Rampant Djokovic Surges Into 10th Australian Open Final

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January 27, 2023

A rampant Novak Djokovic surged into a 10th Australian Open final Friday to close in on a record-equalling 22nd Grand Slam crown, with only Stefanos Tsitsipas now standing in his way.

The Serbian fourth seed overcame an early wobble to romp past unseeded American Tommy Paul 7-5, 6-1, 6-2 on Rod Laver Arena in style.

Another title on Sunday will move him alongside Rafael Nadal with 22 Slam wins and see the 35-year-old return to world number one for the first time since last June.

Greek third seed Tsitsipas, who ground past Russian 18th seed Karen Khachanov 7-6 (7/2), 6-4, 6-7 (6/8), 6-3 in the other semi-final, can also become the top-ranked player should he lift the trophy.

Djokovic played the clash without father Srdjan courtside after he was filmed posing with a man holding a Russian flag featuring Vladimir Putin’s face following his son’s quarter-final win on Wednesday.

The incident sparked a backlash from Ukraine and led to calls for Djokovic’s father to be banned from the tournament.

Srdjan issued a statement ahead of the semi-final saying he would stay away, insisting he “wishes only for peace” and never wanted to cause “disruption”.

There was an empty seat next to his mother Dijana during the match.

“I’m really thankful that I have enough gas in my legs to be able to play at this level on one of the biggest tennis courts in the world,” said Djokovic, who is now 11-0 for the season and into a 33rd Grand Slam final.

“Of course, I’m not as fresh as the beginning of the tournament but we put in a lot of hours in the off-season on fitness in order to be in a good condition to play best of five (sets).

“I know what’s expected of me, I’ve been in this situation so many times in my career. Experience helps also,” he added of being in another final.

The win extended his unbeaten streak at the Australian Open to 27 matches to claim sole ownership of the Open-era record at Melbourne Park ahead of Andre Agassi.

Djokovic had never played Paul before and said he was wary of a “very explosive, very dynamic player”, with the American initially refusing to go quietly.

Tsitsipas Dream

The Serb, a hot favourite, attacked his opponent’s straight away for an early break, then broke again when the 35th-ranked Paul fired a forehand long to race 5-1 in front.

A run-in with the umpire over using his towel between points seemed to rattle Djokovic and he was broken twice in a row as Paul came surging back to 5-5.

Djokovic regrouped to hold serve and break again and take the set in 59 minutes.

After that wobble, it was all business, despite clutching his strapped hamstring several times, romping through the next two sets with minimal resistence.

He will meet Tsitsipas next after the Greek battled into his first Australian final and only second at a Grand Slam.

In the previous one, at Roland Garros in 2021, he fell to Djokovic in five sets after holding a 2-0 lead.

At 24, Tsitsipas is the youngest man to reach the Melbourne final since a 23-year-old Djokovic in 2011.

“I dreamed as a kid to maybe one day get to play in this court against the best players in the world,” said Tsitsipas, who is also unbeaten this season with a 10-0 record.

“I’m extremely happy that I’m in the final now and let’s see what happens.”

Tsitsipas has thrived in Melbourne throughout his career after bursting on the scene at the 2019 event as a 20-year-old when he dethroned defending champion Roger Federer in the last 16.

He went on to reach the semi-finals that year and again in 2021 and 2022.

He came into his clash with Khachanov brimming with confidence.

Despite failing to get over the line when serving for the match at 5-4 in the third set, then with two match points in the tiebreak, he kept his cool to secure the win and a date with Djokovic.

Tsitsipas In Dreamland After Reaching First Australian Open Final

By

John Mutiso

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January 27, 2023

Stefanos Tsitsipas said he was living the dream after reaching the Australian Open final Friday for a first time and standing on the cusp of becoming world number one.

The Greek third seed showed grit to defeat Russia’s Karen Khachanov and set up a final against either nine-time Melbourne champion Novak Djokovic or American Tommy Paul.

The 18th-seeded Khachanov threatened a comeback after saving two match points to force the semi-final into a fourth set, before Tsitsipas triumphed 7-6 (7/2), 6-4, 6-7 (6/8), 6-3.

Tsitsipas can top the world rankings if he wins his first Grand Slam crown on Sunday.

“I dreamed as a kid to maybe one day get to play in this court against the best players in the world,” Tsitsipas told a sunny Rod Laver Arena after winning an Australian Open semi-final at the fourth attempt.

“So I’m happy with the fight I put out there today. I feel blessed, blessed that I’m able to play tennis at this level.

“I’ve been wanting for many years now to put Greek tennis on the map.”

At 24, Tsitsipas is the youngest man to reach the Australian Open final since a 23-year-old Djokovic in 2011.

