The Eagles of Mali claimed their first win of the tournament, but it was the man in the middle that took the headlines
Mali claimed their first three points of the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations after beating Tunisia in controversial circumstances.
A 48th-minute penalty from Ibrahima Kone was enough to see the Malians through, albeit the Tunisians missed several chances to equalise.
The Carthage Eagles captain Wahbi Khazri missed a penalty in the 77th minute while Dylan Bronn and Ali Maaloul fired blanks.
However, the Tunisians will feel cheated due to the poor officiating from Zambian referee Janny Sikazwe. The 42-year-old was abysmal. The second half penalty he awarded to the Malians had question marks written all over it.
Also, he committed another blunder in the 86th minute after he awarded Malian forward El Bilal Toure a red card for a yellow card offence. The climax was when he ended the game in the 89th minute.
His decision caused an uproar, and the Tunisian officials ran into the pitch to protest the decision. And if not for the intervention of the stewards, the situation could have escalated.
After about thirty minutes, both teams were told to return to the pitch to conclude the game, but only the Malian Eagles obliged, while the Tunisians refused. In the end, the Malians walked away with the 1-0 controversial victory.
Meanwhile, it is not the first time the 42-year-old would be making dodgy decisions. In 2018, he was banned by CAF after his poor officiating in the CAF Champions League match between Espérance de Tunis and Primero de Agosto, which Esperance de Tunis won 4–2.
Sikazwe awarded Esperance a controversial penalty before ruling out an Agosto goal for a perceived foul on the Esperance goalkeeper.
According to the release from the CAF disciplinary committee, Sikazwe was found guilty of corruption, and he was suspended indefinitely. But his ban was lifted by FIFA just two months later.
The 23-year-old has not played a game of football in almost two months, but he is set for a return to action anytime soon
Victor Osimhen has finally returned to team training at Napoli following the facial injury he suffered in Napoli’s clash against Inter Milan last November.
Osimhen fractured his left cheekbone and orbit in the game and had to undergo complicated but successful surgery.
Following the surgery, it was confirmed that Osimhen would be out for three months. But the former Lille man returned to individual training just two weeks later, which raised Nigerian fans expectations over his participation in the Africa Cup of Nations.
But the 23-year-old dashed the hopes of many Nigerians after pulling out of the squad due to the injury and coronavirus he contracted when he visited Nigeria in December.
Osimhen just returned to Naples after testing negative for the virus and took part in the team training for the first time since he suffered the injury.
According to Claudio Rosso, Osimhen took part in the team’s session on Wednesday after his individual training.
Chelsea eased into the Carabao Cup final as they closed out a comfortable semi-final win over Tottenham.
Spurs never seriously threatened to overturn Chelsea’s two-goal first-leg advantage and Antonio Rudiger’s bundled finish from Mason Mount’s corner after 18 minutes effectively confirmed a Wembley date with either Arsenal or Liverpool.
It was a night of frustration for Spurs and their former Chelsea manager Antonio Conte as they saw two penalties, awarded by referee Andre Marriner for fouls on Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and Lucas Moura, correctly overturned by VAR.
Harry Kane also saw a goal ruled out for offside in an improved second-half performance from Spurs but Chelsea always looked in control – and once they had extended their aggregate lead early on, they were able to control affairs without hitting their best form.
The game was paused late on following a medical emergency in the crowd and on resumption Chelsea completed the formalities of their victory.
Conte’s huge task exposed
Spurs manager Conte has made no secret of the size of his job in rejuvenating this club after their recent decline – and any doubts over that diagnosis were removed by Chelsea’s obvious superiority here.
It was still a mystery, however, as to why Conte felt the need to rest experienced keeper and captain Hugo Lloris with the tie still on the line and play deputy Pierluigi Gollini instead.
Gollini distinguished himself when he saved with his legs from Romelu Lukaku early on but was at fault when he made an unconvincing dash to claim Mount’s corner, a move that ended badly when the ball was diverted into net via Rudiger’s back.
