The Bundesliga leaders Borussia Dortmund’s title chances suffered a serious blow on Friday after they stumbled to a 1-1 draw at struggling Bochum.
Dortmund are on 61 points, two points clear of second-placed Bayern Munich with four matches remaining, who will move top if they beat bottom club Hertha Berlin on Sunday.
The visitors went 1-0 down after five minutes following Anthony Losilla’s thunderous strike from just outside the penalty area. Yet Bochum’s joy only lasted two minutes as the unmarked Karim Adeyemi tapped in at the far post.
The equaliser failed to inject any urgency into Dortmund’s performance, however, despite the coach Edin Terzic urging them on from the sidelines.
Their best chances in the second half only came after the introduction of Marco Reus in the 73rd minute, with the midfielder setting up Youssoufa Moukoko, but his effort was parried by the Bochum goalkeeper Manuel Riemann.
Riemann pulled off a better save in the 76th to deny Jude Bellingham before Donyell Malen, who had scored in the previous five games, put the ball just wide with a backheel.
With Terzic booked for dissent after the 90-minute mark, Dortmund ran out of time, and will have to wait for Sunday’s result in Munich to find out how their title chances look.
In Italy, meanwhile, Napoli fans preparing to celebrate the club’s first league title since 1990 have been told to steer clear of Mount Vesuvius, the volcano that overlooks the southern city of Naples.
National park authorities became concerned at reports that Napoli’s fans plan to set off flares to light up Vesuvius should the team clinch the title on Sunday.
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Runaway leaders Napoli will secure the club’s third Serie A crown if they beat visitors Salernitana, and second-placed Lazio drop points against Internazionale at San Siro.
“We are all pleased for Napoli’s success which will bring honour to our region and great joy for people,” said the Vesuvius park commissioner, Raffaele De Luca. “But the celebrations must remain within the limits of civil behaviour.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
India’s defence minister has accused China of border aggressions that have “eroded the entire basis” of their relationship, as negotiations over the line of actual control (LAC) remain deadlocked.
On Thursday, China’s defence minister, Li Shangfu, landed in Delhi for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit. It is the first visit to India by a Chinese minister since 2020, when 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers died in clashes along the Himalayan border in Ladakh and the two sides came the closest to war for almost 70 years.
A screengrab from footage recorded in mid-June 2020 showing Chinese and Indian soldiers during an incident where troops clashed on the border in the Galwan Valley. Photograph: Tengku Bahar/AFP/Getty Images
Since then, according to Indian former army officers and defence experts, the situation along the 2,100-mile (3,500km) disputed LAC, remains on a knife-edge. It continues to be militarised on both sides, with 18 rounds of military talks having failed to de-escalate the tension, and many still fear the possibility of large-scale conflict.
India’s defence minister, Rajnath Singh, told Li during the talks on Thursday that the deployment of large numbers of Chinese troops and the “violation of existing agreements has eroded the entire basis of bilateral relations”. Li, however, called the situation “generally stable” and sought to distance bilateral relations from the border dispute.
Rajnath Singh, right, talking with Li Shangfu, second left, at the SCO summit in New Delhi. Photograph: Manish Swarup/AP
Among both India and China watchers, there is not much optimism that Li’s visit will do anything to resolve the tensions. Some reports estimate that India has lost 40% of patrolling points in the region of Ladakh to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The Indian government has denied any loss of territory.
“There is a huge discrepancy in the narrative of both sides,” said Pravin Sawhney, an Indian army veteran and author of The Last War: How AI Will Shape India’s Final Showdown with China. “There cannot be rapprochement between the two sides because it is a fact that the Chinese are sitting on Indian territory.”
The SCO meeting is taking place amid growing concern in China over India’s relationship with the US and a converging of their strategic interests when it comes to China. According to a report in March, India was able to ward off a potential Chinese military border incursion as a result of real-time intelligence and satellite imagery provided by the US about Chinese border positions. It was said to have enabled India to “catch Chinese armed forces off guard” and reportedly enraged Beijing.
Border provocations from China have continued despite strong condemnation from India. In December last year, more than 20 Indian soldiers were injured in a clash with Chinese troops in the eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, in what India described as a Chinese attempt to “transgress the border”.
Indian activists protesting against China in New Delhi in December last year after the clashes in Arunachal Pradesh. Photograph: Rajat Gupta/EPA
In March, China announced it was “renaming” 11 places in Arunachal Pradesh that it claims as part of Tibet. India’s home minister visited the border region that same week, stating that “times when anyone could encroach on Indian land have passed”. Beijing hit back, calling the visit a violation of its territorial sovereignty.
