Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz moves to Williams for 2025 F1 season
In a surprise move, Carlos Sainz, a three-time Grand Prix winner with Ferrari, signed a two-year deal with UK-based Williams Racing. Formula One driver Carlos Sainz has signed with Williams Racing for the 2025 and 2026 seasons. The Spaniard is in his final season at Ferrari and currently ranks fifth in the Formula One (F1) driver standings. “I am very happy to announce that I will be joining Williams Racing from 2025 onwards,” Sainz said on Monday. “It is no secret that this year’s driver market has been exceptionally complex for various reasons and that it has taken me some time to announce my decision. “However, I am fully confident that Williams is the right place for me to continue my F1 journey and I am extremely proud of joining such a historic and successful team, where many of my childhood heroes drove in the past and made their mark on our sport. The ultimate goal of bringing Williams back to where it belongs, at the front of the grid, is a challenge that I embrace with excitement and positivity,” he said. Sainz collected his third career F1 win at the Australian Grand Prix in March. He also has four third-place finishes this season, most recently at the Austrian Grand Prix on June 30. The 29-year-old replaces Logan Sargeant and will race alongside Alex Albon at Williams. Seven-time F1 champion Lewis Hamilton is replacing Sainz at Ferrari. Sainz, who had also been of interest to Sauber/Audi and Renault-owned Alpine, said he was convinced Williams had “all the right ingredients to make history again”. Spain’s Carlos Sainz was widely expected to join the new Sauber/Audi team before Monday’s Williams announcement [Kym Illman/Getty Images] Adblock test (Why?)
After Golan Heights attack, will the Israel-Hezbollah conflict escalate?
Israel is gearing up to launch a major attack on Lebanon after a deadly rocket strike in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, but it is unlikely to want to trigger an all-out war with Hezbollah, analysts say. Israel blames the Lebanese armed group for firing a projectile on Saturday that hit a football pitch and killed 12 children and young people in the Druze town of Majdal Shams. While Hezbollah has denied responsibility for the attack, Israel has said the group has crossed a “red line” and will pay a “heavy price” for the incident. “[The projectile] was clearly a mistake, and Hezbollah is not interested in targeting Druze, but Hezbollah was hitting Israeli positions about 2.5km [1.5 miles] away from Majdal Shams, so it is possible that it made a targeting error,” said Nicholas Blanford, an expert on Hezbollah with the Atlantic Council think tank. Israel and Hezbollah have been fighting a low-scale conflict since the Hamas-led attacks on communities and military outposts in southern Israel on October 7. Hezbollah has repeatedly said it would end attacks on Israel if a ceasefire is reached in Gaza, where Israel’s war has killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians. So what does the attack in the Golan Heights mean for a possible escalation between Hezbollah and Israel? After the occupied Golan Heights attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delayed the departure of 150 Palestinian children from Gaza to the UAE for medical treatment on July 28, 2024, including Lamis Abu Selim, who suffers from scoliosis and had waited with her mother for evacuation [Ramadan Abed/Reuters] Drumming up support Israel appears to be using the attack to rally domestic and international support for a major strike on Lebanon, according to analysts. On Israel’s official X page, an image of the Israeli and Druze flags was posted with the caption: “We are all Druze.” Another post read, “They take babies hostage. They shoot rockets at homes. Hezbollah, Hamas the Houthis. They are all Iran.” The three groups are among those in the region that are aligned with Iran. While they are described as being part of an Iran-backed “axis of resistance”, each group grew out of conflicts specific to its respective context and has its own interests. After the Majdal Shams attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday postponed the departure of 150 sick and wounded children in Gaza who were supposed to receive medical treatment in the United Arab Emirates, according to local Israeli media. On X, Physicians for Human Rights – Israel called the delay “cruel and dangerous” and said the deaths of the 12 young people in Majdal Shams “must not be exploited for cynical political motives”. It continued: “This evacuation delay once more exposes Israel’s disregard for the lives of children and innocent civilians in Gaza. Vengeance is not a legitimate policy.” But even as Israel continues to devastate Gaza, analysts believe it will try to minimise civilian casualties with its strike on Lebanon out of fear of sparking a broader conflict that it can’t contain. “The fact that the victims [in Majdal Shams] were all children and teenagers gives them an emotional [weight], but I don’t think the Israelis want to escalate,” Blanford told Al Jazeera. Smoke rises after an Israeli