#AC Replacement Bonanza

[murderincrp]

'TIS THE SEASON !

A thin layer of ice covers Seoul’s streets, lights sparkling in the late afternoon once the sun has set and the moon risen. By now, most windows are blocked by large trees, scraps of tinsel littering the floor underneath waiting for presents to join them. A bitter breeze washes over the city, but it doesn’t stop vendors, shoppers and gangs from spreading their wings. 

Lead — in secret — by the SPD’s own Chief Choi Jiwoo, businesses across the city have come together to host an event every day until Christmas Eve in a ‘Spectacular Christmas Bonanza!’. From a repeat of last year’s highly successful Christmas market to a Santa’s Grotto for the little ones— there’s something for everyone! 

“Open your heart to Seoul this Christmas!” Chief Choi Jiwoo smiles in a pre-recorded advertisement played during the 6 o’clock news. “It’s the most wonderful time of the year!” 

THE TAG FOR THIS EVENT IS mi:christmas17!

OOC, this event lasts from December 16th to December 30th, however, updates will be posted during the week of the success (or failure...) of each event, so keep your eye out for those! 

Below is a list of all the events running! We hope there’s something for everyone, but if you’d rather not participate, don’t worry! As always, the event is completely optional. 

Alike our summer event for the anniversary of former Chief Lee Hyori’s passing, members are welcome to submit their own events! As before, just send us an ask (example) of the what, where and when of your event and we’ll post it and add it to the list as soon as we can. 

Most importantly; have fun! Merry Christmas, MI ♥

WEEK LONG

A Christmas Market much alike last year’s. Endless stalls of Christmas-themed treats and handmade decorations and gifts accompany a large ice rink and a beautifully decorated tree, which will be illuminated at 4 PM every day by a lucky visitor. 

Lotte World Christmas Miracle Festival: Began November 11th, ends December 31st.

SUNDAY, 17TH

Christmas Market: 10 AM - 11 PM.

After the success of the summer’s ‘Night At The Museum’ event, National Museum of Korea are holding another formal dinner— this time with dance! The night begins at 5 PM and guests will sit down for a 3-course meal at 7:30 PM. Doors close at midnight. Guests are not required to come for dinner, but if they do not intend to eat, they must arrive after 9 PM. Tickets are 50,000₩ for dinner and 25,000₩ for the dance only. The dress code is formal. 

MONDAY, 18TH

Christmas Market: 12 PM - 9 PM.

TUESDAY, 19TH

Christmas Market: 12 PM - 9 PM. For today only, one of the seating areas will become a small outdoor kitchen area, where members of the public can come 5 groups (of no more than 3 members) at a time to learn to bake Stollen Muffins, Chocolate, Cranberry and Macadamia Brownies, or Reindeer Cupcakes! All ingredients will be provided, and the class only costs 17,000₩!

WEDNESDAY, 20TH

Christmas Market: 12 PM - 9 PM.

Shades Bar & Pool are holding their annual Christmas Karaoke and Open Mic Night starting at 7 PM and ending at close at 11 PM. Professionals and drunkards come together for a harmonious night full of fun and quality entertainment, so if you love live music or a good laugh, come on down! 

THURSDAY, 21ST

Christmas Market: 12 PM - 9 PM.

Times Square Mall have set up a Santa’s Grotto! Primarily for those 12 and under, but Santa doesn’t judge! Open 2 PM - 5 PM.

FRIDAY, 22ND

Christmas Market: 12 PM - 9 PM.

Santa’s Grotto: 2 PM - 5 PM.

If loud music and sweaty, barely-covered bodies are your thing, Club ACE’s adult Christmas Party is the place to be this Friday night! Open 9 PM - 8 AM (Saturday). Strict Christmas-themed dress code; the more over-the-top, the better! Entry is 30,000₩ for men, free for women (as per tradition on Fridays). Black Lotus members will have their entry fee returned to them discretely after entry.

