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Madrid sign ‘extraordinary’ teen midfielder Bellingham

England's midfielder Jude Bellingham during the Qatar 2022 World Cup. PHOTO: AFP

MADRID (AFP) – Spanish giants Real Madrid signed Jude Bellingham from Borussia Dortmund on Wednesday to secure one of the most exciting young talents in world football.

Madrid made the 19-year-old one of the most expensive players of all time with a EUR103 million deal, which could rise by up to 30 per cent more.

Bellingham burst onto the biggest stage at the Qatar World Cup in 2022, driving England into the quarter-finals, where they were narrowly ousted by eventual runners-up France.

England’s midfielder Jude Bellingham during the Qatar 2022 World Cup. PHOTO: AFP

The midfielder, who turns 20 later in June, brought grace and balance to the Three Lions, with tireless energy to contribute at both ends of the pitch and maturity beyond his years.

That cool head helped him become Dortmund’s youngest captain when he took the armband last October, and he took them to the brink of a rare title.

Dortmund coach Edin Terzic has called Bellingham “the oldest 19-year-old in the world” and was taken aback by his unfluctuating level of performance.

“It is extraordinary to be able to play football so consistently at that age,” said Terzic.

Bellingham scored eight goals in 31 Bundesliga appearances this season and was named the German top flight’s player of the season in May, two days after his team missed out on the title in the final game of the season.

The Englishman was an unused substitute in the 2-2 draw with Mainz after sustaining a knee injury, watching on with frustration as his team failed to earn the victory which would have clinched their first title since 2012.

Bellingham began his career at Birmingham City, coming through the youth ranks and helping them avoid relegation from the Championship in his one first-team campaign at the club, 2019-20.

The midfielder became Birmingham’s youngest ever player at 16 years and 38 days old, beating Trevor Francis’ previous 1970 record.

Birmingham made the bold choice to retire Bellingham’s shirt number, 22, when he left for Dortmund in 2020, “to remember one of our own and to inspire others”.

The German side splashed EUR25 million on the then 17-year-old, which they have more than quadrupled now.

Although Bellingham and Dortmund’s bid to end Bayern Munich’s total domination of the Bundesliga failed, he did lift the German Cup in 2021, beating RB Leipzig 4-1 in the final.

“I’ve never seen a 19-year-old where you have the feeling that he could have three kids at home, he’s someone going upwards,” said Dortmund team-mate Niklas Suele, also highlighting his maturity.

England coach Gareth Southgate said Bellingham was always looking to progress.

“The thing that makes the difference is the mindset, the drive, the desire to learn and improve, and he has all of that,” said the coach, after Bellingham inspired the team to victory over Senegal in the World Cup last 16 in December.

Dortmund have proven themself as an ideal destination for youngsters to flourish, with Erling Haaland, Jadon Sancho, Ousmane Dembele and others thriving there, and Bellingham is the latest off the conveyer belt.

Arriving for a potential fee of up to EUR134 million, it is the most Real Madrid have spent on a player since signing Eden Hazard from Chelsea in 2019.

Madrid president Florentino Perez has largely abandoned his policy of signing “Galacticos” but he did not miss the chance to move for Bellingham and take care of the team’s future midfield for potentially the next decade.

Los Blancos have been looking to find long-term replacements for their veteran players, including midfielders Luka Modric, 37, and Toni Kroos, 33.

Los Blancos brought in young French duo Eduardo Camavinga and Aurelien Tchouameni over the past two summer transfer windows and sold holding midfielder Casemiro to Manchester United.

Bellingham is another key piece of the puzzle for Madrid, who are keen to make strides in the summer transfer market after Manchester City thrashed them in the Champions League semi-finals.

With Karim Benzema, Hazard and Marco Asensio departing, among others, signing Bellingham is at once a statement of intent and just the beginning for Madrid this summer. 

Manchester City and Liverpool were also keen on Bellingham but the record 14-time Champions League winners were always in the driving seat, with Bellingham set to take the wheel in Madrid’s quest for more glory.

 

UNICEF says 300 trapped children rescued from a Sudanese orphanage after 71 others died

The playground of the Foster Home for Orphans is seen in Khartoum, Sudan in May. PHOTO: AP

CAIRO (AP) – About 300 infants, toddlers and older children have been rescued from an orphanage in Sudan’s capital after being trapped there while fighting raged outside, aid officials said Thursday. The evacuation came after 71 children died from hunger and illness in the facility since mid-April.

The tragedy at the Al-Mayqoma orphanage made headlines late last month as fighting raged outside between Sudan’s military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

The deaths have highlighted the heavy toll inflicted on civilians since mid-April when the clashes erupted between forces loyal to General Abdel-Fattah Burhan and RSF forces led by Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo.

About 300 children at the Al-Mayqoma orphanage in Khartoum were transferred to a “safer location” elsewhere in the northeastern African nation, said Ricardo Pires, a spokesman for the UN children’s agency, UNICEF.

