Author: Gulf News Week
BBCIt was just five months ago when Andy Burnham retreated to his mayor’s office in Manchester, having been blocked by Labour’s ruling executive from standing for parliament.When I met him there a few weeks later, he told me he planned to deal with his disappointment with some ambitious plans for his city region.Burnham told me he wanted to appeal directly to Fifa to host the final of the women’s football World Cup in 2035 Manchester instead of Wembley. “Imagine how electrifying that is for any girl growing up in the north of England,” he said.He said he was also joining…
PA Media / Getty ImagesThis World Cup has been bigger than any tournament before it.More countries taking part and more matches means more eyeballs on the action – as well as more opportunities to make money.As the planet’s footballing stars create historic moments on the pitch, billions of dollars are being generated off it.But not everyone is raking in the big bucks, so while there are some big winners, there are also some financial losers.The amount of money world football’s governing body Fifa makes from the World Cup is astronomical. It generated a record $7.6bn (£5.6bn) from Qatar 2022 and…
AFP via Getty ImagesFile picture of boats carrying Rohingyas off the coast of Aceh, IndonesiaTwo boats carrying an estimated 530 Rohingya asylum seekers left Myanmar’s Rakhine state on 29 June, and have not been heard from since. The equivalent of a jumbo jet full of people has vanished.It is very likely that they both capsized. The monsoon has started, the seas are rough, and the boats – usually old fishing trawlers converted to carry as many people as possible – are barely sea-worthy with unreliable engines. It is also very likely that there were few, or no survivors. Half of…
AFP via Getty ImagesAndy Burnham will take over from Sir Keir Starmer as Labour leader on Friday, after winning the support of the party’s MPs.It means he will soon become the UK’s prime minister – the seventh in the last 10 years.When does Andy Burnham become prime minister?Burnham becomes Labour leader on Friday – but he will not become prime minister until Monday, three days later.The King will meet Burnham soon afterwards, when he will ask him to form a government. Once Burnham has accepted, he will officially be the UK’s prime minister.Both meetings usually happen at Buckingham Palace.Burnham will…
Getty ImagesChina has hit out at the nationalisation of British Steel, saying it “firmly opposes and is strongly dissatisfied with the British government’s decision”.On Thursday, the UK government said that taking the loss-making firm into public hands would protect jobs and safeguard a “vital national capability”.The UK took control of British Steel’s operations in Scunthorpe last year, though it was still owned by China’s Jingye Group, limiting the government’s ability to steer its future.China’s commerce ministry said on Friday that the moves “seriously infringed upon Jingye’s legitimate rights and interests and severely undermined the confidence of Chinese companies investing in…
LIVEAndy Burnham to become Labour leader and will promise to ‘fix things politics has neglected’The Makerfield MP is due to speak later when he is appointed at a special conference in central London. He will then become prime minister on Monday.
Getty ImagesPrincess Aiko, the only child of the current emperor, is still not eligible to succeed the throneThe Japanese parliament has approved a bill to relax imperial succession rules, amid concerns over the dwindling size of the imperial family. The bill, passed by the upper house on Friday, allows the imperial family to adopt distant male relatives over the age of 15 and lets women keep their royal status after marrying outside the family.But it does not change the law barring women from ascending the throne despite wide public support for a female emperor, meaning Princess Aiko, the only child…
Uganda Police Force/XThe bus was carrying pupils on a field trip when the accident occurred At least 20 schoolchildren and one adult have been killed after a bus carrying pupils on a study trip crashed in eastern Uganda, local officials say, in one of the country’s deadliest road accidents involving children in recent years. Dozens of others, including school staff, were injured in the crash in Kapchorwa area on Thursday evening.Preliminary investigations show the bus suffered a mechanical fault before the driver lost control on Chekwatit Hill, a stretch of road that has been the site of several serious crashes,…
Getty ImagesAt the centre of tensions between Manila and Beijing are the Spratly Islands and Scarborough ShoalThe Philippines has condemned the “dehumanising and racist” portrayal of the country as a timid monkey strong-armed by the US and Japan to take Beijing on over the South China Sea.Last week, China Daily posted an AI-generated video featuring a monkey in a Filipino shirt. It screams as arms bearing the Japanese and US flags shove it onto a rickety karaoke stage set up in a boat.After it gets scolded for singing the wrong song, it pulls out a sheet reading “South China Sea…
EPAUS President Donald Trump has delivered a primetime address in which he accused China of interfering in the 2020 election and alleged “shocking vulnerabilities” in American voting systems.Trump, who spoke from the White House on Thursday, has repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud and foreign meddling in the 2020 election which he lost to Joe Biden.In the half-hour speech, delivered three months before the midterm elections, he said he had declassified hundreds of intelligence files which supported his claims that Beijing had tried to sway the election in Biden’s favour.The US intelligence community has previously concluded China did not…