Award-winning Somali referee Omar Artan has been dropped from officiating at the World Cup after being barred from entering the United States, world football’s governing body FIFA said on Monday. A FIFA spokesperson confirmed in a statement that Artan would play no part in the World Cup. Artan would have been the first Somali to referee at a World Cup. Keywords for this article Source link
Award-winning Somali referee Omar Artan has been dropped from officiating at the World Cup after being barred from entering the United States, world football’s governing body FIFA said on Monday. A FIFA spokesperson confirmed in a statement that Artan, who was refused entry to the US after arriving at Miami International Airport on Saturday, would play no part in the World Cup. Artan would have been the first Somali to referee at a World Cup. “FIFA can confirm that match official Omar Abdulkadir Artan will be unable to train and officiate at the FIFA World Cup 2026 after he was denied entry into the United States,” the spokesperson told AFP. FIFA emphasised that it was powerless to influence the decision, which it said was the sole preserve of tournament co-hosts the United States. “FIFA is not involved in host country immigration processes, including visa adjudications, and has been informed by authorities that Mr Artan’s status will not be changed at present,” the spokesperson said. “In line with previous FIFA events, a host government ultimately determines …
President Donald Trump on Wednesday went on another tirade against Somali immigrants, declaring during his Cabinet meeting that “they’re all crooks.” Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content. “The Somalians, what they’ve done to Minnesota, the Somalians, crooked as hell. Ilhan Omar, crooked as hell,” he said, referring to the Democratic congresswoman from the state. “They’re all crooks, and we got them, we got them. Now we’re putting the clamps on,” Trump said. The president made the remarks while talking about the work being done by Vice President JD Vance’s fraud task force. It’s unclear what he was accusing Omar of. A spokesperson for Omar did not immediately respond to a request for comment. After his remarks about Somalis, Trump touted his administration’s work last week making additional fraud arrests in Minnesota. Trump has appeared fixated on Somalis in the state since news reports last year about dozens of people of Somali descent having been convicted in fraud schemes related to Covid relief that netted over $1 …
Islamabad, Pakistan – When Ayesha Ameen was leaving her house last week for a chore, her three-year-old daughter Zimal tugged at her sleeve and asked if she was finally going to the airport to pick up her father. “How do you tell a three-year-old that her father is held captive and cannot come home?” Ayesha, 26, told Al Jazeera. “How can anybody answer that?” Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list Zimal’s father, Ameen bin Shams, 29, has been held hostage on board an oil tanker off the coast of Somalia for nearly two weeks. He is among 10 Pakistani sailors in the 17-member crew of the MT Honour 25, seized by Somali pirates on April 21. Besides the Pakistani nationals, the ship’s crew consists of four Indonesians – including the MT Honour’s captain – as well as one each from Sri Lanka, Myanmar and India. Ameen’s daughter asks about him every day. His four-month-old son, Rahim, born on December 24, two weeks after Ameen left on his first merchant navy contract, has never met …
Somali pirates peaked in 2010, vanished by 2013, and are back in 2026. Source link
Authored by Janice Hisle via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), The magnitude of Minnesota’s Somali welfare-fraud problem has only begun to surface – and it is tied to other fraud in ways that many Americans do not realize, according to statements made during a Feb. 10 Senate hearing in Washington. Sen. John Cornyn speaks on Capitol Hill on Oct. 14, 2020. Susan Walsh-Pool/Getty Images A subcommittee focused on immigration and border security held a two-hour hearing titled, “Somali Fraud in Minnesota—The Tip of the Iceberg.” Both houses of Congress are exploring the problem and its possible remedies. Two witnesses who testified are former State Department employees who worked abroad as foreign service officers. Both men reported seeing weaknesses in America’s systems for verifying backgrounds and identities of foreigners who apply for U.S. immigration benefits. Committee chair Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), announced he is preparing legislation to stop fraudsters from sending stolen U.S. taxpayer dollars overseas with no meaningful scrutiny. The committee’s ranking member, Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) said, “No one is here to defend fraud.” …