Sudan’s ministries of social development and health have taken charge of the children, while UNICEF has provided humanitarian support including medical care, food, educational activities and play, Pires said in an email to The Associated Press.

He said the children had received medical checks following their long journey to their new location, adding that “any child requiring hospitalization will have access to healthcare.”

The playground of the Foster Home for Orphans is seen in Khartoum, Sudan in May. PHOTO: AP

The International Committee of The Red Cross, which helped with the evacuation, said the children, aged between 1 month to 15 years, were relocated after securing a safe corridor to Madani, the capital of Jazira province, about 135 kilometres south-east of Khartoum. Seventy caretakers have been transferred with the children, the ICRC said.

“They (the children) spent incredibly difficult moments in an area where the conflict has been raging for the past six weeks without access to proper healthcare, an especially hard situation for children with special needs,” said Jean-Christophe Sandoz, the head of the ICRC delegation in Sudan.

Nazim Sirag, an activist who heads the local charity Hadhreen, said in a phone interview that the children were ferried late Tuesday to a newly established facility in Madani.

Sirag, whose charity led humanitarian efforts to help the orphanage and other nursing homes in Khartoum, said at least 71 children died at the Al-Mayqoma since the war in Sudan began on April 15.

Among the dead were babies as young as three months, according to death certificates obtained by the AP. The certificates listed circulatory collapse as a cause of death, but also mentioned other contributing factors such as fever, dehydration, malnutrition, and failure to thrive.

Their relocation followed an online campaign led by local activists and international charities, which intensified after the death of 26 children in two days at the orphanage in late May. The children had been trapped in the fighting for over seven weeks as food and other supplies dwindled. The facility was inaccessible because of the war had turned the capital and other urban areas into battlefields.

“The safe movement of these incredibly vulnerable children to a place of safety offers a ray of light in the midst of the ongoing conflict in Sudan,” Mandeep O’Brien, UNICEF Representative in Sudan, said in a statement. “Many millions of children remain at risk across Sudan.”

Local volunteers, meanwhile, evacuated 77 other children earlier this week from separate foster homes in the coastal, Sirag of Hadhreen said. The children have temporarily sheltered along with 11 adults in a school in the town of Hasahisa, also in Jazira province, he said.

The fighting has inflicted a heavy toll on civilians, particularly children. More than 860 civilians, including at least 190 children, were killed and thousands of others were wounded since April 15, according to Sudan’s Doctors’ Syndicate which tracks civilian casualties. The tally is likely to be much higher.

The conflict has forced more than 1.9 million people to flee their homes, including around 477,000 who crossed into neighboring countries, according to the UN’s migration agency. Others remain trapped inside their homes, unable to escape as food and water supplies dwindle. The clashes have also disrupted the work of humanitarian groups.

There have been reports of widespread looting and sexual violence, including the rape of women and girls in Khartoum and the western Darfur region, which have seen some of the worst fighting in the conflict. Almost all reported cases of sexual attacks were blamed on the RSF, which didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment.

Lionel Messi picks MLS’s Inter Miami after exit from Paris Saint-Germain

PSG's Lionel Messi celebrates after scoring his side's fourth goal during the French League One soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Lille at the Parc des Princes stadium, in Paris, France on February 19, 2023. FILE PHOTO: AP

MIAMI (AP) – Lionel Messi has pulled off his latest stunning feat: He is headed to Major League Soccer (MLS) and joining Inter Miami.

After months — years, even — of speculation, Messi on Wednesday finally revealed his decision to join a Miami franchise that has been led by another global football icon, David Beckham, since its inception but has yet to make any real splashes on the field.

That likely will soon change. One of Inter Miami’s owners, Jorge Mas, tweeted out a photo of a darkly silhouetted Messi jersey shortly before the Argentinian great revealed his decision in interviews with Spanish news outlets Mundo Deportivo and Sport.

It was widely believed that Messi eventually would choose to play for Al-Hilal in Saudi Arabia, following longtime rival Cristiano Ronaldo to a nation where some clubs now are funded by the state’s sovereign wealth fund. Going back to Barcelona, a storied franchise where he spent most of his career, was another possibility.

But in the end, he made the call that surprised many. Messi is joining MLS. He said in the interviews Wednesday that some final details still need to be worked out, but that he has made the call to “continue my path” in Miami.

PSG’s Lionel Messi celebrates after scoring his side’s fourth goal during the French League One football match between Paris Saint-Germain and Lille at the Parc des Princes stadium, in Paris, France on February 19, 2023. FILE PHOTO: AP

“After winning the World Cup and not being able to return to Barcelona, it was my turn to go to the league of the United States to live football in another way,” Messi said.

He didn’t take the money. He didn’t choose the memories. He picked Miami instead. Messi’s next matches are likely to be exhibitions with Argentina against Australia on June 15 at Beijing and at Indonesia in Jakarta four days later — and then his Inter Miami debut figures to be sometime in July.

