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Futbol

Rejection, Non-league And Pushing Trolleys: Burn's Rise To England

Dan Burn has had to do things the hard way. From being rejected by his boyhood club Newcastle United as a youngster to pushing supermarket trolleys, he could easily have given up on his football career before it had really begun. The 32-year-old, who was initially a goalkeeper, also lost his ring finger on his right hand aged just 13 in a childhood accident. Now the 6ft 7in defender has the Three Lions - albeit so far only the training kit - on his chest as he reflects on the journey that has got him to the week of his dreams. Just days after receiving his first England call-up, Burn helped his beloved Magpies end a 70-year wait for a domestic trophy at Wembley with the opening goal against Liverpool in the Carabao Cup final. His attention now turns to a potential debut for his country - after being included in Thomas Tuchel's first England squad - when he would become the oldest player to make a first appearance since former Bolton Wanderers striker Kevin Davies 15 years ago. "It was strange, as soon as I left the stadium [Wembley], it switched to this," he said. "We got the bus back at 12 o'clock. It was getting rowdy and I was ready to go back to bed. "I've waited a long time for this opportunity and I didn't want to spoil it. He [Thomas Tuchel] said I've been playing well for a long time. I'm not just coming in to be a cheerleader - I want to play. "Every little kid's dream is to play in a World Cup. To know I have got that opportunity if I take it is special. "I feel like I'm a leader on and off the pitch. I fit into that role. That's how I feel I can best help the team." Aged 11, Burn was released from the Newcastle academy and by 16 he was pushing trollies at a supermarket in his hometown of Blyth once a week. He played for non-league club Blyth Spartans before joining League Two Darlington on a youth contract in 2009. The lush green turf of St George's Park must have felt like a world away as he was washing his own kit and bringing in packed lunches to training. When he passed his driving test, he would commute with three team-mates to County Durham from Blyth in a Peugeot 206, charging them petrol money because the journey cost him more than he earned from his Saturday job. Crippling financial issues at Darlington accelerated his promotion to the first team and he impressed sufficiently to secure a move to Premier League side Fulham in 2011, aged 18. Five years at Craven Cottage brought 61 league appearances but very little stability. He was sent on loan to Yeovil Town and Birmingham City before a switch to Championship club Wigan Athletic. He earned a return to the Premier League in 2018 when he signed for Brighton & Hove Albion and, after an initial loan return to Wigan, he finally settled into a rhythm in the top flight at the second attempt. Burn made his return to Newcastle in January 2022, signing for £13m, and has since made 114 Premier League appearances for Eddie Howe's side. "It made me resilient," he said. "I have not had a straight-line trajectory in my career. "It has been up and down, from making my Premier League debut at 21 - three years later I was released by Fulham. I don't care about peoples opinions - I know what I'm good at. "I feel like I have been doubted a lot over my career. Not many people at Darlington would have said I'd be sat here doing a press conference for England. I feel I deserve to be here." Burn was part of Howe's line-up that lost 2-0 to Manchester United in the 2023 Carabao Cup final. Before the Magpies' loss that day, his dad David - with whom he used to have a Newcastle season ticket - wrote a touching letter for his son., external In the message, Burn's dad described the pride he felt, explaining how he had gone from getting rejected and 'pushing trollies at Asda' to playing with the very best 'on the world stage'. On Saturday, David and family were among the thousands who partied in London's Covent Garden the night before the win over Liverpool. Beneath Burn's slightly self-deprecating personality, there is a steely belief in his own quality and desire to get the best from his career. He said: "I just had little goals at the time that I wanted to hit. I wanted to play in League Two - did that. Play in League One - did that. I've always felt I had the ability to play at international level but you don't get the experience unless you do it. "I think I have been overlooked, but I understood it. In my opinion Gareth [Southgate] treated it more like a club, which worked well for them. "It was about the togetherness, but that worked against me a little bit. So, when the new manager come in, it was kind of a new slate. "Luckily the new manager has taken a chance on me and I want to grasp the opportunity. I did think it had passed me by at 32." Burn's dream moment came via a Facetime call from Tuchel - but even that wasn't straightforward, having already received a call from the German telling him he was in the running. "Six o'clock Thursday night I had not heard anything then I got a text at 10pm," Burn added. "I then got a Facetime call and I did struggle to sleep. "He said first of all 'not professional not being in bed for 10pm'. So, I apologised for that. "Then he said he has been ringing everyone that had not made the squad. He said he needed to end the day on a good note." News of his international involvement quickly spread around Blyth and Burn has been fielding messages of congratulations for days. "My phone has been going off; I've had the same number since I was 16 so you wouldn't believe the amount of messages. I'm only getting round to answering them now," he said. "The north east of England is a bit overlooked in football. There's not as many teams up there for the pools of players to come through. I am very proud to come from Newcastle - I love telling people where I am from." The need for Burn to tell people where he is from is increasingly rarely required these days, with one of football's feel-good stories is poised to reach the international stage.

