Football: Gerrard enthused by 'one-off' Wilshere

LONDON: Steven Gerrard says he is excited about playing alongside Jack Wilshere, as England prepare for the resumption of their World Cup qualifying campaign with a friendly against Brazil on Wednesday.

The pair have only spent 13 minutes on the pitch together during the tenure of manager Roy Hodgson, largely due to an injury lay-off that kept Wilshere out of action for 17 months.

However, Wilshere is now fit and firing for Arsenal, and with Gerrard having been named England's player of the year for 2012 on Sunday, they could be handed an opportunity to establish an understanding against the Brazilians.

Wilshere was just eight years old when Gerrard made his England debut, in 2000, and already appears destined for an international career that could one day see him surpass the Liverpool midfielder's current tally of 100 caps.

"He's a great talent. From playing against him, what I've seen in training, and playing alongside him, he's a one-off," says Gerrard.

"He's a lot better than your average Premier League midfielder."

Gerrard, though, says that for all the 21-year-old's undoubted ability, it would be unwise to expect too much from him, too soon.

"I think it's vital we don't put too much pressure and expectation on him," he said. "One man can't be expected to carry a whole nation on his own. He needs help from the others.

"My only advice would be to keep his feet on the ground and enjoy it."

Wilshere made his debut, aged 18, as an 82nd-minute replacement for Gerrard in a 2-1 friendly win over Hungary in August 2010.

Their collaborations at international level since have been scarce, and Hodgson admits he is keen to see Wilshere in an England shirt more often.

"I'm anxious to play down expectations, but you can't deny that he's an exceptional talent," he said.

"It might be naive, but with that level of player, it's up to the other players to profit from the work these players do and the quality of pass they give them."

Central midfield is one area where Hodgson is blessed with several options, and for all his eagerness to pair Gerrard with Wilshere, he knows he has plenty of strength in depth in the middle of the pitch.

"I'm excited to see them, but don't forget Frank Lampard and Michael Carrick," said the former Liverpool manager.

"Tom Cleverley is an exceptional footballer as well. We can hold our heads up and compete with the best in that area of the field.

"We've just got to keep them all fit for the (World Cup) qualifiers and if we do that, I know I've got a headache coming up."

Gerrard says he welcomes the competition for places, but the captain had a warning for anyone hoping to take his berth in the team.

"It's not just Jack Wilshere who wants my shirt," said the 32-year-old.

"I'm sure Carrick and (Scott) Parker, and all the lads in the under-21s, want this shirt, and I'm prepared to fight anyone who wants it."

Hodgson also had words of advice for Wilshere's Arsenal team-mate Theo Walcott, who has repeatedly voiced a desire to play as a central striker this season.

"I've spoken to Theo but I think it's important for him that he realises today that you can be a forward in a number of positions," said the England manager.

"He needs to make sure that wherever he's asked to play for Arsenal or England -- and he won't be asked to play at right-back, or in goal -- he shows that he can go past players and has an eye for goal.

"I know he's no way near as hung up about whether he starts on the right, the left or in the centre (as the media suggests). He just wants to be the forward that Arsenal and England count on."

-AFP/gn

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Iran's Ahmadinejad kissed and scolded in Egypt

CAIRO (Reuters) - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was both kissed and scolded on Tuesday when he began the first visit to Egypt by an Iranian president since Tehran's 1979 Islamic revolution.

The trip was meant to underline a thaw in relations since Egyptians elected an Islamist head of state, President Mohamed Mursi, last June. But it also highlighted deep theological and geopolitical differences.

Mursi, a member of the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood, kissed Ahmadinejad after he landed at Cairo airport and gave him a red carpet reception with military honors. Ahmadinejad beamed as he shook hands with waiting dignitaries.

But the Shi'ite Iranian leader received a stiff rebuke when he met Egypt's leading Sunni Muslim scholar later at Cairo's historic al-Azhar mosque and university.

Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, head of the 1,000-year-old seat of religious learning, urged Iran to refrain from interfering in Gulf Arab states, to recognize Bahrain as a "sisterly Arab nation" and rejected the extension of Shi'ite Muslim influence in Sunni countries, a statement from al-Azhar said.