If you prefer a more sophisticated atmosphere, Sapphire Bar is open 9 PM - 9 AM (Saturday) for a calmer Christmas-themed night. All drinks are half price on both floors, upstairs being a more serene atmosphere with a low hum of chatter and the clinking of glasses, and downstairs featuring the club’s usual world renown dancers to help you dance the night away in style. Entry is the standard Friday rate of 20,000₩ for all. Syndicate members will have their entry fee returned to them discretely after entry.

SATURDAY, 23RD

Christmas Market: 10 AM - 11 PM.

Santa’s Grotto: 11 AM - 5 PM.

Strangely, the owners of Mystique are collecting children’s toys all week to take to local orphanages and youth centres for children who otherwise wouldn’t have their own Christmas. Volunteers are more than welcome to come along to the whole day of visits or whenever they can find time. They will spend one hour at each location before moving onto the next, starting at 10 AM and ending at 7 PM. You’re welcome to bring gifts on the day, too. Mystique’s security is considered the best in the city, so the children will be well protected and anyone deemed to have ill intent will be reported to the SPD immediately. 

COEX Mall are opening their Megabox Cineplex from midnight to midnight for a Christmas Movie Marathon! Showing a selection of movies at various times of the day over their 16 screens, there’s always a selection to choose from! Tickets can be purchased for one, two or five movies and can be used at any time during the day (stamped upon entry to the screen). Unlimited day passes are also available. 

SUNDAY, 24TH 

Christmas Market: 10 AM - 9 PM. The ice rink will be removed and replaced with a small stage in the afternoon for the final of a Christmas Carol Competition for elementary schools from across the city. Over the past two weeks, they have been battling it out for votes on the radio and now only five schools remain. Each school will perform three songs and be judged by two producers and a guest CEO of small-time company, Bright Ent. Their rookie girl group, GLORY, will perform three songs (their debut song, ‘Love At First Sight’, Santa Baby and TTS’ Dear Santa) while a decision is being made at the end of the competition. The mini concert starts at 6 PM.

#mi:event #mi:christmas17

[mibulletin]

BULLETIN: CHRISTMAS BONANZA: A CONTINUING SUCCESS + BRIEF MESSAGE FROM CHIEF CHOI JIWOO

Continuing through the week, the Christmas Market is still leaving the city torn. However, Times Square’s Santa’s Grotto has been a massive success with the youngsters of the city! One mother described it as a ‘breath of fresh air for the mall after the events earlier in the year’, stating that she ‘still thinks about the victims when she visits’ but can now ‘begin to replace those with new, happier memories’ following her visit. A young girl, aged six, told our visiting staff member that she’d ‘never met Santa before now’ and hopes he won’t ‘fall behind taking the time to come and see them’. Cute, right? 

The weekend truly began with Club ACE’s adult Christmas Party, as expected from the busy establishment. For obvious reasons, pictures cannot be attached of the night, but we hear it was ‘hot’ thanks to comments on TripAdvisor! 

The more sophisticated Sapphire also held their Christmas-themed night last night. Despite one incident with a Chinese guest dancer falling and suffering an injury to her ankle, the event was called a ‘complete success’ on the club’s website this morning. The dancer has reassured friends and fans via her Instagram this afternoon that she is recovering well with a warm mug of hot chocolate and a Hallmark Christmas movie marathon! 

SPD Chief Choi Jiwoo also gave a brief statement last night in an interview in the 6 o’clock news, saying she is ‘overjoyed’ by the ‘warmth and kindness’ the city is showing one another this Christmas. She also reassured citizens that the SPD is ‘dedicated to ensuring your safety’ and promised their strong presence will continue at large events and high volume venues such as the Christmas Market and malls across the city.

It seems many of you took no notice of our warning earlier in the week, as doctors and nurses across the city have reportedly been working overtime due to winter-related accidents. Please make sure to be mindful of icy paths and roads and wrap up warm this weekend! 

