India’s Iyer says ‘getting better by the day’ after lacerated spleen

India batsman Shreyas Iyer said Thursday he was “getting better every passing day” after lacerating his spleen when falling heavily in a one-day clash against Australia.The 30-year-old vice-captain doubled over in pain after pulling off a sensational catch to remove Alex Carey in the third ODI in Sydney on Saturday.He was rushed to hospital with the Board of Control for Cricket in India revealing he suffered internal bleeding.”I’m currently in recovery process and getting better every passing day,” Iyer said on social media in his first comments since the incident.”I’m deeply grateful to see all the kind wishes and support I’ve received — it truly means a lot to me.”Thank you for keeping me in your thoughts,” he added.India’s Twenty20 captain Suryakumar Yadav on Tuesday said doctors and physiotherapists described the injury as “rare”. “But rare things happen to rare talent. God is with him and he will recover soon and we will take him along with us,” he said.Iyer is not part of India’s T20 squad, which will play the second of five matches against Australia at a sold-out Melbourne Cricket Ground on Friday.The opening game in Canberra was washed out.

Trump et Xi terminent leur entretien sans donner d’indication sur son issue

Donald Trump et le président chinois Xi Jinping ont terminé leur entretien jeudi en Corée du Sud sans donner d’indication sur son issue alors que les deux pays se livrent à une brutale guerre commerciale qui ébranle toute l’économie mondiale.Le président américain a quitté la ville sud-coréenne de Busan jeudi à bord d’Air Force One, en direction de Washington, après une réunion d’1H40 avec son homologue chinois. Les dirigeants des deux plus grandes économies mondiales, qui ne s’étaient pas vus face à face depuis six ans, se sont serré la main mais n’ont pas fait de déclaration aux médias.Avant la rencontre, le président américain, qui venait juste d’annoncer une relance immédiate des essais d’armes nucléaires, a qualifié son homologue de “redoutable négociateur” tout en disant s’attendre à une rencontre “très réussie”.Xi Jinping a, lui, dit que c’était “un plaisir de revoir” Donald Trump, alors que les deux hommes posaient pour les photographes dans un austère bâtiment de l’aéroport de Busan (sud-est).”La Chine et les Etats-Unis peuvent assumer conjointement leurs responsabilités de grandes puissances et travailler ensemble à la réalisation de projets plus ambitieux et concrets, pour le bien de nos deux pays et du monde entier”, a-t-il affirmé.Donald Trump n’a pas répondu à une journaliste qui lui demandait de commenter sa toute fraîche et surprenante annonce nucléaire.- Essais nucléaires -Il a ordonné à son ministère de la Défense de “commencer à tester” les armes nucléaires des Etats-Unis, après que son homologue russe Vladimir Poutine l’a défié avec un test d’un drone sous-marin à capacité nucléaire.”Les Etats-Unis possèdent plus d’armes nucléaires que tout autre pays”, a-t-il affirmé sur son réseau Truth Social. “La Russie arrive en deuxième position et la Chine loin derrière en troisième, mais elle rattrapera son retard d’ici cinq ans”.De quoi poser un rapport de force, juste avant de s’attabler pour tenter de finaliser une trêve commerciale préparée par les conseillers américains et chinois ces derniers jours.Les deux dirigeants se connaissent bien pour s’être vus cinq fois pendant le premier mandat du républicain, mais leur dernière entrevue remonte à 2019.Depuis, la rivalité entre les deux superpuissances n’a fait que s’intensifier et, surtout, Donald Trump, revenu au pouvoir en janvier, a déclenché une radicale offensive protectionniste au service de son idéologie “L’Amérique d’abord”.- Terres rares et soja -Le président américain avait laissé entrevoir une baisse des droits de douane américains qui avaient été imposés à la Chine en raison de sa contribution, selon Washington, aux ravages causés par le trafic de fentanyl aux Etats-Unis.En contrepartie, Pékin pourrait accepter de retarder l’application de ses restrictions à l’exportation de terres rares – matériaux indispensables à l’industrie (automobile, smartphones, armement…) sur lesquels la Chine exerce un quasi-monopole.Selon le secrétaire américain au Trésor, Scott Bessent, le géant asiatique envisageait également de reprendre ses achats de soja aux Etats-Unis, un sujet sensible politiquement à l’heure où les agriculteurs américains souffrent.Ce sommet arrive après quelques semaines particulièrement mouvementées. Le 19 septembre, Donald Trump annonçait une prochaine rencontre avec son homologue chinois, après une conversation téléphonique “très productive”.Puis les sujets de friction se sont accumulés, jusqu’à celui qui fait sortir le président américain de ses gonds: la décision le 9 octobre par Pékin de restreindre ses exportations de terres rares, au risque de compromettre le grand programme de réindustrialisation du locataire de la Maison Blanche.Le milliardaire new-yorkais, dénonçant une manœuvre “hostile”, avait menacé d’imposer des surtaxes douanières écrasantes et de bouder la rencontre. Avant de se radoucir, dans l’une des volte-face dont il a l’habitude.- “Apaisement des tensions” -“Nombreux sont ceux qui voient dans cette rencontre un +cessez-le-feu+, un apaisement des tensions entre les deux parties”, indique à l’AFP Tai Wei Lim, expert de l’Asie orientale à l’Université Soka.L’accord commercial en gestation ne réglera pas les contentieux de fond entre les deux puissances, qui sont économiques mais aussi stratégiques. Donald Trump voit d’un mauvais œil les manœuvres diplomatiques de son homologue chinois pour rallier les grand pays émergents et il s’est plusieurs fois irrité des liens entre la Chine et la Russie.Mais le président américain a aussi intérêt, politiquement, à annoncer l’un de ces “deals” dont il raffole alors qu’il est empêtré chez lui dans une crise budgétaire prolongée.La rencontre avec Xi Jinping conclut, sur une note beaucoup plus sobre, une tournée asiatique qui l’a vu accueilli avec tous les égards en Malaisie, au Japon et en Corée du sud, avec des cadeaux fastueux et des promesses de gigantesques investissements aux Etats-Unis.

