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Day: July 6, 2024
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Kylian Mbappé is enduring a tough Euro 2024
HAMBURG, Germany — He has a broken nose that requires him to wear a vision-limiting face mask. He is managing fitness issues stemming from the end of the club season. He has scored only one goal — from the penalty spot.
The European Championship is hardly going as planned for Kylian Mbappé, and he knows it.
“These are the vagaries of the footballer,” the France captain said after his latest below-par par performance at Euro 2024.
He doesn’t really care, though, as long as he is lifting the Henri Delaunay Cup in Berlin on July 14.
Mbappé was so fatigued, so knocked out of his stride after a couple of bashes to his protective mask, that he asked to come off at halftime of extra time against Portugal in the quarterfinals in Hamburg on Friday.
It meant giving up a likely penalty in the impending shootout — which France won 5-3 because of Joao Felix’s miss — but Mbappé simply couldn’t continue.
France coach Didier Deschamps confirmed his captain asked to be replaced, for the good of the team.
“He is always very honest with me and the team. When he feels he doesn’t have the capacity to accelerate then we can’t risk it, even a player like Kylian,” Deschamps said.
“With all that has happened to him — the issues he has had, the trauma with his nose — he is hanging in there. He is not in his top form. He felt very tired indeed.”
Mbappé accepted before the Portugal game that he wasn’t in prime shape and needed a “good pre-season to be at 100%.” That will come at Real Madrid, which he has joined after running down his contract at Paris Saint-Germain.
Getting his nose broken in France’s opening group game at Euro 2024 threw him off kilter, too, restricting a part of his game because of his lack of peripheral vision.
His best performances so far might have come in France’s news conferences, where he has been vocal in urging French people to vote in the snap elections while warning about the dangers of the far right getting into power.
On the field, Mbappé is part of a France team that heads into a semifinal match against Spain on Tuesday having scored three goals this tournament — two own-goals and his penalty against Austria. No France player has scored a goal from open play yet.
Like Greece in 2004, France is looking to reach the final pretty much entirely based on its mean defense and team structure. Except the talent in this France squad far outweighs what was at Greece’s disposal 20 years ago.
“In the locker room, we weren’t thinking that we still hadn’t scored a goal in the game,” said Mbappé, who netted a hat trick in the 2022 World Cup final. “But yes, we will look into the question [of France’s lack of efficiency in attack] while maintaining this defensive solidity.
“I’ve only scored one goal, but we’re in the semifinals and I’m very happy.”
Mbappé didn’t much like watching the penalty shootout from afar, either.
“It’s worse than shooting,” he said, laughing.
GENEVA — A prominent human rights expert is calling on governments to end the billion-dollar arms trade with Myanmar’s military, which is “helping sustain the junta’s brutal campaign of violence against civilians across Myanmar.”
In a report to the U.N. human rights council Thursday, Thomas Andrews, special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar, accused international finance systems of helping Myanmar procure the weapons that have “enabled attacks on civilians” and have killed, maimed and displaced thousands of people.
Since the military junta toppled the country’s democratically elected government in February 2021, the U.N. human rights office reports at least 5,280 civilians, including 1,022 women and 667 children, “have been killed at the hands of the military.”
Additionally, the agency reports at least 3 million people have been displaced — “the vast majority still without proper shelter,” and more than 20,000 political prisoners remain in detention.
Andrews told the council that in the two years ending March 2024, the Myanmar military has purchased $630 million in weapons, dual-use technologies, manufacturing equipment, and raw materials through the international finance system.
The special rapporteur identified 16 foreign banks that have facilitated transactions related to military procurement by the junta, noting that the junta and its cronies have worked to obscure the specific nature of the transactions “including by setting up military front companies.”
He referenced a report he issued last year, “The Billion Dollar Death Trade,” in which he identified Singapore as the junta’s third largest source of weapons and related materials.
Because of that report, he told the council that “to its credit, the government took immediate action and launched an investigation of my findings. I am very pleased to report that the junta’s purchase of military supplies from Singapore dropped by nearly 90 percent since the publication of that report.”
“Unfortunately, military procurement through Thailand has moved in the opposite direction,” he said, underscoring the junta imported nearly $130 million in weapons and military from Thailand-registered suppliers, “more than double the total from the previous year.”
He observed, however, “It is important to note that as was the case with Singapore last year, I found no evidence that the government of Thailand was involved or even aware of these transactions,” adding that he was hopeful Thailand based entities, including its banks “will no longer be facilitating the transfer of weapons and weapons materials to the military junta.”
Andrews called on financial institutions to stop facilitating transactions with banks that are controlled by the military junta and for governments to sanction those junta-controlled banks, including Myanmar Economic Bank.
The special rapporteur garnered support from member states, including the United States, for his appeal.
“We applaud Singapore for taking action to cut arms supplies to the military and call on others to follow suit,” Michele Taylor, U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Council, said during the council’s interactive dialogue.
“We urge the Security Council to use all the tools at its disposal to prevent future atrocities, including by reinforcing this body’s call to cut off the military’s access to jet fuel, and to support efforts to find a peaceful and just resolution to the crisis,” she said.
Andrews said the people of Myanmar need and deserve the support of the council and governments. He emphasized they also need international action, “not only because of the military junta’s relentless attacks on the people of Myanmar, but because there are opportunities available to your governments right now that would make an enormous difference in how and when this crisis comes to an end.”
“The tide is turning in Myanmar, the junta is on its heels, and the opportunity to take decisive action is now,” he said, pointing out that civilian resistance forces are gaining ground.
He said the government’s military bases are falling, tens of thousands of troops “have been lost to casualties, surrender, or defections,” and the economy is being squeezed.
“In response, the junta is doubling down on its brutal attacks on civilian populations,” he said. “Junta leaders appear committed to destroying the country that they cannot control.”
He said the world must not allow that to happen.
“We now have clear evidence that actions taken by the international community to isolate the junta and degrade its capacity to attack the people of Myanmar are working.
“But more must be done and done now to build on this progress including strategic coordination between all governments who support human rights to stop the flow of sophisticated weapons of war that are being used to attack innocent Myanmar civilians,” he said.
НАТОвская дочка русского ГРУшника? https://t.co/fJdzlPzEUH
— Michael Novakhov (@mikenov) July 6, 2024
The post @mikenov: НАТОвская дочка русского ГРУшника? https://t.co/fJdzlPzEUH first appeared on October Surprise 2016.
НАТОвская дочка русского ГРУшника? https://t.co/fJdzlPzEUH
— Michael Novakhov (@mikenov) July 6, 2024
The post @mikenov: НАТОвская дочка русского ГРУшника? https://t.co/fJdzlPzEUH first appeared on The Trump Investigations – trumpinvestigations.net – The News And Times.
