Category World News

Who: Barcelona vs. Villareal
What: Spain’s La Liga
Where: Estadio de la Ceramica in Villareal, Spain
When: Sunday, December 21, at 4:15pm (15:15 GMT)
How to follow: We’ll have all the build-up on Al Jazeera Sport from 1215 GMT in advance of our text commentary stream. Click here to follow our live coverage.

Throughout the majority of La Liga, Villarreal has quietly launched a potential dark horse title campaign.

When the “Yellow Submarine” host Barcelona on Sunday, it will now have a chance to make it official.

A game that could open the Spanish top flight is examined by Al Jazeera Sport.

What form has Villareal played this season in La Liga?

The third-place team under the guidance of Marcelino Garcia Toral is eight points ahead of Real Madrid and eight points ahead of Barcelona. Its position could be even stronger because it has only two games to play against the powerhouses.

Villarreal lost to a lower-division team this week and has disappointed in the Champions League. However, La Liga is a different game. Only two of Villarreal’s six games have ended in defeat at Madrid and Atletico Madrid.

In addition to being unbeaten in eight home games while capturing all but one of those league matches, Marcelino’s men have also transformed their La Ceramica stadium into a fortress.

What form has Barcelona taken this year in La Liga?

With 13 goals allowed in 17 games, the league’s top defense will square off against Villarreal’s strongest attack. In that span, Barcelona scored 49 goals, 15 more than Real’s closest rivals, and more than made up for a sometimes shaky defense by outscoring its opponents.

Barcelona will look to end 2025 on a high note this weekend and overshadow any challenges presented by Villarreal.

A struggling Madrid side would also be put under more pressure if they won the league for the eighth time in a row, under Lamine Yamal and company.

Before the two-week winter break, Madrid will need a convincing victory to face Sevilla on Saturday.

What transpired during Villareal’s most recent game?

Villareal lost to second-tier Racing de Santander on Wednesday, adding insult to injury from their struggles outside of La Liga this season.

Their most recent La Liga game was against Girona on December 6 with a score of 2-0 at home. Between those two matches, Villareal also lost to Copenhagen in the Champions League 3-2 at home.

What transpired during Barcelona’s most recent game?

Late in the match, Andreas Christensen and Marcus Rashford scored to give Barcelona a close-fought 2-0 victory over third-place Guadalajara on Tuesday.

The Catalans were also held to a maximum by Osasuna in their previous La Liga game, where Raphinha scored twice late in the game to earn a 2-0 victory.

What is the formula behind Villareal’s La Liga success?

Villarreal’s success is based on a team effort that included several goal-scorers and playmakers. However, Alberto Moleiro, a left-winger, excels. He leads Villarreal with six league goals in his debut season with the team. Santi Comesana, a midfielder, and Tajon Buchanan each scored five goals.

What difficulties does Barcelona face in its La Liga defense?

Since Alejandro Balde was sidelined for the duration of the season, Barcelona coach Hansi Flick has so far been able to fill the position with a left-back centre-back.

As Flick searches for a replacement for Inigo Martnez, who left for Saudi Arabia earlier in the year, in the middle of the defensive line, Martin has five starts in a row. Villarreal’s attack may put a strain on Martin.

What became of La Liga’s intention to play Villareal-Barcelona in Miami?

Before La Liga’s international expansion plans fell under heavy criticism, forcing the cancellation of what would have been the first European league game to be played abroad, the Sunday showdown was originally intended for Miami.

What transpired during Villareal’s most recent game against Barcelona?

In their final encounter in May, Villareal defeated Barcelona 3-2 to claim the league title, despite the home side having already won it five days prior.

After only four minutes, Ayoze Perez gave the away side a 2-0 lead, but before the break, Yamal and Fermin Lopez turned the tables on Barca. However, Villallareal were not finished until Tajon Buchanan scored the winning goal in the final ten minutes with Santi Comesana leveling in the 50th minute.

What transpired last season in the same match between Villareal and Barcelona?

Barcelona ran amok at Villareal in the first meeting between the two last year, which ended in a 5-1 drubbing.

Both Pedro Torre’s strike and Robert Lewandowski’s netted braces. Perez also had a goal in this game for the home team, but it ended up being a consolation.

Head-to-head

With Barcelona winning 33 of the matches and Villarreal winning 11 of the matches, the teams have met in their 55th meeting.

Villareal have won both of their previous two matches at Barcelona, but the Catalan club has the same record as Villareal in both of their previous two encounters.

