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Roberto Firmino said he was proud of making history with his Saudi club and becoming an Asian Champions League winner, six years after lifting the prestigious European equivalent with Liverpool.The 33-year-old Brazilian forward was an important member of Jurgen Klopp’s side who won the UEFA Champions League in 2019.Firmino was named the AFC Champions League’s most valuable player after inspiring Al Ahli to beat Kawasaki Frontale 2-0 on Saturday as the Jeddah club became Asian champions for the first time.”I’m very happy and very proud of the team,” said Firmino. “Happy to make history here and able to repay the support of the club, family and friends.”I’m very grateful and I feel privileged to be given this talent and opportunity. I always do my best to help my teammates and my team.”Firmino scored six goals en route to the final and was pivotal again in the showpiece.The veteran laid on the pass for fellow Brazilian Galeno to curl a delicious shot into the top corner in the 35th minute before producing a pinpoint cross seven minutes later for Franck Kessie to nod home.”This title win shows us to have a monster mentality,” said Firmino. “We always believed we could be champions and we have done it.”Al Ahli head coach Matthias Jaissle praised the 58,000 home fans at Jeddah’s King Abdullah Sports City Stadium for playing their part in the win.”I’m so proud of the players for how they were doing, how they were performing, how the journey went in this competition,” said the German coach.- ‘A crazy journey’ -“Also the fans who created an amazing atmosphere, which we never take for granted. Together we can achieve special things and that was tonight. It’s nice to give something back to the supporters.”The win was even more remarkable given that just three years ago Al Ahli were relegated from the Saudi Pro League.  “It’s been a crazy journey. Not that long ago, it looked completely different,” said Jaissle. Kawasaki coach Shigetoshi Hasebe conceded that his team had been outplayed.Having knocked out Al Sadd of Qatar after extra time and then upsetting Cristiano Ronaldo’s Saudi club Al Nassr, Hasebe admitted his tired Frontale players had been unable to hit the heights again in their third tough match in seven days.”They deserved to be champions,” said Hasebe of Al Ahli. “They could show their strength, especially in the first half, and we couldn’t. The key was the second goal.”If we could play as we know we can, we could have won. The last two games were the proof. Tonight it didn’t work and we have to do more in the future.”Hasebe admitted that Frontale’s defensive frailties had cost them, after they had edged both their quarter-final and semi-final 3-2. “Every single game we played here, we conceded two goals and that’s the part we have to improve on for the future.”

On the Doha seashore, rows of wooden dhow boats line a pier, with scores of fish on display — part of a festival seeking to revive the country’s long seafaring tradition.Aboard the boats, men in customary sea gear — a white t-shirt and towel — pay tribute to the age-old tradition of line-fishing in the energy-rich Gulf emirate for the 11th edition of the Senyar festival.”The feeling was amazing,” competitor Mohammed al-Hail told AFP as he returned from four days out at sea to waiting friends and family at the close of the festival in Katara Cultural Village, a hub for arts and heritage preservation in Doha.”As soon as we finished… here and there we saw our friends,” said Hail, a naval officer.Nearby, children dressed in traditional white thobes tried to measure themselves against three hefty fish, their scales glossy in the afternoon sun, strung up for crowds of onlookers.The specimens — each roughly 10 kilograms (22 pounds) — were the largest caught during the week-long competition.This year, 54 teams gathered to catch fish using simple handheld fishing lines, living for days at a time aboard dhows, the wooden boats that criss-crossed the Gulf waters around Qatar for centuries.Competitors are rewarded for the biggest fish, but the most sought-after prize is presented for the number, quality and variety of fish caught using a points-based system that values hamour and kingfish over other local types.- Preserving heritage -Prior to the advent of the oil and gas industries, Qatar’s economy, like many Gulf countries, was dominated by pearl-diving — until artificial pearls began flooding the market in the 1920s — as well as fishing.But while reliance on these practices is a thing of the past, Qataris like Hail and his teammate Mohammed al-Mohannadi are eager to preserve the heritage.”I feel good but I am not very happy about my result because I hoped to take first,” Mohannadi said.”But God willing next competition… we’ll have a good result,” he added.Four days earlier, dozens of boats were scattered across the azure Gulf waters, roughly five kilometres (three miles) off the desert sands south of the Qatari capital.Onboard the “Lusail” boat, Yousuf al-Mutawa explained that his team was setting fishing lines to take advantage of a mid-morning lull in the winds.”When the wind comes down, the big fish come up,” said Mutawa, whose 12-strong team was participating in the competition for the second year in a row.The 55-year-old director of operations for Qatar’s Lusail city explained that his father had been a trader on a small wooden dhow until the 1940s.- ‘100 years back’ -Mutawa said his father used to work on a ship between Qatar and Kuwait, “taking some food from there and bringing it here”.Eventually, though, the boat was wrecked in high winds and his father took a job in Qatar’s nascent oil industry, he explained.If you saw “100 years back how they were eating… it was difficult for them”, Mutawa said.He added that his own sons had competed in previous years and he hoped they would again.Ali Almulla, a Dubai real estate manager, said he had travelled from the United Arab Emirates to join the “Lusail” team for the second year.”I came here to participate in the local traditional fishing. I’d say that’s fun for us. It’s nice to be with friends. It’s good company,” the 35-year-old said.”It’s good to have the younger generations… aware of what our grandfathers did back then,” he added.Almulla said his family also had deep roots in seafaring. “We got that from our father, and my grandfather and so on. My grandfather actually used to dive for pearls,” he said.The competitor said he took part in sports fishing competitions around the Gulf, some using modern techniques and others, like the Senyar festival, more traditional. “Winning is nice, but we are here to enjoy,” he added. 

