New York
CNN
 — 

So far this tax season, the IRS has received more than 100 million income tax returns for 2022.

That means tens of millions of households have yet to file their returns. If yours is among them, here are some last-minute tax-filing tips to keep in mind as the Tuesday, April 18 deadline approaches.

Not everyone has to file on April 18: If you live in a federally declared disaster area, have a business there — or have relevant tax documents stored by businesses in that area — it’s likely the IRS has already extended the filing and payment deadlines for you. Here is where you can find the specific extension dates for each disaster area.

Thanks to many rounds of extreme weather in recent months, for instance, tax filers in most of California — which accounts for 10% to 15% of all federal filers — have already been granted an extension until Oct. 16 to file and to pay, according to an IRS spokesperson.

If you’re in the armed forces and are currently or were recently stationed in a combat zone, the filing and payment deadlines for your 2022 taxes are most likely extended by 180 days. But your specific extended filing and payment deadlines will depend on the day you leave (or left) the combat zone. This IRS publication offers more detail.

Lastly, if you made little to no money last year (typically less than $12,950 for single filers and $25,900 for married couples), you may not be required to file a return. But you may want to anyway if you think you are eligible for a refund thanks to, for instance, refundable tax credits such as the Earned Income Tax Credit. (Use this IRS tool to gauge whether you are required to file this year.) You also are likely eligible to use IRS Free File (intended for those with adjusted gross income of $73,000 or less) so it won’t cost you to submit a return.

Your paycheck may not be your only source of income: If you had one full-time job you may think that is the only income you made and have to report. But that’s not necessarily so.

Other potentially taxable and reportable income sources include:

Organize your tax documents: By now you should have received every tax document that third parties are required to send you (your employer, bank, brokerage, etc.).

If you don’t recall receiving a hard copy of a tax form in the mail, check your email and your online accounts — a document may have been sent to you electronically.

Here are some of the tax forms you may have received:

“Be aware that there’s no form for some taxable income, like proceeds from renting out your vacation property, meaning you’re responsible for reporting it on your own,” according to the Illinois CPA Society.

One very last-minute way to reduce your 2022 tax bill: If you’re eligible to make a tax-deductible contribution to an IRA and haven’t done so for last year, you have until April 18 to contribute up to $6,000 ($7,000 if you’re 50 or older). That will reduce your tax bill and augment your retirement savings.

Proofread your return before submitting it: Do this whether you’re using tax software or working with a professional tax preparer.

Little mistakes and oversights delay the processing of your return (and the issuance of your refund if you’re owed one). You want to avoid things like having a typo in your name, birth date, Social Security number or direct deposit number; choosing the wrong filing status (e.g., married vs single); making a simple math error; or leaving a required field blank.

What to do if you can’t file by April 18: If you’re not able to file by next Tuesday, fill out Form 4868 electronically or on paper and send it in by April 18. You will be granted an automatic six-month extension to file.

Note, however, that an extension to file is not an extension to pay. You will be charged interest (currently running at 7%) and a penalty on any amount you still owe for 2022 but haven’t paid by April 18.

So if you suspect you still owe tax — perhaps you had some income outside of your job for which tax wasn’t withheld or you had a big capital gain last year — approximate how much more you owe and send that money to the IRS by Tuesday.

You can choose to do so by mail, attaching a check to your extension request form. Make sure your envelope is postmarked no later than April 18.

Or the more efficient route is pay what you owe electronically at IRS.gov, said CPA Damien Martin, a tax partner at EY. If you do that, the IRS notes you will not have to file a Form 4868. “The IRS will automatically process an extension of time to file,” the agency notes in its instructions.

If you opt to electronically pay directly from your bank account, which is free, select “extension” and then “tax year 2022” when given the option.

You can also pay by credit or debit card, but you will be charged a processing fee. Doing so, though, may become much more costly than just a fee if you charge your tax payment but don’t pay your credit card bill off in full every month, since you likely pay a high interest rate on outstanding balances.

If you still owe income taxes to your state, remember that you may need to go through a similar exercise of filing for an extension and making a payment to your state’s revenue department, Martin said.

Use this interactive tax assistant for basic questions you may have: The IRS provides an “interactive tax assistant” that can help you answer more than 50 basic questions pertaining to your individual circumstance on income, deductions, credits and other technical questions.

