More than 1,000 residents on Myanmar’s border have fled to neighbouring Thailand since Wednesday morning amid escalating armed clashes and junta airstrikes near the important trade town of Myawaddy.
Airstrikes were conducted all of Tuesday night, and one jet fighter dropped at least eight bombs in an hour early Wednesday morning, a woman in Myawaddy said on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “The explosions were louder than before in the town,” she said. One man in Myawaddy said normally only about 100 people use Friendship Bridge No. 1 between Myawaddy and the Thai border city of Mae Sot in one day. “But this morning, there were more than 1,000 people,” he said, declining to be named for security reasons. “Of course, they are worried about the battle. So, all are fleeing to their relatives in Mae Sot.” A Myanmar citizen who fled to Mae Sot said junta helicopters hovered over the crammed bridge as people streamed across the border while bombs exploded nearby. “Smoke was seen in the sky,” he said. “All the people ran into Mae Sot. A huge crowd could be seen at the border bridge.” Thailand’s army has increased security in Mae Sot, according to Myanmar nationals living there. Thai military vehicles and soldiers observing the border were seen under Friendship Bridge No. 1. Myawaddy’s trade zone The Karen Nation Union, or KNU, and allied guerrilla armies began their attack on junta troops in Myawaddy on Saturday. On Sunday, junta troops requested evacuation of over 600 soldiers and their families through Mae Sot, as well as administrative documents, according to Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. One flight left Mae Sot International Airport on Sunday night, but subsequent flights scheduled for Monday and Tuesday were cancelled at the request of Myanmar’s military. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Myanmar’s junta have not released any information on how many boarded the flight. Karen National Union joint forces stormed the junta’s Infantry Battalion 275 – located two miles from Myawaddy – on Tuesday, but junta forces have put up a strong resistance, the Myawaddy man said. Junta airstrikes demolished some homes near a highway bus station close to Infantry Battalion 275, civilians living in Myawaddy said. Forces aligned with the junta have been patrolling Myawaddy’s downtown area, residents said. While most government offices have closed, the junta’s immigration office was issuing border passes on Wednesday to those who wanted to enter Thailand. The Karen National Union would become much more powerful if it captures Myawaddy and gains control of the area’s crucial border trade, according to Than Soe Naing, a political commentator. “It is about to capture the special trade zone,” he said. “If Myawaddy township is captured, the resistance forces and people in Myanmar could enjoy new opportunities for the resistance forces and civilians.” It was unable to contact KNU spokespersons Padho Saw Kale Sae and Padho Saw Taw Nee by telephone on Wednesday to ask about Wednesday’s fighting. The Pentagon contract to deploy Elon Musk’s Starlink terminals in Ukraine will expire next month, Bloomberg has reported, citing an unnamed US official. The service plays a vital role in Washington's security assistance to Kiev, the report adds.
The source also revealed that the contract, which went into force in June of last year and lasts through May, is worth $23 million. The US Department of Defence has so far refused to officially disclose the size of the contract. The amount has been described by the publication as “miniscule” compared to the “hundreds of millions of dollars” Musk’s SpaceX received from the US for launching some of its national security satellites. Musk has repeatedly voiced unease about the use of Starlink in Ukraine. The satellite network has been providing communications to the country’s military and the government. ”Starlink needs to be a civilian network, not a participant to combat,” Musk said on X (formerly Twitter) in September, referring to the use of the satellites in Ukraine throughout the conflict with Russia. “This is the right order of things,” he added. Musk’s comment came shortly after the billionaire revealed that he had foiled a Ukrainian drone raid on Crimea by refusing to let Kiev forces use Starlink to guide naval drone strikes on Russian ships. Musk’s admission sparked outrage in Kiev, with Mikhail Podoliak, a top adviser to President Vladimir Zelensky, accusing him of “enabling evil.” Musk responded to the accusation by explaining that he had no obligation to fight for Ukraine, adding that he did not want Space X to be “explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation.” His remark echoed a previous statement made in the winter of 2023, where he admitted that although Starlink was “the communication backbone of Ukraine, especially at the front lines”, SpaceX “will not enable escalation of conflict that may lead to WW3.” Last year, SpaceX signed a contract with the US Defence Department to provide satellite services as part of the Pentagon’s new ‘Starshield’ program. CEO Elon Musk described the effort as a military alternative to the “civilian” Starlink. However the new Space Force contract will see Starshield’ rely on the existing constellation of Starlink satellites. China’s central bank purchased gold for its reserves for a 17th straight month in March, extending a buying spree that has helped the precious metal surge to a record.
