Video footage has emerged of David Warner being restrained by his Australian team-mates in an off-field confrontation with South African wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock during the first Test in Durban. The CCTV video published by South African outlet Independent Media shows a fired up Warner remonstrating with De Kock as the teams walked upstairs to the change rooms during Sunday s tea break. Tempers fray as Australia close on victory against South Africa Read more The footage shows Warner being physically held back by Usman Khawaja before being dragged away by Australian skipper Steve Smith. South African captain Faf du Plessis then emerges and has words with Australian wicketkeeper Tim Paine. The incident is likely to raise further questions about Warner s conduct after he gave a frenzied serve to Aiden Markram and AB de Villiers when the latter was run out for a duck earlier on day four. Nathan Lyon has also come under scrutiny for dropping the ball right beside a prone De Villiers after dislodging the bails. CA is aware of reports of an incident between players in Durban a Cricket Australia spokesperson said on Monday. CA is working to establish the facts of what has occurred and will not be commenting further until that has been done. Tensions between the two sides had already threatened to boil over as Australia closed in on victory in the first of four Tests. Warner Mitchell Starc and South Africa s firebrand Kagiso Rabada have all been involved in verbal stoushes during the series opener. Rabada s send-off of Warner on day three attracted the attention of both umpires while Starc gave recalled batsman Theunis de Bruyn a mouthful in Sunday s post-lunch session. ICC laws dictate that players must not use language actions or gestures which disparage or which could provoke an aggressive reaction from a batsman upon his/her dismissal . Topics Australia cricket team South Africa cricket team Cricket Australia sport news Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share via Email Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Google Share on WhatsApp Share on Messenger Reuse this content
Ruth Jebet the reigning Olympic 3 000m steeplechase champion and world record holder has become the highest-profile Kenya-born athlete to become embroiled in a drug-testing scandal. Although the news has not yet been confirmed a number of prominent sources have suggested Jebet has tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug believed to be the blood booster EPO. The Athletics Integrity Unit which processes all doping tests in track and field said it was unable to confirm the result of any tests under the World Anti-Doping code. Meanwhile Jebet s agent Marc Corstjens said he had not heard any news of a positive tests. Honestly I am surprised and shocked. I am absolutely not aware of anything. I tried to reach Ruth but her phone is not answering. I have absolutely no official information. The 21-year-old is seen as one of athletic s brightest stars having won a stunning gold medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics before shattering the world record while still a teenager. She is also a controversial figure in Kenya having switched allegiances to run for Bahrain after being approached as a 16-year-old and promised a full scholarship to take an animal health degree in the country. Yet with Jebet spending most of her time training in Kenya this may raise more questions about how many of the country s athletes are clean and whether enough is being done by the authorities to find out. Between 2011 and 2016 more than 40 athletes from Kenya failed doping tests including Rita Jeptoo the three times Boston marathon champion who was given a four-year ban after testing positive for EPO in 2014. Last year Jeptoo s former training partner the Olympic and London marathon winner Jemima Sumgong was also banned for four years after her claim she was taking EPO for an ectopic pregnancy was rejected. Yet if Jebet s failed test is confirmed it will be a bigger shock still. When she took gold in the women s 3 000m steeplechase at Rio in 8:59:75 at that point the second-fastest time in history she was hailed as Golden Ruth although she was greeted with boos in her homeland because she beat Kenya s Hyvin Jepkemoi into second. It emerged the Bahrain government had paid Jebet a 500 000 bonus for her Olympic success. By contrast David Rudisha who won the 800m in Rio in a Kenyan vest received 10 000 from his government. Two years ago Kenya was deemed non-compliant by Wada but it was reinstated before the Rio Olympics. However many athletes have suggested not enough is done to test athletes training in the country. The Canadian runner Reid Coolsaet said in 2016: Kenyan-style anti-doping test. Notify us the night before. One-hour drive to test site at 5am. Many Olympic medallists in house. It was an IAAF accredited test. Procedures are far from what I m used to in Canada. In 2013 another high-profile Kenyan Matthew Kisorio told the German broadcaster ARD he took illegal drugs because everyone told me I wasn t the only one and none of the others got caught for doping . He added: I know a lot of medical substances are used which are injected straight to the blood for the body to have more oxygen. And when you run you run so smooth. You have more stamina. Topics Drugs in sport Athletics news Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share via Email Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Google Share on WhatsApp Share on Messenger Reuse this content