“We are pleased that Lionel Messi has stated that he intends to join Inter Miami and Major League Soccer this summer,” read a statement from MLS. “Although work remains to finalize a formal agreement, we look forward to welcoming one of the greatest football players of all time to our league.”

The seven-time Ballon d’Or winner — the trophy given annually to the world’s best player — makes his move after two years with Paris Saint-Germain. At 35, Messi has nothing left to prove in the game and filled the only significant unchecked box on his resume back in December by leading Argentina to the World Cup title.

Messi has more than 800 goals in his career for club and country, making him one of the greatest scorers in the sport’s history. In more than 17 years of representing Argentina on the international stage, he has scored 102 goals against 38 different national team opponents — 16 of those goals coming on US soil. He scored twice in last year’s World Cup final against France, a match that ended 3-3 with Argentina prevailing 4-2 on penalty kicks.

He has been to the absolute mountaintop of the game. He is a four-time Champions League winner and his 129 goals in the top club competition are second to Ronaldo’s 140. Messi has won 10 La Liga titles and two Ligue 1 championships, seven Copa del Reys and three Club World Cups plus a Copa América and Olympic gold medal for Argentina.

And now he comes to MLS, and a team that is struggling — last place in the Eastern Conference, just a few days removed from the firing of coach Phil Neville (who was hand-picked by Beckham two years ago).

Messi’s decision to play in the U.S. might be the biggest boost ever for American football on the pro stage. Some of the game’s biggest names — Pelé, Franz Beckenbauer, Thierry Henry and Beckham himself — have come to the US toward the end of their careers, but landing a player still no worse than near the pinnacle of his game and just a few months removed from hoisting a World Cup is simply huge.

“This is obviously the biggest signing that they’ve brought in,” said Nashville defender Walker Zimmerman, a US national team regular. “It’s kind of reminiscent of Beckham when he came originally. You saw how the league has kind of changed in the 15 years since he arrived, and hopefully 15 years from now we’re seeing all the growth from this addition to the league. I think it’s a great thing.

“I think it’ll be great for the sport in this country, especially ahead of the 2026 World Cup. And I’m excited to play against him.”

It took months of negotiations with MLS, the Miami ownership, Adidas and even Apple getting involved in a creative pitch to bring Messi to Miami’s pitch. Apple — which is a broadcast partner of MLS — announced Tuesday that it will show a still-untitled four-part documentary series “featuring exclusive behind-the-scenes access to global superstar Lionel Messi. … In his own words, Messi tells the definitive story of his incredible career with the Argentina national football team, providing an intimate and unprecedented look at his quest for a legacy-defining World Cup victory.”

And now, his story will have a Miami chapter. His move comes in a week when the NBA’s Miami Heat and NHL’s Florida Panthers are both at home in their respective title series — and the Heat, during Game 3 of the NBA Finals on Wednesday night, flashed a graphic on their scoreboard welcoming Messi to Miami.

The Heat trailed by 21 points at the time. A few people cheered anyway.

Inter Miami needed six years from inception to playing its first match, and its first four seasons have been less than stellar.

Messi is joining a team that sits last in the Eastern Conference and just fired its coach. It has made the playoffs in two of its first three seasons but has yet to finish a season with a winning record or even a positive goal differential.

Still, there have been hints for months that Miami remained very much in the Messi sweepstakes. Messi met with Inter Miami co-owner Beckham this spring, and that was shared publicly almost to ensure that everyone knew the sides were still talking. Messi and his family also own several pieces of luxury real estate in South Florida, and — almost as if to suggest something big was coming — the MLS club told fans the only way they could get tickets for the second half of this season was to purchase a season-ticket package.

He’s an enormous draw everywhere on the globe, including Miami. Two days after Argentina won the World Cup, Miami Heat guard Kyle Lowry sat on his team’s bench for a game unable to play because of injury. He wore a Messi jersey that night.

Inter Miami still plays home matches in a temporary home in Fort Lauderdale, about 45 minutes north of the site in Miami where the team wants to build a permanent complex.

And even in an area where the population has a serious Latin flavor, and where more people might actually call the sport fútbol than football, Inter Miami has struggled to generate the same attention as do the area’s primary pro teams — basketball’s Heat, baseball’s Miami Marlins, football’s Miami Dolphins and hockey’s Panthers.

Messi could change that in an instant. In a flash, he becomes the biggest name in MLS and makes everything Miami does newsworthy. Barcelona released a statement saying Jorge Messi, the player’s father, told the club president Joan Laporta of the decision to go to Miami and wished him well.

“President Laporta understood and respected Messi’s decision to want to compete in a league with fewer demands, further away from the spotlight and the pressure he has been subject to in recent years,” the statement from Barcelona said.

His decision ends what has been a wild saga. Barcelona made Messi a superstar, but the financial issues that forced the team to letting him go two years ago still remain an issue.

