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Vaughan dropped from BBC Ashes commentary team amid racism row

AFP

Michael Vaughan has been left out of the BBC commentary team for the upcoming Ashes series in Australia to avoid a “conflict of interest” amid an ongoing racism row.

English cricket has been rocked by revelations of racism from Pakistan-born former Yorkshire player Azeem Rafiq.

These have included an allegation that former England captain Vaughan told the now 30-year-old Rafiq and other Yorkshire players of Asian origin that there were “too many of you lot, we need to do something about it” during a county match in 2009.

Vaughan, an Ashes-winning skipper in 2005, has “categorically denied” the allegation.

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Following Rafiq’s comments, which have sparked a tidal wave of accusations of racism within English cricket, the 47-year-old Vaughan was stood down from his BBC radio show earlier this month.

And a spokesperson for the broadcaster said Wednesday: “While he is involved in a significant story in cricket, for editorial reasons we do not believe that it would be appropriate for Michael Vaughan to have a role in our Ashes team or wider coverage of the sport at the moment.

“We require our contributors to talk about relevant topics and his involvement in the Yorkshire story represents a conflict of interest.”

Vaughan still has a contract to commentate on the Ashes series for Fox Sports, one of the hosts Australian television broadcasters, and the former top-order batsman remains a columnist with Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper.

In a statement issued earlier in November, Vaughan said: “I categorically deny saying the words attributed to me by Azeem Rafiq and want to re-state this publicly because the ‘you lot’ comment simply never happened.

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“It is extremely upsetting that this completely false accusation has been made against me by a former team-mate, apparently supported by two other players.

“I have been in contact with the six other players from that team and not one of them has any recollection of the remark being made,” he added.

Last week saw Rafiq, who later admitted to posting an anti-Semitic message on Twitter as a teenager, give vivid testimony to a parliamentary committee during a hearing where he said his career had been cut short by racism.

England and Wales Cricket Board chief executive Tom Harrison, was widely criticised for his response to Rafiq’s revelations while appearing at the same hearing.

Following a meeting of the national governing body’s constituent members on Friday, Harrison promised “tangible action” to combat racism, but said the details would not be published until this week.

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The fallout for Yorkshire, one of English cricket’s oldest and most prestigious counties, over the scandal has been devastating, with sponsors making a mass exodus and the club suspended from hosting lucrative international matches.

Yorkshire’s chairman and chief executive have both resigned, while head coach Andrew Gale has been suspended pending investigations over a historical anti-Semitic tweet.

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FBI Most Wanted Fugitive Arrested in Mexico and Deported to U.S.

Authorities in Mexico announced Thursday that Samuel Ramírez Jr., a U.S. citizen accused of murdering two women and listed among the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, was arrested in the northern state of Sinaloa.

Ramírez Jr., 33, was detained Tuesday in Culiacán just 1 hour and 13 minutes after being added to the Federal Bureau of Investigation Ten Most Wanted list, the agency said in a statement.

The suspect, who was born in California, has already been deported to the U.S. state of Washington, where he faces charges related to the fatal shooting of two women at a bar in Federal Way in May 2023.

A court issued an arrest warrant for Ramírez in November last year, and the FBI initially offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to his capture, later increasing the amount to up to $1 million.

“To protect individuals’ privacy and ensure continued cooperation from the public, the FBI does not confirm the identity of those who provide information,” the agency said in its statement.

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UN experts warn Nicaragua runs vast transnational network to monitor exiled dissidents

Nicaragua maintains an “extensive” transnational network to monitor and intimidate opposition figures living in exile, affecting “hundreds of thousands” of people, the United Nations Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua warned on Tuesday.

In a statement, the experts said their report “details an extensive transnational architecture of surveillance and intelligence used to monitor, intimidate and attack the hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans living abroad.”

The report, which will be presented on March 16 to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, states that the structure maintained by the government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo includes the army, the police, migration authorities and diplomatic missions.

According to the statement, “the government has arbitrarily stripped 452 Nicaraguans of their nationality, left thousands more exiled in a situation of de facto statelessness, and prevented many from returning to Nicaragua.”

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Trump: ‘We Think It’s True’ Amid Claims Iran’s Supreme Leader Was Killed

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he believes multiple reports claiming the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, during the U.S. and Israeli offensive against the Islamic Republic are likely true, though he stopped short of confirming the news.

“We have a feeling that the information is correct,” he said, according to NBC News. “I don’t want to say anything definitive until I see it, but we think that’s the case. And many of their leaders have disappeared,” he added.

Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there were “many indications” that Khamenei had died in an attack on his residential compound.