MADRID (Reuters) -Spain’s soccer federation will hold an urgent meeting on Monday as its president, Luis Rubiales, faces a FIFA suspension and a storm of criticism over allegations he gave a player an unwanted kiss on the lips after Spain won the Women’s World Cup.

Rubiales has refused to resign over the incident with player Jenni Hermoso last Sunday in Sydney, saying the kiss was consensual. Players and a string of coaches on the women’s squad are demanding he go, and the government also wants him out.

The Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) has called regional federations to the “extraordinary and urgent” meeting “to evaluate the situation in which the federation finds itself” following Rubiales’ suspension, a RFEF spokesperson said on Sunday.

Global soccer’s governing body FIFA opened disciplinary proceedings against Rubiales on Thursday and announced on Saturday he had been suspended for three months from national and international soccer activities pending an investigation.

Rubiales, 46, said he would use the FIFA probe to show his innocence.

Rubiales played mainly in Spain’s second division in a career spanning 12 years. When he was elected to lead the RFEF in 2018, he promised to modernise its structure, increase turnover and make the federation more transparent.

The Spanish government cannot fire Rubiales but has strongly denounced his actions and said on Friday it was seeking to get him suspended using a legal procedure before a sports tribunal.

The uproar has come in a country where gender issues have become a prominent topic. Tens of thousands of women have taken part in street marches in recent years protesting against sexual abuse and violence.

Labour Minister Yolanda Diaz is due on Monday to meet representatives of the women’s players’ union FUTPRO, which represents Hermoso, and the Association of Spanish Footballers to ensure football is a sector “that has decent conditions and spaces free of sexist violence”.

Maria Jesus Montero, acting budget minister, said on Sunday Rubiales should not return to leading Spanish soccer.

“A person who lies, who has made a show of not having understood what the fight for equality means in an area as important as sport, cannot have the direction of football in this country in his hands,” she said.

APPLAUSE FOR HERMOSO

Hermoso, who has said she did not consent to the kiss and felt “vulnerable and the victim of an aggression”, has been warmly supported by fellow players and many in wider society.

She was applauded by the crowd when she was spotted on a balcony with dignitaries at the Women’s Cup final between Atletico Madrid and Milan on Saturday evening. Players at the match held a banner reading: “With you Jennifer Hermoso.”

Players from Orlando Pride and San Diego Wave wore wristbands supporting Hermoso during their National Women’s Soccer League match in Orlando, Florida, on Friday. Players in Sweden also wore supportive messages on wrist tape on Saturday.

All 23 of Spain’s cup-winning squad including Hermoso, as well as dozens of other squad members, said on Friday they would not play internationals while Rubiales remained head of the federation. Their next match is away to Sweden in the Nations League on Sept. 22.

On Saturday, 11 members of the women’s team’s coaching staff offered their resignations to the RFEF in a statement supporting Hermoso and condemning Rubiales. Coach Jorge Vilda said on Saturday he regretted the “inappropriate behaviour” of Rubiales.

Feminist groups have called a demonstration on Monday in Madrid entitled “With You Jenni”. Hundreds of people staged a demonstration on Sunday in Salamanca against Rubiales.

UN Women Spain, the Spanish branch of a U.N. organisation that promotes women’s rights, has gathered a 50 signatories including politicians, actors, business people and journalists, in a statement calling for “zero tolerance for abuse or bullying at any time or place in women’s sport”.

Norway’s football federation chief, Lise Klaveness, a former national player who is the first woman to hold the post in her country, said “football’s journey towards inclusion, diversity, and gender equity is far from over”.

“This week should have been about celebrating the exceptional performance of the Spanish team,” she wrote in a statement.

“But no. Instead of revelling in the Women’s football achievements, a familiar story unfolds – the need to rally and defend players and the sport itself. A century of misogyny once again overshadows the joy of the game, the national team’s pride, and remarkable performances on the pitch.”

Andres Iniesta, who won the World Cup and Euros with Spain’s men’s team, added his voice to the chorus of condemnation “as a father of three daughters, as a husband and as a football player”, telling his 42.9 million Instagram followers that Rubiales’ behaviour was “damaging the image of our country and our football around the world”.

Victor Francos, head of the state-run National Sports Council, has called the incident a MeToo moment for Spain. However, he said on Saturday it would not damage Spain’s bid to stage the 2030 World Cup along with Portugal and Morocco.

(Reporting by Graham Keeley;Editing by Frances Kerry and Alison Williams)

By Salah Uddin and Charlotte Greenfield

BATTAGRAM, Pakistan (Reuters) – Ibrar Ahmed is relieved to be alive after being stuck on a cable car high over a river in northern Pakistan for 16 hours this week, but now the student wonders how he will make the arduous trek to class each day.