air strike in the southern Lebanese border village of Chihine on July 28, 2024 [Kawnat Haju/AFP] ‘Now is not the time’ Israel’s top army generals are increasingly at odds with Netanyahu over the war on Gaza and the conflict against Hezbollah in Lebanon. In June, Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari said, “Whoever thinks we can eliminate Hamas is wrong.” Netanyahu has long said that Israel’s goal in Gaza is to eradicate the armed group. Waging an all-out war against Hezbollah, a force that many analysts consider Israel’s toughest foe in the region, is an even taller task, said Mairav Zonszein, a senior Israel-Palestine analyst for the International Crisis Group. “I think Israelis overall believe that at some point Israel and Hezbollah will have a major war, but the question is when and how and under what conditions,” she told Al Jazeera. “[Most] Israelis believe now is not the time,” she added. Israel’s army is already struggling to muster enough soldiers to continue its war on Gaza. Many reservists are not reporting for duty while Israel has also reported shortages of military equipment and munitions. The United States has also signalled it does not want to see a wider conflict. Zonszein said Netanyahu – or Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who may have more influence on a decision to go to war – don’t want an all-out war. But, she said, if they think they can conduct a major strike on Lebanon without triggering a significant escalation, they might be underestimating the risks. “The entire thing is extremely problematic, and the most responsible and sensible thing is to get a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza, which would de-escalate things immediately [on Israel’s border with Lebanon] in the north,” Zonszein said. Hezbollah’s options Hezbollah will likely show some restraint to a major Israeli strike but would aim to strike back “proportionately,” Blanford said. He noted that from Hezbollah’s perspective, it has done nothing wrong to warrant an escalation from Israel and its response will depend on Israel’s strike. Israel, he said, could target senior Hezbollah commanders or even strike Dahiya, a Beirut suburb and Hezbollah stronghold. “If Israel were to hit Dahiya, then it wouldn’t surprise me if Hezbollah responded with one or two missiles going to [the Israeli city] Haifa [for example]. But the response would be proportionate with the overall goal of dialling things down,” he told Al Jazeera. Imad Salamey, a political scientist at the Lebanese American University, added that Hezbollah’s long-term strategy remains tied to Gaza and the group is unlikely to sign a ceasefire agreement with Israel until a settlement is reached there. He believes Hezbollah may already be preparing for a post-conflict scenario by agreeing to abide by United Nations Resolution 1701, which was passed
Surging demand, soaring price tags lead to fake Ozempic doses
Around the globe, the growing class of weight loss drugs called GLP-1 agonists has been a game-changer. This includes the blockbuster drug semaglutide, better known by its brand names Ozempic and the more potent Wegovy. These have helped people lose weight, feel more confident and be healthier. But a surge in demand and a high price tag have led to a rise in counterfeit versions of the drugs – causing hospitalisations around the world. That includes Mike Benson of Chicago, who fell into a coma after taking a counterfeit version of Ozempic. Benson, who on the advice of counsel declined to comment, told a local TV station in January, “I don’t know that I’ve ever felt that way in my life. I had thought this could be the end.” Michelle Sword, a mother of two living in Oxfordshire, England, had hypoglycemia and seizures, requiring her to be hospitalised. With multiple such incidents, regulators are concerned both on account of the counterfeit medications but also about what is causing consumers to take this risk. In May, United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials seized 11 shipments of counterfeit versions of Ozempic at an airport in Cincinnati, Ohio – one of the nation’s key operations hubs. The federal agency intercepted the illicit medications from Colombia. The shipments of more than 100 injections each were bound for locations across the US ranging from New York to Texas. The CBP said the seizure was valued at roughly $887,000. A similar situation unfolded at Chicago O’Hare International Airport last month. Nearly 10,000km (4,000 miles) away in Lebanon, Beirut, suspected fake Ozempic vials accounted for almost a dozen instances of dangerously low blood sugar in patients, including one case that required hospitalisation in November. In October, British officials seized counterfeit versions of the medication that were imported from “legitimate” suppliers in Germany and Austria, signalling the challenge is coming from down the supply chain. This month, Austrian courts announced they would pursue legal action against a seller who provided fake doses to a plastic surgeon in Salzburg. That echoes a report late last month from Vanity Fair magazine that said some counterfeit doses ended up in