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New push to salvage Gaza truce

Mediators Qatar and Egypt were pushing to resolve a crisis in the Gaza ceasefire Wednesday, a Palestinian source told AFP, after Israel and the United States told Hamas to release hostages this weekend or face a return to war.Under the terms of the truce, which has largely halted more than 15 months of fighting in Gaza, captives were to be released in batches in exchange for Palestinians in Israeli custody. So far, Israel and Hamas have completed five hostage-prisoner swaps.But the deal has come under increasing strain in recent days, prompting diplomatic efforts to salvage it and Hamas to say it was “committed to the ceasefire” after earlier saying it would postpone Saturday’s scheduled release.”Mediators from Qatar and Egypt are in contact with the American side,” said the source on condition of anonymity, as he was not authorised to speak publicly on the Gaza ceasefire.”They are working intensively to resolve the crisis and compel Israel to implement the humanitarian protocol in the ceasefire agreement and begin negotiations for the second phase,” he said.UN chief Antonio Guterres has urged Hamas to proceed with the planned release and “avoid at all costs resumption of hostilities in Gaza”.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that “if Hamas does not return our hostages by Saturday noon, the ceasefire will end, and the IDF (Israeli military) will resume intense fighting until Hamas is decisively defeated”.His threat echoed that of US President Donald Trump who said on Monday that “hell” would break loose if Hamas failed to release “all” Israeli hostages by Saturday.Trump has proposed taking over Gaza and removing its more than two million residents.”If all of the hostages aren’t returned by Saturday 12 o’clock… I would say cancel it and all bets are off and let hell break out,” Trump said.He reaffirmed his deadline while hosting Jordan’s King Abdullah II on Tuesday.King Abdullah said on social media he “reiterated Jordan’s steadfast position against the displacement of Palestinians”, adding it was “the unified Arab position”.Senior Hamas leader Sami Abu Zuhri said Trump’s remark “further complicates matters”.”Trump must remember that there is an agreement that must be respected by both parties,” he told AFP.Egypt, a US ally which borders Gaza, said Tuesday it plans to “present a comprehensive vision for the reconstruction” of the Palestinian territory which ensures residents remain on their land.- ‘Gates of hell’ -Hamas has said it would postpone the next hostage release, scheduled for Saturday, accusing Israel of violating the deal and calling for it to fulfil its obligations.Yemen’s Huthi rebels, who are aligned with Hamas and have attacked Israel throughout the war in support of the Palestinians, said they were “ready to launch a military intervention at any time in case of escalation against Gaza”.Netanyahu did not specify whether he was referring to all captives, but his Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called on the premier to “open the gates of hell” if Israel doesn’t get back “all the hostages… by Saturday”.The far-right politician demanded the “full occupation of the Gaza Strip” and an end to all humanitarian aid.The Israeli military said it has reinforced its troops, while hostage families rallied outside Netanyahu’s office in support of the ceasefire.”There is a deal. Go for it!” said Zahiro, whose uncle Avraham Munder died in captivity.In Gaza, resident Adnan Qassem was praying “the ceasefire holds”.”The ruling faction in Israel wants war, and I believe there is also a faction within Hamas that wants war,” said the 60-year-old from Deir el-Balah.- ‘Humanitarian catastrophe’ -Trump’s latest threat came hours after Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said the hostage release scheduled for Saturday was postponed.It accused Israel of failing to meet its commitments under the agreement, including on aid, and cited the deaths of three Gazans at the weekend.But the group said “the door remains open” for the release to go ahead “once the occupation complies”.The Gaza war was triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,211 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.Militants also took 251 hostages, of whom 73 remain in Gaza, including 35 the Israeli military says are dead.The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says the war has killed at least 48,219 people in the territory, figures the UN considers reliable.A UN report issued on Tuesday said that more than $53 billion will be required to rebuild Gaza and end the “humanitarian catastrophe” in the devastated territory.