While there has been disengagement in some areas, Indian army officers and defence experts said about 1,500 sq km in Ladakh taken over by the PLA in 2020 remained under Chinese control. Two main areas of contention in Ladakh are Demchok and Depsang, which were previously patrolled by Indian troops but are now occupied by PLA soldiers.
Deependra Singh Hooda, the Indian army’s former chief of the Northern Command, described the situation there as tense.
“Depsang and Demchok areas are tactically important for India; but after so many rounds of talks there is no move forward and there does not seem any inclination from the Chinese side to resolve it quickly,” he said.
“The Chinese are preventing the Indian soldiers access to a large number of patrolling points,” Hooda said. “By sitting in this area, China is denying India access to a fairly large area.”
People living near the border in Ladakh allege that in the disengagement negotiations, New Delhi has ceded land to Beijing by agreeing to the creation of buffer zones – where neither side can patrol – in land that was previously claimed by India, specifically in the disputed Pangong Tso and Chushul areas.
“These buffer zones have been created exclusively in the Indian territory ,” said Konchok Stanzin, a local councillor. “Chinese troops are still patrolling up to their claim line.”
Motorbike riders cross into the Himalayan Sela pass in Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh. Photograph: Arun Sankar/AFP/Getty Images
Even officers who have been part of the military negotiations allege there is an intransigence on the Chinese side to defuse the situation. In the latest round of military talks this week before the SCO summit, “no mutually acceptable solution could be reached”, according to the Indian side.
“The PLA officers are generally curt to us during these meetings,” an Indian army officer, who has been part of several negotiations, said on condition of anonymity. “These meetings turn frustrating for us as the Chinese officers speak mostly Mandarin, which we cannot understand. They remain very economical with English.”
The tensions are most visible in the frenzied infrastructure race along the border. China has been building new highways, railway lines, bridges, air strips and sophisticated military bases, modern housing and 5G towers, while India – which historically avoided developing areas near the Chinese border in order to prevent any provocation – has been left behind, with many of its border areas still impoverished.
While India might have passed China in population size, it is nowhere close in terms of its economy and military spending. In 2022, China spent $230bn (£184bn) on the defence budget; three times more than India.
“China has used infrastructure development as an excuse to escalate conflict and make incursions into Indian land,” said Maj Gen Amrit Pal Singh, the retired former head of army operational logistics for Ladakh. “In this kind of situation we have to react so that they cannot take any piece of our land. So India has doubled its focus on infrastructure near the border with China.”
Indian security forces accompanied by a sniffer dog clear an area near the Zojila tunnel. Photograph: Farooq Khan/EPA
In January, Rajnath inaugurated 27 infrastructure projects aimed at strengthening the border infrastructure, and India is speeding up the construction of 37,500 miles of roads, 350 miles of bridges, 19 airfields and a few tunnels near, or leading to, the border. It is also strengthening aerial connectivity, with at least four new air strips and about 40 helipads being built in Ladakh.
The scale and speed of this infrastructure push can be seen in an ambitious 8-mile tunnel being built in the Himalayan range, at an altitude of about 3,000 metres, to provide all-weather connectivity to Ladakh. Even as temperatures have dropped in winter, hundreds of workers and engineers have been instructed to work day and night to complete the $1.4bn Zojila tunnel.
“We are building this tunnel as swiftly as possible, keeping in mind that this is important for the defence of our country as there is a looming threat on the border from China,” said Harpal Singh, the head of the project.
Hooda was among those who believed the border situation was nowhere near being resolved. “Both sides are looking at each other with a great deal of suspicion,” he said.
“There is greater aggressiveness in patrolling. Physical clashes are taking place, soldiers are getting injured though no shots are being fired. These local incidents could spiral out of control; that is the big worry.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
Lewis Hamilton has expressed cautious optimism that his Mercedes team are on the right track in terms of improving their car after a miserable start to the 2023 Formula One season.
Mercedes have already admitted they are to abandon their current car concept to adopt a new approach in an attempt to catch the championship leaders Red Bull and Hamilton believed his team were at least on the road to recovery.
Speaking before this weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix, where Mercedes have brought the first of what is expected to be a swathe of small developments to the car, Hamilton was encouraged by the direction the team were taking and hopeful that the car might demonstrate it in Baku.
“I think it will be an upgrade, naturally, but I think it will be kind of the start of a new path for us,” he said. “It will be at the core still the same car, but part of the path of getting where we want to be.