“God willing, I am going to continue with my studies, but the way to our school is so long,” he said after Tuesday’s ordeal, which grabbed global attention.

“Sometimes … I get late for school because it opens at 8:30 a.m. and the road is so perilous,” said Ahmed, in his first year of high school at Batungi Pashto Government School. “The (chair)lift is necessary, but now we are terrified of it.”

Seven children and one man were rescued by Pakistan’s military and civilians from the flimsy cable car after a cable broke, dangling them 183 metres (600 feet) high in mountainous Battagram district north of Islamabad.

The harrowing ordeal highlights a crisis of school accessibility for many in Pakistan, with few high schools, poor roads, poverty and extreme weather hampering students’ ability to get to class.

That is a major reason Pakistan has the world’s second-lowest rate of school attendance. Some 23 million, or 44%, of Pakistani children aged four to 16 are out of school and the situation is worse for girls, according to government figures and the World Bank.

Given Pakistan’s huge youth population, boosting education rates is vital for economic sustainability and to mitigate the security concerns that plague the South Asian country, exacerbated by the lure of militant groups in impoverished rural areas, analysts and economists say.

“Long distances and travel times, few transportation options and costs are some of the barriers to access education, particularly for girls who are often not allowed to travel long distances alone,” said Ellen Van Kalmthout, chief of education at UNICEF Pakistan.

Ahmed wants “a proper road” and a high school near his village.

‘NUMEROUS ACCIDENTS’

Batungi Pashto High School head teacher Ali Asghar Khan links long commutes to high dropout rates.

“Most boys who come from far-off villages try their best to continue but they often face problems in travelling back and forth, either because they are too young or not strong enough or sick, so they definitely leave their studies,” Khan said. “The ratio of dropouts is high here.”

Many students must walk one to three hours each way on poorly built trails, crossing streams that swell into dangerous rivers in rainy seasons, Khan said. Those who make it are often exhausted by the journey, worsened by northern Pakistan’s hot summers and freezing winters. Tired and hungry, they struggle to concentrate, he said.

Communities have strung up scores of cable car systems through the mountainous Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of steep hills plunging into valleys. They often cut commutes to 20 minutes for a cheap fare but come at a dangerous cost, even before Tuesday’s scare.

“Numerous accidents have occurred in the past,” said former provincial police inspector general Naeem Khan. “Mostly the local people themselves with some help from the local police rescue the stranded people.”

A civilian involved in Tuesday’s rescue said he had rescued people at least six times before on smaller chairlifts.

Some 50 charlifts dot the hillsides of nearby Swat Valley. Residents said the cars provide a lifeline for students, especially after severe flooding last year damaged infrastructure, but there had been multiple deaths and injuries in the past year.

“Two months ago, a woman and her child fell into the River Swat… when the rope of the cable car broke. Their bodies are yet to be recovered,” said resident Nasrullah Khan.

‘THIS IS OUR DEMAND’

Local officials and development agencies are struggling to fix the problems in the province, which are echoed throughout Pakistan.

“It is very difficult for them to reach schools in far-flung areas, but our government has in the last few years invested heavily and innovative ideas have been brought forward,” said Syed Hammad Haider, additional deputy commissioner of Battagram district.

Remote learning and community-based classes, particularly for girls, are a priority, while all the area’s cable cars are being checked and any with safety risks will be shut down, he said.

The World Bank is investing $300 million in rural infrastructure for the province in a project through 2027, with access to education in mind.

Challenges include the shortage of middle and high schools, especially for girls, and the lack of good all-weather roads, “which are becoming increasingly vulnerable to natural disasters due to climate change”, a World Bank spokesperson said.

For students in areas like Battagram who risk their lives to go to school, that cannot come fast enough.

“We will now not go by lift, but I don’t want to leave school either,” said Rizwan Ullah, another rescued student. “We want roads in our region, we want a bridge, we want high schools, we want all these facilities. This is our demand.”

(Reporting by Charlotte Greenfield in Islamabad, Mushtaq Ali in Peshawar and Reuters TV in Battagram; Editing by William Mallard)

By Nyasha Chingono and Carien du Plessis

HARARE (Reuters) -Zimbabwe’s re-elected President Emmerson Mnangagwa suggested on Sunday that anyone questioning the results of last week’s election take their case to court as an opposition leader accused him of “gigantic fraud”.

Mnangagwa, 80, won the election with 52.6% of the vote while the opposition Citizens’ Coalition for Change (CCC) leader Nelson Chamisa got 44%, the election commission said on Saturday.

Chamisa said on Sunday the CCC would not accept the results.

