Category World News

World number one Aryna Sabalenka brushed aside Marta Kostyuk 6-4, 6-3 in the Brisbane International final on Sunday to retain the title without losing a set ahead of her bid to reclaim the Australian Open title this month.

Kostyuk had beaten top 10 players Jessica Pegula, Mirra Andreeva and Amanda Anisimova on her way to the final but was no match for the sheer power of the US Open champion.

Sabalenka is determined to win back the Australian Open title she relinquished last year, and her performance in the fierce Brisbane heat suggests she will be hard to beat at Melbourne Park this month.

“Thank you to my team for handling me. I’m really the toughest one to handle, and you guys are the toughest people in the world if you can handle me,” she told the crowd before directing a comment at partner Georgios Frangulis in the stands.

“Thank you to my boyfriend. Hopefully, soon I’ll call you something else, right? Let’s just put a bit of extra pressure on, right?”

Sabalenka overpowers Kostyuk

Sabalenka raced off to a 3-0 lead in the opening set before coming a bit unstuck as her first serve deserted her and her 23-year-old opponent feasted on her second.

There were the familiar hangdog expressions as Sabalenka raised her eyes to the skies in reaction to spraying a shot high and wide, but it did not last for long.

Rallying at 3-3, Sabalenka reduced the number of wild swings and heaped the pressure on her 26th-ranked opponent with the sheer power and accuracy of her strokes.

She quickly wrapped up the opening set and was soon 3-0 up in the second after again taking Kostyuk’s first service game.

There was no way back for Kostyuk this time, and she faced a real battle just to hold her serve three times before Sabalenka served out to secure her 22nd WTA title, sealing the deal when her opponent netted a return on her first championship point.

Kostyuk said her thoughts were with the people back home in her war-torn country.

“I play every day with a pain in my heart, and there are thousands of people who are without light and warm water,” she said.

“Right now it’s minus 20 degrees [Celsius] outside, so it’s very, very painful to live this reality every day. It’s very hot here in Brisbane, so it’s difficult to imagine this, but my sister is sleeping under three blankets because of how cold it is at home.”

Sabalenka will be gunning for a third Australian Open and fifth major title at the year’s first Grand Slam, which starts on January 18.

Three Palestinians have been killed and seven wounded in Israeli attacks in different areas of the Gaza Strip in the latest violation of a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, according to medical sources.

Sources told Al Jazeera the areas Israeli raids targeted overnight into Sunday included Rafah and Khan Younis in southern Gaza, the Zeitoun neighbourhood in the southeast of Gaza City and various other neighbourhoods across the besieged enclave, as Israel’s genocidal war continues unabated.

In one attack, an Israeli quadcopter killed a Palestinian man who was being taken to a hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, medical sources told Al Jazeera.

The Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that two men were killed by Israeli military gunfire east of Zeitoun.

Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Gaza City, said, “It has been a very dizzying period of escalation. We can hear the sounds of Israeli drones hovering overhead in central Gaza City and also the eastern communities, as well as where Israeli forces continue attacks and beyond the agreed yellow line, which was supposed to mark the ceasefire’s front lines.”

“There is a widescale flattening of buildings in Rafah, which has been under Israeli military control for two years, in Khan Younis, in the eastern parts of it and in the Jabalia refugee camp. These activities are basically designed to expand the areas that are under the Israeli military control to be possibly used as leverage in further negotiations in the second phase of the ceasefire agreement.”

“What we are documenting are demolitions and strikes in already evacuated civilian spaces, raising questions about whether this is security enforcement or territorial reshaping under the cover of the ceasefire,” he added.

Separately, the Israeli army reported on Saturday that its forces killed three Palestinians in southern and northern Gaza neighbourhoods, claiming that they posed a threat to Israeli forces, with one specifically stealing military equipment.

It was not immediately clear if the deaths were caused by the same incidents reported by Gaza sources.

Meanwhile, a seven-day-old Palestinian infant died due to the extreme cold on Saturday as the Israeli blockade of vital necessities worsens the humanitarian crisis in the enclave.

Mahmoud al-Aqraa died in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza amid rapidly decreasing temperatures, according to medical sources.

‘Catastrophe’

Palestinians living in makeshift tents have little protection from strong winds and rain, as most shelters are made of thin canvas and plastic sheets.

Israel continues to block or limit the number of vital needs entering the territory, such as tents, mobile homes or materials to fix tents, in violation of the ceasefire it agreed with Hamas in October, as well as its obligations under international law as the occupying power in the Strip.

Temperatures at night in Gaza have fallen to as low as 9 degrees Celsius (48 degrees Fahrenheit) in recent days.

In a statement, the Gaza Civil Defence warned of a “catastrophe” due to the “low-pressure system that caused serious damage to temporary shelters, and thousands of tents were completely damaged”.

It also urged citizens to secure their tents to prevent them from being blown away, given that mobile homes are not allowed to enter.

“What is happening is not a weather crisis, but a direct result of preventing the entry of building materials and disrupting reconstruction, as people are living in torn tents and cracked houses without safety or dignity,” Civil Defence spokesman Mahmoud Basal said.

Myanmar has resumed voting in the second phase of the three-part general elections amid a raging civil war and allegations the polls are designed to legitimise military rule.