CNN
 — 

A Syrian who arrived in Germany as a refugee in 2015 has won a mayoral election in the southwestern German state of Baden-Württemberg.

Ryyan Alshebl, who left his hometown of As Suwayda in Syria eight years ago, ran as an independent in the municipality of Ostelsheim. He won 55.41% of the votes on Sunday, beating two German candidates, Marco Strauss and Mathias Fey.

Locals cheered the 29-year-old when he welcomed his win, a victory he described as “sensational,” German local broadcaster SWR reported Monday.

“Today, Ostelsheim sent an example for broad-mindedness and cosmopolitanism for the whole of Germany,” he said, according to to German public broadcaster ZDF. “That’s not something that can be taken for granted in a conservative, rural area.”

Alshebl’s first call after his victory was to his mother in Syria, who was thrilled with the news, SWR reported.

The Association of Municipalities of Baden-Württemberg said Alshebl is the first man with Syrian roots to run for and win a mayor’s office. He will start his role in June.

Ostelsheim residents have welcomed their incoming mayor. “The fairy tale has come true, and the right man has become our mayor,” Annette Keck, who lives in the village, told SWR.

Strauss, one of his opponents, congratulated Alshebl. “I wish you good luck and at the same time ask for support for Mr. Alshebl, for our shared Ostelsheim,” he said on Facebook.

The state’s Integration Minister Manne Lucha said that Alshebl’s victory showed that diversity is a natural part of Baden-Württemberg. “I would be very pleased if Ryyan Alshebl’s election encourages more people with a migration history to run for political office,” he said.

Not everyone has been so warm to the 29-year-old. ZDF reported the Syrian received hateful comments on the campaign trail.

The young politician went from house to house, promoting his election program, and “the experiences were predominantly positive,” but there was also a minority of far-right fringe voters in Ostelsheim that did not want to accept him due to his Syrian roots, Alshebl told ZDF.

Born to a schoolteacher and agricultural engineer in Syria, Alshebl described his life as carefree until the age of 20, according to his campaign website.

At the time, protests against the Syrian government that began in 2011 soon devolved into chaotic war. The fighting and later rise of ISIS forced 10.6 million people from home by late 2015 – about half of Syria’s pre-war population.

Alshebl faced the dilemma of being drafted for military service with the Syrian army or leaving the country, according to his website.

While many Syrians were displaced internally or fled to countries in the region, others like Alshebl made the dangerous journey to Europe. He was 21 years old at the time, and said he crossed from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos in a rubber dinghy.

Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel had implemented a brief open-door policy in 2015 that saw the country take in about 1.2 million asylum seekers in the following years, including Alshebl.

The move sparked a backlash in Germany and the sudden growth of the far-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the wake of summer 2015.

Once in Germany, Alshebl lived close to Ostelsheim and said at the time he felt “there is only one thing you can do: get back on your feet quickly and start investing in your own future quickly.”

For the last seven years he worked in the administration of Althengstett town hall, in a neighboring town. He drew from his experience, he said in his campaign, and made digital access to to public administration services one of priorities. Flexible childcare and climate protections are also on his agenda.

Alshebl, who is a member of the Green Party and now has German citizenship, pledged during his campaign that once elected as mayor he would move to Ostelsheim.

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CNN
 — 

Astronauts who will helm the first crewed moon mission in five decades were revealed on Monday, queuing up the quartet to begin training for the historic Artemis II lunar flyby that is set to take off in November 2024.

The astronauts are NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency.

Wiseman is a 47-year-old decorated naval aviator and test pilot who was first selected to be a NASA astronaut in 2009. A native of Baltimore, Maryland, he’s completed one prior spaceflight, a 165-day trip to the International Space Station that had launched aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket in 2014. Most recently, Wiseman served as chief of the astronaut office before stepping down in November 2022, making him eligible for a flight assignment.

Wiseman will serve as commander of the Artemis II mission.

Hansen, 47, is a fighter pilot who was selected by the Canadian Space Agency for astronaut training in 2009. From London, Ontario, Hansen is one of only four active Canadian astronauts, and he recently became the first Canadian to be put in charge of training for a new class of NASA astronauts.

He will be the first Canadian ever to travel to deep space.

Glover is a 46-year-old naval aviator who returned to Earth from his first spaceflight in 2021 after piloting the second crewed flight of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft and spending nearly six months aboard the International Space Station.