Visiting Cairo to attend an Islamic summit that begins on Wednesday, Ahmadinejad told a news conference he hoped his trip would be "a new starting point in relations between us".

However, a senior cleric from the Egyptian seminary, Hassan al-Shafai, who appeared alongside him, said the meeting had degenerated into an exchange of theological differences.

"There ensued some misunderstandings on certain issues that could have an effect on the cultural, political and social climate of both countries," Shafai said.

"The issues were such that the grand sheikh saw that the meeting ... did not serve the desired purpose."

The visit would have been unthinkable during the rule of Hosni Mubarak, the military-backed autocrat who preserved Egypt's peace treaty with Israel during his 30 years in power and deepened ties between Cairo and the West.

"The political geography of the region will change if Iran and Egypt take a unified position on the Palestinian question," Ahmadinejad said in an interview with Al Mayadeen, a Beirut-based TV station, on the eve of his trip.

He said he wanted to visit the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian territory which neighbors Egypt to the east and is run by the Islamist movement Hamas. "If they allow it, I would go to Gaza to visit the people," Ahmadinejad said.

Analysts doubt that the historic changes that brought Mursi to power will result in a full restoration of diplomatic ties between states whose relations were broken off after the conclusion of Egypt's peace treaty with Israel in 1979.

OBSTACLES TO FULL TIES

At the airport the two leaders discussed ways of improving relations and resolving the Syrian crisis "without resorting to military intervention", Egyptian state media reported.

Egypt is concerned by Iran's support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is trying to crush an uprising inspired by the revolt that swept Mubarak from power two years ago. Egypt's overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim population is broadly supportive of the uprising against Assad's Alawite-led administration.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr sought to reassure Gulf Arab allies - that are supporting Cairo's battered state finances and are deeply suspicious of Iran - that Egypt would not jeopardize their security.

"The security of the Gulf states is the security of Egypt," he said in remarks reported by the official MENA news agency.

Mursi wants to preserve ties with the United States, the source of $1.3 billion in aid each year to the influential Egyptian military.

"The restoration of full relations with Iran in this period is difficult, despite the warmth in ties ... because of many problems including the Syrian crisis and Cairo's links with the Gulf states, Israel and the United States," said one former Egyptian diplomat.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said he was optimistic that ties could grow closer.

"We are gradually improving. We have to be a little bit patient. I'm very hopeful about the expansion of the bilateral relationship," he told Reuters. Asked where he saw room for closer ties, he said: "Trade and economics."

Egypt and Iran have taken opposite courses since the late 1970s. Egypt, under Mubarak's predecessor Anwar Sadat, concluded a peace treaty with Israel in 1979 and became a close ally of the United States and Europe. Iran from 1979 turned into a center of opposition to Western influence in the Middle East.

Symbolically, Iran named a street in Tehran after the Islamist who led the 1981 assassination of Sadat.

Egypt gave asylum and a state funeral to Iran's exiled Shah Reza Pahlavi, who was overthrown in the 1979 Iranian revolution. He is buried in a mosque beside Cairo's mediaeval Citadel alongside his ex-brother-in-law, Egypt's last king, Farouk.

(Additional reporting by Ayman Samir, Marwa Awad and Alexander Diadosz; Writing by Paul Taylor and Tom Perry; Editing by Andrew Roche and Robin Pomeroy)

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Space Pictures This Week: A Space Monkey, Printing a Moon Base

Illustration courtesy Foster and Partners/ESA

The European Space Agency (ESA) announced January 31 that it is looking into building a moon base (pictured in an artist's conception) using a technique called 3-D printing.

It probably won't be as easy as whipping out a printer, hooking it to a computer, and pressing "print," but using lunar soils as the basis for actual building blocks could be a possibility.

"Terrestrial 3-D printing technology has produced entire structures," said Laurent Pambaguian, head of the project for ESA, in a statement.

On Earth, 3-D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, produces a three-dimensional object from a digital file. The computer takes cross-sectional slices of the structure to be printed and sends it to the 3-D printer. The printer bonds liquid or powder materials in the shape of each slice, gradually building up the structure. (Watch how future astronauts could print tools in space.)