This Sunday more than 30 million Italians will go to the polls to elect a new legislature and indirectly a government. It will be the first major European election of 2018 after a somewhat confusing and inconsistent pattern of elections in 2017 and the international media is sparing few cliches. Almost no journalist can resist making references to Italy s almost inherent political instability referring to the many political crises and national elections and governments the country has had in recent history even though Italy had one government more and held one election less than the (allegedly stable) Netherlands in the 21st century. Italy s election: everything you need to know Read more In the runup to the 2018 Italian elections the international coverage is dominated by stories that present the usual Italian tropes in all possible combinations. As always Italy is on the brink of political chaos or worse. Article after article covers topics such as mafia and immigration the rise of fascism the risk of political violence or the threat of populism to Italian democracy and the European Union. Don t get me wrong many stories are factually correct even if they often overstate the relevance of their topic. Corruption and organi sed crime were major problems but the European partners chose to ignore them For example the neo-fascist group CasaPound has indeed become more visible but it has hardly brought Mussolini back to the mainstream . First of all CasaPound is much too small for such a sizeable popular effect. Second and more importantly Mussolini has never been away from the mainstream. The neo-fascist Italian Social Movement (MSI) was represented in the Italian parliament from 1948 onward until the party transformed into National Alliance (AN) and with the help of Silvio Berlusconi became a key player in early-21st-century Italian politics. While the AN described itself as post-fascist party leader Gianfranco Fini still described Mussolini as the greatest statesman in history in 1994. Similarly populism is a threat to both Italian democracy and the European project but it has been for almost 25 years now. Silvio Berlusconi led his rightwing populist Forza Italia (FI) into a government with the populist radical-right Northern League (LN) and the post-fascist AN for the first time in 1994. He served as prime minister of three more governments all with the LN. All these governments had contentious relationships with Italian liberal democracy but so had most others. Remember that the Christian Democrat Giulio Andreotti the second longest-serving prime minister of postwar Italy after Berlusconi was tried (though not convicted) for mafia associations. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Northern League supporters in Milan last week. Photograph: Tristan Fewings/Getty Images The problem is that these stories capture only part of the story and exaggerate the newness and uniqueness of developments in Italian politics. Yes the 2018 elections are going to be a contest between three problematic camps a right wing that includes the populist radical right a left wing centered around a party without ideas and an idiosyncratic populist one that is trying to figure out what it wants. The first two are increasingly common throughout Europe east and west while the third the Five Star Movement (M5S) is more specifically Italian but is much more a reflection of decades of political corruption and incompetence in Italy than the representative of a new pan-European phenomenon.We have seen comparable movements in some countries in the Balkans such as the National Movement Simeon II in Bulgaria which faces similar political conditions. The fact that the elections will probably lead to difficult and protracted coalition formations is hardly unique to Italy either as Belgium and the Netherlands have experienced these for decades and even Germany is going through them now. The upcoming Italian elections are first and foremost national elections determined by particular Italian historical traditions and contemporary issues which partly reflect broader European trends. They will undoubtedly give way to a politically unstable and weak new government which will be unable to significantly improve the economic situation of the country and overcome the still massive regional economic differences. But while the boot of Europe remains the Achilles heel of the European Union it will not bring the union down. There are two reasons for this. The first reason is that Italian politicians talk a better game than they actually play. For all the public flirting with Euroscepticism and populism Italian governments have caused the EU fewer problems than France or the Netherlands let alone the United Kingdom. And today all major populist parties have significantly softened their Euroscepticism from LN to M5S. The second reason which is the more interesting one is that the EU has long dealt with Italy as a myth rather than a reality. During the first decades of European integration corruption and organised crime were major problems for Italian politics leading to the implosion of the political system in the late 20th century but the European partners chose to ignore it https://armorgames.com/user/arfplayer . The fascist movement that has brought Mussolini back to the mainstream Read more When the Maastricht treaty established the common currency Italy was accepted into the eurozone on the basis of official statistics that everyone knew were doctored. It was only during the height of the great recession that the EU stepped in and more or less forced Berlusconi out of power to be replaced by Mario Monti who had the confidence of the EU. To protect the European project the EU sees what it wants to see and ignores what it does not want to see in Italy. This explains why it is currently embracing Berlusconi the man who brought populism into Europe s political mainstream as the only man who can save Italy from populism no matter that his rightwing coalition includes two populist radical-right parties LN and the Brothers of Italy (FdI) or that he continues to pander to populist radical-right voters. In that sense the upcoming elections are at least as much about the dysfunction of the EU as they are about the dysfunction of Italy. Cas Mudde is associate professor in the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia. He is the author of Populism: A Very Short Introduction and The Far Right in America Topics Italy Opinion Silvio Berlusconi Europe European Union comment Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share via Email Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Google Share on WhatsApp Share on Messenger Reuse this content
