Manch­ester – Manch­ester City winger Ra­heem Ster­ling says he loves play­ing un­der Pep Guardiola for the Premier League lead­ers and ad­mits that his life is also bet­ter for hav­ing tuned out crit­ics on so­cial me­dia.

Ster­ling has scored six goals in five starts for City this sea­son and has im­pressed with his over­all con­tri­bu­tion to Guardiola’s pro­lific at­tack, which has struck 29 goals in eight Premier League games.

Ster­ling has scored six goals in five starts for City this sea­son and has im­pressed with his over­all con­tri­bu­tion to Guardiola’s pro­lific at­tack, which has struck 29 goals in eight Premier League games.

Iraq’s cen­tral govern­ment forces launched an ad­vance early on Mon­day into ter­ri­tory held by Kurds, seiz­ing a swathe of coun­try­side sur­round­ing the oil city of Kirkuk in a bold mil­i­tary re­sponse to a Kur­dish vote on in­de­pen­dence in Septem­ber.

Iraq’s cen­tral govern­ment forces launched an ad­vance early on Mon­day into ter­ri­tory held by Kurds, seiz­ing a swathe of coun­try­side sur­round­ing the oil city of Kirkuk in a bold mil­i­tary re­sponse to a Kur­dish vote on in­de­pen­dence in Septem­ber.

The govern­ment said its troops had cap­tured Kirkuk air­port, ad­vanced to the city’s gates and taken con­trol of north­ern Iraq’s oil com­pany from the se­cu­rity forces of the au­ton­o­mous Kur­dish re­gion, known as the Pesh­merga.

Madrid to take steps once Thurs­day’s dead­line has ex­pired.

Spain’s gov­ern­ment set the clock tick­ing yes­ter­day on im­pos­ing di­rect rule over Catalonia af­ter the re­gion’s leader missed a dead­line to clar­ify whether he had de­clared in­de­pen­dence.

Spain’s gov­ern­ment set the clock tick­ing yes­ter­day on im­pos­ing di­rect rule over Catalonia af­ter the re­gion’s leader missed a dead­line to clar­ify whether he had de­clared in­de­pen­dence.

The wealthy re­gion threat­ened to break away fol­low­ing a ref­er­en­dum on Oc­to­ber 1 that Spain’s Con­sti­tu­tional Court said was il­le­gal. That plunged the coun­try into its worst po­lit­i­cal cri­sis since an at­tempted mil­i­tary coup in 1981.

Cata­lan leader Car­les Puigde­mont made a sym­bolic dec­la­ra­tion of in­de­pen­dence last Tues­day, but sus­pended it sec­onds later and called for ne­go­ti­a­tions with Madrid.

Eskom’s board has al­lowed sus­pended for­mer act­ing CEO Mat­shela Koko to hand­pick the of­fi­cials who will pre­side over his dis­ci­plinary hear­ing, due to start to­mor­row.

Eskom’s board has al­lowed sus­pended for­mer act­ing CEO Mat­shela Koko to hand­pick the of­fi­cials who will pre­side over his dis­ci­plinary hear­ing, due to start to­mor­row.

The Sun­day Times has seen cor­re­spon­dence in which Koko, through his lawyer As­ger Gani, was given “an op­por­tu­nity to elect one name from a list of three se­nior coun­sel” to be ap­proached to chair his dis­ci­plinary hear­ing. Koko re­jected all three names, be­cause “they are white men”.

A MA­JOR show­down is loom­ing in the Eastern Cape af­ter the ANC pro­vin­cial lead­er­ship threw its weight be­hind Cyril Ramaphosa while the Amath­ole re­gion an­nounced Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma as their pre­ferred can­di­date to take over as party pres­i­dent in De­cem­ber. Both de­ci­sions were com­mu­ni­cated yes­ter­day.

