What: Australian Open women’s singles final Where: Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne, Australia When: 7:30pm (08:30 GMT) on Saturday Follow Al Jazeera’s live build-up followed by our text and photo stream of the match.
In the Australian Open women’s singles final scheduled for Saturday, the irresistible Aryna Sabalenka and Madison Keys will clash in an unbreakable slugfest.
After dishing out a merciless straight-sets bludgeoning to her good friend, beaten semifinalist Paula Badosa praised defending champion Sabalenka as being “like she’s playing a PlayStation.”
The never-say-die American Keys, who will turn 30 next month, saved eight break points and a match point in a nerve-shredding final set against Iga Swiatek that went all the way to a 10-point tiebreak.
“Definitely some big-hitting. The powerful 19th seed Keys anticipated that would happen in the final. “Not a lot of long points”.
What is the head-to-head record between the women’s singles finalists?
Keys and Sabalenka have previously met five times, with the Belarusian winning four of them, most recently on Beijing’s hard courts last year. Keys’s sole win came on grass in Berlin in 2021.
“She’s playing incredible tennis”, said Sabalenka. “She’s a very aggressive player, serving well, moving well. She’s in great shape. It’s going to be a great battle. In the past, we have engaged in many important battles.
Aryna Sabalenka practises on court during day 13 ahead of the Australian Open final]Quinn Rooney/Getty Images]
What would Sabalenka’s three-peat at the Australian Open mean?
After Swiatek’s defeat, Sabalenka will continue to be the world’s number one, while Keys will undoubtedly return to the top 10 in the new rankings for the first time since 2019.
Both players have won 11 straight games in their respective warm-up matches, and both are in top form. Sabalenka, the modern-day queen of Melbourne Park, has won 20 straight matches on the famous blue hard courts.
If she achieves the age of 21, she will achieve a treble previously unheard of. Only four other women have won the three-peat in Melbourne, including Margaret Court, Evonne Goolagong, Steffi Graf, and Monica Seles, who was the last woman to do it in 1999.
Three consecutive wins at a Slam is a rare feat, which has only been attempted three times in this century.
Justine Henin won the treble at Roland Garros in 2007, and Iga Swiatek did it last year. Serena Williams won 23 Grand Slam singles titles between 2012 and 2014, but her only hat-trick came at the US Open.
Madison Keys of the United States overcame Iga Swiatek of Poland in the semifinal]Hannah Peters/Getty Images]
Keys has won how many Grand Slam championships?
Sabalenka will be in her fifth Slam final, Keys in only her second, having lost the 2017 US Open final 6-3, 6-0 to Sloane Stephens. After defeating Swiatek in a seesawing contest that lasted 2 hours 35 minutes, Keys, who broke down in tears, said, “I’ve obviously thought about that match endlessly for the past eight years.
“I never really gave myself a chance to play because I was so occupied with being anxious and the moment.” You can play tennis through that, which is something I’ve been working really hard on.
That is one of the most important lessons I can learn from the US Open final.
What’s the prize money?
The total prize money is $59.8m, a 12 percent increase from 2024.
The Australian Open will award a $ 2.16 million reward to champion singles teams, along with $ 510, 000 to men’s and women’s doubles champion teams.
The breakdown in the singles category (men and women) is:
Champions: $2.16m Runners-up: $1.17m Semifinalists: $0.68m Quarterfinalists: $412,242 Round of 16: $260,363 Third round: $179,759 Second round: $123,974 First round: $81,822
Aryna Sabalenka is targeting a third consecutive Australian Open title]Quinn Rooney/Getty Images]
The Australian Open tennis grand prix is available where?
The men’s and women’s singles finals will be broadcast live on Al Jazeera with live text and photo feeds.
In the second swap under the ceasefire in Gaza, Hamas has revealed the names of four Israeli female soldiers who will be freed in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
The list submitted by Hamas on Friday was sent to the Israeli Prime Minister’s office, according to the statement.