“It’s so much more than the four names that have been announced,” Glover said during the Monday announcement at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston. “We need to celebrate this moment in human history. … It is the next step in the journey that will get humanity to Mars.”

Glover, born in Pomona, California, served in several military squadrons in the United States and Japan in the 2000s, and he completed test pilot training with the US Air Force. When he was selected for the NASA astronaut corps in 2013, he was working in the US Senate as a legislative fellow. All told, Glover logged 3,000 flight hours in more than 40 aircraft, over 400 carrier arrested landings and 24 combat missions.

Glover’s first mission to space was as part of the SpaceX Crew-1 team, which launched to the International Space Station in November 2020 for a six-month stay on the orbiting laboratory.

Koch, 44, is a veteran of six spacewalks — including the first all-female spacewalk in 2019. She holds the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman, with a total of 328 days in space. Koch is also an an electrical engineer who helped develop scientific instruments for multiple NASA mission. Koch, a native of Grand Rapids, Michigan, also spent a year at the South Pole, an arduous stay that could well prepare her for the intensity of a moon mission.

The Artemis II mission will build on Artemis I, an uncrewed test mission that sent NASA’s Orion capsule on a 1.4 million-mile voyage to lap the moon that concluded in December. The space agency deemed that mission a success and is still working to review all the data collected.

If all goes to plan, Artemis II will take off around November 2024. The crew members, strapped inside the Orion spacecraft, will launch atop a NASA-developed Space Launch System rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The journey is expected to last about 10 days and will send the crew out beyond the moon, potentially further than any human has traveled in history, though the exact distance is yet to be determined.

The “exact distance beyond the Moon will depend on the day of liftoff and the relative distance of the Moon from the Earth at the time of the mission,” NASA spokesperson Kathryn Hambleton said via email.

After circling the moon, the spacecraft will return to Earth for a splashdown landing in the Pacific Ocean.

Artemis II is expected to pave the way for the Artemis III mission later this decade, which NASA has vowed will put the first woman and person of color on the lunar surface. It will also mark the first time humans have touched down on the moon since the Apollo program ended in 1972.

The Artemis III mission is expected to take off later this decade. But much of the technology the mission will require, including spacesuits for walking on the moon and a lunar lander to ferry the astronauts to the moon’s surface, is still in development.

NASA is targeting a 2025 launch date for Artemis III, though the space agency’s inspector general has already said delays will likely push the mission to 2026 or later.

The space agency has been seeking to return people to the moon for more than a decade. The Artemis program was designed to pave the way to establishing a permanent lunar outpost, allowing astronauts to live and work deeper into space long term as NASA and its partners map a path to sending the first humans to Mars.

Vanessa Wyche, the director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, declined to provide details to CNN about the selection process. But she emphasized the diversity of the Artemis II crew, which includes men and women rather than only a staff of White male test pilots as has been the case for historic missions of the past.

“I can tell you, they still all have the right stuff,” Wyche said. “We have requirements different than we did (when we) just had test pilots” on inaugural missions.

Koch said in an interview with CNN’s Ed Lavandera that the group found out they were selected a few weeks ago.

“We were all sent to a meeting that was on our calendars under a different pretext that didn’t sound as lofty as the one it was going to be,” Koch said. “And accidentally two of us were very late to that meeting.”

She said the offer rendered her “speechless.”

“It truly is an honor,” she added. “It’s an honor — not to get myself in the space — but because it’s amazing to be a part of this team that’s going back to the moon and on to Mars.”

An interview with the four astronauts will air on “CNN This Morning” on Tuesday, which starts at 6 am ET.

Editor’s Note: A version of this story first appeared in CNN’s Meanwhile in the Middle East newsletter, a three-times-a-week look inside the region’s biggest stories. Sign up here.

Abu Dhabi, UAE
CNN
 — 

Turkey’s persecuted pro-Kurdish party has emerged as a kingmaker in the country’s upcoming election, playing a decisive role that may just tip the balance enough to unseat two-decade ruler Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

In a key setback to the Turkish president and leader of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) last month announced that it would not put forward its own presidential candidate, a move analysts say allows its supporters to vote for Erdogan’s main rival.