the hands of legitimate medical practices without their knowledge. There have been similar reports out of Brazil and Russia. “I have a lot of concerns because not all of my patients can get these medications, and people really want them and they feel desperate about it,” said Dr Melanie Jay, director of the Comprehensive Program on Obesity at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine. “There’s all this advertising for other places where you can get it for a lot cheaper, and it’s impossible to know how safe these alternatives are,” she added. Cybersecurity firm McAfee found hundreds of fake listings selling Ozempic doses on Craigslist. The firm also discovered examples of scammers impersonating doctors on Facebook. McAfee says often if these scammers do deliver on their promises, they send fake versions of the medication, which include pens filled with saline solution and EpiPens. Consumers have also turned to Reddit groups like the since-banned Ozempic Source USA, in which consumers often sold doses to each other. Last year, Al Jazeera found that patients could order these drugs from online pharmacies without any doctor consultations. Last month, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned about the “unpredictable range of health risks or complications” from falsified medicines. “You have something that could be toxic, whether it’s contaminated or whether they put insulin in it, and the person’s up in the hospital,” Jay said. “There have been shortages. There are bad actors who’ve been trying to take advantage of the situation,” Dr Bruce Y Lee, professor of health policy at the Graduate School of Public Health at the City University of New York, told Al Jazeera. But with the growing necessity for some people and vanity for others, patients are at the mercy of Novo Nordisk, both in terms of availability and the price they pay for these drugs. In its first-quarter earnings report released in May, the Danish company said semaglutide sales more than doubled in the first quarter alone. Prohibitive costs Seventy-one percent of Novo Nordisk’s GLP-1 agonist medications have been sold in the US. Novo Nordisk charges Americans an average of $936 for a month’s supply, more than five times higher than the closest peer nation – Japan at $169. Novo Nordisk has struggled to meet explosive demand for its weight loss drugs in the past few years [File: Tom Little/Reuters] “The cost of the medication can be problematic or even prohibitive for a number of different people, and whenever you have a situation like this, you’re more likely to have a secondary market where people are hawking counterfeit versions,” Lee said. The cost has fuelled some concerns in Washington with Senator Bernie Sanders calling Novo Nordisk’s price tag “outrageous”. In June, Novo Nordisk agreed to testify to Congress in September amid pressure from Sanders. Supply is still low. Injections of semaglutide have been in short supply since March 2022 because of a combination of factors, including explosive demand in the past few years and the company struggling to make headway with production demands. The Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which Sanders chairs, released a scathing report that suggests the prices for Novo Nordisk’s weight loss drugs have the power to bankrupt the entire US healthcare system, including Medicare and Medicaid. Novo Nordisk has attributed its prices to the high cost of drug development, yet it still charges less in other countries – including the equivalent of $186 a month in Denmark – for the drug. Ozempic’s success has made Novo Nordisk the most valuable company in Europe with a market capitalization of $570bn, making it bigger than the entire Danish economy. “That is not making a reasonable return on investment. That is price gouging. That is corporate greed,” Sanders said in June. “And if Novo Nordisk does not end its greed, we have a responsibility to
North Korea mobilises military for flood rescue
North Korea has deployed military helicopters to bring thousands of people stranded in a flood-hit zone to safety. The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Monday that leader Kim Jong Un “personally guided” a military rescue – comprising 10 helicopters and naval lifeboats – shaking the hands of the pilots “one by one”. However, Kim also reprimanded officials for their failure to prepare and respond to the recent torrential rains despite previous orders to enhance the country’s measures against natural disasters, the state media outlet said. Last week, North Korea conducted a crisis response meeting to discuss strategies to mitigate the impact of natural disasters on agriculture. North Korea has been enduring record-breaking downpours. On one day in July, Kaesong City experienced an unprecedented 463mm (18.2 inches) of rain. South Korea’s meteorological administration said it was the highest volume of rainfall recorded in the North in 29 years. Natural disasters tend to have a greater impact on the isolated and impoverished North due to its weak infrastructure, while deforestation has left the country vulnerable to flooding. It has been working to try to prevent floods. The release of water from a dam near the border recently raised concern in Seoul. South Korea’s Ministry of Environment said in early July that North Korea had likely discharged water from the Hwanggang Dam near the inter-Korean border without prior notification, something they have not done in recent years. Relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points in years. Pyongyang unilaterally cut off all official military and political communication links with Seoul in 2020 and blew up a disused inter-Korean liaison office on its side of the border. It has not been responding to inter-Korean hotline calls since April 2023. Adblock test (Why?)