Massive planned US duties on solar panels made in Southeast Asia could be a chance for the region to ramp up its own long-stalled energy transition, experts say.Earlier this month, Washington announced plans for hefty duties on solar panels made in Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia.The levies follow an investigation, launched before US President Donald …

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Israel was issuing orders to call up tens of thousands of reservists ahead of an expanded offensive in Gaza, Israeli media reported Saturday, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attacked truce mediator Qatar.Several news outlets reported the military had begun sending the orders for reservists to replace conscripts and active-duty soldiers in Israel and the occupied West Bank so they can be redeployed to Gaza.A military spokesperson neither confirmed nor denied the reports, but relatives of AFP journalists were among those who received mobilisation orders.According to Israel’s public broadcaster, the security cabinet is scheduled to meet on Sunday to approve the expansion of the military offensive in Gaza.Israel resumed major operations across Gaza on March 18 amid deadlock over how to proceed with a two-month ceasefire that had largely halted the war sparked by Hamas’s October 2023 attack.Qatar, which hosts Hamas’s political office, brokered the truce alongside the US and Egypt that came into effect in January. Efforts to secure a new deal however have appeared to stall in recent weeks.Netanyahu accused the gas-rich Gulf state of “playing both sides with its double talk”. Posting on X, he said Qatar had to “decide if it’s on the side of civilization or if it’s on the side of Hamas barbarism”.The Israeli prime minister, under pressure from his far-right supporters, without whom he would lose his governing coalition, has been increasingly vocal in his calls to continue the war since the restart of the Gaza offensive.”Israel will win this just war with just means,” he added.Qatari foreign ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari rejected the “inflammatory” comments, charging that they “fall far short of the most basic standards of political and moral responsibility” in a statement on X.Israel has also blocked all aid deliveries to Gaza since March 2, prompting warnings from UN agencies of impending humanitarian disaster.- Hostage video -Hamas on Saturday released footage of an apparently wounded Israeli-Russian hostage held in Gaza as 11 Palestinians, including three infants, were killed in a strike on the territory, its civil defence agency said.The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said at least 2,396 people had been killed since Israel resumed its campaign in Gaza, bringing the overall death toll from the war to 52,495.Gaza militants still hold 58 hostages, 34 of whom the army says are dead. Hamas is also holding the remains of an Israeli soldier killed in a previous war in Gaza in 2014.The militant group’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, released a video on Saturday showing a hostage AFP and Israeli media identified as Russian-Israeli Maxim Herkin.In the undated four-minute video, Herkin, who turns 37 this month, was shown wearing bandages on his head and left arm.Speaking in Hebrew in the video, which his family urged media to disseminate, he implied he had been wounded in a recent Israeli bombardment.AFP was unable to determine the health of Herkin, who gave a similar message to other hostages shown in videos released by Hamas, urging pressure on the Israeli government to free the remaining captives.- ‘Bright light’ -Several thousand Israelis demonstrated outside the defence ministry in Tel Aviv on Saturday, demanding action from the government to secure the hostages’ release.”We’re here because we want the hostages home. We’re here because we don’t believe that the war in Gaza today, currently, is justified at all,” Arona Maskil, a 64-year-old demonstrator, told AFP.The government says its renewed offensive is aimed at forcing Hamas to free its remaining captives, although critics charge that it puts them in mortal danger.A statement from the Hostages and Missing Families Forum argued that “any escalation in the fighting will put the hostages… in immediate danger”.In Gaza, the civil defence agency said on Saturday that an overnight Israeli strike on the Khan Yunis refugee camp killed at least 11 people, including three infants.Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal say they were killed in the “bombardment of the Al-Bayram family home in Khan Yunis camp” at around 3:00 am (0000 GMT).Bassal told AFP that eight of the dead had been identified and were all from the same extended family, including a boy and girl, both one, and a month-old baby.An Israeli military spokesperson confirmed the strike, saying it targeted a “Hamas member”.Rescue workers and residents combed the rubble for survivors with their bare hands, under the light of hand-held torches, an AFP journalist reported.Neighbour Fayka Abu Hatab said she “saw a bright light, then there was an explosion, and dust covered the entire area”.”We couldn’t see anything, it all went dark,” she said.

