So long, farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, good night. Whatever the language, a big departure can bring an emotional response, as Wayne Rooney has discovered.

The 33-year-old, England’s record goalscorer, will win his 120th and final cap against the United States at Wembley on Thursday.

It is a gesture by the Football Association that has been welcomed by some and questioned by others, but Rooney is not the first to be afforded a glorious goodbye.

From television with the Sneijder family to tears for Diego Maradona, here’s how other countries have honoured their departing legends.

Wesley Sneijder (Netherlands)

Are you sitting comfortably?

Perched in a mocked-up living room in the centre of the Johan Cruyff Arena pitch with his family, watching goodwill messages from his peers – that’s how Wesley Sneijder said goodbye to the Netherlands after a 15-year international career.

The midfielder played 62 minutes of a 2-1 win over Peru in September, before being given a spot on a sofa with his wife and two children to watch pre-recorded messages from former team-mates and managers.

The crowd held aloft banners celebrating the 34-year-old, who began his international career in April 2003 and racked up a national record 134 caps, scoring 31 goals along the way.

Cosy.

Lukas Podolski (Germany)

Lukas Podolski is a man who knows how to go out on a high.

The forward marked his 130th and final appearance for Germany in March 2017 with a spectacular winner in a friendly against England.

The former Bayern Munich and Arsenal man was given a presentation, then delivered a speech that delayed kick-off by several minutes, while Germany fans unveiled a celebratory mosaic.

After scoring his 49th international goal, the 2014 World Cup winner made way before the final whistle to a standing ovation – accompanied by music from the film Gladiator – before being carried on a lap of honour by his team-mates.

Thierry Henry (France)

The one that got away.

Thierry Henry hung up his international boots in 2010, but five years later – after announcing he would retire from club football – French newspaper L’Equipe launched a campaign to get the ex-Arsenal forward one last cap for Les Bleus.

The campaign for Henry, who played 123 times for France, to appear against Brazil in a friendly in March 2015 gathered pace, receiving backing from the likes of Zinedine Zidane, Arsene Wenger and Antoine Griezmann.

However, it was not an opinion shared by everyone, with former France boss Raymond Domenech saying “playing for the national team should not be a gift”.

Instead, France chose to honour Henry, Zidane and fellow 1998 World Cup winners Patrick Vieira and Marcel Desailly with an appearance on the pitch before the friendly.

David Silva (Spain)

Manchester City midfielder David Silva retired from international football after the World Cup in the summer, but will get one last cap for Spain on Sunday.

A World Cup and two-time European Championship winner, Silva made 125 appearances for his country and will be honoured at the Estadio de Gran Canaria when Spain face Bosnia.

Silva, who was born in Gran Canaria, will take a ceremonial kick-off – in a suit, apparently.

The 32-year-old will also be awarded a special cap by Uefa, although it won’t count as an official international appearance.

Diego Maradona (Argentina)

The greatest send-off, for one of the greatest of all time.

In 2001, seven years after his previous international cap and four years after retiring from the game, Diego Maradona returned for one final appearance in an Argentina shirt.

Aged 41, and having had a heart attack the previous year, Maradona’s presence at former club Boca Juniors’ Bombonera stadium prompted tears from many of the 50,000 crowd – who had packed the streets for hours chanting his name before the match – as Argentina took on a Rest of the World XI.

Dogged by ill-health and drug problems late in his playing career, Maradona reportedly shed nearly three stone to feature against a side including the likes of Carlos Valderrama, Rene Higuita, Lothar Matthaus, Eric Cantona and Hristo Stoichkov.

The Argentine FA planned to retire Maradona’s legendary number 10 shirt following the match, but were not allowed to do so because of Fifa regulations – although that did not spoil the party.

Maradona scored twice in a 6-3 win and, with 20 minutes to go, ripped off his Argentina shirt to reveal the colours of Boca Juniors and send the Buenos Aires crowd into a frenzy.

Brazil legend Pele and former France captain Michel Platini watched on as Maradona was carried by the players for several goodbye laps, before giving an emotional farewell speech.

“I will take this homage to my grave,” he said.

You think you’re good at Instagram lurking? There’s always room to be sneakier.