US economy in the dark as government shutdown cuts off crucial data

US policymakers, financial institutions and business owners have been flying blind for almost a month as a government shutdown has stopped the release of crucial federal economic data ranging from the size of the labor force to the country’s GDP.The void is set to deepen by Thursday as Washington holds off publishing gross domestic product (GDP) numbers measuring the growth of the world’s biggest economy in the July to September period.The United States has already delayed reports on employment, trade, retail sales and others, only recalling some furloughed staff to produce key inflation figures needed for the government to calculate Social Security payments.Congressional Republicans and Democrats remain at an impasse, each assigning blame to the other side over the shutdown with no quick end in sight and food aid for millions now at stake.Analysts warn the growing information blackout could, in turn, cause businesses to lower hiring and investment.”There’s a huge demand right now for government data,” said Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union. “Every industry is trying to figure out if the Federal Reserve is going to keep cutting interest rates.”The central bank’s decisions hinge upon the economy’s health, particularly inflation and the weakening jobs market.”This is the time of year where most organizations are finalizing their budgets for 2026,” Long told AFP.”So, almost any company is sitting there thinking: Do we think 2026 is going to be an uptick? Or a slowdown, or a recession?”The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the shutdown could cost the economy up to $14 billion.Economist Matthew Martin of Oxford Economics expects firms to proceed cautiously, with President Donald Trump’s tariffs already sending uncertainty surging this year.”Businesses would therefore reduce their overall hiring to be on the safe side of things, until they see data that really points towards increased demand, or at least stabilization in the economy,” he told AFP.Similarly, those in the financial markets need data to make investments and decide their moves in equities, he said.- ‘Tainted data’ -Should the shutdown last through mid-November, as prediction markets expect, most delayed data releases will likely not come out until December, Goldman Sachs said in a note this week.”The risk would grow that delays could distort not just the October but the November data too,” the report added.Long said that October’s data could even be lost if the shutdown drags on for too long, “because the data was not collected.”Government workers could ask people to recount economic conditions once the shutdown ends, but this proves tricky if the delay is too long, she said.The risk is no data or “tainted data” if memories are seen as less reliable over time, she added.While economists, policymakers and business leaders have been relying on private sector data, analysts stress that these cannot replace numbers produced by the US government, which are viewed as the gold standard.”We have a remarkable amount of uncertainty about just literally what’s happening with labor supply, like how many people are in the United States and want jobs,” said Brookings Institution senior fellow Wendy Edelberg.She added that there is significant disagreement about how many people have left the country since the start of 2025.Wells Fargo senior economist Sarah House said despite strong GDP growth recently, there are many “signs of strain underneath the surface,” alongside signals that “not every component or group in the economy is doing equally well.”She cautioned that the shutdown is unhelpful for the economy: “If you’re not sure when your next paycheck is coming as a government worker, you’re not going to be going out to eat for dinner.” “You’re maybe pushing off a trip, or just not buying little discretionary things.”

