Mumbai: Popular television actor Vivian Dsena remained in headlines since news of his secret marriage broke. It is reported that Vivian married his Egyptian girlfriend Nouran Ali a year ago in Egypt. It is also now reported that the couple have welcomed a baby girl as well!
A source told HT that Vivian Dsena is the father of a two-month-old daughter, and his wife often shares pictures of their baby. “It’s a baby girl and is almost two months old. Nouran often shares pictures of the baby with her close friends (a feature on Instagram, where one can share stories with a select crowd). I have seen pictures of them.”
As per a report in ETimes, cited one of Vivian’s co-stars as confirming the news and stating, Nouran was one of Vivian’s fans. She often used to visit our sets and was quite particular about what angle Vivian’s shots are, what he is wearing, and others.”
Vivian Dsena and Egyptian journalist Nouran Aly started dating after the former parted ways with his then girlfriend, actress Vahbiz Dorabjee. Vivian and Vahbiz got divorced legally in December 2021 after separating amicably in December 2017. Vivian and Nouran got married in 2022 , according to various reports.
“She would give many disgruntled liberals who cannot stomach Mr. Wallace’s Moscow axis and still distrust Republicans an excuse to rally to the Truman banner,” she added, referring to Wallace’s friendliness to the Soviet Union.
But Luce said that Democrats, “being men first and Democrats second,” probably lacked “the courage, vision, or intelligence to adopt it.” (Luce, a playwright and former managing editor of Vanity Fair, and the wife of one of the nation’s most influential publishers, Henry R. Luce, was way ahead of her time. It would be 36 years before Democrats made Geraldine Ferraro the first woman to be nominated for vice president by a major political party — and another 36 years before Kamala Harris would be the first woman elected to the post.)
There was reason to be skeptical of Luce’s motives behind the free strategic advice. Just the week before, in a speech at the Republican convention, “the GOP’s glamorous Clare Boothe Luce,” as the Washington Post called her, mocked Truman and called her party’s victory in the presidential election a lock.
“Why is everyone so certain?” she asked on June 21, the opening day of the convention. “For three reasons: our people want a competent president; our people want a truthful president; our people want a constitution-minded president.” She mocked Truman as “the unfortunate man in the White House,” adding, “Frankly, he is a gone goose.” Luce called the Democrats less a party than a “mishmash of die-hard warring factions” — white supremacist “lynch-loving bourbons” on the right, and the “Moscow wing” on the left.
In the weeks leading up to the Democratic National Convention, meanwhile, party members continued to agitate for a change at the top of the ticket. Jeremiah T. Mahoney, a delegate from New York, argued in a letter to his state party chairman that Truman’s nomination would cost other Democrats down-ballot.
Mahoney, a nationally prominent attorney and former judge, wrote that “our dear President Truman, of whom we are all so fond, cannot possibly be re-elected,” and urged the party to continue recruiting Eisenhower to take his place at the top of the ticket. Even though Ike had repeatedly stated that he wouldn’t accept the nomination, Mahoney predicted that if the party nominated him, the general would accept out of “duty” to the country.
By the time the two parties gathered for their conventions that summer in Philadelphia, Republicans still seemed like the one on the ascent. In 1946, they had won both houses of Congress, the first time the GOP achieved that feat since before the Great Depression.
To take on Truman, Republicans nominated New York Gov. Thomas Dewey for president and California Gov. Earl Warren as his running mate: “a dream ticket of two hugely popular governors,” as Truman biographer Alonzo L. Hamby called them.
Democrats, meanwhile, were bracing for a nightmare. Earlier that year, Truman’s bold civil rights proposal — including a federal anti-lynching law, home rule for Washington, D.C., and his announcement that he would desegregate the military — had splintered the party into the “mishmash of die-hard warring factions” Luce had maligned.
On the eve of the party’s convention, many Democrats fretted that Truman was a fatally weak incumbent. It was a continuation of how the political establishment had underrated him his entire career. When Truman became FDR’s running mate in 1944, for example, Time magazine mocked him as “the mousy little man from Missouri.” The taunts didn’t let up after he became president. Another popular one: “To err is Truman.”
“Truman seemed very much alone, cheering himself on in a hopeless cause — an election very few thought he had a chance of winning,” wrote Jeffrey Frank in The Trials of Harry S. Truman: The Extraordinary Presidency of an Ordinary Man, 1945-1953.
A July 1 White House news conference, less than two weeks before the Democratic convention, seemed to epitomize Truman’s falling political stock, when a reporter told him about Luce’s advice that he name Eleanor Roosevelt to his ticket and asked if she would be an acceptable running mate.
“Why, of course, of course,” Truman replied. Then he brought down the house with this postscript: “What do you expect me to say to that?”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Mumbai: Chef Ranveer Brar has shared his love for biryani and also praised ‘MasterChef India’ contestant Suvarna Bagul for her special preparation of mutton biryani.