News from the Villareal team

As veterans Gerard Moreno and Dani Parejo resumed training on Tuesday and should be ready to face Barcelona, Villarreal&nbsp, experienced a timely boost.

Senegal and Pape Gueye are traveling to the Africa Cup of Nations, respectively.

Thomas Partey, Gerard Moreno, Willy Kambwala, and Santiago Mourino must all demonstrate their fitness before the game while Pau Cabanes is a certain injury absentee.

news from the Barcelona team

Ronald Araujo is expected to miss the game for personal reasons, while Dani Olmo and Gavi are both injured.

Due to a calf strain, Pedri was a major doubt for the match on Friday during his absence from training.

Villareal lineup that is anticipated

Luiz Junior, Navarro, Foyth, Veiga, Cardona, Buchanan, Comesana, Parejo, Moleiro, Perez, Mikautadze, and others

Barcelona lineup anticipated

The visa lottery program that allowed the suspect in the Brown University shooting entry into the United States has been suspended by President Donald Trump’s administration.

According to the US government, the lottery awards approximately 50 000 immigrant visas annually.

Trump has long opposed the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program, also known as the DV Program. His secretary of homeland security, Kristi Noem, revealed on Friday that he had instructed her to immediately stop the lottery.

She also identified the suspect as Portuguese national Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, who won a green card and a permanent residency certificate in 2017 by lottery.

Noem wrote in a statement on social media that “this vile person should never have been allowed in our country.”

I’m directing USCIS [US Citizenship and Immigration Services] to halt the DV1 program immediately to prevent further Americans from being harmed by this disastrous program, according to President Trump.

campaign to end the visa lottery

Trump has not attempted to end the diversity visa lottery before with Friday’s announcement.

Trump has long sought to constrict immigration paths for citizens, and he has used crime as a pretext.

In response to an attack in New York City where a truck struck a crowd of people, killing eight, Noem herself remarked that Trump “fought” to end the diversity visa lottery in 2017.

Trump, who was then in his first term as president, demanded from Congress to “end the visa lottery system” during a graduation ceremony held for the FBI in December 2017.

They are in the lottery, they claim. You decide who to pick. Do you believe that our nation has the best people there is? Trump responded, “no”.

What kind of system, exactly? They enter via lottery. They treat us like we are their worst enemies.

In 1990, the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program was established to ensure that underrepresented countries’ applicants had access to the US immigration system.

Immigration rights advocates have long argued that those without a spouse, a relative, or some other type of sponsor in the country have limited access to permanent residency.

By providing an alternative route to residency, the visa lottery addresses that need.

Although the lottery system randomly chooses visa recipients, critics contend that even successful applicants must still go through a rigorous screening process after the lottery.

The American Immigration Council claims that the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program used to accept 55, 000 applicants annually but that number was dropped to its current level in 2000.

Identified suspect

Following a nationwide manhunt, Neves Valente, a physics researcher, was found dead in a storage unit in New Hampshire, and Friday made the decision to immediately suspend the lottery.

Gunfire erupted on the Providence, Rhode Island campus of Brown University on December 13 to start the search.

The exam season had just begun and the school’s fall semester was coming to an end. Two students were reportedly killed and nine others were hurt when a suspect who was covered in black stormed into the Barus and Holley physics lab while they were taking their end-of-course exams.

The suspect managed to escape on foot without being noticed because the physics lab was close to the campus’ edge.

Authorities claimed they quickly detained a person of interest before releasing them without charges, leading to a number of false starts during the manhunt.

Then, on November 15, law enforcement announced that Nuno Loureiro, a plasma physics expert, had been found dead at his home after receiving numerous gunshot wounds.

Loureiro, a Portuguese immigrant, previously held positions of authority professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a prestigious academic institution.

As the manhunt raged on, it became increasingly difficult to find out whether the two shooting incidents were related.

However, on Thursday night, authorities announced that they had discovered Neves Valente dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound and that they thought he was to blame for both attacks.

Neves Valente had previously been Loureiro’s classmate in Portugal and had previously completed his degree.

Revocations of visas

Following a string of scandalous attacks, the Trump administration has a track record of terminating immigration programs and revoking visas.

As part of Trump’s crackdown on crime in the capital, two West Virginia National Guard members were shot on November 26 while on patrol in Washington, DC.

Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national who had previously collaborated with allies during the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, was the suspect in that case.

Sarah Beckstrom, a 20-year-old member of the National Guard, ultimately passed away from her injuries.

