World

The sport of rugby league on Tuesday joined swimming by banning transgender players from international competition, as World Athletics said it was also considering a rule change.

Rugby league authorities said transgender athletes would be “unable to play” in international matches while they undertook consultations and research to finalise a new policy for 2023.

They cited the “welfare, legal and reputational risk” to the game and players in taking their decision.

The 13-a-side game’s governing body acted a day after international swimming effectively banned transgender athletes from women’s races, placing them instead in a new “open category”.

World Athletics hinted at tougher policies on transgender athletes taking part in women’s events, with its president Sebastian Coe saying fairness is more important than inclusion.

Sports are drawing up new regulations on participation after the International Olympic Committee last year announced guidelines while asking federations to produce their own “sport-specific” rule.

The issue has ignited into a fractious debate between those fighting for transgender athletes’ rights to compete freely as women and those arguing they enjoy an unfair physiological advantage.

The International Rugby League’s announcement means transgender athletes will be banned from this year’s Women’s Rugby League World Cup in England in November.

“The IRL reaffirms its belief that rugby league is a game for all and that anyone and everyone can play our sport,” it said in a statement. 

But the sport said it had to balance each player’s right to take part against the perceived risk to other players “and to ensure all are given a fair hearing”.

– ‘In the gutter’ –

Rugby league’s governing body said it would work with the eight nations taking part in the Women’s Rugby League World Cup for a “future trans women inclusion policy in 2023”, taking into account the “unique characteristics” of rugby league.

Transgender former New South Wales rugby player Caroline Layt criticised the league’s decision.

“We are human beings, we have feelings, and we feel like we are being singled out,” Layt told AFP.

“Basically what they’re saying is: ‘We don’t want you.'”

Swimming’s governing body FINA made its decision to exclude transgender swimmers from women’s races after setting up legal, medical and athletes’ committees to examine the issue.

FINA decided that male-to-female transgender athletes could only join women’s races if they had not experienced any part of male puberty.

It said its medical committee found that males acquired advantages in puberty, including in the size of their organs and bones, that were not lost in hormone suppression.

World Athletics president Coe hinted Monday that track and field could follow swimming in bringing in a tougher policy on transgender athletes competing in women’s events.

“My responsibility is to protect the integrity of women’s sport and we take that very seriously, and if it means that we have to make adjustments to protocols going forward, we will,” said Coe, who attended the swimming world championships in Budapest on Sunday.

“I’ve always made it clear: if we ever get pushed into a corner to that point where we’re making a judgement about fairness or inclusion, I will always fall down on the side of fairness.”

Under World Athletics rules, transgender women have to show they have low testosterone levels for at least 12 months before competition.

Cycling’s governing body, the UCI, has also toughened its rules on transgender eligibility by doubling the time period before a rider transitioning from male to female can compete.

The International Olympic Committee, whose executive board meet in Lausanne on Friday, has not stated whether it envisages a third category for Olympic Games.

Instead the IOC told AFP it wants to leave individual federations “to determine the threshold from which an advantage may become disproportionate and to develop the necessary mechanisms to compensate for that”.

Thousands of Ecuadorans took to the streets Tuesday for a ninth day of Indigenous-led fuel price protests, as the military vowed to defend the country’s democracy against what it called a “grave threat.” 

Called by the powerful Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (Conaie), the demonstrations have seen roads barricaded countrywide, cost the economy tens of millions of dollars and left dozens injured. 

“Ecuador’s democracy faces a grave threat from the concerted actions of… people who are preventing the free movement of the majority of Ecuadorans,” Defense Minister Luis Lara told a press conference, flanked by the heads of the army, navy and air force.

The armed forces, he warned, “will not allow attempts to break the constitutional order or any action against democracy and the laws of the republic.”

Conaie — credited with helping topple three presidents between 1997 and 2005 — called the demonstrations as Ecuadorans increasingly struggle to make ends meet.

