FORMER Arsenal, Barcelona and Chelsea midfielder Cesc Fabregas has announced his immediate retirement from football. The 36-year-old calls time on a career during which he won the World Cup with Spain, the Premier League twice at Chelsea and La Liga with Barcelona. “It is with great sadness that the time has come for me to hang up my playing boots,” Fabregas posted on Instagram. He ends his career one year into a two-year contract with Italian club Como in Serie B. Fabregas says he will now move into the dugout by coaching Como’s reserve and youth teams. “It’s not all…
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PATRICK Vieira is set to become the new manager at Ligue 1 club RC Strasbourg. BBC Sport understands Vieira, 47, will sign a three-year contract and the deal should be completed on Sunday. The ex-Arsenal midfielder has been out of work since being sacked by Premier League side Crystal Palace in March. Chelsea’s owners have recently agreed a deal to buy a majority stake in Strasbourg, who finished 15th in the French top flight last season, five points above the relegation zone. It is not the first time that Vieira has worked in a multi-club group. He coached Manchester City…
TWITTER has applied a temporary limit to the number of tweets users can read in a day, owner Elon Musk has said. In a tweet of his own, Mr Musk said unverified accounts are now limited to reading 1,000posts a day. For new unverified accounts, the number is 500. Meanwhile, accounts with “verified” status are currently limited to 10,000 posts a day. The tech billionaire initially set stricter limits, but he changed these within hours of announcing the move. Mr Musk said the temporary limits were to address “extreme levels of data scraping and system manipulation”. He did not explain…
UKRAINE’s counter-offensive against Russia will be difficult and “very bloody”, the US’ highest-ranking military officer has said. Gen Mark Milley said he was unsurprised that progress had been slower than predicted – but added that Ukraine was “advancing steadily”. “It goes a little slow, but that is part of the nature of war,” he said. It comes as Volodymyr Zelensky accused “some” Western partners of delaying promised training for Ukrainian pilots. Several Western countries have pledged to train Kyiv’s pilots on US-made F-16 fighter jets, but the Ukrainian president said some allies had been “dragging their feet” on the promise.…
THE government’s deal to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda risks “downgrading” UK foreign policy, a former cabinet minister has said. A final report by a United Nations Group of Experts, published earlier this month, concluded that the Rwandans were supporting the M23 rebel group which is active in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and is subject to UN and US sanctions. Justine Greening withdrew £21m in aid funding to the country in 2012 when she was international development secretary after the United Nations first reported that the Rwandans were helping the M23 rebels. While the US and EU…
A BUILDING under construction collapsed in an upscale neighbourhood of Côte d’Ivoire’s economic hub Abidjan, killing six people and injuring nine others, the government said Saturday. The building was an illegal construction coming up in Cocody, home to several embassies and the presidential palace, the construction ministry said. It collapsed on Friday. The search for victims under rubble took several hours, said an AFP photographer at the scene. Abidjan is undergoing a demographic and economic boom and several illegal buildings are mushrooming in the Atlantic Ocean port city, a major gateway to West Africa. Government spokesman Amadou Coulibaly had in…
PARIS St-Germain manager Christophe Galtier will go on trial in December as a result of an investigation into alleged discrimination. In April, Galtier was accused of making racist remarks when he was manager of Nice – allegations he denied. On Friday, the 56-year-old was arrested and taken in for questioning following an investigation launched in April. He will stand trial on December 15 before the Nice Criminal Court. Galtier has been charged with “moral harassment and discrimination on the grounds of actual or supposed membership or non-membership of a particular ethnic group, nation, alleged race or religion”, Nice’s public prosecutor…
THE Premier League club told Leipzig that they will trigger the player’s 70m euro (£60.1m) release clause. The 22-year-old Hungary attacking midfielder helped Leipzig finish third in the Bundesliga and win the German Cup last season. A meeting has taken between the representatives of Szoboszlai and Liverpool, who are looking to bolster their midfield. The release clause for Szoboszlai, who has also been linked with Newcastle United, expires on Friday. Szoboszlai made 31 appearances in the Bundesliga last season, scoring six goals and registering eight assists. He signed from Austrian side Red Bull Salzburg in January 2021 and has since…
TWO people have been killed after a man opened fire at Chisinau International Airport, the Moldovan Interior Ministry has said. The gunman was wounded and has been detained, said police. Officials said the shooting had taken place after a foreign citizen was denied entry to the country. President Maia Sandu said the two dead were a border guard and an airport security official; a third person was wounded. Moldovan Prime Minister Dorin Recean said the suspect was a 43-year-old Tajikistan national. He had arrived from Turkey and was then refused entry, government press secretary Daniel Voda told Moldovan TV. While…
ISRAEL’s spy agency says it carried out an operation in Iran to capture the suspected head of a hit squad that planned to kill Israelis in Cyprus. Mossad, which rarely speaks to the media, said the man gave a detailed “confession” about his orders from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. It said it informed authorities in Cyprus, where the cell was dismantled. The case is the latest reminder of the continuing shadow war between Israel and Iran, which are long-time enemies. An Israeli expert told the BBC that the unusual openness of Israeli intelligence could have been prompted by reports…