He said the opposition would form the new government, without giving details. He did not answer questions on whether his party would challenge the results in court.

“We will not wait for five years. There has to be a change now,” Chamisa told journalists and party officials.

Two observers’ groups said police raided their data centres and arrested staff and volunteers so they could not independently verify the results.

The Election Resource Centre and the Zimbabwe Election Support Network said in a statement that this “cast a shadow over the entire election process”. The police were not immediately available for comment.

Observers from regional body SADC and from the African Union also criticised the election process.

Analysts and observers said the contest was heavily skewed in favour of the ZANU-PF ruling party, which has been in power for more than four decades. ZANU-PF denies it has an unfair advantage or seeks to influence the outcome of elections through rigging.

Chamisa, speaking on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, said of the election: “It’s a blatant and gigantic fraud.”

He indicated he was counting on diplomatic pressure on the government.

“Do not leave us, particularly our fellow brothers and sisters in the region and on the continent,” he said. “We count on your solidarity as we seek to resolve this political crisis.”

Mnangagwa first became president when longtime strongman Robert Mugabe was toppled in a 2017 military coup after 37 years in power. Mnangagwa’s first term was marked by runaway inflation, currency shortages and sky-high unemployment.

Mnangagwa welcomed the result.

“I competed with them and I am happy that I have won the race,” he said at State House on Sunday amid heavy police presence in parts of the capital.

“Those who feel the race was not run properly should know where to go to.”

This is Mnangagwa’s second and possibly last term as the constitution limits presidential terms to two.

ZANU-PF spokesman Christopher Mutswangwa said the party, which mustered 136 of 209 seats in the parliamentary elections, was shy of a two-thirds majority.

“We will concentrate more on governance than probably trying to amend the constitution,” he told journalists on Sunday.

Term limits are a contentious issue in the southern African country given the length of Mugabe’s rule.

(Reporting by Nyasha Chingono, Additional reporting by Nelson Banya, Writing by Carien du Plessis, Editing by Bhargav Acharya and Nick Macfie, Kirsten Donovan)

TOKYO (Reuters) -Tests of seawater near Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant have not detected any radioactivity, the environment ministry said on Sunday, days after authorities began discharging into the sea treated water used to cool damaged reactors.

Japan started releasing water from the wrecked Fukushima plant into the Pacific Ocean on Thursday, sparking protests in Japan and neighbouring countries, in particular China, which banned aquatic product imports from Japan.

Japan and scientific organisations say the water is safe after being filtered to remove most radioactive elements except for tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen.

Because tritium is difficult to separate from water, the Fukushima water is diluted until tritium levels fall below regulatory limits.

The ministry’s tests of samples from 11 points near the plant showed concentrations of tritium below the lower limit of detection – 7 to 8 becquerels of tritium per litre, the ministry said, adding that it “would have no adverse impact on human health and the environment”.

Monitoring would be carried out “with a high level of objectivity, transparency, and reliability” to prevent adverse impacts on Japan’s reputation, Environment Minister Akihiro Nishimura said in a statement.

The ministry would publish test results every week for the next three months at least, an official said.

Japan’s fisheries agency said tests of fish from near the plant did not show any abnormalities. Its test on Saturday found no detectable levels of tritium.

Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) said on Friday seawater near the plant contained less than 10 becquerels of tritium per litre, below its self-imposed limit of 700 becquerels and far below the World Health Organization’s limit of 10,000 becquerels for drinking water.

Tepco said on Sunday it had not detected any significant change. Fukushima prefecture also published tests from nine locations near the plant that showed tritium below limits.

Tepco is storing about 1.3 million tonnes of the contaminated water, enough to fill 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools, in tanks on the site.

The release of the first 7,800 cubic metres, equivalent to about three Olympic pools, will take about 17 days. It is estimated it will take about 30 years to release it all.

Japanese offices have received a barrage of telephone calls, apparently from China, complaining about the water release, the foreign ministry said, adding that it had asked the Chinese embassy in Japan to call on the public in China to remain calm.

(Reporting by Kaori Kaneko; Editing by Christopher Cushing, Robert Birsel)

MANILA (Reuters) – China’s “aggressive behaviour” in the South China Sea, including the use of water canon by its coast guard against a Philippine vessel, must be challenged and checked, the commander of the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet said on Sunday.

Vice Admiral Karl Thomas assured the Philippines of U.S. backing in the face of “shared challenges” in the region, saying: “My forces are out here for a reason.”

The largest of the U.S. Navy’s forward-deployed fleets, the Seventh Fleet, headquartered in Japan, operates as many as 70 ships, has around 150 aircraft and more than 27,000 sailors.

It operates over an area of 124 million square km (48 million square miles) from bases in Japan, South Korea and Singapore.