“We’re not going to hit the ground and be where we wanted to be at the start of the season, we’re not making up that crazy ground that there is but I think it’s really positive, that so much great work has been done back in the factory to make time to progress in the right direction.”
Hamilton scored Mercedes’ first podium of the season at the last round in Australia but the team did not read too much into the result, believing it was likely track specific. They are third in the constructors’ championship, nine points behind Aston Martin and already 67 behind Red Bull who have a dominant car, with Max Verstappen leading the drivers’ championship. Mercedes are expected to bring their first major development of their car’s new concept to Imola in May.
F1 is adopting its new sprint race weekend format in Baku, with qualifying for the GP on Friday and then a standalone qualifying and sprint on Saturday, limiting practice to only one session. Hamilton remained hopeful Mercedes could at least get among the front runners, while welcoming the introduction of four competitive sessions over a weekend.
“The last race was really great for us, we worked hard to get that sort of result,” he said. “It won’t be easy to do that again, the Ferraris will be quick, the Red Bulls, the Astons. I just hope we are in the mix and with the shake up of the whole weekend, it’s probably the most exciting weekend so far.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
Hope has been hard to find in Yemen. After more than eight years of war, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives, many of them civilians, the situation is desperate. More than two-thirds of the population are dependent on humanitarian aid. Yet, since the agreement of a truce between the Saudi-led military coalition and Iran-backed Houthi rebels last April, the country has seen a year of relative calm. This month, there was a huge cross-border exchange of prisoners of war. In the background is the thaw between Iran and Saudi Arabia, which have used Yemen as the battleground for their rivalry.
Riyadh spearheaded the coalition supporting the internationally recognised government led by Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, which had been ousted by the Houthis. It soon discovered that there would be no speedy victory, that the conflict was draining billions from its coffers and that Houthi attacks on its oil infrastructure were increasing the expense. The Houthis also had reason to talk, having suffered heavy losses and struggling with fuel shortages.
The UN says that this is the best opportunity in years to end the war. It has also warned that the risk of the situation deteriorating again is very real. The reestablishment of Iran-Saudi relations is still in its early stages. More critically, while much of Yemen’s devastation resulted from foreign powers pushing their own agendas in an impoverished and fragile country, this was never just a proxy war. It is a complex and fractured dispute that has become more so with time.
If Saudi-Houthi talks make progress, Riyadh says the next step will be talks between the Houthis and the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC), to which President Hadi ceded his powers. The fragmented, unwieldy body includes officials from internationally recognised bodies and the leaders of armed groups. They are united by their opposition to the Houthis and are alarmed at being cut out of current negotiations. Bringing the peace process under UN auspices would help to build confidence. But the Houthis are emboldened, and their opponents have wildly different and contradictory agendas, including seeking a separate state in the south. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have backed different PLC members, reflecting varying interests. Forging a consensus will be immeasurably difficult. The proliferation of militias and entrenchment of a war economy are among the challenges making peace look more distant than it did eight years ago.
Even if these parties can agree a deal, those who have suffered most – civilians – will be missing from the table. They deserve representation. Responsibility for their ordeal also extends far beyond the fighters on the ground. The US and UK have sold billions of pounds worth of weaponry to Riyadh since the conflict began. All parties have been responsible for human rights abuses, attacks on civilian targets and the blocking of humanitarian aid, but there has been no hint of accountability for the lives lost. The international community should press the case for effective and impartial investigations, and a transitional justice process. It should also find the money required to provide essential aid and services and fund the urgently needed operation to avert a catastrophic oil spill off the coast.
There can be no peace without talking to all those waging this war. But nor can Yemen recover if control of its future is ceded solely to those who have done so much to destroy it.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s marathon three-day visit to Moscow was hailed by the Kremlin as the dawn of a new age of “deeper” ties between the two countries, as Russia races to plug gaping holes left in its finances by Western energy sanctions.
But while Vladimir Putin insisted a new deal struck during the negotiations on Wednesday will ensure Russia can weather the consequences of its invasion of Ukraine, analysts and European lawmakers say he’s overestimating just how much Beijing can help him balance the books.
Prior to the full-blown invasion, Russia’s oil and gas sector accounted for almost half of its federal budget, but embargoes and restrictions imposed by Western countries have since created a multi-billion dollar deficit.
With the country’s ever-influential oligarchs estimated to be out of pocket to the tune of 20 percent of their wealth — and industry tycoon Oleg Deripaska warning the state could run out of money as soon as next year — Putin is seeking to reassure them he’s opened up a massive new market.
