Zim News Blog -NEWS NETWORK

GENEVA — FIFA has launched a robust defence of president Gianni Infantino after allegations concerning his alleged relationship with a former UEFA employee, describing the claims as “categorically untrue” and warning that suggestions of inappropriate conduct or breaches of football’s governing regulations are defamatory.

The allegations, reported by The Telegraph, concern events dating back to Infantino’s tenure as UEFA general secretary between 2009 and 2016, before he was elected FIFA president.

According to the newspaper, UEFA made a six-figure compensation payment to a former employee who it alleged had been in a relationship with Infantino during his time at European football’s governing body. The report further alleged that Infantino had facilitated the employee’s promotion and salary increase.

FIFA, however, strongly rejected the allegations and said there had been no complaint against Infantino concerning his conduct during his time at UEFA or subsequently at FIFA.

“FIFA president Gianni Infantino strongly denies these allegations, and they are categorically untrue,” FIFA said in a statement to The Telegraph. “Any insinuation of inappropriate conduct or violation of statutes or regulations is defamatory.”

FIFA also challenged any suggestion that the employment arrangements described in the report represented evidence of wrongdoing.

“No employee at UEFA and FIFA has ever raised a complaint regarding Mr Infantino’s behaviour because there never was an incident where he was involved,” the governing body said.

It added that employment-related decisions, including departures and severance arrangements, were handled through established institutional procedures.

“All company actions related to employees, including any departure and severance packages, have always been approved by the appropriate directors in accordance with all applicable regulations,” FIFA said.

UEFA has confirmed that payments were made to the former employee but maintained that they were processed in accordance with the organisation’s rules and procedures.

The dispute comes amid an increasingly intense political and institutional contest over the direction of global football, with Infantino facing criticism from sections of European football over FIFA governance, financial structures and the organisation’s expanding commercial ambitions.

Infantino has emerged as one of the most powerful figures in international sport since succeeding Sepp Blatter as FIFA president in 2016. He was re-elected in 2019 and again in 2023, when he was returned unopposed for another four-year term.

His administration has pursued an aggressive expansion of FIFA’s commercial and development programmes, including increased investment in football associations outside Europe and the expansion of international competitions.

Those policies have increasingly placed FIFA’s leadership at the centre of a wider debate over who should control the financial architecture of world football and how revenues generated by the global game should be distributed.

The latest allegations therefore arrive against an unusually charged political backdrop. Infantino has faced sustained criticism from some European football officials and commentators, while FIFA maintains that its leadership has a mandate from all 211 member associations.

The governing body has also repeatedly stressed that FIFA is a global organisation rather than a European institution, with the overwhelming majority of its membership based outside Europe.

The allegations concerning the former UEFA employee remain disputed, with FIFA categorically rejecting the interpretation presented in the report and UEFA maintaining that the payments in question were made in accordance with its internal procedures.

There is currently no indication in FIFA’s statement that any formal disciplinary finding has been made against Infantino in relation to the allegations.

Infantino, who is married and has four children, has remained one of the most influential figures in international sport since taking charge of FIFA.

The controversy consequently represents not only another challenge to his personal reputation but also another test of the increasingly polarised politics surrounding FIFA’s leadership, particularly as the organisation prepares for another period of major commercial and institutional expansion.

The post FIFA Rejects Infantino Allegations as ‘Categorically Untrue’ and Defamatory appeared first on The Zimbabwe Mail.

Eight of the world’s largest oil majors reported almost $93 billion in profits over three months to the end of June, nearly double their combined earnings from a year earlier, The Guardian reported on 4 August.

The April to June period marked the first complete financial quarter following the war, which hit the market with a supply shock unmatched in its history.

Aramco, BP, Shell, Equinor, TotalEnergies, Eni, Chevron, and ExxonMobil earned above $700,000 for every minute of the war for three months, while their combined valuation rose by some $600 billion to push past $3 trillion.

Aramco posted the largest single haul at over $33 billion, even as Iranian and Yemeni forces struck its facilities with drones and missiles during the three-month period.

ExxonMobil followed with $14.5 billion, and Chevron with $12.2 billion, five times what it earned a year earlier.

Shell landed $9.84 billion, its second-strongest quarter ever recorded, despite war damage running into the billions that throttled gas output at its Qatar plant, while BP took $5.73 billion and Equinor $3.2 billion.

Patrick Galey, who leads on fossil fuels at Global Witness, said that “BP’s sky-high profits are a scandalous reminder of who’s been cashing in on human misery this year.”

US President Donald Trump accused Chevron and ExxonMobil of “making too much money” from his war on Iran, saying the public would be getting those profits back.

Galey said, “You know big oil is taking us for a ride when one of their biggest allies, Donald Trump, is telling them to rein their profiteering in.”

The same months brought the severest heatwave Europe has ever registered, one scientist traced to human-caused global heating, with roughly 20,000 deaths attributed to the heat and the UK accounting for nearly 3,000 across May and June.

The oil giant’s profits soar “while wildfires threaten communities across the world, drought bites and energy costs spiral,” Galey said, adding, “ordinary families are paying the price for big oil’s prioritization of shareholder wealth over a livable planet.”

No corporation assessed by the Carbon Majors database has released more carbon over its lifetime than Aramco.

