Category World News

Who: Real Madrid vs. Athletic Bilbao
What: Spain’s La Liga
Where: The San Mames Stadium, Bilbao, Spain
When: Wednesday at 7pm (18:00 GMT)
How to follow: We’ll have all the build-up on Al Jazeera Sport from 15:00 GMT in advance of our live text commentary stream.

After a string of draws, Real Madrid are attempting to reclaim control of the La Liga title with a victory over Athletic Bilbao.

At lowly Girona on Sunday, Madrid were forced to hold on for a third consecutive La Liga draw before coming back from a goal down.

With goals from Robert Navarro and Nico Williams, Athletic Bilbao, who are eighth in the division, have 20 points from their first 14 games, won 2-0 at Levante on Saturday.

Real Madrid manager Alonso is under increased pressure.

Real coach Xabi Alonso is under increased pressure because of recent rumors that his future may be uncertain in the Madrid dugout as a result of their draw with Girona.

After the game, Alonso told reporters, “We are up there, it’s all very even, it’s a long season and we have to continue.”

“I liked how the players responded. We had to work together, be self-critical enough, and be ready to win away from home, but it was not enough to turn things around.

Due to the club’s participation in the Spanish Super Cup in January, Madrid will travel to Bilbao on Wednesday for its fourth straight home game.

Alonso continued, “The table will be difficult-fought and there will be a lot of movement.”

We must alter this dynamic, it says.

Before Morocco international Azzedine Ounahi fired a stunning header home from just inside the area on Sunday, Madrid’s superstar striker Kylian Mbappe was forced to play a goal for handball moments before the infamous handball ruled out for the striker.

Before Los Blancos fought back, Real goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois saved a stunning save to divert Vladyslav Vanat’s cross goal.

Vinicius Jr was clumsily felled in the box by Hugo Rincon after being denied an offside goal.

Mbappe scored his 14th La Liga goal of the season by smashing the resultant penalty past Paulo Gazzaniga’s diving effort.

The league is still ongoing and will continue for a very long, Mbappe wrote on social media. “Absolutely not the result we wanted. We must alter this dynamic and demonstrate our collective strength.

With their victory over Levante, Bilbao’s morale rises.

After a number of depressing defeats in recent weeks, manager Ernesto Valverde acknowledged that Athletic’s victory over Levante gave his team much-needed moral support.

Following the game, Valverde stated, “This match was very important for us in many ways, both morale wise and most importantly, to gain our confidence after some less than positive results.”

However, Valverde cautioned against “taking each game as it comes and fight for the win” and stated that “we have a difficult and very exciting week ahead of us with tough opponents coming to San Mames.”

In response to transfer rumors, Williams says, “Club and City mean everything to me.”

After being once more linked with a move to Barcelona despite having his contract extension until 2035, the Athletic winger revealed his deep devotion to his boyhood club and Bilbao.

I’ve developed as a person and as a player because of Athletic and Bilbao, Nico Williams said.

“Representing this club and this city has taught me the value of family, humility, and hard work. As the motto states, “Athletic is unique in the world.”

He continued, “I have my family and loved ones with whom I make every decision here in Bilbao.” It’s a dream come true to compete in the Champions League alongside my brother.

Head-to-head

Real Madrid won 124 of the 248 games that were played between the two clubs, Athletic Club won 79, and 45 of those games ended in draws.

Alex Berenguer and Gorka Guruzeta scored for Athletic in their most recent home game, 2-1, winning the previous meeting 2-1.

Since Los Blancos have typically been the dominant team in recent matches, Athletic won Athletic’s first La Liga game 1-0 over Real Madrid.

Bilbao Athletic team news

Oihan Sancet is still suspended, but midfielder Inigo Ruiz de Galarreta’s return from suspension will boost the team.

Inaki Williams is still a major doubt after missing Athletic’s last seven games with a groin issue, and Benat Prados, Unai Egiluz, Maroan Sannadi, and Robert Navarro have all been suspended with injuries.

Aymeric Laporte’s illness prevented him from playing for Levante, but he is expected to start against Madrid.

Starting XI, according to Athletic Bilbao

Gomez, Gomez, Gorosabel, Laporte, Vivian, Berchiche, Jauregizar, Berenguer, Sanchez, Nico Williams, Gorosabel,

Team news for Real Madrid

At the moment, Madrid’s injuries are centered on the defense.

Due to the recovery of his own muscular injury, centre-back Dean Huijsen is a significant doubt after missing his last two games due to a muscular issue, and he is also unlikely to play.

After having a knee problem removed, Dani Carvajal will be sidelined until 2026.

However, center-back Raul Asencio is expected to recover in time for the Bilbao game despite missing the game against Girona due to illness.