“We are facing a turning point that will shape the future of Turkey and (its) society,” said the HDP in a statement on March 23. “To fulfill our historical responsibility against the one-man rule, we will not field a presidential candidate in (the) May 14 elections.”

It is a twist of irony for the Turkish strongman, who spent the better half of the past decade cracking down on the party after it began chipping away at his voter base. Its former leader Selahattin Demirtas has been in prison for nearly seven years and the party faces possible closure by a court for suspected collusion with the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and affiliated groups. But its influence may nonetheless determine the course of Turkey’s politics.

The HDP’s decision not to field a candidate came just three days after head of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) Kemal Kilicdaroglu, Erdogan’s main rival, visited the party’s co-chairs. He told reporters that the solution to Turkey’s problems, “including the Kurdish problem” lies in parliament,” according to Turkish media.

Kilicdaroglu, who represents the six-party Nation Alliance opposition bloc, is the strongest contender to run against Erdogan in years. And while the HDP hasn’t yet announced whether it will put its weight behind him, analysts say it is the kingmaker in the elections.

“It was a carefully crafted political discourse,” Hisyar Ozsoy, deputy co-chair of the HDP and a member of parliament from the predominantly Kurdish province of Diyarbakir, told CNN. “We are not going to have our own candidate, and we will leave it to the international community to interpret it the way they wish.”

Experts say the crackdown on the HDP is rooted in the threat it poses to Erdogan politically, as well as its position as one of the main parties representing Turkey’s Kurds, an ethnic minority from which a separatist militant movement has emerged.

The party and the Kurdish people have had a complicated relationship with Erdogan. The leader courted the Kurds in earlier years by granting them more rights and reversing restrictions on the use of their language. Relations with the HDP were also cordial once, as Erdogan worked with the party on a brief peace process with the PKK.

But ties between Erdogan and the HDP later turned sour, and the HDP fell under a sweeping crackdown aimed at the PKK and their affiliates.

Kurds are the biggest minority in Turkey, making up between 15% and 20% of the population, according to Minority Rights Group International.

It is unclear if the HDP will endorse Kilicdaroglu, but analysts say that the deliberate distance may be beneficial for the opposition candidate.

The accusations against the HDP place it in a precarious position during the elections. It currently faces a case in Turkey’s Constitutional Court over suspected ties to the PKK, which is designated as a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union. Knowing it may be banned at any moment, its candidates are running under the Green Left Party in parliament.

If the opposition is seen as allying with the HDP, Erdogan’s AK Party may use its influence in the media to discredit it as being pro-PKK, said Murat Somer, a political science professor at Koc University in Istanbul and author of Return to Point Zero, a book on the Turkish-Kurdish question in Turkey.

The HDP’s threat to Erdogan’s hold on power became apparent after the June 2015 election, the first general election it participated in. It won 13% of the seats, denying the ruling AK Party its majority for the first time since 2002. Erdogan, however, called a snap election five months later, which led to a drop in the HDP’s support to 10.7%, as well as the restoration of the AK Party’s overall majority.

“They are a kingmaker in these elections because the HDP gets about half of the votes of the Kurdish population in Turkey,” said Somer, adding that the other, more conservative Kurdish voters have traditionally voted for Erdogan’s AK Party. And last month, the Free Cause Party (HUDA-PAR), a tiny Kurdish-Islamist party announced support for Erdogan in the elections. The party has never won seats in parliament.

The HDP knows that its position is key to the outcome of next month’s vote, but that it’s also in a delicate situation.

“We want to play the game wisely, and we need to be very careful,” said Ozsoy, adding that the party wants to avoid a “contaminated political climate” where the elections are polarized “between a very ugly ultra-nationalist discourse against Kilicdaroglu and others.”

The party was founded in 2012 with a number of aims, said Ozsoy, one of which was “peaceful and democratic resolution of the Kurdish conflict.”

Somer said that the party was seen to be “an initiative” of the PKK, which later led to a heavy government crackdown on it in the name of counterterrorism.

Its former leader Demirtas remains an influential figure.

The Turkish government has been trying to link the HDP to the PKK but has so far failed to prove “a real connection,” said Asli Aydintasbas, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC.

A post-Erdogan Turkey may give some breathing space to the Kurds and Kurdish-dominated parties in Turkey, Aydintasbas told CNN, noting that many Kurdish voters have recently left Erdogan’s camp. “For HDP, this is more than just an ideological choice,” she said. “It’s a matter of survival.”