Indigenous people comprise more than a million of Ecuador’s 17.7 million inhabitants and wield much political clout, but are disproportionately affected by rising inflation, unemployment and poverty exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.

– 10 Demands –

Thousands of protesters entered Quito from the south and north on Monday, on foot and on the backs of trucks, to reinforce protesters in the capital, where they burnt tires and tree branches in the streets — and were back out in the streets on Tuesday morning.

At least some in the crowd, many wielding sticks and others draped in the Ecuadoran flag, or carrying children in their arms, said the president’s ouster was precisely what they sought.

“We are the people and we will stay here until the end,” Victor Taday, a 50-year-old Indigenous resident of Quito originally from Chimborazo province, told AFP Monday night — as similar marches took place in other parts of the country.

It was time for Lasso to “go away,” he said.

Fuel prices have risen sharply since 2020, almost doubling for diesel from $1 to $1.90 per gallon and rising from $1.75 to $2.55 for gasoline.

Conaie is demanding a price cut to $1.50 a gallon for diesel and $2.10 for gasoline.

It also wants jobs, food price controls and a commitment to renegotiating the personal bank loans of about four million families.

The movement has since been joined by students, workers and other Ecuadorans also feeling the economic pinch.

Police said Monday 63 armed forces personnel have been wounded in clashes and 21 others briefly held hostage since the protests began, while human rights observers reported 79 arrests and 55 civilians wounded.

President Guillermo Lasso extended a state of emergency to cover six of the country’s 24 provinces, with a night-time curfew in the capital Quito, as he sought to curtail the countrywide show of anger.

The state of emergency empowers Lasso to mobilize the armed forces to maintain order, suspend civil rights and declare curfews.

Conaie has vowed to maintain its blockade until the government meets 10 demands.

– ‘They seek chaos’ –

The president, a former banker in power since May 2021, said in a video on Twitter Monday that the protesters “do not want peace” and have rejected government calls for dialogue.

“They seek chaos. They want to eject the president,” he charged.

Ecuador’s parliament Monday evening voted 81 to 56 in favor of a resolution demanding the government conduct a “serious, clear and honest” dialogue with the protesters.

It proposed the convening of a “round table” of talks including the UN, Red Cross, universities and the powerful Catholic Church to find a solution to the stalemate.

US actor and comedian Ben Stiller said Tuesday he had been deeply affected by the stories he heard from Ukrainians after a surprise visit to the war-torn country. 

The “Zoolander” and “Meet the Parents” star was in Ukraine as an ambassador for the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR. 

“The stories of the people who experienced the first few days of this war — speaking to them and hearing these really harrowing stories — was very affecting,” Stiller told AFP in a phone call, while travelling from Ukraine to Poland. 

The 56-year-old actor-director visited Irpin, a suburb of Kyiv, which was particularly hard-hit in the early stages of the Russian invasion. 

“To see the physical destruction of those neighbourhoods, it’s really massive, and it’s impossible not to be affected by that,” Stiller said. 

“There was one very young man who… talked about it like something out of a horror film, just being hit by these missiles, not knowing if he should stay or run. 

“To see how traumatised he was — he felt his life had been changed forever. It’s really tough when you hear a young person say that, and you realise the effects of war are not always visible.”

Stiller met with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv on Monday, and told him: “You’re my hero.”

“What you’ve done, the way that you’ve rallied the country, the world, it’s really inspiring,” he told Zelensky.  

Asked by AFP if he could imagine trading in his job as a comedian in the event of an invasion, Stiller said he didn’t know how he would react. 

“If everything you know is in danger of being obliterated — who knows? But I hope we could react like the people of Ukraine,” he said. 

“Yesterday, I was in a house that was almost fully collapsed with a woman, and we were sitting in her kitchen,” he said. 

“And she was giving us strawberries and had this incredible resilience saying: ‘We have to figure out how to go forward’. It’s hard not to think ‘how would I react if my house had half collapsed.'”