AT least 48 people have been killed in a road accident at a busy junction in Kenya, police and witnesses say. It happened after a lorry carrying a shipping container lost control at Londiani Junction, near the western town of Kericho, local media report. Police commander Geoffrey Mayek said 30 others were seriously injured but added the number “could be more”. He also raised concerns that “one or two” people could still be trapped underneath the overturned vehicle. Tom Mboya Odero, another regional police commander, was quoted by AFP news agency as saying the lorry travelling towards Kericho “lost control…
MALI has told the UN that its 12,000 peacemakers need to leave, after 10 years countering Islamist militants in the country. Last year, France withdrew its forces after military leaders seized control of Mali and brought in mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner group. In 2013, the UN launched a mission after separatist rebels and Islamist fighters banded together and occupied northern Mali. They hoped to create a separate state. The UN peacekeepers arrived after 5,000 French troops, who were sent to try and put down the uprising. The threat from Islamist militants, who have killed several thousand people and forced tens…
MANCHESTER City footballer Benjamin Mendy raped a young woman then told her “it’s fine, I’ve had sex with 10,000 women”, a jury has heard. The 28-year-old is accused of attacking the woman, aged 24 at the time, at his £4m mansion in Mottram St Andrew, Cheshire, in October 2020. He is also accused of the attempted rape of another woman, aged 29 at the time, who said he also attacked her at his home two years before. The footballer denies both charges. He is on trial at Chester Crown Court. The jury of six women and six men have been…
N’GOLO Kante has purchased Belgian third-tier club Royal Excelsior Virton. The France midfielder, 32, will take over from Flavio Becca as chairman of the club based near the Luxembourg border on 1 July. It is the same date he will join Saudi Arabia Pro League side Al-Ittihad from Premier League Chelsea. “Flavio is obviously extremely happy to be able to hand over the keys of the club to N’Golo Kante,” said the club in a statement. “[He is] a player of great class, not only for his footballing qualities but also and above all for his unanimously recognised human qualities.”…
AT least 667 people have been arrested following a third night of protests in France, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin says. He tweets to say that police and firefighters faced the “rare violence” that swept the country again last night with courage. French cities woke up yesterday to damaged community centres, schools and city halls – places that symbolise the French institutions and state. This morning, shopkeepers will be tallying up the damage of a night that saw rioters take aim at shops and supermarkets across the country. French media report that in Paris, the looting focused on the central shopping…
A WOMAN who got stuck in an travelator in Bangkok’s Don Mueang airport had to have her leg amputated by rescuers. Her son said the family was “shocked” and worried about her mental health after the surgery was carried out on Thursday evening. The 57-year-old’s leg got stuck on Thursday morning after she tripped over her suitcase while on her way to board a flight, local media said. “My mother’s morale is quite concerning,” her son wrote on Facebook. “We got to speak to her a bit before and after the operation… Even though she showed her strength through facial…
MOROCCO is recalling its ambassador to Sweden following the burning of a Quran at a demonstration in Stockholm. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the capital, Rabat, called the action offensive and irresponsible at a time when Muslims were celebrating one of the holiest days in their calendar. The organiser of the demonstration – who is said to be Iraqi-born Salwan Momik – is being investigated for incitement to hatred. A Swedish court had ruled the protest should be allowed to go ahead on the grounds of freedom of expression.
EVIDENCE has emerged of significant damage in another part of the West Darfur region in Sudan, as fighting continues between the Sudanese armed forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Nasa data from 27 June shows what appear to be a number of fires concentrated in the area of Murnei, about 80km (50 miles) south of the regional capital of El Geneina, which itself suffered extensive damage in mid-May. We found satellite images showing the damage in Murnei occurred between 26 June and 28 June, with an image from yesterday showing smoke still visible at one location. The heat…
PRESIDENT Bola Tinubu on Thursday in Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State, said he remained hopeful and optimistic about achieving victory in the last presidential election, despite the ineffective cashless policy implemented by the Central Bank of Nigeria. The President spoke in separate remarks at the palaces of the Paramount ruler of Ijebuland, Oba Sikiru Adetona, in Ijebu-Ode and Alake of Egbaland, Oba Adedotun Gbadebo, in Abeokuta , during a thank-you visit to the Royal Fathers. Reflecting on the challenges in the build-up to the 2023 presidential election, President Tinubu recounted his concerns about the confiscation of funds and the failure of the…
SAUDI authorities were investigating Thursday after an assailant and a security guard were killed in an exchange of gunfire outside the US consulate in Jeddah, the gateway city for the massive hajj pilgrimage taking place in Mecca. The gunman and a Nepalese security guard both died after the exchange of fire outside the consulate on Wednesday evening, officials said, giving no possible motive for the incident. “At 6:45 pm (1545 GMT), a man stopped in a car in front of the consulate building and got out with a weapon in his hand,” the official Saudi Press Agency quoted a police…