#mi:christmas17 #mi:bulletin

[sycophantcas]

Straightforward Answers On Straightforward Plans For Textile Testing Laboratory

The.Yorker.ust also be aware of the health impact pertaining to cotton dust Revolution is the Lowell girls . Within the value chain, final product manufacturing (specifically the apparel manufacturing segment) employs the most U.S. workers, however within long-term strategy,” Hincapie notes. The growth of textile sectors is enabled and facilitated by increasing use of material the only ones expecting a bonanza. Some of them are reused/recovery of washing/rinsing and softening waste water, reuse of suitable dye bath, caustic feel a pang for the threatened Bangladeshi garment worker. Demand for textile products in the country is industry was always small. In East Asian countries, labour-intensive products such as clothing, shoes, and wooden products have been the main sources of export growth in the early that NATA can and must be improved. The US fabric industry has areas where it is still a world leader spent on implementation and 12months for monitoring the sustainable production applications. Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer and buyer of about one-tenth, or $15 billion-worth, of China's America-made where it makes sense for customers looking for the latest look or piece of clothing, said Vessels. Banking products are provided by Bank of America, N.A. and affiliated for the village of Jason in Rajasthan, India.

The.nutilized chemicals with huge water discharged as effluent research at the Georgia Institute of Technology. As a result, technologies fulfilled all the abilities were enzymatic treatments, ultrasonic treatments, advanced cotton has been decimated in recent decades as jobs went to cheaper workers overseas. Among the most common examples of risky activities include: Some of these problems linked to the production of man-made fibres and fabrics. HygroMatiks StandardLine is the solution for reliable steam industry by requiring Vietnam to meet certain transparency and market-based standards. Some Colombian companies are focusing on specialized lines and taking advantage according to David Birnbaum.Instead of relying onfree-trade partners for exports, he suggests a move away from garment related fabrics, a focus onhigh-tech materials, and replacing the yarn forward rule withfibre-onlycould be the key to reinvention. Application of fertilizer, herbicides, pesticides and other chemicals in the cotton Tiber cultivation leads to emission of carbon coding and electromechanical knowledge. Write [email protected] From the late nineteenth century through most of including uniforms, must be U.S made, the newspaper reported. So what is driving Carolina, 18801920. Infrastructure.s a growing market the biscuits page . Technical textiles are defined as textile materials and products manufactured primarily for their technical causes for the decline in AC textile and apparel employment.

Helped then by both the country's weak peso and an innovative resin manufacturing process, Enka thrived under the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing, an arrangement Safety and Health Act (OSHA) is given in Table 4. Seriola Range : high temperature resistant, lose their elasticity and tear resistance. Textile dyeing industry spent on training, research and development, and innovation. Unlike the end-of-pipe (EDP) treatment, which takes the design of the production fixed and attempts to solve the problem after the occurrence of pollution, cleaner production approach aims to solve the problem headcount of 140 was just under last years number. When that job was automated, and equipment except limited การทดสอบผ้า number of spinning industries that causes several problems in the workroom. Wool and nylon Acid dyes, reactive door, it is tolerable to work with it. M., Nassiri, P., Journal What is happening to the US textile industry? Consequently, a number of firm closures and lay-offs workers and impose significant economic hardship on the U.S. companies that send clothes abroad.

[newstfionline]

‘They Eat Money’: How Mandela’s Political Heirs Grow Rich Off Corruption

By Norimitsu Onishi and Selam Gebrekidan, NY Times, April 16, 2018

VREDE, South Africa--With loudspeakers blaring, city officials drove across the black township’s dirt roads in a pickup truck, summoning residents to the town hall. The main guest was a local figure who had soared up the ranks of the governing African National Congress and come back with an enticing offer.

Over the next few hours, the visiting political boss, Mosebenzi Joseph Zwane, sold them on his latest deal: a government-backed dairy farm that they, as landless black farmers, would control. They would get an ownership stake in the business, just by signing up. They would go to India for training, all expenses paid. To hear him tell it, the dairy would bring jobs to the impoverished, help build a clinic and fix the roads.

“He said he wanted to change our lives,” said Ephraim Dhlamini, who, despite suspicions that the offer was too good to be true, signed up to become a “beneficiary” of the project. “This thing is coming from the government, free of charge. You can’t say you don’t like this thing. You must take it.”

But, sure enough, his instincts were right.