Ranveer said: “I can finish the entire plate of this biryani.”
Sharing his love for biryani and talking about the challenges in preparing it, Ranveer said: “Cooking biryani takes time as it requires the juices of the meat to perfectly blend with the rice. Before the home cooks began making biryani, the one thing I asked them was to keep in mind that there are the 3Ts – temperature, technique, and trust.”
Appreciating the taste of the home chefs’ dishes, Ranveer said: “Suvarna’s biryani was comforting, it reminded me of home. She also discussed with us how every other Sunday, she makes biryani for her family and friends when they have a get-together. That feeling of coming together and enjoying food was present in Suvarna’s dish.”
The top six home cooks were tasked with creating a lip-smacking biryani, followed by an interesting drinks challenge. They were judged by chefs Ranveer Brar, Garima Arora and Vikas Khanna.
‘MasterChef India’ airs on Sony Entertainment Television.
Another thousand pages that contain the work of the prosecutors done between December and January. On the 27th the preliminary hearing for the former Juve management was postponed for trial
The filing of the supplementary deeds with the investigating judge triggers the countdown: less than 27 days to the preliminary hearing of the Prisma Inquiry conducted by the Turin Public Prosecutor’s Office on Juventus’ financial statements from 2018 to 2021. On 27 March, in fact, the Juventus club and 12 other suspects for whom indictment has been requested, including former president Andrea Agnelli, Pavel Nedved, Maurizio Arrivabene, Fabio Paratici (now at Tottenham) and the lawyer Cesare Gabasio, will face the Marco judge Peak. The accusations made by the magistrates – the deputy Marco Gianoglio, Mario Bendoni and Ciro Santoriello – range from market manipulation to false corporate communications, from obstructing the exercise of supervisory functions to issuing false invoices. In the prosecutors’ sights are the “fictitious capital gains system” and the now well-known “salary maneuver”. The investigation was closed on October 24 with the notification of the requests for indictment. The work of the public prosecutors, however, continued between December and January and is collected in the supplementary documents, a folder of about a thousand pages, filed yesterday with the Marco Picco investigating judge.
Dybala&C
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What does the new folder contain? The most recent hearings are collected. Including the last one that saw Paulo Dybala as the protagonist, heard in Rome last week by the Guardia di Finanza of Turin on the subject of the second salary maneuver given his summer divorce from Juventus. In recent weeks, the prosecutors of Turin have also listened to the former Juventus manager Maurizio Lombardo, now in Rome, and Rolando Mandragora, Fiorentina midfielder ex Juve.
Private agreements
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The new folder also contains the side letters, i.e. the unfiled private agreements, concerning secret agreements with other clubs. Those who have led the Turin prosecutor’s office in recent days to forward the investigation documents to colleagues in other cities so that they can evaluate any criminal profiles against the companies over which they have territorial jurisdiction. The files have been sent to Genoa, Bologna, Udine, Modena, Cagliari and Bergamo because the teams involved are Sampdoria, Bologna, Udinese, Sassuolo, Cagliari and Atalanta. This is the so-called line relating to suspicious partnerships and opaque relationships with companies considered friends, on which the federal prosecutor has also opened a file (but here we are still in the preliminary investigation phase). The various prosecutors will have to establish whether they too are guilty of false accounting, even though they are not listed on the stock exchange.
Former board member
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Several pages are dedicated to Daniela Marilungo (for 8 hours in the prosecutor’s office in January), the member of the last Andrea Agnelli board of directors who resigned on November 28, on the day of the corporate tsunami which effectively led to the elimination of the old management. The supplementary deeds, which complete the investigation in view of the preliminary hearing on 27 March, also include the depositions of Maria Cristina Zoppo and Alessandro Forte, the two members of the board of statutory auditors, who took a step back after the approval of the financial statements at 30 June 2022 on 27 December last.
February 28, 2023 (change February 28, 2023 | 08:06)
During his trip to Poland last March, Biden got as far as Rzeszow, some 60 miles from Ukraine’s border, and lamented that he couldn’t go any further.
“Part of my disappointment is that I can’t see it firsthand like I have in other places,” he said during a briefing on refugees. He alluded to security concerns as the main concern. “They will not let me, understandably, I guess, cross the border and take a look at what’s going on in Ukraine.”
On Monday, Biden finally made the visit to Kyiv, a trip that had been “meticulously planned” over several months. It happened through the work of small teams of individuals across several agencies: the White House chief of staff’s office, the National Security Council, the White House military office, the Pentagon, U.S. Secret Service and the intelligence community.
Biden recounted his six visits to Ukraine as vice president, telling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy: “I knew I’d be back, but I wanted to be sure.”