A MA­JOR show­down is loom­ing in the Eastern Cape af­ter the ANC pro­vin­cial lead­er­ship threw its weight be­hind Cyril Ramaphosa while the Amath­ole re­gion an­nounced Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma as their pre­ferred can­di­date to take over as party pres­i­dent in De­cem­ber. Both de­ci­sions were com­mu­ni­cated yes­ter­day.

The pro­vin­cial ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee (PEC) de­ci­sion to back Ramaphosa was made by pro­vin­cial chair­man Os­car Mabuyane af­ter the newly elected PEC held its first meet­ing at Dan’s Coun­try Lodge near Mthatha at the week­end.

When a preg­nant mother drinks al­co­hol so too does her un­born baby, ac­cord­ing to Leana Olivier, chief ex­ec­u­tive at the Foun­da­tion for Al­co­hol Re­lated Re­search (FARR).

She says al­co­hol con­sumed by a preg­nant woman moves into her blood­stream and is car­ried through the pla­cen­tal tis­sue that sep­a­rates the mother and baby’s blood sys­tems, de­liv­er­ing the al­co­hol di­rectly to the de­vel­op­ing tis­sues of the fe­tus. This al­co­hol is par­tic­u­larly dev­as­tat­ing for the baby’s brain de­vel­op­ment, as the al­co­hol crosses the blood-brain bar­rier with ease.

“The ter­ato­genic (harm­ful) ef­fects of al­co­hol can dam­age the fe­tus through­out preg­nancy and are not iso­lated to a par­tic­u­lar time of a preg­nancy. The sever­ity of the Foetal Al­co­hol Spec­trum Dis­or­der (FASD) de­pends on the quan­tity and tim­ing of the moth­ers drink­ing dur­ing her preg­nancy, to­gether with nu­mer­ous other fac­tors such as: the mother’s body mass in­dex, age, food con­sump­tion at the time the al­co­hol was in­gested, ge­net­ics, and other tox­ins such as ni­co­tine.

“The ter­ato­genic (harm­ful) ef­fects of al­co­hol can dam­age the fe­tus through­out preg­nancy and are not iso­lated to a par­tic­u­lar time of a preg­nancy. The sever­ity of the Foetal Al­co­hol Spec­trum Dis­or­der (FASD) de­pends on the quan­tity and tim­ing of the moth­ers drink­ing dur­ing her preg­nancy, to­gether with nu­mer­ous other fac­tors such as: the mother’s body mass in­dex, age, food con­sump­tion at the time the al­co­hol was in­gested, ge­net­ics, and other tox­ins such as ni­co­tine.

“The ter­ato­genic (harm­ful) ef­fects of al­co­hol can dam­age the fe­tus through­out preg­nancy and are not iso­lated to a par­tic­u­lar time of a preg­nancy. The sever­ity of the Foetal Al­co­hol Spec­trum Dis­or­der (FASD) de­pends on the quan­tity and tim­ing of the moth­ers drink­ing dur­ing her preg­nancy, to­gether with nu­mer­ous other fac­tors such as: the mother’s body mass in­dex, age, food con­sump­tion at the time the al­co­hol was in­gested, ge­net­ics, and other tox­ins such as ni­co­tine.

“There is no known safe amount of al­co­hol preg­nant women can drink with­out rais­ing the risk of dam­ag­ing their un­born ba­bies. All preg­nant moth­ers who drink al­co­hol are at risk of hav­ing a baby with FASD. Re­search in­di­cates that even light amounts of al­co­hol con­sump­tion might cause FASD in chil­dren, re­sult­ing in learn­ing and be­havioural prob­lems usu­ally as­so­ci­ated with Al­co­hol Re­lated Neu­rode­vel­op­men­tal De­fects, which is one of the con­di­tions found in FASD.