Bullion held by the People’s Bank of China rose 0.2% to 72.74 million troy ounces last month, according to official data released Sunday. It’s the smallest increase in the run of monthly purchases that began in November 2022. The precious metal has been on a tear in the past two months, hitting a procession of records on expectations that lower US interest rates are on the horizon. Central bank buying has also been a significant driver of its strength since 2022. Global central banks, led by China and India, continued adding to their gold reserves in February, marking a ninth straight month of growth, according to the World Gold Council. However, the figure for February showed a 58% decline from the previous month, stemming in part from a higher volume of sales. China’s official reserve assets in March rose to the highest since November 2015. The country’s foreign exchange reserves rose to $3.2457 trillion, the highest since December 2021, as the central bank aims to maintain stable holdings to fend off risks. They rose 0.6% from February and were up 1.9% from a year earlier. Gold’s scorching run to an all-time high may seem easy to explain from a distance, given the fractious geopolitical climate and murky outlook for the global economy. A few weeks ago, when the gold price hit a record high, no one besides a few gold bugs seemed to care. After a long day of berating the Chinese government about overcapacity in their economy, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen joined China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng for a boat cruise on the Pearl River on Friday evening in the southern megacity of Guangzhou. Paroled Thaksin Shinawatra was using aqua dumbbells for medically-advised physical therapy in a photo showing him in a swimming pool with his grandchildren according to the justice minister, who denied the former prime minister was in good health.
Paetongtarn Shinawatra has apologised to those who were unhappy with her Instagram post, showing her father, Thaksin, playing with her children in a swimming pool. She claimed she just wanted to show the happiness of Thaksin and his grandchildren, adding “I did not mean to offend anybody with my post. I apologise.” She then insisted that she will continue posting. The post featured Thaksin, who is released on parole from a prison sentence he was serving for corruption, in a swimming pool at his Chan Song La residence with Paetongtarn’s children. Many people expressed doubts about Thaksin’s true health condition, as he was paroled due to old age and “serious illness”. The Corrections Department’s parole regulations stipulate that a prisoner must be over 70 and meet criteria for sickness, including being unable to perform daily tasks without assistance. A successful candidate for parole must be unable to eat, use the restroom, wash, or walk without help and be incontinent. The image posted of Thaksin is apparently of an unimpaired, healthy 74-year-old man and it has led many to question whether he is sick enough to justify parole, or at all. Many Thai netizens wrote that Paetongtarn’s photo has confirmed that her father has received special treatment from authorities since the moment he set foot back in Thailand, after his self-imposed exile in August last year. Some said it was because his youngest daughter, Paetongtarn, leads the ruling Pheu Thai party and Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin was the successful Pheu Thai prime ministerial candidate. Ruling party Pheu Thai’s boldest pledge, the 10,000 baht digital wallet handout, will be funded solely by the fiscal budget and all eligible Thais should have the money by the fourth quarter. After the National Digital Wallet Policy Committee met on Wednesday, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin said the scheme, which will cost about 500 billion baht, will be solely funded by the 2024-2025 fiscal year budget instead of loans. “I am able to fulfil the promise I gave to people. This [handout] adheres to laws and aligns with fiscal regulations,” said the premier, who also doubles as finance minister. Deputy Finance Minister Julapun Amornvivat explained that the funding will come from three budgetary sources: 152.7 billion baht from the 2025 fiscal budget, 172.3 billion baht from the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives 2025 budget, and 175 billion baht from the 2024 fiscal budget. He said the handout will be given to registered Thai citizens aged 16 and above who earn no more than 840,000 baht per tax year and have no more than 500,000 baht in their bank accounts. Recipients can use this digital wallet at specific stores within their home districts, he said, adding that these stores can use the money earned to buy goods from other stores without location restrictions. The digital wallet cannot be used to purchase “sin” goods, fuel, services or online products, he added. Stores wishing to be part of this campaign should have a presence in the tax system, he said, adding that the money earned via this scheme cannot be withdrawn immediately. Registration procedures for both users and stores will be available in the third quarter. Julapun said the 10,000 baht will be distributed via a “super app” created by the Digital Economy and Society Ministry, which can be used by all banks in an open-loop model. He insisted that the entire process would be transparent. The government also plans to set up a committee, chaired by the National Police chief, which will include members of the Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau, to prevent fraudulent activities. It is believed that this digital wallet handout will provide a 1.2-1.6% boost to the country’s GDP, which has been badly affected by geopolitical tensions and a slow recovery from the pandemic.