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Hamas on Saturday released footage of an apparently injured Israeli-Russian hostage held in Gaza as 11 Palestinians, including three infants, were killed in a strike on the territory, its civil defence agency said. Israel resumed major operations across Gaza on March 18 amid deadlock over how to proceed with a two-month ceasefire that had largely halted the war sparked by Hamas’s October 2023 attack.The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said at least 2,396 people have been killed since Israel resumed its campaign in Gaza, bringing the overall death toll from the war to 52,495.Gaza militants still hold 58 hostages, 34 of whom the army says are dead. Hamas is also holding the remains of an Israeli soldier killed in a previous war in Gaza in 2014.The militant group’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, released a video on Saturday showing a hostage AFP and Israeli media identified as Russian-Israeli Maxim Herkin.In the undated four-minute video, Herkin, who turns 37 at he end of May, was shown wearing bandages on his head and left arm.Speaking in Hebrew in the video, which his family urged media to to disseminate, he implied he had been wounded in a recent Israeli bombardment and referred to himself only as “Prisoner 24”.- ‘Coming home’ -AFP was unable to determine the health of Herkin, who gave a similar message to other hostages shown in videos released by Hamas, urging pressure on the Israeli government to free the remaining captives.Herkin also appeared in a previous video released by Hamas in early April. In that video, he appeared alongside a second hostage Israeli media identified as soldier Bar Kuperstein. Both men were abducted by Palestinian militants from the Nova music festival during the Hamas attack, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.Herkin, had emigrated to Israel from Ukraine with his mother.Before being abducted, the father of one had written to his mother: “All is well. I’m coming home.” Several thousand Israelis demonstrated outside the defence ministry in Tel Aviv on Saturday, demanding action from the government to secure the hostages’ release.  The government says its renewed offensive is aimed at forcing Hamas to free its remaining captives, although critics charge that it puts them in mortal danger.Since the end of the truce, Hamas has released several videos of hostages. The latest images come as efforts by mediators to broker a new truce have stalled.- ‘Bright light’ -In Gaza, the civil defence agency said on Saturday that an overnight Israeli strike on the Khan Yunis refugee camp killed at least 11 people, including three infants aged one or less.Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal say they were killed in the “bombardment of the Al-Bayram family home in Khan Yunis camp” at around 3:00 am (0000 GMT).Bassal told AFP that eight of the dead had been identified and were all from the same extended family, including a boy and girl, both one, and a month-old baby.An Israeli army spokesperson confirmed the strike, saying it targeted a “Hamas member”.Rescue workers and residents combed the rubble for survivors with their bare hands, under the light of hand-held torches, an AFP journalist reported.Neighbour Fayka Abu Hatab said she “saw a bright light, then there was an explosion, and dust covered the entire area”.”We couldn’t see anything, it all went dark,” she said.Israel has blocked all aid deliveries to Gaza since March 2, prompting dire warnings from UN agencies of impending humanitarian disaster.

