Infinity Social Updates

Canada have already made World Cup history, while Mexico and the USA are also on course to beat their best-ever runs in the tournament as home advantage has paid dividends. AFP Sports looks at how all three co-hosts have thrived while others have struggled with the sprawling tournament spread over three countries and 17 cities. Mexico Swept along by fanatical support in the stadiums and the streets, Mexico have already ended a 40-year wait to win a knockout game by beating Ecuador to make the last 16. El Tri are confident of eliminating England in what could be a World Cup classic on Sunday. Javier Aguirre’s side made the most of a kind group-stage draw to ease past South Africa, South Korea and the Czech Republic. But the first-half destruction of Ecuador, who beat Germany in the group stages and finished second to Argentina in South American qualifying, served as a warning to England. Winger Julian Quinones has been Mexico’s breakout star wit...

Mourners beat their chests and chanted “revenge, revenge” as thousands gathered in Tehran early on Saturday for a final farewell to assassinated supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei . Khamenei, who ruled Iran for more than three decades, was killed in US-Israeli attacks on February 28 that sparked a regional war. “We have come not for the funeral but for revenge,” a eulogist at the event chanted. “We’re never going to give up your blood, which is the reddest line.” The mourners, some in tears, made their way through strict security towards the courtyard where Khamenei’s coffin was placed for people to pay their respects. “We must rise up and, God willing, avenge the blood of our leader,” Hamidreza Shabani, an 18-year-old student, told AFP. The coffin, wrapped in an Iranian flag, was unveiled on a stage from behind dark blue velvet drapes after recitations from the Quran. It stood on a raised platform accompanied by the coffins of his family memb...

More than 90pc of the Gaza Strip has been destroyed and more than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed in the 1,000 days since Israel started bombarding the besieged enclave following the retaliatory Hamas attack of Oct 7, 2023, according to the local government’s media office. The Palestinian government’s media office released key statistics on the destruction and death toll on Thursday, marking 1,000 days since the start of the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza. As of July 2, Israel has seized control of more than 80pc of the Gaza Strip, while 2.4 million people in the territory were being subjected to genocide, starvation and ethnic cleansing, the statement said. A plume of smoke rises above buildings in Gaza City on October 7, 2023 during an Israeli air strike. — AFP/File Of those killed by the Israeli military, more than 21,500 were children and more than 12,500 were women. More than 1,000 of the children killed were under the age of one, the state...

Egypt have reached the FIFA World Cup knockout stage for the first time in their history, with Mohamed Salah once again at the heart of their success. But while the Pharaohs have long embraced him as their greatest modern footballer, can this campaign persuade the rest of the world to view him the same way? There was once an Egyptian king who ruled on the banks of the River Mersey. For nine years, Liverpool’s faithful sang his name as Mohamed Salah cemented his place among the club’s greatest players. Back home, however, Salah never wore a crown. He carried something heavier — the hopes of a nation that had spent decades searching for a place among football’s elite. On Friday, in the city of Dallas, Texas, those hopes will accompany Egypt into unfamiliar territory. For the first time in their history, the Pharaohs will play a FIFA World Cup knockout match, with the man who conquered Anfield now attempting to add another defining chapter to a career that has already transformed Egypt...

Thousands of miles from North America, where the FIFA World Cup is bringing together football fans from countries that are otherwise at odds, one of football’s least heralded nations is experiencing its own moment of unity. In a stadium in the ancient city of Sanaa, hundreds have turned out to watch a match between two teams from areas controlled by different factions in Yemen’s 12-year-old civil war. Since May, a truce signed in 2022 has seemed firm enough to allow a resumption of the professional Yemen National League for the first time since 2014. Fans cheer during a football match in Sanaa, Yemen on June 28, 2026. — Reuters Photos are taken and pennants are exchanged between the captains of Wahda Sanaa, whose city is under the control of the Houthi militia, and Shaab Hadramout, whose province is controlled by a regional coalition and separatists. The referee starts the match. A Wahda Sanaa player grabs his head in frustration at missing a chance — ...

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) sought on Thursday a detailed report from the provincial health secretary and police chief after a citizen filed a petition, citing reports of an HIV outbreak allegedly resulting from the reuse of contaminated syringes and medical negligence at a Karachi hospital. The petition, filed by Tariq Mansoor, was taken up by a two-member Sindh High Court bench comprising Justice Adnanul Karim Memon and Justice Adnan Iqbal Chaudhry. In its written order, seen by Dawn , the bench noted that the plea arose from “the reported HIV outbreak at Kulsum Bai Valika SESSI Hospital, SITE, Karachi, allegedly caused by the reuse of contaminated syringes and gross medical negligence, resulting in the infection of approximately 84 to over 200 children, with several reported fatalities”. The petitioner contended that “despite repeated reports in the national media regarding the HIV outbreak, no transparent, independent or time-bound inquiry has been conducted to fix respo...

South Asia teeters precariously upon a powder keg of existential volatility, ironically fuelled by water itself. This dangerous moment has been propelled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s flagitious and untenable proclamation that the waters of the Indus basin belong exclusively to India. One reaches this sombre conclusion after reading the incisive column by Ahmar Bilal Soofi, titled “Dams on Chenab — a target?”. A leading jurist, Soofi has consistently advocated rigorous legal remedies against Modi’s malevolent suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) of 1960 — an act tantamount to de facto abrogation, devoid of legitimacy under the principle of pacta sunt servanda . This assertion by New Delhi not only repudiates solemn treaty obligations but weaponises a vital shared resource, imperilling the agrarian lifelines of downstream Pakistan. India’s hypocrisy Indian policy discourse seeks to cloak accelerated projects on the Chenab, including the coloss...