A jewellery set worn by French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte’s adopted daughter sold for $1.65 million in Geneva on Wednesday, soaring way above the pre-auction estimate.
Marking the 200th anniversary of Napoleon’s death, Christie’s auction house sold the nine imperial jewels adorned with sapphires and diamonds, which were from the collection of his adopted daughter Stephanie de Beauharnais.
Some 38 sapphires from Sri Lanka were used to create the set in the early 1800s.
Offered as separate lots, the jewels had remained in the same family ever since they were offered to Beauharnais on her wedding to Charles, the grand duke of Baden, at the Tuileries Palace in Paris in 1806.
Besides their historical value, the jewels were also prized for their natural blue, as sapphires usually undergo heat treatment to accentuate the colour.
The nine pieces included a tiara, a necklace, a pair of earrings, two pendants, two brooches, a ring and a bracelet.
“There was a huge demand from collectors around the world, both in Asia and the Middle East, also Europe and the Americas,” auctioneer Max Fawcett told reporters at the Magnificent Jewels sale.
It was thought that the collection might fetch $475,000 in total, but the tiara alone went for $462,000. It contains octagonal step-cut and oval-shaped sapphires, rose and old-cut diamonds, and gold.
The sale also included a sapphire crown worn by queen Mary II of Portugal, who was twice the country’s reigning monarch before her death in 1853.
Set with a Burmese sapphire in the centre, the crown was estimated at $190,000-$385,000 but sold for far more, at $1.95 million.
The priciest item in the sale was the last of the 146 lots — a rectangular white 100.94-carat diamond called the Spectacle, which sold for $14.1 million.
The internally flawless diamond is the largest stone ever to have been cut in Russia and was cut from a rough stone unearthed in the remote northeastern Yakutia region in 2016.
The preparation and cutting process took a year and eight months.
A year ago, Pep Guardiola arrived at a pivotal moment with Manchester City. It was a crossroads he had experienced before.
Towards the end of his tenure with Barcelona, the Spaniard found himself in something of a quandary.
Barca had won 14 trophies in his four seasons in charge, becoming the best club side in the world. But he felt cracks were beginning to show.
He spoke to Sir Alex Ferguson and Rafael Benitez and asked them for their views on how to handle such a situation. Renew the squad or leave?
Both men were unequivocal in their advice. Stick to your beliefs, stay and renew the squad. Ferguson, a master of that approach, summed it up succinctly: “Recycle your squad, or before you know it you’ll find they have recycled you.”
Not for the first time Guardiola chose to disregard the advice given to him.
By the end of the 2011-12 season – his fourth at the club – an exhausted and thoroughly frustrated Guardiola realised he could no longer get what was needed from players who for so long had hung on his every word.
Enough was enough and, to the shock of everyone at Barcelona, he walked away to recharge his batteries with a one-year sabbatical in the United States.
Suitably refreshed, he returned a year later to take the reins at Bayern Munich but, despite three Bundesliga titles and two German Cups during his three-season spell at the club, he felt the movers and shakers did not fully understand what he was trying to do.
So to City – and more success.
But, with the Covid-19-ravaged 2019-20 season concluded and the Premier League title transferred to Liverpool, Guardiola had a decision to make about his contract.
And at that point the words of Benitez and Ferguson made a lot more sense than they had done almost a decade earlier.
Did Guardiola consider leaving Man City?
As it transpired, Guardiola signed a new contract and the mutual faith of both parties has been rewarded with a third Premier League title across his five years with City.
The deal, if he so wishes, could keep him at City for seven years, a sure sign there was never any sense the Spaniard was beginning to overstay his welcome.
From his perspective, he never remotely considered any of the overtures from Paris St-Germain. Nor will he ever go to the French club, not least because the Abu Dhabi owners of City would consider a move to a Qatar-owned club like PSG as nothing short of treachery.
City never forced him to accept an offer that was negotiated in fewer than 24 hours but had been on the table for the previous few months.
In fact, all they asked of Guardiola was that if he decided to leave, the club should be given plenty of notice.
The key moment in that period came on a trip Guardiola took to the Maldives in October to meet up with City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak, who convinced him to stay. “We have to keep going,” Guardiola was told. “We will keep winning, we will do what is required to continue competing at this level. You have to stay.”
