Ottawa Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Friday up to 13.2 billion Canadian dollars ($9.8 billion US) in subsidies over 10 years for Volkswagens first overseas battery plant, to be built in St. Thomas, Ontario.

The production support matches incentives by US President Joe Bidens administration, as Washingtons trading partners work to keep up with subsidies under the ambitious Inflation Reduction Act amid anxieties surrounding it.

Already, European leaders fear EU-based companies could move to the US due to benefits from the act which funnels some $370 billion into subsidies for the United States energy transition.

With this historic project, were not just bringing back manufacturing, were bringing back a strong thriving economy for this community, and were delivering a national anchor for Canadas electric vehicle supply chain, Trudeau told a news conference on Friday.

He called the funding a generational investment in a new plant that is expected to generate about Can$200 billion in value.

Volkswagen, which announced in March plans to build the plant in St. Thomas, is investing Can$7 billion in the 370-acre facility about the size of nearly 400 football fields which, according to a statement from Trudeaus office is the largest electric vehicle-related investment in Canadian history.

Construction of what is to be also the biggest manufacturing facility in Canada is set to start next year, while battery production for up to one million electric vehicles annually will begin in 2027.

Volkswagen is also setting up a series of battery plants in Europe, the first of which opens this year in Sweden. This will be followed by another in Salzgitter, Germany, in 2025.

With its own battery plants, Volkswagen is seeking to reduce its supply chain dependence on Asia.

It is also facing a tough fight against US rival Tesla for dominance of the electric car market.

Under its different brands, Volkswagen plans to introduce more than 25 different new electric models by 2030 in the United States.

The Canadian government funding of between Can$8 billion and Can$13.2 billion will start being phased out in 2030 and completely eliminated after 2032.

Ontario province has also pledged Can$500 million for the plant.

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Barcelona Carlos Alcaraz stayed on course to defend his Barcelona Open title Friday as he defeated Alejandro Davidovich Fokina 7-6 (7/5), 6-4 to move into the semi-finals.

Alcarazs build-up to the French Open next month has been slowed by hand and back problems which forced him to pull out of Monte Carlo, and the top seed was made to work hard by Davidovich Fokina.

The teenager broke in the first game of the match but Davidovich Fokina hit back for 3-all before Alcaraz soon regained the upper hand.

However, he failed to close out the first set when serving at 5-4 and Davidovich Fokina fought his way to within two points of taking the opener in the tie-break.

Alcaraz though held his nerve as the 38th-ranked Spaniard faltered, with Davidovich Fokina belting a forehand long to eventually surrender the set. 

The US Open champion saved six break points in the third game of the second set and then broke immediately after for a 3-1 advantage.

Davidovich Fokina again responded to get back on serve, and it stayed that way until Alcaraz broke in the final game to seal victory.

He will take on the winner of the quarter-final between Argentinas Francisco Cerundolo and Briton Dan Evans.

Stefanos Tsitsipas eased into the semi-finals earlier in the day, beating Alex de Minaur 6-4, 6-2.

Tsitsipas claimed the lone break of the opening set and then reeled off five straight games in the second as he won for the ninth time in as many meetings with Australias De Minaur.

The Greek second seed will play Lorenzo Musetti on Saturday as he bids to reach the Barcelona final for a third time. He was runner-up to Rafael Nadal in 2018 and 2021.

Tsitsipas, the losing finalist at Januarys Australian Open, is bidding for his first title of the season. He lost to Alcaraz in the quarter-finals in Barcelona last year.

Musetti advanced via walkover when fellow Italian Jannik Sinner had to pull out because of illness.

Sad to have to withdraw from my match today in Barcelona, tweeted Sinner, who beat Musetti in the Monte Carlo quarter-finals last week.

Ive been feeling unwell for a few days now. Today the sickness got worse and Im not able to play. Ill take some time to rest and recover.

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Mexico City Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said he has finally found a buyer for a luxury presidential jet that he once called an insult to the people the government of Tajikistan.

The Central Asian nation agreed to purchase the Boeing 787 Dreamliner for 1.66 billion pesos ($92 million), Lopez Obrador announced late Thursday after several years of trying to sell the plane.

Lopez Obrador, a leftist austerity crusader, had been vowing to get rid of the aircraft since his 2018 election campaign, saying not even Donald Trump has a plane like that.

I would have felt shame, I say it sincerely, to use this plane, Lopez Obrador said in a video announcing its sale, sitting next to the aircraft. 

The proceeds will be used to build two hospitals in impoverished regions of southern Mexico, he said.

The jet, customized with an executive bedroom, private bath and seating for 80 people, was purchased for about $218 million during former president Felipe Calderons 2006-2012 term in office.

The only one who used it was his successor Enrique Pena Nieto.

In September 2020, Lopez Obradors government held a symbolic raffle aimed at raising funds roughly equivalent to the planes value.

Last year he announced that the jet would be made available to rent for birthday and wedding parties.

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Paris A Paris court on Friday sentenced Lebanese-Canadian citizen Hassan Diab to life in prison in absentia for the 1980 bombing of a synagogue in which four people died.

The court followed prosecutors request for the maximum possible punishment against Diab, now 69 and a university professor in Canada.

Prosecutors had said in their summing-up that there was no possible doubt that Diab, the only suspect, was behind the attack.

In the early evening of October 3, 1980, explosives placed on a motorcycle detonated close to a synagogue in Rue Copernic in Pariss chic 16th district, killing a student passing by on a motorbike, a driver, an Israeli journalist and a caretaker.

Forty-six were injured in the blast.

The bombing was the first deadly attack against a Jewish target on French soil since World War II.

No organisation ever claimed responsibility but police suspected a splinter group of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

French intelligence in 1999 accused Diab, a sociology professor, of having made the 10-kilogramme (22-pound) bomb. 

They pointed to Diabs likeness with police sketches drawn at the time and handwriting analyses that they said confirmed him as a suspect.

They also produced a key item of evidence against him a passport in his name, seized in Rome in 1981, with entry and exit stamps from Spain, where the attack plan was believed to have originated.

In 2014, Canada extradited Diab at the request of the French authorities.

However, investigating judges were unable to prove his guilt conclusively during the investigation and Diab was released, leaving France for Canada a free man in 2018.

Three years later, a French court overturned the earlier decision and ordered that Diab should stand trial after all, on charges of murder, attempted murder and destruction of property in connection with a terrorist enterprise. 

French authorities stopped short of issuing a new international arrest warrant for Diab, effectively leaving it up to him to attend his trial or not.

His conviction means Diab is now again the subject of an arrest warrant, which risks stoking diplomatic tensions between France and Canada after his first extradition took six years.

David Pere, a lawyer for some of the Jewish worshippers present in the synagogue at the time of the bombing, said his clients were not motivated by vengence nor looking for a guilty persons head to stick on a pike they want justice to be done.