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News_Naija

IBB: I-brahim B-abanla B-andit Corpers Knock FG Over Unpaid N77k Allowance

Moonless and mournful, the serene night was pierced by the hoots of an owl perching atop HillTop coven owned by the sad and sadistic Old Soja called Aibibi. In the bowel of his coven, the retired general lay crippled by the weight of his guiltiness, lips twisted out of shape like the butt of a smoked cigarette, eyes glazed like a dead dog’s – hit by a trailer. Karma and its hammer, thank you! Fulani forebear, Uthman Dan Fodio, believes conscience is an open wound, peppered by guilt, healable by truth. I agree with him. But the truth from North to South, East and West, is that the bloody general has never told a truth all his life. Aibibi is a soldier of fortune with a hole in his heart deep enough to harbour all the evils of his miserable existence. He is haunted and shattered despite swimming in the spoils of office amassed when he turned his fatherland into a killing field and a haven of corruption for so many years. Covens are homes for witches, not for mortals. Aibibi’s Achilles heels, which include greed, self-conceit and vaunting ambition, propelled him to reach for life’s topmost shelf, far beyond the reach of his eyes and ability. But the wise among the Yoruba warn against overambition, “Ohun owó mi ò tó, mà á fi gòngò fà á”: Any desire outside the reach of my ability, I’ll use a sickle to pluck it. With both hands, General Coward groped for the ‘Crown of Perpetual Reign’ on life’s topmost shelf. On the last rung of the ladder, Aibibi stood on his toes, groping for the crown on the shelf high above, with the weight of corruption suffocating his thick frame, thereby overstretching his calves until his Achilles snapped ‘pai!’: He will never walk again; never walk among men and women of honour because Aibibi belonged in the pit latrine. A child who craves leprosy must be ready to live alone in the forest, says a Yoruba proverb of caution. Aibibi bathed in innocent blood, killed millions of destinies and wrecked millions of households and investments, ruining the entire land. While he ‘chopped the life of his head’, he flicked out his snake-like tongue through his holey dentition, smiling and saying, “We shall hand over, Insha Allah.” More than three decades ago, the Old Soja murdered sleep in the month of June, fled Ass-o-Rock in August and ran to the HillTop, but he cannot escape the witches. who had inhabited the hill even before he was born. Though he built his house on top of the hill, he remained a tenant to the witchy inhabitants of the hill. Two rams cannot drink water from the same pot at the same time. The earthen pot cannot contain water, palm kernel and its husk. Mortals are terrestrial. Witches are not; they’re extraterrestrial. Like they did to Macbeth, the witches pushed Aibibi to his doom through his greed and overambition, after which they began to torment him. After pushing General Pigmy into ignominy, the witches on the hilltop have not relented. They have been haunting him. And Aibibi has been seeing things. Anywhere he turned, he saw the fangs of the Nigerian Hope named June 12, which he murdered. Everywhere he looked, he saw the ghost of Dele Giwa, who packed his dangling intestines with his left hand while clutching a dagger in his right hand, perpetually chasing the short-man-devil. Every morning, a three-pronged horsewhip floats in the air to Aibibi’s bedside. Only he can see it. While asleep, the horsewhip whacks the General out of bed fai! fai! fai! 15 times! The horsewhip repeats the same procedure at night. The horsewhip belongs to Mamma Vatsa. The 15 lashes represent the 15 tribal marks on Vatsa’s face. “I am going crazy,” Aibibi tells his band of bootlickers, “I live a joyless life of daily torture.” His lickspittles ran from pillar to post, looking for a solution to the mental case of Aibibi. They finally found a solution. Relieved, they returned home with joy to tell him the solution. “Baba,” they started, “You must exorcise the evils within you.” “How’s that possible, they are legion?” he replied. “You must write a book, and we will help you with it. As you relate your life’s journey, the evil spirits will leave you one by one and go into the wilderness like they left Saul in the Holy Bible,” the sycophants told him. “But did evil spirits really leave Saul?” Aibibi asked, adding, “They never really left him despite his wealth and power. Am I going the way of Saul?” He broke down in tears. One humid evening, a tanker bearing petrol had upturned along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and burst into flames when some people were trying to siphon fuel from it, killing 86 persons and burning 57 vehicles. The smell of burnt human flesh and death pervaded the air. There was sorrow, tears and blood everywhere. Firefighters and security operatives arrived at the scene. They had a hectic time battling the inferno. Many commuters were stranded. The scene looked like hell on Judgment Day. ‘Area Boys’ were on hand to help clear the corpses and burnt vehicles off the road – for some fees – even as they helped themselves by scavenging the chaos. 