Ozsoy says his party understands what’s at stake, not only for Turkey’s Kurds but for all its minorities.

“We are aware of our responsibility here. We are aware of our role. We know we are in a kingmaker position,” the HDP lawmaker said.

Two women arrested for not wearing hijab following ‘yogurt attack’

Two women were arrested in Iran for failing to wear the hijab in public, after a man threw a tub of yogurt at them at a store in the city of Shandiz on Thursday, according to Mizan News Agency, the state-run outlet for Iran’s judiciary.

Oil prices surge after OPEC+ producers announce surprise cuts

Oil prices spiked Monday after OPEC+ producers unexpectedly announced that they would cut output. Brent crude, the global benchmark, jumped 5.31% to $84.13 a barrel, while WTI, the US benchmark, rose 5.48% to $79.83. Both were the sharpest price rises in almost a year. The collective output cut by the nine members of OPEC+ totals 1.66 million barrels per day.

Iran blames Israel for the killing of second IRGC officer, vows to respond

A second Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officer died following an attack in Syria on Friday, according to Iranian state media on Sunday. Iranian state media said the Iranian military adviser died after an Israeli attack near the Syrian capital Damascus left him wounded. The attack also killed another IRGC officer. In a tweet on Sunday, Iranian government spokesman Ali Bahadori Jahromi said the alleged Israeli attack wouldn’t go unanswered. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said on Sunday that Iran has the right to respond to “state terrorism.”

Iranian-American comedian Maz Jobrani, who has been touring the Middle East, spoke to CNN’s Becky Anderson about his support for the protests in his homeland, saying that he used his standup comedy platform to highlight the “brutality against the Iranian people.”

“It was an opportunity for me to say, ‘let’s keep fighting,’” he said.

Watch the interview here.

An Iranian state news outlet is gloating at what it sees as the demise of the US dollar.

IRNA recreated a popular meme to mark China and Brazil’s decision to reportedly ditch the US dollar as an intermediary in trade, citing the Chinese state news outlet, China Daily. It shows two men representing China and Brazil posing in front of a grave labelled “USD.”

The meme was pinned to the top of IRNA’s Twitter page, and was met with laughter and ridicule. “Dream on,” said another user, pointing to the dollar’s use as the main reserve currency around the world.

China Daily said that the agreement was part of “the rising global use of the Chinese renminbi.” It would reportedly enable China and Brazil to conduct trade and financial transactions using local currencies instead of the dollar.

Editor’s Note: A version of this story appears in today’s Meanwhile in the Middle East newsletter, CNN’s three-times-a-week look inside the region’s biggest stories. Sign up here.

Abu Dhabi, UAE
CNN
 — 

It’s a partnership that’s been hailed as “history in the making.”

One of the world’s most famous soccer stars landed in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Tuesday, where Cristiano Ronaldo was received in an extravagant ceremony, with excited children sporting his new club’s yellow and blue jerseys.

Oil-rich Saudi Arabia’s success in luring the five-time Ballon d’Or winner on a two-year contract with the kingdom’s Al Nassr FC is the Gulf monarchy’s latest step in realizing its sporting ambitions – seemingly at any cost.

According to Saudi state-owned media, Ronaldo will earn an estimated $200 million a year with Al Nassr, making him the world’s highest-paid soccer player.

Shortly after the 37-year-old’s signing with Al Nassr, the club’s Instagram page gained over 5.3 million new followers. Its official website was inaccessible after exceeding its bandwidth limit due to the sudden surge in traffic, and the hashtag #HalaRonaldo – Hello, Ronaldo in Arabic – was trending for days across the Middle East on Twitter.

Analysts say that his recruitment in Saudi Arabia is part of a wider effort by the kingdom to diversify its sources of revenue and become a serious player in the international sporting scene.

It is also seen as a move by the kingdom to shore up its image after it was tarnished by the 2018 dismemberment and killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the hands of Saudi agents, and a devastating war it started in Yemen in 2015.

Critics have decried the kingdom for “sportswashing,” an attempt to burnish one’s reputation through sport.

“I think Saudi Arabia has recognized a couple of years ago that to be a powerful nation internationally, you cannot just rely on hard power,” Danyel Reiche, a visiting research fellow and associate professor at Georgetown University Qatar, told CNN.

