Ronaldo feels pain, misses Eibar clash

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Real Madrid's Portuguese forward Cristiano Ronaldo / AFP PHOTO / PIERRE-PHILIPPE MARCOU

Star striker Cristiano Ronaldo trained alone Friday after feeling pains and was ruled out of Real Madrid’s game against Eibar at the weekend.

“He felt something, but nothing serious. He didn’t train with us this morning,” coach Zinedine Zidane told a press conference ahead of Saturday’s La Liga game.

In a list of players for the game published on the club website, Ronaldo was an absentee as was Welsh star Gareth Bale who has been banned for two matches following his red card against Las Palmas this week.

While the Real squad was put through its paces on Friday, Ronaldo did sprints on his own.

Zidane will rest Ronaldo ahead of Real’s Champions League last 16 return game at Napoli next Tuesday.

“As you know, all matches are important but the most important is that the player is OK,” Zidane said.

A 3-3 draw at home to Las Palmas on Wednesday saw Real Madrid lose top place in the Spanish championship for the first time since October.

Ronaldo once again proved decisive in salvaging a point with two late goals against Las Palmas pulling Madrid back from the brink of a defeat.

They are one point behind Barcelona, but have a game in hand.

Vía The Guardian Nigeria http://ift.tt/2lngkhV

Niger to impose taxes on shoemakers, petty traders

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TAX

The Niger Government says it will start collecting taxes from shoe makers and other petty traders in the state as part of efforts to boost its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR).

The Commissioner for Finance, Alhaji Ibrahim Balarabe, announced this on Thursday during his ministry’s budget defence at the state House of Assembly in Minna.

He said the state’s inability to meet its IGR targets had forced it to explore revenue windows which hitherto were ignored‎. “We are concentrating on the informal sector now. As I speak, we have enumeration going on, trying to capture them into one platform‎.

“We ‎will no longer turn a blind eye to shoe makers, vulcanisers, s‎uya sellers and other little revenue sources in our bid to improve our IGR. “We know that people like shoe makers move from one place to another but once we have their data, it makes it easier for us to access them‎.

“It is not about how much they make in a day but the idea is to generate from all sources because it is only when you draw from all sources that you have a bigger pool of resources,” he said.

Balarabe said that the state IGR stood at N4.81 billion in 2016 as against its target of N9.39 billion, adding that it was targeting an IGR of N9.5 billion in 2017.

On efforts to recover looted funds, the commissioner noted that investigations were still ongoing and some cases were already in court.‎ The Chairman of the House Committee on Finance, Alhaji Abdullahi Mamagi, urged the ministry to guard against unrealistic budget estimates and extra budgetary spending.

Mamagi urged the ministry to prioritise its projects and execute the necessary ones in view of the dwindling allocation from the Federal Government until the situation improved.

Vía The Guardian Nigeria http://ift.tt/2meOwLP

German strugglers Darmstadt invite ‘fan’ Obama to a game

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Former US President Barack Obama / AFP PHOTO / NICHOLAS KAMM

The German Bundesliga’s bottom side Darmstadt have invited Barack Obama to a home game after discovering the former US President follows them on social media platform Twitter.

“It’s a huge honour for us,” said Darmstadt’s German-born US international Terrence Boyd in a video message to Obama posted on Twitter.

Boyd promised a warm welcome for the former ‘POTUS’ and revealed a Darmstadt shirt with Obama’s name on the back and the number 98 — the club was founded in 1898.

“Now that you have got a little more time for yourself, we would like to invite you to a game at the Boellenfalltor,” added Boyd, who scored in last weekend’s shock 2-1 win over Borussia Dortmund.

Darmstadt filmed the message after a local radio station discovered ‘Die Lilien’ (The Lilies) is the only club in a top European league which Obama follows on Twitter.

Obama has almost 85 million followers on Twitter and follows 631,000 accounts. Darmstadt have just under 62,000 followers.

The city near Frankfurt was home to a large US military base after the Second World War.

Vía The Guardian Nigeria http://ift.tt/2kyH7T7

Arik Air requires N10bn to resume full operations (Read full details)

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Arik Air

The Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) on Sunday said it had discovered deep rooted rot at embattled airline, Arik Air.

AMCON said it would require over N10 billion to fix the rot before the largest local carrier could resume full and uninterrupted flight operations to its regular routes across the country and beyond

The asset company made the disclosure in a statement signed by its Spokesman, Mr Jude Nwauzor in Lagos.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the airline was on Feb. 9 taken over by the Federal Government under the auspices of AMCON as a result of a whooping debt profile of over N300 billion.

AMCON had directed that the airline would now be managed by Capt. Roy Ilegbodu, a veretan aviation expert, under the receivership of Mr Oluseye Opasanya (SAN).

The statement noted that the situation was so bad that only nine aircraft out of the 30 in the fleet of the airlines were operational.

According to the statement, 21 of them have either been grounded, gone for C-check in Europe, among other forms of challenges.

“As if these problems are not enough, the airline does not have money to procure aviation fuel for the nine operational aircrafts because no dealer wants to sale aviation fuel to Arik if it is not on cash-and-carry basis.

“This also calls for public understanding because flight schedules may be realigned based on the nine aircrafts that are available, technically sound and ready for flight operation,” it said.

The statement said it was discovered that Arik also owe its technical partners and also in perpetual default in its lease payments and insurance premium, leading to regular and embarrassing squabbles with different business partners.

“All these problems in addition to huge staff salaries, which have remained unpaid for 11 months; vendors that supply different items to Arik Air that are also owed means that Nigerians may have to tarry-a-while to allow the new management clean up the huge mess at the airline before Arik would finally resume uninterrupted flight,’’ It said.

The statement quoted Ilegbodu as reassuring Nigerians that these issues; though daunting, would be gradually resolved to enable Arik Air, which carries about 55 per cent of the load in the country recover the 21 aircraft.

According to him, once all the aircrafts are back to the fleet, Arik Air will within the shortest possible time regain its pride of place as a leader among the comity of airlines in Nigeria.

He reiterated the fact that the intervention at Arik Air clearly underscores government’s decision to instill sanity in the nation’s aviation sector, adding that the move also prevented a major disaster that would have befallen the airline.

It said that the new management had settled the insurance cover for the aircraft which would have expired on Feb.12 and also met with different trade creditors as well as aggrieved staffers.

It, therefore, called for public understanding as the management begins the tough job of ensuring that Arik is returned to full operational capacity within the shortest possible timeframe.

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