“Russian business is able to meet China’s growing demand for energy,” Putin declared Tuesday, ahead of an opulent state banquet.
But analysts and Ukrainian officials have been quick to point out that actually stepping up exports of oil and gas to China will be a technical challenge for Moscow, given most of its energy infrastructure runs to the West, not the East.
Putin on Wednesday announced a major new pipeline, Power-of-Siberia 2, that will carry 50 billion cubic meters of gas to China via Mongolia to fix that problem.
But “in reality, it’s pretty unclear what has actually been agreed,” said Jade McGlynn, a Russia expert at King’s College London. “When it comes to terms and pricing, Beijing drives a hard bargain at the best of times — right now they know Russia’s not got a strong hand.”
Details of the financing and construction of the project have not yet been revealed.
And with predictions of a financial downturn swirling, Beijing may not need more energy to power sluggish industries, McGlynn added.
Yuri Shafranik, a former energy minister under Boris Yeltsin who now heads Russia’s Union of Oil and Gas Producers, suggested China’s appetite for natural gas “will certainly increase” in the coming years, and pointed out that Beijing would not have signed a pipeline agreement if it didn’t need the resources.
But, if the Kremlin was hoping to replace Europe as a reliable customer, it may end up disappointed, said Nathalie Loiseau, a French MEP who serves as chair of the Parliament’s subcommittee on security and defense.
“They chose to use energy to blackmail Europe even before the war,” she said. “Now, Russia has to find new markets and must accept terms and conditions imposed by others. China is taking advantage of the situation.”
In a bid to sweeten the terms, Putin invited all of Asia, Africa and Latin America to buy Russian oil and gas in China’s domestic currency, the renminbi, at the close of Xi’s speech on Tuesday. This came after Xi had already indicated at the China-Arab Summit in December in Riyadh that he would welcome the opportunity to trade oil and gas with Saudi Arabia on similar terms.
The outreach is a nod to the 1974 pact between then-U.S. President Richard Nixon and the Saudi kingdom to accept dollars in exchange for oil, which would in turn be spent on Western goods, assets and services. Non-Western nations have, however, been threatening to move away from dollar pricing in energy markets for years to no effect.
Still, Russia’s efforts to peel away from Western-dominated energy markets are unlikely to make much difference to its fortunes in the long run, according to Simone Tagliapietra, a research fellow at the Bruegel think tank.
“What we are seeing is it’s proving extremely difficult for Russia to diversify away from Europe, and they’ve been forced to become a junior partner of China,” Tagliapietra said. “After this, Moscow won’t be an oil and gas superpower as it was before, not just because of sanctions but also because of the green transition.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
As Democrats begin their mission of re-taking the House of Representatives from a razor-thin, single-digit deficit, one thing may be making that harder: the ambition of members of their own party for higher office.
So far, five members have already announced plans to run for Senate in just the first few months of the 2024 cycle including Democratic Reps. Katie Porter (Calif.) and Elissa Slotkin (Mich.), both of whom are leaving “frontline” — or highly competitive — districts.
Slotkin, of Michigan’s 7th District, and Porter, of California’s 47th, were both elected in the Democratic wave year of 2018. They won their reelections by 6 and 3 percentage points, respectively, in 2022. Reps. Adam Schiff and Barbara Lee, of California, and Arizona’s Rep. Ruben Gallego, also announced retirements in a bid for higher office — but they all represent safer Democratic-leaning districts.
“Elissa came along in 2018 and had the perfect blend of temperament, experience and ability to raise money to win that seat back,” said Thomas Morgan, Michigan’s Democratic Party 7th District chair. “This is a competitive seat, it’s a very diverse population here — everyone from MSU students to auto workers to farmers — so I expect it’ll be extremely competitive to fill Elissa Slotkin’s shoes — which seems insane to even say because it’ll be really difficult to do.”
These open seats were a welcome sight to Republicans. “The path to growing the Republican majority runs through seats like Elissa Slotkin’s. The NRCC is all hands on deck to add this seat to the Republican column in 2024,” said Jack Pandol, communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee.
A spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said that with the right resources, Democrats will continue representing these districts.
“I think we’ll win all those seats,” said Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) of the California open races. “I think in a presidential year, we’ll have a good showing. But we’ll have to work hard to make sure we keep it.”
The incumbent advantages in fundraising and campaigning
One big advantage Slotkin and Porter had was that they were both excellent fundraisers.
“People just have a lot of assumptions [that] because I was a good fundraiser that it must have been like a nothing burger,” Porter said, describing how competitive her reelection was.