The consistency of the message from his bosses, plus the fact he is comfortable and surrounded by people he trusts, did the rest of the job.
Renewed squad – but reinvented style
His agreement to continue with the club obliged them to think about renewing the squad.
At the end of last season and the beginning of the current one it became clear that changes were needed.
Immediate steps were taken, notably with the arrival of winger Ferran Torres and defender Ruben Dias. The Portuguese has been a hugely positive influence off the pitch, encouraging others but also demanding a lot of those around him on it, not just the defenders but also his team’s attackers (helped by the absence of fan noise).
The initial idea was just four or five from the ‘old guard’ would be deemed irreplaceable, although the re-evaluation of certain players like Joao Cancelo and John Stones, and how the market has been affected by the pandemic, made it apparent the assessment of who could be sold needed to be more rigorous than had previously been thought.
While the squad underwent minor renewal, it was the methods that received the biggest overhaul.
A 1-1 draw with West Brom on 15 December, with City sixth in the table, forced a deep reflection on the situation. The feeling was the team was bored, uninterested, lethargic and generally short of the enthusiasm required.
Clearly the lack of a proper break and the absence of mental freshness were having an impact and were exacerbating the situation.
Guardiola, drawing on his previous experiences at Barcelona and Bayern, started to think maybe his pupils were tired of hearing his words and opened the door so they could have greater contact with his assistant coaches, rather than with him directly.
After exhaustive analysis with his coaching team and honest chats with his second in command, Juan Manuel Lillo – someone who has become more of a mentor than a conventional assistant coach – Guardiola decided to return to the essence of his team’s game.
With forwards Phil Foden and Raheem Sterling in wider positions, more spaces were created inside.
Ilkay Gundogan, Bernardo Silva and Kevin de Bruyne, now free from injury, plus a Cancelo rediscovered as a wing-back who moves into midfield, were able to create a superiority of numbers in the middle of the pitch.
Calmness was applied to attack with more patience and passes and, as Guardiola realised he could no longer rely on Sergio Aguero’s fitness, he became obsessed with working out how to get more bodies into the box. He wanted wingers, midfielders and even full-backs to be a goal threat. That is how Gundogan started to score regularly and why Foden began delivering stats that were better than those produced by club legend David Silva in his first season in England.
The manager determined that his priority was players who gave fluidity, whose first touch and body positioning allowed the ball to be moved faster. That became a determining factor in his selections for big games.
An obsession with counters…
A side-effect of the new approach was the large number of players in front of the ball, and with it came the problem of how to minimise the threat of possible counter-attacks.
In Guardiola’s first year at City, they conceded five goals on the counter, and they looked weak when they lost the ball. From then on this became one of Guardiola’s obsessions.
For this season he decided there would be a line of four defenders behind the ball, consisting of the two centre-halves, a full-back (normally Cancelo) and a holding midfielder.
This season they have conceded just once from a rapid transition after conceding possession.
Also, Guardiola took on board that sometimes results have to be ground out as well as beautifully crafted and City started playing a different way, less brilliant than in the past but more consistent.
There was a crucial game in December, a 1-0 win against Southampton, which did not produce great football but allowed City to keep up with the big clubs. There was more relief than happiness at the end of that match.
If there was a ‘eureka’ moment it came on 3 January when City, eight points off leaders Liverpool at the time, blew away Chelsea with a 3-1 win.
With City 3-0 up by the 34th minute, everything Guardiola had been working towards was encapsulated in a first-half masterclass.
The 4-1 victory at Anfield in February, played, like at Stamford Bridge, without a classic number nine, meant they had established a successful formula for the big games. It was that structure Guardiola has used to such effect over recent weeks.
Within the context of a pandemic, the lack of rest in a busy calendar, and the need to change the dynamic of a season that had not started well, this can be considered the best example of team-building Guardiola has produced in his career. You only have to look at how difficult it has been for other contenders to keep the consistency necessary to challenge for the title.
Guardiola has moulded players and helped adapt new ones into a squad that is fully designed to suit his requirements – even De Bruyne, signed before the manager’s arrival, was recruited with his knowledge and approval.
He has come out the other side with a Premier League title and Carabao Cup, and could complete a treble when City face Chelsea in the Champions League final on 29 May.
