Photo: Football legend Lionel Messi arrives in court for tax fraud case

Four-time FIFA footballer of the year Lionel Messi and his father Jorge arrived in a Spanish court this morning Friday September 27th to answer charges of alleged tax fraud. Messi and his father are being accused of hiding over £3.4 million by filing incomplete tax returns from 2006 to 2009.

The charges against father and son was lodged by a state prosecutor in June 2013 claiming that they tried to conceal earnings from Messi's image rights - charges they both deny. 

"I never take care of that (tax) stuff myself and neither does my father," Messi said in July. "We have our lawyers and our wealth managers to take care of that and we trust them and they will sort this out. The truth is I don’t have a clue about all this and that is why we have people taking care of it."

Messi has already paid the Spanish authorities the unpaid tax he's owing plus interest (he paid £4.2m) but because tax fraud is a serious offense in Spain, he still has to make an appearance in court where the courts will determine whether the case is pursued any further. Hopefully it will all end today!

Photos: DavidO and his crew hang out with footballer, Samuel Eto'o

The two stars showing off their Rolex watches as they hang out in London. See more photos after the cut

Novak Djokovic engaged to longtime girlfriend

Novak Djokovic's new fiancee, Jelena Ristic, often cheers on the world No. 1 at his tennis matches 

It's a love match for Novak Djokovic.

Tennis' world No. 1 announced his engagement to longtime girlfriend and fellow Serb Jelena Ristic, telling the world via his Facebook page and Twitter.

"Meet my fiancée and future wife :) So happy! Thank you for wonderful wishes #NoleFam and friends!"

Accompanying that tweet was a picture of Ristic kissing Djokovic on the cheek.

No wedding date was given.

Djokovic has been dating Ristic for about eight years. She is a regular in his box at major tournaments around the world and has modeled swimwear.

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But Ristic also obtained a master's degree in Luxury Management from the International University of Monaco and is the CEO of the Novak Djokovic Foundation.

"We are emotional partners," Ristic told Britain's Daily Mail in July. "The emotional support we give to each other is very important.

"It's the same for me as well. He is very supportive and encouraging of the work that I do."

Only one member of the 'Big Four' in men's tennis, Roger Federer, is married.

Like Djokovic, though, Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray have been dating their girlfriends -- Xisca Perello and Kim Sears, respectively -- for many years.

Djokovic's engagement comes days after he hit 100 weeks as No. 1, although he'll likely lose the top ranking to Nadal during the current Asian swing.

Djokovic and Nadal are competing at next week's China Open in Beijing.

Caroline Wozniacki is in the women's draw in Beijing -- and her high-profile relationship with golfer Rory McIlroy made news last month.

An Irish newspaper reported that the former No. 1s in their respective sports split, although Wozniacki subsequently tweeted a picture of the two having breakfast together.

McIlroy, too, watched the Dane compete at the U.S. Open in New York.

Jamaican footballer banned for doping but doctor receives stiffer punishment

Jermaine Hue was suspended for nine months by FIFA after he tested positive for dexamethasoneSeveral Jamaican sprinters were banned for doping earlier this year and now a footballer from the Caribbean nation has been suspended.

Jermaine Hue, a creative midfielder who has made more than 40 appearances for the national team, received a nine-month suspension after he tested positive for dexamethasone.

But a stiffer penalty was given to the team doctor, Carlton Fraser. He was hit with a four-year punishment after "having administered" the corticosteroid, FIFA said in a statement on its website.

The two were provisionally banned in August after Hue tested positive following Jamaica's World Cup qualifier at Honduras in June.

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Hue, 35, has spent most of his career with Jamaica's Harbour View but had brief stints with the Kansas City Wizards of the MLS and Sweden's Mjallby.

According to a report in the Jamaica Observer in August, Fraser was a personal friend of the late Bob Marley and also treated the reggae great.

The sanctions are a further blow to the 'Reggae Boyz' -- they sit last in their qualifying group with only two matches remaining.

Former world-record holder in the 100 meters, Asafa Powell, and Sherone Simpson admitted to testing positive for banned substances in July, a month after double 200-meter Olympic gold medalist Veronica Campbell-Brown received a provisional ban.

Google search turns 15, gets a makeover

With Google Glass, a new quest to cure death and driverless cars, it can be easy to forget what Google's primary business is: search.

The largest search engine in the world is getting a few updates, the company announced on Thursday. Google tied the news to its 15th birthday and held the announcement in the original Google Garage.

The overall design has been updated and borrows the "card" look from Google Now, lumping relevant information into rectangles and carousels and placing it above any links to websites.

Answers will now be "richer" and include comparisons, filters and sorting. For example, if you ask Google to compare two foods, it will return a chart of their nutritional values. There are new results for song and music searches, and push notifications will soon come to the Google iOS app.

The company is continuing to focus heavily on voice search, improving its conversational skills on the Web and in search apps.

"We believe that voice will be fundamental to building interactions with future devices that we will see," said Amit Singhal, Google's senior vice president of search. Devices such as smartwatches and Google Glass forgo traditional input devices in favor of voice interactions.

No corporate birthday party is complete without a trip down memory lane and balloons and birthday cake, both of which were also present at the event.

In September 1998, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin started their company in Susan Wojcicki's home garage in Menlo Park. The space remains largely unchanged and still has the same sky blue carpet Wojcicki had installed as a perk to persuade Brin and Page to rent the space.

Wojcicki, now a senior vice president at Google, kicked off the event.

Syria chemical weapons inspections 'to begin next week'

 
Experts from the world's chemical weapons watchdog will begin inspecting Syria's stockpile by Tuesday, a draft agreement says.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) would also reportedly be authorised to investigate sites not declared by Damascus.