Porter raised $26 million in 2022 and spent $18.5 million on advertising compared to about $1 million spent by her opponent, Scott Baugh, who raised just $3 million, according to the FEC and AdImpact, a service that tracks political advertising.
Slotkin was also an elite fundraiser, bringing in almost $10 million compared to Republican opponent Tom Barrett’s $2.7 million. There was a parallel disparity in each candidate’ advertising spending: $8.6 million from Slotkin’s committee against $888,000 for Barrett, according to AdImpact.
Losing incumbency advantage translates to losing more established community connections and campaign infrastructure. Coupled with a shrinking number of competitive House seats thanks to redistricting, these factors weigh more heavily on a party when control of the House could be decided by a single-digit number of seats.
Having a strong presence on the airwaves was coupled with a competitive field operation. Porter stressed the amount of work that was needed to meet constituents in her newly drawn district last year and how important it was to introduce herself to voters.
In Michigan’s sprawling 7th district, Livingston County Chair Judy Daubenmier said building enthusiasm around a new candidate will be part of the challenge with Slotkin’s eventual replacement.
“That doesn’t happen overnight. You have to show up, show up all the time, show up everywhere. When we have a candidate officially announced I’ll be making that point to them. They need to be at the Saint Patrick’s Day parade, the Fourth of July parade,” Daubenmier said.
Seeking higher office is ‘just the nature of this place’
Still, losing strong incumbents like Porter and Slotkin is something parties have had to deal with many times in the past. In addition to these five now open races, Democrats will have to defend 29 additional “frontline” members, outlined in a list recently released by the DCCC, including fellow Michigander Rep. Dan Kildee.
“It happens every two years. It’s just the nature of this place,” Kildee said of how the retirements impact winning back a majority. “It’s just a reality we have to face but knowing that there are good candidates back home gives me — at least in that district — some reassurance that we’ll be competitive.”
Democrats boost deep benches in both California and Michigan. Several local Democrats in Slotkin’s district have already indicated interest in running although none have declared yet. In California, Porter has already endorsed state Sen. Dave Min as a possible replacement, and nine Democrats have registered with the FEC to run for Schiff’s old seat.
Thirty-year incumbent and former House Majority Whip Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) has seen many retirements in his tenure in the House and Democratic House leadership. This year’s list so far gave him no pause.
“Anytime you’ve got an incumbent that opens up a seat, that’s a challenge, but I don’t know that it’s anything unusual — especially in California. In California, it might be easier,” Clyburn said with a laugh.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Rishi Sunak is to meet the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, over the weekend, raising hopes of an imminent deal to end the protracted Northern Ireland protocol dispute.
They are expected to meet on the sidelines of an international security conference in Munich that will also be attended by EU leaders including the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron.
Talks to solve the dispute over the Brexit trading arrangements have intensified over the past week and it is thought an agreement in principle is at the closing stages.
UK sources say an announcement has been pencilled in for next week, possibly Tuesday, if the remaining issues can be resolved.
If loose ends cannot be tied up over the weekend, the schedule will be moved back. Sources say both sides are keen to present a “voluntary agreement” and avoid slipping back into the era of threats and counter-threats.
A breakthrough has already been made on reducing checks on goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, with a “green lane” involving no customs declarations being proposed for food and farm produce destined for Northern Irish supermarkets, corner shops, hospitals, schools and prisons and other public settings.
Negotiators have agreed that products for retail should go through this “green” lane, with discussions continuing on how to deal with wholesalers who supply to independent shops and hospitality.
Talks are also continuing on how to deal with “intermediary” goods, including components which may end up in finished products destined for sale in the EU’s single market.
A new path has also been agreed in principle on governance and the role of the European court of justice (ECJ) in dispute resolution, a source of considerable political problems for Sunak with the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) and hardline Brexiters in the European Research Group (ERG) of MPs.
It is thought this path includes the creation of a new arbitration panel and the involvement of Northern Ireland courts in devolved matters, including food and agriculture health standards.
One of Sunak’s biggest challenges is how to quell any potential rebellion headed by the ERG, which wants the protocol scrapped altogether and folded into the wider trade and cooperation agreement with the EU.
The Irish former foreign minister Simon Coveney has said the best deal is a “nil-all draw” where nobody has won and nobody has lost.
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Insiders say they hope the creation of the panel will address ERG concerns, particularly as this was mooted in a confidential paper by the group’s former chair, the Northern Ireland minister Steve Baker.