Despite the outcry from human rights and veteran groups, Trump responded to the incident by saying he would stop all requests for visas and asylum from Afghan nationals.

The Republican leader added that “all third-world nations” would be subject to a “permanent pause” for immigrants entering.

In response to the shooting, Trump’s administration increased the list of restrictions to 20 more nations and tightened entry for 19 of the country it had labeled “high risk” in June.

Following the shootings, Trump has also taken specific actions to deport people from their immigration status.

The Trump administration announced it would yank visas from six foreign nationals who had posted hateful remarks or memes about the attack after Charlie Kirk was killed in September. They were from nations as diverse as Argentina, Brazil, Germany, and Paraguay.

The decision, according to free-speech advocates, was a clear violation of the US Constitution’s First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of expression.

However, the Trump administration has threatened to kick foreign nationals out of their homes on numerous occasions because of their divergent political views.

The US State Department wrote in response that “aliens who take advantage of America’s hospitality while celebrating the assassination of our citizens will be removed.”

A 22-year-old Utah resident named Tyler James Robinson is the suspect in the Kirk shooting.

Palestinians were being abused by a shell company with Israeli ties as they fled the country’s ongoing war in Gaza, and they were being paid large sums of money to covertly leave the country in what might be an official strategy to ethnically cleanse the area.

Al Jazeera conducted an exclusive digital investigation into last month’s mysterious flight, which whisked 153 people from Gaza to South Africa, finding employees for Al-Majd Europe, an unregistered front organization that falsely claimed to be working for humanitarian purposes.

On November 13, the Palestinians made their way to OR Tambo International Airport, which serves Johannesburg and Pretoria. They were stranded on the plane for 12 hours before being allowed to leave because they did not have Israel departure stamps on their passports and were denied entry by border police.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa acknowledged the passengers “out of compassion,” but he stated at the time that his government, which has long been a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause, would investigate after it appeared they had been “flushed out” of the Gaza Strip.

forced evacuations

In what would effectively be their forced evacuation, Israeli officials have previously publicly stated that they support what they have termed the “voluntary emigration” of Palestinians from Gaza.

A contentious bureau led by former ministry of defense deputy director Yaakov Blitstein was established in the security cabinet of Israel in March 2025. Israel Katz, the country’s defense minister, stated at the time that 40% of Gaza residents were “interested in emigrating.”

Al-Majd Europe established its online presence the previous month with a new website that claimed to have organized mobile health clinics in the enclave and travels for Palestinian doctors abroad, claims Al Jazeera later discovered to be false. It stated that it was focused on relief efforts in Muslim nations, specifically “for Gazans wishing to exit Gaza.”

A passenger on the flight from South Africa to the end of November, whose identity was kept secret for his own protection, claimed to have contacted the organization after discovering a link online that offered safety and medical care for injuries. It claimed to be free at first. Then they asked for $1, 400]per person]. Then the price went up to $2, 500″, he said.

According to Al Jazeera’s testimonies, the amount of money requested varied from $1,000 to $2,000 per person, with stringent signing requirements. Only families would be permitted to depart, with restrictions on keeping flight departure information secret and few hours before takeoff.

According to passengers, they were instructed to arrive at the southern Gaza crossing known as the Kerem Shalom. When they arrived, Israeli authorities apparently took their personal belongings and transported them to Ramon Airport, which is close to the city of Eilat.

There were “very clearly… marks of Israel involved in this operation to take people… to displace them,” according to Nigel Branken, a South African social worker who assisted the Palestinians on the plane.

Evacuees told Al Jazeera that they weren’t informed until shortly before board. Without having exit stamps on their travel documents, they were then led onto a flight to a brand-new airline, called FLYYO.

Al Jazeera learned that FLYYO has organized a number of similar flights, all of which depart from Israeli airports, to destinations like Kenya, Indonesia, South Africa, and Romania.

false identity

Al-Majd Europe, which claimed to be a “humanitarian foundation established in Germany in 2010 and has its head office in Sheikh Jarrah, a neighborhood in occupied East Jerusalem, later revealed its identity as a sham.

No German or European database contained any companies that had that name registered with Al Jazeera. The supposed address is not listed in Jerusalem’s official records, but it does appear to be a hospital and cafe on Google Maps.

Al Jazeera discovered two Palestinian faces that were related to the organization while looking into the flights. The organization lists Muayad Hisham Saidam as its manager of humanitarian projects in Gaza.

