Colombia's Petro visits Haiti for a 2nd time to help bolster security as gang violence surges
Petro announced the opening of a Colombian embassy in Haiti and pledged to help Haiti strengthen its security .
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China calls for global 'consensus' on AI regulation
Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Saturday urged the international community to build a global consensus on artificial intelligence (AI) governance, highlighting security risks amid the raging tech race between Beijing and Washington. Speaking at the opening of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai, Li said it is prudent to look at "how to find a balance between development and security [which] urgently requires further consensus from the entire society." Li also announced the creation of a Chinese-led body to promote global AI cooperation and open-source development to keep AI from becoming "the preserve of a few countries and a few enterprises." What is the tech rivalry between the US and China? The three-day WAIC event comes amid intensifying US-China competition in advanced AI technology. Just days before, US President Donald Trump announced the slashing of AI regulations to maintain the US' dominance in the field even as Washington continues to restrict exports of high-end chips to China, citing national security concerns. These restrictions are forcing Chinese companies to look for alternatives, with startup DeepSeek introducing an AI model in January that matched the performance of leading US systems, despite working on less advanced chips. Li, without naming the US, criticized monopolistic control and called for open access to AI technologies, warning of insufficient supply of AI chips and restrictions on talent exchange otherwise. "Only by adhering to openness, sharing and fairness in access to intelligence can more countries and groups benefit from (AI)," he said. 'AI a test of international cooperation' At the WAIC opening ceremony, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a video message that AI regulation would be "a defining test of international cooperation." More than 800 companies are participating in this year's WAIC, showcasing over 3,000 tech innovations. While Chinese firms like Huawei and Alibaba are the main entrants, international firms including US-based companies Tesla, Alphabet, and Amazon are also present. Edited by: Saim Dušan Inayatullah
News24
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Death toll rises in Thai-Cambodian clashes despite ceasefire call
Thailand and Cambodia clashed for a third day on Saturday, as the death toll from their bloodiest fighting in years rose to 33 and Phnom Penh called for an "immediate ceasefire". A long-running border dispute erupted into intense conflict involving jets, artillery, tanks and ground troops on Thursday, prompting the UN Security Council to hold an emergency meeting on the crisis Friday. Cambodia's defence ministry said 13 people were now confirmed killed in the fighting, including eight civilians and five soldiers, with 71 people wounded. In Thailand, the army said five soldiers were killed on Friday, taking the toll there to 20 - 14 civilians and six military. The death toll across the two countries is now higher than the 28 killed in the last major round of fighting between 2008 and 2011. Both sides reported a clash around 5:00, with Cambodia accusing Thai forces of firing "five heavy artillery shells" into locations in Pursat province, which borders Thailand's Trat province. The fighting has forced more than 138 000 people to be evacuated from Thailand's border regions, with more than 35 000 driven from their homes in Cambodia. After the closed meeting of the Security Council in New York, Cambodia's UN ambassador Chhea Keo said his country wanted a ceasefire. "Cambodia asked for an immediate ceasefire - unconditionally - and we also call for the peaceful solution of the dispute," he told reporters. Border row Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman Nikorndej Balankura said Friday, before the UN meeting was held, that Bangkok was open to talks, possibly aided by Malaysia. "We are ready, if Cambodia would like to settle this matter via diplomatic channels, bilaterally, or even through Malaysia, we are ready to do that. But so far we have not had any response," Nikorndej told AFP. Malaysia currently holds the chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations regional bloc, of which Thailand and Cambodia are both members. Acting Thai Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai has warned that if the situation escalates, "it could develop into war." Both sides blamed each other for firing first, while Thailand accused Cambodia of targeting civilian infrastructure, including a hospital hit by shells and a petrol station hit by at least one rocket. AFP Cambodia has accused Thai forces of using cluster munitions. At the UN, Cambodia's envoy questioned Thailand's assertion that his country, which is smaller and less militarily developed than its neighbour, had initiated the conflict. "(The Security Council) called for both parties to (show) maximum restraint and resort to a diplomatic solution. That is what we are calling for as well," said Chhea Keo. The fighting marks a dramatic escalation in a long-running dispute between the neighbours - both popular destinations for millions of foreign tourists - over their shared 800-kilometre border. Dozens of kilometres in several areas are contested and fighting broke out between 2008 and 2011, leaving at least 28 people dead and tens of thousands displaced. A UN court ruling in 2013 settled the matter for over a decade, but the current crisis erupted in May when a Cambodian soldier was killed in a new clash.
