Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Agnès Callamard says Saudi authorities playing out ‘final act in their parody of justice’
A UN investigator has predicted Saudi Arabia will eventually release the convicted killers of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, after the killers were said to have been forgiven by Khashoggi’s sons in a move she said represented the kingdom’s “absolute impunity”.
Agnès Callamard, the special rapporteur for extrajudicial killings who has said the 2018 murder was committed at the behest of the Saudi state, said on Friday that the message of forgiveness represented the “first steps towards their eventual release” under Saudi and sharia law.
Soaring prices have left basic goods outside the reach of more than half of country’s population
For more than a decade, Ahmad Hussein would spend the last few days of Ramadan assembling arrays of sweets in his shop in south Beirut, preparing for the bonanza to follow.
Eid al-Fitr, the three-day celebration that capped the monthlong fast, was an annual highlight as customers splurged on sugary treats and shiny new clothes. Cakes were made for the occasion. Abstinence was replaced by bountiful rewards.
Egyptian doctors are increasingly at odds with their own government on the country’s coronavirus outbreak, pleading for protections and a full lockdown even as the authorities urge people to learn to “coexist” with Covid-19.
A wave of government propaganda has hailed healthcare workers as the “white army”, a reference to their white coats. But some of them told the Guardian they lacked protective equipment and were struggling to get vital tests for themselves and patients.
The Darfur genocide claimed the lives of an estimated 300,000 civilians, forced 1.6 million people to flee their homes inside the country and a further 600,000 refugees to spill across borders of neighbouring countries.
Of those internally displaced people (IDPs) affected by the large-scale conflict in this region of western Sudan, more than 60% were children, according to the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Here is more on US president Donald Trump calling for an in-person G7 meeting.
Donald Trump has said he may seek to revive a face-to-face meeting of Group of Seven leaders near Washington, after earlier canceling the gathering due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Declaration follows the creation of a new Israeli government which is officially contemplating annexation of some areas of the West Bank
The Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, has declared an end to security cooperation with the Israel and the United States, citing the imminent threat of Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank.
“The Palestine Liberation Organization [PLO] and the state of Palestine are absolved, as of today, of all the agreements and understandings with the American and Israeli governments and of all the commitments based on these understandings and agreements, including the security ones,” Abbas said in his speech.
Rami Makhlouf, former backer of Assad regime, also barred from doing business with state
One of Syria’s wealthiest businessmen has said that the government of his cousin Bashar al-Assad has ordered the seizure of his assets and barred him from doing business with the state for five years, escalating a dispute deeply mixed in family affairs.
Survivor reveals further evidence to Guardian and La Repubblica of Malta’s deadly strategy to intercept migrants crossings
Further evidence of Malta’s strategy to push migrants back to the conflict zone of Libya has been revealed by a woman who survived a Mediterranean crossing in which 12 people died.
Twenty one more people have died from Covid-19 in the Netherlands, the lowest number reported on a Tuesday since March, taking the total death toll in the country to 5,715.
According to the latest update from the Dutch national institute for public health and the environment (RIVM), a further 108 people tested positive for the virus, the lowest number of new daily infections recorded since 10 March. So far, 44,249 confirmed cases have been reported.
The number of people who have fallen ill due to the novel coronavirus in the Netherlands has been decreasing since the end of March. This is apparent from the decrease in the number of newly reported patients, hospital admissions, ICU admissions and deaths per day.
The number of people who visit their GP because of symptoms that are consistent with the coronavirus is still decreasing. This is evident from figures provided by the Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research (Nivel).
The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus across Africa has passed 86,000, the regional office of the World Health Organization has said.
Unlike in Europe, a widespread outbreak seems yet to happen in Africa, a continent of 1.3 billion people. There had been fears that its comparatively limited healthcare infrastructure would be overrun by patients with Covid-19.
Over 86,000 confirmed #COVID19 cases on the African continent - with more than 33,000 recoveries & 2,700 deaths. View country figures & more with the WHO African Region COVID-19 Dashboard: https://t.co/V0fkK8dYTgpic.twitter.com/t8kU48MI7R
Loss of al-Watiya airbase south of Tripoli deals major blow to renegade general Khalifa Haftar
Forces allied with Libya’s UN-supported government have wrested control of a key military base on the outskirts of the country’s capital from Khalifa Haftar, dealing a significant blow to the renegade general’s military and its morale.