It is also notable that the Northern Ireland secretary, Chris Heaton-Harris, another former leader of the ERG, has been involved in the negotiations from the start, accompanying the foreign secretary, James Cleverly, in all talks with the European Commission vice-president Maroš Šefčovič.
The panel would involve legal representatives from the EU and the UK, and include a mechanism to give the ECJ a role in advising on matters of EU law.
It is not known if the key question over the continued application of EU law in Northern Ireland will be resolved to the satisfaction of the ERG or the DUP. The DUP has set out seven tests for agreeing to any new deal, including an assurance of “no new regulatory borders” between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
Now it’s time to get angry. Chelsea were slick, measured and rather impressive – until they reached the final third. Chances came, chances went and, when Graham Potter looks over the statistics and thinks of all the near misses, he can be forgiven if yet another sloppy display from his forwards leaves him in a rage.
Chelsea should never have lost control of this game. Ultimately, though, the lack of ruthlessness was no surprise. After all Chelsea, who probably could have done with including a finisher of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s calibre in their Champions League squad, have scored six goals in their past 10 matches and they should be furious with themselves for allowing opponents as vulnerable as Borussia Dortmund to establish a lead before next month’s return at Stamford Bridge.
The worry is that there was plenty of blame to go around. There will be questions about Potter’s decision not to have Aubameyang as an option off the bench given that Kai Havertz remains pretty but effective. João Félix was also wayward in front of goal and, when Dortmund struck midway through the second half, it was staggering that Enzo Fernández was the only outfield player standing in Karim Adeyemi’s way when the winger put Edin Terzic’s team ahead.
In fairness it was magnificent from Adeyemi. He began in his own half when a corner was cleared, tore beyond Fernández, rounded Kepa Arrizabalaga and tapped into the empty net. But it was a disastrous concession for the visitors and, while Chelsea should be capable of overturning a 1-0 deficit, there can be no guarantee that they will be clinical enough to do so.
Potter needs his players to develop a nasty side. Much of the pre-match focus before had lingered on his calm when decisions go against Chelsea. More interesting, though, is whether Potter can inspire a response on the pitch. Tenth in the Premier League, Chelsea need more conviction.
Afterwards Potter called the performance “another step forward”. He often speaks about the new faces needing time to settle. Yet Dortmund, third in the Bundesliga, cannot match Chelsea’s resources. Over £500m has been spent on refurbishing Potter’s squad. There is a process, but results should be better.
To his credit Potter picked a fun team – Félix off Havertz, creativity and pace out wide, Kalidou Koulibaly in a back four on his first start since 11 January – and the start was as promising as you might have expected from a side with an £106.8m world champion in midfield.
Dortmund had nowhere near as much star power, even with Adeyemi a livewire on the left and Jude Bellingham driving them on. The press was furious but the high line was less convincing. It was a dangerous tactic with Mykhaylo Mudryk on the left – Nico Schlotterbeck had to make a crucial early tackle on the winger – while Dortmund soon found themselves struggling to contain Félix.
Borussia Dortmund’s Gregor Kobel denied Chelsea on several occasions in the second half. Photograph: Wolfgang Rattay/Reuters
There was a fluidity to Chelsea’s football. Was this the future? Mason Mount was on the bench again. Félix was the main man in attack, though his finishing disappointed. Twice the forward let Dortmund off the hook; first when he blazed over from Hakim Ziyech’s cutback, then when he snaked through and hit the bar.
Chelsea, who had a goal disallowed for handball by Thiago Silva, could not pull clear. That encouraged Dortmund, who went close through Sébastien Haller. Julian Brandt also bent a shot wide.
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Koulibaly’s presence alongside Silva was a reminder of Chelsea’s new look. Being forced to name only three January signings in their squad meant there was no room for Benoît Badiashile, even though the centre-back has been in excellent form. In came Koulibaly – £34m last summer, bags of experience – while Potter also rotated his expensive left-backs, with Ben Chilwell eager to impress after replacing Marc Cucurella.
Chelsea had more energy than Dortmund, who were often overrun in midfield. Bellingham was fortunate not to be sent off for a second booking at the start of the second half and Reece James started to maraud. One run from the Chelsea right-back drew a risky foul from Emre Can. Goalkeeper Gregor Kobel pushed James’s free-kick away.
Kobel was soon repelling James again. The set-pieces piled up and the pressure grew. Then Dortmund struck. Much of their threat had come from Adeyemi, who had wriggled down the left and created a rare chance for Brandt, and Chelsea were in trouble when a clearance found the winger. “It’s ‘Meep Meep’,” Terzic said, comparing Adeyemi to Road Runner. “And then he goes.”