“I heard that they’d have to sell players or lower players’ salaries and the truth is, I didn’t want to go through that,” Messi said Wednesday.

There are no financial issues with Saudi Arabia, and speculation that he would end up there intensified when Messi made an unauthorized trip to the kingdom. PSG suspended him and some fans turned on him, serenading him with jeers toward the end of his season with the French club.

Everyone knew he wouldn’t be back with PSG. Few likely thought he was heading to Miami. But here he is, a move to Miami by a superstar that might even be more shocking than LeBron James arriving to join the Heat 13 years ago.

Sharing Israel? Divide between religious and secular Jews heats up under Netanyahu’s rule

Ultra-Orthodox Jews walk past a sign calling on women to dress modestly in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Mea Shearim in Jerusalem on Wednesday. PHOTOS: AP

HARISH, Israel (AP) – The sound of children and music echoed down a narrow basement hallway in Israel as they scrambled in a pool of balls, climbed on a jungle gym, munched popcorn and laughed.

The atmosphere changed suddenly on that Saturday last month, as at least a dozen religious men appeared and blocked the entrance, accusing the indoor playground of desecrating the Jewish sabbath by opening for business. Angry parents confronted them, scuffles broke out and in an instant, the centre in this mixed city had become a flashpoint symbol of a larger battle between secular and religious Jews in Israel.

“I think it represents what’s going on in the country,” said Tzipi Brayer Sharabi, a 38-year-old mother who says she was attacked and thrown to the ground during the May 20 incident. “I want my kids to live how they choose to live. I don’t want somebody to tell them how they should eat, how they should dress, what they should do on Shabbat.”

Similar incidents have long upset the tenuous balance between the communities. But with ultra-Orthodox parties now wielding unprecedented power in Israel’s new government — and playing a key role in a contentious plan to overhaul the legal system — they are aggravating concerns among secular Israelis that the character and future of their country is under threat.

Thanks to its supercharged political clout, the haredi community has gained massive budgets that critics say will entrench its isolated way of life and weaken Israel’s economic prospects as the ultra-Orthodox population balloons.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews walk past a sign calling on women to dress modestly in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Mea Shearim in Jerusalem on Wednesday. PHOTOS: AP

“We have two kids. They have 10 kids. They’re going to be the majority here, eventually,” said Brayer Sharabi, a secular Israeli whose elbow was broken in the scuffle. “What’s going to happen to this place once they have the majority?”

Israel’s ultra-Orthodox, known as haredi, make up 13 per cent of the country’s 9.7 million population. The cloistered community has long been at odds with the secular majority, clashing over military conscription, their integration into the workforce and the basic tenets that guide their lives. Haredi Jews in Israel also are growing faster than any other group, at about 4 per cent annually.

The many differences between religious and secular Jews have chafed the country throughout its 75 years. Under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, the sense has sharpened among secular Israelis that their lifestyle may have an expiration date.

Israeli police try to clear ultra-Orthodox Jews blocking a highway during a protest against the detention of a member of their community who refuses to do military service in Bnei Brak, Israel on December 27, 2020.
Ultra orthodox Jews dance as they block a highway during a protest against the detention of a member of their community who refuses to serve military service in Bnei Brak, Israel on December 27, 2020.

Netanyahu, meanwhile, brushes off such criticism, saying the ultra-Orthodox are Israeli citizens who deserve funding and that he is working to integrate them into the workforce.

The ultra-Orthodox mostly live in separate towns and city neighborhoods, and unlike most secular Jews, most are not conscripted in the military under a decades-old system of exemptions that allows them to study religious texts instead. Many continue religious study well into adulthood and do not work, living off government stipends and grating on the nerves of the country’s tax-paying middle class.

Ultra-Orthodox schools widely do not teach a core curriculum of math or English. Experts say this gives them few skills to enter the work world, creating a recipe for poverty and increased dependence on government assistance as the population grows.

The ultra-Orthodox say their children nonetheless deserve robust state funding for education, and that their otherwise insular communities protect a centuries-old way of life. Their leaders also say they contribute to the economy by paying significant sums of sales tax on consumer purchases for their large families.

Secular Israelis protest against plans by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to overhaul the judicial system in the ultra-Orthodox city of Bnei Brak near Tel Aviv, Israel on March 23.
Ultra-Orthodox youth and right-wing activists state a counter-protest as mothers wearing Israel Defense Forces unit berets during a protest against a proposed military draft bill exempting ultra-Orthodox Jews from military service outside an ultra-Orthodox seminary, in Jerusalem on May 4.

Yinon Azulai, a lawmaker with the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, last month in a parliament speech denounced what he called “the wild incitement raging these days and running in the streets of baseless hatred for the ultra-Orthodox community” after a popular TV host called the community “blood suckers.”

“I don’t intend to apologize for being haredi,” he said on the Knesset floor.