Stiller, who has also visited Lebanon, Jordan and Guatemala as part of his UNHCR work, said he hopes people will hear his stories from refugees and “relate with these people and hopefully see themselves in them”.

“The work that UNHCR and other NGOs do is so important. This war has created 12 million displaced people and even if the war ends, the issues it has created will go on for years,” he said.

A top French court on Tuesday blocked a bid to allow the “burkini” at municipal pools in the city of Grenoble, upholding a government challenge against a move that revived France’s intense debate on Islam.

The all-in-one swimsuit, used by some Muslim women to cover their bodies and hair while swimming, is a controversial issue in France where critics see it as a symbol of creeping Islamisation. 

Backing the national government’s objection against the move, the Council of State said that “very selective exception to the rules to satisfy religious demands… risks affecting the proper functioning of public services and equal treatment of their users”.

Led by Green party mayor Eric Piolle, Grenoble in May changed its swimming pool rules to allow all types of bathing suits and for women to bathe topless, where previously only traditional swimming costumes for women and trunks for men were authorised.

“All we want is for women and men to be able to dress how they want,” Piolle said at the time.

The judges disagreed, finding that “contrary to the objective declared by the city of Grenoble, the change to the pool rules aimed only to authorise wearing of the ‘burkini'”.

Piolle did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment on the court ruling.

Tuesday’s court decision was “a victory for the law against separatism, for secularism and beyond that, for the whole republic,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on Twitter, referring to a law introduced last year to counter Islamic fundamentalism.

France’s treatment of Islam is likely to remain a political battlefield following Sunday’s inconclusive parliamentary election that denied President Emmanuel Macron an absolute majority in parliament.

Voters handed the anti-immigration, anti-Islam National Rally an unprecedented 89 seats, while the more mainstream Republicans conservative party is seen as the only possible partner for Macron to reach a governing deal or pass laws on a case-by-case basis.

Republicans lawmaker Eric Ciotti called on Twitter Tuesday for the burkini to be “clearly banned by law”.

– Fighting on the beaches –

Attempts by several local mayors in the south of France to ban the burkini on Mediterranean beaches in the summer of 2016 kicked off the first firestorm around the bathing suit.

The restrictions were eventually overturned — also by the Council of State — for being discriminatory.

Limited to Grenoble, the latest ruling “has not at all called into question its block on banning the burkini” back then, said Patrice Spinosi of the Human Rights League (LDH), which backed the city’s authorisation of the swimwear.

“This decision is only relevant to the specific situation in Grenoble and shouldn’t be generalised”.

Burkinis are not banned in French state-run pools on religious grounds, but for hygiene reasons, while swimmers are not under any legal obligation to hide their religion while bathing.

Grenoble is not the first French city to change its rules. 

The northwestern city of Rennes quietly updated its pool code in 2019 to allow burkinis and other types of swimwear.

Moscow on Tuesday warned Lithuania of “serious” consequences over its restriction of rail traffic to Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave, as Kremlin forces made gains in Ukraine’s strategic Donbas region.

The row over Lithuania, the arrival of sophisticated German weaponry in Ukraine’s arsenal, and an imminent decision on Ukraine’s candidacy to join the EU threaten to further ratchet up tensions between the West and Moscow.

Kremlin troops were meanwhile gaining ground in the Donbas, causing “catastrophic destruction” in Lysychansk, an industrial city at the forefront of recent clashes, the region’s governor said. Ukraine confirmed Russia had taken the frontline village of Toshkivka.

Governor Sergiy Gaiday said “every town and village” in Ukrainian hands in Lugansk region was “under almost non-stop fire”. 

Since being repelled from Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine following its invasion in February, Moscow is focusing its offensive on the strategic Donbas region.

In the eastern town of Sloviansk, which could become a flash point as Russian troops advance from the north, local people were preparing to withstand attacks and the authorities said the community would defend itself.

“We believe they’ll beat the Russian scum,” resident Valentina, 63, said of local Ukrainian forces.