UN calls for end to Sudan siege after mass hospital killingsThu, 30 Oct 2025 04:07:38 GMT

UN chief Antonio Guterres called for an immediate end to military escalation in Sudan on Thursday after reports that more than 460 people were shot dead in a maternity hospital by paramilitary forces.Mohammad Hamdan Daglo, the head of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitaries which recently seized the city of El-Fasher from army forces, has …

UN calls for end to Sudan siege after mass hospital killingsThu, 30 Oct 2025 04:07:38 GMT Read More »

UN calls for end to Sudan siege after mass hospital killings

UN chief Antonio Guterres called for an immediate end to military escalation in Sudan on Thursday after reports that more than 460 people were shot dead in a maternity hospital by paramilitary forces.Mohammad Hamdan Daglo, the head of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitaries which recently seized the city of El-Fasher from army forces, has vowed the country would be unified by “peace or through war”.The capture of El-Fasher, the last army holdout in the vast western region of Darfur, comes after more than 18 months of brutal siege, sparking fears of a return to the ethnically targeted atrocities of 20 years ago.Accusations of mass killings have mounted, with the World Health Organization (WHO) condemning reports that 460 people were killed at the Saudi Maternity Hospital, the last partially functional hospital in El-Fasher.The WHO said the hospital was on Sunday “attacked for the fourth time in a month, killing one nurse and injuring three other health workers”. Two days later, “six health workers, four doctors, a nurse and a pharmacist, were abducted” and “more than 460 patients and their companions were reportedly shot and killed in the hospital,” the organisation said.Guterres said in a statement he was “gravely concerned by the recent military escalation” in El-Fasher, calling for “an immediate end to the siege & hostilities”.International powers have struggled for months to mediate an end to the fighting between the paramilitaries and the regular army, raging since April 2023.Daglo’s paramilitaries now control most of western Sudan, Africa’s third-largest country, while the regular army under Abdel Fattah al-Burhan dominates the north, east and centre.While the army regained full control over the capital Khartoum in March, the RSF has set up a parallel administration in the southwestern city of Nyala.Analysts warn that the country is now de facto partitioned and may prove very hard to piece back together.- ‘Systemic killing’ -Daglo said in a speech Wednesday that he was “sorry for the inhabitants of El-Fasher for the disaster that has befallen them” and that civilians were off limits.The RSF — descended from Janjaweed militias that attacked non-Arab communities in Darfur two decades ago — has again been accused of carrying out ethnic genocide against civilians, with graphic videos circulating on social media.Sudanese Arabs are the dominant ethnic group in the country, but the majority in Darfur are from non-Arab communities such as the Fur people.The Sudanese government has accused the RSF of killing more than 2,000 civilians and targeting mosques and Red Crescent aid workers in the city.Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab said Tuesday that satellite imagery showed “mass killing events” with “corroboration of alleged executions around Saudi Hospital and a previously unreported potential mass killing at an RSF detention site at the former Children’s Hospital in eastern El-Fasher”.It said there was also ongoing “systematic killing” at one location outside the city.The lab had warned earlier of a “systematic and intentional process of ethnic cleansing” of non-Arab communities.- Thousands displaced -The seizing of El-Fasher has left the RSF in control of a third of Sudan, with fighting now concentrated in the central Kordofan region.On Tuesday, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies reported five Sudanese volunteers killed and three missing in Bara, a city in Kordofan captured by the RSF last week.More than 33,000 people have fled El-Fasher since Sunday for the town of Tawila, about 70 kilometres (40 miles) to the west, which has already welcomed more than 650,000 displaced people.AFP images from Tawila showed displaced people, some of them with bandages, carrying their belongings and setting up temporary shelters.Around 177,000 people remain in El-Fasher, which had a population of more than one million before the war.Access routes to El-Fasher and satellite-based communications in the city remain cut off — though not for the RSF, which controls the Starlink network there.- Truce talks stalled -Sudan’s war has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced millions and triggered the world’s largest displacement and hunger crisis.The so-called Quad group — comprising the United States, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia — held talks over several months towards securing a truce. But those talks have reached an impasse, an official close to the negotiations said, with “continued obstructionism” from the army-aligned government.While diplomats have preached peace, outside powers, including Quad members, have been accused of interfering in the conflict.