Washington has intercepted and transferred to Kiev thousands of Kalashnikov assault rifles and machine guns, with over half a million rounds of ammunition, as well as grenade launchers and sniper rifles, the US Central Command announced on Tuesday.
The transfer took place on April 4 and included “enough materiel” to equip a single Ukrainian brigade with small arms, CENTCOM said in a post on X (formerly Twitter). “The US government transferred over 5,000 AK-47s, machine guns, sniper rifles, RPG-7s and over 500,000 rounds of 7.62mm ammunition to the Ukrainian armed forces,” it wrote. The Pentagon claims that the guns and ammunition were on their way from Iran to the Houthi militia in Yemen, in violation of a UN arms embargo, when they were seized by the US Navy and its allies from several “transiting stateless vessels” off the coast of Yemen between May 2021 and February 2023. In December, the US government “obtained ownership of these munitions” through the civil forfeiture claims by the Justice Department. Civil asset forfeiture is a practice that allows the US government to seize property suspected of being used in criminal activity, and has long been criticized as de facto theft. “US CENTCOM is committed to working with our allies and partners to counter the flow of Iranian lethal aid in the region by all lawful means,” it claimed, insisting that Tehran’s “support for armed groups threatens international and regional security.” The announcement came amid uncertainty over further US funding of Ukraine’s war effort. President Joe Biden has been urging Congress for months to approve his aid package which would earmark $60 billion for Ukraine. Many Republicans have opposed the measure, demanding more efforts to strengthen US border security, while seeking more accountability for the aid already transferred to Kiev. The US has provided Ukraine with $113 billion in various forms of assistance since the start of hostilities. Russia has repeatedly condemned Western arms shipments to Ukraine, saying these will only prolong the conflict, while making the West a direct participant in the hostilities. The world could encounter major disasters before the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) weapons is regulated in a proper manner, according to Turing Award-winning scientist Geoffrey Hinton, seen as a pioneer of the technology.
The former Google engineer, who quit the company last year, compared the use of the technology for military purposes to chemical weapons deployment – warning that “very nasty things” will occur before the global community arrives at a comprehensive agreement comparable to the Geneva Conventions. “The threat I spoke out about is the existential threat,” Professor Hinton said on Tuesday in an interview with Irish broadcaster RTE News, emphasising that “these things will get much more intelligent than us and they will take over.” The computer scientist highlighted the impact of AI on disinformation and job displacement, and also on weapons of the future. “One of the threats is ‘battle robots’ which will make it much easier for rich countries to wage war on smaller, poorer countries and they are going to be very nasty and I think they are inevitably coming,” Hinton warned. He urged governments to put pressure on tech majors, especially in California, to conduct in-depth research on the safety of AI technology. “Rather than it being an afterthought, there should be government incentives to ensure companies put a lot of work into safety and some of that is happening now,” Hinton said. The scientist also highlighted huge benefits that AI can bring to humanity, particularly in healthcare, adding that he does not regret any of his contributions to the technology. Despite the mounting interest in AI, several high-profile figures in the tech industry have warned of the potential dangers posed by the unregulated adoption of the technology. Hinton, who quit Google last year, has waged a media campaign to warn of the risks. Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Yoshua Bengio, who is considered an AI pioneer for his work on neural networks, were among the top industry figures to co-sign a letter last year calling for aggressive regulation of the AI sector. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says his government has set a date for a major ground operation in Rafah, the last remaining Palestinian shelter in Gaza.
