Spain will host the final of the 2030 World Cup, which it is cohosting with Portugal and Morocco, according to Rafael Louzan, president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation.
Morocco wants to play the game at Casablanca’s Grand Stade Hassan II, a sizable stadium that is currently being constructed north of the city. However, Louzan has other objectives.
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Spain has demonstrated its organizational prowess over time. At a meeting organized by the Madrid Sports Press Association late on Monday, Louzan declared that it would lead the 2030 World Cup and that the final of that World Cup would take place here.
For instance, at Barcelona’s Camp Nou or Madrid’s Bernabeu, the two top candidates, Louzan did not specify a location for the game.
The new stadium for Casablanca is anticipated to have 115, 000 capacity when it is finished in late 2028. Faouzi Lekjaa, president of the Royal Moroccan Football Federation (FRMF), requested a final game between Spain and Morocco in Casablanca last year.
The Barcelona-based Camp Nou stadium, which is undergoing renovations, is a strong contender for the 2030 Olympic Games.
Louzan also made reference to the difficulties Morocco faced while hosting the Africa Cup of Nations, including the tumultuous scenes that occurred during this month’s Senegal vs. Morocco match.
Senegal won the match, but fan protests and fan disruptions temporarily halted play.
Moroccan football is actually undergoing a transformation, Louzan said. We must acknowledge the success of our efforts. However, scenes from the Africa Cup of Nations have ruined the reputation of international football.
The location of the final has not been provided by FIFA, the FRMF, or the Portuguese Football Federation.
To retrieve one body, the Israeli military mobilised a fleet of tanks, drones, and what locals described as “explosive robots”.
They turned a neighbourhood into a “kill zone”, dug up approximately 200 Palestinian graves, and left four civilians dead in their wake.
The focus of this overwhelming force was Ran Gvili, an Israeli policeman killed more than two years ago, the last Israeli captive in Gaza after more than two years of Israel’s genocidal war on the besieged enclave.
His successful recovery on Monday was hailed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a triumph of commitment. But just metres (yards) away from where Gvili’s remains were carefully extracted, a very different, gruesome reality persists.
According to the National Committee for Missing Persons, more than 10,000 Palestinians remain entombed under the rubble of Gaza, decomposing in silence, lost and without identity.
Families grieve without closure for their missing, presumed dead loved ones.
There are no explosive robots clearing the way for them, no forensic teams flying in to identify them, and no global outcry demanding their recovery.
International media do not rush to break news about them.
The digging up of the al-Batsh cemetery in Gaza City’s Tuffah neighbourhood has become a visceral symbol of a deadly double standard: A world where one Israeli corpse commands the attention of an army, while thousands of Palestinian bodies are treated as part of the decimated, apocalyptic landscape.
(Al Jazeera)
A ‘kill zone’ around the graves
Khamis al-Rifi, a journalist in Gaza who reported from the vicinity of the incursion, detailed the sheer scale of force used to isolate the area.
“It started with exploding robots and air strikes … clearing the path for the tanks,” al-Rifi told Al Jazeera. He explained that approaching the cemetery was impossible, as tanks enforced a deadly perimeter, firing at anything that moved.
From his position near the “Yellow Line”, Israel’s self-proclaimed buffer zone inside Gaza, al-Rifi described a “wall of fire” created by artillery and helicopters to protect the engineering units. Inside this sealed zone, witnesses and video footage obtained later revealed that the forces spent two days churning up the earth.
“They dug up about 200 graves,” al-Rifi said. “They pulled the martyrs out, tested them one by one until they found the [Israeli] body.”
The disparity was most evident in the aftermath. Gvili’s remains were airlifted for dignified burial in Israel. The Palestinian bodies, however, were left to the mercy of bulldozers.
“When citizens went to the area [after the withdrawal], they found the martyrs put back randomly … covered with sand by the bulldozers,” al-Rifi said. “Some bodies were still visible on the surface.”
‘The world’s largest graveyard’
While Israel used satellite technology and DNA labs to close the chapter on its missing policeman, Palestinian families are denied even the basic machinery to dig.
Alaa al-Din al-Aklouk, spokesperson for the National Committee for Missing Persons, stated last November that Gaza has become “the world’s largest graveyard”.
“These martyrs are buried under the rubble of their homes … without their last dignity being preserved,” al-Aklouk said. He highlighted the “fatal injustice” of an international community that mobilised resources for Israeli captives while blocking the entry of heavy civil defence equipment needed to recover Palestinian victims.
Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, told Al Jazeera on Monday that while he respects the right of any family to bury their dead, the contrast is inescapable. “The lack of equal treatment, the lack of respect to Palestinians as equal human beings, is really astonishing,” he noted.
A cost paid in blood
The dark irony of this Israeli mission is that it created new victims. On Tuesday morning, as residents approached the desecrated cemetery to check on the graves of their loved ones, Israeli fire struck again.