Marmoush’s Man City move sparks excitement in Egypt

In a packed cafe in Cairo, all eyes were glued to a flickering flat-screen TV, waiting for Omar Marmoush, now donning Manchester City’s sky-blue jersey, to step onto the pitch.In the 84th minute, the Egyptian forward finally jogged to the sideline, ready to make his UEFA Champions League debut against Real Madrid.The cafe erupted with cheers and hands banging on tables, and even longtime Madrid fans joined in to celebrate one of their own.The Spanish side ended up winning 3-2, but at the Cairo cafe, the result did not diminish the love for Marmoush.”I came today just to see him,” said Abdel Rahman Tarek, a 25-year-old fan.”Marmoush playing in Manchester City. That is huge,” he told AFP, his face beaming with pride.While his appearance ended up being just minutes-long, Marmoush’s high-profile move to City has sparked nationwide buzz.From heated debates in cafes to trending discussions on social media, his name is being celebrated alongside Mohamed Salah’s, Egypt’s football megastar.- A challenging season -Manchester City, battling even to qualify for next season’s Champions League, is banking on 26-year-old Marmoush to inject fresh energy.Marmoush joined from Eintracht Frankfurt on a four-and-a-half-year deal worth around £59 million ($73 million).His arrival comes at a testing time for City, who are trailing league leaders Liverpool by 15 points.Coach Pep Guardiola said following his debut in a 3-1 victory over Chelsea that he was “really pleased” with Marmoush’s performance so far, but the player will need time to settle in.”His real impact could come next season once he fully integrates into the squad and Guardiola refines his role within the team,” Egyptian sports analyst Khaled Talaat told AFP.Born to an Egyptian-Canadian couple, Marmoush started out at Cairo’s Wadi Degla club.Ahmed Hossam, popularly known as “Mido”, a former Egypt and Tottenham Hotspur striker who coached Degla’s first team in 2016, saw the potential.”Marmoush will be the surprise of Egyptian football,” Mido said in 2016.The forward moved to Germany at a young age, playing for VfL Wolfsburg and developing his skills in the Bundesliga with Stuttgart and Eintracht Frankfurt before earning his big break with Manchester City.- The next Salah? -His blockbuster move has inevitably drawn comparisons to Salah, who is enjoying another stellar season at Liverpool, netting 21 goals in 23 league appearances.His journey from Nagrig, a village in Egypt’s Nile Delta area of Gharbiya, to global stardom at Anfield has inspired millions.His rise is a classic underdog story — he started at Egypt’s El Mokawloon before moving to Switzerland’s Basel.A tough spell at Chelsea followed before he found his form at Italy’s AS Roma, ultimately becoming one of the greatest players in Premier League history with Liverpool.Pundits said it would be “unfair to compare” Marmoush to Salah just yet, though he has already shown great promise.”Salah had to fight for playing time with Chelsea when he first arrived in England whereas Marmoush has already started matches with City, showing that Guardiola sees potential in him,” said Talaat.But even Salah has urged caution, warning last year that such comparisons could create unnecessary pressure.”Let him live his own experience and enjoy it,” Salah said at a November book fair in the UAE.Marmoush agrees.”Salah is the best player in Egypt’s history,” he said on a TV show last month.”But I don’t want to be the next Mo Salah. I want to be Omar Marmoush and create my own story.”- ‘Give him time’ -Beyond their career trajectories, their playing styles also set them apart.Salah is renowned for his blistering pace, lethal finishing and ability to turn matches around.Marmoush is more versatile — comfortable playing across the forward line and adept at linking up play in midfield.”The two players are fundamentally different on the pitch,” said Ahmed Owais, a football pundit.”Salah is a fighter with incredible speed and finishing… Marmoush, on the other hand, is more skilful in tight spaces, has quick feet, and excels in dead-ball situations.”Salah has set a nearly impossible standard, and pundits believe that once City regains its rhythm, Marmoush could be in a stronger position to shine.In the Cairo cafe, some fans were ready to anoint Marmoush as Egypt’s next great footballing export, while others insisted there was only one king.For Yassin Ahmed, 19, support, not comparisons, is what matters now.”He deserves our backing,” he said. “He is one of us, a special talent and we need to give him time.”