The Israeli leader is under pressure both from close ally the US, which sees the promised offensive as a major threat to civilians, and from members of his own coalition, who demand military action. Some 1.3 million people, most of them displaced from other parts of the Palestinian enclave, are estimated to be crammed into the city, which is located at Gaza’s border with Egypt. In a short video statement on Monday night, the prime minister said that achieving a victory over the militant group Hamas “requires entry into Rafah and the elimination of the terrorist battalions there. It will happen – there is a date.” Earlier in the day, Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir issued an ultimatum to Netanyahu, stating that if he “decides to end the war without a broad attack on Rafah in order to defeat Hamas, he will not have a mandate to continue serving as prime minister.” West Jerusalem has declared the elimination of Hamas, which organized a deadly incursion into southern Israel last October, as its primary goal. Netanyahu has previously claimed that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) “had eliminated 19 out of 24 of the Hamas battalions”. Last Sunday, the IDF announced that it was pulling most of its ground forces from the southern part of Gaza. The move will give soldiers rest, in preparation for a future mission in the Rafah area, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said. Critics of the Israeli tactics say it is a far cry from the precision-targeting of Hamas militants, which is how West Jerusalem portrays it. Over 33,000 Palestinians have been killed in more than six months of hostilities, compared to some 1,200 Israelis killed in the initial Hamas massacre. Last week, Israel targeted a convoy of the humanitarian group World Central Kitchen in a series of drone strikes, which killed seven aid workers. The attack, which the IDF described as a tragic mistake, was ordered despite the group having closely coordinated its mission with the military. US President Joe Biden threatened last Thursday to reconsider Washington’s support for Israel unless it changes its approach. Israel has since reopened a border crossing to allow more aid into Gaza and reported a surge in the number of trucks loaded with crucial supplies entering the blockaded territory, after claiming for months that it was not preventing the flow of aid. Authorities in Thailand have arrested eight Lao women, seven of whom entered the country illegally to work as prostitutes, and one who worked as their madam, Radio Free Asia has learned. According to the Anti-Trafficking in Person Unit of the Thai Department of Special Investigation, the seven women were aged 21 to 36, and they were arrested at a karaoke bar in Bang Pakong district in the southern province of Chachoengsao. The eighth woman is the wife of the bar’s owner. A police officer in Bang Pakong district confirmed Monday that the seven women, who were arrested on April 4, are still in custody and are awaiting trial and will be deported to Laos later. The sex trade is technically illegal in Thailand, but laws against it are rarely enforced. Authorities do, however, more strictly enforce immigration laws. “Usually, people from Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar are allowed to work in Thailand in only certain types of work like construction, but not in entertainment venues or karaoke bars,” Col. Pattanapong Sripinproh of the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Unit told RFA Lao. “They are not allowed to work as bar girls or drink girls,” he said. “If they do, they’ll be arrested.” Sripinproh explained that police were able to catch the eight women by going undercover and posing as johns. “One of our police officers disguised as a customer at the karaoke bar and agreed to pay 2,000 baht ($54) for sex with one of the women,” he said, explaining that the bar owner and a hotel get their cut of the money and the woman would get about 1,300 baht ($36). Following this lead, the police officers inspected the bar and found that seven women were working illegally. “Based on the law on foreign workers … the violators will be fined up to 10,000 baht (US$272) and/or jailed for two months,” he said, but acknowledged that in most cases there is no fine or jail time. Instead the women are usually deported and blacklisted for two years. He also said that if the husband and wife were found guilty of human trafficking they could face up to 20 years in prison. “But in these cases we found out that those seven women are older than 20 and none of them were forced to prostitution,” said Sripinproh. “So, the husband and wife won’t be charged with human trafficking. But they will be charged with doing illegal business by providing sexual services.” RFA reported in March that four Lao women were arrested in Ban Bueng district in nearby Chonburi province for entering the country illegally and working as prostitutes. They told Thai police that they entered Thailand as tourists, rented rooms in a hotel and then sold sex.