According to a brief statement from Abu Obeida, the spokesperson for Hamas’ armed wing, soldiers Liri Albag, Karina Ariev, Danielle Gilboa, and Naama Levy are scheduled to be released.
The exchange, expected to begin on Saturday afternoon, follows the release on Sunday, the ceasefire’s first day,  , of three Israeli women and 90 Palestinian prisoners, the first such exchange for more than a year.
According to officials, Israel agreed to release 50 Palestinian prisoners for every female soldier released during the first six-week phase of the Gaza ceasefire.
That suggests that the four Israelis would receive compensation for the release of 200 Palestinian prisoners this weekend.
However, some reports claimed that Israel had been anticipating the release of some civilians because the list did not comply with the terms of the ceasefire.
According to Hamduh Salut, an Al Jazeera correspondent from Amman, Jordan, “Israel wanted civilians to be released first, then soldiers, then those who were deemed to be extremely ill as part of this deal.”
Israel reported that 94 Israelis and foreigners have been detained in Gaza since the three women’s release on Sunday and the body of an Israeli soldier who has been missing for ten years.
The fighting was put to a stop for the first time since a truce that ended just a week in November 2023, thanks to months of on-off negotiations between Qatar and Egypt and support from the United States.
In exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners imprisoned in Israeli custody, Hamas has agreed to release 33 of its captives in the first phase.
After 15 months of fighting and Israeli bombardments, the two sides will negotiate the release of Gaza’s remaining captives.
Ghassan Alyeean says his initial reaction to the announcement of the Gaza ceasefire agreement on January 15 was relief that his countrymen’s systematic killings might finally end.
Alyeean was anticipating the release of 90 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for three Israeli captives as part of the ceasefire agreement, just like everyone else in the occupied West Bank.
However, Israeli soldiers descended on Alyeean’s Bethlehem home the following day, January 16, three days before the ceasefire was in effect, and abducted his 22-year-old son Adam. He was scheduled to take university exams in the coming days.
“They took him for no reason,” Alyeean, 60, told Al Jazeera over the phone. He or my family could not be saved, he said.
“We are not saboteurs,” he said, meaning they were not resisting or causing unrest.
According to Jenna Abu Hasna, a researcher with Addameer, a Palestinian civil society organization monitoring arrests and detentions in the occupied territory, Israel has detained at least 95 Palestinians in raids and at checkpoints across the West Bank without giving a damn, since the announcement of the Gaza ceasefire.
Many of them were detained within the week before the ceasefire, which started on January 19th, arrived.
Rights groups and prisoners’ families claim that Israel’s illegal occupation of the West Bank includes more illegal Israeli settlements, mass killings, injuries, and dispossession of civilians.
“We are currently dealing with a really challenging situation. We are treated as slaves … or even less than slaves,” said Alyeean, from his home.
Tool of repression
Since Israel captured and occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, Israel has imprisoned some 800,000 Palestinians across the occupied territory, according to the UN and B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organisation.
“[Mass incarceration] is part of the apartheid regime,” Sharon Parnes, spokesperson for B’Tselem, told Al Jazeera.
He continued, “It is part of trying to make Palestinian life miserable so that they want to leave.”
Addameer’s Abuhasna added that Israel has a track record of repressing Palestinians who have been released under “captive deals” in the past. Sometimes this occurs right away after a deal is finalized, sometimes months or even years later.
She made reference to the captive arrangement that led to the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit’s return after being taken prisoner by Hamas during a cross-border raid and brought back to Gaza in 2005.
In exchange for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners, including Yahya Sinwar, who was a part of the October 7 attacks and who Israel killed in Gaza in October of last year, Shalit was finally released five years later.
Hundreds of Palestinians who had been released under the Shalit deal were raided and rearrested by Israel three years later.
In the Negev Desert, Israel on January 10, 2025, a group of activists gather in front of the Sde Teiman prison and demand the release of Palestinians detained without charge.