But where was Chelsea’s structure? Fernández could not live with Adeyemi. The 21-year-old was too quick, the balance was beautiful and his finish was smart.
Chelsea responded by bringing on Mount. Cucurella replaced a tiring Chilwell. They raised the pace again and Kobel made stunning saves from Koulibaly and Fernández. Somehow, with a little help from Chelsea, Dortmund emerged triumphant.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
Agartala: The communist party workers slouching against the walls of the party office in the sultry mid-day Tripura heat, stood up straight and stopped their chat session as the stern-faced, tall, bespectacled man dressed in a crisp white dhoti-kurta, strode into the room.
The man commanding the cadres’ awe was none other than 74-year-old Manik Sarkar, who had come to personify the Communist movement in the northeast, running the sole CPI(M)-led government in a difficult and turbulent region for 20 long years, before his party’s rule was ended by a BJP wave in 2018.
He was following a punishing schedule over the last several weeks, electioneering by foot and by jeep, over the hills and dales of Tripura, a state which has been described as a finger of land wrapped around Bangladesh’.
Despite his age, his party cannot afford the helicopters which ferry his rivals on their forays into the state. Nor can it allow the “old war-horse” as one of his colleagues described him, to retire from the campaign.
“I convinced my colleagues that new blood should be brought in (as) I have been contesting elections since 1979 and have been chief minister for 20 years,” he told PTI video in an interview, adding with a trace of a smile, “(However) I am there in the battlefield”.
For the average CPI(M) worker or supporter, Sarkar remains the ‘star campaigner’ for the entire Left Front, even though the big names of the CPI(M) – Sitaram Yechury, Brinda Karat and Mohammed Salim have been fielded in the state.
“Many common people and especially his party cadre look up to him for his probity in personal and political life and his straightforward behaviour,” explained Sekhar Dutta, political commentator on northeast and a former journalist.
Just five years back, newspapers were busy writing an epitaph for the CPI(M) in the region and describing Manik Sarkar as the last communist standing’.
However, a gruelling campaign by Sarkar and his comrades drawing large crowds shows the hammer and sickle on a red field is not yet dead here.
Despite the CPI(M) losing in the last assembly and national elections here, its vote bank has remained more or less intact. In the 2018 assembly elections, in the face of a Modi wave, six per cent of its vote share was eroded, but the party still retained a strong 42 per cent following among voters.
A resurgent youth and student wing is this time propelling the party to try to reclaim many of the seats it lost with leaders like Sarkar and his protege Jitendra Choudhary, the party’s tribal face, leading the campaign.
“Anti-incumbency worked against the CPI(M) in 2018. A deterioration in law and order, political violence and unfulfilled promises seem to be working against the BJP this time round, despite their road-building spree,” said Dutta.
The CPI(M) leader seems to agree. “The real fight this time is the fight for restoration of democracy, civil liberties as also (to create) jobs, income and increase purchasing power,” said Sarkar during the interview.
Sarkar during his term in office had earned an enviable reputation for the state with its literacy rate crossing 87 per cent besides a better than average rating on most health and social indicators.
However, endemic problems such as lack of industry and trade in the landlocked state despite being just 70 kms away from a major port Chittagong- in Bangladesh, forcing most people to work for the state government (1.8 lakh out of a population of 40 lakh at last count) or migrate to the mainland in search of jobs remain and will possibly continue till India gets a port for the northeast.
The veteran Communist leader did try to get Tripura and the northeast, the outlet to the sea it needs by bolstering the central government’s diplomacy towards Bangladesh, offering Tripura’s share of gas-based power produced locally to the electricity-starved neighbour.
However, till date trade and transit with Bangladesh from the northeast remain a problem which affects the region’s economy and prospects for job creation.
Born in a middle-class family, Sarkar joined the Communist movement as a student activist while studying at the Maharaja Bir Bikram College and soon became a SFI office bearer and eventually at the young age of 23, a member of the state committee of the CPI(M).
After being elected MLA, he was made chief whip of the party in 1980. At the age of 49 he was made a member of the party’s politburo and also chief minister of the state.
Most of Sarkar’s life was spent fighting the Congress party, and with the second phase of insurgency in the state, which he successfully controlled by a combination of carrot and stick measures towards militants, though improving the lot of the tribals remains at best a work in progress.
This election of course has seen the Congress and CPI(M) joining hands to defeat the BJP, an incongruity that Sarkar readily admits. “It is true we have fought against each other (CPI(M) and Congress) on the basis of ideology But the RSS-BJP and their fascist rule have forced us to come together,” he said.