This was surely a job that required the presence of Lloris when Spurs’ margin of error was virtually non-existent.
Spurs did mount a challenge of sorts after the break but it was too little, too late – and this was a mediocre display that only illustrated how much work Conte needs to do.
Kane battled but remains short of his best form while there was a lack of creativity in midfield that allowed Chelsea to contain Spurs with relative comfort.
Conte will be expecting serious backing from Spurs chairman Daniel Levy if his drive and fierce ambition is to be satisfied. At present, he has a squad that requires serious investment before there can be thoughts of getting anywhere near the Premier League elite.
Tuchel shows magic touch again
Chelsea are now in their third successive final under Thomas Tuchel since he arrived to succeed the sacked Frank Lampard almost a year ago.
He guided them to the FA Cup final last season, which Chelsea lost to Leicester City, before claiming the biggest European club prize of all by winning the Champions League against Manchester City in Porto.
The job of reaching the EFL Cup final was largely done in the first game at Stamford Bridge but Chelsea came out here with the sort of determination and attacking intent that made it clear they were determined to snuff out Spurs’ hopes as quickly as possible.
Lukaku wasted one chance to do that but the early goal they desired came from Rudiger, which gave Spurs a task they never looked like accomplishing.
Tuchel, standards as high as ever, cut a dissatisfied figure at times in the second half when Chelsea’s intensity dropped and a little complacency appeared to creep into their game, giving Spurs opportunities they never had in the first 45 minutes.
Chelsea’s players responded to their manager’s demands and this tie was played out in a testimonial atmosphere in the closing minutes as Spurs fans deserted the stadium in droves, leaving one corner packed with joyous, celebrating visiting supporters.
The strength of Chelsea’s squad was shown once more as Tuchel was able to bring on Thiago Silva, Marcos Alonso, Hakim Ziyech, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and N’Golo Kante in the second half to ensure the door was never left ajar for Spurs. Indeed, it was slammed firmly in their faces.
It shows the scale of the job Tuchel has done that in the 350 days since his first game at Chelsea, he has become the first manager in their history to guide them to a Champions League, FA Cup and EFL Cup final.
And, on this evidence, Chelsea will take some stopping, whoever they face at Wembley at the end of February.
The Nigerian Government has lifted the suspension on microblogging site, Twitter, seven months after it suspended the social media platform in Nigeria.
This was contained in a statement issued by the Chairman Technical Committee Nigeria-Twitter Engagement and Director-General National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi.
“The Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) directs me to inform the public that President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR, has approved the lifting of the suspension of Twitter operation in Nigeria effective from 12am tonight, 13th January 2022. The approval was given following a memo written to the President by the Honourable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Ali Ibrahim,” the statement added.
“In the Memo, the Minister updates and requests the President’s approval for the lifting based on the Technical Committee Nigeria-Twitter Engagement’s recommendation.”
The government and Twitter have been in negotiations since over restoring the service based on a set of conditions, including Twitter registering operations in Nigeria.
According to him, Twitter has agreed to demands for working in the country.
It added that the committee set up by the Federal Government engaged with the Twitter team to engage resolve the impasse, adding that the resolutions will bring “endless possibilities”.
“Therefore, our engagement will help Twitter improve and develop more business models to cover a broader area in Nigeria. Furthermore, the FGN looks forward to providing a conducive environment for Twitter and other global tech companies to achieve their potential and be sustainably profitable in Nigeria,” the statement added.
Nigeria halted Twitter operations in June after the company deleted a comment by President Buhari, provoking an international outcry over freedom of expression. But the presidency said the move had nothing to do with the social media platform’s action.
“There has been a litany of problems with the social media platform in Nigeria, where misinformation and fake news spread through it have had real world violent consequences. All the while, the company has escaped accountability,” presidential aide, Garba Shehu, said in the wake of the suspension.
“Major tech companies must be alive to their responsibilities. They cannot be allowed to continue to facilitate the spread of religious, racist, xenophobic, and false messages capable of inciting whole communities against each other, leading to the loss of many lives. This could tear some countries apart.”