In addition, according to Abuhasna, Israel has detained and rearrested hundreds of people in the West Bank since it entered a captivity agreement with Hamas during a tense period of negotiations in November 2023.
“The tactic of detaining Palestinians, even during an agreement or when a prisoner exchange is occurring is nothing new,” she told Al Jazeera.
She continued, adding, “As an occupation continues to hold Palestinians on the same day as prisoners are released and occasionally days or years later because it violates international law,” she continued.
A revolving door
Following the most recent captivity exchange on January 20, many Palestinian families have been able to welcome loved ones back home.
Mohamed Amro, a 55-year-old father of seven who lives in Hebron, said he was finally reunited with his 23-year-old daughter, Janin, who had been abducted in the middle of the night from the family’s home during an Israeli raid on December 3, 2023 – less than two months after the start of the war on Gaza.
He recalls the terrifying night’s events, which have become a regular occurrence for many Palestinians living in the West Bank.
According to Amro, the occupation soldiers stormed into the home, then abducted her from her bed.
Janin was held in administrative detention from 1920 until 1948, a process that was inherited from the United Kingdom’s colonial rule in Palestine. In that time, the UK frequently imprisoned Palestinian opposition fighters without justification, without trial, and on covert charges.
After expeling Palestinians from their land in 1948, Israel integrated this process into military courts rather than civilian courts where Israelis are tried in. This process is known as the Nakba, or “catastrophe.”
Amro claims that his daughter was abused in prison and that she is still unaware of any charges being brought against her. Janin slept and awoke every night on the cold floor from the moment she was taken until she was released. Her room was also really freezing … and she was constantly scared,” he said.
Threats and intimidation
Before the release of the Palestinian prisoners from the captive exchange, Amro was one of the hundreds of people in Beitounia, West Bank, for about ten hours.
The prisoners were supposed to be released around 4pm (14:00 GMT) in the late afternoon on January 19, but this was delayed until 2am (00:00 GMT) the next morning. When Janin staggered out, he saw her have lost a lot of weight and had dark bags under her eyes as a result of sleep deprivation.
After serving more than a year in prison, Amro quickly took his daughter home so she could rest and finally get a rest.
“She was traumatised,” Amro told Al Jazeera. She was unable to fully describe how she was being held in prison. ”
A freed Palestinian prisoner poses for a photo after being released from an Israeli jail as part of a hostages-prisoners swap and a ceasefire deal in Gaza between Hamas and Israel, in Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, January 20, 2025 [Ammar Awad/Reuters]
The next day, Israeli soldiers banged on Amro’s door and warned him not to have a party or celebrate Janin’s release, or else they would arrest her again.
He said he wouldn’t, but he still fears that Israeli soldiers will storm his home once more to arrest Janin or one of his other children.
Part of living under occupation, he explained, is realising that your loved ones can be arrested at any time for no obvious reason.
“There is a lot of fear right now because of the escalating situation in the West Bank,” he said, in resignation.
The president of Colombia has issued a decree granting him immediate authority to restore order in the region that has been racked by deadly hostilities between rival armed groups.
According to The Associated Press, Gustavo Petro has 270 days under his decree, which would normally necessitate congressional approval or require curfews, to be implemented, and to restrict traffic.
It applies to the rural Catatumbo region on Colombia’s northeastern border with Venezuela.
Since mid-January, there has been a rise in violence between the rebel-controlled National Liberation Army (ELN) and dissident rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which are battling for control of drug-trafficking routes.
At least 80 people have been killed, and more than 32, 000 have been forced to flee their homes in recent weeks, according to rights groups. Residents claim that the armed organizations are carrying out random attacks door to door.
Petro’s government announced last week that its peace negotiations with the ELN would be suspended due to the increase in Catatumbo-related violence.
The left-wing president, who took office in 2022, had pledged to bring “total peace” to the South American country after a decades-long conflict between the state, paramilitaries and rebel groups.