U.S. officials described Biden’s visit to the active war zone as “unprecedented,” citing the absence of any U.S. military footprint in Ukraine and the smaller-than-normal diplomatic operation at the American embassy in Kyiv. Only after Biden had crossed back into Poland around 8 p.m. local time Monday did the White House confirm details about his travel.
His journey began when he departed Saturday at 4:15 a.m. from Joint Base Andrews aboard a C-32 aircraft, flying to Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany and then on to Poland’s Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport.
From there, Biden headed to the train station and quickly boarded a heavily-secured eight-car train with its windows drawn for the overnight journey to Kyiv. He arrived just after 8 a.m. Monday, stepping off the train and declaring, “It’s good to be back in Kyiv,” according to a pool report filed hours later, after he’d returned safely to Poland.
The logistically complex trip, and arguably the most symbolically important of Biden’s presidency, came days ahead of the war’s one-year anniversary and served notice to Russia that the West would continue to stand firmly behind Ukraine. Biden’s long-anticipated travel to the country’s frazzled capital provided more than just a photo-op, but a chance to talk with Zelenskyy about a conflict with no end in sight and how much more the West can do to hasten its conclusion — and ensure it takes place on Ukraine’s terms.
Even after Biden had safely and successfully left Kyiv on Monday, White House officials refused to share details of how he traveled there in the first place, citing ongoing security concerns over his extraordinary visit to an active war zone.
Biden traveled with a much smaller group of aides and security officials than usual, the White House said. Only two reporters traveled with Bidenand both were required to give up their phones for the duration of the journey, unable to send colleagues any information or report on the trip until Biden had reached Kyiv. They were joined in Kyiv by a two-person CBS News crew that rode in the president’s motorcade, according to the White House Correspondents’ Association.
“Coming over, the president was very focused on making sure he made the most of his time on the ground, which he knew was going to be limited,” Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, told reporters on a call Monday morning after making the trip alongside the president. “He was excited about making the trip.”
The full travel pool of reporters and photographers originally scheduled to fly with the president to Poland was left behind but was still expected to depart as planned Monday night, making a rare overseas trip aboard a presidential aircraft without the president on board. The two journalists who made the covert journey with Biden said they were informed about the trip Friday afternoon. White House communications director Kate Bedingfield swore them to secrecy, instructing them to look for departure information in an email Saturday with the subject line: “Arrival instructions for the golf tourney.”
Hours before Biden’s arrival in Ukraine, U.S. officials informed Russia of the president’s travel, Sullivan said, “for deconfliction purposes,” an effort to avoid any kind of inadvertent escalation that could have brought the two nations into direct military conflict.
Biden’s visit underscored the evolving calculations of an administration increasingly comfortable with its role in the war — and less worried about retaliation from Moscow.
Over a year of fighting, the U.S. has calibrated its response in alignment with other NATO allies and sought to balance the need to stand up for Ukraine’s sovereignty against potential escalations that could spark a more direct conflict with Russia. As the war has dragged on, the U.S. has adjusted its risk assessments, gradually ratcheting up defense aid for Ukraine’s military amid Zelenskyy’s public pressure campaign and as intelligence officials have grown less nervous about Russian President Vladimir Putin following through on implicit threats of launching a full-fledged war against the West.
Aides said they would release more details about how the president traveled to Ukraine and the security precautions taken at the end of his trip, which is set to conclude Wednesday after two days of meetings and a speech in Poland. Sullivan declined to offer more details about the nature of the conversation or Moscow’s response.
In Kyiv, reports about a possible visit by the American president ahead of the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion began circulating earlier in the day. U.S. military jets were seen circling near the Polish border and Kyiv residents posted videos on social media of lockdowns in the city center and near the U.S. Embassy. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba also canceled a planned visit to Brussels on Monday for the Foreign Affairs Council.
A Ukrainian government official said the Ukrainians “have been requesting this visit for a long time.” The official added the visit had been prepared “in a very short amount of time” — around one week, “with the utmost level of secrecy through [top Zelenskyy aide Andriy] Yermak’s and Kuleba’s lines of communication.” The official was granted anonymity because the individual wasn’t authorized to speak on the record.
For security reasons, “only a handful of people in each department were involved,” said Jonathan Finer, the deputy national security adviser and, as a second U.S. official put it, “the logistical point man” for the trip.
Discussions about what to address during the trip took place over a few weeks, as aides worked to prep the president on the arms package, sanctions and what to chat about with Zelenskyy, a third U.S. official said.
The president, he added, made the final decision Friday to go ahead with the trip after an Oval Office meeting with key members of his national security team.
“His security team was able to bring risk to a manageable level and that was what ultimately led him to make the call to go,” Sullivan said. “He got a full presentation of a very good and very effective operational security plan. He heard that presentation, he was satisfied that the risk was manageable, and he ultimately made the determination.”