Future hosts Saudi Arabia ‘watch and learn’ on Asian Winter Games debut

Saudi Arabia made their debut at the Asian Winter Games in China this week and will controversially host the next edition in a move derided as “awful” by one Olympic skier and denounced by environmental groups.The Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) in 2022 unanimously approved the desert kingdom’s bid to stage the Games at its $500 billion megacity NEOM in 2029.”It is awful for our sport,” Olympic downhill silver medallist Johan Clarey previously told French radio.Saudi Arabia will also host the football World Cup in 2034, part of a splurge on sports events which has triggered accusations of “sportswashing” of its rights record.Saudi officials deny that and were in Harbin this week, with the vice president of the country’s Olympic committee in the Chinese city to “watch and learn”.”Of course it would be a first for us, organising such an event,” Prince Fahd bin Jalawi bin Abdul Aziz said in an OCA news release.”But I can assure everyone that we will put on a good show.”Planners for the futuristic but far-from-finished NEOM, which has sought to wrangle support from Chinese investors, say it will feature a year-round winter sports complex in the mountains of Trojena.NEOM executive Denis Hickey said at Davos last month that Trojena was “deep into construction”, including a man-made lake and “frameworks for the village that will hold the Asian Winter Games”.Temperatures have yet to dip below zero this year in northern Saudi Arabia’s Tabuk province, which covers NEOM.Saudi officials did not respond to an AFP request in Harbin for comment about how it plans to prepare for the 2029 Games.There were eight Saudi athletes in China and even though none won a medal, they were having a “great” time at the country’s first Asian Winter Games, they said.- ‘We’re doing great’ -Saudi Arabia exited the Games after the men’s curling team failed to advance out of the round robin to the elimination bracket.They were thrashed 15-1 by Hong Kong on Wednesday.But curler Hussain Hagawi, who picked up the sport in 2017, remained upbeat after his team “almost beat Japan”. They had led Japan by one point after the first end but lost 9-4 on Tuesday.”So far we’re doing great!” he said.They began preparing for the Harbin Games in November, training on indoor ice in Saudi Arabia, including at ice hockey rinks. “Of course, no rink is compared to the ice in the international arenas,” said Hagawi, 46. “But it does the job.”His teammate Suleiman Alaqel said he did some of his training in front of his television, squeezing his workouts into a busy schedule as a full-time data engineer.The team met every other weekend for practice, the 39-year-old said, clarifying: “Sometimes every three weekends.””We do have some limitations with having competition-level ice, obviously, but we do train a lot,” Alaqel said. “As long as the team has the passion, we can use anything to prepare.”In number, the Saudis paled in comparison to this year’s hosts, who received the loudest cheers at the opening ceremony as China’s delegation of about 170 athletes were last to enter the stadium in front of a waving President Xi Jinping.But Saudi Arabia’s Olympic committee vice president has pledged to have a far bigger squad in Trojena.In Harbin, their delegation comprised a five-man curling team and three alpine skiers — one man and two women.”We will be trying our best to have athletes in every sport by 2029,” he said.The Saudis plan to add mixed doubles and women’s teams for curling in 2029, Hagawi said.There are also ongoing negotiations for more intensive local training programmes.”In NEOM, well, we will try as much as we can,” added Alaqel. “We will also try to introduce a lot more people to the game.”While Saudi Arabia’s desert project has raised questions about the feasibility of running ski and snowboard events that require the cold, Alaqel was upbeat about the weather.”I think it’s maybe minus five degrees (Celsius), not minus 30,” Alaqel said. “So hopefully it’s a little nicer, weather-wise.”