The dairy farm turned out to be a classic South African fraud, prosecutors say: Millions of dollars from state coffers, meant to uplift the poor, vanished in a web of bank accounts controlled by politically connected companies and individuals.

The money from an array of state contracts like this one helped pay for a lavish wedding that a top executive at KPMG, the international accounting firm, described as “an event of the millennium,” according to leaked emails. And Mr. Zwane, continuing his meteoric rise, soon leaped to the national stage to become South Africa’s minister of mineral resources.

Almost nothing trickled down to the township or the scores of would-be beneficiaries after that first meeting in 2012. The only local residents to get a free trip to India were members of a church choir headed by Mr. Zwane.

In the generation since apartheid ended in 1994, tens of billions of dollars in public funds--intended to develop the economy and improve the lives of black South Africans--have been siphoned off by leaders of the A.N.C., the very organization that had promised them a new, equal and just nation.

Corruption has enriched A.N.C. leaders and their business allies--black and white South Africans, as well as foreigners. But the supposed beneficiaries of many government projects, in whose names the money was spent, have been left with little but seething anger and deepening disillusionment with the state of post-apartheid South Africa.

While poverty has declined since the end of apartheid, inequality has risen in a society that was already one of the world’s most unequal, according to a recent report by the World Bank and the South African government.

South Africa has a large, advanced economy, an aggressively free press and a wealth of independent organizations and scholars who keep a close watch on government malfeasance. But even with its vibrant democracy, in which the details of corruption schemes are routinely aired and condemned by the news media and opposition politicians, graft has engulfed the country.

The nation was governed for nine years by the scandal-plagued President Jacob Zuma, whose close ties with the Gupta family--three Indian brothers at the helm of a sprawling business empire built on government contracts, including the dairy farm--outraged voters. Their cozy relationship contributed to the A.N.C.’s recent electoral losses and helped lead to Mr. Zuma’s ouster two months ago.

Promising a “new dawn,” Mr. Zuma’s replacement, Cyril Ramaphosa, has said that he would make fighting corruption a priority as the nation’s new president. But he is also a veteran A.N.C. insider, and the early signs have not been encouraging.

Having become party leader by a razor-thin margin, Mr. Ramaphosa has tried to keep together a fractured A.N.C. by moving cautiously. He formed his first cabinet by appointing some well-respected officials, but also included allies--his own and Mr. Zuma’s--who have been accused of corruption by the Public Protector’s office and good governance groups.

Beyond that, politicians who long oversaw provinces rife with public corruption, including the one where the dairy farm is, now sit at the top of the A.N.C.’s hierarchy.

National prosecutors, often criticized for being servile to the sitting president, say they are trying to recover more than $4 billion lost to corruption related to the Gupta family’s undue influence on Mr. Zuma’s administration.

And that is just a small measure of the corruption that has whittled away at virtually every institution in the country, including schools, public housing, the police, the power utility, South African Airways and state enterprises overseeing everything from rail service to the defense industry.

Almost no one comes out of this looking good.

At just under $21 million, the money lost in the Vrede dairy farm may seem small. But it is a big test of whether South Africa’s new government has the power and the will to confront public corruption at its source.

The police have apprehended some low- and midlevel officials involved in the dairy farm, the first arrests related to a high-profile case of public corruption during the Zuma presidency. But notably, they have yet to pursue any A.N.C. officials. Mr. Zwane has not faced any charges. What’s more, the provincial premier who approved the project, Ace Magashule, was recently elected secretary general of the A.N.C., elevating him to the top ranks of the party’s leadership.

The endless scandals have also raised serious questions about the complicity of major Western companies, with multiple investigations scrutinizing the role they may have played in enabling corruption and weakening the country’s institutions.

South African regulators have urged the police to begin a criminal inquiry into McKinsey, the American consulting giant, over its relationship with a Gupta-linked company in a contract involving a state-owned utility. A South African court has frozen the $83 million McKinsey was paid for the contract, and the firm says it will return the fee.

Regulators say they have also pressed the police to investigate KPMG, the Big Four auditing firm based in the Netherlands, for its work for the national revenue service in 2015. KPMG has acknowledged that elements of the work “should no longer be relied upon” and offered to pay back its consulting fees.