Notably, Biden did not go home to Wilmington, Del., for the weekend as he almost always does, staying at the White House. On Saturday, he and the first lady, after his usual afternoon trip to mass, stopped by the Smithsonian Museum of American History and then had dinner at a restaurant in Washington’s Bloomingdale neighborhood.
On Sunday, a “travel/photo lid” was declared in the early morning, alerting the press corps that the president would not be leaving the White House for the rest of the day.
But he was already gone.
Veronika Melkozerova contributed to this report from Kyiv.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
In February 2020, Eva Kaili, the European Parliament’s high-flying vice president, was on stage at the five-star Ritz Carlton hotel in Qatar’s capital Doha, moderating a discussion about social media giants and democracy.
“We see always efforts of political interference among member states, even in Europe,” she said, turning to her co-panelist. Kaili looked down at her notes. “How do you feel in this country and [its] role in the stability of the whole region?” she asked.
“The country that is hosting us today has made a great progress during the last years,” came the laudatory reply as former EU commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos answered.
This snippet of conversation from a two-day conference would have passed unnoticed at the time. But heard today, the praise is laden with irony. Kaili is in jail, swept up in a high-octane corruption scandal gripping the EU establishment in Brussels, in which Qatar — and also Morocco — are accused of paying off EU lawmakers in order to influence Parliament’s work.
The conference did not come out of the blue. Its seeds had been planted some two years prior, when then-Parliament member Pier Antonio Panzeri, the alleged ringleader of the corruption plot, signed a semi-official cooperation deal with an organization linked to the Qatari government. POLITICO has now obtained the document, after first reporting on its existence last month.
The pact, which Panzeri inked as head of Parliament’s human rights subcommittee, connected the EU body to Qatar’s own human rights commission. It pledged “closer cooperation” between the two sides, mentioning annual “projects” and the exchange of “experiences and expertise.” The language laid the groundwork for years of collaboration, including conferences and lawmaker trips to Doha, with Qatar covering business class flights and luxury hotel stays.
Notably, however, the agreement does not officially exist, according to the Parliament. The memo never went through to lawmakers for review — despite Panzeri saying it would — nor did it go through any formal channels of approval.
“The European Parliament has no official knowledge of the document you refer to,” a Parliament press services official told POLITICO.
Yet the document does exist, illustrating how a foreign country was able to establish substantial links to EU lawmakers and a European Parliament committee without ever triggering formal alarm bells in the institution.
“This is problematic,” said Monika Hohlmeier, a senior MEP from the center-right European People’s Party (EPP) who leads the budgetary control committee. “It shows that we should be much more aware of what is happening.”
“This is extraordinary,” marveledsomeone with knowledge of how the human rights committee (known as DROI) functions.
Qatar has consistently maintained that it rejects any allegations of undue interference in the EU’s work.
The signing
Panzeri signed the deal on April 26, 2018, during a DROI committee meeting in Brussels with Ali bin Samikh Al Marri, who chaired Qatar’s National Human Rights Committee (NHRC). The NHRC says on its website that it enjoys “complete independence” from Qatar’s government.
Addressing a handful of MEPs in a largely empty room, Al Marri argued the Qatari government had made “tremendous strides” on human rights reforms, albeit also admitting it was not yet sufficient. He slammed Saudi Arabia and other Gulf neighbors for imposing what he called “collective sanctions” amid a diplomatic stand-off that resulted in “human rights violations.”
At the very end of the hour-long committee meeting, Panzeri made a brief, passing reference to a “consultation and cooperation document that we will sign today and we will provide to the members of the DROI subcommittee.”
But they didn’t receive it.
“It has never happened,” said Petras Auštrevičius, a Lithuanian liberal MEP who led his group’s work on human rights at the time. Two former MEPs with coordination roles on the committee, Barbara Lochbihler and Marie-Christine Vergiat, also said they had no memory of such an agreement.
Auštrevičius added that even the decision to invite Al Marri to address the committee that day had not been signed off by fellow MEPs, in line with normal practice.
“It seems that the Chair [Panzeri] decided to invite [Al Marri] following a recent private visit to Qatar, which I was not aware of,” Auštrevičius said.
Indeed, on the day the deal was signed, Panzeri was freshly back in Brussels after a trip to Qatar with his parliamentary assistant, Francesco Giorgi.
During the trip, Panzeri met the then-Qatari Prime Minister Abdullah Bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani, his human rights counterpart Al Marri, and praised Qatar’s labor reforms ahead of the football World Cup, according to a media report Panzeri retweeted.
Al Marri would later become Qatar’s labor minister, as global criticism mounted over Doha’s treatment of the migrant workers building the World Cup stadiums.
Giorgi, Panzeri’s assistant, would later be detained alongside his boss and Kaili in the authorities’ initial sweep of arrests. All three were charged with corruption, money laundering and participation in a criminal organization.