The text is due to be voted on at a meeting in The Hague later on Friday.

It will then be incorporated into a UN Security Council resolution calling on Syria to give up its chemical weapons.

The resolution will condemn the use of chemical weapons in an attack on the outskirts of Damascus last month which killed hundreds of people, but will not attribute blame.

If Syria fails to comply, a second resolution would be required to impose measures under Chapter VII of the UN charter, including the use of force

ASUU Strike: NUT Gives Two-Week Ultimatum to FG, Lecturers

The Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) gave a two-week ultimatum to the Federal Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to resolve the strike, embarked upon by university lecturers.

Mr. Michael Olukoya, the NUT President stated this in Abuja at the end of the Union’s meeting with teachers’ representatives across the country on September 26, 2013, Thursday.

Mr. Olukoya said that members of the Union would not hesitate to close down the nation’s schools, if the two parties failed to reach agreement after two weeks.

He described the current ASUU strike “as nationalistic, patriotic and self-sacrificing”.

“We will not hesitate to shut down the education system in the country, if the government fails to fulfil or honour the agreement it entered into with the lecturers.”

It would be recalled that ASUU had embarked on a strike it described as “comprehensive, total and indefinite” on July 1, 2013.

The lecturers are protesting the non-implementation of some issues, contained in an agreement the Union had entered into with the Federal Government since 2009.The NUT President said that Gov. Adams Oshiomhole of Edo’s call for a complete over-haul of teachers’ qualification as unacceptable to the NUT. He said that the blame should be put on the door steps of the employers and not teachers.

“NUT will forever be proud of all its teachers, believing that all employment agencies are corruption-free, disciplined and quality conscious in their employment drives.”

Mr. Olukoya also urged the governors of Kogi, Benue and Cross River to honour the agreement they made with teachers on the payment of 27.5 per cent teachers salary structure.

A big bet on BlackBerry — or a smart investment?

(Thinkstock)

Is Prem Watsa nuts? That’s the question a lot of people are wondering these days after the Toronto-based billionaire made a $4.7 billion bid to take over BlackBerry.

Just three days before his September 23 proposal, the troubled smartphone maker said it was stuck with $1 billion worth of unsold phones and had to lay off 4,500 workers. Its share price has fallen 96% from its July 2007 high and the company is losing market share to competitors like Apple and Samsung every quarter.

There are doubts that Watsa’s bid will succeed, according to Reuters — and those doubts sent the stock down further to $8.10 on Wednesday, below the $9 per share offer Watsa’s Fairfax made. If the deal does happen, it may seem like a peculiar buy to many analysts and investors. But for Watsa, the fact that everyone thinks he’s lost it means he’s probably on the right track.

You have to be willing to sell if you’re wrong.  — Dan Dupont

The Indian-born founder and chief executive officer of Fairfax Financial, a Berkshire Hathaway-like company that owns a number of insurance and investment businesses, is a value investor, much like Warren Buffett.  

Value investors seek to make big bucks in large part by buying out-of-favour companies. It certainly has paid off for Watsa. He purchased part of the Bank of Ireland in 2011 when most people were staying far away from Europe, and he recently bought into a real estate company in Greece.  Watsa has reportedly already made a 50% return on his Bank of Ireland investment.

While not all of his investments have worked out — he took losses on Montreal-based forestry company AbitibiBowater (now known as Resolute Forest Products), Winnipeg-based media company Canwest and he currently owns 10% of BlackBerry’s shares — he’s had far more hits than misses. 

There’s a good reason why Watsa and Buffett take a value approach to investing and it’s the same reason why you should consider it, too: the approach has proven to be more lucrative than other strategies.

Eric Kirzner, the John H Watson Chair in Value Investing at Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, recently looked at how much better value investing has done versus growth investing—a strategy that usually involves buying high-growth companies with rapidly expanding earnings.  

He compared returns on the Russell 1000 value index and the Russell 1000 growth index since 1979 and found that value beat growth by 1.6% per year on a compound annual growth basis. That translates into value stocks doing 71% than growth companies over the last 34 years “There’s clearly a premium on value investing over growth,” he said.

Buy low, sell high

Charles Taylor war crimes convictions upheld

Mr Taylor showed little emotion upon hearing that his conviction and jail sentence had both been upheld

A UN-backed special court in The Hague has rejected an appeal against war crimes convictions by lawyers representing former Liberian President Charles Taylor.

It ruled that his convictions had been proved beyond doubt.

Taylor appeared impassive in court as the judge upheld his convictions and 50-year sentence.

He was sentenced in May 2012 for aiding rebels who committed atrocities in Sierra Leone during its civil war.

His lawyers had argued that there were legal errors during his trial.

Taylor was found to have supplied weapons to the Revolutionary United Front rebels in exchange for a constant flow of so-called blood diamonds.

He was found guilty at his trial of 11 crimes including terrorism, rape, murder and the use of child soldiers by rebel groups in neighbouring Sierra Leone during the vicious civil war of 1991-2002.

Judge Richard Lussick said at his trial that they were "some of the most heinous crimes in human history".

Taylor has always insisted he is innocent and his only contact with the rebels was to urge them to stop fighting.

He became the first former head of state convicted by an international war crimes court since World War II.

Nicki Minaj flashes boobs in cropped unbuttoned jacket with no bra

The richest female hip-hop artist in the world, Nicki Minaj showed off side boobs in this daring boob-baring top and leather trouser pants as she headed to the Ellen DeGeneres Show yesterday to promote her brand new scent, Minajesty. She shared some of the photos on her instagram page. See more photos after the cut...