Category World News

Kylian Mbappe’s spectacular bicycle kick was among three goals in the second-half stoppage time, as Real Madrid beat Borussia Dortmund 3-2 in a Club World Cup quarterfinal match.

The drama was not restricted to the late goals, with Real keeper Thibaut Courtois using his fingertips to palm away the potential levelling goal from the game’s final play.

Gonzalo Garcia and Fran García scored in the first 20 minutes as Madrid built a 2-0 lead.

Dortmund’s Maximilian Beier scored three minutes into stoppage time, and Mbappe, who entered in the 67th, restored a two-goal lead with his bicycle kick one minute later.

Serhou Guirassy converted a penalty kick in the eighth minute of added time after he was fouled by Dean Huijsen, who received a red card and will miss the semifinals.

Courtois used all of the lengthy arm on his 200cm (6ft 7in) frame to tip away Marcel Sabitzer’s shot just before the final whistle.

Madrid advanced to a semifinal match against Champions League winner Paris Saint-Germain on Wednesday, a day after Chelsea meets Brazilian club Fluminense.

On a sunny afternoon, in 30 degrees Celsius (86 F) at the 3pm kickoff, Gonzalo Garcia scored in the 10th minute and Fran Garcia in the 20th.

Garcia, a 21-year-old who made only five Spanish league appearances in the past two seasons, was given the start by new Real Madrid coach Xabi Alonso over Mbappe, who is still regaining fitness after acute gastroenteritis.

Garcia has four goals, tying Benfica’s Angel Di María and Al Hilal’s Marcos Leonardo for the tournament lead.

Mbappe came on for Jude Bellingham, who missed a chance to play against his brother, Jobe, who was suspended for yellow-card accumulation.

Madrid beat Dortmund 2-0 in the 2024 Champions League final and overcame a two-goal halftime deficit in a 5-2 victory in this season’s league phase. Los Blancos were eliminated by Arsenal in this year’s Champions League quarterfinals.

Madrid has won five consecutive games against Dortmund and is unbeaten in seven since a 2014 Champions League quarterfinal defeat.

American midfielder Gio Reyna did not get off the bench and finished the tournament with one 13-minute appearance for Dortmund in five matches.

This game drew 76,611 fans to MetLife Stadium, the site of next year’s World Cup final. Seats looked filled, except for a completely empty suite level on one side.

UN inspectors have left Iran after Tehran cut ties with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

This means inspectors will no longer be able to monitor the country’s nuclear activities.

That’s led to many people questioning the future of Iran’s nuclear programme, and fearing another round of tensions.

Israel launched its attacks on Iran last month, claiming Tehran was weeks from producing a nuclear weapon.

The United States backed its ally, striking key Iranian nuclear facilities.

But Tehran has struck a defiant note – suspending co-operation with the UN’s nuclear watchdog.

So what does all this mean, and what might the future hold?

Presenter: Adrian Finighan

Guests:

Abas Aslani – Senior research fellow at the Center for Middle East Strategic Studies

Tariq Rauf – Former head of verification and security policy at the International Atomic Energy Agency

The United States has confirmed it completed the deportations of eight men to South Sudan, a day after a US judge cleared the way for President Donald Trump’s administration to send them to the violence-hit African country.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said on Saturday that the men were deported a day earlier, on US Independence Day on Friday, after they lost a last-minute legal bid to halt their transfer.

The eight detainees – immigrants from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, South Sudan and Vietnam – had been held under guard at a US military base in Djibouti for weeks.

A staffer working at Juba airport in South Sudan told the Reuters news agency that the aircraft carrying the men had arrived on Saturday at 6am local time (04:00 GMT). Their current location is not known.

In a statement, DHS said the eight men  had been convicted of a range of crimes, including first-degree murder, robbery, drug trafficking and sexual assault.

Their case had become a flashpoint in ongoing legal battles over the Trump administration’s campaign of mass deportations, including removals to so-called “third countries” where rights groups say deportees face safety risks and possible abuses.

“These third country deportations are wrong, period. And the United States should not be sending people to a literal war zone,” progressive Democratic Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal wrote on social media earlier this week, urging the deportations to be blocked.

The eight men had been held in a converted shipping container in Djibouti since late May, when an earlier deportation flight to South Sudan was halted by the courts over due process concerns.

The US Supreme Court has twice ruled that the Trump administration could deport them to countries outside of their homelands, issuing its latest decision on Thursday (PDF).

That same night, the eight detainees had filed an appeal, arguing that their “impermissibly punitive” deportation to South  Sudan  would violate the US Constitution, which prohibits “cruel and unusual punishment”.

But  Judge Brian Murphy of Boston, whose rulings had previously halted efforts to begin deportations to the African country, ruled on Friday evening that the Supreme Court had tied his hands, clearing the way for the deportations to go ahead.

On Saturday, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin hailed the removals as “a win for the rule of law, safety and security of the American people”.

The US State Department advises citizens not to travel to South Sudan due to “crime, kidnapping, and armed conflict”.

The United Nations has also warned that a political crisis embroiling the African country could reignite a brutal civil war that ended in 2018.

Last week, Blaine Bookey, legal director at the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, condemned the US’s use of deportations to third countries.

Champions League holders Paris Saint-Germain moved a step closer to another trophy with a 2-0 victory over Bayern Munich in the quarterfinals of the Club World Cup, a game marred by a gruesome injury to young German star Jamal Musiala.

After Desire Doue broke the deadlock with a 78th-minute strike in Atlanta on Saturday, PSG soon found themselves down to nine men after a pair of late red cards.

But with Bayern throwing everyone forward in search of an equaliser, Ousmane Dembele added an insurance goal deep into stoppage time to send the French powerhouse into the semifinals, where they will face either  Real Madrid or Borussia Dortmund in New Jersey on Wednesday.
PSG’s keeper Gianluigi Donnarumma made a pair of exceptional first-half saves.