The conference did not come out of the blue. Its seeds had been planted some two years prior, when then-Parliament member Pier Antonio Panzeri, the alleged ringleader of the corruption plot, signed a semi-official cooperation deal with an organization linked to the Qatari government | Photo via European Parliament
Panzeri has now brokered a plea deal with prosecutors, admitting to bribing MEPs in exchange for a reduced sentence. Kaili and Giorgi, who are partners, deny any wrongdoing. Lawyers for Panzeri and Kaili did not respond to a request for comment.
Nearly five years later, Parliament officials are scratching their heads about how such a deal could have been signed. Even the signing itself is shrouded in mystery.
According to the Parliament’s press services, the deal was signed in Panzeri’s office. But a photo of the signing shows an EU Parliament staff member present, as well as the official EU and Qatar flags. And a second person familiar with the committee’s work said the signing took place in one of the Parliament’s official protocol rooms, normally used by foreign delegations.
The text of the deal itself is vague and jargonistic.
“It has been decided to continuethe bilateral activity through a consultation and cooperation understanding between the two parties,” it reads on a single side of A4 paper.
“This understanding,” it adds, “aims at regulating and facilitating the relations between the NHRC and DROI through the promotion of closer cooperation, the exchange of bilateral expertise, information and contacts regarding human rights.”
Panzeri’s ‘delegation’ in Doha
In 2019, one year after “this understanding” was reached, Qatar co-organized its first conference in Doha in partnership with the Parliament, or at least with the Parliament’s logo plastered all over it. The topic: Fighting impunity.
At the conference, Panzeri praised Qatar as a “reference” point for global human rights standards. An article in the Gulf Times quoted Panzeri as saying the conference was a direct outgrowth of his 2019 deal. Later, “fight impunity” would even become the namesake cause of Panzeri’s NGO.
Then came the 2020 conference, held in Doha on February 16 and 17 and apparently co-organized with the European Parliament. The new topic: “Social media, challenges and ways to promote freedoms and protect activists.”
The Parliament press services official denied the event was co-organized, saying “it was not an event of the institution, but we still have to investigate how they could use the logo [of the Parliament].”
The 300 attendees had business class flights paid for by the Qataris, plus accommodation in the Ritz Carlton hotel, and a dinner at the national museum of Qatar to end the conference.
Kaili is in jail, swept up in a high-octane corruption scandal gripping the EU establishment in Brussels, in which Qatar — and also Morocco — are accused of paying off EU lawmakers in order to influence Parliament’s work | Photo via European Parliament
Kaili was far from the only top EU politician there.
As she wrapped up her moderating duties, Kaili thanked Panzeri for “organizing actually this delegation.”
Panzeri — who had left Parliament in 2019 — was sitting in the front row next to his now-detained assistant, Giorgi.
Also present was Socialist and Democrat (S&D) lawmaker Marc Tarabella, who was arrested last week as police expand their probe. Belgian prosecutors suspect Tarabella took up to €140,000 in cash from Panzeri to influence EU work on Qatar.
Tarabella’s lawyer, Maxim Töller, denied Panzeri organized the trip: “It’s not Mr. Panzeri. … Well, he was on the trip.”
Tarabella failed to disclose the subsidized trip until last month, years past Parliament’s deadline. Tarabella made a number of excuses for the late declaration, including that he thought it was no longer possible. More broadly, he has proclaimed his innocence in the corruption probe.
Two other EU lawmakers present at the event — S&D member Alessandra Moretti and EPP member Cristian-Silviu Bușoi — also failed to declare their subsidized attendance until after the corruption probe came to light.
“It was an event sponsored by the European Parliament, so the Parliament was aware of the event and of my participation,” Moretti said. “In the spirit of full transparency, I decided to publish it.” She denied being part of a Panzeri-created delegation.
Bușoi, who led the Parliament’s unofficial “friendship group” with Qatar, said: “The 2020 event was declared later due to a staff error.” He also denied being part of any Panzeri-orchestrated delegation.
After Panzeri left Parliament in 2019, S&D lawmaker Maria Arena replaced him atop the DROI committee. In January, she told POLITICO she had not continued Panzeri’s agreement.
The conferences, however, did continue.
In addition to the 2020 event, Arena later went to Qatar in 2022 on Doha’s dime for an NHRC workshop. She eventually stepped down as committee chair after POLITICO disclosed Arena failed to declare the subsidized trip on time. Arena did not reply to a request for comment for this piece.
And for all the confusion around the deal, one thing is clear: For Qatar, it never ceased to exist.
“The relationship with the European Parliament is of utmost importance to us,” Al Marri wrote in May 2021 to two EU lawmakers, including Arena.
Its evidence? “the Memorandum of Understanding we signed with the Human Rights Subcommittee.”
Elena Giordano, Camille Gijs and Nektaria Stamouli contributed reporting.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Saudi Arabia offered to pay for new sports stadiums in Greece and Egypt if they agreed to team up with the oil-rich Gulf heavyweight in a joint bid to host the 2030 football World Cup, POLITICO can reveal.