Last year, Cate Blanchett and the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR)’s Hubert Bals Fund unveiled the Displacement Film Fund, a scheme set up to provide five displaced directors with grants for short films that are worth €100,000 ($120,000) each. And on Friday evening, IFFR presented the world premieres of the first five shorts, made by directors from Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia and Ukraine, in the Dutch port city on Friday. The grant recipients were Iranian auteur Mohammad Rasoulof (The Seed of the Sacred Fig), Maryna Er Gorbach, the Ukrainian director of Klondike, Somali-Austrian filmmaker Mo Harawe (The Village Next to Paradise), Afghan filmmaker Shahrbanoo Sadat, who fled to Germany and will next month open the Berlin Film Festival, and Syria’s Hasan Kattan (Last Men in Aleppo). In a conversation with THR and during a Rotterdam press conference, Kattan and Harawe discussed their inspirations and hopes for their respective films. Kattan’s 40-minute-long Allies in Exile, from production company Grain Media that is also handling sales, stars himself and his best friend Fadi Al Halabi. “For 14 years, Syrian filmmakers Hasan Kattan and Fadi Al-Halabi have journeyed together …
Donald Trump’s administration said Tuesday it will end Temporary Protected Status for immigrants from Somalia, the latest move in the president’s mass deportation agenda. The move affects hundreds of people who are a small subset of immigrants living in the United States with TPS protections. It comes during Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, where many native Somalis live and where street protests have intensified since a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent killed a U.S citizen who was demonstrating against federal presence in the city. The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that affected Somalis must leave the U.S. by March 17, when existing protections, last extended by then-President Joe Biden, will expire. “Temporary means temporary,” said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, adding that the decision puts “Americans first.” The Congressional Research Service last spring said the Somali TPS population was 705 out of nearly 1.3 million TPS immigrants. Trump has ended protections across multiple countries in his second presidency. Homeland Security secretary says conditions in Somalia have changed Noem insisted circumstances in …
The Quality Learing Center is no more. The Minneapolis child care center thrust into the spotlight by a viral YouTube exposé on Minnesota’s rampant day care fraud scheme has officially shut down. State records confirm Quality Learning Center requested its license closure, effective Tuesday. Late last month, independent journalist Nick Shirley released a video in which he toured nearly a dozen centers, exposing them for pocketing public funds without delivering services. Quality Learning Center stood out for its sign bearing a glaring typo – “Learing” – that operators scrambled to fix after the clip went viral. The footage captured an empty-looking facade and zero activity, fueling suspicions in a state already reeling from massive welfare scams. “Quality Learning Center closed on Tuesday, according to the Minnesota Department of Human Services’ licensing records. The Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Families [DCYF] said that the center requested closure of its license effective Tuesday,” CBS News reported. The center raked in $1.9 million from Minnesota’s Child Care Assistance Program in fiscal 2025. DCYF got word on December …
A Somali TikToker (account now defunct), first highlighted by Libs of TikTok, mocked Americans about alleged Somali-linked fraud in Minnesota and pushed dangerous rhetoric suggesting Elon Musk was “about to die.” Such statements fit a broader alarming pattern surrounding the Democratic Party’s normalization of assassination culture against Musk and President Trump supporters. “I wouldn’t worry too much about him. He [Musk] about to die,” TikToker “dowza.z” stated in a short 30-second clip. The account has since been taken down, and it remains unclear whether the TikToker deleted the account or whether the dangerous rhetoric directed at Musk violated the platform’s terms of service. The somali tiktoker who mocked Americans had a meltdown over Elon Musk and appeared to threaten his life: “I wouldn’t worry too much about him. He about to die.” . @FBI should definitely look into this https://t.co/37Ok26xstv pic.twitter.com/Ow8NmwFhut — Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) January 1, 2026 Musk responded on X to DogeDesigner’s reposting of the video, saying, “Then it is war.” Then it is war https://t.co/KdlKDW6f61 — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 2, …