In the 27th minute, he sprang to his right to parry Michael Olise’s goal-bound effort from just beyond the corner of the six-yard box. In the 41st, he sprawled the opposite direction to keep Aleksandar Pavlovic’s effort, an intended early cross that was inches in front of Musiala near the penalty spot, from creeping inside the right post.

Bayern keeper Manuel Neuer was also called into action during the first half, thwarting Khvicha Kvaratskhelia’s effort from close range at the near post with an outstretched arm in the 32nd minute. Four minutes into the second half, he dove left to deny Bradley Barcola on the break.

But Musiala’s sickening injury marred the end of the half. As he chased a loose ball near the byline in first-half stoppage time, Donnarumma darted off his spot and dived for it, only to crash into the left ankle of the 22-year-old German.

As Musiala rolled over, his foot dangled awkwardly, the ankle appearing to be cleanly broken.

Donnarumma walked away with the ball, but knelt down in horror when he looked back and realised the seriousness of the injury. A stretcher was immediately summoned to take Musiala off the field.

Both teams walked towards the locker rooms in stunned silence, with the PSG keeper appearing to be close to tears. He was booed throughout the second half by Bayern fans each time he touched the ball.

PSG, which claimed their first Champions League title with a 5-0 rout of Inter Milan five weeks ago, broke the impasse late in the second half when Joao Neves stole the ball from Harry Kane near the halfway line to send the French team sprinting towards the Bayern goal.

Neves got the ball back off a give-and-go and found Doue lurking just outside the top of the area. His left-footed shot caught Neuer flat-footed as it skidded inside the right post.

But PSG had to hold on for dear life to preserve the win after Willian Pacho and Lucas Hernandez were both sent off with red cards.

Referee Anthony Taylor dismissed Pacho in the 82nd minute for his dangerous challenge on Bayern’s Thomas Muller, and sent off Hernandez in the second minute of second-half stoppage time for an elbow in the face of Raphael Guerreiro.

Bayern had two goals overruled for offside in the game, including a late header by Kane.

As Bayern pressed for an equaliser, PSG broke on a counterattack and Dembele doubled their advantage deep into stoppage time following some brilliant setup work by Achraf Hakimi, who beat three defenders, then fed Dembele for a first-time low finish that left Neuer little chance.

In the waning seconds, the German club was awarded a penalty kick, only to have it waved off after a video review.

PSG’s captain, Marquinhos, lauded PSG’s attitude to see out the game.

“It is always difficult to play with two fewer players, but today, the team showed the attitude and desire to get the job done,” Marquinhos told DAZN.

“That second goal was really important, especially in a huge competition like this. ”

PSG right back Hakimi said his side had beaten one of the best teams in the competition and a big “rival”.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has condemned a Russian drone and missile attack against Ukraine this week that has been described as the largest such assault in the three-year war.

In a statement on Saturday, Guterres’s spokesperson said the Russian strikes “disrupted the power supply to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, once again underlining the ongoing risks to nuclear safety”.

“The secretary-general is alarmed by this dangerous escalation and the growing number of civilian casualties,” the statement read.

Ukrainian officials said Moscow fired more than 500 drones and 11 missiles at the capital Kyiv overnight into Friday in an attack that killed one person, injured at least 23 others and damaged buildings across the city.

The sounds of air raid sirens, kamikaze drones and booming detonations reverberated until dawn.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the attack “deliberately massive and cynical”.

Russia has been stepping up its long-range attacks on Ukrainian cities as United States-led efforts to reach a ceasefire to end the war have stalled.

On Saturday, Ukraine’s top military commander, Oleksandr Syrskii, warned of a possible new Russian offensive in the Kharkiv region, a part of northeastern Ukraine that has seen heavy fighting since Russia invaded in 2022.

Moscow has been slowly grinding its way along several parts of the Ukrainian front line in recent months, throwing forth continuous waves of infantry as it seeks to press home its advantage in troops and munitions.

Russian forces have already pushed into northern Ukraine’s Sumy region over the past months, carving out a small foothold there.

Russia fired 322 drones and decoys into Ukraine overnight into Saturday, Ukraine’s air force said. Of these, 157 were shot down and 135 were lost, likely having been electronically jammed.

Ukraine has also ramped up its retaliatory strikes in Russia, with the Ministry of Defence saying it shot down 94 Ukrainian drones overnight into Saturday, along with 45 further drones in the morning and early afternoon.

Four Ukrainian drones also were shot down while approaching Moscow on Saturday, according to Mayor Sergei Sobyanin. Meanwhile, a woman was killed in a Ukrainian drone attack in the Rostov region, the acting governor said.

Separately, the Ukrainian military said in a statement on social media on Saturday that its special forces struck Russia’s Borisoglebsk military airfield in the Voronezh region, hitting a glide bomb store and a trainer aircraft.

The military said that other aircraft were also likely hit, without giving details.

The governor of Voronezh, Alexander Gusev, wrote on Telegram that more than 25 drones were destroyed over the region overnight. He said a power line was temporarily damaged, but made no mention of a military airfield.

The attacks come as Ukraine’s Zelenskyy said on Friday that he had a “very important and fruitful” phone conversation with US President Donald Trump in his efforts to strengthen Ukraine’s air defences.

The US president also spoke to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, a day earlier in a conversation that he said was disappointing.

“I’m very disappointed with the conversation I had today with President Putin, because I don’t think he’s there, and I’m very disappointed,” Trump said after the call on Thursday. “I’m just saying I don’t think he’s looking to stop, and that’s too bad. ”

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that it was “preferable” to achieve the goals of Russia’s invasion through political and diplomatic means.