1st Area Boy: Na wa o. See how hungry people scooping fuel die like roasted bushmeat for here while una leaders dey donate billions for one yeye book for Abuja. 2nd Area Boy: Which book bi dat? Stranded Passenger: You no dey dis country? 2nd Area Boy: I no dey dis world sef. If I dey dis world na Area Boy I go dey do when I bi graduate? Driver: Na Aibibi, dat wicked leader, na im write book wey all our leaders go there go dey donate billions o. 2nd Area Boy: Our leaders? Billions? Which book? 1st Area Boy: You no dey dis world true true. Driver: The title of Aibibi book na ‘A Serpent in Service’. Passenger: I for like buy di book o. 1st Area Boy: Buy wetin? Useless book wey people wey get conscience don tear to pieces? Book wey full of lies from cover to cover? Meanwhile, Nigerian icon, Baba Adebanjo, has just died. He’s yet to be buried. So, his gentle soul still lingers within the earthly space, awaiting eternal repose in the bosom of his Maker after his body would have been committed to Mother Earth. Baba Adebanjo was a disciple of the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo. Like his master, Adebanjo was fearless, honest and blunt. Till he died, Adebanjo, a nonagenarian, walked unaided, his voice was clear, and his senses were sharp. Because he led a life of service to God and humanity, Adebanjo received the grace of graceful ageing. He did his personal hygiene by himself till his last breath. No child needed to strap him around. He was not haunted by evil spirits because he never sold his soul to the devil. Baba Adebanjo watched the Abuja Show of Shame from the spiritual realm. He saw the roll call and grimaced. “What’s Pitobi doing among these people? I thought he was different.” He saw Emilokan and shook his head. He thought, “Wasn’t Emilokan the same man who was carrying MKO’s bag?” Then he saw Baba Iyabo and hissed. Adebanjo looked out for the Katsina General, “Ah, that one is not present. He probably hasn’t forgiven Aibibi for kicking him out.” The list was endless. Baba Adebanjo saw JonaDumb and shook his head. When he saw General Yacoob and co., he sighed and knew the cycle of infamy was complete. So, Adebanjo ‘fi owó lérán’ by resting his head in his right palm; he yawned and concluded that right inside the Abuja book-launch hall lay the problems of Nigeria. Finally, the debris on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway was cleared, and life returned to the road as if nothing happened. Tení kú, ni ti è gbé – it’s the dead that are forgotten. 2nd Area Boy: Ol’ boy, di book launch still dey do me like dream o. See all di people wey fight and curse Aibibi come dey praise am today like say im bi saint, like say na Nigeria offend Aibibi? 1st Area Boy: Walahi, dem just dey take us play ludo. Aibibi’s soldiers just kill thousands of protesting Nigerians for nothing. Shey na so dat wicked man go just ruin millions of lives without consequence? E no even apologise for the book! 2nd Area Boy: I remember MKO Abiola, Alhaja Kudirat Abiola, Pa Alfred Rewane, Chief Gani Fawehunmi, Chief Abraham Adesanya; Admiral Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu, Chief Arthur Nwankwo, Bamidele Aturu, Chima Ubani, Beko Ransome-Kuti; Comrade Yinka Odumakin, Dr Federick Fasehun, Chief Chukwuemeka Ezeife, Chief Frank Kokori; Commodore Dan Suleiman, Chief Ayo Fasanmi, Chief Olabiyi Durojaiye… 1st Area Boy: You don forget people like Prof Wole Soyinka, Chief Ralph Obiora, Chief Cornelius Adebayo, and others wey run go exile? What about Prof Humphrey Nwosu, the best electoral officer in Nigeria’s history? 2nd Area Boy: The list no go finish o. What about Comrades Femi Falana, Olisa Agbakoba, Abdul Oroh, Shehu Sani, Uba Sani, Ayo Opadokun and others? Ist Area Boy: I wonder how Aibibi take make all dis big, big politicians forget all the evil things wey im do? 2nd Area Boy: When di great grandfather of corruption call, all family members home and abroad must obey!