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London Two climate protesters were jailed on Friday for scaling a major road bridge over the River Thames east of London and causing huge traffic delays.

Morgan Trowland, 40, and Marcus Decker, 34, used climbing equipment to scale the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge in October.

The bridge was closed from 4:00 am on October 17 to 9:00 pm the next day, causing huge jams as traffic was forced to use nearby tunnels.

Judge Shane Collery at Southend Crown Court sentenced Trowland to three years in prison, while Decker was jailed for two years and seven months.

You have to be punished for the chaos you caused and to deter others from copying you, said the judge.

He told the pair, from the Just Stop Oil protest group: (You) plainly believed you knew better than everyone else. 

By your actions you caused this very important road to be closed for 40 hours, he added.

Traffic chaos

The pair, who were found guilty at a trial for causing a public nuisance, have been in custody since October 20.

The Queen Elizabeth II Bridge is used by an estimated 160,000 vehicles a day and links up to one of Europes busiest motorways.

At nearly 60 metres (200 feet) above the road, they unfurled a giant Just Stop Oil banner, the court was told.

Just Stop Oil has mounted a series of disruptive protests to try to stop the UK government from sanctioning new North Sea oil and gas exploration.

Essex Police said that those affected by the gridlock included a heavily pregnant woman who needed urgent medical help.

Another person missed the funeral of their best friend of 35 years, and a business lost more than 160,000 (nearly $200,000) in earnings, it added.

Jacob Bindman, Trowlands lawyer, told court that his client doesnt intend to undertake any large-scale disruptive protests in the future.

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Geneva The worlds glaciers melted at dramatic speed last year and saving them is effectively a lost cause, the United Nations reported Friday, as climate change indicators once again hit record highs.

The last eight years have been the warmest ever recorded, while concentrations of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide hit new peaks, the UNs World Meteorological Organization said.

Antarctic sea ice fell to its lowest extent on record and the melting of some European glaciers was, literally, off the charts, the WMO said as it launched its annual climate overview.

Sea levels are also at a record high, having risen by an average of 4.62 millimetres per year between 2013 and 2022 double the annual rate between 1993 and 2002.

Record high temperatures were also recorded in the oceans where around 90 percent of the heat trapped on Earth by greenhouse gases ends up.

The 2015 Paris Agreement saw countries agree to cap global warming at well below two degrees Celsius above average levels measured between 1850 and 1900 and 1.5C if possible.

The global mean temperature in 2022 was 1.15C above the 1850-1900 average, the WMO report said.

Record global mean temperatures over the past eight years came despite the cooling impact of a drawn-out La Nina weather phenomenon that stretched over nearly half that period.

The report said greenhouse gas concentrations reached new highs in 2021.

The concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) reached 415.7 parts per million globally, or 149 percent of the pre-industrial (1750) level, while methane reached 262 percent and nitrous oxide hit 124 percent.

Data indicate they continued to increase in 2022.

Glacier game lost

WMO chief Petteri Taalas told a press conference that extreme weather caused by greenhouse gas emissions may continue until the 2060s, independent of our success in in climate mitigation

We have already emitted so much, especially CO2 in the atmosphere that this kind of phasing out of the negative trend takes several decades. 

The worlds 40-odd reference glaciers those for which long-term observations exist saw an average thickness loss of more than 1.3 metres between October 2021 and October 2022 a loss much larger than the average over the last decade.

The cumulative thickness loss since 1970 amounts to almost 30 metres.

In Europe, the Alps smashed records for glacier melt due to a combination of little winter snow, an intrusion of Saharan dust in March 2022 and heatwaves between May and early September.

We have already lost the melting of the glaciers game, because we already have such a high concentration of CO2, Taalas told AFP.

In the Swiss Alps, last summer we lost 6.2 percent of the glacier mass, which is the hi...

Liverpool Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp remains confident Darwin Nunez will provide long-term value for the Reds despite being relegated to the bench in recent weeks.

A failure to reinforce Klopps midfield last summer has been criticised as Liverpool instead plunged the vast majority of their transfer budget into a 66 million ($82 million) move for Nunez, that could rise to 88 million with add-ons.

The Uruguayan has scored 15 goals since arriving from Benfica but has fallen down the pecking order since the arrival of Cody Gakpo in January and the return to fitness of Diogo Jota and Luis Diaz.

Nunez came off the bench to net as Liverpool smashed Leeds 6-1 on Monday.

But it has often been a far more difficult season for Klopps men as they sit eighth in the Premier League, nine points adrift of the top four.

Its not helpful to go through a debut season when its difficult for the whole team. How can a striker shine when the whole team is struggling? Klopp said at his pre-match press conference ahead of Nottingham Forests visit to Anfield on Saturday.

He was injured in some moments, suspended in other moments. Thats not a problem at all. This is a long-term project.

I understand that he wants to play desperately from the beginning but we have to find a way that really works for us again and then fit in the players we can use with the specific strengths.

I am completely fine with the situation. I understand that Darwin isnt always fine. He doesnt smile in my face when he realises he wont start and says: Thank you boss.

But when you have five or six players available up front you have to make decisions and thats good.

Trent Alexander-Arnolds form has been another reason for Liverpools slide down the table this season, but the right-back has shone recently from a new role as he has pushed into midfield in possession.

Alexander-Arnold has provided three assists in the past two games, but Klopp said it was still a work in progress.

This slightly advanced role suits him in the moment really well. Its a challenge for everyone else to cover the spaces when we lose the ball theoretically but with him there we didnt lose that many balls, which was helpful as well, added Klopp.

It is now not the solution for all the football problems we had this year but he has potential to play that position.

But its not written in stone, why should we? We will see where it leads to.

The post Klopp backs long-term project Nunez to come good at Liverpool appeared first on...

Al-Jazirah Sudanese families who have fled fighting in Khartoum celebrated on Friday the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, trying for a sense of normalcy, the sound of explosions still ringing in their ears.

A day earlier, they were sheltering from gunfire and air strikes in the Sudanese capital as two rival forces vying for control fought in the city, killing hundreds.

I was lost, until my work friend Mokhtar suggested we join him as he was leaving Thursday night, said Al-Shafie, his seven-year-old daughter tugging on his arm and asking for a toy.

With a laugh, Al-Shafie who asked to be identified by first name only picked her up and hugged her.

Its the first time weve been able to fall asleep, he told AFP, finally far from the violence which they now watch on television.

Gathered in a local mosque in the state of Al-Jazirah, south of Khartoum, the newly displaced families joined a prayer for the festival marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.

Seven days of fighting between the army and paramilitaries in the capital and other parts of the country have killed more than 400 people and wounded thousands more, the World Health Organization said on Friday.

Many in Khartoum, a city of about five million people, are left cloistered in their homes without electricity, food and water.