Petro has pushed for peace with the armed groups, and his approach has slowed the violence. However, there have continued to be rebel fighting and clashes with Colombia’s army.
In an effort to stop the recent violence, the government has sent countless soldiers to Catatumbo. On Wednesday, the office of Colombia’s attorney general also reissued arrest warrants for ELN leaders.
It claimed in a statement that it was “revoking the benefits of the national government’s recognition of the benefits of suspended arrest warrants for]the ELN’s representatives as spokespeople during negotiations.”
The ELN has said its offensive is directed at a group of former FARC rebels and the demobilized rebels who back them, but it has denied attacking civilians.
The FARC used to be the largest rebel group in the country, but after a 2016 peace deal largely dismantled the organisation, several groups splintered off. They have spoken with the Petro government about ending their conflict in recent months.
The government is being urged by human rights organizations to protect Catatumbo’s citizens.
“We call on the Colombian authorities to urgently take all necessary measures to protect civilians in the Catatumbo region, including human rights defenders”, said Amnesty International, warning of “growing threats of confinement, further killings, and enforced disappearances”.
Antonio Guterres, the head of the UN, expressed concern about the deteriorating situation this week.
According to his spokesman, Guterres called for “unhinged humanitarian access and an immediate cessation of violent acts against the civilian population.”
Many Catatumbo residents have fled to Venezuela or to Norte de Santander, a nearby region in Colombia.
displaced families, including mothers with young children, have been emigrating to Norte de Santander in droves, according to Adib Fletcher, senior regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean for the aid organization Project HOPE.
Families have fled their homes with only one or two bags, according to a statement released on Wednesday from Fletcher.
We are concerned about disease outbreaks and the local health system being put under more strain as people seek shelter in overcrowded areas.
Zilenia Pana, 48, fled the fighting with her eight- and 13-year-old children for the relative safety of Ocana, a small town in Norte de Santander.
Seeing “the dead bodies was sad, painful. That breaks your soul, your heart”, Pana told the AFP news agency.
A group of anti-apartheid activists were among the victims of one of the most gruesome murders ever committed in South Africa in 1985, and families of those who were killed by apartheid police are suing the government for compensation in the amount of $9 million.
25 survivors and victims’ families are suing President Cyril Ramaphosa and his government for what they claim was a failure to properly investigate and deliver justice in an apartheid-era case filed at the High Court in Pretoria on Monday.
Families of the “Cradock Four,” who were killed 40 years ago, are among the applicants. They have accused the government of “gross failure” to prosecute the six apartheid-era security officials allegedly responsible for the murders, and for “suppressing” inquiries into the case.
The four – Matthew Goniwe, Fort Calata, Sparrow Mkhonto, and Sicelo Mhlauli – were all anti-apartheid activists from the town of Cradock (now Nxuba) in the Eastern Cape province. They were kidnapped and murdered by police in 1985, causing rage among many Black South Africans, and turning the tide of the fight against racist rule.
However, their alleged killers have all passed away without justice being served.
What are the Cradock Four’s ties to the new case brought against the government thirty years after the end of apartheid?
After being sentenced by the apartheid regime on June 12, 1964, eight men, including Nelson Mandela, raise their fists in protest through the barred windows of the prison car.
What happened in 1985?
The four activists were well-known in the Cradock neighborhood for battling the gruesome conditions that Black South Africans endured, including high rent and poor health care. Mathew Goniwe, in particular, was a popular figure and led the Cradock Youth Association (CRADORA). A key component of the group was also Fort Calata.
Prior to the assassinations, apartheid police officers regularly searched CRADORA and detained members like Goniwe and Calata. Officials had also attempted to split them up: Goniwe, a public school teacher, was transferred to another region to teach, for example, but refused to work there and was fired by the education department.
The four were traveling in a vehicle together on June 27, 1985, having just finished rural mobilization work on the city’s outskirts. At a roadblock outside Gqeberha, which was then known as Port Elizabeth, police officers stopped them. The men’s bodies were burned and dispersed throughout Gqeberha after being abducted and assaulted.