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Worldnews

US-Ukraine Critical Minerals Deal: What We Know So Far

Zelenskyy might visit Trump this week for a rare earth minerals deal in efforts to win Washington’s backing for Kyiv. US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that the United States and Ukraine had agreed to a draft critical minerals deal that, according to the president, could be worth about $1 trillion. The proposed deal is seen by many analysts as an attempt by Kyiv to win the support of the new US administration amid tensions over Washington’s outreach to Moscow to end the Ukraine war. The apparent deal comes a week after Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejected an earlier draft. The Ukrainian leader had earlier aired his grievance against being left out of US-Russia talks to end the Ukraine war. On Wednesday, Zelenskyy described the agreement as a ramework economic deal, and said that so far, Kviv had not secured any security guarantees from the US. In recent days, the public rift between Trump and Zelenskyy had escalated into a war of words, raising concerns in Kyiv and European capitals that Trump might rush through a deal with Moscow to end the war on Russia’s terms. Here is what we know so far: Trump told reporters at the Oval Office on Tuesday that Zelenskyy wants to visit Washington on Friday to sign a “very big deal.” “I hear that he is coming on Friday. Certainly, it’s OK with me if he would like to. And he would like to sign it together with me, and I understand that’s a big deal.” Trump said the deal could be worth up to $1 trillion, and that American taxpayers would get their money back. On Wednesday evening, Zelenskyy said that the agreement — which he said was an economic framework for cooperation with the US — did not, as of now, include any US security guarantees. However, according to the Reuters news agency, the draft deal did say that the US wants Ukraine to be “free, sovereign and secure”. An earlier draft deal was rejected by Zelenskyy last week because it lacked details about security guarantees for Ukraine, according to media reports. The details of the draft deal have not been shared publicly. On Monday, Zelenskyy said that he was ready to resign for the sake of peace but demanded that Kyiv should be granted membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as a way to ensure his country’s security. But Washington has dubbed the NATO membership demand “unrealistic”. “This is hugely significant, because certainly, according to the Ukrainians we’ve been speaking to all week, this [deal] is seen as a means for Donald Trump to basically get what he wants,” Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford said. The deal is “looking at harvesting up to 50 percent of Ukraine’s minerals and rare earth materials”, said Stratford, reporting from Kyiv, adding that the timeframe is uncertain. Rare earth minerals are a group of 17 heavy metals found in the Earth’s crust globally. Some of the rare earth elements such as neodymium, lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, yttrium, terbium and europium are used in the manufacture of high-tech products such as computer hard drives, television and mobile screens and camera lenses. The US president has said that he seeks minerals from Kyiv in return for billions of dollars of aid Washington has provided in the past three years of war against Russia. Earlier this month, he told reporters in the White House that he wants “equalisation” for the close to $375.8bn Washington has sent Ukraine. He reiterated this on Tuesday, saying: “We’re spending hundreds of billions of dollars on Russia and Ukraine fighting a war that should have never, ever happened.” Trump’s estimates of aid sent to Kyiv contradict data from the US government itself. The US disbursed $183bn to aid Ukraine as of September 30, 2024, according to Ukraine Oversight, a website created by the US government to record aid sent to Ukraine. Currently, the largest producer of rare earth minerals is China, extracting at least 60 percent of the world’s supply and processing at least 90 percent of it with a near monopoly, the Center for Strategic and International Studies reported in 2024. According to the US Geological Survey, the US was dependent on China, Malaysia, Japan and Estonia for 80 percent of its rare earth needs in 2024. Since taking office on January 20, Trump has imposed tariffs on allies such as Canada as well as China, Washington’s biggest rival, shaking global markets. His push to get a rare earth deal with Kyiv is part of his agenda to make the US the hub of big tech. During his campaign, he also accused another close US ally, Taiwan, of stealing the US’s chip business. He threatened to impose tariffs on Taiwan, a major exporter of computer chips. Amid the tariff threats, Taiwan pledged to boost investment in the US. Last month, Trump announced that the private sector would invest $500bn in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure in the country. On Tuesday, Apple Inc announced it would invest $500bn amid pressure from