The most proficient lurkers among us — people we both revere and fear, to be honest — have devised truly impressive ways to Insta-skulk without being detected. We’re not talking basic stuff like “use desktop Instagram,” either. The methods below will require a little effort, but you’ll probably find them useful, whether you’re keeping tabs on your crush or your sworn enemy. (These, of course, are the only two types of people anyone lurks.)

To be clear, we’re not suggesting that you do these things. We are merely explaining that they are possible, and that if you wanted to do them it would be within your reach. That’s all!

The repurposed finsta

The “finsta” or dark Instagram, is a separate account which users accept very few followers, then post whatever they want — niche memes, gratuitous selfies, personal anecdotes — without worrying about judgement or how many likes their posts will get. 

But the finsta can also be a strong lurking tool. If it’s unclear to whom an account belongs, the people you’re lurking are less likely to notice it watching their Stories or, in the event you make a mistake, accidentally liking one of their posts from 2012. To truly protect your identity, however, you’ll need to ensure that the person you’re lurking doesn’t follow any of the people who follow your finsta — if they do, those people will appear under your finsta’s bio (in the “Followed by” section), making you easier to identify. The person you’re lurking will also need to have a public account for this to work.

And, of course, they might notice.

Want even more of a cloak? Take it a step further. One user, who asked to remain anonymous, explained that she periodically changes her finsta handle to something that seems like a bot — “new_followers_now200k,” as a hypothetical example — to prevent suspicion when she wants to watch people’s Stories covertly.

The pleasant meme account

If you don’t want to use your finsta for nefarious purposes, you could also create another account entirely. A highly specialized meme or lifestyle account, for example, is unlikely to make the people you lurk suspicious — especially if your account gains a following in its own right.

For example, one such user (also anonymous) said she usually lurks one person on an account created originally for niche bubble content.

“It used to be an account for pretty bubbles,” she explained, “and now it’s an account for revenge.”

“It used to be an account for pretty bubbles, and now it’s an account for revenge.”

For her, this particular lurking method was born from necessity. Since the person she wants to lurk (an enemy, she explained) has her regular account blocked, she had to use another to see her posts at all. The bubble account, which had fallen dormant anyway, fit the bill. 

So far, it’s working, she said — the person “doesn’t seem to notice the bubble account watching her Stories.”

The small peek

Perhaps you’re not sure if you want to take the plunge and view someone’s Instagram story. (After all, they will know you’ve seen it.) This is a good time to employ the “peek” method.

Stories appear on your timeline back-to-back, letting you know in what order they will appear when you start watching your queue. So, once you find the story you’re interested in, click on the one before it. Then — once you’re on the last frame — pause the story, and partially swipe to the left and the first frame of the next story will start to appear. You need to have a very, very delicate touch here, though: Don’t swipe all the way or you’ll be counted as having viewed the story.

If you don’t follow the person whose story you want to watch, peeking will be a bit more difficult.

If you don’t follow the person whose story you want to watch, peeking will be a bit more difficult. You’ll have to wait for their story to appear on your Explore page — which, if you have their phone number or have friends in common, it probably will. Then, follow the same steps above, though you’ll need to be cool with publicly viewing the story that shows up before theirs. 

Of course, there’s a huge caveat here, which is that you can only watch the first frame of the story you’re interested in. But the peek can be a useful way to determine whether you want to take the plunge and watch the whole story. 

The third-party approach

Yes, there are numerous apps and websites (we’ll let you Google them for yourself, but it’s extremely easy) that allow you to search for and retrieve Instagram Stories anonymously. You know how stan accounts always seem to have full downloads of celebrities’ disappearing content? They’re probably using one of these tools.

Still, employ them with caution: Make sure you’re logged out of Instagram on desktop before you search, and pay close attention to what you’re clicking on. We can’t vouch for any of these websites’s safety, so we’d recommend trying one of the methods above before taking the plunge.

US Defense Secretary James Mattis formally returned church bells to the Philippines that were taken as war trophies over a century ago following gruesome clashes, seeking to close a contentious chapter in the two allies’ shared history.

The decision to return the “Bells of Balangiga” to the Philippines ends a decades-long quest by Manila, including by President Rodrigo Duterte, and is expected to bolster US-Philippines’ relations.