UK’s finance chief accuses previous gov’t of multibillion-pound ‘cover up’
The United Kingdom’s new chancellor of the exchequer is accusing the previous government of covering up the dire state of the nation’s finances as she prepares to deliver a speech to Parliament that is widely expected to lay the groundwork for spending cuts and higher taxes. In extracts of her speech released late on Sunday, Rachel Reeves professed shock at the scale of the problems she discovered following a department-by-department review of public spending commissioned shortly after she took office three weeks ago. While the excerpts included no figures, Reeves is expected to outline a 20 billion-pound ($26bn) shortfall in public finances. “It is time to level with the public and tell them the truth,’’ Reeves will tell the House of Commons. “The previous government refused to take the difficult decisions. They covered up the true state of the public finances. And then they ran away.’’ Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s left-leaning Labour Party won a landslide election victory earlier this month, ending 14 years of Conservative Party rule. During the campaign, critics accused both parties of a “conspiracy of silence” over the scale of the financial challenges facing the next government. Labour pledged during the campaign that it would not raise taxes on “working people”, saying its policies would deliver faster economic growth and generate the additional revenue needed by the government. The Conservatives, meanwhile, promised further tax cuts in the autumn if they were returned to office. As proof that the previous government was not honest about the challenges facing the UK, Starmer’s office highlighted recent comments from former Treasury chief Jeremy Hunt confirming that he would not have been able to cut taxes this year if the Conservatives had been returned to power. Those comments came in an interview with the BBC in which Hunt also accused Labour of exaggerating the situation to justify raising taxes now that they have won the election. “The reason we’re getting all this spin about this terrible economic inheritance is because Labour wants to raise taxes,” Hunt said on July 21. “If they wanted to raise taxes, all the numbers were crystal clear before the election … They should have levelled with the British public.” The extracts of Reeves’s speech did not mention potential tax increases, though analysts speculate that any such measures will not be introduced until the government unveils its budget later this year. Instead, Reeves focused on efforts to rein in spending, saying a new office will immediately begin identifying “wasteful spending”. She also plans to stop non-essential spending on consultants and sell off surplus property. While Reeves has not yet published the details of her audit, Starmer’s office on Sunday released an overview of what it revealed. Those findings led the government to accuse the Conservatives of making significant funding commitments for this financial year “without knowing where the money would come from”. It argued that the military had been “hollowed out” at a time of increasing global threats and the National Health Service was “broken”, with some 7.6 million people waiting for care. And despite billions spent to house migrants and combat the criminal gangs ferrying migrants across the English Channel on dangerous inflatable boats, the number of people making the crossing is still rising, Starmer’s office said. Some 15,832 people have crossed the Channel on small boats already this year, 9 percent more than during the same period in 2023. “The assessment will show that the UK is broke and broken — revealing the mess that populist politics has made of the economy and public services,” Downing Street said in a statement. The quandary the government finds itself in should be no surprise, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, an independent think tank focused on Britain’s economic policies. At the start of the election campaign, the institute said the UK was in a “parlous fiscal position” and the new government would have to either raise taxes, cut spending or relax the rules on public borrowing. “For a party to enter office and then declare that things are ‘worse than expected’ would be fundamentally dishonest,” the IFS said on May 25. “The next government does not need to enter office to ‘open the books’. Those books are transparently published and available for all to inspect.” Adblock test (Why?)