Where will Guardiola strengthen next?
When Guardiola arrived at City he was given a clear brief. Dominate the domestic scene and achieve regular appearances in the semi-final stages of the Champions League.
With three league titles in five years, the domestic dominance is there, and this season was his first Champions League semi-final since arriving, He navigated it superbly, with a 4-1 aggregate victory over Paris St-Germain.
Those who look to diminish his achievements claim success has been achieved by spending a fortune in bringing in some of the best players in the world, a statement that is as true as it is an oversimplification.
Among the Premier League’s known ‘money-spenders’, there is not that much variation in the cost of their squads (City’s most-used XI this season could ultimately cost £499.8m, while Manchester United’s equivalent figure is £504.2m) and the only real difference is Guardiola has maximised and radically improved the assets available to him.
But there is room for more acquisitions.
With Aguero departing at the end of the season and Sterling and others looking like they have misplaced their accuracy in front of goal, far too many opportunities have been wasted.
City have looked enviously at other teams’ strikers and it is something the club will certainly attempt to address in the summer transfer window.
Barcelona’s Lionel Messi continues to be the ultimate dream for the club, although the absolute priority is to bring in a striker for the next five or six years, a youngster of great quality who can convert a higher percentage of the multiple chances this side can create.
Yes, City are one of the 14 teams who have shown interest in Erling Braut Haaland and hope to convince him to join the club.
They are all possibilities as Guardiola continues to lead the biggest rebuild of a team in his career, a group fully moulded on what he dreams of having on the pitch.
Britain will on Thursday unveil £55 million ($77.5 million, 64.2 million euros) in new funding to support education in developing countries, as part of its bid to get 40 million more girls into school in the next five years.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has come under fire for slashing Britain’s foreign aid budget in an attempt to reign in a spiralling deficit caused by coronavirus lockdowns.
But he will join former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard on a visit to a UK school on Thursday, where they will unveil the new aid for girls education to prevent what he said was a pandemic “lost generation”.
Johnson will take part in live classroom link-up with schoolchildren in Kenya to urge world leaders to invest in education, as he committed £55 million for a new programme “turbocharging efforts to get girls into school and learning”, his Downing Street office said.
The “What Works Hub for Global Education” will advise governments across Africa and Asia on the best ways to reform school systems and support female enrolment, which is also a key plank of Britain’s G7 presidency.
“Supporting girls to get 12 years of quality education is one of the smartest investments we can make as the world recovers from Covid-19,” Johnson said in a statement.
“Otherwise we risk creating a lost pandemic generation.
“Across the world there is a vast untapped resource -– girls whose education has been cut short or denied altogether, who could be leading efforts to pull their communities out of poverty.”
A joint UK-Kenya Global Education Summit in London in July aims to raise $5 billion over the next five years.
Experts have warned that the problem of teenage pregnancies in Kenya is worsening during the coronavirus pandemic, with some girls pushed into transactional sex to survive while others have more sex as they stay home from school.
Some children get free lunches or free sanitary towels at schools, which were closed by the virus.
Being home also places an added burden on parents who may have lost their jobs.
“So the young girls will turn to men who will be providing them with pocket money, money for pads,” Evelyne Opondo, senior Africa regional director at the Centre for Reproductive Rights, said last August.
Serena Williams saw the 1,000th match of her illustrious career end in a straight-set defeat by Argentina’s Nadia Podoroska at the Italian Open.
The 39-year-old American, playing her first competitive match since mid-February, was beaten 7-6 (8-6) 7-5.
Podoroska looked assured in her first meeting with the 23-time Grand Slam champion as she reached the last 16.
Naomi Osaka suffered a second straight defeat on clay, while Simona Halep’s title defence was ended by injury.
Japanese world number two Osaka lost 7-6 (7-2) 6-2 to American Jessica Pegula in a blow to her preparations for the French Open, which starts on 30 May.
Meanwhile, Halep’s participation in the clay-court Grand Slam – which she won in 2018 – is in the balance after a scan showed she has a tear in her left calf.
The Romanian world number three had to be helped off court because of the injury that forced her to retire against Germany’s Angelique Kerber.
Halep, leading 6-1 3-3 when she had to stop, was wincing in pain and looked close to tears as she hobbled back to her chair.