But it has upset some US veterans and Wyoming states’ delegation to the US Congress, which uniformly opposed returning bells that were a memorial to the 45 American soldiers killed during a surprise attack on September 28, 1901, in the central town of Balangiga.

Two of the three bells have been on display at FE Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming. The third bell is at a US Army museum in South Korea.

‘Bells mark time’

Mattis, speaking at a ceremony at the air force base attended by the Philippines ambassador to the United States, said the Philippines has proven itself as a great US ally in conflicts over the century since that clash. He said the sacrifices of US forces would not be forgotten.

“To those who fear we lose something by returning these bells, please hear me when I say: Bells mark time, but courage is timeless,” Mattis said. “It does not fade in history’s dimly lit corridors.”

In Manila, the Philippines’ foreign affairs department cheered the move.

“Today is a time of solemn remembrance as we pay tribute to all those who gave up their lives during the Filipino-American War,” it said.

Wyoming’s Congressional delegation, which did not attend the ceremony, issued a terse statement.

“We continue to oppose any efforts by the administration to move the bells to the Philippines without the support of Wyoming’s veterans community,” Senators Mike Enzi and John Barrasso and Representative Liz Cheney said in a statement.

All three bells will be restored and handed over to the Philippines as early as December, said Joe Felter, deputy assistant secretary of defence for South and Southeast Asia.

‘Howling wilderness’

The 1901 attack in Balangiga, on the Philippine island of Samar, was seen as perhaps the worst routing of US soldiers since the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876, also known as Custer’s Last Stand.

According to historians, one or more of the church bells were rung to signal the attack in Balangiga.

US forces took the bells after a brutal counterattack that killed anywhere from hundreds to thousands of people in the Philippines, historians say. One US general was said to have directed his troops to “make the interior of Samar a howling wilderness”.

Some Wyoming veterans, like Cheryl Shannon at Veterans of Foreign Wars, said they were fine with the decision to return the bells.

“We’re tired of it always being an issue,” said Shannon, an Iraq war veteran.

But Hank Miller, a veteran with the VFW who wanted to keep the bells in Wyoming, said broader support for his position had faded as it became clear Washington would return the bells.

“I was advised to ‘stop fighting a losing battle’ and ‘stop beating a dead horse’ as the bells were going back,” Miller said.

SOURCE:
Reuters news agency

LeBron James has become the fifth highest points scorer in NBA history, passing Wilt Chamberlain, as the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Portland Trailblazers 126-117.

The 33-year-old beat Chamberlain’s record of 31,419 points with a free throw late in the fourth quarter.

James, who now has 31,425 career points, scored a season-high 44 points.

It was the highest score by a Lakers player since Kobe Bryant’s 60 in his final game in April 2016.

Lakers and Philadelphia 76ers legend Chamberlain, a four-time most valuable player, won two NBA championships, in 1967 and 1972, in his 14-year career.

He is also the only player to have scored 100 points in an NBA game.

“Anytime my name is mentioned with some of the greats to play the game, I always think back to my hometown where I have come form and how far I’ve come,” said James, who joined the Lakers as a free agent in July on a four-year deal worth $154m (£116m).

In a 15-year career, the four-time MVP has won three NBA titles, two at Miami Heat and one at Cleveland Cavaliers.

James added: “He [Chamberlain] is one of the most dominant forces we have ever had in our game along with Shaq [Shaquille O’Neal]. He is one of the greatest Lakers to ever play the game, one of greatest scorers and rebounders ever.

“People had never seen someone like that in that era. He was dominant in all walks of life, not just basketball.”

Lakers coach Luke Walton added: “It is important to recognise milestones in the game, to do what he did and get in the top five of that list and play way he plays, how unselfish he is, is something that should be praised and talked about.”

Former Governor of California and Hollywood actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who starred in the 1984 film Conan the Destroyer with Chamberlain, tweeted his congratulations to James.

Is it holiday season already? Even with our phones, laptops, tablets, and smart watches keeping track of time, somehow the season still seems to sneak up on us every year. Speaking of which, with our gadget-filled lives, it can be harder than ever to find the perfect digital gift for the people on our holiday lists. What do you give the person who always tells you about the hot new tech?