“You also need to invest in soft power, and the case of Qatar shows that this can work pretty well,” he said, adding that Saudi Arabia is following in the Qatari approach with sport, but with a delay of around 25 years.

Neighboring Qatar has also faced immense criticism since it won the bid to hosting last year’s FIFA World Cup in 2010.

Despite the smaller Gulf state facing similar accusations of “sportswashing,” the tournament has largely been viewed as a success, not least in exposing the world to a different view of the Middle East, thanks in part to Morocco’s success in reaching the semifinals and Saudi Arabia beating eventual World Cup champion Argentina in their opening group game.

Gulf nations engage in fierce competition to become the region’s premier entertainment and sporting hubs. The UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain, in close proximity to each other, each have their own Formula One racing event. But their competition hasn’t been confined to the region. Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have also bought trophy European soccer teams.

Riyadh is playing catchup with neighbors who have long realized the importance of investing in sports, said Simon Chadwick, professor of sport and geopolitical economy at SKEMA Business School in Lille, France, especially as its main source of income – oil – is being gradually shunned.

“This is part of an ongoing attempt to create more resilient economies that are more broadly based upon industries other than those that are derived from oil and gas,” Chadwick told CNN.

Ronaldo’s new club Al Nassr is backed by Qiddiya Investment Company (QIC), a subsidiary of the kingdom’s wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF), which has played a pivotal role in Saudi Arabia’s diversification plans.

“It is also a sign of interconnectedness, of globalization and of opening up to the rest of the world,” said Georgetown University’s Reiche.

The move is part of “several recent high profile moves in the sports world, including hosting the Andy Ruiz Jr. and Anthony Joshua world heavywight boxing championship bout in 2019, and launching the LIV Golf championship,” said Omar Al-Ubaydli, director of research at the Bahrain-based Derasat think tank. “It is a significant piece of a large puzzle that represents their economic restructuring.”

The kingdom has been on a path to not only diversify its economy, but also shift its image amid a barrage of criticism over its human rights record and treatment of women. Saudi Arabia is today hosting everything from desert raves to teaming up with renowned soccer players. Argentina’s Lionel Messi last year signed a lucrative promotional deal with the kingdom.

Hailed as the world’s greatest player, 35-year-old Messi ended this year’s World Cup tournament in Qatar with his team’s win over France, making his ambassadorship of even greater value to the kingdom.

The acquisition of such key global figures will also help combat the monarchy’s decades-long reputation of being “secretive” and “ultra-conservative,” James Dorsey, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore and an expert on soccer in the Middle East, told CNN’s Eleni Giokos on Wednesday.

Al-Ubaydli said that the kingdom wants to use high profile international sports “as a vehicle for advertising to the world its openness.”

Saudi Arabia bought the English Premier league club Newcastle United in 2021 through a three-party consortium, with PIF being the largest stakeholder. The move proved controversial, as Amnesty International and other human rights defenders worried it would overshadow the kingdom’s human rights violations.

Ronaldo’s work with Saudi Arabia is already being criticized by rights groups who are urging the soccer player to “draw attention to human rights issues” in Saudi Arabia.

“Saudi Arabia has an image problem,” especially since Khashoggi’s killing, says Reiche. But the kingdom’s recent investments in sports and entertainment are “not about sportswashing but about developing the country, social change and opening up to the world.”

Saudi Arabia is reportedly weighing a 2030 World Cup bid with Egypt and Greece, but the kingdom’s tourism ministry noted in November that it has not yet submitted an official bid. Chadwick believes that Ronaldo’s deal with Al Nassr, however, may help boost the kingdom’s bid should it choose it pursue it.

Another way Saudi Arabia may benefit from Ronaldo’s acquisition is that it will be able to improve commercial performance, says Chadwick, especially if this collaboration attracts further international talent.

“It is important to see Ronaldo not just as a geopolitical instrument,” said Chadwick, “There is still a commercial component to him and to the purpose he is expected to serve in Saudi Arabia.”

What Ronaldo’s move to Saudi Arabia shows is that the kingdom aspires “to be seen as being the best” and that it wants to be perceived as a “contender and a legitimate member of the international football community,” said Chadwick.

UAE FM meets Syria’s Assad in Damascus in further sign of thawing ties

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad received the United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed in Damascus on Wednesday in the latest sign of thawing relations between Assad and the Gulf state. The meeting addressed developments in Syria and the wider Middle East, according to UAE state news agency WAM.

