newsword2017

Voting is now open for our March Goal of the Month competition, and there are four brilliant strikes to choose from. To be in with a chance of winning a signed  Willian  shirt, all you need to do is watch the video above and register your vote. This month’s nominations are as follows: A:  Eden Hazard  against West Ham United B:  N’Golo Kante  v Manchester United C: Callum Hudson-Odoi v West Ham United Under-18s D:  Willian  v Stoke City The winning goal each month is the strike which receives the highest number of votes from supporters. Click here to register your vote  and be in with a chance of winning a signed  Willian  shirt.

Over the past month what is often cited as the world's largest Buddhist temple, on the outskirts of Bangkok, has been the scene of an extraordinary stalemate. Police officers, in rows three deep, blocked the gates to the Wat Dhammakaya temple compound. Around the back, helmeted soldiers guarded alleyways, with some crawling through surrounding rice-fields. It was, they explained, a restricted military zone. Nobody was allowed inside. The official reason for this siege was that the elderly abbot, Phra Dhammachayo, was wanted on multiple criminal charges related to a collapsed credit union and police believed he was being hidden inside the temple. It was the largest security operation since the 2014 coup, involving thousands of troops and police officers, trying to flush him out. At one point it seemed certain they would storm the temple. Conservative supporters of the government made no secret of their wish to see what they view as a dangerously deviant Buddhist sect shut dow

It’s that time of the season again. That time when a team is within touching distance of the Premier League title and are grinding out results with the finish line in sight. Saturday’s 2-1 scoreline suggests that was the case when we faced Stoke City on Saturday, yet one would be completely in the wrong for accusing our Blues of playing such a game. We only scored twice, but with the amount of chances we created, we could have scored a whole lot more. The match proved far from easy, however.  Eden Hazard ’s influence in the attacking third was certainly missed, and the Potters were also at their physical best. Like Manchester United in our previous fixture, they set out to bring out the rough stuff, but we did well to cope and managed to walk away with yet another victory. The news of  Hazard ’s injury was quite disappointing, and it did somewhat sour the build-up for me, but I was also sure that  Willian  and  Pedro  would both be threatening. As it happens, it was  Willian  

American football started this weekend. What we British call football, played in America. Not what Americans call football. Which is sometimes played in Britain. It’s the 22nd season of Major League Soccer, notable for two franchises (as they are called over here) making their debuts, meaning that with pleasing symmetry there are now also 22 teams. Minnesota United is based in Minneapolis, the Mid-western city where Chelsea played in July on the pre-season tour, while Atlanta United is the other. Three famous Blues players have been recent high-profile imports. Frank Lampard of course was announced as a New York City signing but then turned up at Manchester City, and with a crushing inevitability we all saw coming, scored against Chelsea. But an injury-plagued start to his career in the States saw him labelled ‘The worst signing in MLS history’ by USA Today (bizarrely, the writer who penned that article is my friend and we used to play together for the Finn McCool’s pub team. We ag

"It is because of them that my little boy smiles again," a mum's heartfelt thanks to the owners of a dog with skin condition vitiligo, and the Singaporean creator of a selective dating app comes to its defence. Road to Rowdy Two young kids with a long-term skin condition are making headlines after meeting a dog sharing the same rare autoimmune disease. Eight-year old Carter, from Arkansas, developed vitiligo in 2014, a condition  characterised  by areas of the skin losing their pigmentation. Ava, who is 10 and from Canada, also has vitiligo which she developed when she was four. But Carter and Ava have more than just that in common. They both recently got the chance to meet Rowdy - a Labrador retriever also known as the  White Eyed Dog  - at his home in Oregon after a  crowd-funding  project. The dog, who is 13 and was diagnosed with the disease in the same year as Carter, helps affected children come to terms with their condition and grow in self-confidenc

Two in five North Koreans are undernourished and more than 70% of the population relies on food aid, the United Nations says. In a  new report , it said most North Koreans also lacked access to basic healthcare or sanitation. Diarrhoea and pneumonia are the two main causes of death for children under five, the report said. Humanitarian needs had been exacerbated by "recurrent natural hazards", such as  frequent floods  and  drought . "Amidst political tensions, an estimated 18 million people across DPRK [North Korea] continue to suffer from food insecurity and undernutrition, as well as a lack of access to basic services," the UN report said. "Furthermore, 10.5 million people, or 41% of the total population, are undernourished." Isolated North Korea, which has a population of about 25 million, has faced significant food shortages for years. Hundreds of thousands are believed to have died during a widespread famine in the 1990s. The UN repo