Their deaths sparked Black South Africans’ grief and rage, and they also sparked a significant rise in anti-apartheid activism. Their funeral was attended by dozens of people. With their names on T-shirts and posters, The Craddock Four became household names.
Officials from the apartheid government denied involvement in the killings. The four were killed by “unknown persons,” according to a 1987 court inquest into the case.
However, in 1992, documents that were leaked revealed that Goniwe and Calata, members of the Civil Cooperation Bureau, a government death squad, were on their list of targets. Then-President FW de Klerk called for another inquiry, in which a judge confirmed that the security forces were responsible, although no names were mentioned.
What findings did the TRC make, and why do families feel violated?
Following the fall of apartheid and the ushering in of democratic rule in 1994, the unity government led by the African National Congress (ANC) party launched a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in 1996 to investigate, prosecute, or pardon apartheid-era crimes.
The Cradock Four case was one of those reviewed. The commission investigated six police officials who were allegedly , involved. Namely: officers Eric Alexander Taylor, Gerhardus Johannes Lotz, Nicolaas Janse van Rensburg, Johan van Zyl, Hermanus Barend du Plessis, and Colonel Harold Snyman, who is believed to have ordered the killings. By the time of the hearings, Snyman had passed away.
The court ordered the inquiries into hundreds of others, including the Cradock Four’s murderers, whose amnesty was denied, despite the court’s earlier pardons of numerous political criminals. Officials said the men failed to make a “full disclosure” about the circumstances of the killings. To be eligible for a pardon, accused perpetrators were required to fully disclose the events they were involved in by the TRC.
The Cradock Four’s family members at the time expressed their satisfaction with the decision, believing that the South African government would then pursue the accused men. However, successive governments, from former President Thabo Mbeki (1999-2008) to Ramaphosa, have not concluded the investigations, despite the ANC, which helped usher in democracy under Nelson Mandela, having always been in power. Presently, all six accused officials have passed away, with the last man dying in May 2023.
In 2021, the Cradock Four families first sued the nation’s National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and the South African police, demanding that the court order them to finish their investigations and decide whether the case would be tried in court. Officials did not reopen another investigation until January 2024, which was several months after the last accused official’s passing. Beginning in June 2025, proceedings are scheduled to begin.
To avoid being prosecuted, ANC critics have long alleged that there was a secret agreement between the post-apartheid government and the former white minority government. In 2021, a former NPA official testified to the Supreme Court in a separate case that Mbeki’s administration intervened in the TRC process, and “suppressed” prosecutions in more than 400 cases.
Mbeki denies those allegations. In a statement from March 2024, he said, “We never harmed the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) in its operations.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission had requested that the executive not stop the prosecution from pursuing the cases brought before them. If the investigations referred to were stopped, the NPA did not do so at the government’s discretion.
What is the new court case about?
In the new case, victims’ families joined those of the Cradock Four in suing the government for failing to properly investigate their cases. The suit specifically named President Ramaphosa, the justice and police ministers, the head of the NPA and the national police commissioner.
The families are seeking “constitutional damages” to the tune of 167 million rand ($9m), for the “egregious violations” of their rights. In the case of the four Cradock activists, relatives said because government officials delayed prosecution, all the accused officers have died, ensuring that no criminal prosecution would be possible, denying the families “justice, truth and closure”.
Additionally, the families requested that President Ramaphosa appoint an independent commission of inquiry into alleged government interference while he was in office.
Odette Geldenhuys, a lawyer at Webber Wentzel, the firm representing the families in the lawsuit, told Al Jazeera the damages, if granted, would serve as an “alternative” form of justice.
According to Geldenhuys, “over the past 20 years, both victims and families of victims and perpetrators have died.” “The criminal law is clear: a dead body cannot be prosecuted. The ongoing and generational pain will be addressed in some way by alternative justice.