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The making of a Lioness – as told by their parents: Extra jobs, bank loans and sleeping in meetings
Nigel James thinks back to one night shift he worked following an 11am game his son Reece played at Norwich City. Nigel was running his own coaching business alongside 12-hour overnight stints as a security guard, earning £5 an hour to supplement the family income. He started at 10pm to relieve an agency worker and, exhausted, took his colleague's word that floor two was locked. At 5:30am, the cleaner arrived to find the place had been robbed. 'The police came, so did the bosses of the company,' he recalls. 'But I didn't lose my job. To this day, I don't know how. If I had, how would I have provided for my family? No one else in security would have hired me. We were always just swimming above water.' Nigel, 48, is recalling the years he and Emma spent ferrying their son Reece to Chelsea, daughter Lauren to Arsenal and eldest son Joshua to Reading. 'I used to nod off during some of my shifts,' he confesses, while meeting at a restaurant in Cobham, just outside London and close to where Reece and Lauren train for Chelsea. 'There were a couple of times when I could have lost my job, but certain managers and supervisors knew my kids were into football. They could have just sacked me but they gave me chances, gave me extra rope to keep going. That helped me feed my family.' Nigel is briefly overcome as he speaks of his mother, Elizabeth, and the car that kept breaking down. Elizabeth took out a £10,000 ($13,500) loan from the bank and Nigel spent £7,000 on a second-hand Ford Orion. 'We felt like we were sorted again,' he says. 'And she never wanted that money back. If it wasn't for her, I honestly don't think any of this would have happened.' It is an extraordinary example of the parental devotion — spanning two generations — that goes into making a Lioness. The pay-offs for the England parents who doubled as their daughters' taxi drivers, chefs, psychologists, nutritionists, coaches and kit launderers defy comprehension. Reece and Lauren, for instance, became the first siblings to play for England's men's and women's senior teams. Between them, the parents who have spoken to The Athletic for this article have watched their daughters win the European Championship, the Champions League, play in the World Cup final, rack up Ballon d'Or nominations and score in major tournaments. Each has done so to growing public interest and all that comes with it: adoration, criticism and faces on Panini stickers. England's Euros win in 2022 amplified it all, and no doubt the parents who lived through it will have reassurances for those experiencing their first tournament in Switzerland this summer. Joanne Stanway, mother of midfielder Georgia, recalls the emotions of watching England through their Euros run. A primary school teacher, she could not go to the quarter-final against Spain in person because her school would not let her miss her own retirement celebration assembly. 'That was just an awful game to watch,' she says quietly from the sofa of an Airbnb in Ulverston, Cumbria, a short drive from where Georgia grew up in Askam. 'I just felt really ill. I had to get up and walk around. Then she scored. I cried out: 'Was it Georgia?!'.' The final at Wembley was worse. 'I had to completely switch off and pretend I wasn't there, that she was just playing in the park.' The park was where it all began, in the days when a career as a female footballer was a remote possibility and the rewards, financial or otherwise, were small. So why do it? And how could the families prepare for what ultimately came to pass when their daughters were breaking new ground as the first generation to play in a fully professional English league, the first England Women players to win a major trophy and the first to come of age amid multi-million-pound broadcast deals? Talking to them, there is a sense that these parents are reckoning in real-time with the paths that football has led them down. 'It feels odd thinking, 'That's my daughter',' says Julie Hemp, mother of Manchester City's Lauren. 'As her parents, I am aware we do not celebrate her achievements as much as we should. I think it's because she achieved so much so young that it became the norm.' Richard Mead still lives just a few minutes from the park and industrial estate where his daughter Beth would play, a crossbar slapped in paint across a garage door. The loft houses suitcases of scrapbooks from each season of Beth's career. His late wife, June, saved the hospitality wristbands from each England game. 'You could hardly believe at the time what was happening,' he says of the Euros win in 2022. 