What surprises the championship in Qatar, who was unblocked on Twitter and where did the "snow apocalypse" happen?

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The FIFA World Cup kicked off in Qatar on November 20 and will run until December 18. Long before the start of the World Cup, he was given a lot of attention in the media. And they talked about football less than about political issues. What attracted such close attention to the current football championship, and also why in the West there is so much criticism of the organizers and even a campaign has been launched to boycott the 2022 World Cup in Qatar?

First of all, the championship in Qatar will go down in football history by taking place in the autumn-winter period, and not in the summer, as it has always been. The fact is that in summer in Qatar it can be up to 50 degrees Celsius, in November - December the weather in the country is more comfortable. Initially, the organizers of the championship promised to create artificial clouds that would be above the stadiums and training bases, bringing coolness. As a result, the project was never realized due to its complexity. Therefore, the championship was postponed to a colder time. The postponement of the football championship provoked a rather significant problem. Usually in November - December, club tournaments continue around the world, and the world championship takes place, when club season ends. For the sake of Qatar, the terms of the national championships were shifted, which caused a wave of discontent and criticism.

Another historic moment - Qatar became the first Arab country to receive the right to host the world football championship. In a country with a population of about 2.9 million, organizers were expecting nearly 1.5 million fans to attend. The organizing committee of the championship noted that the fans will feel the warmth of Qatari hospitality and understand the groundlessness of criticism in the Western media. A lot of efforts were made to create a football holiday in Qatar: modern stadiums were built in the country, a huge fan zone was organized on the shore of the bay. In addition, Qatar made significant concessions by allowing ALCOHOLin fan zones. For a country with strict anti-alcohol laws, this was not easy to do. Women tourists were allowed to ride in the same carriage with men, not to hide their shoulders. However, this did not save the host of the 2022 championship from criticism.

Western journalists accuse Qatar of exploiting migrant workers in the construction of stadiums and other infrastructure for the championship. Thousands of workers allegedly died, but there was no confirmation of this information. Qatar is also accused of violating the rights of women and LGBT communities, points to problems with democracy and the harmful effects on the nature of powerful air conditioners in stadiums. In addition to everything, the US Department of Justice stated that Qatar bribed FIFA delegates to obtain the right to host the world championship. Doha and FIFA categorically deny these accusations.

There were calls in Germany, Spain and France to boycott the current championship. In these countries, some cities in protest will not show matches of the 2022 World Cup. The loudest voices for the boycott are in Germany. Giant banners demanding a boycott of Qatar have become a common sight at German Bundesliga matches, Euronews wrote.

Qatar said that Western countries apply double standards. On the one hand, the West is calling for a boycott of the 2022 World Cup in the country, and on the other hand, they want to buy gas from Qatar. As Euronews pointed out, the state of Qatar is one of the world's largest producers of natural gas, selling it to European countries for billions of euros.

Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that the country was annoyed by double standards. In the 12 years since the decision to choose Qatar to host the World Cup, a systematic campaign has been waged against it that no other country has faced. According to him, the German population "is being misinformed by the government and politicians," while the government itself "sees no problems when it comes to energy partnerships or investments."

Passions flare up in connection with the bandages with the text One Love ("One Love"). For such an armband, according to FIFA, the team captain will receive a yellow card in the first second after entering the field. Even before the start of the tournament, some teams said they planned to wear such a captain's armband, but the prospect of receiving a yellow card forced them to abandon these plans. German players in a team photo before their first match at the World Cup in Qatar covered their mouths with their hands, thus demonstrating a protest against FIFA's decision to ban the One Love armband. In Denmark, they even announced that the country could withdraw from FIFA. Because of the bandages.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken criticized FIFA's decision regarding the One Love armbands: "When we see any restrictions on freedom of expression ... it's always a concern." And let the whole world with its crises wait - the West is busy with One Love issues.

Meanwhile, the World Cup in Qatar is being held in five cities at eight stadiums. The opening ceremony of the championship on November 20 turned out to be exceptional. In terms of brightness and spectacle, it is compared with the opening of the Olympics. As the BBC wrote, after all the challenges, accusations and doubts, Qatar has the opportunity to welcome the world and present its case to a billion people around the world.

The ceremony was held at the El Bayt Stadium, which is shaped like a traditional Bedouin tent. The color was added by the fact that security officers were at the entrance to the tent on camels and horses. The main motive of the ceremony was to show the unity of all people, despite differences in skin color and culture. The celebrations were attended by American actor Morgan Freeman, as well as 20-year-old Qatari YouTuber Ghanim Al-Mufta, who does not have half of his body, but this did not prevent him from becoming a popular blogger with a million audience, playing sports and helping other people.