Gilad Malach, director of the ultra-Orthodox in Israel Program at the Israel Democracy Institute, a think tank, said that the large budget was part of a broader trend showing the community is not integrating with the country’s larger society.

“The last few years we have more and more signs that this process is not strong enough,” he said. “People ask themselves, what is the direction that (the) Israeli state goes?”

Dan Ben-David, an economist who has long criticized what he says is preferential treatment for the ultra-Orthodox, said the generous subsidies and political power provide a glimpse of Israel’s future.

Boys play in a school yard in Harish, a city with a mixed population where secular and ultra-Orthodox Jews recently scuffled at a children’s indoor playground that opened for business on the Jewish Sabbath on Wednesday.
Ultra-Orthodox Jews buy food in an outdoor weekly market in Harish, a city with a mixed population where secular and ultra-Orthodox Jews recently scuffled at a children’s indoor playground that opened for business on the Jewish Sabbath on Wednesday.

“Not a day goes by where we’re not inundated with a clear picture of what’s life going to be like” under an ultra-Orthodox majority, said Ben-David, president of Tel Aviv University’s Shoresh Institution for Socioeconomic Research. “The level of tension is much higher.”

The tens of millions of dollars in financial handouts passed in the recent budget last month have enraged secular Israelis.

Weekly protests against the legal overhaul have sometimes adopted anti-religious themes, especially ahead of a court-ordered July 31 deadline for Netanyahu to submit a new law to address the issue of ultra-Orthodox enlistment. It is not clear whether a proposed bill would pass legal muster. It does not seek to draft more ultra-Orthodox men into the military, but instead would cajole them into joining the workforce earlier.

The mayhem at the play center in Harish, a mixed secular and religious town, made news reports as other signs of unease simmered.

In May, when singer Noa Kirel won third place in the Eurovision Song Contest, Israelis widely celebrated. But a powerful ultra-Orthodox member of Netanyahu’s coalition, Moshe Gafni, brought up her name and referenced her revealing performance costume during a budget debate.

“I would also donate some clothes to her, so she can have some,” Gafni, the Finance Committee chairman, said. Kirel was quoted in Israeli media saying that everyone is entitled to their opinion.

Last month, outrage and threats of a boycott ensued when photos appeared on social media of purple stickers covering the faces of women on drugstore products at a leading pharmacy in the haredi city of Bnei Brak. Some ultra-Orthodox consider images of women to be immodest, and haredi media often erase the images of women from news photos. The pharmacy later stopped covering up women’s photos.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews boycotted a bakery after one of its executives, a former government minister, supported the protests against the judiciary overhaul.

Just a few years ago, Harish had been promoted as a model of coexistence between its secular and religious residents. Now that seems like wishful thinking as a country long used to conflict with its outside neighbors finds itself grappling with unprecedented internal divisions.

“It’s between Jews, that’s the irony,” said Brayer Sharabi’s husband, Avshalom, 39, in an interview outside the play center. “What’s happening now, feels new.”

Crown Prince officiates CIPTA Award 2023

His Royal Highness Prince Dr Haji Al-Muhtadee Billah ibni His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah touring an exhibition. PHOTO: BAHYIAH BAKIR

His Royal Highness Prince Dr Haji Al-Muhtadee Billah ibni His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah, the Crown Prince, Senior Minister at the Prime Minister’s Office, the Pro-Chancellor of Universiti Technology Brunei (UTB) and Patron of the Crown Prince Creative, Innovative Product and Technological Advancement (CIPTA) Award on Thursday graced the Crown Prince CIPTA Award 2023 at the Plenary Hall of the International Convention Centre (ICC), Berakas.

The Crown Prince CIPTA Award 2023 theme is cantered on Innovations for Sustainable Development Goals. This year saw 68 participants including seven from ASEAN.

Out of the total, 48 projects have advanced to the final judging round.

Category 2 which involves modifications to existing products, processes, or technologies, has the highest number of participation compared to others.

Meanwhile, competing projects involve SDG 4: Quality Education, SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation, SDG 7: Access to Affordable and Clean Energy, SDG 9: Industry, innovation, and Infrastructure), SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities and SDG 13: Climate Action.

More details on Friday’s Borneo Bulletin

His Royal Highness Prince Haji Al-Muhtadee Billah ibni His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah, the Crown Prince and Senior Minister at the Prime Minister’s Office touring an exhibition. PHOTO: BAHYIAH BAKIR

Oil steady as investors weigh supply and demand drivers

SINGAPORE (CNA) – Oil prices were little changed in early Asia trade on Thursday as investors weighed demand concerns over a global economic slowdown against an expected fall in supply from Saudi output cuts.

Brent crude futures dipped 1 cent at USD76.94 a barrel at 0110 GMT, while the US West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose 5 cents at USD72.58 a barrel.

Both benchmarks settled up by about 1 per cent on Wednesday, supported by Saudi Arabia’s plans for deep output cuts, though price gains remain capped by rising US fuel stocks and weak Chinese export data.

