GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) — Alex Ferguson turned up to watch former club Aberdeen on Saturday after it emerged this week that his lucrative role as Manchester United ambassador would end.
Ferguson, who won 28 major trophies as the United manager, has been a global ambassador for the club since retiring in 2013. But the role worth millions of dollars will cease at the end of the season in a cost-cutting move.
It was reported Ferguson, who has regularly attended United games since retiring, had a prior engagement and planned to miss United's game against Brentford at Old Trafford.
He was pictured in the crowd at Celtic Park in Glasgow to watch Celtic host Aberdeen in the Scottish league.
Ferguson won 10 major trophies as Aberdeen manager before leaving to join United in 1986.
Aberdeen has enjoyed an outstanding start to the season, winning all of its 13 games before playing Celtic.
That run ended on Saturday, but Aberdeen secured an impressive 2-2 draw against the Scottish champion after fighting back from 2-0 down.
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Former Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson reacts in the stands before the Scottish Premiership soccer match between Celtic and Aberdeen, at Celtic Park, in Glasgow, Scotland, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (Jane Barlow/PA via AP)
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Nicaragua’s Interior Ministry said Saturday the country would release dozens of prisoners, as the United States ramped up pressure on leftist President Daniel Ortegaa week after it ousted former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.
On Friday, the U.S. Embassy in Nicaragua said Venezuela had taken an important step toward peace by releasing what it described as “political prisoners.” But it lamented that in Nicaragua, “more than 60 people remain unjustly detained or disappeared, including pastors, religious workers, the sick, and the elderly.”
On Saturday, the Interior Ministry said in a statement that “dozens of people who were in the National Penitentiary System are returning to their homes and families.”
It wasn’t immediately clear who was freed and under what conditions. Nicaragua’s government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The government has been carrying out an ongoing crackdown since mass social protests in 2018, that were violently repressed.
Nicaragua’s government has imprisoned adversaries, religious leaders, journalists and more, then exiled them, stripping hundreds of their Nicaraguan citizenship and possessions. Since 2018, it has shuttered more than 5,000 organizations, largely religious, and forced thousands to flee the country. Nicaragua’s government often accused critics and opponents of plotting against the government.
In recent years, the government has released hundreds of imprisoned political opponents, critics and activists. It stripped them of Nicaraguan citizenship and sent them to other countries like the U.S. and Guatemala. Observers have called it an effort to wash its hands of its opposition and offset international human rights criticism. Many of those Nicaraguans were forced into a situation of "statelessness."
Saturday on X, the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs again slammed Nicaragua’s government. “Nicaraguans voted for a president in 2006, not for an illegitimate lifelong dynasty,” it said. “Rewriting the Constitution and crushing dissent will not erase the Nicaraguans’ aspirations to live free from tyranny.”
Danny Ramírez-Ayérdiz, executive-secretary of the Nicaraguan human rights organization CADILH, said he had mixed feelings about the releases announced Saturday.
“On the one hand, I’m glad. All political prisoners suffer some form of torture. But on the other hand, I know these people will continue to be harassed, surveilled and monitored by the police, and so will their families.”
Ramírez-Ayérdiz said the liberation of the prisoners is a response to pressure exerted by the United States. “There is surely a great deal of fear within the regime that the U.S. might completely dismantle it,” he said.
FILE - Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega waves after attending the swearing-in ceremony of Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro for a third term at the National Assembly in Caracas, Friday, Jan. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix, File)