“You have to challenge people I would say operating in a grey zone. When they’re taking a little bit more and more and pushing you, you’ve got to push back, you have to sail and operate,” Thomas told Reuters.

“There’s really no better example of aggressive behaviour than the activity on 5 August on the shoal,” he added.

On Aug. 5, a Chinese coast guard ship used water cannon against a Philippine boat carrying supplies to troops aboard a warship Manila intentionally grounded on a shoal in the South China sea, a fault line in the rivalry between the U.S. and Beijing in the region.

Thomas said he had had discussions with Vice Admiral Alberto Carlos, the head of the Philippine Western Command overseeing the South China Sea, “to understand what his challenges are to find opportunities to be able to help him”.

“We certainly shared challenges. So I wanted to better understand how he views the operations that he’s responsible for. And I want to make sure that he understood what I had available,” said Thomas who was in Manila for a port call.

On Saturday, Thomas said he joined a flight from Manila “to go out and check out the South China Sea”.

The Philippines won an international arbitration award against China in 2016, after a tribunal said Beijing’s sweeping claim to sovereignty over most of the South China Sea had no legal basis.

China has built militarised, manmade islands in the South China Sea and its claim of historic sovereignty overlaps with the exclusive economic zones of the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia.

The Chinese Embassy in Manila did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

(Reporting by Karen Lema; Editing by Nick Macfie)

BUCHAREST (Reuters) -One person died and 57 were injured after two explosions at a liquefied petroleum gas station in the Romanian town of Crevedia near the capital Bucharest on Saturday.

After the first explosion, the fire spread to two fuel tanks and a nearby house, leading authorities to evacuate everyone within a radius of 700 meters, while traffic on the main road nearby was blocked, according to the government’s emergency response unit (IGSU).

A second explosion occurred at the LPG station on Saturday evening injuring 26 firefighters, Deputy Interior Minister Raed Arafat, who is in charge of the emergency response unit, told reporters.

The fire was contained by Sunday morning, and the prosecutor general has taken over the investigation.

Most of the injured were people from the services who intervened. Eight people were intubated after suffering severe burns, the government said.

“We think four of the patients will more than certainly be transferred tonight to hospitals in Italy and Belgium,” Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu told reporters after an emergency meeting with the state agencies involved in handling the crisis.

Arafat said the gas station did not have authorization to operate, hotnews.ro reported.

LPG is widely used in Eastern Europe as fuel as it is significantly cheaper than gasoline or diesel.

(Reporting by Marek Strzelecki and Luiza Ilie; editing by Christina Fincher, Daniel Wallis and Hugh Lawson)

By Nyasha Chingono and Nelson Banya

HARARE (Reuters) -Zimbabwe’s elections commission said late on Saturday that incumbent Emmerson Mnangagwa had won this week’s presidential election with roughly 53% of the vote, but the opposition and analysts immediately questioned the result.

Mnangagwa, who took over from longtime leader Robert Mugabe after a 2017 army coup, was widely expected to secure re-election for a second term as analysts said the contest was heavily skewed in favour of the ZANU-PF ruling party, which has been in power for more than four decades.

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) said Mnangagwa’s main challenger, Nelson Chamisa, who leads the opposition Citizens’ Coalition for Change (CCC) party, secured 44% of the presidential vote.

ZANU-PF supporters started singing and cheering at the results centre after the elections commission said Mnangagwa had won.

A CCC spokesperson said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that the party rejected “any result hastily assembled without proper verification”.

Mnangagwa also narrowly defeated Chamisa at the last presidential election in 2018. The opposition alleges that election was rigged but the constitutional court upheld the result.

While the run-up to the election has been largely free from violence, the police routinely ban opposition rallies and arrest opposition supporters using Zimbabwe’s tough public order laws.

ZANU-PF denies it has an unfair advantage or seeks to influence the outcome of elections through rigging.

The head of the European Union’s observer mission on Friday said this week’s vote took place in a “climate of fear”. Southern African regional bloc SADC’s mission noted issues including voting delays, the banning of rallies and biased state media coverage.

Nicole Beardsworth, a politics lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand, said she thought the late Saturday announcement was probably a response to the critique by SADC and other election observers.

“We all have a lot of questions about the speed with which ZEC is announcing presidential results,” she said.

Voting in this week’s presidential and parliamentary elections was meant to be wrapped up within one day on Wednesday, but it was extended into Thursday in some wards after the late distribution of ballot papers.

(Reporting by Nyasha Chingono and Nelson Banya; Additional reporting by Carien du Plessis and Bhargav Acharya in Johannesburg; Editing by Alexander Winning and Daniel Wallis)