“I will get an MRI tomorrow to understand the injury in more detail, but at the moment we are unsure of recovery time,” the two-time Grand Slam champion tweeted on Wednesday evening.
It was, however, a more straightforward day for Australian world number one Ashleigh Barty, who reached the third round by beating Kazakhstan’s Yaroslava Shvedova 6-4 6-1.
Williams has work to do before Roland Garros
On a day where nine of the women’s top 10 were playing in Rome, most of the attention was focused on the return of Williams to match action.
The American’s last appearance came in the Australian Open semi-final defeat by Osaka on 18 February.
Being pitted against 44th-ranked Podoroska, who surprisingly reached the Roland Garros semi-finals last year, looked to be far from ideal in her bid to spend time on court in the Italian capital this week.
Eighth seed Williams lacked intensity and struggled on first serve throughout the match, landing just 48% of them, and was unable to take any of the three break opportunities which came her way.
Podoroska initially struggled to close out the match as Williams wiped out the Argentine’s 5-2 lead for 5-5 in the second set, before Podoroska regained her composure to beat a top-10 opponent for the third time in her career.
Williams is not scheduled to play again before the French Open starts but she hinted after this defeat that she could now look to add a tournament to her schedule.
“It was definitely kind of good to go the distance and to try to be out there, but clearly I can do legions better,” she told a news conference.
“Maybe I do need a few more matches, so I’m going to try to figure that out with my coach and my team and see what we would like to do.
“I have been training for months, but it feels definitely different on clay to make that last adjustment.”
Osaka’s body language illustrates clay concerns
Osaka hit 37 unforced errors as she lost to Pegula in one hour and 27 minutes
Osaka, who received a first-round bye, has often struggled on clay and negative body language – including when she smashed a racquet – showed her discomfort against a confident Pegula.
After a tight opener where she missed three set points, Osaka’s level dropped in the second and world number 31 Pegula took control.
Pegula, 27, kept her focus and discipline to take advantage of Osaka’s increasingly wayward hitting, breaking for 4-2 when the four-time Grand Slam champion walloped a wild volley wide and going on to seal the biggest win of her career.
For 23-year-old Osaka, this defeat followed a second-round loss at the Madrid Open earlier this month.
Former Ecuador and Manchester United skipper Antonio Valencia on Wednesday announced his retirement from football.
The 35-year-old, who was playing for Queretaro in Mexico, had been suffering from long-standing injury problems.
“I’m ending my career in Queretaro,” he wrote on Twitter. “I didn’t think this moment would come so soon, but my body has asked me to take this decision.”
He spent a decade at United from 2009-19 and ended his spell there as club captain after Michael Carrick retired in 2018.
Originally a dashing and explosive right winger, Valencia later played as a full-back.
He thanked his family and fans, adding that “if in this career I failed them, I’m sorry.
“I always tried to give my best. To my country and the national team: thank you for everything.”
Valencia suffered a badly broken ankle in 2010 and fractured his foot in 2015 but it was his left knee that forced his retirement.
“If I could have changed one thing, I would have changed my knee,” he said in a press conference streamed on Queretaro’s social media accounts on Wednesday morning.
Queretaro’s team doctor, Hugo Soriano Ramirez, who joined Valencia in the press conference, explained the player developed knee problems aged 29.
He said the injury “limits his movement and is intensely painful,” adding that treatment has been ineffective and an operation would offer no guarantees that he could play football to the necessary level.
Valencia began his career at Nacional de Quito in 2003 before moving to Villarreal in Spain in 2005 after winning the Ecuadorian league.
He joined Wigan Athletic a year later where he caught the eye of former United manager Alex Ferguson.
Valencia joined United in 2009 and went on to win two Premier League titles, the FA Cup, Europa League and the League Cup twice with the Red Devils.
“I was able to travel to Europe, something I would have never dreamed of,” added Valencia.
“I played for Villarreal and Recreativo de Huelva (on loan) to then arrive in my second home: England.
“Wigan was a unique experience and then God gave me the opportunity to arrive at Manchester United and be captain.”
In 2019 he returned home to join Liga de Quito, the only Ecuadoran side to ever win the Copa Libertadores (2008) and Copa Sudamericana (2009) — the respective equivalents of the Champions League and Europa League.