Nerves fray in Turkey textile sector as Syria refugees mull return

As excitement swept through the Syrian community after Bashar al-Assad’s overthrow, businesses in Turkey that rely on them for labour began quickly crunching the numbers.”The Syrians have made a big contribution to the textile sector here. If they leave, there will be a serious labour problem,” said Ali Gozcu, reflecting the widespread anxiety gripping Turkey’s textile industry.Gozcu runs ALG Tekstil, a clothing firm in Gaziantep, a southeastern Turkish city that is home to half a million Syrians.”We don’t expect a sudden departure, but if it happens, we will suffer a serious loss of labour,” he told AFP, adding that 70 percent of his workers were Syrian.And he is not alone. “All of the workers here are Syrian,” agreed Yusuf Samil Kandil, a quality controller at Beni Giy clothing, referring to the Unal district where textile firms line the run-down streets and old-fashioned mannequins stand in dusty shopfronts alongside racks of garments. “If the Syrians leave, our labour costs will increase significantly, as well as our production costs,” he told AFP. Turkey is the world’s sixth-largest textile manufacturer and its industry is based in the southern regions that host most of its around 2.9 million Syrian migrants. Government figures show that around 100,000 Syrians have work permits, but experts believe about a million Syrians are active in the Turkish economy, mostly in informal, labour-intensive jobs in construction, manufacturing and textiles.Their departure could put a serious dent in the workforce of an industry that is struggling with inflationary pressures and rising costs.So far, just over 81,000 people have returned, interior ministry figures show, although observers expect a surge in June over the Eid al-Adha holiday. – ‘Huge decision’ -On ALG’s factory floor, dozens of young men and women sit hunched over industrial sewing machines or overlockers, churning out thousands of t-shirts.A new Syrian flag hangs on the wall and there is an Arabic notice on the toilet door. One of its workers, 55-year-old Zekeriya Bozo, who wants to return to Syria and “create a new business there”, said: “If Syrians leave, there won’t be anyone left to work here.”But experts say it is a complicated picture for Syrians, suggesting fears of a mass departure are unfounded due to the uncertainty hanging over a country ravaged by 13 years of war. “Although they’re very happy that Assad is gone, that was only one barrier to them going back,” said Professor Murat Erdogan, whose Syrians Barometer survey has consistently flagged their concerns about safety, the potential for conflict and Syria’s ruined infrastructure. Most have established a life in Turkey, with more than 970,000 babies born over the past 12 years. Despite tough working conditions, they know they are unlikely to find something better back home, he told AFP.”They told us they have a lot of problems in Turkey and work very hard for very little money. But if they go back, even if they did find jobs, they said they’ll only get $14 a month,” he said.They earn far more than that in Turkey.”Going back is a huge decision. Because of that, I think a maximum of 20 percent of them will return and that will take a lot of time.”- Taking production to the workers? -Despite the uncertainty, Gozcu is looking into new ways of working that could accommodate the return of some Syrians, nearly half of whom hail from the Aleppo region just across the border from Gaziantep.”We’ve become very close with our Syrian workers,” he told AFP.If need be, “we will open workshops in Syria for them and will continue our production there”, he said.Although much of Syria was in ruins, Kemal Kirisci, a migration expert at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, said there was potential for developing business links in the future.”Syria is a very promising place in the long run. Ideally, we could have a very porous economic border so people could move back-and-forth,” he told AFP.”It would be a win for Turkish industry, for the economy, a win for Syria and for the new regime.”There could eventually be a revival of the so-called ‘ShamGen’ area of free trade and visa-free movement between Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey that was inspired by the EU’s Schengen zone but collapsed at the start of the war in 2011. “These things could be revived very easily — but the key lies with this new regime,” he said.

‘Saudi is the best!’: Why are TikTok mumfluencers lauding desert megacity?