After more than three years of stagnation, gold has awakened with a vengeance since early-March and has promptly surged by nearly $300 an ounce or 14% to an all-time high $2,330 -- a sharp move for a safe-haven asset that has a reputation for its slow and steady trends. Gold’s powerful rally came seemingly out of the blue and has confounded the majority of investors and commentators who have been much more focused on trendy speculative stocks and cryptocurrencies as of late. In this piece, I will explain several of the technical and fundamental factors that are driving gold to all-time highs, what is likely ahead for gold, and how investors can best take advantage of the yellow metal’s resurgence. A Look at the Technicals The chart of gold over the past year shows how it suddenly sprang to life over the past month. There was an important technical resistance zone from $2,000 to $2,100 that had been acting as a price ceiling for gold since the middle of 2020. Gold’s successful close above that zone signified that a new rally had begun even though the fundamental drivers of it weren’t exactly apparent just yet. Gold’s multi-decade chart shows that it has been steadily climbing an uptrend line that began in the early-2000s as the U.S. and other countries kicked off an unprecedented debt binge that shows no signs of stopping whatsoever: Gold is Rising Despite the Strong U.S. Dollar What’s particularly interesting and notable about gold’s surge over the past month is how it has occurred independently of the action in the U.S. dollar. Gold and the U.S. dollar have a long-established inverse relationship, which means that strength in the dollar typically causes weakness in gold, while dollar weakness typically causes the price of gold to rise. The chart below compares gold (the top chart) to the U.S. Dollar Index (the bottom chart) and shows how action in the dollar often causes an opposite trend in gold. Gold’s recent surge took place while the dollar was trending slightly higher, which is a sign of gold’s strength due to its ability to buck the negative influence of the strengthening dollar. Mainstream Investors & Journalists Missed Gold’s Rally
What is also worth noting is how gold’s surprising recent rally has received very little mainstream attention by a press that is much more enamoured with hot AI stocks as well as Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies that have recently benefited from the U.S. government’s approval of a number of Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which has resulted in tremendous inflows from institutional investors and retail investors alike. As the chart below shows, investors have pulled billions of dollars worth of funds from gold ETFs in order to re-invest in Bitcoin ETFs, which is ironic considering its timing shortly before gold’s lift-off (and is confirmation of contrarian investing principles). The continuation of gold’s bull market will likely lead to funds flowing back into gold ETFs, providing additional fuel for the rally. Central Banks Are Steadily Accumulating Gold Though Western retail investors (who are often considered to be the “dumb money" in the market) have been sleeping on gold before and even during its surge of the past month, central banks -- particularly those in Russia, China, Turkey, and India -- have been steadily accumulating practically all of the gold that they can get their hands on. According to the World Gold Council, central banks purchased a healthy 1,037.4 metric tons of gold in 2023 in an effort to diversify out of the U.S. dollar and other fiat currencies that are being debased at an alarming rate and into a hard asset with a six-thousand year history as sound money that cannot be printed. Chinese Investors Are Buying Up Gold Chinese investors who are seeking refuge from the country’s sinking property and stock markets are another important driver of gold’s nascent rally. Starting in the mid-2000s, China’s property and stock markets embarked on a seemingly unstoppable bull market as the country’s economy grew rapidly and the country began to increasingly flex its economic and geopolitical muscles on the world stage. Unfortunately, like Japan in the 1980s and the U.S. in the mid-2000s, China’s asset boom was actually an unsustainable bubble that was driven by copious amounts of debt and reckless speculation. As all bubbles eventually do, China’s property and stock market bubbles have burst over the past year causing at least hundreds of billions of dollars worth of losses -- including $100 billion alone from the country’s property tycoons. As faith in China’s economy and financial markets sinks, investors are turning to the old standby, gold, which has thousands of years of history in China as a superb store of value in good and bad times alike. When complex financial systems and products fail, as they currently are in China, savers and investors appreciate the simplicity and straightforward nature of physical gold. As the famous financier J. P. Morgan once said, “Gold is money. Everything