LONDON / Following a period of relative parsimony in Alex Ferguson’s final years as Manchester United manager, the English giants have changed course dramatically in the 15 months since he retired. Ferguson was fond of the refrain that there was “no value” in the transfer market whenever he was asked to explain United’s apparent reluctance to spend, but the club’s recent travails have prompted a radical rethink. After the sacking of David Moyes and a seventh-place finish in the Premier League last season, United have allowed new manager Louis van Gaal to spend over £150 million ($249 million, 190 million euros) on new players. Culminating in the arrivals of Argentina winger Angel di Maria for a British-record fee of £59.7 million and Colombia striker Radamel Falcao on a season-long loan from Monaco costing around £6 million, it was an unprecedented splurge, even for a club worth as much as United. Prior to those headline-grabbing arrivals, United had already been busy remodelling their squad with moves for Spanish midfielder Ander Herrera, England left-back Luke Shaw, and Di Maria’s Argentina team-mate Marcos Rojo. United have also signed Daley Blind, a member of the Netherlands squad that finished third at the World Cup under Van Gaal, in a £14 million deal from Ajax. With captain Nemanja Vidic, Rio Ferdinand, Patrice Evra, Alexander Buttner, Danny Welbeck and Shinji Kagawa leaving, and Ryan Giggs hanging up his boots to become Van Gaal’s assistant, it has been a period of great upheaval at Old Trafford.

THIRUVANAN-THPURAM / The day-long hartal called by RSS in Kerala on Tuesday to protest the murder of an activist in Kannur district disrupted normal life across the state. Initial reports said buses, taxis and autorickshaws kept off the roads and shops remained closed all over the state. The state government has declared a holiday for educational institutions, including professional colleges and universities postponed examinations scheduled for the day. Barring stray incidents of stone-pelting at buses no major violence had been reported from anywhere, police said. Manoj (42), a district office-bearer of RSS was hacked to death by a gang that attacked him in politically- volatile Kathirur in Kannur district in north Kerala on Monday. Two others were injured, one of them seriously, in the attack. Country-made bombs were hurled at the car in which Manoj and his companions were travelling and the attackers then hacked him to death. RSS-BJP leaders alleged that the CPM was behind the killing and gave a call for a dawn-to-dusk hartal in the state for Tuesday. Four persons, stated to be CPM workers, have been taken into custody for questioning in connection with the incident, police said. BJP president Amit Shah, who was in the state on Monday, condemned the killing at a convention of party workers. The party has pledged support for the hartal. The area, which was witness to violence involving RSS and CPM workers in the past, had remained largely calm in the last few years. But tension resurfaced with BJP and CPM poaching workers from each side in recent times.

MUMBAI: Bombay high court on Tuesday rapped the state and central governments for depending on self-declaration by passengers arriving from West African countries on whether they have contracted the deadly Ebola virus.A division bench of Justice Abhay Oka and Justice Girish Kulkarni heard a public interest litigation by activist Ketan Tirodkar stating that the government is not equipped to deal with Ebola and urged for a ban on passengers alighting from the aircraft at the Mumbai international airport. The judges were miffed that affidavits filed by the state and Centre spoke of deployment of medical teams and quarantine measures but did not mention physical screening of passengers for symptoms by experts after alighting from aircraft “You are acting on declaration by passengers. You are not doing it yourself,” remarked Justice Oka. The judges said neither state nor Centre are able to make an “elementary statement” that passengers are being checked at the airport.