Shot in the eyes, victims of Bangladesh protest violence face dark future
Dhaka, Bangladesh — Within the sterile walls of the National Institute of Ophthalmology and Hospital (NIOH) in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka, a sombre scene unfolds. Dozens of young men, their faces etched with worry and uncertainty, sit in silent anticipation. Some shield their injured eyes behind dark sunglasses. Others wear white bandages on one or both eyes. One question hangs in the air: Will these men ever see the world clearly again? They are victims of pellet injuries — both survivors and reminders of the deadly clashes between protesters seeking job quota reforms and the security forces of Bangladesh that engulfed the nation of 170 million people for nearly two weeks this month. Among them is Mohammad Anik, a 24-year-old salesperson from Madaripur – a central district some 150km (93 miles) away from Dhaka. “There is a less than 50 percent chance that he [Anik] will get his eyesight back,” said a duty doctor at NIOH who requested anonymity. “There were several injuries in his two eyes and we had tried our best.” Last Monday, Anik was heading home from work when he got caught in a street clash between protesters and police. Before he could figure out what was happening, a pellet struck his face. He fell to the ground, unconscious and exposed, until bystanders intervened and took him to the hospital. Now, he finds himself amid the dozens of young men at NIOH, their futures shrouded in darkness. Hundreds of patients of pellet guns injury The NIOH has treated nearly 500 patients in the last few days, hailing from various districts including Dhaka, all grappling with severe eye injuries. Hospital records reveal that at least 278 of these individuals also sustained wounds to other parts of their bodies. Mohammad Shamim, a 10-year-old who worked at a motorcycle workshop, sustained pellet injuries to both eyes during a clash between police and protesters last Friday in the Mirpur area of the capital. Doctors have said he will never fully recover his vision. “My son’s future looks grim. What am I going to do with him?” lamented his father, Mohammad Idris. NIOH’s director, Golam Mostafa, confirmed that shotgun pellets used during the anti-quota protests were the primary cause of the injuries. “In cases where the pellet embeds itself in the retina’s centre or is forcefully ejected upon impact, partial blindness becomes the tragic outcome,” he said. Researchers who looked at pellet injuries to protesters in Indian-administered Kashmir have previously found [PDF] that when fired at close range, the pellets lack sufficient time to disperse, resulting in a concentrated cluster that moves at incredibly high speeds. This concentrated force transforms the pellets into projectiles akin to handgun bullets, capable of piercing deep into soft tissues, particularly the eyes, causing extensive and irreversible damage. The devastating impact of pellet guns on eyesight hinges on the velocity and distance at which the pellets are fired, the study explained. The severity of these injuries has prompted international condemnation, with Amnesty International calling for a ban on their use for crowd control in Indian-administered Kashmir a few years ago. Violation of UN-issued guidance The United Nations has warned against using metal pellets, like those expelled from shotguns, in law enforcement, arguing that they are inherently inaccurate and often violate the principles of necessity and proportionality. Bangladeshi police and security forces however have resorted to using 12-gauge pump-action shotguns loaded with cartridges containing these very metal pellets, a number of security analysts told Al Jazeera after analysing several photos and footage. Al Jazeera telephoned and sent text messages to Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan and several top officials from the police forces but received no response. Salim Mahmud, secretary of information and research of the ruling Awami League party, told Al Jazeera that he had to “check with the police and paramilitary forces” whether “any lethal weapon” was used against