A win at a football match during the world cup is always a moment that every country savours. But when your team is not one of the favorites and  yet is able to defeat one of the world's top football teams the sense of national elation is eccstatic. Such was the mood in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday (22 November) after their team in its debut match in the tournament in Doha which opened on Sunday, managed to defeat one of the favorites, Argentina. As Saudi media was quick to point out, this was the first time an Arab or Asian team have beaten the two-time world champions at this level, and will go down as one of the greatest upsets in the history of the competition. Back home, the Saudi government decided it was time to party.  At a regular meeting of the cabinet of Ministers, King Salman approved a suggestion made by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to celebrate the national team’s victory with a holiday. All public and private sector employees and students at all educational stages will be given a holiday, Saudi Press Agency reported.   For Saudi Arabia this is a moment to savour. The country has been in recent years slowly but surely emerging from a period of lethargy, and a new dynamism is appearing in all sectors of society. Many problems linger, and some new ones are emerging too. But today, Saudis will focus on celebrating a football victory which very well embodies the country's new sense of confidence.

Criminal networks in the Western Balkans have become key actors in both regional and European Union drug markets, a report by the European Monitoring Centre on Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) said on Monday. The report says that the strategic geographical position of countries such as Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo, combined with high demand for drugs, particularly in the European Union and Turkey, have accelerated criminal groups’ operations. “Some EU countries are located on trafficking routes that pass through the Western Balkans before re-entering the EU. This means that trafficking flows can be complex,” the agency said in the report which is part of a bigger regional study conducted between 2019 and 2022. Sizeable diasporas from the region in the EU also provide a pool of individuals who can be exploited or recruited into these networks, the report said. The EMCDDA report discusses Western Balkan groups’ operational presence in Belgium and the Netherlands, with the ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam being important for drug distribution and import into the EU.

The 2022 FIFA World Cup opened in Doha on Sunday (20 November) with a lavish half an hour opening ceremony full of music and colour. It will be followed by weeks of football extravaganza that millions are looking forward to watching. It was a proud moment for the small Arab Gulf country which has put a lot of effort and resources towards making the event a success, writes Dennis Sammut in today's Monday Commentary on commonspace.eu. Ever since it was decided to hold the FIFA world cup in Qatar there have been those who questioned the decision. Some said the climate was too hot; others criticised the working conditions of the labour force that built the facilities; others questioned Qatar's human rights record, especially on gay rights. Some of the criticism was justified. The world cup helped put attention to such problems and that is how it should be. But frankly, a lot of the criticism of Qatar went over the top and reeked of racism. Qatar has its shortcomings, but the hundreds of thousands of people who flock there to work, and others who just visit, appreciate it for what it is: a young nation that is trying to play a positive role in the world and to offer opportunity for work and business to whoever wants to work with it. It is ofcourse easy to say that sports and politics do not mix. Since sports is an expression of human talent and human feelings politics cannot be excluded. It needs to be managed. People watching football do not need expressions of political opinions shoved down their throats. Many even find such expressions as an insult to their intelligence. But that does not mean that the occasion of a global sports event cannot be a way of transmitting a dignified message with political connotations. One such example happened yesterday when the captain of the Iranian team sent a message to his compatriots back home.

Voting is taking place on Sunday (20 November) in Kazakhstan, Central Asia's largest republic. The elections are considered important since they mark the end of the era of rule of Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan's long-time president who served from 1991 to 2019. Nazarbayev is often credited with being “the father of the nation” helping to forge a Kazakh national identity, but whose rule has increasingly been identified as one riddled with nepotism, corruption and stagnation. Even after Nazarbayev decided to resign, he maintained control over several key leverages of power, and his successor, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, governed in the shadow of his predecessor. In January, Tokayev was faced by what appears to have been an attempted palace coup to unseat him, Having quashed the uprising Tokayev decided to accelerate the process of reforms that he had already started to cautiously implement. Nazarbayev has been side-lined and constitutional reforms initiated under which, a president can only serve for one, seven-year term.     Long-time observers of Central Asia feel that the election marks an important turning point for Kazakhstan and Central Asia. commonspace.eu political editor said in a comment that "there is little doubt that the incumbent president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev will win the election. Yet people in Kazakhstan have started to understand that things are changing; that their president does not intend to serve for life, and diversity of opinions are good. A very modest start, and one that is considered far less than enough for some. But a start it is, and that needs to be recognised too."