Al Ahli were crowned champions of Asia at the third attempt after the Saudi Arabian side overpowered Japan’s Kawasaki Frontale 2-0 in Jeddah on Saturday.The Jeddah club, runners-up in 1986 and 2012, triumphed at their King Abdullah Sports City Stadium thanks to two goals in seven minutes towards the end of the first half from Brazilian Galeno and Ivory Coast captain Franck Kessie. The Asian Champions League’s latter stages have all taken place in Jeddah.With the win, Roberto Firmino, Edouard Mendy and Riyad Mahrez become the first players to capture both Asian club football’s premier title and its European equivalent. The trio won the Champions League with Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester City respectively.”We are so proud,” Al Ahli goalkeeper Mendy said. “Once we knew that the final eight would be in Jeddah, it was our goal to be champions in front of our fans. Since I came here 18 months ago, they supported us so much.”As I said when I signed here, it’s to make history, to continue to win trophies and make this club as big as it was before.”The secret is the team effort. If someone makes the effort it will make it easier for the one next to him. We just played like this; you saw the fire, you saw the spirit.”Al Ahli, who are majority-owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, are awarded $10 million for clinching the title.Matthias Jaissle’s side went unbeaten through all 13 matches of the campaign.Frontale, meanwhile, were contesting the final for the first time having never previously been beyond the last eight.- Al Ahli too strong -Al Ahli began on the front foot, summer signing Ivan Toney stinging the palms of Louis Yamaguchi on five minutes before the Frontale goalkeeper then saved Ziyad Al Johani’s close-range effort from the resultant corner.At the other end, Frontale’s Brazilian forward Marcinho showed some fast feet down his side’s left, before sending his effort inches past Mendy’s far post.Yet Al Ahli always looked the more dangerous. Toney lashed wide on the half-volley, defender Roger Ibanez curled narrowly off target and Firmino sent a volley straight at Yamaguchi.However, on 35 minutes, Firmino rolled a pass to winger Galeno, who curled a spectacular effort from 25 yards into the top corner. Galeno, a winter signing from Porto for a reported 50 million euros ($56 million), has actually taken Firmino’s spot in Al Ahli’s Saudi Pro League squad, meaning the former Liverpool forward is not registered to play in the domestic league.Three minutes before half-time, Firmino floated a cross into the Frontale six-yard box for Kessie to power home his header and double Al Ahli’s advantage. The assist lifted Firmino, the club captain, to seven in this season’s Champions League – and to one behind Mahrez at the top of the tournament’s assist charts.Frontale, who defeated Cristiano Ronaldo’s Al Nassr in the semi-final, did not have a shot on target in the opening 45 minutes.In the second half, Firmino and Mahrez each flashed efforts well wide, with the former substituted on 74 minutes to rapturous applause. Not long after, Frontale substitute Tatsuya Ito fired two shots in quick succession inches off target.In the end, Al Ahli celebrated becoming only the third Saudi club to win the Champions League, after record four-time winners Al Hilal and two-time champions Al Ittihad.

The premier of Yemen’s internationally recognised government, former diplomat and foreign minister Ahmed Bin Mubarak, announced his resignation on Saturday saying he was unable to fully exercise his powers.Bitter disputes had for months opposed Bin Mubarak and Rashad al-Alimi, who heads the Saudi-backed Presidential Leadership Council (PLC), two ministers and a member of the PLC told AFP.They requested anonymity in order to speak freely.After Iran-backed Huthi rebels seized the capital Sanaa in 2014, Yemen’s government withdrew to Aden in the south.The rebels went on to control most population centres in the impoverished Arabian Peninsula country.A Saudi-led military coalition intervened in support of beleaguered government forces in 2015, but with little success.On Saturday, Bin Mubarak posted on X that he had met the PLC’s Alimi and resigned.He also shared his resignation letter in which he said: “I could not exercise my constitutional powers and take the necessary decisions to reform government institutions or implement rightful governmental changes.” His move comes as the Huthis wage a campaign of missile attacks on Israel and target shipping in key waterways in what they say is a show of solidarity with Palestinians over the war in Gaza.Bin Mubarak said that despite the obstacles he had managed to achieve “many successes in a short space of time”, citing fiscal and administrative reforms and an anti-corruption drive.However, analyst Mohammed Albasha, of the US-based Basha Report Risk Advisory, told AFP Bin Mubarak had been “in constant friction with the Presidential Leadership Council”.”Bin Mubarak wanted to be more than Prime Minister — he wanted the powers of the presidency. That aspiration isolated him politically,” Albasha said.- ‘Power struggle’ -The Yemeni official sources who spoke to AFP said Bin Mubarak had suspended the budgets of several ministries including defence, citing corruption, further fuelling tensions.”His drive for greater power — viewed by many as fuelled by personal ambition — led to repeated confrontations with key ministers and most Council members,” Albasha said.”Over time, this power struggle eroded trust.”Bin Mubarak, Yemen’s former ambassador to the United States, is a staunch adversary of the Huthis, who abducted him in 2015 and held him for several days.Previously he was chief of staff of the presidential office and Yemen’s envoy to the United Nations.He was appointed foreign minister in 2018 and prime minister on February 5, 2024.His departure should “ease internal tensions and reduce the deep divisions that have plagued Yemen’s internationally recognised government — a necessary and positive step toward restoring cohesion,” Albasha said.The war in Yemen has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, although the fighting decreased significantly after a UN-negotiated six-month truce in 2022.Since the war in the Gaza Strip broke out in October 2023 after Hamas attacked Israel, the Huthis have repeatedly targeted Israel and ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden that they say are linked to it.The Huthis paused their attacks during a two-month Gaza ceasefire, but in March a threat to resume attacks over Israel’s Gaza aid blockade triggered a renewed and sustained US air campaign targeting areas in Yemen they control.