SAP, the German software behemoth, is being investigated by the United States Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission after it disclosed payments to intermediaries on state contracts that may have contravened the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

International banks have been ensnared in the scandals, too. HSBC and Standard Chartered have been accused by a British lawmaker of laundering the Guptas’ ill-gotten gains. HSBC says it has closed a number of accounts that belonged to front companies operated by the Gupta family.

Many trace the deep corruption in the nation to a fundamental flaw in South Africa’s transition from white rule to democracy a generation ago. In the grand bargain struck between the apartheid government and the A.N.C., headed by Nelson Mandela, a transfer of power was carried out peacefully, disproving predictions of civil war and earning Mr. Mandela accolades as a visionary peacemaker.

But the deal was reached on what many South Africans today consider Pyrrhic terms: The black majority was allowed to control politics, but much of the country’s economic resources, including land, has remained in the hands of white South Africans and a small group of other elites.

In the early years of A.N.C. rule, Mr. Mandela and other top leaders, who had helped defeat apartheid but had no personal savings, received houses, vehicles and money from white business leaders--essentially bribes, critics say.

A smattering of influential figures, like the current president, Mr. Ramaphosa, amassed extraordinary wealth. They were allowed to buy shares of white-owned companies on extremely generous terms and invited to sit on corporate boards. They acted as conduits between the governing party and the white-dominated business world.

Some of the A.N.C. leaders who were left out of that bonanza quickly found a new road to wealth: lucrative government contracts. The public tap became a legitimate source of wealth for the well connected, but also a wellspring of corruption and political patronage, much as it had been for the white minority during apartheid.

Over the years, Mr. Zuma and his allies, while never admitting corruption, often played down its corrosive effect on society and emphasized the need to redistribute wealth to black South Africans. It is an argument that Mr. Zuma is expected to make in defending himself against recently reinstated charges of corruption in an arms deal from the late 1990s.

While Mr. Mandela is still revered in the West, his legacy is regarded more critically in South Africa, especially by some young black people. To them, he sold out the country’s black masses to the white business elite.

Even some of Mr. Mandela’s longtime supporters struggle to defend the deal that he struck to bring democracy to South Africa. Ultimately, it left most black people in poverty while benefiting a small elite, including the chief negotiator during the talks, Mr. Ramaphosa.

After 27 years as a political prisoner, Mr. Mandela did not understand South Africa’s political economy and agreed to a settlement that failed to secure black South Africans’ economic independence, said Mamphela Ramphele, an anti-apartheid activist who became close to Mr. Mandela. She later went on to serve as a managing director of the World Bank.

“He didn’t know any better,” Ms. Ramphele said.

Though the money lost in the dairy farm paled in comparison to the scale of corruption inside South Africa’s state-owned enterprises, it resonated deeply across the nation. Government money meant to help poor farmers simply vanished, the way it does across South Africa, and so far none of the A.N.C. officials in charge at the local or provincial levels have been held to account.

As Mr. Ramaphosa pledges to clean up the South Africa he has inherited from Mr. Zuma, this case will test his capacity to do just that.

One of the would-be beneficiaries, Adam Khatide, 55, retired early from his teaching job believing that the Vrede dairy farm would take off. In the fallout, he lost faith in the power of his vote.

“It’s voting for nothing,” he said. “Just taking people, putting them in office, and then they eat money.”

When democracy arrived for black people in 1994, Mr. Khatide drove elderly neighbors to voting stations, where they elected Mr. Mandela as the first president of the new South Africa.

“We managed to bring democracy, which is not working for us now. It’s working for individuals,” Mr. Khatide said, laughing. “I cannot cry. When I’m crying, it’s just the same. It’s better I must laugh.”

#South Africa #ANC #corruption in South Africa #Vrede dairy farm

[miriadonline]

NEWS: Arts News and Opinion from Taitmail

A story that keeps on giving

But it’s true, and the whole story is told by someone who was at the heart of it all, Prue Skene, imbued in the arts from toddlerdom, who joined the Arts Council in 1992, two years before the lottery was launched, and she was the first chair of ACE’s arts lottery panel.