According to a search of Saidam’s name, his wife launched a public page to request donations to help her family leave Gaza in May of 2024. Saidam announced that he was leaving Gaza on a plane he had booked with Fly Lili, another Romanian airline, a year later, with a photo of himself.

Al Jazeera uncovered Saidam was likely on a flight from Israel to Budapest on May 27, 2025, with 57 Palestinian passengers from Gaza, using his shadow’s angle, the time of the flight, and the location of the plane on the Ramon Airport runway.

Saidam’s family was likely evacuated to Indonesia, and it appears that his identity is real. However, it’s not clear whether he has any connection to Al-Majd Europe.

Adnan, who merely appears to be the organization’s public face, is the second one, despite his lack of digital sex.

A page with a number of partner companies was removed from Al-Majd’s website on November 13 the day of the flight from Johannesburg. Al-Majd claimed to have been working with a number of well-known organizations, including the International Red Cross, by using open-source intelligence techniques to retrieve the page.

Talent Globus, a recruitment firm founded in Estonia in 2024, had a $ 350 investment, to be one of its notable names. According to its website, four people are listed as employees, including businessman Tom Lind, both of whom are Israeli and Estonian.

Lind’s name has been linked to a number of other businesses where he is listed as a founder or director, all of which are not registered or physically located.

Lind was named as one of the coordinators of the Palestinian flights leaving Ramon Airport, according to reports from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

Lind stated on his LinkedIn page in May 2025 that he had left Talent Globus and was now focused on “humanitarian efforts to support Palestinians.” He claimed to have assisted in the “substantial number” of people’s evacuation from Gaza along with a network of people and organizations.

The other three Talent Globus employees, James Thompson, Maria Rodriguez, and David Chen, all turned out to be stock images, according to Talent Globus’ website.

And much like those workers, it appears Al-Majd itself is a phony humanitarian organization, which raises the question of what the individuals responsible for the organization are trying to conceal.

Under President Donald Trump, top US diplomat Marco Rubio has outlined the administration’s top foreign policy priorities, stating that the administration is focused on advancing Washington’s interests internationally.

In a two-hour briefing to reporters on Friday, the US secretary of state reiterated Trump’s hard line against Venezuela and defended cuts to foreign aid programmes.

Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, also expressed outrage against “mass migration” into the US, echoing Trump’s stance.

Rubio is also the head of the now-disgraced US Agency for International Development (USAID), and he also serves as the White House’s national security adviser.

Five important lessons can be drawn from the state secretary’s extensive media briefing:

Maduro cannot be trusted

Rubio suggested that further talks with Venezuela would be futile because President Nicolas Maduro cannot be trusted to live up to his commitments.

According to Rubio, it’s difficult to consider making one of the deals he’s made in the past because he has never kept any of them.

The top diplomat kept hammering accusations that Maduro has used the Venezuelan government to lead a campaign of narcotics trafficking and “terrorism”.

Trump has made similar allegations, accusing Trump of orchestrating the US’s entry of drug and criminal activity.

He has also depicted Maduro as a cartel leader who is in charge of organizations like Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang. Those assertions, however, have been contradicted by the US intelligence community, which found no evidence that Maduro controls the gang.

Rubio stated on Friday that the US is working with Western Hemisphere governments to guarantee stability in the Caribbean region. He emphasized that Venezuela is a different place.

“There’s one place that doesn’t cooperate, and it’s the illegitimate regime in Venezuela. They openly cooperate with terrorist and criminal elements, he said, not only do they not cooperate with us, but they also do so without our consent.

“For instance, they invite Iran and Hezbollah to launch operations from their territory.”

Trump’s allies have accused Maduro of forging ties with Hezbollah, but the US has not provided evidence that the Lebanese armed group, which was weakened by last year’s war with Israel, is operating in the South American country.

Rubio’s remarks come as the US continues to amass military and troops in Venezuela, sparking rumors about US plans to forcefully overthrow Maduro.

Trump and his top aides continue to falsely claim that Venezuela’s oil is US, and he has also announced an oil blockade in Caracas.

Rubio was asked on Friday how he would square Trump’s self-image as a peacemaker with the escalating military threats to Venezuela.

Rubio said, “We reserve the right and have the right to use every ounce of national power to advance the country’s interests,” Rubio continued. No one can dispute that, either. Every country in the world reserves the same option. Simply put, some of them lack power, while others do not.

Ukraine: “Not our war”

The ongoing war in Ukraine, which has been raging since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, was also a key topic in Friday’s news conference.