the protesters. Meanwhile, the US-based Human Rights Watch has accused Bangladesh’s security forces of using excessive force during the protests. Their findings reveal the use of live ammunition, tear gas, stun grenades, rubber bullets, and shotgun pellets to disperse demonstrators. Amnesty International has also raised similar concerns. Those who sustained eye injuries during the recent anti-quota protests, along with their families, claim that the police used indiscriminate force, firing at them without restraint. Rakibul Ahsan from the southern district of Barisal was part of the protests. A fourth-year statistics student at BM College, Ahsan was on the streets with his classmates last Tuesday when he was shot in both eyes. Doctors have not assured him of a full recovery. “We were protesting for a legitimate cause and were shot at for it. There is no justice here,” Ahsan lamented. Sumon Mia, a mason from Madaripur who shared a hospital ward with salesman Anik, was also struck by a pellet in his right eye. But unlike Ahsan, and like Anik, he was not involved in the agitation against the government — he was simply heading home from work. Despite a surgery, doctors couldn’t save that eye — his vision is lost. “My brother wasn’t involved in any protests. Why was he shot? Who will be held accountable for this?” his sister, Lipi Akter, asked. Adblock test (Why?)
US election 2024: Kamala Harris campaign raises $200m in a week
Harris has quickly coalesced Democratic support after President Joe Biden announced his exit from the November 5 election. US Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign has raised $200m since President Joe Biden announced his exit from the presidential election race and endorsed her as his successor. The campaign, which announced its latest fundraising total on Sunday, said the bulk of the donations — 66 percent — came from first-time contributors in the 2024 election cycle. Over 170,000 volunteers have also signed up to help the Harris campaign with phone banking, canvassing and other get-out-the-vote efforts. “The momentum and energy for Vice President Harris is real — and so are the fundamentals of this race: this election will be very close and decided by a small number of voters in just a few states,” Michael Tyler, the campaign’s communications director, wrote in a memo. Donald Trump’s campaign said in early July that it raised $331m in the second quarter, topping the $264m that Biden’s campaign and its Democratic allies raised in the same period. Trump’s campaign had $284.9m in cash on hand at the end of June while the Democratic campaign had $240m in cash on hand at the time. ‘Close race’ Harris quickly coalesced Democratic support after Biden, whose candidacy fizzled following his disastrous June 27 debate performance against Trump, exited the race. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, former House Minority Whip Jim Clyburn, former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were quick to announce their support. Prodigious Democratic fundraisers former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama announced their endorsement on Friday. The Democratic National Convention next month will, however, decide if Harris will become the party’s nominee. At her Saturday fundraiser, Harris said she remained the “underdog” in the race but that her campaign was picking up steam. Her takeover has re-energised a campaign that had faltered badly amid Democrats’ doubts about Biden’s chances of defeating Trump or his ability to continue to govern had he won. Meanwhile, in his campaign appearance in St Cloud, Minnesota on Saturday, Trump called Harris a “crazy liberal,” and accused her of wanting to “defund the police” and said she was an “absolute radical” on abortion. Polls over the past week have shown Harris and Trump essentially tied, setting the stage for a close-fought campaign over the 100 days left until the election. On Sunday, Mitch Landrieu, a campaign co-chair, said on MSNBC that Harris “had one of the best weeks that we’ve seen in politics in the last 50 years”. “This is going to be a very close race,” he said. Adblock test (Why?)
