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However, the Portugal winger is not currently keen on a return to the club where he came through the youth ranks.
But negotiations will go on throughout this week with United confident of a deal before the weekend.
Boss Louis van Gaal is keen to land Rojo who can play as a centre back and left-back.
United lost their season opener against Swansea on Saturday with many critics pointing to the fact they have failed to significantly strengthen this summer despite last season's horror campaign.
Ander Herrera and Luke Shaw have arrived, but deals for big names such as Angel Di Maria and Arturo Vidal remain a long way off, if they are going to happen at all.
Syria calls US-led air strikes on its troops a "dangerous and blatant aggression" as ceasefire looks close to collapse.
Syria's fragile ceasefire continued to unravel on Sunday with the first aerial attacks on rebel-held neighbourhoods of Aleppo and a southern village in the deadliest day since the truce began.
The violations came as tensions between American and Russian brokers of the deal worsened following a deadly US air raid on Syrian government forces.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said evening air strikes on Aleppo killed one woman and wounded others, though it could not identify who carried them out.
Ten people, including a child, were killed on Sunday when a pair of barrel bombs hit an opposition-held town in the southern province of Deraa, it said.
"Today was the highest death toll since the truce began," said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.
The air raid by the US-led coalition allegedly killed dozens of Syrian soldiers and led to a harsh verbal attack on Washington by Damascus and Moscow. The US military says it may have unintentionally struck Syrian troops while carrying out a raid against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in eastern Syria ...
The seven-day ceasefire is supposed to end at midnight Sunday, according to a Syrian army statement issued last week. The US and Russia have said if it holds for seven days, it should be followed by the establishment of a centre for both countries to coordinate the identification of targets against ISIL and Jabhat Fata...
The ceasefire has been repeatedly violated by both sides, and aid convoys have not reached besieged rebel-held neighbourhoods of Aleppo, Syria's largest city and one-time commercial centre.
Moscow laid the blame for Sunday's violence squarely on the opposition.
Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov said in an emailed statement to the AP news agency that both "terrorists and the opposition" are using the truce to "boost their forces and prepare for renewed hostilities".
Konashenkov said Moscow still has not been able to contact the US-backed opposition to coordinate ceasefire efforts, despite Washington's assurances. He said the US has not even tried to get the opposition to hold its fire.
Syria called Saturday's US-led strikes on the outskirts of the eastern city of Deir Az Zor a "dangerous and blatant aggression against the Syrian Arab Republic and its army".
The foreign ministry's statement, sent to the UN Security Council, said American warplanes repeatedly attacked Syrian army positions. It said the air strikes were "on purpose and planned in advance", and killed dozens of Syrian soldiers.
Russia's military said it was told by the Syrian army that at least 62 Syrian soldiers were killed in the air raid and more than 100 wounded.
The Russian air force has been carrying out strikes across Syria to bolster President Bashar al-Assad's forces for nearly a year, and the two militaries work in close coordination.
Russia said the United States was being obstructive and deceptive regarding the air strike. A foreign ministry statement on Sunday said in an emergency UN Security Council session the US took "an unconstructive and indistinct position".
The Americans "not only turned out to be unable to give an adequate explanation of what happened, but also tried, as is their custom, to turn everything upside down", the statement said.
159.24 acres of prime hunting property...nothing smaller than an 8 point taken from this property. 20 food plots all throughout this property. 3 ground hunting blinds will remain. 2 blinds will be removed. Many trails throughout this property, that allows access to every part of this land. Stocked pond, with perch, bas...
Last May, Uadaya Sivakumar and her husband got into a car accident in Colombo. It wasn’t serious, but they knew immediately that they were in for an ordeal.
They are both Tamil. Sivakumar grew up in Kandy, before moving to Colombo when she was young and her husband is from Jaffna. After the crash, they went to the local Police station to submit a report.
When they arrived, the receiving officer only spoke in Sinhala, Sivakumar recalled in an interview. She speaks Sinhala, as well as Tamil and English, but her husband can only speak basic Sinhala, she said.
Sivakumar said that because of the language barrier, it took almost four hours to record the complaint.
Sivakumar and many other Sri Lankan Tamils like her, say occurrences like this are a routine part of daily life. Reminders that the government of the Sinhala-majority country does not operate in the minority’s mother tongue are everywhere, in the form of misspelled road signs, bank forms, bus routes and hospital record...
The result of all this is that Tamils often do not have equal access to government services as their Sinhala neighbors, even though legally, Tamil has been an 'official language' of the country since parliament passed the 13th Amendment of the Constitution in 1987.
Sivakumar said that even though she was born here, went to school here, works here and has family here, she often feels like an immigrant to her own country. “I always have that feeling,” she said.
