Category World News

Serbia continues to be gripped by a deep political crisis, with antigovernment protesters and supporters of President Aleksandar Vucic holding parallel rallies across the Balkan country.

Both sides held events on Saturday, more than 10 months into sustained protests against the right-wing populist government that were triggered by the collapse of a railway station roof in the northern city of Novi Sad, killing 16 people.

At first, the student-led protest movement sought justice for the victims and an investigation into the corruption said to have caused the tragedy. However, its demands then increased to calling for Vucic’s resignation.

Vucic, who dismisses the protesters as “terrorists”, has used his Serbian Progressive Party to recently organise counterdemonstrations in a bid to maintain his firm grip on power.

No major incidents were declared on Saturday, but brief scuffles were reported in the capital, Belgrade, where antigovernment demonstrators were pushed away by riot police as Vucic joined some of his supporters.

Earlier in the week, thousands gathered in Belgrade to protest against the government.

Addressing the crowd, Nikolina Sindjelic, a student who was arrested during protests in August, claimed she was mistreated in detention.

“They beat us because they are afraid of us,” she said, standing outside the headquarters of a special police unit.

“They have hit us and they will hit us because they know it is all over [for them],” Sindjelic added.

The government’s crackdown on the protest movement has increased in recent weeks, with demonstrators accusing the police of brutality.

So far, more than 100 university professors have been sacked by the authorities and replaced with Vucic loyalists.

“We have a problem in Belgrade,” European Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos said during a trip to Austria on September 8.

Terence Crawford has clinched a unanimous victory over Saul “Canelo” Alvarez to become the undisputed super middleweight champion in a thrilling contest at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.

Crawford set the pace from the start on Saturday night with a measured display that showcased his incredible hand speed and precise footwork, as the judges scored the fight 116-112, 115-113 and 115-113 in favour of the American.

The victory made Crawford the first male boxer to be crowned an undisputed champion in three different weight classes.

“I’m not here by coincidence. Canelo is a great champion. I have to take my hat off to him. He’s a great competitor, and I have great respect for him. He fought like a champion,” said Crawford, who was in tears after his win was announced.

Asked if he would fight again, he said: “I don’t know, I have to sit down with my team and we’ll talk about it.

“I want to say thank you to all the supporters and the haters. I appreciate you all. Shout out to my fans and those supporting Canelo. We get to go home to our children.”

With Alvarez and Crawford both having been recognised as the world’s top pound-for-pound boxers in the past, the fight always promised to be a boxing masterclass.

The pair delivered an entertaining battle that had more than 70,000 people in attendance and millions on Netflix watching with bated breath throughout the 12-round showcase.

Crawford, a former undisputed champion at both light welterweight and welterweight, as well as a four-division world champion, stepped up two weight classes for the bout.

He tipped the scales at a career-high 167.5 pounds (75.98 kg) at the weigh-in on Friday, the same as Alvarez, but that step-up did not appear to affect his mobility.

Keenly aware of his opponent’s superior power, Crawford was the better boxer for much of the bout and expertly neutralised Alvarez’s offence with a treacherous balancing act.

The 37-year-old maintained his distance as he flitted in and out of danger, landing flurries of blows on his opponent. The attritional assault by the smaller boxer put Alvarez on the back foot.

The Mexican champion connected with a few body shots early on, but after being outboxed throughout the first half, he threw caution to the wind and retaliated with brute force in search of a knockout.

That knockout never came.

If anything, Crawford only grew in confidence, landing devastating combinations and absorbing any punches that sneaked through his guard as he improved his record to 42-0 (31 knockouts) and kept his remarkable unbeaten streak alive.

For Alvarez, there was pride even in defeat.

“I’m a winner for being here. The fact I’m here makes me a winner. I take risks and that’s what I did,” the 35-year-old said.

“I feel great to share the ring with great fighters like him. If we do it again, then it’ll be great. I already accomplished a lot in boxing. My legacy is already there, and I like taking risks because I love boxing.”

This fight was already being compared with some of the greatest in Las Vegas’s rich history well before the two contestants tapped gloves.

Never in question was beating the attendance record for a Las Vegas fight – previously 29,214 in 1982 for heavyweight champion Larry Holmes’s 13th-round knockout of Gerry Cooney at Caesars Palace’s specially constructed outdoor stadium – would fall on this night.