Expat “mumfluencers” are taking to TikTok to sing the praises of life in Saudi Arabia and to extol the virtues of its new NEOM megacity, filming their idyllic lives spent picnicking by turquoise waters and shopping in gleaming malls.”If you have children, Saudi Arabia is the best place,” Aida McPherson, an Azerbaijani born in London, told her almost 60,000 followers as she filmed her daughter in traditional Saudi dress on a shopping trip.Around a dozen expat mothers have posted similar glowing accounts of the far-from-finished NEOM project in the desert championed by the kingdom’s de-facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, despite concerns about continued rights violations in the country and alleged abuse of migrant building workers.NEOM is a planned $500-billion futuristic megacity in northwestern Saudi Arabia meant to feature a ski resort, twin skyscrapers and a building known as “The Line” that will be a staggering 170 kilometres (105 miles) long.There has been increasing scepticism over the viability of the project and reports say population projections are being scaled down.But “influencer mums” — often English-speaking and dressed in Western clothes — rave about how “magnificent” everything is in NEOM, right down to the delicious food.One Thai mumfluencer, who goes by the username “Sarasarasid”, shared a video of her “typical afternoon in NEOM”: a scooter ride, going for a coffee and taking her toddler to a playground. The video has been viewed around 800,000 times. The city it shows is almost deserted.Sarasarasid also posted videos of herself at the NEOM hospital, where she gave birth, praising the quality of care.Nearly two million people watched her be driven across a long stretch of sand in a 4×4 by her partner, a senior sales manager at NEOM since 2022 according to his LinkedIn account.- ‘Police state’ -Like many influencers, she lives in a complex reserved for project employees and their families not far from Sindalah, a luxury resort island in the Red Sea that is the first part of the NEOM project to be completed.None agreed to be interviewed when contacted by AFP.When he unveiled The Line in 2022, Prince Mohammed said NEOM would be home to more than a million people by 2030, and nine million by 2045.But the developers have radically reduced their ambitions to 300,000 residents by the end of the decade, according to Bloomberg.”These privileged influencers are part of the regime’s propaganda machine to woo the West, tourists and investors,” said Lina al-Hathloul from the NGO ALQST which monitors rights in Saudi Arabia.”The daily lives of Saudi women and the people are totally different.” she told AFP. Saudi Arabia “is still a police state where everything is a red line for freedom of expression”. Women are “considered to be under the guardianship of a man since birth, first that of their father and then their husband”, and their “disobedience” can earn them prison time, Hathloul added.While Prince Mohammed is credited with Saudi Arabia’s modernisation, notably allowing women to drive, the kingdom’s notorious guardianship system — which requires women to get permission from male relatives for many decisions — remains and those campaigning for its abolition have faced arrest.Nevertheless, Western beauty influencer “skincarebestie_” in the capital Riyadh insisted in a TikTok video with over a million views that “people think that women are oppressed here, but they can work, drive, do whatever they want”.Asked if they had collaborated with these influencers, neither NEOM, the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Saudi Ministry of Media nor the Saudi embassy in Paris responded to AFP’s requests for comment.- ‘Smart PR’ -Nicholas McGeehan, co-director of the human rights NGO FairSquare, said the posts are “consistent with what sounds like a fairly smart PR strategy to use social media to help transform the country’s image.”This is the type of demographic that needs to see Saudi Arabia as acceptable,” he told AFP.David Rigoulet-Roze, a researcher at the French Institute for Strategic Analysis, said Riyadh regularly mobilises “hundreds of influencers” to “smash the image of an archaic country, closed in on itself, that is built on religious extremism”.Despite high-profile advertising campaigns led in particular by the likes of footballer Lionel Messi, and controversially landing the 2034 football World Cup, the kingdom and Prince Mohammed remain tarnished by the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.The killing of Khashoggi was described by a UN probe as an “extrajudicial killing for which Saudi Arabia is responsible”. US intelligence agencies determined that Prince Mohammed had “approved” the operation. Riyadh denies this, blaming rogue operatives.While the young leader presents Saudi Arabia as a more liberal country now, with tourism to be a pillar of its post-oil era, its human rights record remains problematic. Dissidents face repression and capital punishment is used en masse, monitors say, with 338 executions recorded last year, the highest figure in three decades.In early December, Human Rights Watch also documented the “widespread abuse” of foreign workers from Asia or Africa, some of which can be considered “forced labour”, “including in major projects” like NEOM.