She is not alone. Data collected by the Consultation Task Force on Reconciliation Mechanisms, a group set up by the Prime Minister in 2016, shows deep distrust in the government’s ability to communicate with its Tamil citizens.
In most of the 7,300 submissions the task force received, people identified “shortcomings in bi-lingual language proficiency throughout the machinery of the State” as a “major impediment” to reconciliation, its final report stated.
They recommended that bi-lingual training for government workers be prioritized immediately.
However, the Government has “largely ignored” this recommendation, in the words of the International Crisis Group, an international NGO.
It has now been three decades since Tamil became an official language in Sri Lanka. But interviews with residents, government officials, and NGO leaders show that progress towards the Government’s stated goal of language equality is extremely slow.
Some argue it’s practically nonexistent.
Mano Ganesan, the Minister of National Coexistence Dialogue and Official Languages, said there’s a reason for this slow progress in a recent interview.
But the consequences of inaction have continued to breed the kind of conditions that led to civil war in the first place.
Luise von Flotow, a Canadian academic who was in Sri Lanka in 2013 and 2014 as part of the National Languages Project, said she was struck by the language barriers here between the government and its citizens, particularly in the Tamil-majority North.
She recalled a Tamil and English-speaking judge she met in Jaffna, who had to deal with cases that Sinhala-speaking police brought to court.
With the accused often only speaking Tamil, many cases descended into confusion.
On the internet, Tamils often share pictures of misspelled road signs and signboards. Recent examples include the main sign for the Central Bank’s regional office in Kilinochchi, and the entrance of the Galle National Museum. They were spelled correctly in Sinhala and English, but were not, in Tamil.
Uadaya Sivakumar said she often has to change her name on government forms, as even paperwork translated into Tamil requires people put down a middle name. Middle names are extremely rare in Tamil culture.
To get around it, she writes her name as “Udayaa Siva Kumar,” she said.
Janagan said he believes the only way to heal the divide, and create lasting peace in Sri Lanka, is to commit to real instruction of Tamil and Sinhala in all primary schools.
Currently, mandates do exist to teach both languages in government schools, but the lack of qualified Tamil teachers in the South, and Sinhala teachers in the North, hobbles progress.
Sinrasa Thananchayan, a law student at the University of Jaffna, said he believes language is perhaps the main barrier to post-war reconciliation.
“We need to communicate with the government, with the southern people. Only by way of this communication can we actually achieve the true reconciliation of peace,” he said.
“One of the reasons for the emergence of the LTTE and other Tamil armed groups on the northern side, one of the reasons was miscommunication,” he added.
Some analysts say the necessary legal framework for language equality in Sri Lanka already exists. The problem is the lack of commitment by those in power to enforce it.
“The political will to be able to prioritize this, and having prioritized this allocate the requisite resources… it’s not there,” Centre for Policy Alternatives Executive Director Dr. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu said in an interview.
Even with the election of a unity government in 2015, commitment to true post-war accountability does not exist, he said.
“That has to be broken by a concerted political effort, by the two main parties who currently are in government… to come out and do a campaign on the basis of reconciliation and national unity in which language is basic pillar and integral part,” he added.
He said he believes that the current government coalition has a unique opportunity to enact deep structural change to the state that would create grounds for a lasting peace.
“I think there is still room for reform, but what it requires is a major concerted effort to pry it open, and let the air in,” he said.
For the official language policy to actually be implemented, resources need to flow on the ground. If there were enough translators in government agencies, or multi-lingual government workers, things like what happened to Uadaya Sivakumar at the Colombo police station wouldn’t happen anymore.
“If the language policy was properly implemented, you would go somewhere,” Dr Saravanamuttu said.
For people like Janagan, the CEO and activist, Dr. Saravanamuttu, the head of the think tank and Minister Ganesan, there is still hope in a political solution to the language issue.
Ganesan said his ministry is planning on employing 3,200 new “language officials,” who are bi or tri-lingual, in government offices all over the island by next year.
He said they are also working on developing better translation software between Sinhala, Tamil, and English, and a mobile translation app.
But for Thananchayan, the young law student from Jaffna, and many in the younger generation, the solution to the language barrier may lie outside of government initiatives.
He said people are finding new ways to communicate–over Facebook and other forms of social media.
“Nowadays the trend is, especially in regard to this social media, the people themselves, without trusting, without seeking assistance from the government, or even their representatives, they come to the road, and they protest, and they do everything,” he said.
“Young people communicate in way older people can’t,” he said. Because of that, he added, there is hope.
Music City’s new duo, The JaneDear Girls, boldly announce their arrival onto the country music scene with their euphoric self-titled debut. The female twosome’s sound is a breath of fresh air and a welcome addition to the current risk-adverse and cynical musical climate. Their unique brand of effervescent, girl-power c...