Tsitsipas has thrived in Melbourne throughout his career, after bursting on the scene at the 2019 event as a 20-year-old when he dethroned defending champion Roger Federer in the last 16.

He went on to reach the semi-finals that year and again in 2021 and 2022, falling one match short on each occasion.

A Grand Slam crown has remained elusive, with his runner-up showing at Roland Garros in 2021 his best result so far, falling to Djokovic in five sets after holding a 2-0 lead.

‘Couldn’t be more ready’

A confident Tsitsipas opened with a serve to love and applied early pressure, earning a break in game four when US Open semi-finalist Khachanov made a baseline error.

But the advantage didn’t last, with the 26-year-old Russian immediately striking back to level it up when Tsitsipas netted a forehand.

The Greek star was unrelenting on the forehand and forced another break for a 5-3 lead, only for Khachanov to again roar back.

It went to a tiebreak, with Tsitsipas quickly wrapping it up.

Khachanov repelled three break points early in a second set which went with serve until Tsitsipas earned another two after a 22-shot rally at 4-4, and this time he made no mistake.

With the bit between his teeth, the world number four ramped up the pressure to secure a break for 2-1 in the third set, then consolidated.

Khachanov looked down and out but in a late twist broke back when Tsitsipas — two points from victory — sent an overhead volley wide as he served for the match.

It propelled the third set to another tiebreak, where the Greek worked two match points on serve, but failed to convert and the Russian pulled out of the mire to drag it to a fourth set.

Tsitsipas quickly snuffed out any chance of a comeback as he reasserted his dominance to seal a spot in the final.

Afterwards, Tsitsipas struck a confident tone — no matter who he meets in the final.

“Couldn’t be more ready for this moment,” said the Greek, who has enjoyed strong support from Melbourne’s large Greek population.

“I’m playing great tennis. I’m enjoying myself. I just see no downside or negativity in what I’m trying to do out there,” he added.

Red Cross Unveils Sh9.4million Cholera Treatment Project

By

John Mutiso

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January 27, 2023

The Kenya Red Cross Society has launched a three-month Cholera treatment project to augment the efforts of the Department of Health as the death toll increased to 17 since the outbreak in November.

Tana River Department of Health is grappling with a myriad of challenges as infections surge every day, in the last 24 hours Madogo and Bura had four and two new cholera cases reported respectively.

According to the Department of Health, cholera is spreading to the outskirts of Bura town and the densely populated Mororo slums in Madogo.

Bura Cholera Treatment Unit (CTU) lacks beds while the CTU at Madogo is porous due to the lack of a perimeter wall. The health workers are overwhelmed by the outbreak.

“The Outbreak of cholera started in Madogo in November last year, we have been working closely with the department of health. KRCS is complementing the efforts of the department of health.

We got Sh9.4 million for a three-month project to contain the disease,’’ said Tana River Red Cross Coordinator Jerald Bombe during the inception meeting with health stakeholders drawn from Bura and Madogo in Hola.

The Red Cross project will strengthen surveillance at the community level as a report from the department shows that the disease is spreading to the outskirts of Bura town.

Through the project, Red Cross will train 162 volunteers on epic module, and conduct door-to-door and community-wide sensitization on cholera prevention.

Chiefs and village elders will also be sensitized and radio talk shows will be conducted says Tana River Red Cross Coordinator Jerald Bombe.

“We will procure and distribute medical and nonmedical supplies, recruit two clinical officers, three nurses, two public health officers, and one Pharmatech for 60 days through discussion with the County Government,” said Bombe.

Support staff working in CTUs will be trained on basic facts on cholera management, and five casual laborers will be engaged in decontamination services in Madogo and Bura CTUs for 90 days.

Deputy County Commissioner Lenkarie Joseph represented the County Commissioner in the meeting extolled the Red Cross for the timely intervention to avert further loss of lives.

“As the National Government we have informed our chiefs to work in tandem with Public health officers to sensitize the community. We are asking residents of Bura and Madogo to maintain hygiene. We will ensure the project is impactful to the community,” Lenkarie said.

DCC Lenkarie added that chiefs and Public Health Officers have been directed to regulate eateries in the affected areas until the outbreak is contained.

Laporte To Resign As French Federation President – Source

By

John Mutiso

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January 27, 2023

Bernard Laporte is to resign as president of the French rugby federation, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Friday.

Laporte stepped aside last month after being convicted of influence peddling and illegally acquiring assets. Police questioned him on Tuesday about allegations of additional financial wrongdoing, which he denied.

The 58-year-old had given up his role as president, meaning he could not take part in board meetings or sign official documents, after being convicted in mid-December, and suggested a temporary replacement in Patrick Buisson.

