Author: Opalim Lifted

Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal had been eight points clear at the top just two months ago, but they have had a dreadful season, with their latest defeat guaranteeing Manchester City’s almost inevitable successive triumph. In contrast to the visitors’ despair, Steve Cooper’s Nottingham Forest were celebrating a stunning survival after accumulating 37 points to avoid relegation back to the second-tier Championship, whence they had escaped a year previously. Man Utd battle Newcastle for Mane, Saliba stall on Arsenal contract In the 19th minute, Arsenal’s typically superb midfielder Martin Odegaard made a rare error, allowing Morgan Gibbs-White to drive forward before finding…

Manchester City have won the Premier League championship for the third time in a row after Arsenal were defeated at Nottingham Forest. The Gunners, who led the league for the bulk of the season, are now four points behind Manchester City with one game remaining after being defeated 1-0 on Saturday. Manchester City crush Real Madrid to reach Champions League final Pep Guardiola’s team has won the league title in five of the last six seasons. With the FA Cup and Champions League finals coming up next month, they have a chance to complete the triple. Only Manchester United, in…

Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen vowed on Saturday to maintain the status quo of peace and stability across the national strait amid high tensions with China, which has stepped up military pressure on the democratically governed island. The country will not provoke and will not bow to Chinese pressure, Tsai said in a speech in the presidential office in Taipei marking the seventh anniversary of her governance. China, which considers Taiwan its own and threatens to bring the island under its control if necessary, has stepped up military and diplomatic pressure to force the island to accept Chinese sovereignty since Tsai…

Roberto Firmino scored a dramatic late equaliser in his final appearance at Anfield for Liverpool to keep the Merseyside squad’s slim chances of a top-four finish in the Premier League alive with a 1-1 draw against Aston Villa on Saturday. Firmino, who is one of four players leaving when his contract runs out, scored in the 89th minute to the delight of the crowd, who serenaded the Brazilian after the final whistle. Juergen Klopp’s side are fifth with 66 points with one game remaining, but three points adrift of fourth-place Manchester United, who have a game in hand. Unai Emery’s…

Midfielder Casemiro scored a brilliant acrobatic volley to give Manchester United a 1-0 Premier League win at Bournemouth on Saturday that took them closer to Champions League football next season. United moved on to 69 points in fourth place in the table, behind Newcastle United on goal difference and needing one point from home games against Chelsea and Fulham next week to seal a return to European club soccer’s most prestigious competition. Fifth-placed Liverpool, who are on 66 points after a 1-1 draw against Aston Villa, face relegated Southampton on the final day. The visitors dominated the opening exchanges and…

Around 600 villages were evacuated overnight in western Spain as a wildfire blamed on arsonists scorched up to 8,000 hectares (19,800 acres) near the border with Portugal, officials said. Strong winds were making it difficult to suppress the flames in the thickly wooded districts of Las Hurdes and Sierra de Gata in the Extremadura region on Friday, according to emergency services. According to the Civil Guard, people from three villages—Cadalso, Descargamara, and Robledillo de Gata—were evacuated, and three routes in the vicinity were closed. Up to 260 firefighters and 165 soldiers were fighting the blaze, authorities said. Guillermo Fernandez Vara,…

The central bank of India said on Friday that it will begin pulling its highest-value currency notes, the rupee, from circulation, a move that experts say might increase bank deposits at a period of rising credit growth. The removal of 2,000 rupee ($24.5) notes, which the finance ministry’s senior official, T.V. Somanathan, claimed would not impact “either normal life or the economy,” comes ahead of elections in four big states at the end of the year and a national vote in spring 2024. The majority of India’s political parties are reported to be hoarding cash in high-denomination banknotes in order…

Rape has been well recorded as a weapon of war employed by armed militia groups operating in eastern Congo following the end of two civil conflicts that lasted from 1996 to 2003. Four men with machetes trailed a group of women racing through the deep forest surrounding Goma, east Congo, anxious to reach a displacement camp they had left to get firewood. One fell after tripping over a stone. She didn’t have time to react before one of the men came up with her. “He raped me,” she claimed two weeks later in Bulengo, one of three camps around Goma…

Air strikes pounded the outskirts of Sudan’s capital Khartoum overnight and on Saturday morning, as conflict in Sudan’s capital Khartoum reached its sixth week, trapping residents in a humanitarian catastrophe and displacing more than a million people. Fighting between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has resulted in a breakdown in law and order as well as theft, which both sides blame on the other. Food, currency, and basics are fast depleting. Eyewitnesses claimed air strikes on southern Omdurman and northern Bahri, the two cities across the Nile from Khartoum that make up Sudan’s “triple capital.” According to…

The recently opened 21 billion-dollar Presidential Wing of the State House Medical Centre, according to Aisha Buhari, would remove the need for future presidents and their families to seek medical care overseas. On Friday, Aisha joined President Muhammadu Buhari and other dignitaries for the commissioning ceremony of the facility located on the grounds of the presidential house in Abuja. Following her husband’s extended stay in London for medical treatment, the first lady, according to the first lady, was the first to cultivate the notion of a presidential wing in 2017. Aisha further stated that she insisted on the presidential wing…