A year later, with the coronavirus pandemic wreaking havoc on South American club football competitions, Valencia switched to Queretaro.
He played 98 times for Ecuador, scoring 11 goals and represented his country at the World Cup in 2006 and 2014, and four Copa America tournaments.
He was awarded the National Order of Merit in 2019.
Arsenal dented Chelsea’s bid to finish in the Premier League’s top four as Emile Smith Rowe punished Jorginho’s blunder to seal a 1-0 win on Wednesday.
Midfielder Jorginho was guilty of a woefully misplaced back-pass that ended with Gunners youngster Smith Rowe slotting home early in the first half at Stamford Bridge.
Thomas Tuchel’s home side were bereft of quality in the final third as they succumbed to only a third defeat in their 26 matches in all competitions.
The Blues remain in fourth place, but their bid to qualify for next season’s Champions League via a top four finish is now on a knife edge.
They sit six points clear of fifth placed West Ham, who have a game in hand, and seven ahead of sixth placed Liverpool, who could be the biggest threat with two games in hand.
Chelsea’s tepid display was hardly ideal preparation for their attempt to win the first trophy of Tuchel’s reign in Saturday’s FA Cup final against Leicester at Wembley.
Beaten for the first time in six league games, Chelsea’s final two top-flight matches against the Foxes and Aston Villa next week now take on extra significance.
That will deny Tuchel the chance to rest players before the Champions League final against Manchester City on May 29.
Eighth-placed Arsenal’s first league double over Chelsea since 2003-04 was a rare bright spot in a turbulent season.
Gunners boss Mikel Arteta is fighting to persuade the Arsenal hierarchy to keep faith with him after their lacklustre Europa League semi-final exit against Villarreal.
The Spaniard insists his side “have made progress in many areas” this season, even though are likely to miss out on European football for the first time since 1995-96.
Against that troubled backdrop, beating in-form Chelsea was evidence that Arteta may yet to be able to revive Arsenal’s fortunes.
– Tenacious Arsenal –
Keeping one eye on the FA Cup final, Tuchel made seven changes from the side that won at Manchester City on Saturday.
Kai Havertz was one of those restored to the line-up and the German forward wasted a golden opportunity to put Chelsea ahead.
Havertz alertly caught Pablo Mari in possession near the half-way line when the Arsenal defender tried to take an extra touch rather than clear.
Sprinting through on goal, Havertz had just Bernd Leno to beat but fired high over the bar.
Arsenal made the most of that escape to take the lead thanks to Jorginho’s gift in the 16th minute.
Smith Rowe notched his first Premier League goal against West Bromwich Albion on Sunday and the 20-year-old’s second may prove to be one of the easiest he ever scores.
Jorginho carelessly failed to check where Kepa Arrizabalaga was positioned before passing well away from the Chelsea keeper from the edge of the area.
Kepa scrambled to claw the ball off the line, but Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang pounced and teed up Smith Rowe to tap into the empty net.
Mason Mount was denied when he ran onto Havertz’s pass and saw his shot turned away by Leno.
Chelsea kept creating but couldn’t find the final touch, with Christian Pulisic heading over from close-range after Kurt Zouma’s effort fell to him.
The Blues had lost their last eight league games at Stamford Bridge when trailing at half-time, last winning from that position in 2013.
Tuchel’s men dominated possession but Arsenal defended with a tenacity that eluded them for much of the season.
Pulisic thought he had equalised when he bundled home from Havertz’s flick on the hour, but the goal was correctly ruled out by VAR for offside.
Chelsea were inches away from equalising in the last minute when Zouma’s header was tipped onto the bar by Leno before Olivier Giroud’s follow-up cannoned off the woodwork.
The Comoros presidency on Wednesday pardoned a senior opposition figure sentenced to jail for life in 2018 for allegedly plotting against the state.
Former vice-president Djaffar Said Ahmed Hassane was among four opposition politicians handed life sentences with forced labour in December 2018, months before disputed presidential elections in 2019.
A presidential decree on Wednesday announced that the politician had been “pardoned” and his conviction fully revoked.
Hassane — who fled to Tanzania before his conviction — was charged for speaking out against a controversial constitutional referendum organised by President Azali Assoumani, which cleared him to serve two terms instead of one ahead of the polls.