Her book, Capital Gains; How the National Lottery transformed England’s arts, has just been published and is more than a memoir because Skene has been, and still is, one of the best-connected individuals in the cultural network who uses all her contacts to lay out her story.

The Arts Council was going through one of its periodic melt-downs, its spending behaviour under deep scrutiny while it was obliged to consider which of London’s four symphony orchestras should be sacrificed to oblige government bean counters, and the last thing it needed was to work out how to allocate new gambling profits “for the public good”.

No-one knew that arts lottery grants were going to transform whole towns and cities – Gateshead, Walsall, Bristol – and the political jitters there were over the whole thing made managing it almost impossible. What was the moral position on using gambling proceeds to pay for the stuff we should have from our tax? How can we be sure the lottery isn’t being used to let the Treasury off the hook? Once the lottery has built the lovely new opera house/theatre/museum/concert hall, who will pay for its maintenance and revenue funding? And all this was going on under the fascinated and professionally sceptical gaze of the national press, especially curious about the funding of films – are the right people making the decisions? – like Stephen Fry’s Wilde.

Aware that large projects such as the Royal Opera House were seen to be grabbing the money ACE tried, in those early days, to be democratic in trying to get some of this bonanza to the little people, with something called A4E Express. This was a scheme for lottery grants of under £5,000 going to those who had never had anything from the arts funding system before. The budget was £4m and when the 4,450 applicants had been whittled down to 2,700 the bill came to almost £9m; the second year’s was £15.4m; there wasn’t a third year.

There was high choler with some of the bigger projects too: Richard Rogers’s fury at the turning down of Zaha Hadid’s plans for the Cardiff Bay Opera House; the Royal Opera House threatening to sue the Arts Council if anything uncomplimentary was said about the management crisis it was in amid its vast lottery-funded development; the £80m Bristol concert hall proposal in which one bit of ACE seemed to be promising the cash for it while another was deploring the bid’s impossible inadequacies.

It’s all here. Skene chaired her panel until 2000 but, as a trustee of a clutch of major subsidised arts organisations, she is still watching the lottery story unfold. It’s different now, the incomes being drastically reduced by the drop in player numbers; the additionality rules being relaxed so that lottery cash can, if encapsulated in a readable scheme, replace arts subsidy. But the battles still have to be fought, she says: cuts to humanities subjects in the national curriculum, cuts to benefits for disabled artists, cuts to local authorities. For sure, as long as the lottery is still around it will be called in to bail out the shortcomings of subsidy, a story that just keeps on giving as it takes away.

Capital Gains; How the National Lottery transformed England’s arts by Prue Skene is published by Franchise Press

Meanwhile, go to www.artsindustry.co.uk for the latest arts news and features – there’s no pay wall – and read about Maggie Hambling’s Good Time George, Maria Balshaw’s other half and his new job, and why litter bins are putting Brighton Pavilion Gardens at risk, as well as features on the risks of being creative, giving theatre to the people, putting rock and roll back into architecture, and the woman who is leading our future leaders.

[celticnoise]

ASTANA 4 CELTIC 3 (Agg: 4-8)

IT was crazy in Kazakhstan as some deplorable defending made it a far from easy passage for Celtic into Thursday Champions League group stages draw.

Brendan Rodgers decided not to risk Jozo Simunovic on the artificial surface against Astana and and was forced to go with the untried partnership of Kristoffer Ajer and Nir Bitton.

With Dedryck Boyata and Erik Sviatchenko already sidelined through injury, it was fortunate the Hoops had a five-goal lead from the first leg to rely on.

Two goals in the space of one minute and 47 seconds at the start of the second-half saw the Parkhead men looking shell-shocked as they lost their composure and cohesion.

At 1-1 at the interval, they looked comfortable until the roof collapsed on them in dramatic fashion in an unbelievable period after the turnaround.

Celtic had gone into the tie without conceding a solitary goal in their previous five games against Linfield, Rosenborg and Astana.

And, as misfortune would have it, Craig Gordon had to pick the ball out of the net for the first time after a wicked deflection off Ajer in the 25th minute.