'When the final whistle went, it was the proudest moment of our lives. You're just proud to see — I call her my baby girl — doing what she loves and getting the recognition for it. That's all we worked for.' When Beth turned 16 and signed for Sunderland, she and Richard would make the 135-mile round trip three times a week, having already spent years making the 50-mile round trip to Middlesbrough. June, who already worked full time in a school, took on extra work in a pub and fish and chip shop to pay for the petrol and a second car. 'I'd be home first and I'd do the tea, then June would go straight back out and I'd look after the kids,' Richard says. A coach at California Boys, one of Beth's first clubs, had told Richard his daughter would grow up to play for England. 'And we were like, 'Yeah, right-o',' he remembers. 'But you always have that hope. And while you've got that, you're willing to do whatever you can. 'Once she showed that talent, you just had to do what you could do for her. That was it. As parents, you've got to sacrifice things to help your children.' The 23-year-old Manchester United captain Maya Le Tissier faced the added complication of growing up in Guernsey, the Channel Island with a population of less than 70,000. Her father Darren had been among the coaches trying to forge an elite pathway there and had connections to Southampton, whose academy manager, Terry Moore, suggested Maya trial in England. Maya could not be part of the formal pathway at Hampshire because of where she lived but was invited to train. Maya's childhood friend, Bournemouth midfielder Alex Scott, was playing for Southampton's academy. Every three weeks, the pair would spend a week in England, finishing schoolwork in their hotel rooms. 'There was a banqueting suite upstairs and they would kick a ball around that area,' Darren says. 'They'd put chairs out and play keepy-ups over them.' He adds: 'We were spending £15,000 a season, minimum.' Flights, accommodation and car hire would total over £500 a trip. A Guernsey fund administration company sponsored Maya to the tune of £3,000 a year. 'The island's elite athletes know where they come from because somebody in Guernsey has helped them — because that stretch of water is so expensive to bridge.' All the while, Maya's twin brother, Theo, remained home with whichever parent had not travelled. 'To live in your sister's shadow and get on with your life… it's one of the biggest credits I can ever give Theo,' Darren says. 'He could have moaned: 'It's always about her'. Never did.' Stanway found football aged three via older brother John-Paul, who trained on the field behind Joanne's house on Litchmead Grove. She and Georgia's father, Paul, were separated and both full-time teachers. Joanne was a runner who held the 400-metre record at Leigh Harriers & Athletic Club until it was broken by Olympic gold medallist Keely Hodgkinson. Paul was a county footballer and cricketer. At 11, Stanway aged out of mixed football and the scant network of decent girls' teams locally left the four-hour round trip to Blackburn Rovers as the best option. Georgia's parents split the twice-weekly trips, which became 9pm sessions four times a week once Stanway reached the first team at 16. En route, Stanway would do her homework, eat and sleep. 'It's a big commitment at 11,' says Joanne, who had hoped to wait until Georgia was 15 or 16, only for a Lancashire FA representative to question where Stanway had been after she stopped playing football for a year because of the lack of good girls' teams. 'Then the parental guilt comes,' says Joanne. ''Am I doing the right thing? Should I wait?'. 'But she kept pestering. She was like a rottweiler. She just wouldn't let it go. On the way back, I used to play a bit of opera — something really calming — and she would sleep.' The family received £250 from the local council — that covered about 10 journeys to Blackburn — and £500 from the Cumbria branch of the FA but Joanne downsized their home twice to release some money. 'I knew I couldn't keep up this pace and work until I was 60 or 65, but I could not afford to go part-time,' she says. 'I found myself wishing… not wishing your life away, but just wishing that things would slow down, that I would gain back some control of what I wanted to do. 'I was feeling shattered. It was just give, give, give. My colleagues used to laugh at me because I nearly fell asleep in a meeting. I went through a period where I didn't want to get back in the car again. I just spent so much time there.' Joanne comes across as shy and humble but she has a steely mentality. 'I thought about looking after myself a bit more,' she says, 'doing little things I wanted to do, like listening to a piece of music I liked. There wasn't any provision for parents, no indoor space. You'd just be sitting in your car. 