South Korean pop star Jeon Jungkook and Qatari singer Fahad Al Qubaisi sang the anthem of the Dreamers tournament. Interestingly, the Colombian singer Shakira at the last moment refused to perform at the opening ceremony of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. According to one version, she did this because of a wave of criticism from fans from different countries in social networks. British performers Dua Lipa and Rod Stewart also refused to perform at the opening of the World Cup.

A bright touch of the ceremony was the parade of mascots of all previous world championships, including the mascot of the championship in Qatar named Laib (mascot looks like a popular men's scarf in Arab countries, and in Arabic means "super talented player").

The general festive tone of the beginning of the championship was overshadowed by the results of Qatar's game with Ecuador. The host team lost with a score of 0:2. Frustrated Qatari fans began to leave the stadium ahead of time. Qatari HEAD coach Felix Sanchez said after the game: "Obviously it's not what we hoped for. Now our task is to analyze this match, focus and try to forget about today ... We didn't play at our best level. Maybe responsibility or nerves got the better of us."

Meanwhile, attention to the events of the championship in the world is considerable. And one of the proofs of this is the record mention in social networks. Elon Musk wrote that on the fourth day of the World Cup in Qatar there was a record high user activity: "World Cup traffic today reached almost 20 thousand tweets per second!"

Belarusian fans can watch the 2022 FIFA World Cup matches on the FIFA website.

Who got unblocked on Twitter?

Elon Musk's story continues as chief executive of Twitter after acquiring the social network for a record $44 billion.

This time around, the richest man on the planet has launched a Twitter poll with the simple question of whether to unblock former United States President Donald Trump's account. Such an unlock has been expected from Musk almost since the completion of the deal to buy Twitter. A week before the midterm elections to the US Congress, Musk answered the question of whether he would restore Trump's account: "If I was given a DOLLAR for every question if Trump would return to this platform, Twitter would be enriched."

About 15 million users took part in the voting. 51.8% of poll participants voted for the restoration of Donald Trump's page, 48.2% voted against. "People have spoken. Trump will be reinstated," the company's new owner tweeted.

Later, Musk conducted another poll of Twitter users: whether to offer a general amnesty to blocked accounts. More than 3 million people took part in this vote. 72.4% of survey participants voted for the amnesty of accounts, while 27.6% voted against. Musk promised to unblock all profiles that do not violate the law next week. “Vox Populi Vox Dei (“The voice of the people is the voice of God”),” the entrepreneur wrote.

Trump's account has kept all of his records since March 2009. The last post was made on January 8, 2021. It was then that the ex-president's page was blocked by the Twitter administration. At the time of the lockdown, Trump had over 88 million followers. Soon he launched his own social network called Truth Social ("Truth Social Network").

After unlocking, Trump surprised everyone. He stated that he did not intend to return to Twitter, as he was satisfied with the presence in the social network Truth Social. He noted that his social network Truth Social is getting better, and the coverage there is "incredible" and "better than it was on Twitter."

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To some extent, Trump and Musk are now competitors - each owns a social network. However, Trump said: "I like Elon, and I wish him good luck. I hope he succeeds."

The BBC analysis noted that for Donald Trump, Musk's poll was of great importance, even though he officially does not want to return to Twitter. The politician called on his subscribers on Truth Social to take part in the vote. "Vote now with a positive attitude, but don't worry, we're not going anywhere. Truth Social is a special network," Trump wrote. The call to vote sounds strange enough if Trump is not thinking about returning to Twitter, the BBC points out. Part of the reason is that Truth Social has relatively few users compared to Twitter.

The ex-president faces a dilemma. On the one hand, Trump would like his mouthpiece back, as Twitter was his favorite platform, which he used to connect with supporters and dominate the news. On the other hand, he is also interested in Truth Social becoming a commercial success. If Trump returns to Twitter, the future of Truth Social will be hazy. In the long run, Trump will have to balance business decisions with political ones. Given Trump's announcement of his intention to run for president in 2024, it can be assumed that the politician will return to Twitter. The temptation of such a return is great. Just nine hours after Trump's account was unlocked, more than 50 million users signed up for it. By the morning of November 24, the number of page readers reached over 87.7 million.

By the way, Elon Musk has 118.6 million followers on Twitter. The addition of virtual reader millions does not save us from the crisis phenomena of this year. According to BLOOMBERG, Elon Musk lost over $100 billion in 2022. This did not prevent him from remaining the richest person on Earth with a fortune of $169.8 billion.

Where did the "snow apocalypse" happen?

In Belarus, November turned out to be snowy and frosty in winter. However, the "snow apocalypse" did not happen in Belarus, but on the east coast of the United States: more than 8 million people in six states received a warning about difficult weather conditions.