They consist of Utah born Susie Brown and Texan Danelle Leverett, who met while independently seeking their musical destinies in Nashville. After writing songs together, the two artists decided to team up as partners, and The JaneDear Girls were born. Shortly after their formation, Muzik Mafia member John Rich took the...
Their album begins with lead-off hit single “Wildflower,” which was released in 2010 and has already earned them an ACM nomination in the Top New Vocal Duo or Group category. The second track “Shotgun Girl,” sounds poised and ready to become the follow up to their preceding hit. “Crank it up Waylon, Willie and Merle / ...
“Saturdays In September,” co-penned by mega-hit writer Jeffrey Steele, is the album’s one and only full-fledged ballad, and includes a hook-laden chorus filled with rich harmony vocals. “In those up-all-night Friday nights / phone calls and long goodbyes / reading and writing love letters,” the girls sing in unison. Ot...
It’s a musical party of an album steeped in lyrics concerning affair of the heart topics such as: love, heartbreak and innocence lost, which is delivered with a youthful zest and zeal. Upon first listen it may sound like nothing more than pop fluff, but underneath the layers of production is a collection of carefully c...
On January 6 the Church celebrates the feast of "Epiphany."
This feast commemorates the mysterious visit of the magi to the Baby Jesus.
Who were the magi? What led them to visit Jesus? And what lessons should we--and shouldn't we!--learn from this incident?
Here are nine things you should know . . .
1. What does the word "Epiphany" mean?
It comes from Greek roots that mean "to show, to display" (phainein) and "on, to" (epi-).
An epiphany is thus a time when something is shown, displayed, or manifested to an audience.
2. What is the feast of the Epiphany about?
The Epiphany is the manifestation of Jesus as Messiah of Israel, Son of God and Saviour of the world. the great feast of Epiphany celebrates the adoration of Jesus by the wise men (magi) from the East, together with his baptism in the Jordan and the wedding feast at Cana in Galilee.
In the magi, representatives of the neighbouring pagan religions, the Gospel sees the first-fruits of the nations, who welcome the good news of salvation through the Incarnation.
The magi's coming to Jerusalem in order to pay homage to the king of the Jews shows that they seek in Israel, in the messianic light of the star of David, the one who will be king of the nations.
Their coming means that pagans can discover Jesus and worship him as Son of God and Saviour of the world only by turning towards the Jews and receiving from them the messianic promise as contained in the Old Testament.
The Epiphany shows that “the full number of the nations” now takes its “place in the family of the patriarchs”, and acquires Israelitica dignitas (is made “worthy of the heritage of Israel”) [CCC 528].
3. When is Epiphany celebrated?
This varies from country to country.
In some countries, Epiphany is a holy day of obligation (Canon Can. 1246 §1). Where that is the case, it is celebrated on January 6th.
In the United States, Epiphany is not a holy day of obligation, and its celebration is transferred to the first Sunday after January 1st (source).
In 2013, it so happens that the first Sunday after January 1st is January 6th, so the U.S. celebration of Epiphany will coincide with its universal celebration.
4. Why is Epiphany connected with January 6th?
It is hard to say how far back the beginnings of the Christmas feast go. It assumed its definitive form in the third century.
At about the same time the feast of the Epiphany emerged in the East on January 6 and the feast of Christmas in the West on December 25.
The two feasts had different emphases because of the different religious and cultural contexts in which they arose, but essentially their meaning was the same: the celebration of the birth of Christ as the dawning of the new light, the true sun, of history [The Spirit of the Liturgy , pp. 106-107)].
Eventually, however, the emphasis on January 6 shifted--particularly in the west (and in some parts of the east)--to reflect manifestations of Christ beside that which occurred at his birth (namely, those that occurred at the coming of the magi, at his baptism, and at the wedding feast of Cana).
This year the baptism of the Lord is also celebrated the first Sunday after Epiphany (Jan. 13), and the wedding at Cana is celebrated on the Sunday after that (Jan. 20).
5. Who were the Magi?
In the relevant sources, the concept of Magi (mágoi) encompasses a wide range of meanings, from the wholly positive to the wholly negative.
To the first of the four principal meanings, Magi are understood to be members of the Persian priestly caste.
In Hellenistic culture they were regarded as “rulers of a distinctive religion,” but at the same time their religious ideas were thought to be “strongly influenced by philosophy,” so that the Greek philosophers have often been portrayed as their pupils (cf. Delling, “mágos,” p. 356).
No doubt this view contains some not easily definable element of truth: after all, Aristotle himself spoke of the philosophical work of the Magi (cf. ibid., p. 357).
The other meanings listed by Gerhard Delling are as follows: possessors and users of supernatural knowledge and ability, magicians, and finally deceivers and seducers. . . .

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