“Four martyrs fell in the area this morning,” al-Rifi said, noting that one of them, his relative Youssef al-Rifi, had simply gone to inspect the destruction left behind.
With a dominant 7-5, 6-2, 6-1 victory over local favorite Alex de Minaur, Carlos Alcaraz’s career Grand Slam bid is still alive at Melbourne Park.
The 22-year-old eliminated de Minaur’s hopes after five years of waiting for a homegrown men’s champion at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne on Tuesday, swapping extravagance for efficiency.
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Alcaraz, a six-time major winner, broke de Minaur early to take a 3-0 lead, but his retooled serve was exposed in the fifth game when he faced three break points.
De Minaur resisted and won the ninth game before recovering a second break in the ninth, delighting the center-court crowd by holding in the following, but some loose points gave Alcaraz a gripping opening set.
Alcaraz put the pressure on himself in the second set by opening up the second set with a pair of rasping backhand crosscourt winners to take the lead.
Alcaraz won the match and advanced to face Alexander Zverev, the third seed, in the third set after a deflated de Minaur gave up his serve early in the third set.
“I’m just really happy how I’m playing every game,” he said. My level is rising each round, Alcaraz warned his rivals.
“Today I felt really at ease and I’m proud of how good I was playing tennis.”
German Zverev defeated American Learner Tien 6-3, 6-7, 6-1, 7-6, 7-3 to claim his last-four spot earlier in a 6-3, 6-7, 5-7, 6-1, 7-6 victory.
Alcaraz praised Zverev, saying, “I have seen him throughout the entire tournament, and I know he is playing great, aggressive tennis.”
“I must be ready,” he says of my entire team.
We must play tactically extremely well, they say. It will be a very interesting battle.
On Wednesday, Novak Djokovic, a 10-time Melbourne champion, will face Lorenzo Musetti, Italy’s fifth-seeded player, in the other two quarterfinals.
In the semifinals, the winner will face eighth-seeded American Ben Shelton or two-time defending champion Jannik Sinner.
In the quarterfinals, Elina Svitolina of Ukraine squares off against Coco Gauff of the United States. Quinn Rooney/Getty Images
Svitolina hopes that Ukraine will be “a little light” after the Gauff incident.
Elina Svitolina expressed hope that Coco Gauff’s stunning upset of third-seeded Ukrainians will lighten their bitter winters as a result of Russia’s brutal assault on them.
Aryna Sabalenka, the 31-year-old world number one, defeated the American 6-1, 6-2, to advance to the semifinals.
Svitolina avoids tussling with Russian and Belarusian opponents like other Ukrainian players do.
She praised her overwhelming victory over Gauff as “great for my country.”
It’s very important to me to see a lot of Ukrainians supporting tennis, which is great because it’s one of the most difficult winters for Ukrainians without electricity and everything.
When my friends are watching my matches, I feel like I should pass this light, a little light, just positive news to Ukrainians. It gives me a wonderful feeling.
Throughout the nearly four-year conflict, Russia has targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, particularly in the winter, leaving many Ukrainians without electricity or heating.
Former world number three Svitolina was playing her 14th Grand Slam quarterfinal a decade earlier than Gauff.
She had only previously and never before advanced to the semis in Australia.
Svitolina, who won the tournament for the first time this month in Auckland and is on a 10-game winning streak, was “very, very pleased with the tournament so far.”
She will re-enter the top 10 if she makes it to the semifinals.
“It’s always been my dream to return after maternity leave to finish in the top ten.” Always been what I wanted, she said.
To me, “It means the world.”
Gauff, a two-time Grand Slam champion, was left in disarray by her broken serve, which she had four sets to go with, and two more when she was broken.
She committed 19 unforced errors while receiving only 41% of her first service points.
Gauff immediately broke after serving during the entire tournament.
With husband Gael Monfils watching, Svitolina and husband Gael Monfils both failed to capitalize on her failure and also conceded her serve. Gauff then caused two double faults to be broken once more at crucial points.
She was clearly frustrated as the Ukrainian ran to 5-1 with a fifth double fault of the match, giving Svitolina yet another break and the set in 29 minutes. She was broken three more times, which she loved.
After the first-set annihilation, Gauff summoned a ball kid, demanded that three racquets be restrained, and left the court for a toilet break.
But it was ineffective. To start set two, she was broken five straight times.
She finally succeeded in holding onto her sixth attempt without retaliation.
According to Shincheonji Church of Jesus, a South Korea-based religious group, over 4,000 members of the church who recovered from COVID-19 are willing to donate plasma for developing a new treatment.
Mr. Man Hee Lee, founder of the Shincheonji Church, said that members of the church are advised to donate plasma voluntarily. “As Jesus sacrificed himself with his blood for life, we hope that the blood of people can bring positive effects on overcoming the current situation,” said Mr. Lee.