else is credit." According to the World Gold Council, consumer demand for gold in China increased by a stout 16% in 2023, while demand for gold bars and coins rose by an even more impressive 27%. Retail gold buying in China has been dominated by the younger generations who face a difficult job market and are largely priced out of the country’s unaffordable housing market but find physical gold to be attainable -- even if it means buying tiny amounts of it at a time as funds allow. Indeed, one of the most popular gold bullion products among young Chinese are gold beans that weigh as little as one gram and cost approximately 600 yuan (USD$83). The Chinese economy is expected to grow by 5.3% this year as the property sector recovers and external demand improves, the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO) said on Monday.
In its latest report, the Singapore-based group noted that stabilization in China’s property sector along with ongoing policy support will boost real estate investment and drive growth in the ASEAN+3 region, which consists of Southeast Asian nations plus Japan, China, and South Korea. AMRO’s projection is higher than China’s official growth target of about 5% and Bloomberg’s forecast, which expects the country’s economy to grow 4.6% this year. “China will continue to be a powerhouse in the region and the main driver of growth,” AMRO chief economist Hoe Ee Khor told Bloomberg. Weakness in the real estate sector “will take a bit of time to overcome, but it will happen and we expect the drag on growth will bottom out maybe this year.” The Chinese property sector crisis was sparked by the financial distress of major real estate developers, including property giants China Evergrande Group and Country Garden, which have defaulted on their debt. AMRO also revised upwards its overall growth outlook for ASEAN nations, predicting an expansion of 4.5% this year from 4.3% last year. According to the report, domestic demand is likely to remain resilient, underpinned by recovering investment and firm consumer spending. Within ASEAN specifically, its six major economies will continue to anchor growth. Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam are expected to contribute an average of 10% to global growth between 2024 and 2030, experts said. The organization also forecast the semiconductor industry to rebound from a multiyear slump driven by a “brisk” recovery in chips demand from China. Global semiconductor sales are expected to rise by 9.5% a year on average in 2025–2026, the group said. The Israeli military has destroyed 19 of Hamas’ 24 regional battalions in Gaza over the past six months, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed.
In a statement ahead of a cabinet meeting on Sunday marking six months since the start of the Gaza war, Netanyahu said Israel was “one step away from victory.” “Today we mark six months since the war began… We eliminated 19 out of 24 of the Hamas battalions, including their senior commanders. We killed, wounded or captured a significant number of Hamas terrorists... We destroyed their factories manufacturing rockets, weapons, ammunition,” the prime minister said. The conflict kicked off on October 7 last year with a surprise Hamas raid that claimed the lives of an estimated 1,200 Israelis and saw the capture of more than 200 hostages. Netanyahu promptly declared war on the militant group and vowed to eradicate it. As a result, due to the density of Gaza’s population, over 33,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes on the enclave in the following months, with much of the area razed to the ground. In his statement, Netanyahu reiterated that Israel needs to continue fighting until all Hamas militants are eliminated. He noted that Hamas still holds 133 Israeli citizens hostage, and stressed that there will be no talk of a ceasefire until all of them are freed. “There is no war more just than this war, and we are determined to finish it with complete victory. To return all those who were abducted, complete the elimination of Hamas in the entire Gaza Strip, including Rafah, and ensure that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel,” he stated. Israeli and Hamas delegations held ceasefire negotiations brokered by Egypt and Qatar on Sunday in Cairo. According to a report on Al Arabiya TV channel, Hamas’ demands included Israel dropping plans to persecute and eliminate its leaders once the fighting in Gaza stops, as well as a lasting ceasefire and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Netanyahu called these demands “extreme” and said Israel will not “surrender to them,” as, according to him, they may “endanger our citizens and our soldiers” in the future. Netanyahu’s refusal to strike an agreement with Hamas and thus secure the release of hostages has been brewing discontent among Israelis. Tens of thousands of demonstrators staged a protest in Tel Aviv on Saturday evening to demand Netanyahu’s resignation and for a deal to be reached with the Palestinian militants.
