Gerrard: Liverpool Will Miss Coutinho*

*Gerrard: Liverpool Will Miss Coutinho*

Steven Gerrard accepts Liverpool will miss "wonderful footballer" Philippe Coutinho after the Brazilian formally completed his dream move to Barcelona earlier this week.

Gerrard, who played with Coutinho towards the end of his own Anfield playing career, believes it will be difficult to replace the 25-year-old, who scored 41 Premier League goals for Liverpool.

"I'm still digesting it as a Liverpool fan," said Gerrard. "I'm not surprised by it. I know Liverpool have done everything they can to keep him and they fought very hard to keep him until the summer. But when a kid's got a dream, a South American, that he wants to play for Barcelona and he thinks this is the only opportunity he's going to get, then it's very difficult to stop it. There's no doubt about it, Liverpool will miss him. He's a wonderful footballer, a great person and to be fair to him he hasn't downed tools at all. I respect his decision and wish him all the best."

Koreas agree military talks to defuse border tension *

*Koreas agree  military talks to defuse border tension *

North and South Korea have agreed to hold military talks to defuse border tension, after their first high-level meeting in two years.

The South asked the North to end any hostile acts that might raise tension, while the North agreed there was a need to guarantee a peaceful environment on the peninsula, a statement from the South's government said.

Other details had been released throughout the day by officials from the South: The South proposed that athletes from both Koreas march together at the opening ceremony in Pyeongchang as they did at the 2006 Winter Olympics.

The South pushed for the reunion of family members separated by the Korean War - a highly emotional issue for both countries - to take place during the Lunar New Year holiday, which falls in the middle of the Games.

Following Mr Kim's overture, the South then proposed high-level talks to discuss the North's participation, but the North only agreed to the talks after the US and South Korea agreed to delay their joint military exercises until after the Olympics.

*5,000-year-old rock art in India could be the oldest supernova evidence in human history*

*5,000-year-old rock art in India could be the oldest supernova evidence in human history*

Astrophysicist Mayank Vahia and his colleagues at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research believe people living in Burzahama, a part of Kashmir in Northern India might have been the first to carve the stellar explosion on a rock sometime around 5,000 years ago. The team has found an ancient rock with drawings of two strange cosmic objects, according to a report in Quartz.

As the carving cannot represent two Suns or a weird Sun-Moon duo, the astronomers think that one of the objects depicted is a full Moon while the other would have been a supernova in close proximity of our Solar System. Such an explosion, even if thousands of light years away, would have shined enough through the darkness of the cosmos to appear nearly as bright as the Moon.

Still, in order to confirm the supernova explosion, the team tried to date the rock art – a task that took a lot of effort. They tried hunting down all stellar explosions visible around 4100BC and 2100BC, the period when the first settlers arrived in the area. This helped them narrow down results to a supernova dubbed HB9. As the report describes, the stellar explosion would have occurred around 3600BC, appearing like a glowing ball of lightning to Earthlings who may have represented it with their creativity. This is likely to be the oldest depiction of a supernova.

Crash in South Africa

*S-Africa Train Crash: 200 🤕Injured Near Johannesburg*

Emergency services in South Africa say that at least 200 people have been injured in a train crash. No fatalities have been reported so far in the incident in Germiston, a town around 12 miles (20 km) east of Johannesburg. Many of the passengers were commuters on their way to work.

It is not clear what caused the collision, but local media is reporting that an incoming train hit a stationary train from behind. Paramedics say passengers sustained "minor to moderate" injuries and will receive further treatment in hospital.

Nana Radebe, a spokeswoman for Johannesburg's Emergency Management Services, tweeted: It follows a fatal collision last week when a car hitting a train at a level crossing in Kroonstad, in Free State province, which is now known to have killed 19 people.

Benue killings: Ortom working on wrong advice, says Miyetti Allah*

*Benue killings: Ortom working on wrong advice, says Miyetti Allah*

The umbrella body of cattle breeders in the country, the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association, has said the anti-open grazing law in Benue State Government, aimed at regulating cow grazing in the state, must be modified for peace to reign in the state. The Secretary-General of the association, Usman Ngelzerma, said this during an interview with The PUNCH on Monday.

Ngelzerma said, “I like the Benue State governor. He is a peace-loving person but is working on wrong advice. The approach he took is wrong. You cannot change the way of life of a people like the way you turn off a light switch. “We don’t wish for the crisis to continue but let us give it (the law) another look. We don’t like the killings; we will never condone the killing of people. Give the farmers their rights but consider the pastoralists too.”

Ngelzerma, blamed a faction of the association for issuing threats before the latest attacks in Benue State. He fingered the Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, which endorsed the then President Goodluck Jonathan in the build-up to the 2015 election, as being at loggerheads with the Benue State Government.

*Ghana bars recruits over stretch marks and bleached skin*

*Ghana bars recruits over stretch marks and bleached skin*

The Ghanaian Immigration Service (GIS) has disqualified candidates with bleached skin and stretch marks from a massive recruitment exercise.

A GIS spokesman told the BBC this was because people with such marks might bleed during the "strenuous" training.

Those with tattoos, dreadlocks and "bow legs" were also disqualified from the exercise.

"The kind of work we do, it's strenuous and the training is such that if you have bleached skin or surgical marks on your body during training exercises, you may incur some bleedings," Superintendent Michael Amoako-Attah, told BBC Pidgin.

Ghanaians also reacted angrily when the agency revealed it was only recruiting 500 people, after some 84,000 people had paid 50 cedis ($11; £8) each for an application form.