“There is no known safe amount of al­co­hol preg­nant women can drink with­out rais­ing the risk of dam­ag­ing their un­born ba­bies. All preg­nant moth­ers who drink al­co­hol are at risk of hav­ing a baby with FASD. Re­search in­di­cates that even light amounts of al­co­hol con­sump­tion might cause FASD in chil­dren, re­sult­ing in learn­ing and be­havioural prob­lems usu­ally as­so­ci­ated with Al­co­hol Re­lated Neu­rode­vel­op­men­tal De­fects, which is one of the con­di­tions found in FASD.

“Heavy drink­ing is de­fined as an av­er­age of about two or more stan­dard drinks per day dur­ing preg­nancy or 14 drinks per week. Binge drink­ing is de­fined as at least five stan­dard drinks on any oc­ca­sion. Of all the sub­stances of abuse, in­clud­ing heroin, co­caine and mar­i­juana, al­co­hol pro­duces the most se­ri­ous life­long neu­robe­hav­ioral dam­age to an un­born baby,” says Olivier.

FARR is ded­i­cated to build­ing pos­i­tive fu­tures in South African com­mu­ni­ties by sig­nif­i­cantly re­duc­ing birth de­fects caused by al­co­hol con­sump­tion dur­ing preg­nancy. The fo­cus of the foun­da­tion’s ma­jor ac­tiv­i­ties is on FASD re­search, pre­ven­tion and train­ing.

FARR is ded­i­cated to build­ing pos­i­tive fu­tures in South African com­mu­ni­ties by sig­nif­i­cantly re­duc­ing birth de­fects caused by al­co­hol con­sump­tion dur­ing preg­nancy. The fo­cus of the foun­da­tion’s ma­jor ac­tiv­i­ties is on FASD re­search, pre­ven­tion and train­ing.

FASD is an um­brella term, which in­cludes all pos­si­ble dis­or­ders as­so­ci­ated with pre­na­tal al­co­hol ex­po­sure; Foetal Al­co­hol Syn­drome (FAS) is the most se­vere form of th­ese dis­or­ders and the lead­ing cause of pre­ventable men­tal re­tar­da­tion in the world.

It is well known that drink­ing dur­ing preg­nancy can cause birth de­fects, cog­ni­tive dis­abil­i­ties, de­vel­op­men­tal de­lays, learn­ing dif­fi­cul­ties, and be­havioural dis­or­ders, but most peo­ple do not know that al­co­hol use dur­ing preg­nancy is one of the known causes of pre­ma­tu­rity, ac­cord­ing to Teresa Keller­man of the FAS Com­mu­nity Re­source Cen­tre.

It is well known that drink­ing dur­ing preg­nancy can cause birth de­fects, cog­ni­tive dis­abil­i­ties, de­vel­op­men­tal de­lays, learn­ing dif­fi­cul­ties, and be­havioural dis­or­ders, but most peo­ple do not know that al­co­hol use dur­ing preg­nancy is one of the known causes of pre­ma­tu­rity, ac­cord­ing to Teresa Keller­man of the FAS Com­mu­nity Re­source Cen­tre.

She says ap­prox­i­mately 10% of all births in the US are clas­si­fied as preterm, which is de­fined as de­liv­ery oc­cur­ring be­fore 37 com­plete weeks of ges­ta­tion. Preterm de­liv­ery causes the ma­jor­ity of neona­tal deaths (ex­cept for those re­lated to ge­netic birth de­fects) and ac­counts for more than one half of neona­tal hospi­tal nurs­ery costs.

“In­creased aware­ness about the risk of al­co­hol use dur­ing preg­nancy can pre­vent many cases of pre­ma­ture birth, as well as the se­ri­ous ef­fects as­so­ci­ated with FASD.”

Keller­man ex­plains the neu­rol­ogy be­hind the be­haviours that are of­ten ob­served in chil­dren with FASD is pri­mar­ily brain dam­age, caused by pre­na­tal ex­po­sure to al­co­hol.

Keller­man ex­plains the neu­rol­ogy be­hind the be­haviours that are of­ten ob­served in chil­dren with FASD is pri­mar­ily brain dam­age, caused by pre­na­tal ex­po­sure to al­co­hol.