That’s where we come in. We’ve rounded up this holiday season’s best tech gifts, with an eye on the most innovative personal tech around—all the best stuff to gift to the tech-obsessives in your life, along with anyone who could use some awesome gifts to push them into 2019 in fresh tech style. To showcase our recommendations, we’ll take you through the perfect day in the life of your gift-ees.

Morning

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who fled Myanmar, citing rape, murder and arson, will not be forcibly repatriated, Bangladesh‘s Rohingya Relief and Repatriation Commissioner has said.

“No one will be forced back to Myanmar,” Abul Kalam told Al Jazeera.

Bangladesh is scheduled to send back an initial group of 2,260 Rohingya from 485 families on Thursday, in line with a bilateral plan agreed by the two governments in October.

But the move has been opposed by the United Nations’ refugee agency and aid groups who say the Muslim minority can’t be forced back, causing confusion over whether the repatriations will go ahead.

“They survived atrocities so it’s natural they fear to go back,” Kalam said.

When asked whether the Rohingya would be guaranteed a “safe and dignified” return, Kalam said: “Everything is done as per the agreement between Bangladesh and Myanmar. I hope the Myanmar authority will keep their words.”

The terms of the repatriation deal, however, has never been made public.

People do not want to go back to Myanmar due to safety concerns

Foyazullah, Rohingya refugee

The plan to begin returning the Rohingya to Myanmar comes just days after UN investigators warned of an “ongoing genocide” against the Muslim minority.

Marzuki Darusman, the chairman of the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, said beyond mass killings, the conflict included the ostracisation of the population, prevention of births, and widespread displacement in camps.

Earlier this week, Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights urged Bangladesh to halt the repatriation plan saying it violated international law.

“We are witnessing terror and panic among those Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar who are at imminent risk of being returned to Myanmar against their will,” she said.

“Forcibly expelling or returning refugees and asylum seekers to their home country would be a clear violation of the core legal principle of non-refoulement, which forbids repatriation where there are threats of persecution or serious risks to the life and physical integrity or liberty of the individuals.”

‘Rohingya flee camps to forests’

The Rohingya themselves have said they are terrified of returning to the Buddhist-majority country. 

“People do not want to go back to Myanmar due to safety concerns,” Foyazullah, a 43-year-old Rohingya living in Bangladesh’s sprawling Cox’s Bazar refugee camp.

“The people in charge of the camps are harassing people. As a result many families have fled and are hiding in nearby forests.”

Late last month, a group of Rohingya refugees sent a list of 10 demands to Myanmar leader’s Aung San Suu Kyi, saying the beleagured community would return only when its demands were met.

Once hailed as a champion in the fight for democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi has faced intense scrutiny over her response to the plight of the Rohingya.

She has been stripped of a series of international honours, with the latest coming on Tuesday when Amnesty withdrew its highest award citing her “indifference” to the plight of the Rohingya.

Imtiaz Ahmed, a professor at Dhaka University told Al Jazeera that there was mounting concern the Rohingya were still “not welcome on Myanmar’s soil.”

“I have seen reports that say conditions in Myanmar are still not suitable for return,” he said. “This obviously raises concern.”

In the days leading to Thursday’s expulsion, Human Rights Watch reported that Bangladesh had deployed its army to refugee camps, heightening the refugees’ fear of return.

“The Bangladesh government will be stunned to see how quickly international opinion turns against it if it starts sending unwilling Rohingya refugees back into harm’s way in Myanmar,” Bill Frelick, the group’s refugee rights director, said in a statement.

“That Dhaka deployed its army into the camps is a red flag that this terrified community is not willing to return.” 

Myanmar’s government has trumpeted every occasion where a Rohingya family has returned, however many fear returning to Myanmar without guaranteed rights such as citizenship, access to healthcare and freedom of movement – rights that were denied to them long before last year’s crackdown.

Nay San, a Rohingya activist said Myanmar was trying to forcibly relocate the Rohingya to avoid being prosecuted by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

In September, the ICC ruled it could prosecute Myanmar for alleged crimes against humanity against the Rohingya, an unprecedented decision that could expose the country’s politicians and military leaders to charges.

“They think that allowing people back to Myanmar will help them,” San said. “However, they are not fulfilling any demands made by the refugees.”

