Headline

Pele Fans Search Brazilian Football Legend’s Hometown For Souvenirs

Published

3 years ago

December 29, 2022

The deteriorating health and eventual death of sports legend Pele has rekindled curiosity about the quiet town of Tres Coracoes in southeastern Brazil, where the football prodigy was born 82 years ago.

Fans seeking rare mementos of the Brazilian star are scouring the town of 75,000 inhabitants where Pele was born to a poor family and spent the first years of his life.

A month ago, Pele was admitted to Albert Einstein Hospital in Sao Paulo, where he had been undergoing treatment for colon cancer since late 2021.

Eight days ago, the hospital announced Pele’s cancer was showing “progression” and he needed “more extensive care to treat kidney and heart failure.”

Tres Coracoes, which means “three hearts” in Portuguese, is located some 250 kilometers (150 miles) from Brazil’s three major metropolises: Belo Horizonte, Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

The small town is surrounded by coffee plantations and is famous for just one thing: the birth, in 1940, of Edson Arantes do Nascimento, known as Pele.

Pele moved away from Tres Coracoes at a young age before joining his longtime club, Santos FC, as a teenager.

Santos, a port city near Sao Paulo, now hosts the Pele Museum, where most of his trophies and other memorabilia are displayed.

The football star’s declining health has drawn fans to the museum and to Tres Coracoes, where they can visit Pele House — a replica of his first home.

“I had never been to this house, which is already ten years old,” said Neilor Henrique, who lives nearby.

“But the news of his hospitalization made me want to visit it,” the 41-year-old told AFP.

Built based on the memories of Pele’s mother, Celeste Arantes do Nascimento, now 100 years old, the house shows the family’s modest origins, with a few pieces of wooden furniture, straw mattresses, an old radio and a framed portrait of his parents on one wall.

– Immense statue –

A few meters (yards) away, the small museum Terra do Rei (Land of the King) exhibits Santos jerseys signed by Pele, a football he played with and his birth certificate.

But some fans say they wished Tres Coracoes had more mementos of the man dubbed “The King.”

Rafael Antunes took a detour during a family trip to visit the town in search of Pele souvenirs.

“I found few traces of him in the town, almost none,” said the 43-year-old entrepreneur, unimpressed by the huge statue of Pele that stands at the entrance to the town.

“I think it shows a certain lack of respect for the role he played for football and our country,” he said of the only player to ever win the World Cup three times.

But Fernando Ortiz, a family friend, has a different reasoning for why there aren’t more monuments to Pele.

“Many Brazilians can’t stand to see their compatriots succeed. And when it’s a black Brazilian, the dismissal is even stronger,” said the 60-year-old, who spearheaded the construction of Pele House.

“Unfortunately, I think that if Pele had been a white man with light eyes, he would have been accepted by everyone.”

Headline

FULL LIST: US To Review Green Cards From 19 ‘Countries Of Concern’ After Washington Shooting

Published

19 hours ago

November 29, 2025

Editor

The Trump administration announced on Thursday that it will review the immigration status of all permanent residents, or “Green Card” holders, from Afghanistan and 18 other countries following the attack on National Guard troops in Washington, D.C.

U.S. officials identified the suspect in Wednesday’s shooting as a 29-year-old Afghan national who previously worked alongside American forces in Afghanistan.

The individual was granted asylum earlier this year, not permanent residency, according to AfghanEvac, an organisation that assists Afghans resettled in the United States after the Taliban takeover in 2021.

“I have directed a full-scale, rigorous reexamination of every Green Card for every alien from every country of concern,” said Joseph Edlow, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), on X.

The review follows a June executive order from President Trump classifying 19 countries as “of Identified Concern.”

The order banned entry for nearly all nationals from 12 countries, including Afghanistan. The full list of these countries is:

Afghanistan

Myanmar

Chad

Congo-Brazzaville

Equatorial Guinea

Eritrea

Haiti

Iran

Libya

Somalia

Sudan

Yemen

A partial travel ban applies to seven additional countries, though some temporary work visas remain allowed: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.

Headline

Romanian Defence Minister Quits After Admitting Error In Academic Record

Published

19 hours ago

November 29, 2025

Editor

Romania’s defence minister resigned on Friday after saying he made a “mistake” on his CV about his university education, as controversy swirled over alleged lies on his resume.