Polling stations opened at 6am local time on Sunday (23:30 GMT on Saturday) across 100 townships in parts of Sagaing, Magway, Mandalay, Bago and Tanintharyi regions, as well as Mon, Shan, Kachin, Kayah and Kayin states.

Many of those areas have seen clashes in recent months or remain under heightened security.

Myanmar has been ravaged by conflict since the military ousted ⁠a civilian government in a 2021 coup and arrested its leader, Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, leading to ​a civil war that has engulfed large parts of the impoverished nation of 51 million people.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s ‍National League for Democracy party, which swept the last election in 2020, has been dissolved along with dozens of other antimilitary parties for failing to register for the latest polls.

The election is taking place in three phases because of the ongoing conflict. The first phase unfolded on December 28 in 102 of the country’s 330 townships, while a third round is scheduled for January 25.

Some 65 townships will not participate due to ongoing clashes.

The military claimed a 52 percent voter turnout after the December 28 vote, while the pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), which analysts say is a civilian proxy for the military, said it won more than 80 percent of seats contested in the lower house of the legislature.

“The USDP is on track for a landslide victory, which is hardly a surprise given the extent to which the playing field was tilted in ​its favour. This included the removal of any serious rivals and a set of ‌laws designed to stifle opposition to the polls,” said Richard Horsey, senior Myanmar adviser for Crisis Group.

Myanmar has a two-house national legislature, totalling 664 seats. The party with a combined parliamentary majority can select the new president, who can pick a cabinet and form a new government. The military automatically receives 25 percent of seats in each house under the constitution.

On Sunday morning, people in Yangon, the country’s largest city, cast their ballots at schools, government offices and religious buildings, including in Aung San Suu Kyi’s former constituency of Kawhmu, located roughly 25km (16 miles) south of the city.

As she exited her polling station, 54-year-old farmer Than Than Sint told the AFP news agency she voted because she wants peace in Myanmar, even though she knows it will come slowly given the fractured country’s “problems”.

Still, “I think things will be better after the election”, she said.

Others were less enthusiastic. A 50-year-old resident of Yangon, who asked to remain anonymous for safety reasons, said, “The results lie only in the mouth of the military.”

“People have very little interest in this election,” the person added. “This election has absolutely nothing to do with escaping this suffering.”

The United Nations and human rights groups have called the elections a “sham” that attempt to sanitise the military’s image.

Tom Andrews, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, said earlier this week that the election was “not a free, fair, nor legitimate election” by “all measures”.

“It is a theatrical performance that has exerted enormous pressure on the people of Myanmar to participate in what has been designed to dupe the international community,” Andrews said.

Laws enacted by the military ahead of the vote have made protest or criticism of the elections punishable by up to 10 years in prison. More than 200 people currently face charges under the measure, the UN said, citing state media.

REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK

The town of Hpapun was once a bustling regional hub with banks, regional government offices, and stores that supplied the surrounding valleys.

It even had its own airport, which was particularly useful in this remote corner of eastern Myanmar.

The ruling military government say Hpapun will be part of the second phase of voting when the general election resumes this Sunday, after the first phase at the end of December.

The only problem: Hpapun is actually a ghost town.

On the walls of the police station, a sign asks helpfully, “Can We Help You?” in English. But just inside the gate, a white skull and crossbones on a red background warns of landmines planted inside.

When Al Jazeera visited Hpapun several weeks ago, not a single soul remained in the town, and all the businesses and homes had been either burned, bombed or reclaimed by the jungle.

Some voting will take place inside the Tactical Command post about 10km (6 miles) down the road. But anyone wanting to cast their ballot will have to get past landmines, booby traps and about 800 government soldiers, who have been under siege since 2024.

“The military junta’s upcoming election is a sham. It’s a staged, fake election designed to maintain the power they have stolen,” says Tin Oo, commander of the People’s Defence Force, one of the groups of fighters currently trying to clear government forces out of the area.

And at least 3.5 million voters across Myanmar won’t be able to vote because they’ve been forced from their homes by fighting in the civil war.

Aye Thu Zar fled from her village, Pazun Myaung, two months ago after it was hit by air strikes from government fighter jets. Now she and her son Moe live in a community of 150 other displaced people on the banks of the Sittang river, surviving on what she ekes out of the land. There are no relief agencies operating here offering handouts of shelter or food.

“No, I’m not voting,” she told me, sitting in the bamboo hut she now calls home. “I don’t know. I haven’t heard anything about it. We live in a remote area, so we don’t know about the election.”

Just two hours’ drive away in Yangon, Myanmar’s most populated city, security is light and the civil war feels far away. Many of the country’s urban areas voted in the first phase of the election on December 28. After the second phase on Sunday, a third phase will take place on January 25 before final results are declared.

But with military-backed parties the only option on the ballot paper, many voters simply didn’t show up in cities like Yangon, and while official figures are yet to be released, local election officials told Al Jazeera that the turnout could be as low as 35 percent.

None of these problems seems to be troubling the pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), however. They’ve already been named as the easy winners in the first phase, with 89 out of 102 lower seats won, and it seems likely they will emerge as the winners when the outcome is announced at the end of the month.