Wade Davis: US social and political landscape points to decay
Canadian-American social anthropologist Wade Davis says the US empire is showing major signs of decay. In an interview recorded days before United States President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race, Canadian-American social anthropologist Wade Davis argues that both Biden and his rival Donald Trump “ought to have stepped off the stage a long time ago”. Davis tells host Steve Clemons that there is no question that the 20th century was the American century, but the question now is, “Who’s going to rule in the next century?” With Americans on the left and right demonising each other, there is no room for a middle ground, and the country has become unrecognisable to many Americans, says Davis. Adblock test (Why?)
Mali rebels claim major victory over army, Russian mercenaries
Tuareg separatists say they ‘obliterated’ enemy columns and seized a large amount of equipment and weapons. A mainly Tuareg separatist coalition has claimed a major victory over Mali’s army and its Russian allies following three days of intense fighting in a district on the Algerian border. “Our forces decisively obliterated these enemy columns on Saturday,” said a statement by Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane, spokesman for the Permanent Strategic Framework for Peace, Security and Development (CSP-PSD) alliance on Sunday. “A large amount of equipment and weapons were seized or damaged”, and prisoners were taken, the statement said, adding that seven rebels were killed and 12 wounded in the fighting in the Tinzaouatene district. Mali’s military rulers, led by Colonel Assimi Goita, took power in 2020 and turned to Russia’s Wagner Group of mercenaries for security assistance, after expelling French forces in 2022. The Tuareg are an ethnic group who have been fighting for independence since 2012. Large-scale fighting broke out on Thursday between the West African nation’s army and the separatists in Tinzaouatene after the army announced it had retaken control of several districts. Tinzaouatene is almost entirely surrounded by Algerian territory and has been the scene of other battles between separatist forces and the army over the past decade. The CSP-PSD also said it damaged a helicopter, which crashed in Kidal, a rebel stronghold. Separatist groups lost control of several districts in 2023 after an offensive that saw forces from the military government take Kidal. The Malian army said in statements that two soldiers had been killed and 10 injured. One of its helicopters crashed in Kidal on Friday while on a routine mission, but no one was killed, it said. Adama Gaye, a journalist, author and former director of the Economic Community of West African States, told Al Jazeera on Sunday that Tuareg forces could be receiving outside help, including from the French military and regional armed groups with “allegiance to al-Qaeda”. Wagner fighters reportedly involved In some of the videos shared by the rebels with the AFP news agency, white soldiers were visible among the prisoners, the agency said in a report on Sunday. A local official and a former worker with the United Nations mission in Kidal told AFP the Malian army had retreated with at least 15 fighters from Russia’s Wagner Group killed or arrested. Mossa Ag Inzoma, a member of the separatist movement, claimed that “dozens” of Wagner fighters and soldiers had been killed or taken prisoner. Several Russian military bloggers reported that at least 20 from the Wagner Group were killed in an ambush near the Algerian border. “Employees of the Wagner PMC [Group], who were moving in a convoy with government troops, were killed in Mali … Some were captured,” said a prominent Russian military blogger Semyon Pegov, who uses the name War Gonzo. The Baza Telegram news channel, which has links to Russia’s security structures, reported that at least 20 Wagner fighters have been killed. Al Jazeera could not independently verify the blogger’s or the AFP’s reports. Mali has said Russian forces are not Wagner mercenaries, but trainers helping local troops with equipment bought from Russia. Baza’s report said on Sunday that Wagner fighters have been in Mali since at least 2021. Meanwhile, there have been several accusations of rights abuses of the civilian population by the Malian army and Wagner forces. Malian authorities deny the allegations. Violence by rebels linked to al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS), as well as community self-defence and criminal organisations, has also rocked Mali since 2012. Adblock test (Why?)