In exchange, the Saudis would get to stage three-quarters of all the matches, under the proposed deal.
The dramatic offer — likely worth billions of euros in construction costs — was discussed in a private conversation between Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, in summer 2022, according to a senior official familiar with the matter.
A second senior official with knowledge of private discussions on the bid told POLITICO that Saudi Arabia is prepared to “fully underwrite the costs” of hosting for Greece and Egypt, but 75 percent of the huge 48-team tournament itself would be held in the Gulf state.
It is not clear whether the offer was taken up. But the three countries are now working on a joint proposal to host the 2030 tournament, a move which has triggered a backlash against Greece.
Riyadh’s megabucks offer to Greece, reported here for the first time, will fuel criticism that Saudi Arabia is effectively attempting to use its astronomical wealth to buy the World Cup by creating a trans-continental coalition to cleverly take advantage of the voting system.
In an attempt to persuade the members of football’s world governing body, FIFA, of the virtues of the Saudi-led bid, the proposed tournament would see matches held across three continents, providing geographical balance. A Middle East-only World Cup bid would be unlikely to succeed just eight years after Qatar hosted the tournament in 2022.
The Saudis’ main rivals are a joint Spain, Portugal and Ukraine bid from Europe, and a South American bid from Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Chile.
The decision on who hosts the 2030 World Cup comes down to a public vote of the entire FIFA Congress, made up of more than 200 member associations from around the globe. If African countries, attracted by Egypt’s presence and Saudi investment around Africa, rally behind the bid, and Asian nations do the same, while Greece siphons off some European votes, the Saudi-led proposal will stand a strong chance of winning.
POLITICO approached all three governments for comment. The Greek and Saudi governments declined to comment and the Egyptian government did not respond to POLITICO’s requests. FIFA also declined to comment.
‘New world order’
Holding the World Cup would be the culmination of Saudi Arabia’s ambitious strategy to dominate major sporting events. Successes include winning the rights to host world championship boxing bouts, European football and Formula One motor races, while creating its own rebel golf tour. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund also bought a prominent English football club and the country will host football’s Asian Cup for the first time in 2027.
But Saudi Arabia’s desire to stage the World Cup goes beyond reasons of sporting prestige, according to one regional expert.
Lionel Messi of Argentina lifts the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Winner’s Trophy after the team’s victory during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 | Julian Finney/Getty Images
“Saudi Arabia is strategically trying to position itself as an AfroEurasian hub — the center of a new world order,” Simon Chadwick, professor of sport and geopolitical economy at Skema Business School in Paris, said of the Saudi-fronted bid. “This positioning would enable Saudi Arabia to exert significant power and influence across a vast geographic area, which it is seeking to achieve by building relationships with key partners.”
“The multipolar staging of a World Cup with Egypt and Greece would be neither altruism nor largesse. Rather, it would form part of a wider plan, which the government in Riyadh is enabling through the potential gifting of stadiums,” he added.
The Saudi move to host the tournament has sparked disgust among human rights watchdogs, who point out the country’s brutal treatment of the LGBTQ+ community and migrant workers.
“Saudi Arabian repression should not be rewarded with a World Cup,” said Minky Worden, director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch. “So long as Saudi Arabia discriminates against LGBT people and punishes women for human rights activism, and does not have protections for the migrant laborers who would build the majority of the new stadiums and facilities, the country cannot meet the human rights requirements that FIFA already has in place.”
The 2022 Qatar World Cup was blighted by criticism of the Gulf state over its treatment of migrant workers.
Bad memories
In Greece, paying for sports infrastructure is a touchy subject, where it is seen as a monument to government profligacy.
Back in 2004, Athens hosted the Olympic Games, with Greece splurging around €9 billion. However, much of the infrastructure was left abandoned after the Olympic flame went out.
As the country entered a decade-long depression and had to resort to bailout programs to avoid bankruptcy, the Olympics became a source of anger for Greeks who questioned whether the Games pushed their country further into recession. Nearly two decades after the Olympics extravaganza, many of the 30 venues remain unused, while some have been demolished.
Since coming to power in 2019, Greece’s conservative New Democracy government has sought to deepen ties with the Saudis and other Gulf countries, as a response to arch-rival Turkey’s expansionist policy in the region.
Mitsotakis has visited Riyadh multiple times, Greece has delivered military equipment and soldiers to Saudi Arabia and, in July last year, Athens became the first EU capital visited by bin Salman since he personally approved, according to declassified U.S. intelligence, the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Bin Salman, who is back in the West’s good books thanks to an energy crisis triggered by Russia’s war on Ukraine, signed a number of bilateral agreements in Athens last summer, while pledging to make Greece an energy hub for the distribution of “green hydrogen.”