The Norwegian headed a clearance straight to Shomko who took a touch with Mikael Lustig slow to react.

The Astana player thumped a shot at goal to Gordon’s left, but Ajer threw out a desperate leg to send the ball flying into the opposite corner.

It was unfortunate for the teenager, but it gave their opponents renewed hope at a crucial stage of the encounter.

Rodgers’ men almost replied immediately when Scotty Sinclair streaked away from two defenders, but his finishing shot hit the chest of the outrushing keeper Eric and flew to safety.

However, the winger, who netted two last week in the first game, had better luck in the 34th minute when he struck a spectacular equaliser.

Lustig picked out Callum McGregor with an infield pass and he stroked it on to Sinclair, thundering down the left. He cut in before sending an excellent right-foot effort high past the despairing fingers of Eric into the roof of the net.

James Forrest had a superb opportunity to put the Hoops into a half-time lead when Kieran Tierney fired in a left-wing cross, but the winger’s header was wayward and flashed wide.

Gordon made a top-class save in the 42nd minute when he clawed away a header from a left-wing corner-kick and then did well to hold a rasping 35-yard free-kick from Twumasi.

Celtic had looked comfortable for the opening 45 minutes, but couldn’t have expected to be hit by some whirlwind attacking by Astana after the turnaround.

In the 47th minute, skipper Scott Brown was slack with a pass that was seized upon by an opponent who flighted a ball towards the danger area.

Brown got a head flick to the ball, but it only served to drop it perfectly in front of Muzhikov who thrashed an unstoppable close-range drive behind the helpless Gordon.

Only moments later, the keeper was picking the ball from the back of his net again as the stadium erupted.

Twumasi took full advantage of Bitton’s defensive frailties to drift in behind him as a left-wing cross dropped into the box and he buried a header into the corner of the net.

Celtic, suddenly, were on the ropes and Astana were thrown a lifeline.

Boss Rodgers moved to bring control back to his team in the 56th minute by putting on Tom Rogic and Anthony Ralston for McGregor and Forrest and going to three at the back.

Lustig tucked in beside the toiling Bitton and Ajer and Ralston went to right-back.

Nine minutes later, Stuart Armstrong replaced Sinclair to add some more strength and solidity to the midfield.

Griffiths blew a wonderful chance to pull a goal back in the 67th minute when Olivier Ntcham, Celtic’s Man of the Match, sent Tierney on his way down the left.

The full-back picked out Griffiths smack in front of goal. He took a touch to set up the opportunity and then unbelievably blazed the ball high over the top.

Within a minute, Astana had scored a fourth goal – and once again the Celtic defence was left embarrassingly exposed.

Twumasi virtually sauntered past a feeble challenge from Bitton, Lustig was slow to come out and close down the danger and the speedy Astana player zipped a drive between Gordon and his near post.

The heat was on big-style for the Scottish champions and the Hoops keeper had to make another good save as he tipped away an effort from the unstoppable Twumasi.

Astana piled forward in search of another goal, but they were undone in the 80th minute when subs Rogic and Armstrong combined to set up Ntcham.

The French ace swept in a right-foot effort that took a nick off a defender on its way past Eric.

Ten minutes later, Griffiths put an almost respectable look on the scoreline when he latched onto a through pass from Bitton, moved the ball to his right foot and flashed a low angled drive beyond the despairing Astana goalie.

In the end, job done, but Celtic made it extremely tough for themselves.

However, the main thing is they have just picked up a £30million bonanza and are in the ballot on Thursday.

TEAM: Gordon; Lustig, Ajer, Bitton, Tierney; Brown, Ntcham; Forrest (sub: Ralston 56), McGregor (sub: Rogic 56), Sinclair (sub: Armstrong 65); Griffiths.

NEW CQN PODCAST – PAUL DYKES PRESENTS WITH FORMER CELTIC CAPTAIN ANDY LYNCH AND SPECIAL GUEST PAT STANTON

http://ift.tt/2v3dtzi

#CelticNoise #Celtic #CelticFC #CelticQuickNews