Turkish President Erdogan says he could meet with Assad

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech on Thursday that he could meet the Syrian leader “to establish peace.”

Iran shuts down French cultural center over Charlie Hebdo’s Khamenei cartoons

Iran announced on Thursday it had ended the activities of a Tehran-based French research institute, in reaction to cartoons mocking Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and fellow Shia Muslim clerics published by French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo this week.

The prized legacy of iconic Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum re-emerged this year when Rolling Stone magazine featured her in its “200 Greatest Singers of All Time.”

Ranking 61st, Umm Kulthum was the only Arab artist to make it to the list, with the magazine saying that she “has no real equivalent among singers in the West.”

Born in a small village northeast of the Egyptian capital Cairo, Umm Kulthum rose to unmatched fame as she came to represent “the soul of the pan-Arab world,” the music magazine said.

“Her potent contralto, which could blur gender in its lower register, conveyed breathtaking emotional range in complex songs that, across theme and wildly-ornamented variations, could easily last an hour, as she worked crowds like a fiery preacher,” it wrote.

Nicknamed “the lady of Arab singing,” her music featured both classical Arabic poetry as well as colloquial songs still adored by younger generations. Her most famous pieces include “Inta Uumri” (you are my life), “Alf Leila Weileila” (a thousand and one nights), “Amal Hayati” (hope of my life) and “Daret al-Ayyam” (the days have come around). Some of her songs have been remixed to modern beats that have made their way to Middle Eastern nightclubs.

The singer remains an unmatched voice across the Arab World and her music can still be heard in many traditional coffee shops in Old Cairo’s neighborhoods and other parts of the Arab world.

Umm Kulthum’s death in 1975 brought millions of mourners to the streets of Cairo.

By Nadeen Ebrahim

CNN
 — 

Brazil’s bright yellow jersey is a symbol that unites the country through a love of football and national pride, but over the past two years the shirt’s adoption by right wing supporters of Jair Bolsonaro, who wear it at protests and rallies to show their political allegiance to the Brazilian president, is causing controversy.

That famous yellow jersey was burnt into the imagination of a global audience in the 1970 World Cup. Inspired by the spelbinding performances of Pelé – he wore the number 10 jersey – the yellow shirt has represented Brazil’s success on the pitch and created a positive image worldwide for the past five decades.

That 1970 national team also became embroiled in politics, notably ahead of the World Cup in Mexico when General Medici, the president of a nation under military dictatorship, played a key role in the removal of the coach – Joao Saldanha – who had overseen a perfect qualification campaign.

Fast forward to 2020 and critics of Bolsonaro say the iconic yellow jersey has now become tainted by its close association to the Brazilian president.

Walter Casagrande, a former footballer for the Brazilian national team and the São Paulo club Corinthians, remembers the feeling of scoring a goal while wearing the yellow jersey in his first match with the “selecao” in 1985.

“It was a magical thing,” Casagrande told CNN Sport, “like an enchanted object that gave me huge emotion.”

Casagrande’s sentiments lie on the left side of the political chasm separating Bolsonaro’s supporters and opponents, and he feels an item he cherishes is being misrepresented.

“Now I consider the Brazilian yellow jersey to have been kidnapped and appropriated by the right wing, so we cannot use it.”

Casagrande said that for him the power of the yellow shirt used to be that it represented democracy and freedom.

“Brazil is appearing horribly to the world right now,” he said. “It’s the first time in my life I’m seeing the yellow jersey being used against democracy and freedom.”

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As quick as the left is to criticize Bolsonaro, his supporters aren’t slow to counter punch.

Cosmo Alexandre, a Brazilian fighter who holds multiple world titles for Muay Thai and Kickboxing believes the left is conflating their many issues with Bolsonaro, and using the jersey as just another way to air grievances.

As a Bolsonaro supporter, Alexandre brushes off accusations that the jersey’s symbolism is being manipulated, and says the reason for supporters to wear a yellow t-shirt is simple: everyone in Brazil has a yellow t-shirt.

He points out that supporters don’t always wear the Brazilian team jersey specifically, and rallies are full of people wearing yellow t-shirts of all kinds.

Alexandre says there is a separation between the jersey’s sporting reputation and associations from what it politically represents.