'I would probably still do it all over again even if she didn't make it. Because you just do, for your children.' Julie Hemp's daughters Lauren, now 24, and Amy both played at Norwich's centre of excellence. Three times a week for five years, she would watch for four hours. They would return home at 9pm. Each Saturday, Julie and husband Kevin 'would have to alternate our time between games so we could see them both play, praying neither of us missed anything special', she remembers. 'Many people who knew Amy and Lauren then would tell you Amy was actually a better footballer before she got injured,' Julie says, but anterior cruciate ligament injuries derailed her career. 'It was always a dream of mine to have both girls play for England: one on the left and one on the right,' Julie adds. 'I have been very lucky to have at least half a dream come true.' Lauren was in Norwich's under-13s when a career in women's football was first mooted by Ian Thornton, who headed up the centre. At a coaching session with 200 girls a few years later, the coach warned that only one of them would make a career in football. The Hemps faced a major stumbling block when the centre of excellence closed while Lauren was 15. She returned to North Walsham's boys' team while Julie 'did a huge amount of research trying to find a club that could provide an education and a pathway to women's football as a career'. Following advice from the FA, she emailed several clubs and had leads in Nottingham, Reading and Bristol. At the Nottingham trial, Lauren met Lionesses Ellen White and Laura Bassett but the educational component was lacking. Bristol City was the best fit, with the plan for Hemp to train with the academy, live with a host family and complete a sports qualification at college. 'We knew that most of the senior team had other jobs to support their wages from playing football and for her to earn money from playing seemed odd,' says Julie. 'It wasn't something we had really thought about because until she was 18, she wouldn't get offered a contract anyway. A few weeks later, she made her first-team debut and scored her first professional goal at 16.' The Le Tissiers had the same determination but no map for a more disjointed journey from Guernsey. There were so few girls' teams on the island that they had 'no idea what the standard was', Darren says. 'You have this feeling something might happen, but you didn't know. So you were just doing all you could for Maya. The whole thing was stepping into the unknown, making it up, always hoping that something would work out.' It looked like it was crashing down when Hampshire abruptly pulled the plug on Maya's attendance when the licence transferred from the Hampshire Football Association to Southampton FC (Hampshire had temporarily run the centre of excellence following Southampton's relegation from the Premier League). Darren says the family were told Maya needed to attend more regularly or not at all. 'You've got an extremely talented individual and you're just going to turn her away, are you?' Darren says. 'She gets to 18 and she just stops playing football? Maya was absolutely devastated, completely gone.' Around this time, the FA set up monthly regional camps for girls outside the catchment areas of established women's academies. After the 'initial fury' subsided, the family pulled together enough football to keep Maya ticking over, including England camps, until she finished her GCSEs and could look further afield. 'The whole thing would have capsized if they didn't open those areas,' Darren says. 'They'd have lost Maya. There's a whole wave of talent that gets missed just because they can't access clubs. If they're a boy, they get taxied out. If they're a girl, it's just not happening. 'They would all turn up to their England camps in their Arsenal and Chelsea tracksuits and Maya turned up in a Guernsey tracksuit. Everyone was looking at her, thinking, 'What the hell's that?'. She literally didn't care. It was that belief: I'll show you. She was like this hybrid thing that came from nowhere.' Lauren James never needed to declare that she would be a footballer. 'It was more a case of: this is all she was going to do. There was nothing else,' Nigel says. 'It was not up for debate. You would not even ask her that question.' James grew up playing with England international Conor Gallagher and England youth international Jacob Maddox. She also benefited from having two older brothers trying to make it in the sport themselves and they would include her in games with their friends, many of whom were also playing in academies. 'It was not a case of dragging a sister along, Lauren was just part of the gang,' Nigel continues. 'She was the baby sister to all of them, but when they had a kickaround it was at the highest level.' A lover of flair players, Nigel wanted Lauren to be comfortable on the ball and inventive above all else. As well as training at Chelsea in her early years, she would attend a weekly two-hour session at the academy he runs, Nigel James Elite Coaching. 