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CONMEBOL asks FIFA for help to finish World Cup qualifying

AFP/Editor

South American football’s governing body said on Friday it has asked FIFA for extra time at the end of the year to play World Cup qualifiers postponed in March due to coronavirus restrictions.

CONMEBOL called off two rounds of matches after several major European clubs, including Manchester City and Liverpool, threatened not to release players fearing they would be subject to Covid-19 quarantine rules on their return.

The governing body was already forced to reprogram its first four rounds of qualifiers last year due to the pandemic and is now running out of time to fit in its crammed schedule ahead of the finals in Qatar next year.

CONMEBOL wants to play the postponed matches in the international windows in September, October and November, in each of which they already have two matchdays scheduled.

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“We anticipate triple dates in these occasions and CONMEBOL asked FIFA for three additional days to ensure the players have sufficient recovery,” the South American body said in a statement.

The idea is to “minimize the time wasted in journeys during the pandemic and avoid complications in the busy schedule South American football has this year,” the statement said.

But CONMEBOL was insistent that they need more time in those international windows as “extra recovery days are essential.”

The next round of qualifiers are due to be played in June, just days before the postponed Copa America begins.

That was due to take place last year but was delayed by 12 months due to the pandemic.

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FIFA president Gianni Infantino, who took part in the virtual meeting, stressed that the qualifiers were “very important” and pledged to make the necessary changes in the international calendar to allow CONMEBOL to complete its program.

The region’s World Cup qualification campaign was originally due to end in November but that has already been pushed back to March 2022 due to the postponements.

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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.