Saudi Arabia has traditionally enjoyed close diplomatic ties with Egypt. Bin Salman met Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in Cairo last June where he signed billions of euros worth of investment deals and discussed “bilateral, regional cooperation.”
The decision on World Cup 2030 hosting will be made in 2024, with the bidding process set to open officially later this year.
Nektaria Stamouli and Nicolas Camut contributed reporting.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
The fight has intensified in recent weeks and drawn the House, newly led by Speaker Kevin McCarthy, into the fray. On Friday, the chamber moved to intervene in the back-and-forth over letting DOJ access the phone of Perry, the House Freedom Caucus chair, reflecting the case’s potential to result in precedent-setting rulings about the extent to which lawmakers can be shielded from scrutiny in criminal investigations.
The House’s decision to intervene in legal cases is governed by the “Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group,” a five-member panel that includes McCarthy, his Democratic counterpart Hakeem Jeffries, and other members of House leadership. The panel voted unanimously to support the House’s intervention in the matter, seeking to protect the chamber’s prerogatives, according to one of the two people familiar with the proceedings.
After this story was first published Monday, McCarthy spokesperson Mark Bednar acknowledged the House has stepped into the legal fight about Perry’s communications. “The Speaker has long said that the House should protect the prerogatives of Article I. This action indicates new leadership is making it a priority to protect House equities,” Bednar said.
FBI agents seized Perry’s phone with a court-approved warrant in August but still lack a necessary second level of judicial permission to begin combing through the records. Perry has claimed his communications are barred from outside review because of constitutional protections afforded to members of Congress that were designed to let lawmakers better fulfill their official responsibilities.
Perry first challenged DOJ’s authority to access his communications in a public lawsuit in August, filed shortly after his phone was seized. He maintained that the Constitution’s Speech or Debate clause prohibited the government from accessing messages he might have sent in connection with his work as a member of Congress. Perry would soon drop the lawsuit, and the status of prosecutors’ efforts to access his records remained unclear.
More than four months after the government obtained Perry’s phone, Howell sided with DOJ. While Howell’s rulings in the dispute remain under seal, along with any rationale that appeals court judges may have offered for their actions, some spare details about the fight appear in that court’s public docket.
On Jan. 5, according to the docket, a three-judge appeals court panel put a temporary hold on Howell’s ruling. The appeals panel assigned to the case — which includes Trump appointees Neomi Rao and Gregory Katsas, as well as Karen Henderson, who was appointed by President George H.W. Bush — rejected prosecutors’ immediate attempt to access Perry’s documents. Those judges instead set out a schedule for additional legal briefing and a Feb. 23 oral argument at the Prettyman federal courthouse in Washington.
Perry is a crucial figure in the ongoing investigation into Trump’s attempts to overturn his loss to Joe Biden. House and Senate probes have described Perry as an important ally to Trump in the chaotic weeks between the 2020 election and Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol in a bid to disrupt the transfer of power.
The now-Freedom Caucus chair helped orchestrate a plan for Trump to replace DOJ leadership with figures likelier to support his groundless efforts to pressure states to override the election results. In addition, Perry was a frequent participant in strategy sessions and calls with Trump and other top aides, and the Jan. 6 select committee recovered several text messages between Perry and former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows discussing plans for department leadership, as well as other matters connected to the 2020 election.
As chief judge of the U.S. District Court, Howell, an appointee of President Barack Obama, oversees all grand jury matters, including those associated with the investigation into Trump’s election-overturning push. While grand juries and the associated legal fights typically occur under a tight veil of secrecy, aspects of the Trump probe have lately been unsealed or leaked out. Howell herself unsealed details in December that revealed prosecutors had prioritized obtaining Perry’s emails with several Trump-world attorneys as early as last spring.
Several other secret grand jury battles have lined the appeals court docket in recent months. In September, Howell supported DOJ’s effort to pierce executive privilege claims related to testimony from aides to former Vice President Mike Pence, and reports suggest Howell issued a similar ruling late last year related to former White House attorneys.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Srinagar, Jan 30: Donning the Kashmiri traditional gown (pheran), Congress leader and Member Parliament (MP) Rahul Gandhi Monday said he deliberately wore a white T-shirt to give chance to his enemies to change its colour but he received endless love instead of grenades. He said the message Bharat Jodo Yatra(BJY) was to see the end of phone calls giving the message of deaths in the Valley.
Addressing a rally on the last day of BJY at SK Stadium, Sonwar, Srinagar, amid heavy snowfall, Rahul, as per news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO) said that much was talked about his T-Shirt. “I wore (white) T-Shirt to give chance to my enemies to change its colour, but instead I received lots of love and warm wishes instead of grenades,” Rahul thundered from the stage amid slogans from the participants: “Jodo, Jodo Bharat Jodo”
Rahul said he can well understand the pain and agony of Kashmiris. “Every Kashmiri I met during my Yatra had tears in his/her eyes. The main message of BJY is to see the end of phone calls giving messages of deaths. What would be the fate of the families including soldiers, CRPF men and Kashmiris when they get phone calls with messages of deaths/killings of their loved ones? Who else can understand that other than me? I have received phone calls about my father’s death and even my grandmother’s death and thus I could realize the pain of families of those killed in Pulwama,” he said as snowflakes filled the air.