Ionut Mosteanu – who has admitted to writing on his CV that he graduated from a university he never attended – said he did not want the row “to distract” the NATO member at a time when it and Europe are “under attack from Russia”.

Romania has repeatedly seen drone fragments fall on its soil since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and reported a number of drone incursions.

On Tuesday, a drone crashed in eastern Romania, which borders Ukraine.

Romania has also accused Moscow of “hybrid attacks”, including meddling in presidential elections last year that were subsequently annulled.

“Today, I resigned from my position as minister of national defence,” Mosteanu said in a Facebook post, adding he wanted the country to be focused on its “difficult mission”.

“Romania and Europe are under attack from Russia. Our national security must be defended at all costs,” he added.

Mosteanu had come under pressure after a media investigation published on Thursday revealed that he wrote in a CV that he graduated from a university which he did not actually attend.

That same day he apologised for what he called “a mistake”.

“In a CV I quickly put together in 2016 using a template I found online, there is a mistake that I admit embarrasses me. I didn’t pay much attention to these details at the time,” he said on Facebook.

Mosteanu was appointed defence minister in June of this year, when a new pro-European government was formed after months of political turmoil.

Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan said in a press release that he would propose economy and tourism minister Radu Miruta take over the defence portfolio in the interim.

AFP

Headline

Russia Insists Ukraine Must Cede Land Or Face Continued Military Push

Published

2 days ago

November 27, 2025

Editor

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that he would end his Ukraine offensive if Kyiv withdrew from territory Moscow claims at its own — otherwise his army would take it by force.

The Russian army has been slowly but steadily grinding through eastern Ukraine in costly battles against outnumbered and outgunned Ukrainian forces.

Washington has meanwhile renewed its push to end the nearly four-year war, putting forward a surprise plan that it hopes to finalise through upcoming talks with Moscow and Kyiv.

“If Ukrainian forces leave the territories they hold, then we will stop combat operations,” Putin said during a visit to Kyrgyzstan. “If they don’t, then we will achieve it by military means.”

Russia controls around one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory. The issue of occupied land, which Kyiv has said it will never cede, is among the biggest stumbling blocks in the peace process.

Another important issue in the talks are Western security guarantees for Ukraine, which Kyiv says are needed to prevent Moscow from invading again in the future.

Washington’s original plan — drafted without input from Ukraine’s European allies — would have seen Kyiv withdraw from its eastern Donetsk region and the United States de facto recognise the Donetsk, Crimea and Lugansk regions as Russian.

The US pared back the original plan over the weekend following criticism from Kyiv and Europe, but has not yet released the new version.

Putin, who has seen the new plan, said it could be a negotiation starter.

“Overall, we agree that it could form the basis for future agreements,” he said of the latest draft, which the US is thought to have shortened to about 20 points.

US negotiator Steve Witkoff was expected in Moscow next week to discuss the revised document, Putin said.

US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll is meanwhile due to visit Kyiv later this week, Ukraine’s top presidential aide Andriy Yermak said.

– ‘Little can be done’ –

In his remarks Thursday, Putin repeated the claim that Russia had encircled the Ukrainian army in Pokrovsk and Myrnograd in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region — the most fiercely embattled area and a key target for Moscow’s forces.

“Krasnoarmeysk and Dimitrov are completely surrounded,” he said, using the Russian names for the cities.

Moscow was also advancing in Vovchansk and Siversk, as well as approaching the important logistic hub of Guliaipole, he added.

The Russian offensive “is practically impossible to hold back, so there is little that can be done about it”, Putin said.

Ukraine has denied Pokrovsk and Myrnograd are encircled, insisting its forces continue to hold the enemy along the front line.

Putin also questioned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s legitimacy and said signing any agreement with him would be legally “almost impossible” at the moment, a suggestion that has drawn groans from Kyiv and its allies.

According to data analysed by AFP from the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Russian forces have conquered an average of 467 square kilometres (180 square miles) each month in 2025 — a step up from 2024.

Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, triggering the worst armed conflict in Europe since World War II.

The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people and forced millions to flee their homes.