Ajax’s season reached a new low on Sunday as they lost 6-0 to archrivals Feyenoord. Igor Paixao and Yankuba Minteh each scored a double, with David Hancko and Quinten Timber scoring the other goals.
It was Feyenoord’s biggest win against Ajax and the first time in the Amsterdam club’s history that they didn’t score in two matches against the reigning champions. Ajax started the match with Brian Brobbey on the bench. The striker has recovered from a hamstring injury that has kept him out for three weeks. Feyenoord was boosted by Bart Nieuwkoop passing a late fitness test to start. The tone of the match was clear from the first minute, as the home side dominated. The first chance came when Calvin Stengs laid the ball back to Santiago Gimenez, who tried to shoot at the near post. It was saved by Geronimo Rulli. The next chance came just four minutes later. Yankuba Minteh dribbled past Jorrel Hato before shooting from the byline rather than finding a teammate in the box. His shot was saved by Rulli. Arne Slot’s side kept getting chances. Lutsharel Geertruida and Gimenez squandered big chances before they finally took the lead in the 34th minute. hmetcan Kaplan lost the ball in a dangerous position to Minteh, who then played a perfect pass through to Igor Paixao. The finish was brilliant: a deft chip that went over Rulli and into the net. It was the Brazilian’s third goal against Ajax in his fourth game. The Rotterdam team doubled their lead in the next attack. Nieuwkoop was played in after another error in possession, this time from Hato; the full-back found Minteh in the box. His shot was deflected by Kaplan into the far corner. Despite being the third top scorer in the Eredivisie, Gimenez has not been at the same level he was last season, and it showed once more as he missed another significant chance to score. A free kick was chipped behind the Ajax backline to the Mexican striker, but he volleyed it far over. It was 3-0 before halftime. Gimenez tried to overhead kick the ball toward the goal, but it found Hancko instead, who was on hand to head home from close range. Ajax finished the half with zero shots on goal. Minteh got his second of the game in the 56th minute. The Gambia winger curled the ball into the far corner, and no Ajax defender did their best to stop the shot. Quinten Timber got himself on the scoresheet just after the hour mark. Again, Ajax lost the ball in a dangerous position and was punished for the third time in the match. Substitute Branco van den Boomen was the guilty party this time. Timber won the ball from him before shooting it into the far corner with a peach of a strike. Four minutes later, it was 6-0. Geertruida won a scramble in front of goal before Paixao hit in off the bottom of the crossbar. Feyenoord took off the attackers in the closing stages. They even thought they had scored a seventh, but Alireza Jahanbaksch’s goal was disallowed for offside. It was the first time in Ajax’s history that they lost a match by a six-goal margin. It was an apt ending to a tumultuous week for the Amsterdam club in a turbulent season. General Manager Alex Kroes was suspended on Tuesday for alleged insider trading. Another director, Michael van Praag, is now also accused of not registering his Ajax shares in time |
Thank you for choosing to make a difference through your donation. We appreciate your support.
This website uses marketing and tracking technologies. Opting out of this will opt you out of all cookies, except for those needed to run the website. Note that some products may not work as well without tracking cookies. Opt Out of CookiesCategories
All
Archives
April 2024
|