The referendum triggered violent protests across the southern African archipelago that led to the arrest of several other high-profile opposition figures — including Hassane’s brother Bahassane Ahmed Said.
At least 17 were charged with unrest and sentenced to up to 20 years in prison.
They were pardoned days after Assoumani took office in May 2019 amid widespread accusations of election rigging.
The Comoros islands — Anjouan, Grande Comore and Moheli — have endured years of grinding political turmoil, including about 20 coups or attempted coups, since independence from France in 1975.
Assoumani initially came to power in a coup, then ruled the country between 1999 and 2006, and was re-elected in 2016 in a vote also marred by violence and fraud allegations.
He was credited with nearly 60 percent of the vote in the 2019 polls, an outcome rejected by the opposition along with many observers.
The governing body has written to teams saying it had “become aware” some rear wings passed tests but had “excessive deflections while cars are in motion”.
The FIA has told teams it will introduce new load-deflection tests from 15 June.
In addition to new, more targeted static tests, the FIA plans to use on-board cameras to monitor the behaviour of wings while cars are in motion in an attempt to spot any excessive movement of bodywork.
Teams will be required to put a series of markings on their wings to facilitate this process.
Article 3.8 of the F1 technical regulations states that bodywork must be “rigidly secured to the entirely sprung part of the car” and “remain immobile in relation to the sprung part of the car”.
This is a ban on so-called ‘moveable aerodynamic devices’, which has been in place for many years.
But it is a difficult area of the rules because all surfaces flex under load to some degree, and historically some teams have tried to exploit this in search of an aerodynamic advantage.
If a wing or other bodywork part can be made to deflect or rotate in relation to others above a certain speed, it can reduce drag on the straights and make the car faster. The bodywork would then snap back into optimum downforce-producing position before the corners.
FIA single-seater technical head Nikolas Tombazis wrote in a note to teams that the deformations the FIA was referring to “can have a significant influence on a car’s aerodynamic performance and hence could be deemed to contravene the provisions of article 3.8”.
He did not name teams or give specific examples of wing behaviour.
“We will be looking out for any anomalous behaviour of the deformation of the rear wing,” said Tombazis.
“In particular, we will not tolerate any persistent out-of-plane deformation that may be contrived to circumvent the symmetrical loading applied in the load deflection tests.
“Should we observe any characteristics that indicate exploitation of this area, we will introduce further load deflection tests as necessary.”
Teams are being given a month to comply with the new tests so they have enough time to strengthen their wings if necessary.
There will be a tolerance of 20% built into the test in the first month of its operation.
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said at the Spanish Grand Prix that Toto Wolff, his opposite number at Mercedes, had spoken to him on the issue.
Horner insisted his car complied with the regulations, saying: “The car’s scrutineered thoroughly and there are pull-back tests, all kinds of tests it has to pass,” he said. “The FIA are completely happy it has passed all the tests that are pretty stringent.
“I was surprised to see his comments, but it is something Toto has mentioned to me previously. So I doubt it was Lewis’ opinion. It probably came from elsewhere.”
The first race at which the new tests will come into force is the French Grand Prix on 25-27 June.
Before then, F1 is scheduled to race in Monaco on 20-23 May, Azerbaijan on 4-6 June and Turkey on 11-13 June, although the Istanbul race is in doubt following a surge in coronavirus cases in the country.
Nearly two dozen women in DR Congo have come forward with allegations of sexual abuse by aid workers during an Ebola outbreak, adding to a scandal that broke last year, a report said on Wednesday.
Twenty-two women have said they were sexually exploited or abused, in acts that included alleged rape or led to unwanted pregnancies, by male aid workers responding to an Ebola crisis in eastern DR Congo, The New Humanitarian (TNH) and the Thomson Reuters Foundation said.
The men offered them jobs in exchange for sex, identifying themselves as working for major aid organisations.
Three of the seven organisations named are UN agencies, led by the World Health Organization (WHO), which features in 14 of the claims.
The allegations centre on Butembo, a major trading city and an epicentre of the 2018-2020 outbreak of Ebola that claimed 2,200 lives.
“One woman said she was raped by a man who said he was with the WHO, and reporters learned of three others who said they had become pregnant,” the investigators said.