The United States, European Union, and Canada were among those who joined rights groups in condemning the ban as damaging to freedom of expression in Africa’s most populous country.
The Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMVI) in Morocco is set to be the first museum in Africa to go green.
The MMVI will be the first to use a solar solution with a smart energy storage and management system.
This initiative, which is aligned with Morrocan King Mohammed VI’s fight against climate change, will make the MMVI “the perfect model of harmonious alliance of art and environmental responsibility,” read a joint statement from the National Foundation of Museums (FNM) and the Institute of Research in Solar Energy and New Energies (IRESEN).
The FNM, together with IRESEN and its international research platform Green Energy Park signed, in October 2020, a partnership agreement to develop an innovative model of energy production and management at the MMVI.
This model of energy transition is based on a mixed approach including the integration of renewable energy sources through the establishment of a 130kWp solar photovoltaic power plant on the roof, and a photovoltaic system integrated into the pavement, supplying power to the building, and reducing the energy bill of MMVI by 50%.
It also relies on complete automation of the supervision and management of environmental parameters (relative humidity, temperature and air quality).
A new real-time supervision system was developed, allowing automatic control of the different parameters and optimising the energy consumption of energy-intensive terminals.
This first pilot project allows the consortium’s teams to validate the technology of the unique and innovative model.
This first demonstrator paves the way for the generalisation of this model to all of the Foundation’s museums, which will be carried out jointly with the various institutional partners in the Moroccan energy sector.
It will allow the positioning of Moroccan museums as leaders in the energy transition in this sector on the African continent.
The State Grid Corporation of China has announced the operation of the Fengning Pumped Storage Power Station, touted as the ‘world’s largest’.
The plant is located in Fengning County, Chengde City, Hebei Province and will ensure the Beijing Winter Olympics is green, according to the statement.
The project was started in 2013 and has 12 reversible pump-turbine generators, with each unit having a total generating capacity of 300,000KW.
The project has a capacity of 3,600 000KW, generates 6.612 billion KWh of energy capacity per annum and has an annual pumped power of 8.716 billion KWh.
The 12 units at Fengning have pumped capacity for 10.8 hours.
The project has 190 caverns, the largest underground factory in the world, and is the world’s first pumped-storage power station connected to the flexible DC grid, as a result of a connection made to the Zhangbeirou DC converter station.
Connection to the Zhangbei Rou DC grid and the North China 500 kV power grid will help ensure the Beijing Winter Olympics are powered with green electricity.
The plant will provide 600,000 KW of capacity to Beijing and Zhangjiakou, the host cities of the Winter Olympics.
The integration enables the plant to participate in load regulation and regional stability coordination and control.
The system is used for reliability and increased integration of solar and wind for resilience of the regional grid network.
The launch of the system comes as grid operators are exploring various forms of long-duration energy storage to leverage renewable energy as baseload power and to address the fluctuating nature of clean resources.
However, pumped storage is the most mature large-capacity energy storage method at present owing to functionalities such as large capacity, peak regulation, frequency regulation, phase regulation, energy storage, system backup and black start.
The plant is expected to avoid the use of 480,000 tons of standard coal and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 1.2 million tons each year.
The project is one of the five pumped storage power stations that State Grid Corporation enacted in 2021.
Japanese energy technology company Hitachi Energy has delivered a 150kV digital substation to Indonesian utility PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN Persero) to ensure reliable power in East Java, Indonesia.
Built on an area of 1.5 hectares, the digital substation is the first and largest of its kind in East Java, according to Hitachi Energy, and connects the 200-hectare Sidoarjo Industrial Estate to PLN’s grid, ensuring the many large manufacturing companies have access to stable power.
The substation will facilitate decarbonisation by allowing for the integration of renewable energy into the electricity network and will positively influence economic growth in the East Java Province by ensuring a reliable source of electricity, according to Hitachi.
Djarot Hutabri, General Manager of the East Java and Bali Development Central Unit, said: “Thanks to Hitachi Energy, with this digital substation, operators can retrieve real-time data about electricity flowing in the network so they can anticipate and make decisions faster.