In case the combination manages to turn the electoral tables against BJP, the challenge will be for the two to work together as partners in a government, possibly a first of its kind.
Veteran leaders like Sarkar may then well have a new role to play, that of political peacemakers.
Neither Scott nor any other congressional Republican was invited to what’s seen as the opening act of policing discussions after Nichols’ death last month following a brutal beating by Memphis officers: Thursday’s Black Caucus meeting with President Joe Biden. The all-Democratic invite list went out despite the House’s record-high four Black Republicans in office — a group that could be influential in steering the GOP majority. And there’s no guarantee they’ll agree with Scott, who reiterated Wednesday on Twitter that he’s opposed to Democrats’ Floyd bill but cracked the door to other options.
A Scott spokesperson pointed to the senator’s tweet when asked whether he would take part in negotiations, and did not respond to follow-up questions about whether Scott’s presidential aspirations affected the talks.
Underscoring the hot-potato nature of a topic of critical importance to many Black voters, it’s not clear that all four of those Black House Republicans even want a seat at the table on policing legislation.
“We don’t look at it in terms of, ‘Well, we’re Black members, so we should be leading the talks,’” said Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.). “We need to have people who have expertise in law enforcement and what policy ideas up here mean for local agencies — they have to be a part of that conversation. They should, frankly, be leading good chunks of that conversation.”
In meetings this week as they prepared to sit down with Biden, many Black Caucus members came to the conclusion that the legislative plan would need to be a scaled-back version of the Floyd bill that stalled in the Senate last term. Talks on a compromise had reached an impasse, mostly over changing qualified immunity, a protection that shields officers from being held personally liable for certain actions on the job.
“The idea that qualified immunity, if y’all aren’t going to give us that going at minimum, let the departments be held accountable. And I do think that that could be something that is conceivable,” said a senior Democratic aide familiar with the conversations who was granted anonymity to describe the group’s position.
Working with Republicans would be a balancing act. Democrats need to give in to certain demands to see any action at all, but they’re leery of signing off on a bill with little to no teeth that Congress can cite as evidence of progress.
However, some Democrats are ready to embrace legislation they’ll sell as a temporary fix, optimistic they could earn back a House majority next Congress and pass more robust legislation later.
Scott’s “view is not as far as mine,” said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), a former Black Caucus chair. “But if that’s what we have to settle for, and get something else later, that’s what I’m going to do.”
And Carter, the Louisiana Democrat, said that while he thought the Floyd bill was a “solid one,” being “pliable enough to hear other ideas is smart.” He cited how he departed from other Democrats on how much to reform qualified immunity.
There’s hope within the Black Caucus that Scott’s coming back to the table would signal a possibility of actually passing a bill that would earn the necessary 60 Senate votes, even if the Republican-controlled House declined to take it up.
“That doesn’t mean he’s going to pass it, because he will ultimately say, ‘I did my part. The House is not ready.’ But he can show that, look, I can do hard things,” the same senior Democratic aide said.
But there’s no guarantee negotiators won’t experience a severe case of deja vu. The last round of talks collapsed after both parties were unable to close the gap on a few major sticking points, including changes to qualified immunity and restrictions on the use of force. Negotiators ended up trying to craft a more narrowly focused package before discussions totally fell apart.
After a nearly two-hour meeting with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, CBC Chair Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) said they and the White House were “in agreement” on plans in three categories: legislation, possible executive action and community-based solutions. He wouldn’t expand on what those agreements looked like.
“We’re not drawing lines in the sand,” Horsford told reporters. “We understand that it is about the culture of policing and keeping communities safe. All of us should be able to agree that bad policing has no place in any American city or community.”
Going into the meeting, CBC members planned to push the president to use the bully pulpit to bring the issue back into the forefront of the political arena, specifically using next week’s State of the Union address to zero in on the issue.
While lawmakers wouldn’t say whether Biden made any commitments, Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) said that “you’ll certainly hear from the president … in the days ahead.”
“We are sick and tired of human beings being turned into hashtags. This has got to stop,” he added.
Biden told lawmakers he wanted to “talk about whatever you want to talk about … how to make progress on police reform of consequence and violence in our community.”
Still, some Democrats remain optimistic about working with Scott and other Republicans again. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called preliminary talks with Scott a “productive, useful first start.”
And as Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) observed: “It’s not going to all happen in one fell swoop. But public sentiment shifts pretty quickly sometimes.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