Trump, who has demanded that corporations manufacture in the US to create jobs for Americans. Apple devices, including its bestseller iPhone, are mostly manufactured in China. “Donald Trump appears to have broken all norms in international policy by doing this, and he’s losing a lot of US soft power by being so transactional,” Theresa Fallon, director of the Centre for Russia Europe Asia Studies and a senior fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, told Al Jazeera. “It’s OK to be transactional,” said Fallon, but “this is just extortion”, she said. Ukraine has 22 elements out of the 34 substances that the European Union defines as “critical raw materials”, and the country’s reserves account for around five percent of global stock, the Russian language service of the United Nations news reported in 2022. “About five percent of all the world’s ‘critical raw materials’ are located in Ukraine, which occupies only 0.4 percent of the Earth’s surface,” Svetlana Grinchuk, Ukraine’s deputy minister of environmental protection and natural resources, said during a UN meeting in 2022. With an area of a little over 600,000sq km (232,000sq miles), Ukraine is Europe’s largest country by area, outside Russia. According to a report by the Ukrainian Geological Survey, Ukraine accounts for seven percent of the global production of titanium. The report adds that the reserves discovered in Ukraine are equal to 15 years of production of titanium globally. Ukraine also has reserves of graphite, nickel and cobalt. Ukraine has said that its rare earth minerals and other critical minerals, such as tantalum, niobium, and beryllium, are in six locations across the country. Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy on Wednesday confirmed that there was an agreement on the table, but framed it as a broader economic partnership initiative than as just a minerals deal. He also confirmed that Ukraine does not have, so far, any security guarantees against Russian aggression. “I didn’t let the ministers sign a relevant agreement because in my view it is not ready to protect us, our interest,” Zelenskyy was quoted as saying by the Associated Press during the Munich Security Conference on February 15. Ukraine has been demanding entry into NATO to ensure its security as Moscow occupies large swathes of Ukraine, including Crimea, which it annexed in 2014. Last week, Zelenskyy reiterated his opposition to the deal under which the US sought rights to $500bn in Ukraine’s natural wealth. He also questioned Trump’s assertion that Washington had given more than $350b in aid to Kyiv. “One cannot count up to $500bn and say, ‘Give us back $500bn in minerals.’ That’s not a serious discussion,” Zelenskyy said on February 19. French President Emmanuel Macron appeared to have backed the rare earth deal. “Macron himself endorsed this plan, he saw it as being something as significant, that could potentially lead to the beginnings of a true peace negotiation,” Al Jazeera’s Stratford said. Macron also backed Trump’s peace efforts, but cautioned against a deal at the cost of Ukraine’s “surrender”. “This peace must allow for Ukrainian sovereignty and allow Ukraine to negotiate with other stakeholders,” Macron said after meeting with Trump in Washington. Macron was on a diplomatic visit to Washington after Trump excluded Ukraine as well as European leaders from the Ukraine peace talks. Washington’s NATO allies were also blindsided by Trump’s overture to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Macron also organised two meetings as European leaders scrambled for responses in the wake of Trump’s dramatic policy shift on Ukraine. Europe has been divided on its response to Trump’s peace move as well as his demands that Ukraine’s security should be guaranteed by European nations. Trump believes the US is picking up almost the entire tab to support Ukraine and wants Europe to take the driver’s seat. Trump has backed the idea of European nations contributing to “a form of peacekeeping that’s acceptable to everybody”, though the Kremlin has opposed any European force in Ukraine. The United Kingdom and Sweden have offered to deploy troops in Ukraine as part of a future peace deal, but Germany, the eurozone’s biggest economy, is opposed to the idea. During his meeting with Trump, Macron said European countries “need to do more … to more fairly share the security burden”. European nations are also considering increasing their defence spending – which has been demanded by Trump. Outgoing German Chancellor Olaf Scholz criticised Trump’s push for the rare earth deal as “very egotistic” and “very self-centred”. Scholz has argued that Ukraine requires its natural resources to rebuild from the ravages caused by war. Friedrich Merz, leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) which won Germany’s election on Sunday, has slammed Trump’s attacks on Zelenskyy. “After [President] Donald Trump’s remarks last week … it is clear that this government does not care much about the fate of Europe,” he said, calling for German “independence” from the US. Follow Al Jazeera English:...