Thousands have left during brief lulls in fighting, taking with them their children, elderly relatives and few belongings.

They took great risks to get away from the ceaseless barrage of air strikes and anti-aircraft missiles launched by the army, led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, on one side, and his deputy-turned-rival Mohamed Hamdan Daglo and his heavily-armed Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on the other.

No explosions  

Al-Shafie and others who have left had to make sure they have somewhere to stay and calculate exactly how much fuel growing scarcer and more expensive by the day they had in their cars, before locking the doors to their home, terrified it would be their last time there.

On the streets, they were met with armed combatants, charred tanks and the dead bodies of those who were caught in the crossfire.

Arriving at a village in Al-Jazirah, Al-Shafie was finally able to calm down.

For nearly a week, fearful parents like him in Khartoum were trying to shield their children from the terror, frantically keeping them away from windows, praying the rockets are farther away than they sound.

In Al-Jazirah, people have been glued to their screens, watching the images from Khartoum and looking for ways to help.

Some began posting their phone numbers online, offering to host desperate Khartoum residents in their homes.

For anyone needing to hitch a ride, people offered cars heading down the highway that follows the Blue Nile Rive...

Hong Kong Jack Ma, founder of Chinese tech giant Alibaba, has been made an honorary professor of business at a top Hong Kong university, the school announced Friday.

The appointment comes weeks after the billionaire made a rare public appearance in China following his fall from grace during a government crackdown on the tech industry over two years ago.

Ma has kept a low profile since late 2020, when a speech he made attacking Chinese regulators was followed by Beijing pulling the plug on a planned IPO by Alibaba affiliate Ant Group.

A record fine of $2.75 billion was later imposed on Alibaba for alleged unfair business practices.

The University of Hong Kong on Friday said Ma had accepted an honorary professorship from its business school.

A spokesperson for the institution said it welcomed Ma sharing his rich knowledge and experience in business innovation and development.

The professorship carries a three-year term ending in March 2026, according to local media.

The schools website now contains a profile of Ma highlighting his expertise in management and strategy.

In 2018 the same university awarded Ma an honorary doctorate.

However, Ma has no plans for public lectures or speeches, according to the South China Morning Post, a Hong Kong-based English-language newspaper wholly owned by Alibaba.

The Jack Ma Foundation, a charitable organisation set up by the billionaire in 2014, told the Post that after a hiatus from the world of education, Mr Ma looks forward to returning to campus life.

Ma previously taught English for eight years at Hangzhou Dianzi University in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang before he launched Alibaba.

He also founded in 2015 a centre for entrepreneurship in Zhejiang along with several Chinese business heavyweights.

That institution was originally called Hupan University but had the term university removed from its name in 2021 amid Mas spat with Chinese authorities.

Ma has been spotted in a number of locations around the world over the past two years, including on the Spanish island of Mallorca, and was reportedly living in Japan for much of 2022.

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Saedinenie Angel Vukodinov fumes over the piles of unsold sunflower seeds in his granary in central Bulgaria. Like other farmers in eastern EU nations, he blames an influx of Ukrainian grain for the mess.

The European Union has allowed Ukraine to export agricultural goods through the bloc after Russias invasion disrupted the countrys traditional Black Sea shipping lanes last year.

Farmers in eastern EU states have protested in recent months, saying the move saturated the market and led to a massive drop in prices in their countries.

In response, the EU has offered financial aid for farmers impacted by the influx.

We have nothing against the Ukrainian people But the compensation offered by the EU for our losses is a joke, said Vukodinov, 61, who has been a farmer for more than 30 years in the central Bulgarian town of Saedinenie.

Following protests, authorities in Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia announced over the past week that they would temporarily ban Ukrainian grains, though goods are still allowed to transit through amid EU talks to find a solution.

Following Russias Black Sea blockade last year, EU member states agreed to import certain products from Ukraine without quantitative restrictions and customs inspection.

The goods were destined for Africa and the Middle East, but they got stuck, partially due to logistical problems, including the poor infrastructure in Bulgaria.

The granaries are full, there is no market at all, no demand for any farm produce on top of the price dumping, said Danka Marincheshka, production chief at Vukodinovs family farm.

Unfair to us

Bulgarian farming ministry data show that some 940,000 tonnes of Ukrainian sunflower seeds were imported into the EUs poorest member last year, or half of Ukraines total sunflower seeds exports to the bloc.

Neighbouring Romania came second with nearly 360,000 tonnes.

Romanian and EU authorities were unfair to us, because, contrary to what they promised, a big part of the grain, which was due to only transit Romania, was left here, said Florentin Bercu, a Romanian union representative.

The sunflower seeds market in Bulgaria has become oversaturated, said Marin Iliev, management board member of the Plovdiv Union of Grain Producers.

Nobody cared to notice what was happening. So these streams that started trickling in became full-flowing rivers, the market overflowed and prices tumbled down, the farmer added.

Prices had topped some 870 euros ($950) per tonne in March 2022, right after Russias invasion of Ukraine, but have since fallen to around 360 euros per tonne, which does not cover production expenses including increased fertiliser prices, according to Iliev.

Aristocracy of big fa...

Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) Bangen Rekani, Iraqs Minister of Construction, Housing, Municipalities, and Public Works, has confirmed a scheme to construct a national data center for land management. This statement came as Rekani presided over a meeting of the Permanent Committee for Lands, which was attended by the Mayor of Baghdad and committee members from several government organizations.

According to Rekani, the data center would employ a uniform smart system for counting and administering lands, as well as identifying ownership and usage. The data center will also function as an information bank for any government or planning agency, saving a significant amount of time and effort when designing any new project or sector in the future.

The meeting included a discussion of proposals presented by various firms specializing in geographic information systems (GIS), digital mapping, and developing spatial systems.

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Ganges French police fired teargas Thursday in a village in southern France where President Emmanuel Macron visited a school, a day after he was booed and heckled over his unpopular pension reform. 

After facing angry voters on Wednesday in eastern Alsace, the 45-year-old head of state travelled to the southern Herault region on Thursday to discuss education.

The trips outside Paris are intended to signal his desire to turn the page on his unpopular pensions changes and demonstrate he is not hiding from voters, many of whom have been outraged by the way the legislation was passed.

Saying he wanted to acknowledge and pay teachers better, the 45-year-old former investment banker announced at a school in the village of Ganges that they would receive between 100-230 euros ($110-250) more a month after tax from September.

In the run up to his speech, police fired teargas when hundreds of people shouting Macron, resign! and blowing whistles tried to advance towards the school.

Local authorities also announced a ban on portable sound equipment which a spokesman said was meant to target amplifiers and speakers.

But the regional head of the CGT union, Mathieu Guy, told AFP that protesters had also been prevented from entering the secure area close to the school with pans as well as local flutes, known as fifres.