The ESA and its industrial partners have already manufactured a 1.7 ton (1.5 tonne) honeycombed building block to demonstrate what future construction materials would look like.

—Jane J. Lee

Published February 4, 2013

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Boy Safe, Kidnapper Dead After Hidden Camera Tip

A week-long standoff in Alabama, where a retired trucker held a 5-year-old boy hostage in an underground bunker, has ended with the kidnapper dead and the child safe, according to law enforcement.

Officials had been able to insert a high-tech camera into the bunker to monitor the movements of the suspect, Richard Lee Dykes, and they had become increasingly concerned that he might act out, according to a law enforcement source with direct knowledge.

"FBI agents safely recovered the child who's been held hostage for nearly a week," FBI Special Agent Steve Richardson said at a news conference.

The agent said negotiations with Dykes "deteriorated" in the past 24 hours.

"Mr. Dykes was observed holding a gun," Richardson said. "At this point, the FBI agents, fearing the child was in imminent danger, entered the bunker and rescued the child."

The boy, identified only as Ethan, "appears physically unharmed" and is being treated at a hospital, authorities said.

Joe Songer/AL.com/AP Photo

Alabama Hostage Crisis: Boy Held Captive for 7 Days Watch Video

Hostage Standoff: Drones Fly Over Alabama Bunker Watch Video

Dykes, 65, is dead, but officials have not yet provided details on how he died.

"Right now, FBI special agent bomb technicians are in the process of clearing the property for improvised explosive devices," the FBI said in a written statement. "When it is safe to do so, our evidence response teams, paired with state and local crime scene technicians, will process the scene."

PHOTOS: Worst Hostage Situations

Dykes allegedly shot and killed a school bus driver last week and threatened to kill all the children on the bus before taking the boy, one of the students on the bus said.

"He said he was going to kill us, going to kill us all," Tarrica Singletary, 14, told ABC News.

Dykes had been holed up in his underground bunker near Midland City, Ala., with the abducted boy for a week as police tried to negotiate with him through a PVC pipe. Police had used the talks to send the child comfort items, including a red Hot Wheels car, coloring books, cheese crackers, potato chips and medicine.

Dykes was a decorated Vietnam vet who grew up in the area. He lived in Florida until two years ago, the AP reported, and has an adult daughter, but the two lost touch years ago, neighbor Michael Creel said. When he returned to Alabama, neighbors say he once beat a dog with a lead pipe and had threatened to shoot children who set foot on his property.

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Keeping up with John Kerry-speak

There are signs that Secretary of State John Kerry’s presence may mean somewhat longer meetings for President Obama’s Cabinet and his national security team.

Kerry’s emotional and long farewell address to the Senate on Wednesday came in at around 7,700 words. In contrast, Sen. Daniel Webster’s famous 1830 speech against state nullification of federal laws — widely seen as the greatest ever delivered in the Senate, was about 4,500 words.

Kerry will be joined in many meetings by a former Senate colleague, Vice President Biden, who’s never been accused of shying away from peroration every now and again.

Indeed, Biden is the holder of the world indoor bloviation record for his spectacular 1,100-word question during Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing in 1993. It went on so long it seemed Ginsburg wasn’t sure what the question was.

So they might want to schedule an intermission. Maybe two.

Dean Rusk rarely tweeted

But it seems Kerry can limit himself to 140 characters when he wants. Expect him to be far more active on Twitter than his predecessor.

On Kerry’s first day on the job, the State Department (@StateDept) tweeted that any messages directly from the big boss would be labeled with his initials — JK.

By contrast, Hillary Clinton barely dipped a toe into the social-media pool (in fact, the Loop sponsored a contest last year to help her craft her first tweet). As a senator, Kerry clearly enjoyed it, with recent tweets from @JohnKerry covering everything from the death of the owner of a Boston cannoli shop, to the Pats’ Super Bowl chances, to a birthday shout-out to then-colleague Sen. Max Baucus (to whom he said, “We’re still kids in this place.”)