The funds would be available to all other victims and survivors of apartheid-era political crimes, and would be used for further investigations, memorials and public education, Geldenhuys added.
Protesters are dispersed by tear gas fired by apartheid police, August 17, 1990]John Parkin/AP]
Why is South Africa interested in the case?
The Cradock Four were important figures during the apartheid era, but the fact that their deaths were never fully prosecuted, has held the interest of many South Africans, particularly amid allegations of the post-apartheid government’s complicity.
The left-wing opposition Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party sided with the victims’ families and claimed that the ANC government had released convicted murderers, including former assassin Colonel Eugene de Kock, who was sentenced to life in 2015 but was granted parole while serving the Ramaphosa regime.
“The ANC’s handling of apartheid-era violence cases has always been suspiciously lenient”, the EFF’s statement read. It is unacceptable that these families still don’t have any closure or hope for the future of their loved ones after 30 years of apartheid.
In addition to the TRC process, there were a number of other cases that weren’t fully investigated after the lawsuit was filed on Monday. For instance, Housing Minister Thembi Nkadimeng is one of the applicants in the most recent case. Apartheid security forces allegedly tortured and abducted her sister Nokuthula Simelane, who was killed in 1983.
The new case includes survivors of the 1993 Highgate Hotel Massacre in East London, when five masked men shot at people there and stormed into the bar there. Five people were killed, but survivors Neville Beling and Karl Weber, who were injured in the shooting, joined Monday’s suit. No one was ever arrested or investigated. An official investigation started in 2023, and the proceedings will begin this month.
In total, the case could see the deaths of nearly 30 people newly investigated. However, several perpetrators are likely to have passed away.
As Arsenal prepares to sign a striker before the January transfer window expires, manager Mikel Arteta claims he is consulting his players regarding potential new signings.
As they attempt to catch Premier League leaders Liverpool, the Gunners’ lack of goal-scoring threat has raised concerns. The forwards Gabriel Jesus and Bukayo Saka are both suffering serious injuries.
The only team in the top six of the Premier League without a double-award scorer is Arsenal. With eight goals in the top flight this season, Kai Havertz is the team’s top scorer.
Gunners boss Arteta was questioned on Friday about the need for reinforcements in advance of his side’s Saturday game against struggling Wolves. “We lost two very, very important players, Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Jesus, so we lack goals, we lack people, we lack options in the front line. It’s clear”, he said.
“If we can get the right player, that’s what we are actively looking at. Any player? No, someone who improves and strengthens our team.
Arsenal’s Bukayo Saka, centre, was injured at Crystal Palace, where he was comforted by Gabriel Jesus, right, who has since joined him on the sidelines]Alex Pantling/Getty Images]
Arteta added that the transfer window needs to close at 23:00 GMT on February 3 because the country is already very short and that it needs even shorter. However, the team manages that. What is best for the club must we do.
The Spaniard said he consults with his players about potential signings because they frequently have valuable information that builds on computer data.
How has this player responded to his lack of six or seven game goals? This is what I’m interested in”, he said. “Watch an interview with a player who hasn’t scored for six games, then what kinds of goals has he scored, against which teams, in what contexts.
” Is it the first half, the second half? Is it only right foot. Is it headers? Always only in open spaces? Does he enjoy this league’s physical contact? When a player has spent a lot of days with him, that’s really helpful information to have because there are many things. I always do it. “
The Premier League table after Matchweek 22 ???? pic. twitter.com/SprwFXd21F
Arteta believes Arsenal, who have finished as runners-up to Manchester City for the past two seasons, are realistic title challengers to Liverpool, who are six points clear at the top with a game in hand.
Last weekend, Arne Slot’s side scored two goals in stoppage time to beat Brentford , while Arsenal blew a 2-0 lead in their draw against Aston Villa.
” The margins are really, really small, “Arteta said”. You could see how things could have gone last weekend, and the turning points are minimal, and the gap certainly looks very different.
“We have to be at it. We have to do what’s in our hands, and there’s still a long, long way to go”.