Real Madrid’s starting XI is anticipated

A ceasefire on October 10, 2025, was supposed to put an end to Israel’s genocidal conflict in Gaza.

However, after two months, Israel has violated the ceasefire more than 500 times, killing at least 356 Palestinians and overthrowing Gaza’s total death toll.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, has made it clear that the conflict is still ongoing.

According to analysts, the war has continued despite the slowdown in Israel’s killing of Palestinians in Gaza, for all intents and purposes.

According to Muhammad Shehada, a visiting fellow with the Middle East and North Africa program at the European Council on Foreign Relations, “genocide is not just mass killing.”

He claimed that the population’s ability to coexist as a group is also being ruined by the mass destruction of infrastructure, ethnic cleansing, and starvation.

Political spectacle and theater

According to analysts, the ceasefire gave the international community an excuse to stop focusing on Israel’s actions in Gaza rather than as a pardon for Palestinians.

The US-backed ceasefire agreement was intended to stop Israeli attacks on Gaza and prompt the start of aid deliveries to Palestinians who were besieged by the Gaza Strip, which had been declared a famine.

US President Donald Trump stated from Cairo, where a Gaza peace summit was taking place, that “we have finally found peace in the Middle East.”

Israel, however, kept attacking. More than 1,500 buildings were destroyed, and it has expanded further into Gaza, preventing residents from entering the aid they agreed to.

“It’s theater because everyone was upset about the genocide and wanted to stop rather than end it,” said one witness. And that is exactly what Shehada said.

Gaza has scurried in and out of media attention in the weeks since the ceasefire was established.

According to Lebanese Palestinian researcher and writer Elia Ayoub, “the main difference is, of course, the reduced media coverage, which was one of the intended purposes of the so-called ceasefire.”

“Israel is currently under much less pressure than it was up until October 10; there isn’t any hope of accountability.”

Israel’s genocide is still ongoing.

Amnesty International, which released a legal analysis of what it called the “ongoing genocide in the Occupied Gaza Strip,” took note of the Palestinians’ ongoing harm in Gaza last week.

“The world must not be deceived,” he said. Amnesty International secretary-general Agnes Callamard said that Israel’s genocide is still ongoing.

The analysis cites the number of Palestinians who have died as a result of the ceasefire, Israel’s restrictions on humanitarian and medical supplies, and how the Israeli blockade and siege of Gaza caused a famine and increased the risk of illnesses.

There is no evidence that Israel’s intentions have changed, according to Callamard, who said there is no indication that it is taking serious action to stop the deadly effects of its crimes.

Prior to the ceasefire, UNRWA’s head, UNRWA’s Philippe Lazzarini, reported on October 1 that 100 people per day were dying in Gaza, primarily from Israeli military operations or gunshots at Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution points.

The foundations of Palestinian society in Gaza are still inruins, and even less people have died as a result of direct military operations since the ceasefire.

Defense analyst Hamze Attar claimed that the Israeli “yellow line of occupation” in the Gaza Strip is a continuation of the genocide and that the pace is different, the destruction of the homes is ongoing, and Palestinians are still killed, and the Israeli “yellow line of occupation” is still ongoing.

“The genocide involves preventing people from returning to their homes and creating a new reality in the Gaza Strip,” said one author.

Simply genocide

Hamas and other Palestinian organizations were required to release the prisoners held in Gaza, one of the main stipulations of the ceasefire. Ran Gvili, an Israeli policeman, and Sudthisak Rinthalak, a Thai national, have returned all living prisoners and all but two of the bodies of dead prisoners.

According to Israeli media, one of the bodies that are still unaccounted for may be returned in the near future. The most fervent supporters of Israel argued for months that the war would be ended by the captives’ return.

Hazem Qassem, a spokesman for Hamas, previously stated that the organization has made it “committed to fully complete the exchange process and its ongoing efforts to finalize it despite significant difficulties.”

In terms of Israel, it released the bodies of 345 Palestinian prisoners who had perished in its prisons and released 2, 000 of them. Many allegedly displayed signs of torture, mutilation, and execution. Israel hasn’t, however, reduced its grip on Gaza’s citizens.

No one bothers with details as soon as ceasefires come into effect, Shehada said, giving Israel the freedom to do whatever it wants.

Shehada claimed that Trump is more interested in the spectacle of peace than “the dynamics on the ground,” noting that Israel consistently violates the ceasefire, making it difficult for the mediators to keep up.

He claimed that the Palestinians’ ethnic cleansing in Gaza was still the end goal.

According to analysts, Israel has violated peace agreements in Gaza as well as in Lebanon and Syria. Analysts have repeatedly doubted Netanyahu’s claims that his goal is to annihilate and destroy Hamas.