“This is important for the resilience and stability of the electricity network, especially to support this very strategic industrial area in East Java.
“In addition, this digital substation also allows for improved reliability, integration of new, cleaner forms of energy, and delivery of energy services in a smarter and safer way”.
The digitalisation of PLN’s Sidoarjo substation aims to lower O&M costs and will limit electrical risk with the use of fiber optic cable rather than copper for operational data exchange.
According to Hitachi Energy, the new substation at KIS is based on the latest communication protocols and will use a process bus communication network to enable the continuous bidirectional exchange of digital data between primary equipment, protection equipment, the SCADA system, and the regional control centre.
Nutritionist, Ashley Jordan Ferira, Ph.D., RDN, shares an interesting link between time-restricted eating (a type of intermittent fasting) and sleep from a recent study she read in the journal Endocrine Reviews. Below, she breaks down the science.
The Link Between Time-Restricted Eating And Sleep.
Here’s the gist: According to Ferira, consuming meals in consistent daily windows of less than 12 hours “is linked to less obesity, better metabolic health, and—guess what!— better sleep.” On the flip side, they found that “eating over a longer window and/or frequently changing that window is linked to exactly the opposite,” she says.
The logic makes sense, as if you have an eating window of more than 12 hours, chances are you’re eating later in the night—and if that meal is super hearty or excessively sweet or spicy, it might mess with your slumber. “Our largest meals should not ever be close to bedtime,” Ferira adds, and plenty of research has associated late dinners or eating more calories late in the evening and short sleep duration (less than five hours). Of course, a growling, empty stomach can keep you up at night as well, so you do want to listen to your natural body cues if you are hungry at night—just opt for one of these foods that keep blood sugar levels steady and provide relaxing benefits.
But let’s circle back to that 12 hours or less eating window: We know that there are many alterations to intermittent fasting, and some plans are more flexibility than others. The study Ferira mentions isn’t so strict about the exact schedule so long as it’s less than 12 hours of eating. No matter the specific plan you follow, try to make sure it’s consistent every day—as the study notes, frequently changing the window of eating can have the opposite effect on sleep and overall health. You shouldn’t stay married to a plan that is unhelpful or unhealthy for you, but once you find one that works, do your best to stay consistent.
Takeaway
Time-restricted eating comes with a number of health benefits, and you can add better sleep to that list, as long as your window is less than 12 hours and you keep up with it daily. Eat in a sleep-smart way throughout the day (with high-quality sources of protein and magnesium-rich plants) and you should be golden.
Many people believe that you have to spend lots of money to eat healthy. However, that doesn’t have to be the case.
On the contrary, the cost of not-so-healthy fast food, convenience meals, and snacks can stack up pretty quickly and become very expensive over time.
In my personal experience, I’ve also found that eating healthy can actually save money in the long run, especially if you stick to a few key principles when shopping for, selecting, and preparing your food.
Here are few simple tips that can help you save money while eating healthy.
Stick To Seasonal Produce
Seasonal fruits and vegetables are often fresher, more flavorful, and more affordable than foods that are produced out of season.
This is because these seasonal ingredients are harvested at peak ripeness and not transported nearly as far, minimizing the amount of time it takes to travel from the farm to your grocery store shelf.
There are plenty of online guides that detail which fruits and vegetables are in season near you. You can also get a good idea of which foods are in season by visiting your local farmers market to check out what’s available.
Buy Generic
Many grocery stores offer products in both generic and name-brand varieties.
Opting for generic brands instead of name brands is a simple way to save money without compromising on quality.
Generic brand foods are usually comparable to name-brand versions in terms of safety, quality, and nutritional value.
However, it’s always a good idea to compare the list of ingredients and nutrition labels on your favorite branded products with those of generic versions before you purchase them.
Practice Meal Planning
Planning out your meals in advance is a smart way to save both time and money.
Try creating a weekly meal plan, drafting a shopping list, and setting aside a specific time to prep your meals for the next week.