But now that Kerry’s in the high-stakes world of international diplomacy, he might be in danger of sending mixed messages in a medium where meaning is easily lost. His sign-off, “JK,” for instance, is also online shorthand for “just kidding.”

Which could create some confusing diplomatic signals, IMO.

Power parenting

We’re hearing that
Samantha Power
, a longtime (since 2005) Obama foreign policy adviser and still likely ambassador to the United Nations — should there be an opening — is leaving the administration in the next few weeks to rest up and “spend more time with her family.”

(That may be the first time we’ve ever written that phrase where it actually happens to be true. She’s got two little kids at home; one is 3, the other 8 months.)

Power, now senior director for multilateral affairs and human rights at the National Security Council and a former war correspondent, is a professor, a human rights expert and the author of a widely acclaimed book — “A Problem From Hell,” which accused the United States of ignoring Balkan genocide.

She had been the No. 1 pick for the U.N. slot if Susan Rice had become secretary of state.

That didn’t happen, of course. But with deputy national security adviser Denis McDonough moving down the hall to be White House chief of staff, it’s hard to figure anyone but Rice becoming national security adviser if, as expected, that slot opens up with incumbent Tom Donilon leaving perhaps later on this year.

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Football: Messi agility is all in the mind - scientists

LONDON: Barcelona superstar Lionel Messi may owe his trademark feints and body swerves to the fact his brain is busier than that of a less gifted player, according to a study into footballers' minds.

Researchers at Britain's Brunel University found that highly skilled footballers are able to activate more areas of their brain than novices when an opposing player approaches, enabling them to react to their moves more successfully.

Published in the Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, the research found that experienced players are able to suppress the urge to react instinctively, making them less likely to fall for opponents' attempts to trick them.

As part of the study, 39 players ranging from beginners to semi-professionals lay in an MRI brain scanner and watched clips of a junior international-level player running towards them with the ball.

Occasionally, the oncoming player would produce a deceptive manoeuvre and participants had to decide in which direction they need to move in order to counter.

They were then grouped according to how well they performed in the task, revealing that strong performers were more attuned to the actions and movements of opponents than their less-skilled counterparts.

"Our neuroimaging data clearly shows greater activation of motor and related structures in the brains of expert footballers, compared to novices, when taking part in a football-related anticipation task," said Daniel Bishop from Brunel University.

"We believe that this greater level of neural activity is something that can be developed through high quality training, so the next step will be to look at how the brain can be trained over time to anticipate the moves of opponents."

- AFP/jc

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Syrian opposition chief says offers Assad peaceful exit

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian opposition leader Moaz Alkhatib urged Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government on Monday to start talks for its departure from power and save the country from greater ruin after almost two years of bloodshed.

Seeking to step up pressure on Assad to respond to his offer of talks - which dismayed some in his own opposition coalition, Alkhatib said he would be ready to meet the president's deputy.

"I ask the regime to send Farouq al-Shara - if it accepts the idea - and we can sit with him," he said, referring to Syria's vice president who has implicitly distanced himself from Assad's crackdown on mass unrest that became an armed revolt.

Speaking after meeting senior Russian, U.S. and Iranian officials, Alkhatib said none of them had an answer to the 22-month-old crisis and Syrians must solve it themselves.

"The issue is now in the state's court...to accept negotiations for departure, with fewer losses," the Syrian National Coalition leader told Al Arabiya television.

The moderate Islamist preacher announced last week he was prepared to talk to Assad's representatives. Although he set several conditions, the move broke a taboo on opposition contacts with Damascus and angered many in its ranks who insist on Assad's departure as a precondition for negotiation.

Alkhatib said it was not "treachery" to seek dialogue to end a conflict in which more than 60,000 people have been killed, 700,000 have been driven from their country and millions more are homeless and hungry.

"The regime must take a clear stand (on dialogue) and we say we will extend our hand for the interest of people and to help the regime leave peacefully," he said in separate comments to Al Jazeera television.

Assad announced last month what he said were plans for reconciliation talks to end the violence but - in a speech described by U.N. Syria envoy Lakhdar Brahimi as narrow and uncompromising - he said there would be no dialogue with people he called traitors or "puppets made by the West".