Macrons left-wing political opponents urged their supporters to bash pans during Macrons televised address to the nation on Monday evening and the age-old protest tactic appears to be becoming an audible sign of discontent at Macrons policies.

Democratic crisis

The apparent pan ban led to ridicule on Thursday, with Communist party spokesman Ian Brossat saying he couldnt wait for the legislation which will ban the sale of saucepans.

Is it possible to leave a democratic crisis behind by banning saucepans? asked leading Greens MP Sandrine Rousseau.

Speaking to voters on Wednesday, Macron argued again that raising the retirement age from 62 to 64 was necessary to help France reduce its public spending and bring the country into line with its European neighbours.

He signed the legislation into law on Friday evening after a green light from the countrys constitutional court.

Other protests continued on Thursday, with union members entering the headquarters of the pan-European stock exchange Euronext in the main Paris business district.

Demonstrators also forced their way into the headquarters of the LVMH luxury goods empire last Thursday.

Some rail workers also went on strike again on Thursday, forcing the cancellation of one in five regional trains and some commuter services.

The post...

Istanbul President Recep Tayyip Erdogans rival in next months election has confronted a Turkish political taboo by speaking out about being an Alevi a group targeted by decades of discrimination and violent attacks.

Kemal Kilicdaroglus video message to young voters late on Wednesday addresses the unspoken worry that voters in the predominantly Sunni country are not ready to elect an Alevi president on May 14.

Alevis follow a heterodox Islamic tradition that separates them from Sunni and Shiite Muslims. Some view it as a cultural identity as much as a religious faith.

They have faced decades of persecution and have tended to keep their identity private because of discrimination and attacks on their houses of worship.

Erdogan once accused Alevis of inventing a new religion.

The outgoing head of state has since used speeches to declare he will not be using Kilicdaroglus identity against him.

Kilicdaroglu, you can be an Alevi. I respect you, Erdogan said in 2014.

Kilicdaroglu has never hidden his Alevi identity but has rarely talked about it in detail.

But polls show the 74-year-old former civil servant on the verge of winning the knife-edge vote and ending two decades of Erdogans socially conservative rule.

Kilicdaroglu turned to Twitter his preferred platform for reaching voters in a country where most media follow the governments line  to publicly assert his identity.

My dear children who will cast their first vote, he told five million young Turks who grew up under Erdogan and will be voting for the first time.

I am an Alevi. I am a Muslim God gave me my life. I am not sinful.

Our identities are the assets that make us who we are.

Historic speech

Kilicdaroglus message created a sensation less than a month before Turks vote in what is widely viewed as the most important election in the strategic countrys post-Ottoman history.

His tweet had racked up nearly 50 million views by early Thursday and forced Erdogans government to strike back.

Why is he saying this now? Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu demanded.

Were not the ones saying Alevis cant win votes. Its society that questions that. We dont have a problem with it. Hes trying to play the victim, Soylu said.

But others rushed to congratulate Kilicdaroglu for speaking out.

The opposition Duvar news site called it a historic speech.

Incredibly courageous video by opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu talking about being Alevi almost breaking a political taboo in Turkey, Brookings Institution visiting fellow Asli Aydintasbas said on Twitter.

Saadet, a small Is...

Paris Rafael Nadals Grand Slam title collection stands at 22 but if it wasnt for a succession of problems with his ankles, knees, elbow, wrists and now his hip, the figure would have been even more impressive.

In his career, which has stretched over 20 years, the Spaniard has missed 11 Grand Slams and withdrew mid-tournament at the majors five times.

Now a hip injury, suffered at the Australian Open in January, has placed the 36-year-olds future in serious jeopardy.

We find ourselves in a difficult situation, said Nadal on Thursday after announcing he was withdrawing from the Madrid Masters, a key warm-up ahead of the French Open which starts in a little over five weeks time.

In principle it was supposed to be a recovery period of six to eight weeks and now were around 14.

He added: The reality is that the situation is not what we would have hoped for.

When Nadal claimed a 14th French Open by thrashing Casper Ruud in the 2022 final at Roland Garros, he revealed he had required daily pain-killing injections in his foot to see out the two-week event.

He then underwent a radical surgical procedure, having the nerves burned in his foot to eradicate the pain.

Nadal then swept into the Wimbledon semi-finals but an eagerly-anticipated showdown with Nick Kyrgios was shelved after the Spaniard failed to recover from an abdominal strain.

Fast forward to this years Australian Open where he was hampered by a hip injury during his shock second-round loss to Mackenzie McDonald.

It was his earliest exit from a Slam since 2016. He has been out of action since, even seeing his proud record of 18 unbroken years as a top-10 player end in March.

His wife Mery was in tears in the Melbourne crowd while his coaching team could hardly dare to look.

For Nadal, it was familiar territory.

A left foot problem caused him to miss Wimbledon, the US Open and the Olympics in Tokyo in 2021 and Nadal did not return until the build-up to the 2022 Australian Open, which he went on to win for the second time, 13 years after his first.

But after losing to Taylor Fritz in the Indian Wells final, the Spaniard had to skip the start of the clay-court season in Monte Carlo and Barcelona with a rib stress fracture.

He has already missed those two events again in 2023.

Cant give deadlines

Many pundits consistently predicted Nadal would struggle to enjoy a long career due to his gruelling style of play but he proved them wrong time and again.

Nadals first injury-enforced absence from the ATP Tour came as a 16-year-old in 2003 when he hurt his elbow in a fall during training and had to miss the French Open.

He has been forced to sit out at least one tournament in every year of his career.

Nadal even played briefly with...

Strasbourg The European Parliament approved the worlds first comprehensive rules to regulate the Wild West world of cryptocurrencies on Thursday, hoping to protect investors against abuse and manipulation.

EU member states have already backed the legislation covering cryptoassets, which include cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and ethereum and other tradable tokens whose value is secured using blockchain technology, such as NFTs.

The rules, now approved by a large majority of European lawmakers, hope to whip into shape an industry that has been beset by scandals and failures.

One of the most recent cryptocurrency exchange failures came in November when the FTX platform and its sister trading house Alameda Research went bankrupt, dissolving a virtual trading business that at one point had a market value of $32 billion.

The EU commissioner for financial services, Mairead McGuinness, said during a parliamentary debate on Wednesday that the rules would have regulated FTXs activities and perhaps prevented its collapse at great cost to some investors.

Under the regulation known as Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA), cryptoasset service providers (CASPs) must protect customers digital wallets and will be liable if they lose investors cryptoassets.

We believe that had FTX, for example, been captured under EU jurisdiction, many of its practices would not have been permissible under MiCA, McGuinness said in Strasbourg.

Large providers will also have to disclose their energy consumption as part of the EUs efforts to reduce cryptocurrencies high carbon footprint.

