Nicolas Anelka's France career is as good as over after he was yesterday given an 18-match suspension by the French Football Federation (FFF) for his part in the country's World Cup fiasco.
Anelka, the Chelsea striker, was disciplined for his part in the internal strife which contributed to Les Bleus' early exit from the World Cup in South Africa.
Patrice Evra, the captain in South Africa, has been handed a five-match ban, Franck Ribery a three-match suspension, Jeremy Toulalan a one-game ban, while Eric Abidal and the remaining members of the 23-man squad have escaped further punishment, having already missed the first match of Laurent Blanc's reign as coach.
Evra, Abidal, Anelka, Ribery and Toulalan were earlier this month called to yesterday's FFF hearing to discuss the behaviour of the national team during the tournament in South Africa, when in-fighting led to them being eliminated in the group stage.
France's World Cup campaign descended into farce after the squad went on strike after Anelka was sent home from South Africa after an altercation with then coach Raymond Domenech.
France also finished bottom of their group after scoring just one goal and earning one point in three matches. The fall-out from the team's lamentable performance led to new coach Blanc suspending all 23 members of the World Cup squad from his selection from the friendly against Norway in Oslo earlier this month, while the FFF also withheld bonuses owed to the players.
But the federation called only the five players who played a leading role in the strike. Ribery and Anelka - whose locker-room outburst triggered the protest - sent lawyers. Ribery, who was vice captain at the World Cup, did not attend the hearing because Bayern Munich refused to release him before their opening Bundesliga game Friday.
Only Evra, the Manchester United left-back, Barcelona defender Abidal and Toulalan from Lyon attended the hearing, federation official Yann Le Guillard said.
Domenech was at the hearing along with then-federation president Jean-Pierre Escalettes and assistant coach Alain Boghossian.
Anelka, at 31, has almost certainly seen his international career come to an end after 69 caps, which included being part of the victorious squad at Euro 2000.
France's qualifying campaign for the 2012 European Championships in Ukraine and Poland spans 10 matches, meaning that, even with scheduled friendlies, Anelka's ban will last until after the tournament, when the striker will be 33.
A statement on the French Football Federation's official website, www.fff.fr, read: "The federal commission for discipline of the FFF has taken the following decisions:
"Nicolas Anelka is sanctioned with an 18-game suspension from selection for the France team.
"A five-game suspension from selection for the France team has been issued to Patrice Evra. Franck Ribery will have to serve a three-game suspension. Jeremy Toulalan is punished with one-game suspension.
"The commission takes note of the explanation provided by Eric Abidal, who has not been sanctioned."
Jean-Louis Valentin, the former France team director who resigned following the farcical events in South Africa, earlier said the rebels deserved a second chance.
After giving evidence at the hearing, Valentin said: "As a lover and supporter of the France team, I think everyone deserves a second chance."
Valentin indicated the players expressed remorse for their actions. "I felt the players apologise, marked and scarred by what had happened," he said.
"I think now they must know how to turn the page and move on.
"There was a very good dialogue that lasted long enough."
* Press Association
Eric Cantona
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Paolo Di Canio
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David Prutton
Also loses his head after being shown second yellow. Saints midfielder pushes referee Alan Wiley and given 11-match ban.
Zinedine Zidane
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Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts
Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.
The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.
Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.
More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.
The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.
Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:
November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.
May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
April 2017: Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.
December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.
July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.
May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.
New Year's Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.
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Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989
Director: Goran Hugo Olsson
Rating: 5/5
Hidden killer
Sepsis arises when the body tries to fight an infection but damages its own tissue and organs in the process.
The World Health Organisation estimates it affects about 30 million people each year and that about six million die.
Of those about three million are newborns and 1.2 are young children.
Patients with septic shock must often have limbs amputated if clots in their limbs prevent blood flow, causing the limbs to die.
Campaigners say the condition is often diagnosed far too late by medical professionals and that many patients wait too long to seek treatment, confusing the symptoms with flu.
Singham Again
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How to protect yourself when air quality drops
Install an air filter in your home.
Close your windows and turn on the AC.
Shower or bath after being outside.
Wear a face mask.
Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.
Thank You for Banking with Us
Director: Laila Abbas
Starring: Yasmine Al Massri, Clara Khoury, Kamel El Basha, Ashraf Barhoum
Rating: 4/5
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Tree of Hell
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Director: Raed Zeno
Rating: 4/5
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
Started: 2020
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Entertainment
Number of staff: 210
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
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