Barcelona have been charged with corruption over payments the club made to ex-vice-president of Spain’s referees’ committee Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, .On Friday, the public prosecutor’s office said Spanish prosecutors had filed a complaint against the Catalan giants and two of the LaLiga club’s ex-presidents over alleged payments to a company owned by the senior refereeing official to influence match results, The club allegedly paid over €7.3m (£6.4m) between 2001 and 2018 to firms owned by Enriquez Negreira, who held the role at the Spanish football association between 1993 and 2018.Prosecutors claim that under a secret agreement and “in exchange…
Author: National Tone
Berlin, Germany – When Lyu Azbel first heard about Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last February, they were quick to react. With professional and personal ties to the country, Azbel tried to find out if their friends and coworkers were all safe. They soon connected with one colleague, Olena Chernova, who was still in Kyiv. A public healthcare researcher who has lived in Berlin for 10 years, they told Al Jazeera by phone, “It was a really disturbing, scary time. I was concerned for Olena’s safety. I managed to convince her to come to Berlin and she arrived one evening…
Our Weekend Winners team are back with their Cheltenham Festival preview with plenty of strong views ahead of next week’s four-day extravaganza. At The Races expert Declan Rix, Kate Tracey and BetVictor’s Sam Boswell have all provided best bets across various markets and plenty of bullish opinions along the way. Rix made a compelling case of last year’s Supreme second Jonbon, who takes on the classy El Fabiolo from the Willie Mullins yard in the Arkle on Tuesday. Image: Daryl Jacob and El Fabiolo win the Irish Arkle at Leopardstown “I think there’s no doubt that El Fabiolo has got…
Santiago, Chile – Siomara Molina stands on the steps of the Chilean National Library on a busy street in the heart of Chile’s capital. Waving fists in the air and wearing green scarves, symbolic of the Latin American movement for abortion rights, Molina and the dozens of women around her chant: “Abortion yes, abortion no, that’s my decision”. Abortion is illegal in Chile, a traditionally Catholic country, except in three limited circumstances: nonviable pregnancies, rape or risks to a mother’s health. And a years-long push by rights advocates to loosen those restrictions suffered a serious blow last year when Chileans…
Charles Byrnes has given Blazing Khal the go-ahead for the Paddy Power Stayers’ Hurdle at Cheltenham on Thursday.The seven-year-old won back-to-back Grade Two novice prizes at Prestbury Park in the autumn of 2021, but missed the rest of the season through injury and did not ultimately not return for 14 months. An impressive comeback in the Boyne Hurdle at Navan in mid-February catapulted Blazing Khal to the head of the Stayers’ Hurdle market, but Byrnes later revealed his stable star had returned with a “a few bits of nicks” that required treatment. However, while his preparation has clearly not been…
Meanwhile, the Kremlin accuses Washington of stoking anti-Russian sentiment among the thousands who protested against the bill.Georgia’s parliament has dropped plans for a “foreign agents” bill that triggered a major domestic political crisis and threatened to derail the nation’s bid for closer ties with Europe. On Friday, the bill was voted down in the second reading after only one lawmaker – out of 36 who voted – backed the legislation that critics had compared with laws in Russia that authorities have used to silence Moscow’s opponents. The majority of the 112-member parliament abstained from voting. Hundreds of anti-government protesters rallied…
Istanbul, Turkey – When the bed Hacer Guven, 81, was sleeping in plunged all the way from the fourth floor to the ground floor of her apartment building in Antakya, in Turkey’s southernmost province of Hatay, the impact of the February 6 earthquake was felt as far away as Istanbul, where some of her close relatives lived. “We have this family chat, and everybody is on the group chat trying to get some news from someone [there],” recounts Irem Mursaloglu, Hacer’s 37-year-old granddaughter, about the events of a month ago, when Antakya was hit along with vast swathes of territory…
William Haggas sends another potentially smart youngster to Wolverhampton on a decent card despite the fixture only being announced earlier this week. 3.20 Wolverhampton – Last time out winners clashThe Spreadex Sports £300 Spead Betting Handicap (3:20) looks particularly open with some last time out winners going head-to-head in a decent heat for the grade. Athmd won earlier this week for the Ruth Carr team and will be expected to run well again, alongside Dream Harder and Quick Change who returns from over 250 days off.Brains was behind Unforgotten who runs in the Lincoln Trial on Saturday and this looks…
As the Russia-Ukraine war enters its 380th day, we take a look at the main developments.Here is the situation as it stands on Friday, March 10, 2023: Fighting Russia launched a huge wave of missile attacks across Ukraine, killing at least six civilians, three of them in the southern city of Kherson, and cutting power to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Ukraine’s air force says Russia fired 81 missiles, including six Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, as well as eight drones. Russia says the attacks were “retaliation” for what it called a terrorist attack by Ukraine in Russia’s Bryansk region last week.…
US Treasury Department says 39 entities granted Iran access to the international financial system.The United States has imposed sanctions on 39 entities, including many based in the United Arab Emirates and Hong Kong, that Washington said facilitate Iran’s access to the global financial system, describing them as a “shadow banking” network that moves billions of dollars. The US Treasury Department said in a statement on Thursday that those included in the sanctions had granted companies previously slapped with Iran-related sanctions – such as Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industry Commercial Co (PGPICC) and Triliance Petrochemical Co Ltd – access to the international…