She says the most com­mon symp­toms of FASD be­haviours are: mem­ory deficits (for­get­ting rules or con­se­quences); im­pul­siv­ity (act­ing with­out think­ing); im­ma­tu­rity (stunted so­cial, emo­tional, or con­science de­vel­op­ment); and poor judg­ment (mak­ing de­ci­sions with­out re­gard to risk).

“Pre­na­tal al­co­hol ex­po­sure in­ter­rupts brain de­vel­op­ment and im­pacts many brain sys­tems, in­clud­ing the reg­u­la­tion and pro­duc­tion of var­i­ous neu­ro­trans­mit­ters.

“Pre­na­tal al­co­hol ex­po­sure in­ter­rupts brain de­vel­op­ment and im­pacts many brain sys­tems, in­clud­ing the reg­u­la­tion and pro­duc­tion of var­i­ous neu­ro­trans­mit­ters.

“Chil­dren with FASDs have be­haviours that in­di­cate they may not pro­duce enough dopamine, sero­tonin and oxy­tocin, and they may pro­duce too much testos­terone and cor­ti­sol. Th­ese lev­els may fluc­tu­ate over the course of the day.

“The child who demands con­stant at­ten­tion, who pushes other peo­ple’s but­tons to get a re­ac­tion, who ma­nip­u­lates oth­ers, or who in­cites drama, may have too lit­tle dopamine.

“The child who seems sullen and de­pressed may have too lit­tle sero­tonin. The child who is hate­ful and mis­trust­ful may have too lit­tle oxy­tocin. The child who is an­gry all the time, who in­ten­tion­ally breaks the rules, or who en­gages in self-abuse, may have sev­eral neu­ro­trans­mit­ters out of balance.”

“The child who seems sullen and de­pressed may have too lit­tle sero­tonin. The child who is hate­ful and mis­trust­ful may have too lit­tle oxy­tocin. The child who is an­gry all the time, who in­ten­tion­ally breaks the rules, or who en­gages in self-abuse, may have sev­eral neu­ro­trans­mit­ters out of balance.”

Keller­man says there are ways to help the brain pro­duce a healthy balance of the neu­ro­chem­i­cals so the brain can func­tion bet­ter, giv­ing the child more con­trol over be­hav­iour.

“We can help the over­all per­for­mance and func­tion of the brain by en­sur­ing the child gets ad­e­quate rest at night and lots of flu­ids through­out the day, and by elim­i­nat­ing ar­ti­fi­cial ad­di­tives from the diet.”

Keller­man says it has been pro­posed by philoso­phers and psy­chol­o­gists that the ma­ture adult can process in­for­ma­tion at sev­eral lev­els of con­scious­ness, each level de­vel­op­ing with ma­tu­rity, start­ing be­fore birth un­til ma­tu­rity, hope­fully some­time be­fore one’s 18th birth­day.

Keller­man says it has been pro­posed by philoso­phers and psy­chol­o­gists that the ma­ture adult can process in­for­ma­tion at sev­eral lev­els of con­scious­ness, each level de­vel­op­ing with ma­tu­rity, start­ing be­fore birth un­til ma­tu­rity, hope­fully some­time be­fore one’s 18th birth­day.

She iden­ti­fies the fol­low­ing lev­els of con­scious­ness:

— sen­sory aware­ness: phys­i­cal sen­sa­tions, body aware­ness, plea­sure, pain,

aware­ness: in­ner vi­sion, creative process, spir­i­tu­al­ity, crit­i­cal think­ing, ide­al­ism, fu­ture plan­ning.

Keller­man says the healthy, ma­ture adult can process in­for­ma­tion at all th­ese lev­els: sens­ing a cool breeze, feel­ing hun­gry, think­ing about what to say to a friend, want­ing a meet­ing to go well, and try­ing to ex­ude self-con­fi­dence while imag­in­ing the out­comes of a suc­cess­ful part­ner­ship plan.