His proposal, however, was rejected on Thursday by the clubs’ presidents, who were asked by the federation to validate, or reject Laporte’s choice.

“He told the board he was going to step down,” the source, who declined to be identified because they are not at liberty to discuss the matter, said.

France hosts the World Cup from Sept. 8 to Oct. 28.

Iraq To Hang 14 People For IS Massacre Of Cadets

By

John Mutiso

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January 27, 2023

Iraq has sentenced 14 people to death by hanging for their role in the Islamic State group massacre of hundreds of army cadets in 2014, judicial officials said Thursday.

The massacre, one of the worst committed by IS in Iraq, saw the extremists in June 2014 abduct up to 1,700 mainly Shiite cadets from the Speicher military base in the Tikrit region and execute them.

The Al-Rusafa Criminal Court in the capital Baghdad “issued death sentences against 14 criminal terrorists for their participation in the Camp Speicher massacre in 2014”, the judicial authority said in a statement, without specifying their nationalities.

The 14 men have 30 days to appeal the sentence. Decrees authorising executions must also be signed by the president.

In 2016, 36 men were hanged for their participation in the massacre.

The Speicher massacre took place in the early days of the group’s offensive in Iraq, when its forces seized the second city Mosul and turned it into its stronghold — until it was driven out by the Iraqi army and an international coalition in 2017.

According to propaganda images released by IS, the jihadists executed the recruits one by one.

Some bodies had been thrown into the Tigris River, which runs through Tikrit, while others were buried in mass graves.

The massacre prompted a surge of Shiite volunteers to enlist in militias fighting the jihadists.

While Iraqi authorities do not give figures, several thousand people accused or convicted of IS links are detained in Iraqi prisons.

The United Nations estimated in 2018 that more than 12,000 Iraqi and foreign “combatants” were being held in Iraqi prisons.

Iraq has been previously criticised for carrying out hundreds of what rights groups say are fast-track trials using confessions obtained under torture or without proper defence.

In 2021, Iraq executed 17 people for all crimes, according to rights group Amnesty International.

French Ex-Minister Michel Mercier Convicted In Fake Jobs Scam

By

John Mutiso

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January 27, 2023

A French court on Thursday found former justice minister Michel Mercier guilty of embezzlement in a fake jobs scheme he ran for the benefit of family members.

Mercier, 75, who served under former president Nicolas Sarkozy between 2010 and 2012, claimed tens of thousands of euros for his wife and daughter for parliamentary jobs they never carried out.
The court handed him a suspended prison sentence of three years.

Mercier gave “personal gain precedence over the public good”, the court said in its verdict, calling Mercier’s actions “serious”.

As senator, Mercier claimed 50,000 euros ($54,000 at today’s rate) in salary for his wife Joelle between 2005 and 2009, and 37,000 euros for his daughter Delphine between 2012 and 2014.

During that time, Delphine Mercier was living in London and did not set foot in the French Senate, but her father claimed she was acting as his “cultural advisor”.

Neither Mercier nor his daughter were able to provide any proof of actual work done.

Joelle Mercier, meanwhile, claimed during the trial that she had served as her husband’s representative at village fairs and funerals.

She was found guilty of conspiracy to embezzle public funds and of receiving stolen money and sentenced to a suspended prison term of 18 months and a 40,000-euro fine.

The court handed the daughter a 12-month suspended sentence and a fine of 10,000 euros.

Prosecutors had asked for the ex-minister to serve one year behind bars, accusing him of “creating smoke screens” in his defence and seeking to mislead the court.

Mercier had based part of his defence on his rural roots, pitting his “common sense” against the “Parisians” of the national financial crimes unit PNF.

Several French politicians have been convicted for similar offences committed before France in 2017 banned National Assembly deputies and senators from employing family members.

The move came in reaction to a public outcry over a high-profile case involving former right-wing prime minister Francois Fillon, who was found guilty of providing a fake parliamentary assistant job to his wife that saw her paid hundreds of thousands of euros in public funds.

The “Penelopegate” scandal, revealed in a media report while he was the front-runner in the 2017 presidential race, torpedoed his political career and cleared a path for then-relatively unknown Emmanuel Macron.

Last year, a court trimmed Fillon’s sentence to four years in prison with three suspended — down from five years with three suspended when he was first found guilty in 2020.

EABL Alcohol Drink Sales Dip After Increased Taxes

By

Dan Ojumah

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January 27, 2023

East African Breweries PLC (EABL) has announced Kshs 57.3 billion in net revenue for the half year ending 31 December 2022.

This represents a 4% increase over the same period last year.

This was exacerbated by excise-related price hikes in Kenya in July and October, which had a major impact on consumption of our products.”