Paris Olympics 2024: Day one medal wrap – rugby sevens, cycling, judo
France won its first gold medal of its home Games in the men’s rugby sevens, while Belgium’s Remco Evenepoel continued his meteoric rise with a gold in the men’s individual time trial. France, the host nation of the Paris Olympics 2024, was among the countries that won a gold medal on the opening day of the Games. Here’s a summary of some of the medal winners from Saturday: Dupont the hero in France’s emphatic gold medal rugby win France claimed their first gold medal of the Paris Olympics, and first of any kind in men’s rugby sevens, when Antoine Dupont led them to a stunning 28-7 win over double-defending champions Fiji on an unforgettable night in the Stade de France. Fiji had won all 17 of their previous matches in the Olympics and went ahead through Joseva Talacolo. But the home fans exploded when Rayan Rebbadj, who scored twice in the semifinal win over South Africa earlier, dived between the posts to level the scores at halftime. It took Antoine Dupont and his status as his sport’s best player to finally end Fiji’s dominance of Olympic rugby sevens, helping France win a gold medal at a raucous Stade de France [Vadim Ghirda/AP] Superstar scrumhalf Dupont then came off the bench to set up Aaron Grandidier Nkanang, who barrelled over himself to make it 21-7. The 67,000 crowd could barely control themselves as France then controlled the ball in the final minutes and almost took the roof off when Dupont crashed over in the final play of the match to make the final score 28-7. The Fijians settled for the silver, while in the earlier bronze medal match, South Africa beat Australia 26-19 with the last play of a pulsating third-place playoff. American Perry Baker also made headlines, becoming the all-time leading men’s scorer in Olympic rugby sevens when he claimed his 10th try in the United States’s 17-14 loss to Ireland in their 5-8 placing playoff. Evenepoel and Brown grab golds in cycling road events On the wet and slippery roads of Paris, Belgium’s Remco Evenepoel won the gold medal in the men’s individual time trial, while Australia’s Grace Brown triumphed in the women’s competition. Evenepoel added an Olympic gold to his world title with the 24-year-old clocking 36 minutes and 12.16 seconds over 32.4km (20.1 miles) in driving rain to beat Italy’s Filippo Ganna by 14.92 seconds. Evenepoel’s fellow countryman Wout van Aert completed the podium with a third-place finish. Just a week after he won the white jersey for the best young rider and finished third overall at the Tour de France, world champion Remco Evenepoel added an Olympic gold to his collection [Ricardo Mazalan/AP] In the women’s road cycling, Brown earned Australia’s first gold medal at this year’s Olympics as she destroyed the field, her power and bike handling abilities unmatched by her rivals throughout the contest. The Australian won on the course at Pont Alexandre III by a whopping 1 minute and 31.59 seconds, while the UK’s Anna Henderson took the silver. Several riders slid and fell on wet and cobbled corners, with world champion Chloe Dygert settling for bronze. Two medals for France in judo Japan’s Natsumi Tsunoda won gold in the women’s under 48kg (105.8 pounds) category. Three-time champion Tsunoda defeated reigning world champion Baasankhuu Bavuudorj of Mongolia, who took the silver medal. Shirine Boukli, who won France’s first medal of their home Games, shared the bronze with Sweden’s Tara Babulfath. Kazakhstan’s Yeldos Smetov was the champion in the men’s under 60kg (132.2 pounds) event. Smetov won Kazakhstan their first gold medal in Paris, with France’s Luka Mkheidze collecting a silver medal. The bronze medals went to Japan’s Nagayama Ryuju and Spain’s Francisco Garrigos. From left to right, Mongolia’s Baasankhuu Bavuudorj, silver, Japan’s Natsumi Tsunoda, gold, France’s Shirine Boukli, Sweden’s Tara Babulfath, bronze, pose on the podium of the women’s under 48kg event at Champ-de-Mars Arena [Eugene Hoshiko/AP] Adblock test (Why?)