A second regulation on fund transfers will lead to greater oversight of cryptoassets trades, bringing it more closely into line with practices traditional finance.

The EU says this will make it harder for criminals to use cryptocurrencies for illegal activity such as money laundering.

The regulations mark the end of the Wild West era for the unregulated world of cryptoassets, Ernest Urtasun, one of the EU lawmakers spearheading the legislation through parliament, said during the debate.

For over a decade, the lack of regulation has resulted in massive losses to many first-time investors and provided a safe haven for fraudsters and international criminal networks, he added.

Creating safer environment

Some have, however, criticised the draft legislation for not going far enough.

In line with the principle of proportionality, significant CASPs should be subject to both stricter requirements and enhanced supervision: neither of the two is catered for by MiCA, Elizabeth McCaul, European Central Bank supervisory board member, wrote in a blog post this month.

There have also been claims that the regulation would block innovation but McGuinness dismissed th...

Islamabad Pakistans foreign minister will attend an international conference in India next month, the first official visit by one of Islamabads top diplomats since 2016.

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari will go to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Council of Foreign Ministers gathering in Goa from May 4-5, ministry spokeswoman Mumtaz Zahra Baloch told a briefing Thursday.

Islamabad suspended trade and diplomatic ties with India in 2019 when New Delhi imposed direct rule on the part of Muslim-majority Kashmir it controls and enforced a heavy security lockdown.

Both countries withdrew their top diplomats and several consular staff were expelled or withdrawn in tit-for-tat measures.

Although it is not clear if Bhutto will have any bilateral meetings with Indian officials on the sidelines of the SCO meeting, analysts said the visit was significant.

Broader confidence-building measures are required to engage economically with India, but this is an important milestone in the history of Pakistan-India relations, said Qamar Cheema, an Islamabad-based analyst.

Relations between the nuclear-armed nations have been chilly at best ever since they were created out of the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947.

Their conflict over Kashmir has resulted in three full-fledged wars and numerous minor skirmishes.

The most recent visit to India by a high-ranking Pakistan diplomat was in 2016, when Sartaj Aziz then the senior adviser to the prime minister on foreign affairs travelled to New Delhi.

India currently holds the rotating presidency of the SCO, which was established in 2001 and is considered a political, economic and security organisation to rival Western institutions.

Our participation in the meeting reflects Pakistans commitment to the SCO Charter and processes and the importance that Pakistan accords to the region in its foreign policy priorities, Baloch said.

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Khartoum Over 300 people have died and hundreds wounded in ongoing battles between Sudans regular army and a powerful paramilitary force after long-running bitter brinkmanship spilled into conflict.

At its heart lies two rival generals, army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, commander of the large and heavily armed paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), formed from members of the Janjaweed militia that led years of extreme violence in Darfur.

Together, they seized power in a 2021 coup.

On Saturday, their jostling for power erupted into violence, both in the capital Khartoum and other cities across Sudan, with deafening explosions, air strikes, artillery fire and intense gunfire in densely packed neighbourhoods.

Each general accused the other of starting the fight, and both have made claims they control key sites, which could not be independently verified.

On Thursday, the sixth day of fighting, explosions and gunfire echoed out in Khartoum, with thousands fleeing the city of more than five million people.

Here is what we know so far about the rapidly evolving violence:

Why did rivalry become conflict?  

In October 2021, Burhan and Daglo together orchestrated a coup, upending a fragile transition to civilian rule that had been started after the 2019 ouster of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir.

Burhan, a career soldier from northern Sudan who rose the ranks under the three-decade rule of now jailed Bashir, took the top job.

Daglo, from Darfurs pastoralist camel-herding Arab Rizeigat people, assumed responsibility as his number two.

But it was only ever a marriage of convenience, according to independent researcher and policy analyst Hamid Khalafallah.

It was never a genuine alliance or partnership, they just had to tie their interests together to face the civilians as a united military front, Khalafallah added.

The rift widened, with Daglo commonly known as Hemeti coming to call the coup a mistake that has failed to bring about change and invigorated remnants of Bashirs regime.

As the army and civilian leaders came together to hammer out a deal to end the political crisis that began with the coup, the integration of the RSF into the regular army became a key sticking point.

For Alan Boswell, Horn of Africa director at the International Crisis Group, Daglo saw in the agreement an opportunity to become more autonomous from the military and enact very large political ambitions.

According to analyst Kholood Khair, a December framework agreement for the deal ratcheted up tensions between Burhan and Hemeti, when it elevated Hemetis position into Burhans equal, rather than his deputy.

Who are the RSF?

Created i...

Cape Town Africas first mRNA vaccine hub was ceremonially launched on Thursday to acclaim from the UNs global health chief, who hailed it as a historic shift to help poor countries gain access to life-saving jabs.

The facility was set up in the South African city of Cape Town in 2021 on the back of the success of revolutionary anti-Covid vaccines introduced by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna.

This precious project will bring a paradigm shift in addressing the serious problem we faced, the equity problem, during the pandemic, so (that) its not repeated again, World Health Organization (WHO) head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a media briefing to mark the inauguration.

At the time, South Africa and the rest of the developing world were at the back of the queue when it came to access to life-saving COVID-19 vaccines, said South Africas science and innovation minister, Blade Nzimande.

The hub has already established mRNA vaccine production at laboratory scale and is currently scaling up and validating production of Moderna jabs at commercial scale.

The vaccine can be kept at relatively warm temperatures, making it easier to store in low- and middle-income settings where extreme refrigeration can be hard.

The hubs other role is to acts as a guide for manufacturers in poorer countries, helping them to gain the know-how to make mRNA vaccines in large quantities and in line with international standards. 

The Covid-19 pandemic which erupted in early 2020 exposed Africas huge dependence on imported vaccines.

Little more than 50 percent of the continents 1.2 billion people are fully inoculated against coronavirus, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Vaccines using mRNA provoke an immune response by delivering genetic molecules containing the code for key parts of a pathogen into human cells.

The Covid-19 pandemic provided a crucial testbed for the fledgling technology, demonstrating how a safe and effective vaccine could be created at lightning speed compared with years for traditional vaccines.

Set up with WHO support, the Cape Town project is run by South African bio-pharmaceutical company Biovac, biotechnology firm Afrigen and the South African Medical Research Council. 

The hub has the potential to expand manufacturing capacity for other vaccines and products, such as insulin to treat diabetes, cancer medicines and, potentially, vaccines for diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and HIV.

Funding to date stands at $117 million, with support mainly from the European Union, France, Germany and Canada.

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Manchester Manchester United remain the only English club to have won the prized treble of Champions League, Premier League and FA Cup, but Manchester City are closing in on the same feat.

City stormed into the Champions League semi-finals for the third consecutive season on Wednesday, completing a 4-1 aggregate triumph over Bayern Munich.