Keller­man says the healthy, ma­ture adult can process in­for­ma­tion at all th­ese lev­els: sens­ing a cool breeze, feel­ing hun­gry, think­ing about what to say to a friend, want­ing a meet­ing to go well, and try­ing to ex­ude self-con­fi­dence while imag­in­ing the out­comes of a suc­cess­ful part­ner­ship plan.

“So­cial de­vel­op­ment and con­science de­vel­op­ment paral­lel th­ese lev­els of con­scious­ness. Th­ese are neu­ral pro­cesses that un­fold ac­cord­ing to a de­vel­op­men­tal pro­gramme, in­volv­ing neu­ral con­nec­tions between dif­fer­ent parts of the brain.

“The retic­u­lar for­ma­tion in the brain stem fil­ters in­com­ing in­for­ma­tion at the lower lev­els of con­scious­ness. This fil­ter­ing sys­tem can be im­pacted by pre­na­tal ex­po­sure to al­co­hol, for in­stance, with in­ter­rup­tion of the myeli­na­tion of nerve cells.

“The retic­u­lar for­ma­tion in the brain stem fil­ters in­com­ing in­for­ma­tion at the lower lev­els of con­scious­ness. This fil­ter­ing sys­tem can be im­pacted by pre­na­tal ex­po­sure to al­co­hol, for in­stance, with in­ter­rup­tion of the myeli­na­tion of nerve cells.

“An in­di­vid­ual who has been im­pacted by pre­na­tal ex­po­sure to al­co­hol may have a stunted so­cial de­vel­op­ment, an im­paired con­science, and may only be able to process in­for­ma­tion at four, or three, or some­times just two lev­els of con­scious­ness, or may not be able to fil­ter in­for­ma­tion com­ing in at dif­fer­ent lev­els, de­pend­ing on the in­di­vid­ual’s neu­ro­log­i­cal func­tional abil­ity at any given time.

“The lev­els at which a per­son with a FASD might func­tion are likely to be the lower de­vel­op­men­tal lev­els. One per­son with an FASD might be func­tion­ing at level three, an­other at level four, an­other at level five.

“The lev­els at which a per­son with a FASD might func­tion are likely to be the lower de­vel­op­men­tal lev­els. One per­son with an FASD might be func­tion­ing at level three, an­other at level four, an­other at level five.

“A few may even func­tion at level six, but not con­sis­tently and not pre­dictably. One per­son with FASD might fluc­tu­ate between sev­eral lev­els of de­vel­op­ment from one mo­ment to an­other,” says Keller­man.

Olivier says FASD is a global chal­lenge and is the main cause of pre­ventable men­tal dis­abil­i­ties.

“South Africa has the high­est re­ported preva­lence in the world, with preva­lence rates in the Gaut­eng, Western, Eastern and North­ern Cape prov­inces rang­ing from 27 to 290/1000 (2.7%-29%) in dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ties.

“Un­for­tu­nately no FASD preva­lence stud­ies to date have been con­ducted in prov­inces such as KwaZulu-Natal, Lim­popo, Mpumalanga and North West. We are there­fore not able to provide a preva­lence rate for the coun­try, but are get­ting closer to a na­tional preva­lence rate.

“Un­for­tu­nately no FASD preva­lence stud­ies to date have been con­ducted in prov­inces such as KwaZulu-Natal, Lim­popo, Mpumalanga and North West. We are there­fore not able to provide a preva­lence rate for the coun­try, but are get­ting closer to a na­tional preva­lence rate.

“There are still many myths around FASD. Some peo­ple still be­lieve that a woman must be an al­co­holic to have a child with FASD; how­ever, no amount of al­co­hol is safe dur­ing preg­nancy.