“Around the world everybody knows about the Brazilian soccer team, so even if I go to a fight and I use the yellow soccer team shirt, everyone knows it’s Brazil,” he said. “So it’s not about politics – it’s just that the world knows about soccer in Brazil.”

It may be easier for some than others to isolate football and politics in a country where football is God.

Josemar de Rezende Jr. is a football fan who co-founded a Bolsonaro volunteer group in his city before the election. He said he’s proud of the Brazilian team’s global reputation for winning, and to him the yellow jersey “means love for the country, leadership, achievement and pride.”

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White and blue kit campaign

Nonetheless, the subject of the yellow jersey has become so divisive that a campaign is underway for Brazil to play in a white shirt.

João Carlos Assumpção, a Brazilian journalist, filmmaker and author of “Gods of Soccer,” a book about the political, sociological and economic history of Brazil, is leading a campaign for the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) to abandon the yellow jersey altogether and go back to the classic white and blue kit from when the program started in 1914.

CNN reached out to the CBF who responded that they choose not to comment on this matter, “as it is a very unique issue.”

“People used to love Brazilian soccer because we used to play very well,” Assumpção said, “and if we play well with the white shirt in 2022 I think everybody’s going to buy a white shirt. It’s going to be very difficult to change, but I think it’s not impossible.”

The white and blue jersey was deemed unlucky when Brazil lost the World Cup at home to Uruguay in 1950 so they switched to the yellow jersey, and won five World Cups wearing it – a finals record that still stands today.

Assumpção’s vision for changing the color of the kit is to say to the world that Brazilians want change in the country. “Not the changes that this government is doing,” Assumpção clarified.

On the other side of the political spectrum, the color yellow, including the yellow jersey, represents a positive change in the country. Bolsonaro supporter Rezende Jr. believes the attempt by the left to reclaim the yellow jersey is an effort to “mischaracterize the government,” which he describes as a “patriotic government that represents and has support from all social classes throughout the nation.”

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Political turmoil in the country mirrors the fierceness between inter-city football rivalries all across Brazil. Except it is not contained by city boundaries and in recent months has brought fans together.

São Paulo is home to four main clubs: Corinthians, Palmeiras, São Paolo, and Santos. The rivalry between Corinthians and Palmeiras is especially intense, and in June groups from each club joined together in the streets to counter-protest Bolsonaro’s supporters.

Sociologist Rafael Castilho, a Member of the Collective Corinthian Democracy and Coordinator of the Corinthians Study Center said that for Brazil to overcome the current political situation, it will have to “unite different ways of thinking and accept the contradictory.”

Castilho explains the civic responsibility rival clubs feel to support each other and join with civil society movements, “as the country experiences a crisis of party representation and social movements have been intimidated by police action,” he said, adding that “the attitude of fans has gained sympathy because part of society feels represented by the courage of the fans.”

The Corinthians have a history of mixing football and politics. In the 1980s during the pro-democracy movement called Diretas Já, the club team was led by national team leaders Socrates and Casagrande.

The two intertwined football with politics when the team wore jerseys during a game in 1982 displaying the words “VOTE on 15th,” in an effort to motivate their fans to vote in the São Paulo state government election.

Two years later the Corinthians were the center of a movement called Democracia Corintiana, which Casagrande said put more than one million people in the streets dressed in yellow.

“It was a very important moment for Brazilian democracy, and this yellow jersey was central to that movement,” Casagrande said.

The yellow jersey was back on the streets in the 2013 protests against ex-President Dilma Roussef and against corruption. A year before the World Cup was to take place in the South American country, conservative protesters wore shirts that represented the colors of Brazil, while leftist protesters used other colors.

Alexandre and Rezende Jr. both say that yellow is an improvement from the red t-shirts government supporters used to wear when the left was in power, alluding to an underlying support of communism.

“When Bolsonaro started running, his supporters used the yellow color to show I’m Brazilian and I don’t want communism in my country,” Alexandre said.

The fight for the yellow jersey leaves some longing to reclaim a victorious past, while others push forward to create new meaning for the iconic symbol. In a country so deeply rooted in football, it’s an issue that’s unlikely to go away.

Assumpção thinks it’s only possible for the football community and Brazilians not associated with the far right to recover the jersey “maybe in five years or 10, but not now. Not now.”