Mighty Real Madrid, who eliminated Pep Guardiolas men in the last four last season, await in the semi-finals.

If City can slay the defending champions, they would be huge favourites to finally end their quest to conquer Europe, with AC Milan or Inter Milan waiting in the final in Istanbul on June 10.

Domestically, City are already the dominant force as they go in search of a fifth Premier League title in six seasons.

Long-time pacesetters Arsenal hold a four-point lead at the top of the table but are showing signs of nerves after costly draws against Liverpool and West Ham.

City have a game in hand and home advantage next week when the Gunners visit the Etihad for a potential title decider.

Before then, Guardiolas men make the trip to Wembley on Saturday for what should be a routine passage to the FA Cup final.

Sheffield United are on the brink of securing a return to the Premier League next season, but it would be a huge surprise if the Championship side end Citys 15-game unbeaten run, which stretches back to February.

Despite the arrival of Erling Haaland, who scored the 48th goal of his debut season in a 1-1 draw in Munich on Wednesday, there were plenty of doubts about City just a few months ago.

Hunger

Guardiola uncharacteristically took aim at what he saw as his sides lack of hunger after a 4-2 win over Tottenham in January.

Less than a month later, Spurs beat them Citys most recent defeat with Kevin De Bruyne, Ilkay Gundogan and Ruben Dias among those left on the bench.

All three have since been restored to Guardiolas most trusted starting line-up and City have achieved defensive solidity without blunting the effectiveness of Haaland.

Were very confident, in a very good moment, the best moment of the season for the team, said midfielder Bernardo Silva.

We struggled until February because we couldnt get in that usual run of the past years of winning 10, 15, 20 games in a row. Now the team is very consistent the way we are playing, we feel we have a chance in every competition and we are going for them.

The odds on City matching Alex Fergusons greatest achievement of his 26 years in charge of United have been slashed, with the club now the bookmakers favourites for all three competitions they are in the hunt for.

But Guardiola has warned in recent weeks of the tightrope City must walk in chasing down Arsenal at the top of the Premier League, with one...

Khartoum Explosions and gunfire resounded in Sudans capital Thursday as fighting between the forces of two rival generals showed no signs of abating ahead of festivities marking the end of Ramadan.

Nearly 300 people have been killed since the fighting erupted Saturday between forces loyal to Sudans army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Some of the fiercest battles have taken place in the capital Khartoum, a city home to five million people, most of whom have been cloistered in their homes without electricity, food and water.

We were awoken today at around 4:30 am to the roaring sound of fighter jets and air strikes, said Nazek Abdalla, a 38-year-old in southern Khartoum. We locked our doors and windows hoping no stray bullets would hit our building.

The violence entered a sixth day after another truce unravelled on Wednesday, with the crackle of gunfire heard and columns of thick black smoke seen rising from buildings around Khartoum International Airport and the army headquarters in the capital.

The RSF had said its forces would fully commit to a complete ceasefire from 1600 GMT on Wednesday for 24 hours, as did the army.

But witnesses said gunfire did not cease in Khartoum from the appointed time and into the night, as another ceasefire was breached withing minutes of its supposed start for the second time in as many days.

Eid celebrations marred

The fighting which has so far killed and wounded hundreds of people has taken a heavy toll on civilians around Sudan, many observing the holiest final days of Ramadan.

We wish the fighting would stop during Eid festivities which is to begin Friday marking the end of the holy Muslim month of fasting, said Abdalla, the resident of southern Khartoum.

We know it will not happen though, he lamented.

Burhan and Daglos bitter dispute centred around the planned integration of the RSF into the regular army a key condition for a final deal aimed at restoring Sudans democratic transition.

Around the capital and elsewhere, RSF fighters atop armoured vehicles and pickup trucks laden with weapons have taken over the streets.

Many have put up checkpoints to search cars carrying civilians trying to escape Khartoums worst battle zones to safer areas in the capital and beyond.

Fighting has damaged residential and commercial buildings, and civilians sheltering in their homes are becoming increasingly desperate.

By Tuesday, thousands of Sudanese had fled the capital, with many reporting seeing dead bodies littering the streets as they made their way to safety.

Hospitals hit

Sudanese medics have warned of catastrophic health care situation, especi...

Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) The federal government in Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) cleared up technical issues necessary to resume Northern Iraqs oil exports through the Turkish port of Ceyhan to international markets, Reuters reported.

On April 4, The Iraqi Prime Minister, Mohammed Shia Al-Suadni, announced that an agreement has been reached to resume oil exports from the Kurdistan region of Iraq.

Iraq was forced to suspend about 450,000 barrels per day of crude exports, or 0.5 percent of global supplies, from the Kurdistan region at the beginning of April following a ruling issued by the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce to stop exporting oil under the supervision of the regional government to Turkey through Ceyhan.

The ruling issued on March 23 obligated Turkey to pay 1.5 billion USD to Iraq for oil exports from Iraqi Kurdistan through Ceyhan port between 2014 and 2018 without Baghdads approval.

Baghdad and Erbil signed a temporary agreement, which included marketing, pricing, and destination, on April 4, to restart northern oil exports, but continued to negotiate on technical issues before engaging with Turkey, Reuters mentioned.

Under the agreement, the State Organization for Marketing of Oil (SOMO) will sign contracts with traders under power of attorney, while KRG crude will be restricted from heading to Asia and priced against Kirkuk official selling prices, Reuters explained.

International oil companies have been invited to Erbil for a meeting with KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani on Tuesday morning, Reuters clarified.

Discussions will focus on preparations for resuming exports, terms and conditions for pricing crude oil sales through SOMO, the proposed mechanism for paying international oil firms debts and their share of future oil export sales, Reuters added.

Iraq accused Turkey of violating a pipeline agreement dating back to 1973 by allowing the KRG to export oil without Baghdads approval during the period from 2014 to 2018.

Another arbitration case also linked to the 1973 pipeline agreement and oil exports from 2018 onwards remains open.

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London Bank giant HSBC on Wednesday reached out to shareholders, urging them to vote down a proposal by its largest stakeholder, Chinese insurer Ping An, to split the business.

It comes after Ping An on Tuesday ramped up pressure over its break-up strategy that it claims is necessary to improve performance at London-based HSBC.

Responding, the Asia-focused lender wrote in a letter to shareholders that the board strongly believes that HSBC should focus on executing the current strategy that is delivering.

HSBC argued this was the best and safest way to continue to deliver substantially more value for shareholders over the coming years.

It called on shareholders to vote against the proposal at the banks annual general meeting on May 5.

In a rare public statement Tuesday, Ping An had said HSBC was lagging behind international peers and a recent improvement in performance was tied to rising interest rates, which have now peaked.