“One of those women died after a botched abortion as she tried to conceal the pregnancy from her husband and children, her sister said.”
The gruelling fight to roll back the Ebola epidemic, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s worst ever, has been tarred by allegations of sexual abuse by well-paid aid workers who flooded into the poor region.
An investigation last year by the TNH, a news agency that covers humanitarian crises, gathered testimony from 51 women who said they had suffered sexual exploitation in the neighbouring city of Beni.
The WHO, reacting to the latest accusations, said Wednesday it had identified two women in Butembo as “potentially having had sexually exploitative relationships with individuals” connected to the agency.
That information will be shared with an independent investigative commission set up last October, it said.
“(The) WHO is committed to taking prompt and robust action, including collaborating with relevant national authorities on criminal proceedings, in all cases where WHO staff may be found guilty of perpetrating (sexual exploitation and abuse),” the agency’s spokeswoman Marcia Poole said.
The new report said sexual predators also claimed to work for the UN’s International Organization for Migration; the UN’s children’s fund, Unicef; the International Rescue Committee (IRC); International Medical Corps (IMC); the Alliance for International Medical Action (ALIMA); and DRC’s health ministry.
Most of the aid workers allegedly involved were Congolese, the report said.
A spokeswoman for the independent commission said the panel aimed to publish the results of its inquiry at the end of August.
The Champions League final will now be staged in Porto in Portugal after the UK government and UEFA could not reach agreement over quarantine exemptions for more than 2,000 VIPs, staff and media for the match to be played at Wembley. It will be officially ratified by UEFA on Thursday.
The all-English final between Manchester City and Chelsea was originally scheduled for the Ataturk Stadium in Istanbul on May 29.
UEFA was forced to look at alternative venues after a devastating Covid outbreak in Turkey caused the UK government to place the country on its red list for travel, and banned English fans from going.
And the 50,000-capacity Estadio do Dragao in Porto has now been lined up as the venue for the final after UEFA struck a deal with the Portuguese authorities over the attendance at the match. Chelsea and Manchester City will each receive a ticket allocation of between 4,500 and 6,000.
But health experts and MPs have criticised the decision for putting supporters at unnecessary risk in the middle of a pandemic, insisting UEFA should have foregone VIPs this year and made it a ‘fans’ final’ in London.
The 50,000-capacity Estadio do Dragao in Porto has been lined up as the venue for the final
Chelsea and Man City fans celebrated their fantastic semi-final triumphs last week. They are now destined for Portugal, after the Champions League final on May 29 was moved
UEFA were under pressure to change venue for the final with Turkey on the UK’s ‘red list’
Hopes were initially high that the match would come to Wembley and the UK Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden and UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin both appeared committed to making the switch, but they could not find enough common ground to make it work, with concerns over the UK’s quarantine rules.
After lengthy talks, officials from both sides had to accept defeat.
As well as experts and MPs, fans had also demanded the match be played at Wembley, which could have hosted 22,500 fans for the final.
The Chelsea Supporters’ Trust urged Ceferin at a meeting on Wednesday afternoon, to explore ‘all possibilities’ in London before making a decision.
But Dom Rosso, the trust’s vice chairman, posted on Twitter that Ceferin had also emphasised the importance of accommodating sponsors, which suggested Wembley’s star was fading.
Such was the intense nature of the negotiations that Ceferin left the fans’ Zoom call to make further phone calls as he sought to finalise the location and attendance for the match.
Lisbon’s Estadio da Luz, which hosted the 2020 final, was also initially viewed as a contender
A late sticking point in Portugal was how many fans would be allowed to attend. Portugal is yet to let any supporters return to matches and UEFA wanted the authorities to scale up quickly to enable them to make significant allocations to clubs and sponsors.
The selection of Porto will at least allow supporters to make firm plans.
Portugal has been placed on the UK’s ‘green list’ for travel, which means supporters will be able to fly there and back with minimal restrictions and will not have to isolate on their return.
Transport minister Grant Shapps sprung a surprise when he placed Turkey on the red list
Daily covid cases in Portugal are similar to the UK, with both much lower than Turkey. Poland, where the Europa League final will be played is also shown in the graphic. Source: Our World in Data/ John Hopkins University
Supporters have wasted no time in organising their trips. Flight prices to Portugal rocketed this week even before the Wembley talks had concluded.