But this fight’s impact went beyond Las Vegas. Because it was on Netflix rather than pay-per-view, promoters hoped the card would draw in viewing numbers not seen since perhaps the 1970s, when big-time bouts often were on broadcast networks.

This could be more the norm going forward now that UFC President and CEO Dana White is involved in boxing, this being his first card in collaboration with fellow promoter Riyadh Season.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) reached a seven-year deal with Paramount last month, choosing to put its product on the streaming service rather than the pay-per-view (PPV) model that combat sports have used for their most important events.

Meanwhile, on the undercard, Ireland’s Callum Walsh beat Fernando Vargas Jr, while super middleweights Christian Mbilli and Lester Martinez delivered a slugfest that ended in a draw.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s influential sister has condemned upcoming joint military exercises between the United States, Japan and South Korea, calling them “dangerous” and a “reckless show of strength”.

The comments by Kim Yo Jong, published by state media on Sunday, come a day before Seoul and its allies begin drills combining naval, air and missile defence exercises off South Korea’s Jeju Island.

The drills, called the “Freedom Edge”, will last through Friday.

Kim Yo Jong, who is vice department director of the North Korean governing party’s central committee, slammed the drills as a “dangerous idea”.

“This reminds us that the reckless display of power displayed by the US, Japan, and South Korea in the wrong places, namely around the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, will undoubtedly bring about negative consequences for themselves,” Kim Yo Jong said, using the official name for North Korea.

The statement follows a visit by her brother to weapons research facilities this week, where he said Pyongyang “would put forward the policy of simultaneously pushing forward the building of nuclear forces and conventional armed forces”.

North Korea perceives the trilateral drills as “scenarios for limited or full-scale nuclear strikes and attempts to neutralise its launch platforms”, Hong Min, a senior analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification, told the AFP news agency.

“The North is likely using the allied exercises as a pretext to push ahead with nuclear modernisation and conventional upgrades,” he added.

Aside from the trilateral exercises, the US and South Korea also plan to stage the “Iron Mace” tabletop exercises next week on integrating their conventional and nuclear capabilities against North Korea’s threats, South Korean local media reported.

South Korea hosts about 28,500 American soldiers in its territory.

“Iron Mace” will be the first such drills taking place under US President Donald Trump and newly elected South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, who have expressed willingness to resume dialogue with North Korea.

If “hostile forces” continue to boast about their power through those joint drills, North Korea will take countermeasures “more clearly and strongly”, North Korea’s top party official Pak Jong Chon said in a separate dispatch via the state news agency KCNA.

Since a failed summit with the US in 2019 on denuclearisation, North Korea has repeatedly said it will never give up its nuclear weapons and declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear state.

Kim Jong Un has been emboldened by the war in Ukraine, securing critical support from Russia after sending thousands of North Korean troops to fight alongside Moscow.

Andarlachak (Kunar), Afghanistan – Habib-ur Rahman led a simple life as a farmer in Loya Banda village, a few hours’ walk from the camp where he sought refuge in Diwa Gul valley in Chawkay district of eastern Afghanistan’s Kunar province.

The magnitude 6 earthquake, which struck the region on the night of August 31, was unlike any he had lived through before.

“In the past, when there was an earthquake, we had time to save ourselves. This time around, the shake was very powerful and so sudden that people didn’t even have the time to wake up from sleep. Those who woke up were either injured or stuck under the rubble. But many never woke up at all,” Rahman told Al Jazeera.

The picturesque valley, located some 30km (12 miles) from Kunar’s capital, Asadabad, is dotted with camps housing displaced people and ghost villages with homes destroyed so badly they are uninhabitable. Authorities say about 2,200 people were killed and more than 5,000 homes destroyed by the earthquake in eastern Afghanistan, most of them in Kunar.

The United Nations says half a million people have been affected. Local authorities say they have distributed more than 780 tents along the entire Diwa Gul valley so far.

The village next to the camp where Rahman found safety was home to some 200 families. Many of the houses are still standing, but authorities have called on people to move to the camps for their safety as aftershocks continue to rock the valley more than 10 days after the earthquake hit, and could cause further damage.

Farm animals roam the narrow alleys of Andarlachak, with villagers walking away from the camp only to give them water and feed them. For most people in the valley, the small plots of land and the animals are their only fortune.