Ping An outlined revised proposals for restructuring that highlight HSBCs precarious position as US-China tensions rise, with some observers doubting whether Europes largest lender can continue to straddle East and West.

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Lalish One by one, members of Iraqs minority Yazidi community light oil lamps to mark their New Year at a sacred shrine, but for Omar Sinan the celebration cannot erase the atrocities of jihadist rule.

In 2014, the Islamic State (IS) group swept across swathes of Iraq, carrying out horrific violence against the Kurdish-speaking community whose non-Muslim faith the extremists considered heretical.

IS massacred thousands of men and abducted thousands of women and girls as sex slaves.

Tuesday night as the sun set over the Lalish stone shrine in northern Iraq, Yazidis began lighting oil lamps, 365 of them, one for each day of the year.

Hundreds came to mark the Yazidi New Year which to the faithful commemorates the creation of the universe by angels and celebrates nature and fertility.

Six years after Iraq declared victory over IS, the Yazidis came to Lalish barefoot and dressed in white.

The men wore embroidered vests over their shirts while women donned traditional head coverings, featuring gold coins.

Before, this was a time for celebration and our joy was immense. But today we cannot forget what we have been through, said Sinan, attending the celebration with his children.

The Yazidis follow an ancient religion that emerged in Iran more than 4,000 years ago and is rooted in Zoroastrianism. Over time it incorporated elements of Islam and Christianity.

The community was persecuted for years, including under Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

For eternity

When IS invaded Iraq in August 2014, one of their targets was Sinjar, the Yazidis historic home on the Nineveh Plain, in a remote corner of the countrys north.

Ever since the genocide, there is sadness in our hearts. It wont go away, said Sinan, a 37-year-old mathematics teacher.

This sadness will live in us for eternity.

During the New Year celebration, Yazidis pay their respects at the graves of relatives, and those who can afford it slaughter a sheep and offer some of the meat to the poor.

Iraqs federal government in Baghdad has dedicated the first Wednesday of April as a holiday for the Yazidi community.

Before IS marched into their villages in 2014, there were 550,000 Yazidis nationwide out of a worldwide total of 1.5 million, including in neighbouring countries and the diaspora.

But after the massacres and the abductions, nearly 100,000 fled abroad, according to the United Nations. Most went to Europe, Australia and Canada to try to build new lives.

Arabic-language teacher Faleh Jomaa, 60, was among those who decided to stay in Iraq with his wife and three children, unlike his four brothers and their families who emigrated to Germany.

The Yazidi community has suffered 74 genocides over time but it rises again each time, like pla...

Washington The US Supreme Court rejected Wednesday the claim of sovereign immunity by a Turkish bank accused of violating Iran sanctions, in a case that has added tensions to ties between Washington and Ankara.

Halkbank was hit with US criminal charges in 2019 that it took part in a yearlong scheme to launder billions of dollars worth of Iranian oil and natural gas proceeds, violating sanctions on Iran.

The funds were used to buy gold and the transactions were disguised as food and medicine purchases in order to fall under a humanitarian exemption to the sanctions, according to court documents.

As part of the scheme, Halkbank allegedly used front companies to funnel $20 billion to Iran, including $1 billion through the US financial system, the US Justice Department said.

The United States charged the bank with six counts of fraud, money laundering, and sanctions offenses, calling it one of the most serious sanctions-breaking cases it has seen.

Halkbank claimed that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which protects foreign leaders and governments from lawsuits in the United States, extends to state-owned businesses. 

But the Supreme Court said that the act focuses on civil actions and does not provide immunity from criminal acts.

The act says not a word about criminal proceedings against foreign states or their instrumentalities, wrote Justice Brett Kavanaugh in the ruling.

The case has come at a particularly testy time for relations between the United States and Turkey, a NATO ally that nevertheless frequently tests Western views, including on defense and Middle Eastern politics.

Turkeys cooperation with the United States and NATO over Russias invasion of Ukraine has also been crucial.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly rejected the allegations facing Halkbank, insisting that Turkey did not violate the US embargo on Iran.

He blamed his political rivals for fomenting the case.

Multiple individuals have already been found guilty in the case, including Mehmet Hakan Atilla, a deputy director general of the bank, who was convicted in 2018.

Atilla was jailed for a year and then released in 2019, and was greeted as a hero upon his return to Turkey.

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Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) The Turkish Ministry of Defense announced on Wednesday that six militants belonging to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) were killed in operations targeting their positions in northern Iraq.

A statement issued by the Turkish Defense Ministry mentioned that the struggle of the Turkish armed forces against the terrorist organization will continue without stopping, the Anadolu Agency (AA) reported.

A few days ago, the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said the Turkish people cannot even feel safe with a terrorist organization present in northern Syria and Iraq, equipped with air and land weapons.

Several areas in the Kurdistan region of Iraq are repeatedly bombarded by Turkish forces, and Ankara justifies its action with the need to combat the PKK.

Turkey recently launched several military operations inside the Iraqi territories against militants of the Kurdish party, which was rejected by Baghdad, and considered a violation of Iraqs sovereignty.

Turkey controls several areas in northern Syria, and from time to time it launches operations against members of the PKK, which Ankara classifies as a terrorist group.

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Slestat French President Emmanuel Macron was loudly booed by crowds in eastern France on Wednesday as he embarked on his first trip out of Paris since signing his unpopular pensions reform into law.

Macron had been encouraged by allies to get out and meet voters after signing the reform after months of protests, with some fearing he was becoming too reclusive inside the presidential palace.

But as he arrived in Selestat in the Alsace region, some locals chanted slogans including Macron resign! and booed and jeered the 45-year-old, with some personally heckling him.

One man accused him of having a corrupt government on a scale we have never seen before, adding for good measure: You will fall soon, youll see.

Macron told the man his ideas were unfair. 

Asked by a journalist how he felt about the booing, the president replied: I have had it worse.

It was not all condemnation and some people offered him encouragement, including one retiree who told him: Keep going.

Macron commented: There are people who are not happy. Everyone should be free to express themselves. Afterwards, the country has to go forward.

Saucepans

On an earlier stage of his trip Wednesday, police pushed back dozens of protesters banging kitchenware ahead of the presidents arrival in the village of Muttersholtz.

Pot-bashing, a form of protest with a long history in France, began during Macrons address to the nation on Monday evening after he signed the bill into law over the weekend.

Its not saucepans that will enable France to move forward, Macron said as he visited a wood factory in the village.

The reality across the country is not just those making noise with pans or grumbling.

You will always see me with people I have to keep going, he added.

The president made very few public appearances to speak to voters during the three months leading up to the legislation being signed into law, whose flagship measure is hiking the retirement age from 62 to 64.

Political opponents and trade unions have urged protesters to maintain their campaign against the law and called for a new day of mass protest on May 1.