Rubio argued that Washington is trying to determine what Russia and Ukraine can accept in order to reach a peace deal, but he also emphasized that the war is not a top priority.

“It’s not our war,” he said. It’s a war on another continent”, he said.

Rubio argued, however, that the US was the only one who could bring about a peace in Ukraine.

What can we be trying to figure out here is what Russia can live with and what Ukraine can live with. Sort of identify what both sides ‘ positions are, and see if we can sort of drive them towards each other to some agreement”, Rubio said.

“If you were to ask for [prioritization], I would argue that something in our hemisphere is more significant for our national interest than something on another continent,” he said. Ukraine and Russia are not therefore unimportant, they are. We care about it. We are involved in it because of this.

Trump pledged to end Russia’s war in Ukraine within 24 hours of regaining the presidency while running for president in 2024.

He has since had to walk back those remarks, but the Republican leader has maintained an active role in peace negotiations, even hosting Russian President Vladimir Putin for a meeting in Alaska in August.

Trump’s efforts to end world wars have prompted the Nobel Peace Prize to be awarded.

US pressing to bring the first phase of the Gaza truce to an end

Rubio also stressed on Friday that Washington is pushing to complete phase one of the ceasefire in Gaza, so the second stage can begin.

Setting up a Palestinian technocratic committee to govern Gaza, establishing the territory’s “board of peace,” according to Rubio, and putting together an international policing force were the three things that were highlighted.

“We’re going to start working on this very soon,” he said. It’s what we’re focused on right now like a laser”, he said.

No one is disputing that the status quo is desirable or sustainable over the long term, which is why phase one is deemed necessary to be completed in its entirety.

We have a lot of confidence that we will have the funds to fund the reconstruction effort and provide all the humanitarian aid needed to build phases two and three over the long term.

The US is currently hosting talks with officials from Egypt, Qatar and Turkiye to discuss moving to the next stage.

Israel has killed 395 people in Gaza since the Trump-brokered ceasefire in October, with the most of them being two children per day. At least six people were killed and many others were hurt when Israeli forces attacked a wedding on Friday.

Israel has also refused to allow an adequate amount of aid into the territory, and blocked the entry of temporary homes, despite the fact that displaced people’s tents have flooded amid harsh winter weather.

Rubio was questioned about Israel’s violations by Al Jazeera, but the secretary of state didn’t address the question’s premise. He emphasized the ongoing efforts to bring about peace in Gaza.

“This is the hard work of diplomacy and peacemaking. He said that signing a piece of paper is not just a form of agreement, but it is also a form of agreement. And compliance frequently necessitates daily, ongoing monitoring and nurturing, according to the author.

Cooperation with China

Rubio hawked China when he was a senator. He spoke about relations with Beijing on Friday, but he softer tone, which underscores the need for cooperation in the face of bilateral tensions.

“I think I’ve been nice to China”, Rubio said jokingly. He continued, citing “good progress” being made between the US and China.

He told reporters, “We can work together to solve a global challenge that China and the US can address.” “And there’ll be points of tension. We are aware of the importance of balancing these two. Both parties seem to be aware of that.

After an escalating trade war early in Trump’s second term, the US and China reached a one-year deal in November to freeze tariffs and resolve other issues.

US officials have been describing the world’s fiercest adversary as their most pressing foreign policy concern for almost ten years.

Trump has appeared to have given the Americas less priority than China, but in recent months he has turned his attention to the Americas.

Commitment to NATO

Rubio reiterated the US’s commitment to the NATO military alliance on Friday, despite the Trump administration’s criticism of Europe and its leaders for their immigration policies and EU regulations.

He suggested that any Russian military campaign outside of Ukraine would be prevented by NATO’s common defense, as stated in Article 5 of the alliance treaty, which commits each member to attack an alliance ally as an attack against every NATO nation.

“It’s why we remain in NATO”, he said. “We’re in this alliance because of Article 5 of the NATO alliance, and that’s why.”

Rubio said that the US only asks its NATO allies to increase their military spending.

Trump has sought to raise the minimum defence spending for members of the alliance to 5 percent of each country’s gross domestic product (GDP), but some countries, most notably Spain, have pushed for greater flexibility in their military budgets.

Trump’s commitment to the military alliance has also piqued the attention of NATO allies, with some citing contradictory statements he has made in the past regarding the Article Five commitment. Rubio, however, made an effort to dispel those doubts.