'I was very careful who actually worked with Lauren,' he says. 'I didn't want her to work with someone who would take something away by saying: 'You are too greedy — you need to pass the ball more'. I did not want anyone coaching the flair out of Lauren. For example, I would put on small two or three three-minute games and say: 'Try to score five goals. Be greedy. Don't pass. Take them on'.' James was just 16 when she moved into senior football, presented with offers from West Ham United, which would have kept her local, or Manchester United, who were in the process of launching their women's team. After several meetings, Nigel felt the then Manchester United head coach, Casey Stoney, was 'the perfect person I could trust with my kid who was going to be a long way away from home for the first time'. 'I used to go up at least twice a week, which included staying over,' Nigel says. 'Reece was on loan at Wigan in 2018-19, so it worked.' Then the pandemic happened. Lauren moved from digs with a host family to a studio flat on her own. She only saw her family via FaceTime and would cry at night. 'In this scenario, you have to bring your baby home,' Nigel continues. 'There was a time when I was even thinking about moving to be closer to her. It made me think, this or something else could happen again and I want to make sure my daughter is closer to home. 'That is the only reason we left Manchester United. It was nothing to do with anything at the club; it was bigger than that. We loved Manchester United. Every one of those supporters who give her stick would do the same thing if they had a child in that situation. And when she joined Chelsea to work with Emma Hayes, it was like Lauren went from one mother (Casey Stoney) to another.' Stanway's career changed on the day she walked through her front door, wearing her school uniform and carrying her rucksack, to find the Manchester City manager Nick Cushing in her living room. He wanted Stanway for his first team, and the club would pay for her to attend local private school St Bede's with its boys' academy players. 'I thought we were just having a little chat about how we can move forward,' Joanne continues. 'I didn't realise there were already things in place. I couldn't speak to anybody else whose daughter was in the same situation because there was just nobody.' Georgia's team-mates would include former England captain Steph Houghton and Toni Duggan. 'They were Georgia's idols,' says dad Paul, sitting in a room decorated with Stanway's framed England shirts. Did they feel they had a generational talent on their hands and had to do something with it? 'Absolutely,' says Paul. 'We'd have regretted it forever. And Georgia would have resented us if we'd stopped her from making that move.' Lucy Bronze would go on to collect Stanway from the host family's house each morning to drive her to training. The then-England goalkeeper Karen Bardsley took Stanway out to the cinema on her first weekend away from home. 'I've never thanked Karen for that,' says Joanne. When Mead turned professional at Sunderland, June negotiated the contract because Beth did not have an agent. 'We didn't have any experience of it whatsoever, but players going onto contracts was all new at the time anyway,' says Richard. Julie, meanwhile, rang Cushing herself once she heard of City's interest in Lauren and arranged the visit to Manchester for a tour. 'He was on the coach back from an away fixture,' Julie recalls. 'I couldn't believe I was talking to him and I felt a little stupid, to be honest. An agent wasn't something we had even thought about. She was only 17 and we had no idea about wages.' Joanne had just finished decorating Stanway's bedroom blue and white, 'just the way she wanted it', when her daughter was uprooted from Barrow to Manchester to live with a host family. 'I don't think she slept many nights in it,' Joanne remembers. 'And then she was gone.' They watched senior players arrive in their sports cars on their first visit to City. 'I remember asking her: 'Shall we have a look at your accommodation? And she said: 'No, Mum — you have to go. I was like: 'Oh. OK'.' On the drive back home, Joanne had to pull over at a service station. 'I was just in floods of tears,' she says. 'I never told her that until later on. I composed myself, drove off and said to myself: 'She wants to do this'. She didn't even look back — my daughter that I spent hours and hours in the car with…' The Mead family, meanwhile, were contending with Beth's anxiety, and the stubbornness of a daughter reluctant to leave her comfort zone. Her homesickness while on England camps as a teenager was so acute that she threw her kit in the bin to demonstrate to her parents how much she was suffering. Before a match with the under-17s in Poland, Beth's anxiety manifested in stomach aches and coaches sent her home over fears she had a bug that could infect the team. June and Richard had non-refundable flights. 