Research published last September calculated that any one of the 14 leading fossil fuel producers had, by itself, emitted enough to generate upwards of 50 heat events that would have otherwise been “impossible” without human contribution.

Scientists warn the sharpest heat is still ahead, with Berkeley Earth climate scientist Zeke Hausfather putting the odds of 2026 overtaking 2024 as the hottest year ever recorded at 35 percent, a figure he has revised upward almost every month from seven percent in March.

“The world is now on fire again with climate change in a way that’s increasingly difficult to ignore,” Hausfather said. “It’s going to keep getting worse.”

Source: The Cradle

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JOHANNESBURG — South Africa has emerged as the world’s largest exporter of citrus by volume, marking a significant shift in the country’s agricultural export profile as fresh fruit increasingly rivals some of the economy’s traditional commodity industries in generating foreign exchange.

South Africa exported about 2.9 million tonnes of citrus in 2025, overtaking Spain to become the world’s leading citrus exporter by volume. The achievement places the country at the forefront of the global citrus trade, despite China, Brazil and Spain remaining among the world’s largest producers because of their much larger domestic markets.

The scale of the industry is reflected in the value of the exports. South Africa’s 2025 citrus export season generated approximately R44.9 billion, equivalent to about US$2.7 billion, according to industry figures reported by Reuters. The industry is projecting a further increase in 2026, with exports expected to reach between 210 million and 215 million 15-kilogram cartons, up from a record 203.4 million cartons in 2025.

The rise of citrus represents an important transformation in South Africa’s agricultural economy. Citrus has become the country’s largest agricultural export industry by value, with roughly two-thirds of domestic production exported as fresh fruit. Fresh exports account for about 95% of the sector’s annual earnings, making the industry an important source of hard currency and employment.

The comparison with South Africa’s traditional export industries is particularly striking. Wine exports generated about US$669 million in 2025, according to industry data, meaning citrus export earnings were several times larger. South African wine exports had reached US$562 million in 2024, demonstrating the considerable gap that has opened between the two agricultural export industries.

The contrast is even more significant given South Africa’s historical association with high-value mineral exports. Diamonds, once among the country’s defining international export commodities, have faced a prolonged downturn as natural diamond prices weaken, consumer preferences change and laboratory-grown diamonds gain market share. The pressure has become severe enough for De Beers to pause production at South Africa’s Venetia mine amid deteriorating market conditions.

Citrus, by contrast, has benefited from sustained investment in orchards, growing export demand and South Africa’s established position in international fresh-produce supply chains. The country’s geographical location also allows it to supply northern-hemisphere markets during periods when domestic production in some major consuming regions is limited.

The industry’s expansion has nevertheless come with substantial challenges. Growers have faced rising input costs, electricity constraints, deteriorating infrastructure, port and logistics bottlenecks and increasingly complex market-access requirements. Industry bodies have repeatedly warned that transport and shipping costs can materially erode farm profitability.

Market diversification has therefore become increasingly important. Europe and the Middle East remain major destinations for South African citrus, while the industry has also been pursuing greater access to markets in Asia, the wider BRICS grouping and other emerging economies. The objective is not simply to increase volumes but to build a more diversified export portfolio capable of reducing exposure to individual markets and geopolitical disruptions.

Trade policy has also become a major factor. South African citrus exporters have faced tariff and market-access pressures in the United States, with industry representatives warning that higher tariffs could undermine competitiveness and threaten employment in citrus-dependent rural communities.

The economic significance of citrus therefore extends well beyond the farm gate. The industry supports employment across farming, irrigation, agricultural inputs, packaging, cold storage, logistics, shipping, port operations, food processing and retail. Its export orientation also generates foreign currency across a wide network of rural and urban businesses.

For South Africa, the rise of citrus illustrates a broader change taking place within the country’s export economy: agricultural products are becoming increasingly important sources of foreign exchange at a time when some traditional commodity industries are confronting structural challenges.

The emergence of citrus as the world’s leading export industry by volume is consequently more than an agricultural milestone. It is evidence of how investment, export-oriented production, market access and sophisticated logistics can create globally competitive industries outside the country’s traditional mining base.

The challenge now is to convert this export success into deeper domestic value creation — including expanded cold-chain infrastructure, processing, packaging, agricultural technology and logistics — so that a greater share of the value generated by South Africa’s citrus reaches the broader economy rather than being realised primarily at the point of export.

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HARARE – The high-walled suburbs of Harare have long been a sanctuary for Zimbabwe’s elite, a place where the “untouchables” live in opulence, shielded from the harsh economic realities facing the rest of the nation. But on the evening of August 4, that shield was pierced. Detectives from the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) Drugs and […]

The post The Drug Secret: Mnangagwa’s daughter-in-law Kelsea Tadiwa Tafirenyika now in hit soup after Auxillia personally demanded her arrest first appeared on My Zimbabwe News.

HARARE – In the fading light of a Harare evening, a silver sedan pulls up to a kerb in the Central Business District. The driver, a middle-aged man trying to supplement his meagre civil servant salary, checks his phone. The app, InDrive, tells him his passenger is waiting. A young man in a suit steps […]

The post US$172 fine plus vehicle impounding: Massive clandestine transport operation launched as Zimbabweans turn to InDrive first appeared on My Zimbabwe News.