The stakes are high. The town was seized by Russia-backed separatists in 2014 and then retaken by Ukrainian forces after a lengthy siege.

– ‘Serious’ consequences –

Russia’s war of words with EU member Lithuania escalated on Tuesday, with Moscow vowing “serious” consequences over Vilnius’ restrictions on rail traffic to the exclave of Kaliningrad. 

Lithuania says it is simply adhering to EU-wide sanctions on Moscow but Russia countered, accusing Brussels of “escalation”.

Moscow summoned the EU’s ambassador to Russia. Its foreign ministry said Lithuania’s actions “violate the relevant legal and political obligations of the European Union”.

“Russia will certainly respond to such hostile actions,” security council chief Nikolai Patrushev said at a regional security meeting in Kaliningrad, a Russian region bordering Lithuania and Poland.

Ukraine’s Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov tweeted that powerful German-made Panzerhaubitze 2000 howizter artillery pieces had joined his country’s forces.

On the ground, the police chief of the Kyiv region said victims of the Russian attempt to seize the capital city continued to be found. So far, the bodies of 1,333 civilians have been discovered and 300 people remain missing.

On the maritime front, Russia’s navy is blockading ports, which Ukraine says is preventing millions of tonnes of grain from being shipped to world markets, contributing to soaring food prices.

Russia said Tuesday it had repelled a Ukrainian attempt to re-take the symbolic Snake Island, a small territory in the Black Sea captured by Russian forces on the first day of the invasion. 

Prior to the war, Ukraine was a major exporter of wheat, corn and sunflower oil. 

With European officials due to gather this week at a summit expected to approve Ukraine’s candidacy to join the EU, Brussels foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called the Russians’ port blockade “a real war crime”.

He said it was happening “while in the rest of the world people are suffering hunger”.

Moscow denies responsibility for the disruption to deliveries and, following Borrell’s comments, blamed the West’s “destructive” position for surging grain prices. 

Growing concerns about a food crisis are “the fault of Western regimes, which act as provokers and destroyers”, said foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv was engaged in “complex negotiations” to unblock grain exports, although he cautioned that there was no progress as yet. 

In an address to the African Union, Zelensky said the continent was a “hostage” of the conflict, and rising food prices had “already brought (the war) to the homes of millions of African families”.

The EU has pledged an additional 600 million euros ($635 million) to help vulnerable nations weather the food security crisis.

– ‘Significant losses’ –

In addition to Toshkivka, Ukraine said it had lost control of the eastern village of Metyolkine, a settlement adjacent to Severodonetsk, which has been a focus of fighting for weeks and is now largely under Russian control.

A chemical plant in Severodonetsk where hundreds of civilians are said to be sheltering was being shelled constantly, Ukraine warned.

But defence ministry spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk told Ukrainian television that Russian forces had suffered “significant losses in the area of Severodonetsk”.

“They are fighting under the old statutes of the Soviet era. This is a war for territory,” he said.

Three people were injured and seven more missing after Ukrainian forces attacked oil drilling platforms in the Black Sea off the coast of Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014, Crimea’s Moscow-backed leader Sergey Aksyonov said.

It was the first reported strike against offshore energy infrastructure in Crimea since Russia launched its invasion and Russian lawmaker Olga Kovitidi said the complex was still ablaze.

– $100 million medal –

In New York, Dmitry Muratov, the Russian editor-in-chief of the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, auctioned off his Nobel Peace Prize gold medal for $103.5 million to benefit children displaced by the war.

It was sold to an as yet unidentified phone bidder.

Muratov won the prize in 2021 alongside journalist Maria Ressa of the Philippines.

With US-Russia tensions soaring, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told NBC News that two Americans captured in Ukraine while fighting with Kyiv’s military were “endangering” Russian soldiers and should be “held accountable for those crimes”.

US Attorney General Merrick Garland visited Ukraine on Tuesday to discuss prosecution of individuals involved in war crimes.

Spain said one of its citizens fighting for Ukraine had been killed in the country without giving further detail.

