yomiurilandmae Station on the Odakyu Line, the train station nearest his home, and arrived at Noborito Station near the attack site.

He is believed to have then walked to a convenience store, where he left his backpack before starting his rampage, carrying knives in each hand, according to the police.

The cameras installed around the area captured Iwasaki moving rapidly among his victims as he carried out the attack, they said.

Investigators said they believe the suspect began the attack by slashing 39-year-old parent and Foreign Ministry official Satoshi Oyama multiple times before continuing his spree. Oyama was found lying on his back on the street near the convenience store and was later confirmed dead at a hospital.

Iwasaki then seriously wounded the 45-year-old mother of a Caritas student and attacked Hanako Kuribayashi, an 11-year-old sixth-grader from Tama, western Tokyo, who later died, and other children who were forming a line to get on a school bus, according to the police.

The incident occurred at around 7:40 a.m. Tuesday on a street in Kawasaki’s Tama Ward near Noborito Station.

Iwasaki lived in a house in Kawasaki’s Asao Ward with an elderly couple believed to be his relatives.

Neighbors of Iwasaki said they had very few dealings with him although one thought he was short-tempered.

Forty minutes before the incident, which ended when he stabbed himself in the neck, Iwasaki said good morning to a female neighbor, a rare and unusual occurrence, she said. He then went in the direction of nearby Yomiurilandmae Station.

The two had a troubling interaction, according to the neighbor, when Iwasaki rang her doorbell early one morning last summer to complain that a branch from her garden that had grown over the sidewalk had hit him in the eye.

Iwasaki is said to have attended local elementary and junior high schools, though few people knew much about him, with one man saying his mother recently mentioned she had seen him for the first time in a long time.

“I can’t believe he would cause such a horrible incident,” said another female neighbor, who added that she had seen him walking a few days ago looking down and carrying some shopping bags.

A newspaper deliveryman said he had initially believed that the only people living at Iwasaki’s home were an elderly couple, but recalled seeing a large amount of youth magazines lined up outside the house three or four months ago on a paper recycling day.

Police are stepping up cyberpatrols in cooperation with companies and nonprofit organizations to crack down on the increasing amount of information online that encourages people to kill themselves.

In 2017, the dismembered bodies of one man and eight women, aged between 15 and 26, were found in an apartment in Zama, Kanagawa Prefecture. A 27-year-old man, who was arrested and later confessed to the killings, used multiple Twitter accounts to contact people who had expressed suicidal wishes, offering to help them die.

The case prompted the National Police Agency to commission private monitoring companies in January 2018 to conduct cyberpatrols, telling them to report to the Internet Hotline Center when they discover worrisome phrases, such as “Let’s die together.” The IHC, when necessary, asks internet service providers and site operators to delete such information.

The IHC received 1,329 such reports in the first six months of 2018 and asked for the deletion of information in 1,255 of them, of which 842 were erased within 14 days of the requests.

In emergency cases where suicidal attempts are determined to be imminent, monitoring companies directly report to prefectural police departments. In cooperation with internet service providers, the police then find the people expressing such thoughts and try to prevent them from taking their own lives.

Of the 204 people who declared their intentions to die by suicide in 2017, 74 were saved after police either persuaded them not to do so or asked their families to keep watch on them, according to a government report.

Jiro Ito, a 34-year-old chief representative of OVA, a Tokyo-based nonprofit organization established to prevent suicide, is promoting a system that creates pop-up notices leading to a consultation website if people search the internet using phrases such as “I want to die” or “how to commit suicide.”

On the website, clinical psychotherapists and other experts listen to visitors and help them get treatment at hospitals or receive advice from local governments. When necessary, OVA staff write reports on problems on behalf of those people or accompany them to hospitals or local governments.

In fiscal 2018, 283 people received advice from OVA on a continuing basis. One of them was a woman in her 20s who shut herself off from society after failing to find a job. She made an internet search with the words “I want to die.”

As she showed signs of depression, OVA helped her find a psychosomatic medicine hospital and begin receiving treatment there. She eventually recovered and landed a full-time job, according to the group.

“As people who seek means of suicide on the internet are considered highly likely to attempt it, the elimination of suicide-inducing information is not enough,” said Hajime Sueki, associate professor of clinical psychology at Wako University, who serves as adviser to OVA.

“It is important to create environments that enable people with suicidal wishes to readily gain information on how and where they can get support,” Sueki said.

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A career bureaucrat in the education ministry was arrested Tuesday for allegedly possessing a stimulant drug and marijuana, drug regulatory authorities said.

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Mitsuhiro Fukuzawa, 44, assistant director to the counselor for the elementary and secondary education bureau of the ministry, has admitted to possessing a stimulant drug for personal use, in violation of the stimulant drug control law, according to the health ministry’s narcotics control unit.

Syringes were confiscated after the unit raided his home and office at the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry.