EABL Group Managing Director & CEO, Ms. Jane Karuku said the brewer was positive of the future dispite the shocks caused by economic challenges.

“We will continue executing our strategy to navigate the prevailing macroeconomic volatility, leveraging our portfolio of extraordinary brands, smart investment, fuelled by our culture of everyday efficiency.”

We are also staying close to our consumers, taking advantage of our commercial capabilities and digital tools to enable us rapidly understand trends and execute with precision.”

KenGen To Pay Ksh 1.32 Billion In Dividends To Its Shareholders

Following the 2022/23 Budget, Kenya’s excise duty on beer and spirits went into effect in July 2022, increasing by 10% and 20%, respectively.

Beer and alcohol consumers faced an additional 6.3 percent excise tax rise in October 2022 as a result of annual inflationary adjustment.

These hikes followed a yearly higher excise adjustment in 2021, resulting in a compounded annual excise tax rise of 23% for beer and 34% for spirits.

EABL’s net sales growth in Kenya, its largest market, regressed by 1%, while Uganda and Tanzania rose by 19% and 11%, respectively.

Mystery As Man, 71, Dies In An Apartment With A 22-Year-Old Girl

By

John Mutiso

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January 27, 2023

Police are investigating the death of a 71-year-old man in the Parklands, Nairobi, where he shared an apartment with a 22-year-old woman.

The woman informed authorities that they had reserved a room at a hotel and that the male began gasping for oxygen after a short time.

He then complained of chest and back pains, as well as hand and leg numbness.

The woman dashed downstairs from the third floor, asking a taxi driver at the door to help her save his life.

The deceased man was driven by the cab driver to the nearby Aga Khan hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

US-Born Spanish Woman Is Now The World’s Oldest Person, At Age 115

By

John Mutiso

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January 27, 2023

She has survived the horrors of two world wars, a civil war and two global pandemics.

Now US-born Maria Branyas Morera has been named the world’s oldest person by Guinness World Records (GWR), following the death of French nun Sister André earlier this month aged 118.

Morera has spent the last 22 years in a nursing home in Catalonia, Spain, but she was born almost 116 years ago thousands of miles away in San Francisco.

Her birth on March 4, 1907 came less than four years after the Wright Brothers launched the first ever power driven flight and two years before construction had even begun on the ill-fated Titanic.

Despite being just weeks away from her 116th birthday, Morera even uses Twitter – with a little help from her daughter – to communicate with her thousands of followers.

“I am old, very old, but not an idiot,” her Twitter bio reads.

Morera was born a year after her parents emigrated to the US. Eight years later, the family moved back but the journey proved to be a treacherous one.

Morera’s father died of pulmonary tuberculosis toward the end of the transatlantic voyage, while she permanently lost her hearing in one ear after a fall, according to GWR.

The family arrived in Barcelona during World War I and Morera’s life has also spanned the Spanish Civil War and World War II.

She is believed to be among the oldest people to have recovered from Covid-19, having tested positive for the virus in May 2020.

In a series of tweets in Catalan on Saturday, Morera, who has three children, 11 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren, said she was “surprised and grateful” for the interest generated by her new status but that the last few days had been “stressful” and she would not be giving any more interviews.

“I need peace and tranquility,” she tweeted. “I have lived in the Tura Residence for 22 years and I do not want the day-to-day life of the residents or the staff who take care of us to change.”

When news of Morera’s record first emerged, the Residència Santa María del Tura issued a statement to GWR saying: “To celebrate this very special event we will have a small celebration behind closed doors in the residence in the coming days.”

The title of the oldest person ever recorded belongs to Jeanne Louise Calment.

Born on February 21, 1875, her life spanned 122 years and 164 days, according to GWR.

Gang Shoots Man, Robs Him Money In Isebania

By

John Mutiso

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January 27, 2023

A gang of four men shot a man in the arm and robbed him of an unknown amount of money yesterday evening in Isebania town, Kuria West sub-county.

Mr. Cleti Kimaiyo, the Kuria West sub-county police commander, stated that the victim, identified as Yakub Ismail, 23, suffered a gunshot wound and is currently in stable condition at Migori referral hospital.

According to Mr.Kimaiyo, the victim was walking home when he was attacked by a gang of four men who shot him in the right arm at the biceps with a pistol and stole an unknown amount of money.

He stated that the police arrived on the scene and discovered that the victim was being pursued by the gang from a bank in Sirari, Tanzania, where he went to obtain Tanzania currency for the purpose of foreign exchange.

The incident occurs as part of an ongoing crackdown on criminals who have been robbing people in the area.

Last week, Migori County police commander Mr.Mark Wanjala presided over a security meeting in Isebania town attended by security officers and members of the public.