Category World News

In an explosion in the Idlib province of northern Syria, at least 6 people have died and more than 100 have been injured. According to reports, it occurred at a ammunition depot, and officials claimed “recurring explosions” hampered rescue efforts.

India is a “sleeping giant” of football, according to former FIFA President Sepp Blatter, but the sport is struggling under new problems and has to deal with issues at the grassroots.

The Indian Super League (ISL), India’s main rival, is in danger of collapsing due to a dispute between the federation and its commercial partner because the men’s national team is without a coach.

The celebrated veteran striker Sunil Chhetri wrote on X about the ISL’s future, saying that “everyone in the Indian football ecosystem is worried, hurt, and scared about the uncertainty we are facing.”

When he retired from his 40-year career in March, the former national skipper unwittingly summed up one of the issues facing Indian football.

The striker is only second in the history international scoring charts behind Cristiano Ronaldo (138), Lionel Messi (112), and Ali Daei (108).

He has left his best years behind, but he has since resurrected on the national side with no younger ones.

India’s men have only won one of their last 16 matches and are 133rd in the FIFA rankings, which is their lowest position in nearly a decade.

After only one year and one win from eight games, Spaniard Manolo Marquez resigned as head coach this month and has never won a World Cup.

His final act was to prevent Hong Kong, which had a population of 7.500 million and 1.44 billion people, from qualifying for the Asian Cup.

The ISL is typically played between September and April.

However, the rights agreement between the ISL’s parent company, Football Sports Development Limited (FSDL), expires on December 8 and has not yet been renewed.

More than 5, 000 players, coaches, staff, and others have been affected by the uncertainty, which the league is currently experiencing in advance of the new campaign.

Subrata Paul, the director of India’s national football team and former captain, is confident that the sport, which is so obsessed with cricket, will flourish.

According to Paul, who is regarded as one of India’s best-ever goalkeepers, “Indian football, like any growing ecosystem, will face its own challenges and transitions.”

This is a time to reflect, pause, and refocus, I believe. We all who enjoy the game can struggle with the recent results and the uncertainty surrounding the ISL, but there is also a bright side to it.

By investing in youth development, infrastructure, and top-notch coaching, we have an opportunity to strengthen our foundation.

The franchise-based ISL was founded in 2014 as a league that aimed to introduce the game in a new way, including Alessandro Del Piero, an Italian international star.

The ISL has seen declining TV ratings and sponsor interest as a result rather than a boom.

As the most populous nation in the world, India has long been a top player in the game.

Former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, who is now FIFA’s director of global football development, made a 2023 visit to inaugurate an academy.

Wenger, who has supported India’s football development, especially at the grassroots level, met AIFF President Kalyan Chaubey, who is also a politician with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

Wenger, according to Chaubey, thinks it is too late to begin playing football at 13 years old, as is customary in India. He advised players to start with eight.

There has been a small amount of success in the distant past despite India never having won the World Cup and having previously failed to do so in North America next year.

Between 1948 and 1960, India qualified for the Olympics four times. India finished fourth at the 1956 Melbourne Games after losing to Bulgaria in the bronze-medal match.

India has endured a deep sleep since Blatter’s “sleeping giant” characterization in 2007.

In India, football is a distant second behind cricket and hockey in popularity, with the southern state of Kerala and the eastern city of Kolkata as its main hotspots.

There has long been mismanagement by Indian football chiefs, according to veteran sport journalist Jaydeep Basu, adding to the difficulties of the game in India.

The team’s decline from its position of 99 in September 2023, Basu told AFP, “basically indicates poor management.

According to Basu, who recently co-authored the book Who Stole My Football, there is a caucus working in the AIFF of two or three people who are producing the show for their own gain.

More than two million people in Gaza are facing starvation as a result of rising malnutrition deaths, according to the director-general of the World Health Organization. His remarks come as Israel continues to deceive the enclave by delivering baby formula and other aid.

Over 59, 000 Palestinians have been killed and 143, 000 others have been injured in Israel’s unrelenting battle against Gaza, and hundreds of thousands have been forced into starvation as a result of its blockade of the enclave and its militarized distribution system.