JODHPUR / The Border Security Force (BSF) on Monday arrested a wing commander of the Indian Air Force on suspicion of espionage. He was found roaming a few meters away from the Indo-Pak border at Anoopgarh sector in Sriganganagar district on Sunday. After interrogation, the BSF handed him over to district police for further investigation. According to officials of BSF, a person was found roaming nearly 150 metres away from the fencing on the Indo-Pak border on Sunday evening. “The BSF personnel caught him and on interrogation he identified himself as Wing Commander Shashank Shekhar, posted in Chandigarh,” a BSF officer said. When the BSF contacted the IAF to verify his identity, they were told that he was suffering from psychiatric problem and undergoing treatment, said a BSF officer. “When we asked him the reason for being there, he gave a casual reply that he just wandered off to this place. Finding his activities suspicious, we searched him and found him possessing 9 blank cheques of different banks like Axis Bank, ICICI and PNB apart from his identity card and passport hidden in his shoes,” he added. The preliminary interrogation of BSF officials has revealed that Shekhar was on leave from August 23 to September 5 and had started from New Delhi to reach Anoopgarh through Jaipur and Suratgarh. “When we asked about the luggage, he said he lost it somewhere during the travel. But he failed to give us the reason behind getting so close to the border fencing,” said a BSF officer. “The activities of Shekhar has made us suspicious right from his “so-called” wandering off to the border and that too during leave from his duty to his replies,” the BSF officer added. The BSF then handed him over to the police. “He is mentally imbalanced and currently undergoing treatment,” said defence spokesperson Colonel S D Goswami adding that the IAF would take up the case and has ordered a court of inquiry against him. He is currently posted at Chandigarh and belongs to Ambala. The wing commander will now be subjected to a joint interrogation in which different agencies including police, BSF, military intelligence etc. will quiz him for his motive or the cause of wandering off close to the border.

WASHINGTON: Israel has faced increasing pressure, including from the United States, after saying it plans to expropriate 400 hectares (988 acres) of Palestinian land in the Bethlehem area in the south of the occupied West Bank. Ally Washington, the United Nations and Egypt all called for an urgent rethink after Sunday’s announcement, which angered the Palestinians and alarmed Israeli peace campaigners, and comes days after a long-term ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinians took hold. According to the Israeli military, the land move was a political decision made after the June killing of three Israeli teenagers snatched in the same area, known to Israelis as the Gush Etzion settlement bloc. “This announcement, like every other settlement announcement Israel makes, planning step they approve, and construction tender they issue, is counterproductive to Israel’s stated goal of a negotiated two-state solution with the Palestinians,” a official said.

GARDEZ, AFGHANISTAN / Even in the age of emails and internet video chatting, there’s nothing like a parcel or a letter from home for US soldiers on deployment in Afghanistan. The incoming mail at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Lightning consists of everything from televisions and T-shirts to golf balls — and still plenty of handwritten envelopes from family and friends. But the mail service is winding down in parallel with the pullout of US combat troops after 13 years of war and, as bases close, so too do the post offices. Troops at FOB Lightning have been rushing to send out carpets, scarves, trinkets and other souvenirs in their last chance to use the mail depot before it shuts and is replaced by an occasional delivery-only service.Mail will still get through, but it could be less reliable as the US force shrinks from the current 44,000 troops to a 10,000-strong follow-up mission next year. “The mail service is like Christmas time. I’m like Santa,” said Sergeant Michael Claggett, from Fort Hood Texas, who works at FOB Lightning post office in the volatile eastern province of Paktia. “When I have mail, it’s a good day. When I don’t have mail, it’s not so positive for everyone. “(Outgoing mail) is mostly for people who want to get a last-minute gift to send to their loved ones. They might not come back to Afghanistan, so they get something from this country.”

SHANGHAI: Nearly 18,000 geese died on a poultry farm in northeast China after being stricken by the H5N6 bird flu virus last month, the agriculture ministry said. As many as 20,550 geese on the farm in Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang province, showed symptoms of avian flu and 17,790 birds died, the ministry said on its website on Monday. The ministry sealed off and sterilized the infected area, besides culling and safely disposing of almost 69,000 geese, it added. The National Avian Influenza Reference Laboratory confirmed that the geese had the H5N6 virus. In May, a 49-year-old man in China’s Sichuan province died of the H5N6 bird flu virus, which domestic media described as the world’s first known human infection with the strain.