CHINA’S cen­tral bank gover­nor said the econ­omy could grow 7% in the se­cond half of this year, ac­cel­er­at­ing from the first six months and de­fy­ing wide­spread ex­pec­ta­tions for a slow­down.

The un­char­ac­ter­is­ti­cally ex­plicit growth forecast by Zhou Xiaochuan came just days ahead of a twice in a decade Com­mu­nist Party Congress, where Pres­i­dent Xi Jin­ping is ex­pected to strengthen his grip in a lead­er­ship reshuf­fle.

The un­char­ac­ter­is­ti­cally ex­plicit growth forecast by Zhou Xiaochuan came just days ahead of a twice in a decade Com­mu­nist Party Congress, where Pres­i­dent Xi Jin­ping is ex­pected to strengthen his grip in a lead­er­ship reshuf­fle.

While China pro­duced forecast-beat­ing growth of 6.9% in the first half, many econ­o­mists and in­vestors had ex­pected the mo­men­tum would start to fade later in the year.

SOUTH Africa’s Supreme Court of Ap­peal has dis­missed Pres­i­dent Ja­cob Zuma’s and the Na­tional Pros­e­cut­ing Au­thor­ity’s ap­peal against an ear­lier de­ci­sion by the North Gauteng High Court that a de­ci­sion to dis­miss 783 charges against Zuma in 2009 was ir­ra­tional.

SOUTH Africa’s Supreme Court of Ap­peal has dis­missed Pres­i­dent Ja­cob Zuma’s and the Na­tional Pros­e­cut­ing Au­thor­ity’s ap­peal against an ear­lier de­ci­sion by the North Gauteng High Court that a de­ci­sion to dis­miss 783 charges against Zuma in 2009 was ir­ra­tional.

Back then, Zuma had claimed the charges against him were part of a po­lit­i­cal con­spir­acy to pre­vent him from be­com­ing pres­i­dent. But the North Gauteng High Court, in a case brought by the Demo­cratic Al­liance, ruled last April that the charges of cor­rup­tion, money laun­der­ing and rack­e­teer­ing against Zuma should be re­in­stated.

IT WOULD be over-sim­plis­tic to con­demn KwaZulu-Na­tal ANC leader Sihle Zikalala for his views on BEE. Week­end news re­ports show Zikalala is head­ing a lobby that seeks to ex­clude some peo­ple from big BEE deals.

They are: coloured peo­ple, South Africans of In­dian ori­gin and those of Chi­nese ori­gin who were in the coun­try be­fore 1994. The aim is to pro­mote black Africans by only al­low­ing African-owned com­pa­nies to ten­der for gov­ern­ment con­tracts worth more than R50 mil­lion.

They are: coloured peo­ple, South Africans of In­dian ori­gin and those of Chi­nese ori­gin who were in the coun­try be­fore 1994. The aim is to pro­mote black Africans by only al­low­ing African-owned com­pa­nies to ten­der for gov­ern­ment con­tracts worth more than R50 mil­lion.

Zikalala is us­ing BEE as a tool to try to solve the se­ri­ous is­sue of in­equal­ity in that prov­ince and the coun­try, which is a di­rect re­sult of apartheid.

The re­al­ity is that, af­ter 20 years of democ­racy, most black Africans re­main poor and, rel­a­tively speak­ing, most whites rich. Fur­ther­more, from a race per­spec­tive, In­di­ans have ben­e­fited the most since 1994.

THE rheumy eyes of Phillip Ma­belane, look­ing out of the frame in yes­ter­day’s Cape Times, have known pain. But, now aged 95, Ma­belane has one last hope – that he will know the truth of what hap­pened to his son Matthews 40 years ago. This hope comes from the find­ing of Judge Billy Mothle in the Ahmed Ti­mol in­quest in the Pretoria High Court last week – that Ti­mol did not kill him­self by jump­ing from the 10th floor of the for­mer John Vorster po­lice head­quar­ters in Johannesburg as was found in the ini­tial in­quest.