In recent weeks, 80 of the people who have been starved to death are children.

Regardless of what its ultimate goal is, according to analysts, Israel has pushed Gaza’s population to a breaking point.

Palestinians in Gaza are uninhabitable because of Israeli policy, according to Derek Summerfield, a psychiatrist from the United Kingdom who has written about the effects of war and atrocity.

From mosques to hospitals, it has “destroyed the concept of a society and every institution that might support it.” He continued, describing a conflict that aimed to destroy a society’s entire structures and sense of identity. People feel as though they can’t continue because they have been left with nothing.

Many Palestinians there are desperate because of the constant threat of death and the total destruction there. Some people are attempting to leave despite the horrors they have witnessed and a potential conflict that will last for months or years.

In contrast to the growing Israeli aggression, some people continue to cling to their homes.

Gaza experiencing famine

Palestinians in Gaza are now living in the same way that aid workers and journalists do in Gaza because they are among the hungry and malnourished.

More than 100 aid organizations wrote an open letter to the Israeli government on Wednesday, urging it to collaborate with the UN and allow aid to enter Gaza.

Al Jazeera has demanded immediate action to protect all journalists who are stranded in Gaza, many of whom are unable to report due to their own deteriorating health and acute hunger. Similar calls were made by the AFP agency.

According to Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University and author of in-depth essays on famine, “famine is not just physical; it’s mental.”

It “dehumanizes and degrades the sufferer,” according to the statement, “After searching through the garbage for food and everything you have done to survive, it dehumanizes and degrades the sufferer.”

He continued, “You need to remember that starvation is an act, and it’s not always one criminal one.”

It also requires some practice. It’s not as though you dropped a bomb; starvation can take anywhere from 60 to 80 days. Longer periods of semi-starvation, like what we’re seeing in Gaza, are possible.

Israel has received numerous and stern warnings that its actions are causing widespread starvation. Nobody should be surprised by this.

This is not just about feeding the poor. De Waal continued, “It’s about dismantling a society and turning its people into desperate, starving victims.” Additionally, it makes the abuser feel inferior, making the abuser feel self-justifiable.

A method of annihilation

Israel’s leaders have repeatedly stated that their occupation of Gaza was to “relieve the captives in the territory” and defeat Hamas during its 21-month conflict.

However, critics around the world have accused it of either blinding its actions to the humanitarian effects of its actions or actively attempting to punish Palestinians and make them starve.

Yossi Mekelberg, a senior consulting fellow at Chatham House, said, “I don’t know if you can call this a strategy.”

I’m unsure of how much is planned, how much is tactical, cynical, opportunistic, or just incompetent. It all depends on the location.

Mekelberg broke down the divides between those who wanted to have the final say on Israeli policy, including ultranationalist ministers like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, who wanted the expulsion of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, and a security establishment that Mekelberg described as divided on whether to keep the war or end it.

The cynical and opportunistic, “he continued,” which is essentially Benjamin Netanyahu and his supporters, is what follows. The prime minister, who is facing multiple corruption charges, said to them, “This is all about politics and surviving for another day.”

The destruction legacy

According to analysts, Israel’s actions in Gaza will have a long-term impact.

People who survive Israel’s current conflict will carry its scars, as will their ancestors, while those who leave are unlikely to be permitted to go back.

According to Mouin Rabbani, co-editor of Jadaliya, “Israel has adopted a formula in the last few weeks where it has made the conditions in Gaza intolerable and unable to support human life.”

People will leave if it can reduce life to such a level and, at the same time, increase the chaos and anarchy [across Gaza].

They won’t be permitted to return to their home once they have been forced out, according to Rabbani, whether through the conditions that Israel has put in place or through the one-way entrance to what many Israeli government ministers refer to as a “humanitarian city” (a concentration camp that many critics call it) that it intends to construct along the Egyptian-Israeli border.

Since Israel’s assault on Gaza began in October 2023, there hasn’t been a day where its war has not been the focus of the media.

The international community’s concern has grown as hunger and the extent of Israel’s nearly total destruction have increased in recent weeks.

Israel’s conflict has shown no signs of easing in the face of the protests and the rumored ongoing ceasefire negotiations.