According to Ayoub, “it confirms what we already knew: that the goal is not to end an armed group like Hamas but to ensure that life itself cannot be sustained in Gaza over the long term.”

President Donald Trump announced he would pardon a former Honduran president infamous for his involvement in the US drug trade as the United States continued its military campaign against what the Trump administration refers to as “narco-terrorists” in the Caribbean.

Juan Orlando Hernandez, who had been found guilty of conspiring to import more than 400 tonnes of cocaine into the US, was given a 45-year prison sentence in 2024.

Trump claimed that Joe Biden’s administration had “set up” Hernandez during an interview with reporters on Air Force One on Sunday. Trump said, “If someone sells drugs in that country, you don’t arrest the president and imprison him for the rest of his life,” without providing any proof of the alleged “set-up.”

Trump made an inaccurate statement about the nature of the former Honduran president’s arrest and conviction: Hernandez was deeply involved in the flow of illegal drugs into the US after he was elected president, not because he sold drugs there.

Although the circumstance is uncommon, it has some similarities.

Trump’s planned pardon was seen by the White House as a step toward correcting a flawed system of justice. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt criticized Hernandez’ three-week jury trial for having weak evidence at a press briefing on December 1.

A judge denied Hernandez’ request for a new trial after his conviction.

What crimes did Hernandez commit?

Hernandez declared his intent to combat drug trafficking during his presidency, which extended from January 2014 to January 2022. Trump praised his 2019 accomplishments.

Hernandez was charged with drug- and weapons-trafficking and extradited to the US in April 2022. For importing cocaine and other prohibited weapons, District Judge P. Kevin Castel sentenced him to 540 months in prison and 60 months of supervised release on June 26, 2024.

Hernandez used his presidential authority to bring hundreds of tonnes of cocaine into the US, according to the US Justice Department, and used drug trafficking proceeds to finance his political career.

Hernandez once said that he wanted to “stuff the drugs right up the noses of the gringos,” according to the department.

Witnesses, some of whom were former traffickers, gave testimony for the prosecution. According to documents obtained in the case, Hernandez worked with coconspirators who were armed with assault rifles, machineguns, and grenade launchers to facilitate the importation of more than 400 tonnes of cocaine into the US.

Witnesses to Hernandez’ trial claimed that the Honduran military and police issued orders from criminal organizations.

According to US prosecutors, Hernandez ended up receiving millions of dollars in drug proceeds from some of the world’s largest and most violent drug-trafficking organizations. According to the prosecution, he then used those bribes to fuel his rise in Honduran politics, enabling him to defend his conspirators.

Under Hernandez’s leadership, Juan Antonio Hernandez Alvarado, a former member of the Honduran National Congress, was protected by the government. According to the prosecution, Hernandez also received millions of dollars from former Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.

How did the US successfully prosecute a foreign leader?

Trump claimed Hernandez was given the honor of serving as Honduran president. A foreign president’s prosecution is unusual but not unprecedented.

A sitting head of state or head of government is protected by “complete immunity” from prosecution in international court, according to Anthony Clark Arend, a Georgetown University professor of government and foreign service with a focus on international law.

Former heads of state are less repressive, though. Hernandez’ US extradition took place weeks away from his office.

If a former head of state or government is accused of acting in their place of power, Arend said, they are not subject to legal action in another country. However, because drug trafficking has historically not been regarded as an “official” duty, the US was able to prosecute Hernandez.

According to Arend, there would be no impediment in the international law to try him, a former president, for those charges because he was facing drug-trafficking charges.

According to Daniel Sabet, a visiting fellow at the Johns Hopkins University’s SNF Agora Institute who studies Central America, Hernandez’s prosecution “seemed to have legitimacy both in the US and in Honduras.” The arrest was viewed as legitimate, according to “his main supporters.”

Particularly notable is Manuel Noriega of Panama’s case, which is uncommon but not unprecedented.

Following Noriega’s indictment by a US grand jury on drug-related charges, President George H. W. Bush ordered US forces to seize the nation’s leader in Panama in 1989. (Noriega’s position as the country’s head of state was contested at the time, and the US did not recognize it.)

On eight counts of drug trafficking, money laundering, and racketeering, Noriega was tried and found guilty after turning himself in and being taken to the US state of Florida. He received a 40-year prison sentence. A three-judge appeals court panel in 1997 upheld Noriega’s claim that his position as head of state should have preempted his prosecution.

Additionally, Sabet cited the arrest of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavel Lazarenko in the United States in 1999 on suspicion of 53 counts of money laundering. He was found guilty and given a three-year prison term.