More than 700,000 Rohingya fled a brutal army crackdown in Myanmar’s Rakhine state last year, accusing government soldiers and local Buddhists of massacring families, burning hundreds of villages, and carrying out mass gang rape.

Myanmar denies the allegations, saying security forces were battling “terrorists”.

Additional reporting by Faisal Mahmud from Cox’s Bazar.

BBC Sport throws it back 25 years to 1993, when the first UFC numbered event featured a boxer with one glove, non-existent weight divisions and a pair of very tight pants.

READ MORE: UFC 1 – The Beginning: Playboy, Mortal Kombat and the hunt for an ultimate fighter

While the much-loved Adventure Time might be long gone, Stephen Colbert has a worthy alternative: Policy Time.

The Late Show’s spoof comes following reports that White House Chief of Staff John Kelly has instituted “policy time” in a bid to get Trump to focus on policy matters.

It’s on top of the president’s much-talked about “executive time,” in which he spends time tweeting and watching TV, which is referenced in the parody’s theme song. Oh, and Kelly is the dog for some reason.

Hamas has described the resignation of Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman as a “political victory for Gaza” amid threats to an uneasy ceasefire.

The Palestinian group’s spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said on Wednesday that Lieberman’s resignation signalled a “recognition of defeat and failure to confront the Palestinian resistance”, adding “Gaza’s steadfastness sent a political shockwave” through Israel.

Lieberman said he was resigning in protest over an Egypt-brokered ceasefire reached with armed groups in Gaza.

The truce, announced on Tuesday by Hamas-led factions, was intended to end two days of Israeli aerial attacks on Gaza after a covert Israeli operation inside the strip, to which Palestinian factions responded with rocket fire.

At least 15 Palestinians and two Israelis were killed in two days in the worst violence the strip has seen in two years.

Lieberman had advocated for a more decisive blow against Hamas and quit in protest.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended the truce saying the “leadership is doing the right thing”.

Lieberman’s resignation significantly weakens Netanyahu’s ruling coalition government and appears likely to bring about an early election.

Further deaths

A Palestinian fisherman in Gaza was killed by Israeli on Wednesday after the ceasefire went into effect.

The fishermen’s union said the 20-year-old man was working on the beach near the land maritime fence separating Gaza from Israel when he was shot in the stomach.

The fisherman’s killing calls into question the fragile ceasefire that began in Gaza overnight.

“Should the occupation [Israel] stop its aggression and return to the ceasefire, understandings will be possible,” senior Hamas official Ismail Haniya said in a statement earlier on Wednesday.

But Palestinians in the strip, which has been under an Israeli blockade since 2007 and experienced three Israeli wars since 2008, told Al Jazeera they don’t believe the ceasefire will hold.

A 34-year-old schoolteacher named Mohammed Baroud said he did not believe the truce would last “simply because Israel has never stuck to any agreement in the past”.

SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies

Image: mashable composite/ screenshot

Last year, Instagram was rated as the most damaging social network for one’s mental wellbeing.

It’s unsurprising all those vanity and #influencer posts weren’t really doing us any favours, and now the app is rolling out a way to track your usage, and to limit it if need be.

Called Your Activity, the dashboard is accessible in the top right menu, and you can see how much time you’ve spent on the app on average, as well how much you’re using it each day. 

There’s also options to restrict your usage, in the vein of Apple’s Screen Time and Google’s Digital Wellbeing, where you can set a daily time limit and have Instagram notify you if you’ve spent too much time in the app.

Once your time is up, a dialog box will appear telling you that you’ve hit your limit, with the option to hit OK or edit your reminder so you can continue zombie scrolling.

The feature was first spotted in June, and a month later it was confirmed that the dashboard would be coming to Facebook and Instagram.

For the moment, it appears Instagram’s Your Activity doesn’t offer the granularity of Apple’s Screen Time.

On Screen Time, you can look at what times of the day you’re using the app, and how long for. Plus, the feature can send you a five minute warning prior to hitting your daily limit, and tells you how many notifications you’ve received that day.

With that said, it’s unclear if such insights and notifications have a profound effect on curbing one’s social media usage. For that, you might just need to rely on old-fashioned willpower.