One of my favorite methods for meal planning is to find a few recipes that use a similar set of ingredients to rotate between during the week.
I like to focus on a few ingredients with a shorter shelf life, such as fresh fruits and vegetables, and switch between various whole grains, legumes, spices, and seasonings for each meal.
This can help streamline your shopping list while also adding plenty of diversity to your diet, as each day you’re enjoying ingredients in new and interesting ways.
Cook At Home
Cooking your own food at home instead of dining at restaurants or purchasing prepackaged meals is one of the easiest and most effective ways to eat healthy on a budget.
In fact, a single meal at a restaurant typically costs much more than purchasing the ingredients you need to prepare your own food at home.
Plus, with additional fees like delivery fees, service charges, and tips, the cost of dining out or ordering takeout can quickly add up.
Preparing your own food also gives you complete control of what you’re putting on your plate. This makes it easier to include more fresh, whole foods in your diet.
It also helps decrease your intake of added sugar, salt, and artificial ingredients.
Eat More Plant-Based Proteins
Plant-based proteins like beans, lentils, chickpeas, tofu, and tempeh are often much cheaper than animal proteins like meat, fish, and poultry.
Plus, these foods are rich in protein, fiber, and a variety of other essential vitamins and minerals. They’re easy to incorporate into recipes like casseroles, soups, salads, and stir-fries.
Keep in mind that eating more plant-based proteins doesn’t mean you need to become a full-fledged vegan or cut out animal products from your diet altogether.
If you eat meat now and want to start eating more plant-based protein, consider swapping plant-based proteins into your diet just a few times per week. This will help you save some money and reduce your consumption of meat.
A flexitarian diet like this encourages eating mostly plant-based but also allows you to eat animal-based foods here and there.
Takeaway
Although many people believe that eating healthy can be expensive, this isn’t necessarily true.
In fact, following a healthy, well-rounded diet can actually save you money in the long run.
Try practicing a few of the tips outlined above, which can make it easier than ever to eat healthy without breaking the bank.
There are have been much talk about the connection between diet and skin complexion. While everyone’s bodies are different, and thus react uniquely to foods or triggers, there’s a growing consensus among skin care experts that improving your gut health will absolutely have beneficial effects on your skin. Additionally, loading up on skin-supporting foods will give your cells the nutrients they need to thrive.
This connection is so important, notes dermatological nurse and celebrity aesthetician Natalie Aguilar, that she encourages her clients to have skin snacks. “I always ask my clients to have three skin snacks a day, preferably berries,” she tells us about brightening skin. “Berries contain antioxidants that can protect your skin from the sun as well as vitamin C that can brighten your skin.”
You may already be folding skin snacks into your diet without realizing it (those egg whites in the morning? Great for collagen production. The olive oil and lemon dressing in your salad? Great for antioxidants and fatty acids.). But if you’re using this time of year to reevaluate your nutrition goals, this can be a useful reminder that gives you a youthful glow in the process.
Here are a few additional snacking ideas:
Kimchi
Fermented foods, like kimchi and kombucha, can help improve your gut microflora. A thriving microflora translates to better skin barrier health.
Green tea is loaded with antioxidants. Research shows that it supports your skin against environmental aggressors—the primary cause of wrinkles.
A cucumber is more than 95% water, so if you have a hard time remembering to drink water throughout the day, try noshing on some cucumber.
We can all benefit from eating more healthy fats—and getting those from avocados gives you other benefits, like over 14 minerals, protein, soluble fiber, phytosterols; polyphenols; carotenoids, and omega-3s.
Pomegranate seeds and pomegranate seed extracts are very useful for environmental aggressors. Take this randomized controlled trial, for instance, which found that pomegranate extract increased skin’s resilience against UVB rays; or this double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial, which found that taking pomegranate extract orally could help with common sun-induced pigmentation.*
Ultimately, there are lots of foods out there that can support your skin—whether that be through collagen production, hydration, antioxidant protection, or gut support—and finding a nutrition program that works for you is about listening to your body. Eat up; your complexion will thank you.
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