THE rheumy eyes of Phillip Ma­belane, look­ing out of the frame in yes­ter­day’s Cape Times, have known pain. But, now aged 95, Ma­belane has one last hope – that he will know the truth of what hap­pened to his son Matthews 40 years ago. This hope comes from the find­ing of Judge Billy Mothle in the Ahmed Ti­mol in­quest in the Pretoria High Court last week – that Ti­mol did not kill him­self by jump­ing from the 10th floor of the for­mer John Vorster po­lice head­quar­ters in Johannesburg as was found in the ini­tial in­quest.

Judge Mothle found that he had been pushed out of the win­dow or off the roof by his in­ter­roga­tors, the apartheid Se­cu­rity Branch po­lice.

Another of those un­be­liev­able sto­ries emerged this week when a se­cu­rity guard at a Soweto school was ar­rested for al­legedly mo­lest­ing 83 pupils. Just last month, we read with dis­be­lief about how two North­ern Cape teach­ers were ar­rested for al­legedly im­preg­nat­ing 30 of their pupils – al­though it later tran­spired that 16 girls had fallen preg­nant over a three-year pe­riod at the school. Still, it was shock­ing to dis­cover that teach­ers see their girl pupils as po­ten­tial girl­friends.

Another of those un­be­liev­able sto­ries emerged this week when a se­cu­rity guard at a Soweto school was ar­rested for al­legedly mo­lest­ing 83 pupils. Just last month, we read with dis­be­lief about how two North­ern Cape teach­ers were ar­rested for al­legedly im­preg­nat­ing 30 of their pupils – al­though it later tran­spired that 16 girls had fallen preg­nant over a three-year pe­riod at the school. Still, it was shock­ing to dis­cover that teach­ers see their girl pupils as po­ten­tial girl­friends.

The al­leged mo­lesta­tion of the Grade R pupils in Soweto has seen the prin­ci­pal and man­age­ment team of the school be­ing re­moved from their posts while coun­selling for the pupils was or­gan­ised. It has also left the coun­try with lots more ques­tions than an­swers.

SEOUL: Pun­ters in North Korea who once risked three years hard labour for gam­bling are now able to bet on lo­cal horse races as the iso­lated coun­try scram­bles to un­earth new sources of hard cur­rency amid in­ten­si­fy­ing in­ter­na­tional sanc­tions.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has been build­ing re­sorts, swim­ming pools and other lux­u­ri­ous leisure fa­cil­i­ties in what ex­perts say is a bid to cap­ture some of the in­di­vid­ual wealth gen­er­ated by grow­ing pri­vate mar­kets for goods and ser­vices.

REAL MADRID coach Zine­dine Zi­dane heaped praise on Tot­ten­ham Hot­spur’s Harry Kane ahead of to­day’s Cham­pi­ons League clash be­tween the sides which will be an acid test for the pro­lific Eng­land striker.

Kane leads the scor­ing charts in Europe’s elite com­pe­ti­tion with five goals in Spurs’ games against Borus­sia Dort­mund and APOEL Ni­cosia, one more than Cris­tiano Ron­aldo.

Kane, who has also six strikes in the Premier League and has scored 13 times in his last nine matches for club and coun­try, has been the main fo­cus of me­dia at­ten­tion be­fore to­day’s block­buster clash be­tween Spurs and the Euro­pean cham­pi­ons, and was fea­tured on the cover of Span­ish news­pa­per Marca yes­ter­day.

– Golden State will be­gin the chase for a third NBA ti­tle in four sea­sons and a place among the league’s most leg­endary dy­nas­ties when the War­riors’ 2017/18 cam­paign opens to­day.

Kevin Du­rant (above), who joined the War­riors last sea­son from Ok­la­homa City, re­alised his dream of an NBA crown last June, join­ing Stephen Curry, Dray­mond Green and a stel­lar cast for a record 16-1 play-off run, down­ing Cleve­land in the fi­nals.