Expressions of anger

The images of the heckling comes as polls show Macrons popularity ratings close to their lowest ever levels.

The next presidential elections in France are not until 2027 and Macron by law cannot stand a third consecutive time. But analysts have warned the current situation is playing into the hands of far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

The scenes recall Macrons visits around France during the so-called Yellow Vest protests of 2018-19, when the head of state was frequently confron...

Sofia Brussels on Wednesday offered an extra 100 million euros of support for EU farmers to ease a standoff over Ukrainian grain after Bulgaria became the latest country to approve a temporary ban on food products from the war-hit nation.

In recent days, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia banned the import of grain and other food items from Ukraine after a slump in prices triggered protests from local farmers. 

As Brussels scrambles to find a solution to appease the deadlock, the European Commission on Wednesday proposed an extra 100 million euros ($110 million) of support for farmers.

That money would come on top of a 56-million-euro package that was provided for farmers in Poland, Romania and Bulgaria last month. 

The latest measures would be aimed at ensuring grain could enter Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria only for export.

Extreme measure  

Bulgarian farming minister Yavor Gechev earlier on Wednesday said that the government had passed a decision that temporarily bans a range of products originating from Ukraine.

Sofia said it was forced to adopt todays extreme measure after unilateral bans by other countries were announced, seriously increasing the risk for

The ban will enter into force from April 24 and last until the end of June, but will not apply to the transit of goods through Bulgarian territory.

Bulgaria hopes for a common EU decision in the coming weeks.

Its neighbour Romania also announced on Wednesday that it would take additional measures regarding Ukrainian grain imports, including sealing and monitoring the vehicles that transit through the country.

Bucharest has asked the Ukrainian side to rapidly find solutions for restricting the export of grain and oilseeds to Romania, in order to protect farmers who are facing difficulties, a government statement said.

The Romanian and Ukrainian agricultural ministers are due to meet in Bucharest on Friday to further discuss the matter. 

In May 2022, the European Union allowed Kyiv to export its grain stocks through the bloc after the closure of the Black Sea shipping lanes following Russias invasion sparked a global food crisis.

Member states agreed to import certain products from Ukraine without quantitative restrictions, and without customs inspections.

Serious disturbances

Hungarys government on Wednesday widened its temporary ban on the imports of Ukrainian agricultural products to include honey, wine, bread, sugar and a range of meat and vegetable products.

The full list of items to be banned was revealed in a government decree, after Budapest announced on Saturday a measure to halt the import of grain, oilseeds and several other products.

Bud...

Milan Juventus have won their appeal against a one-match stand closure for their fans racially abusing Inter Milan striker Romelu Lukaku, the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) said on Wednesday.

Fans will be allowed in the lower tier of the Allianz Stadiums South Stand for Sunday nights clash with Serie A leaders Napoli after the decision by the FIGCs appeals court.

The FIGC did not say why Juve had won their appeal.

The section had been ordered shut for one match following racist chanting from what was described as the majority of fans stood there before and while Lukaku netted his stoppage time penalty.

It gave Inter a 1-1 draw in the first leg of the two sides Italian Cup semi-final.

An incredulous Lukaku was then shown his second yellow card of the match and sent off for his celebrations in front of the home supporters, which were considered provocative despite the abuse he received.

Samir Handanovic and Juan Cuadrado were also dismissed following a blazing post-match row.

Juves goalscorer on the night, Cuadrado was given a three-match ban for grabbing Handanovic by the neck and punching him, while the Inter goalkeeper was banned for one game for his role in the fight.

Juve are also awaiting on a decision on whether their appeal against a 15-point penalty for illicit transfer activity will be upheld.

Italys highest sporting court is examining the ruling handed down by the FIGCs appeals court in January.

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Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) The Iraqi Minister of Finance, Taif Sami, discussed on Wednesday expanding the economic cooperation with the Ambassador of the European Union to Iraq, Ville Varjola, and the Canadian Ambassador to Iraq, Gregory Galligan, according to a statement cited by the Iraqi News Agency (INA).

The Iraqi Ministry of Finance mentioned that Sami held a meeting with Varjola, Galligan, and their accompanying delegation where they talked about ways to strengthen Iraqs bilateral relations with the European Union on the one hand, and Canada on the other hand, through the development of cooperation in fields of finance, economy, and investment, INA reported.

The Minister of Finance confirmed that Iraq is looking forward to strengthening cooperation and establishing economic partnerships with institutions and friendly countries.

Sami also indicated Iraqs openness to all forms of trade exchange and economic partnerships with the European Union countries and Canada.

The ambassadors of the European Union and Canada expressed their aspiration to enhance constructive cooperation with Iraq, especially in investment, energy, and sustainable development projects.

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Vigo Spains disgraced former king Juan Carlos returned home on Wednesday for the second time since he moved to Abu Dhabi in 2020 amid fraud investigations.

The 85-year-old arrived in Vigo in northwestern Spain on a private jet from London, where he attended Real Madrids 2-0 win over Chelsea in the Champions League, according to an AFP photographer on the scene.

He will spend several days in the nearby resort of Sanxenxo, where he stayed in May 2022 during his first trip back to Spain since going into self-imposed exile in the UAE.

His yacht El Bribon Spanish for The Rascal will take part in a regatta over the weekend, as it did last year.

Neither the Royal Palace nor Spains leftist government commented on the visit, with government spokeswoman Isabel Rodriguez saying she had nothing to say about this topic.

It is a personal decision on the part of the former king, she added.

Last years visit sparked much criticism, especially from parties on the left which demand he account for the scandals that prompted his 2014 abdication in favour of his son, Felipe.

Explanations for what? he retorted when a television journalist asked if he would explain his behaviour.

The former monarch is expected to be more discreet this time. 

In an editorial, the pro-monarchy ABC newspaper said it hopes this trip is carried out with intelligence, austerity and discretion because controversies regarding King Felipe VIs father are always used by the enemies of the Crown.

Spanish prosecutors in March 2022 closed three probes into his finances due to insufficient evidence and the statute of limitations, but said several irregularities had been found.

Revelations about the murky origins of his fortune have done irreparable damage to a figure once revered for his role in Spains transition to democracy following the death of long-time dictator General Francisco Franco in 1975.

Completely inappropriate

Consumer Affairs Minister Alberto Garzon called the visit completely inappropriate.

Juan Carlos does a lot of damage to the image of Spain and the image of the monarchy, he added.

This is a person who was targeted by a number of judicial investigations and even if they were ended thanks to the statute of limitations, they showed he is not innocent.

Garzon is the coordinator of the tiny United Left party, a junior member of the minority coalition government led by Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.

Juan Carlos is not expected to travel to Madrid to meet with his son, King Felipe VI as he did last year when he came to Sanxenxo.

The Royal Palace was reportedly not pleased with the high-profile nature of Juan Carlos visit last y...