New York State has declared a state of emergency. The snow cover reached from one and a half to two meters. This was a state record in the history of meteorological observations. Journalists called the snowstorm "the snowfall of the century" and "the snow apocalypse." On social media, people shared photos where the snow reached the top of the front door, and also jokingly measured the height of the snow cover with bananas.

By the way, even much smaller snowfalls could paralyze the life of American cities and lead to panic. Therefore, it is not surprising that two meters of snow was called the end of the world here.

New York State Governor Katie Hokul said forecasters were wrong many times over in forecasting the season's first snowfall. 1.82 meters of rain fell in the west of the state, including the city of Buffalo. The authorities were not prepared for such weather conditions. "We believe that with a snowfall of this magnitude, we will go down in history," Hokul said.

It is noteworthy that the "snow apocalypse" happened before the widely celebrated Thanksgiving Day in the United States, which marks the beginning of the season, which includes Christmas and New Year. People were locked in their homes, entire neighborhoods were cut off from the outside world, thousands of citizens were left without electricity. Public utilities could not cope with the surprises of nature. Snowplows got stuck in snowdrifts, highways had to be closed in the state, airports were paralyzed.

It is known that because of a snow storm in the United States, three people died. The cause of death of two Americans was cardiac arrest during snow removal. A third person died after rolling over on a snowplow.

Due to heavy snowfalls in the area of ​​the city of Buffalo (the second largest city in the state after New York), private vehicles were banned, schools and train stations were closed. Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown told CNN that while his city is accustomed to heavy snow, the current blizzard has been much larger than usual. "It was a very unpredictable storm... The snow fell very quickly, very wet, very heavy."

Why are weather forecasts for the winter so important?

Due to the energy crisis that has erupted in a number of world regions, attention is more than ever riveted to weather forecasts: will the winter be cold this year and will there be enough gas and firewood to survive it? According to the Financial Times, citing experts' forecasts, the energy crisis in Europe may be protracted and last for several years.

Already this winter, Europe is preparing for possible winter hardships and temporary power outages. The possibility of such shutdowns was announced even in Germany and the UK.

John Pettigrew, chief executive of British energy giant National Grid, said that rolling blackouts from 4 to 7 pm on very cold weekdays in January and February could await the British in the coming winter in the event of a reduction in gas imports from Europe.

Germany also admitted the possibility of local power outages in the coming months due to the difficult situation in the energy supply. The Federal Office for Public Protection and Disaster Relief noted that the risk of local blackouts will increase in January and February 2023.

Difficult winter in terms of energy will be in Ukraine. Maxim Timchenko, head of Ukraine's largest private energy company DTEK, said that Ukrainians who can afford it should be ready to leave the country before winter sets in. His words are reported by the BBC. According to Timchenko, Ukrainians should consider moving to reduce the load on the country's energy system. The Ukrainian government had previously also advised Ukrainians abroad not to return home for the time being due to a lack of electricity.

The head of the European Bureau of the World HEALTH Organization, Hans Kluge, during a visit to Kyiv, suggested that with the onset of cold weather, 2-3 million Ukrainians will leave their homes in search of warmth and safety. At the same time, the Financial Times writes that the authorities of European countries will not be able to master the new massive influx of migrants to Europe. The newspaper also expresses the opinion that a new wave of refugees will significantly increase the differences between various European countries and undermine the unity of the EU.

Meanwhile, on November 23, most of Ukraine was left without electricity, in many cities there was no heating and water. All nuclear power plants and the majority of thermal power plants and hydroelectric power plants turned out to be de-energized. On November 24, the mayor of the Ukrainian capital reported on his TELEGRAM channel that 70% of Kyiv was still de-energized. Klitschko recommended that the residents of Kyiv, if possible, move for a while to the suburbs, to houses where there is a stove and independent water supply. He also advised the people of Kiev to prepare for a bad scenario and stock up on water, food and warm clothes. The socially vulnerable population, according to the mayor, may be evacuated from Kyiv to the suburbs.

Serhiy Kovalenko, CEO of the Ukrainian electricity supplier company YASNO, owned by DTEK, said that Ukrainians are facing permanent power outages until at least the end of March.

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said that over 4,000 “indestructibility points” have been deployed in the country to support the population, where all basic services will be available free of charge: electricity, mobile communications and the Internet, heat, water, medicines. However, in the current situation, you involuntarily ask yourself the question: isn't it better to use every opportunity to resolve the conflict diplomatically and not refuse negotiations to help the population?

It's been such a contrasting week. From hot Qatar to snowstorms and cold weather.

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