'June was the one who calmed Beth down and reassured her in those moments,' Richard says. 'There was no point having a go at her because we didn't want to put her off permanently. We'd try to put different things in place for the next time she went away. June would put letters in her baggage just to say we're thinking of her and we're proud of her to reassure her, more than anything. June would sit down a lot with her and say: 'One step at a time. Get up in the morning and do your next thing, then your next thing'.' They flew to competitions in Belgium and the Netherlands to give Beth something to look forward to, and spent an entire tournament in Wales so Beth knew they were local. When Beth moved to Arsenal in 2017, successive injuries meant she was 'isolated a bit from the squad'. Between them, Richard, June and Beth's agent would coordinate their schedules so each could 'talk to her at different times' on the phone. When Beth broke her collarbone and entered surgery, Richard drove to St Albans, took the train to London and arrived as she woke from the anaesthetic 'just to be there for her, because there wasn't really anybody else'. 'I went so she had a familiar face there as soon as she woke up,' he continues. 'We would jump in a car at any point if she needed us. Once she got comfortable at Arsenal, it was a lot easier for us because we knew she was happy. I've been known to drive down on Friday, see her and drive back the following day. It's a 260-mile trip each way.' During Lauren Hemp's first season at Bristol, she learned that Julie had cancer. 'I remember driving to Bristol to tell her my news,' Julie says. Lauren had lost her grandfather a month before leaving Norfolk and would lose her nanny shortly after finding out about her mother's diagnosis. 'I do believe these traumatic experiences at such an early age have built a resilience within Lauren,' Julie continues. 'There was an Under-17s England camp coming up and they said they fully understood if she didn't want to go and wanted to come home. I made it clear to her that I wanted her to carry on as normal. 'Seeing her play football and wearing that captain's armband gave me so much enjoyment and pride that this helped me cope with what I had to go through.' At the 2018 Under-20s World Cup in France, a 17-year-old Lauren won two player of the match awards. From the stands, Julie, who had just received the all-clear, was close to tears, thinking I could have easily missed out on this wonderful experience. Lauren even had her 18th birthday there. (Coach) Mo Marley allowed me to go to the hotel as a surprise to share it with her.' Growing up has brought a role reversal as players find themselves better equipped to deal with the increased scrutiny than their parents. 'Sometimes, it's upsetting to see what things can be said, but Beth says: 'Just ignore it. I'm OK, Dad, so you be OK',' explains Richard. 'You've got to respect your kids and the profile they've got. You tend to support each other.' Richard observes that Beth is 'a lot stronger' since June's passing in the days after Beth was voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 2022. 'We talk every day, but she can sort a lot of her own problems out. She knows what's best for her. She's probably a lot more strong-minded than me. She's probably got her mam's mentality that way; I've always just been an encourager.' Their daughters' independence has allowed the parents to relinquish some responsibility after so long steering the ship. Joanne Stanway is currently travelling, finally free to do so. 'I always describe it as a bus journey,' says Joanne. 'When they're young, you're driving the bus. As they get older, more people get on and you end up sitting as one of the passengers. It almost felt like, when she went to Manchester City, I was still stuck at the bus stop waving at the bus because it just completely changed. You have to have trust in the system.' Every parent of a talented young athlete will recognise the miles on the road, hours watching training, the financial and emotional burden. 'We're fortunate because there are a million and one families, parents of boys and girls, who've done similar or more, whose kids have not been successful,' says Paul Stanway. 'You don't think you're going to go to World Cups and win the Euros. You just do it because your daughter wants to do it.' (Top photos: Mead family, Stanway family, James family and Hemp family; design: Eamonn Dalton) This article originally appeared in The Athletic. Chelsea, England, Premier League, Soccer, Women's Soccer, Women's Euros 2025 The Athletic Media Company