Rahul dared Home Minister Amit Shah and other BJP leaders to conduct or hold Padyatra in the Valley like the one he did. “I am sure they can’t do it as they are afraid and have fear in their hearts,” he said and accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval, and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) of “instigating violence”.
Rahul said that Kashmiriyat was a thought and Kashmir was a home for him. “In fact, the thought Kashmiriyat presents is a home for me. For me, the home is not just four-walls but the thought Kashmiriyat gives and presents,” he said.
While speaking on the occasion, Rahul said that he has not carried out this yatra for himself or for the party, but for the people of the country.
Speaking on the occasion, Rahul’s sister, Priyanka Gandhi said that the main message of BJY was to spread love and call for the end of hatred by bringing the hearts together. “Finally, we have succeeded,” he said.
Former J&K chief ministers including Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti while speaking on the occasion said that they see a ray of hope in Rahul Gandhi.
Earlier in the day, Rahul unfurled the national flag at the yatra’s campsite at Cheshma Shahi in Srinagar. He later hoisted the national flag at PCC office here following which the main culmination event was held in which the former chief minister’s of J&K including Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti also participated—(KNO)
The most radical changes are on the inside, which has been redesigned to take advantage of new technology. The control mechanisms are digitized, most notably a new inter-vehicle information system that allows vehicles to exchange information continuously and automatically. Using the new technology, commanders can rapidly track the location of friendly vehicles, identify enemy positions and process artillery requests.
But federal policy forbids the export of Abrams with classified armor packages used by the U.S. military, which includes depleted uranium, according to a fourth person with knowledge of the policy. The U.S. strips the vehicles of this secret armor “recipe” before selling them to other countries. There are other armor packages the U.S. can provide for foreign military sales customers.
The Pentagon is planning to provide Ukraine the A2 version in this “exportable” form, according to one defense official and two other people with knowledge of the deliberations.
Questions remain over the timeline of when the Abrams tanks can be delivered to Ukraine. The tanks are assembled in one place only — a government-owned, General Dynamics-operated plant in Lima, Ohio. That facility can produce 12 tanks per month, but the line is now full of new tank orders for Taiwan and Poland — orders it would be difficult and likely controversial to put on the backburner.
The Army is providing multiple options for senior leaders to determine the way ahead, the service’s acquisition chief, Doug Bush, told reporters Wednesday.
Poland has ordered 250 A2 tanks that will be delivered starting in 2025, but in the meantime is receiving an emergency infusion of 116 M1A1 tanks recently retired by the Marine Corps. Warsaw asked for the tanks to quickly replace the 250 Soviet-era T-72 tanks it gave Ukraine last year, and the shuttering of the Marine Corps tank units made hundreds of well-maintained tanks available immediately.
Taiwan ordered 108 M1A2 tanks in 2019, and the first are expected to be delivered in 2024.
General Dynamics no longer builds the M1 from scratch, but has a number of “M1 seed vehicles” that are bare-bone tanks. When new orders come in, General Dynamics modifies these seed vehicles with new technology depending on which variant is selected.
But these upgrades are not “easy or fast,” Bush said.
Rather than sending Ukraine tanks from its own stocks, as it has done with previous weapons, the U.S. has said it is buying the Abrams from industry, meaning they won’t arrive on the battlefield for many months, or potentially years, given industrial constraints in upgrading them. In the meantime, the U.S. will train Ukrainian forces on how to maintain and operate the tanks, as well as “combined arms maneuver” tactics to help them integrate the weapons into their overall operations.
Either Abrams version would be a significant upgrade from the Soviet-era tanks Ukraine now operates, in firepower, accuracy and armor. But once they arrive, Ukrainian forces will be challenged to keep them in operation, experts said.
Those challenges are why the Biden administration pushed the delivery of German-made Leopard tanks, which are easier to maintain and train on. The first Leopards from Germany and other European countries will likely start arriving in Ukraine this spring.
Unlike other tanks that use diesel, the Abrams has a jet turbine engine that guzzles JP-8 jet fuel, which is more expensive and harder to maintain. They are also tricky to maintain, and any crew error could trigger the engine to blow.
Meanwhile, they require a massive infrastructure, including M88 recovery vehicles to repair broken parts on the battlefield, to operate.
“The M1 is a complex weapon system that is challenging to maintain, as we’ve talked about,” Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said Tuesday. “That was true yesterday; it’s true today; it will be true in the future.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