“We considered substantially lowering our oil price deck in the absence of OPEC+ action last Sunday, but even a one million barrel/day cut looks unlikely to underpin a sustainable price increase,” Citi analysts said on Thursday.

“Both OPEC and IEA forecasts have had an air of wishful thinking about accelerating demand growth by year-end,” the analysts added.

US crude oil stockpiles fell last week, though fuel product inventories grew, the latest data from Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed on Wednesday.

Gasoline inventories climbed by 2.7 million barrels in the week, the EIA said, higher than analyst expectations for a 880,000 barrel rise.

Distillate stockpiles rose by nearly 5.1 million barrels in the week, exceeding analyst predictions of a 1.3 million barrel rise.

The larger-than-expected build in US fuel inventories raised concerns over demand from the world’s top oil consumer, especially as travel was expected to have grown more during the Memorial Day weekend.

Meanwhile, US crude inventories fell by 451,000 barrels in the week, while analysts had expected a one million barrel rise.

Air pollution cloaks eastern US for a second day. Here’s why there is so much smoke

The sun rises over a hazy New York City skyline as seen from Jersey City, NJ on Wednesday. PHOTO: AP

NEW JERSEY (AP) – Intense smoke blanketed the northeastern United States for a second day Wednesday, turning the air a yellowish gray and prompting warnings for people to stay inside and keep windows closed. The smoke is flowing from dozens of wildfires burning in several Canadian provinces.

Much of the air was in the “unhealthy or worse categories in areas from the mid-Atlantic through the Northeast and parts of the Upper Great Lakes,” according to an advisory issued by the Environmental Protection Agency Wednesday night.

US authorities issued air quality alerts in multiple regions and smoke was expected to persist for days.

Conditions were especially bad in parts of central New York, where the airborne soot was at hazardous levels. In New York City, officials on Wednesday said everyone should stay indoors. The conditions arrived late Tuesday afternoon, obscuring views of New Jersey across the Hudson River.

The sun rises over a hazy New York City skyline as seen from Jersey City, NJ on Wednesday. PHOTO: AP

Here’s a closer look at what’s happening and what’s in the smoke:

GENESIS OF THE SMOKE

Unusually hot, dry weather that wouldn’t stop gave rise to the fires.

“The month of May was just off the charts — record warm in much of Canada,” said Eric James, a modeling expert with the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science at the University of Colorado, who is also with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“I don’t remember fires of this scale in the last 10 years,” James said.

A warming planet means heat waves will be hotter and longer, making for bigger, smokier fires, according to Joel Thornton, professor and chair of the department of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington.

The Quebec-area fires are big and relatively close, about 500 to 600 miles (about 800 to 970 kilometres) from Rhode Island and they followed wildfires in Nova Scotia.

Their smoke has been moving into the United States since last month. The most recent fires near Quebec have been burning for at least several days.

WHY IS SMOKE REACHING SO FAR AWAY?

Strong winds high up in the atmosphere can transport smoke long distances and it’s common for large, violent fires to create unhealthy conditions hundreds of miles away from where forests are burning.

But the right mix of circumstances had to align for the smoke to blanket major U.S. cities: A dry, hot spring set the stage. Then weather did the rest, said Bob Henson, meteorologist with Yale Climate Change Connections.

In Canada, air is circulating counterclockwise around a low pressure system near Nova Scotia. That sends air south over the fires in Quebec. There the air picks up smoke, and then turns east over New York State, carrying smoke to the eastern seaboard.

“It’s a simple matter of trajectory,” Henson said. “The smoke goes where the wind takes it.”

This wind pattern isn’t particularly rare. But the confluence of events is.

“The timing of this weather patterns is unfortunately overlapping with a situation that was ripe for large fires,” Thornton said.

Weather patterns change and the worst conditions should only last a day or two. Some smoke, however, could linger for a week or more, according to James.

WHAT IS SMOKE ACTUALLY?

Although smoke seems familiar, it is actually made up of a complex mix of shapes, from round to corkscrew-shaped under the microscope. “It’s not just one sort of chemical,” said Rima Habre, an expert in air quality and exposure science at the University of Southern California. “It could have gases and carbons and toxic metals.” As it travels, Habre said, it also changes and can contain ozone.

Much of what we see in the air and measure is small particles, or PM 2.5. These are so small they can get deep into the lungs, where oxygen enters your circulation. “Mostly we worry about inflammation in the lungs,” Habre said, from these high levels of pollution. But with climate change amping up fires, increasingly, she said, she is worried about broader numbers of people being exposed to less extreme smoke for weeks or months.

“Most healthy adults and children will recover quickly from smoke exposure and will not have long-lasting health effects,” according to the EPA advisory. But that is less true for a large category of people including children whose lungs are still developing, older adults, and people with lung diseases, such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Stay inside, keeping your doors, windows and fireplaces shut, is the advice. Air conditioning on the recirculation setting can help filter out some particles, and air filters can remove many more.