Denmark and Sweden meanwhile became the latest European countries to warn of potential gas supply problems. Their energy agencies issued early warnings, due to uncertainty over hydrocarbon imports from Russia.

Ukraine has called the reasons given for Russia’s reduction of gas supply to European customers “far-fetched” and “illegal”.

burs-sr/gw/pvh

French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday was holding talks with the opposition on ending the deadlock sparked by his failure to secure a majority in parliamentary elections, after rejecting an offer by the prime minister to resign. 

Macron met right-wing, Socialist and Communist party chiefs at the Elysee and was to host far-right leader Marine Le Pen for rare talks as he seeks solutions to a tricky situation that risks plunging his second term into crisis two months after it began.

The spectre of political paralysis and the breakthrough performance by the far-right under Le Pen has also raised questions over Macron’s leadership in Europe as he seeks to keep a prime role in dealing with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

The Elysee said French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, blamed by some analysts for heading a lacklustre campaign, had offered her resignation to Macron but the head of state turned it down.

Macron believes the government needs to “stay on task and act” and the president will now seek “constructive solutions” to the political deadlock in talks with opposition parties, said a presidential official, who asked not to be named. 

Macron started Tuesday’s flurry of discussions by talking with Christian Jacob, the head of the traditional right-wing the Republicans (LR), a party on the decline in recent months but which now may be courted by the president to give him a majority. 

– ‘No question of pact’ –

The options available to Macron range from seeking to form a new coalition alliance, passing legislation based on ad hoc agreements, or even calling new elections.

One option would be an alliance with the Republicans, which have 61 MPs. 

But Jacob after the talks appeared to close the door on such a solution. “I told the president there was no question of entering into what could be seen as betrayal of our voters.”

“We will stay in opposition… there is no question of thinking about some kind of pact,” he said, while vowing the party would not block the work of institutions.

Macron had hoped to mark his second term with an ambitious programme of tax cuts, welfare reform and raising the retirement age. All that is now in question.

“What can he (Macron) do now?” said the headline in the Le Parisien daily. “Macron in an impasse,” added Le Figaro.

Despite vowing a new method of politics after his April presidential election victory, Macron has remained characteristically remote and has made no public comment on the outcome of the parliamentary polls.

“Macron’s great hesitation,” said the Le Monde daily, saying that the president was in no hurry to work out his post-election strategy.

While Macron’s Ensemble (Together) coalition remains the largest party after Sunday’s National Assembly elections, it fell dozens of seats short of keeping the absolute majority it has enjoyed for the last five years.

The NUPES left-wing alliance became the main opposition force but the coalition of Socialists, Communists, Greens and the hard-left France Unbowed faces an uphill struggle to retain unity.

– ‘Wait for fruit to fall’ –

Jean-Luc Melenchon, the France Unbowed chief who orchestrated the NUPES alliance, proposed Monday to make it a permanent left-wing bloc but the offer was immediately rejected by the three other NUPES parties.

In a snub to the president, Melenchon is believed to be sending representatives to Elysee talks with Macron on Wednesday rather than going himself.

“I am neither hot nor cold” on Borne staying in power, said Melenchon, whose party has vowed to submit a no confidence motion against the premier at the beginning of July.

“All I have to do now is wait for the fruit to fall from the tree. This woman has no legitimacy. Zero. This is a democracy not a monarchy,” he added.

Socialist leader Olivier Faure, whose party is part of NUPES, adopted a more conciliatory stance after his meeting with Macron, saying it was prepared to move forwards with the government if it took measures on the key issue of purchasing power. 

The far-right under Le Pen posted the best legislative performance in its history, becoming the strongest single opposition party with 89 seats, up from eight in the outgoing chamber.

Le Pen said changing the prime minister “would not change much”, urging Macron to “listen to what the French voters said”.

Even if Borne is to stay in her post for now, a cabinet shake-up is on the horizon after the health, environment and maritime ministers failed to win seats in the election and will now resign.

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