Syria's defense minister said the army had proved it would not be defeated in its confrontation with rebels but declined to say whether it would respond to an Israeli air strike last week.

Security sources said the Israelis bombed a convoy of arms destined for Assad's ally Hezbollah, a sworn enemy of Israel, in neighboring Lebanon. Syria said the attack struck vehicles and buildings at a military research center near Lebanon's border.

Syria's uprising erupted in March 2011 with largely peaceful protests, escalating into a civil war pitting mainly Sunni Muslim rebels against Assad, who is from Syria's Alawite minority. His family has ruled Syria for 42 years.

ANGER AT IRAN

The violence has divided major powers, with Russia and China blocking U.N. Security Council draft resolutions backed by the United States, European Union and Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab states that could have led to U.N. sanctions isolating Assad. Shi'ite Iran has remained his strongest regional supporter.

Alkhatib met Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden at a security conference in Germany at the weekend.

"Iran's stance is unacceptable and I mentioned to the foreign minister that we are very angry with Iran's support for the regime," Alkhatib said.

He said he asked Salehi to pass on his offer of negotiations - based on the acceptance of the Assad government's departure - to Damascus. The two men also discussed the need to prevent Syria's crisis spreading into a regional conflict between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims, he said.

"We will find a solution, there are many keys. If the regime wants to solve (the crisis), it can take part in it. If it wants to get out and get the people out of this crisis, we will all work together for the interest of the people and the departure of the regime."

One proposal under discussion was the formation of a transitional government, Alkhatib said, without specifying how he thought that could come about. World powers agreed a similar formula seven months ago but then disagreed over whether that could allow Assad to stay on as head of state.

Activists reported clashes between the army and rebel fighters to the east of Damascus on Monday and heavy shelling of rebel-held areas of the central city of Homs. The Jobar neighborhood, on the southwestern edge of Homs, was hit by more than 100 rockets on Monday morning, an opposition activist said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 90 people were killed by dusk on Monday.

It said 180 people were killed across the country on Sunday, including 114 rebel fighters and soldiers. Sunday's death toll included 28 people killed in the bombardment of a building in the Ansari district of the northern city of Aleppo.

Assad has described the rebels as foreign-backed Islamist terrorists and said a precondition for any solution is that Turkey and Sunni-ruled Gulf Arab states stop funding, sheltering and arming his foes.

The majority of the insurgents are Islamists but those affiliated with al Qaeda are smaller in number, although their influence is growing. For that reason, Western states have been loath to arm the rebels despite their calls for Assad's ouster.

Rebels and activists say that Iran and the Lebanese Shi'ite militant movement Hezbollah have sent fighters to reinforce Assad's army - an accusation that both deny.

ECONOMIC SUPPORT

"The army of Syria is big enough, they do not need fighters from outside," Iran's Salehi said in Berlin on Monday.

"We are giving them economic support, we are sending gasoline, we are sending wheat. We are trying to send electricity to them through Iraq; we have not been successful."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said later on Monday that Syria's crisis could not be solved by military means and he called for a national accord leading to elections.

"War is not the solution...A government that rules through war - its work will be very difficult. A sectarian war should not be launched in Syria," he told Al Mayadeen television.

"We believe that (deciding) whoever stays or goes is the right of the Syrian people. How can we interfere in that? We must strive to achieve national understanding, and free elections."

Another Iranian official, speaking in Damascus after talks with Assad, said Israel would regret an air strike against Syria last week, without spelling out whether Iran or its ally planned a military response.

Salehi, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden all met Alkhatib in Munich at the weekend and portrayed his willingness to talk with Syrian authorities as a major step towards resolving the war.

But Alkhatib is under pressure from other members of the exiled leadership in Cairo for saying he would be willing to talk to Assad. Walid al-Bunni, a member of the Coalition's 12-member politburo, dismissed Alkhatib's meeting with Salehi.

"It was unsuccessful. The Iranians are unprepared to do anything that could help the causes of the Syrian Revolution," Bunni, a former political prisoner, told Reuters from Budapest.

(Additional reporting by Yeganeh Torbati in Dubai and Stephen Brown in Berlin; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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