A return direct flight at midday for the weekend of the game from Stansted to Porto was available for £200 on Tuesday morning, but rocketed three-fold to £623 by Wednesday afternoon.
Cheaper fares are still on sale for people willing to travel early in the morning or using indirect routes.
Lisbon flights have also increased, as speculation initially suggested the Portuguese capital could stage the game. Flights bought on Monday evening for £160 had soared to £309 – an increase of 93% – by Tuesday morning as fans began to realise Portugal was a more likely destination.
Flights from Manchester have also risen sharply week on week.
The prospect of Wembley hosting the showpiece were dashed because more than 2,000 VIPs, staff and media due to attend the game would require an exemption from the UKs covid travel restrictions.
The rules require visitors from red and amber list countries to isolate for 10 days and they are due to come into force from May 17. They were announced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday.
Manchester City and Chelsea will face off in the fixture, which was set to take place in Istanbul
Manchester City and Chelsea have booked their places in the Champions League final
Turkey is on the red list and most of Europe is on the amber list, including Switzerland, where UEFA is based.
Sources told Sportsmail that while the talks were constructive the European governing body’s requirement for up to 2,000 guests, including sponsors and representatives of more than 50 football associations from across the continent, as well as staff, could not be accommodated.
TRAVEL TRAFFIC LIGHT
It is currently still illegal for Brits to travel abroad for non-essential reasons but this will change on May 17, when people will be allowed to fly to countries with low Covid infection rates.
Travellers to countries on the ‘red list’ will have to quarantine for 10 days in a government-approved hotel on their arrival in the UK.
Those coming from ‘amber list’ countries, which includes Switzerland, where UEFA is based, will be required to self-isolate at home for 10 days, taking covid test on day two and eight.
While those returning from countries on the ‘green list’, which is set to include Portugal, will not have to isolate, but will have to take a test
It is understood, the English FA could scale up the attendance at Wembley to the 22,500 requested by UEFA and quarantine exemptions could have been provided for essential staff, but the number of additional guests would have been too great given the UK is about to emerge from lockdown.
This afternoon, Culture Secretary Dowden said the UK had ‘cleared the way to get Wembley available if UEFA want to take advantage of that’ but indicated the government would not bend on quarantine rules.
‘It is though important that we protect the integrity of our quarantine system,’ he added.
On the flipside, VIPs are tied into lucrative sponsorship contracts and UEFA felt it could not abandon a valuable source of income, after 14 months of matches mostly without fans or sponsors present.
The situation has been compounded because capacities have been cut drastically for the Euro 2020 tournament due to begin in June.
‘UEFA needs the VIP revenues,’ a source close to the negotiations told Sportsmail. ‘They are losing money on the Euros. There is no way they would give up on VIPs. They are connected to sponsorship.’
At his meeting with fan groups, UEFA president Ceferin reaffirmed his view that sponsors needed to be accommodated.
And if the game was going anywhere, Portugal has the advantage that it has relatively low numbers of covid cases. There are currently fewer coronavirus infections than in Britain, with 32 cases per million people daily.
But UEFA’s position has drawn criticism from health experts and MPs who said the governing body should have made an exception on VIPs and dignitaries because of the coronavirus pandemic.
UEFA’s president, Aleksander Ceferin, met with Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden to discuss the Champions League final being held at Wembley, but the pair could find no agreement
It would be safer to host the all-English match in London and avoid large-scale movements of people.
‘It is not in the real world,’ MP Clive Efford, who is a member of the Department for Culture Media and Sport Select Committee, told Sportsmail. ‘We have two clubs from the same country, which is capable of hosting this match during a global pandemic. Why are we taking it to a third country?
‘You can only imagine that [VIPs and sponsorship] is too valuable for them to forego… but once again, this is football finance taking over the interests of fans.’
Paul Hunter, professor of medicine at the University of Norwich, said: ‘From a public health perspective, the safest thing would have been to have the match in London and for UEFA not to bring people to the game who are not essential to the running of the game.
The LED screen inside Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium displayed a message of ‘Good luck in Istanbul!’ after the club beat Paris Saint-Germain in the semi-final, but plans changed quickly
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