Earlier this year, a bureaucrat of the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry was arrested for allegedly attempting to smuggle a stimulant drug from the United States.

A senior education ministry official said the case could again damage the reputation of the ministry, which was rattled by a corruption scandal last year, with two senior officials being arrested on graft charges involving Tokyo Medical University.

A 45-year-old man was arrested Wednesday for the alleged use of a shock collar to discipline his three children, police said, the latest in a series of child abuse cases that have prompted legislators to seek a ban on corporal punishment.

Takahiro Goto in the city of Kitakyushu told police he used a shock collar on his two daughters, aged 17 and 13, and 12-year-old son “when they didn’t follow the rules,” police said.

Police officials said the suspect ordered his children to place a shock collar, used to train pets, on their bodies and controlled it remotely.

The boy suffered a minor burn on his arm and there were no visible injuries on the girls, a police official said.

The case surfaced after the elder daughter told her vocational school teacher in February that she has been abused by her father via a shock collar, according to police. The school then reported the statement to a child consultation center and the center took the children under its protection.

A series of high-profile child abuse cases in recent years has shaken Japan, including the death last year of a 5-year-old girl, Yua Funato, whose father allegedly beat and starved her in the name of discipline.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said at the time her death was “soul crushing” and he promised steps to prevent more deaths.

Legislators in the Lower House on Tuesday unanimously approved a plan to ban corporal punishment of children by their parents, paving the way for passage of a revised law during the current session.

More than 50 countries — mostly in Europe — have laws prohibiting corporal punishment of children in the home, which some researchers say is an ineffective form of discipline.

Japan would be the third country in Asia to institute such a ban after Mongolia in 2016 and Nepal two years later.

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Midfielder Moussa Sissoko says Tottenham are up for the challenge the Champions League final holds against Liverpool on Saturday.

The France international says the spirit in the squad has helped them fight back numerous times this season, including their semi-final second-leg comeback from three goals down to beat Ajax.

In Monday’s pre-match press conference, he said: “The spirit is fantastic.

“Every time we were close to be out but we showed a lot of character to win the game.

“We know we can challenge against every team.”

Spurs lost 2-1 against Liverpool in their home Premier League clash back in September, and by the same scoreline in the reverse fixture two months ago.

But Sissoko remains confident ahead of the showpiece final, adding: “I am not scared of Liverpool or any team.

“We all need to challenge and we have to give our best and if we do it we can beat any team. In the past we have showed it.”

Meanwhile, Tottenham boss Mauricio Pochettino is currently enjoying his best spell in charge since taking up the position at White Hart Lane in May 2014.

Since then, the club’s new stadium has been completed and Christened on top of their successful run to the Champions League final this season.

He said: “I think this is my best period after five years.

“Today is five years of working here, I was signing a contract here, it is an amazing period.

“We have worked so hard the last three weeks, but we are excited.”

Pochettino is looking forward to “one of the biggest games in the world” ahead of the final in Madrid but he knows Spurs need to remain focused on themselves.

He added: “Along with the World Cup final, the final of the Champions League is one of the biggest games in the world.

“It is going to be a different game, we cannot prepare for a final of the Champions League on what happened a few months ago.

“The circumstances are completely different, the circumstances are the circumstances.

“It is going to be different, that is why our focus is on ourselves.”

Pochettino described Harry Kane’s fitness as a “very positive situation for him”.

The England captain has returned to full training with the group on the way back from an ankle problem.

He said: “Harry Kane, in the last week, Friday and Saturday, started to be involved in the group.

“It’s a very positive situation for him. We will wait and see how he is progressing in his problem.”

Pochettino was also positive that Harry Winks, Jan Vertonghen and Davinson Sanchez would be fit for Saturday’s clash with the Reds.

The Spurs boss added: “The four players started (training) on Friday and Saturday to be involved in the group, which is very positive to be available at the weekend and that is very good news for us.

“Tottenham deserve that we are all 100 per cent focused on the game.

“We can make history, we can provide our fans the best happiness in football.”

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Mauricio Pochettino says it would be a “massive mistake” to linger on his terrible record against Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp.

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The pair have been in opposing dug-outs on nine occasions but Pochettino has only triumphed once – in October 2017 when two goals from Harry Kane earned them a 4-1 win at White Hart Lane.

This season Liverpool have won both games 2-1 and go into Saturday’s Champions League final as clear favourites.

Liverpool’s points-per-game record in the Premier League puts them second across Europe’s top five leagues.

“It is going to be a completely different game,” insists Pochettino. “We cannot prepare for the Champions League final looking back at months ago. It’s a situation in a competition where we’ve never faced each other before.

“We’ve prepared ourselves to be ready. We know each other very well but we haven’t prepared thinking about the games at Wembley or Anfield. That would be a massive mistake in these different circumstances.

“This isn’t going to be Pochettino vs Klopp, or a tactical battle, it will be about the emotion.”