The Iron Sheik, charismatic former pro wrestling villain and Twitter personality, dies at 81

The Iron Sheik arrives at the ESPY Awards in Los Angeles on July 15, 2009. PHOTO: AP

(AP) – The Iron Sheik, a former pro-wrestler who relished playing a burly, bombastic villain in 1980s battles with some of the sport’s biggest stars and later became a popular Twitter personality, died Wednesday, the WWE said. He was 81.

The wrestling organization posted an article confirming his death, and a statement about his passing also was posted on his Twitter page giving details of his life. Neither statement mentioned a cause of death nor where he died, but the Twitter post said he “departed this world peacefully.”

The Iron Sheik, whose real name was Hossein Khosrow Ali Vaziri, grew up in a small village in Iran where he embraced wrestling in his youth.

During his pro wrestling career, he donned curled boots and used the “Camel Clutch” as his finishing move during individual and tag team clashes in which he played the role of an anti-American heel for the WWF, which later became the WWE.

The mustachioed, barrel-chested brawler often riled up crowds with his anti-American persona and rhetoric, often alongside tag team partner Nikolai Volkoff, who played the part of a Soviet villain. They won the WWF World Tag Team Championship in 1985 at the first WrestleMania, according to the biography posted on the WWE’s internet page.

He was a successful individual wrestler as well, winning the WWF championship in 1983 by defeating Bob Backlund, before losing it later to Hulk Hogan. He also built a long-running rivalry with Sgt. Slaughter, who played the role of an American hero.

He later teamed with Sgt. Slaughter as Colonal Mustafa. The Iron Sheik’s last appearance in the ring was at WrestleMania 17, the Connecticut-based WWE said.

The Iron Sheik had an early foundation in competitive Greco-Roman wrestling, competing in the Amateur Athletic Union and becoming a gold medalist in 1971, WWE said.

In a documentary about his life called “The Sheik,” he said he became attracted to wrestling as a teen and as a grappler in the Iranian Army.

“I was married to the wrestling mat because I was so much … in love with the sport,” he said in the film.

In the documentary, he said he once served as a bodyguard for the Shah. As a pro wrestler, he acknowledged taking advantage of anti-Iranian sentiment following the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis.

“It was the right time to … establish my character, my gimmick,” he said.

The Iron Sheik’s influence extended to the sport’s biggest stars. Wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who used the term “jabroni” to insult his ring opponents, has credited The Iron Sheik with making it famous in wrestling circles. The TV show “Young Rock” also has featured The Iron Sheik as a recurring character,

The Iron Sheik arrives at the ESPY Awards in Los Angeles on July 15, 2009. PHOTO: AP

The Iron Sheik used his humor and wisdom to build a large Twitter following. He also made appearances on “The Howard Stern Show,” “The Eric Andre Show,” and others, the WWE biography said.

The Twitter statement said The Iron Sheik “transcended the realm of sports entertainment” and called him “a man of immense passion and dedication.”

“With his larger-than-life persona, incredible charisma, and unparalleled in-ring skills, he captivated audiences around the globe,” the statement said. “He was a trailblazer, breaking barriers and paving the way for a diverse range of wrestlers who followed in his footsteps.”

In a tweet, professional wrestler Triple H called The Iron Sheik a legend.

“An all-time great performer and WWE Hall of Famer who brought his character to life and transcended our business,” he said.

Countering climate change with chocolate

An employee of the company Circular Carbon shows shredded cocoa shells in Hamburg; and the production plant of the company Circular Carbon installed in an old storage hall. PHOTOS: AFP

HAMBURG (AFP) – At a red-brick factory in the German port city of Hamburg, cocoa bean shells go in one end, and out the other comes an amazing black powder with the potential to counter climate change.

The substance, dubbed biochar, is produced by heating the cocoa husks in an oxygen-free room to 600 degrees Celsius.

The process locks in greenhouse gases and the final product can be used as a fertiliser, or as an ingredient in the production of “green” concrete.

While the biochar industry is still in its infancy, the technology offers a novel way to remove carbon from the earth’s atmosphere, experts said.

According to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), biochar could potentially be used to capture 2.6 billion of the 40 billion tonnes of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) currently produced by humanity each year.

But scaling up its use remains a challenge. “We are reversing the carbon cycle,” Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Circular Carbon Peik Stenlund, told AFP at the biochar factory in Hamburg.

An employee of the company Circular Carbon shows shredded cocoa shells in Hamburg; and the production plant of the company Circular Carbon installed in an old storage hall. PHOTOS: AFP

The plant, one of the largest in Europe, takes delivery of the used cocoa shells via a network of grey pipes from a neighbouring chocolate factory.

The biochar traps the CO2 contained in the husks – in a process that could be used for any other plant.

If the cocoa shells were disposed of as normal, the carbon inside the unused byproduct would be released into the atmosphere as it decomposed. Instead, the carbon is sequestered in the biochar “for centuries”, according to an environmental scientist at the UniLaSalle institute in France David Houben.

One tonne of biochar – or bio coal – can stock “the equivalent of 2.5 to three tonnes of CO2”, Houben told AFP. Biochar was already used by indigenous populations in the Americas as a fertiliser before being rediscovered in the 20th Century by scientists researching extremely fecund soils in the Amazon basin.

The surprising substance’s sponge-like structure boosts crops by increasing the absorption of water and nutrients by the soil.

In Hamburg, the factory is wrapped in the faint smell of chocolate and warmed by the heat given off by the installation’s pipework. The final product is poured into white sacks to be sold to local farmers in granule form.

One of those farmers is Silvio Schmidt, 45, who grows potatoes near Bremen, west of Hamburg. Schmidt hopes the biochar will help “give more nutrients and water” to his sandy soils.

The production process, called pyrolysis, also produces a certain volume of biogas, which is resold to the neighbouring factory. In all, 3,500 tonnes of biochar and “up to 20 megawatt hours” of gas are produced by the plant each year from 10,000 tonnes of cocoa shells.

The production method nonetheless remains difficult to scale up to the level imagined by the IPCC.

“To ensure the system stores more carbon than it produces, everything needs to be done locally, with little or no transport. Otherwise it makes no sense,” Houben said.

And not all types of soil are well adapted to biochar. The fertiliser is “more effective in tropical climates”, while the raw materials for its production are not available everywhere, Houben said.

The cost can also be prohibitive at “around EUR1,000 (USD1,070) a tonne – that’s too much for a farmer”, he added.

To make better use of the powerful black powder, Houben said other applications would need to be found. The construction sector, for example, could use biochar in the production of “green” concrete. But to turn a profit, the biochar business has come up with another idea: selling carbon certificates.

The idea is to sell certificates to companies looking to balance out their carbon emissions by producing a given amount of biochar.

With the inclusion of biochar in the highly regulated European carbon certificates system, “we are seeing strong growth in (the) sector”, CEO Stenlund said.

His company is looking to open three new sites to produce more biochar in the coming months.

Across Europe, biochar projects have begun to multiply. According to the biochar industry federation, production is set to almost double to 90,000 tonnes this year compared with 2022.

Big win

Selvam Arumugam posing with the money he won at his company’s event. PHOTO: CNA

Hazeeq Sukri

CNA – Decked in a simple red tee, Selvam Arumugam was all smiles as he greeted us. And why wouldn’t he be? Less than two weeks prior, on May 27, the 42-year-old foreign worker in Singapore participated in a game at his company dinner and dance, and won a life-changing amount of SGD18,888.

In a now-viral TikTok video, the Indian national can be seen falling on his knees and profusely thanking his employers at Pollisum Engineering upon winning the grand prize.

As part of their dinner and dance event, the crane leasing company created a Squid Game-esque competition for all their employees – sans bloodshed and death, of course.

Participants had to compete in a few games – one of them being the infamous ‘red light, green light’ game from the hit Netflix show.

Speaking through a translator, Selvam shared that he “didn’t even know that SGD18,888 was the grand prize” when he signed up for the competition.

“All I did was follow (what the other participants were doing) and tried my best,” he told CNA Lifestyle.

Selvam Arumugam posing with the money he won at his company’s event. PHOTO: CNA

His initial reaction after winning the money? Utter disbelief.

He even rejected the money and “tried returning it to the big boss”. After all, SGD18,888 is the equivalent of a year and a half salary for Selvam, who is part of Pollisum Engineering’s lifting team, and assists in maintaining and inspecting the company’s cranes and lifting gears.

Once Selvam overcame his shock, he decided to put the money to good use by building a family home.

“(We) used to stay in a rental house (in India). With this money, we can have (multiple) bedrooms (for the family).”

Selvam shared that he had already purchased the land needed to build the house and expects his new home to be ready within “two to three years”.

Hailing from Tamil Nadu, Selvam started working in Singapore in 2007 to support his wife and three children. In addition, he is also responsible for the wives and children of his two older brothers who have since died.

Having been here for over 10 years, Selvam thinks that “Singapore is a nice country”.

Throughout the interview, he continued to express gratitude towards his employers for changing his life.

When asked why they held the competition, Pollisum Engineering’s executive director Chris Ang said: “Our company has (been performing) quite well for the past few years. As such, we wanted to motivate and incentivise our staff. We wanted to change lives with the money (set aside for the dinner and dance event). That’s why we (took inspiration) from Squid Game.”

The company ended up awarding each participant in their competition at least SGD188.

They also revealed that they plan to bring all their workers on an overseas trip should they hit their targets this year.

For now, Selvam Arumugam is a prime example of how hard work and a bit of luck can change one’s life for the better.

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