Pro- and anti-Haftar media reported that his eastern-based forces had withdrawn from al-Watiya airbase 90 miles south of Tripoli. Footage posted on social media appeared to show Government of National Accord (GNA) forces driving down runways at the base unhindered.
Daily death tolls fall in UK, Spain and Italy; South Africa reports highest daily increase; global infections pass 4.7 million. Follow the latest updates
Despite strong efforts, Taiwan did not get invited to this week’s meeting of a key World Health Organization body due to Chinese pressure, its foreign minister has said, adding they had agreed to put the issue off until later this year.
Non-WHO member Taiwan had been lobbying to take part in the World Health Assembly, which opens later on Monday.
Despite all our efforts and an unprecedented level of international support, Taiwan has not received an invitation to take part.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs expresses deep regret and strong dissatisfaction that the World Health Organization Secretariat has yielded to pressure from the Chinese government and continues to disregard the right to health of the 23 million people of Taiwan.
Understandably, countries want to use the limited time available to concentrate on ways of containing the pandemic.
For this reason, like-minded nations and diplomatic allies have suggested that the proposal be taken up later this year when meetings will be conducted normally, to make sure there will be full and open discussion.
Hungary’s government will submit a proposal to parliament on 26 May to end its special coronavirus emergency powers, hirtv.hu quoted prime minister Viktor Orban’s chief of staff as saying late on Sunday.
Gergely Gulyas said parliament would take a few days to pass the bill, which will end the much-criticised emergency powers by early June.
The world’s fifth largest weapons buyer is eating up its reserves - and its political clout
Saudi Arabia may be forced to forego new weapons contracts and delay already-agreed weapons purchases as a financial crisis grips the kingdom, experts predict.
The expected delay of new weapons deals could have long-term political repercussions for the country under the rule of Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince and de facto ruler who has waged a bloody war with neighbouring Yemen.
Rival Benny Gantz to take over as PM of Israeli unity government after 18 months
Benjamin Netanyahu has been sworn in as Israel’s prime minister, heading a unity government in which he will rotate the leadership with his former rival, Benny Gantz, in a deal that could see the annexation of large parts of the West Bank.
The coalition agreement ends a deadlock that has dragged on for more than 500 days. In that time, the country has held three back-to-back elections with neither side clinching an outright victory.
Thomas Hegghammer delivers a meticulously researched account of a charismatic Islamist
Abdallah Azzam is not exactly a household name – at least when compared with the far more notorious Osama bin Laden. But the militant Palestinian cleric who inspired and mobilised Arabs to come to Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union in the 1980s is the most important jihadist figure before the birth of al-Qaida and the continuing consequences of the 9/11 attacks on the US.
Azzam is still revered by many who believe that the Islamic ummah (community/nation) matters more and has greater legitimacy than individual authoritarian Arab and Muslim states. Mosques, fighting units, training camps and websites have been named after him since he was assassinated in Pakistan in 1989. Fans maintain Twitter and Telegram accounts. Uncritical and heroic accounts of his achievements abound – in Arabic and English.
Tens of thousands of impoverished migrant workers are on the move across India, walking on highways and railway tracks or riding in trucks, buses and crowded trains in blazing heat, Associated Press reports.
Some are accompanied by pregnant wives and young children, braving threats from the coronavirus pandemic. They say they have been forced to leave cities and towns where they had toiled for years building homes and roads after they were abandoned by their employers casualties of a nationwide lockdown to stop the virus from spreading.
On Saturday, at least 23 laborers died in northern India when a truck they were traveling in smashed into a stationary truck on a highway. Last week, a train crashed into a group of tired workers who fell asleep on the tracks while walking back home in western Maharashtra state, killing 16.
The government and charities have tried to set up shelters for them, but their numbers are simply overwhelming, leaving them little choice but to head on a perilous journey home.
Fariba Adelkhah to appeal against sentence on national security charges
Iran has sentenced the French-Iranian academic Fariba Adelkhah to six years in prison on national security charges, her lawyer said.
“The court has sentenced her to six years. We have appealed and if accepted, the sentence will drop to five years,” Adelkhah’s lawyer, Saeid Dehghan, told Reuters on Saturday.
New York will join the nearby states of New Jersey, Connecticut and Delaware in partially reopening beaches for the Memorial Day weekend, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Friday.
Reuters reports that Cuomo’s announcement comes one day after New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said he was opening the beaches for the traditional May 23-25 start of summer.
More than 140 world leaders and experts have called for future Covid-19 vaccines to be made available to everyone free of charge, amid growing tensions between drug companies and governments and a boycott of vaccine summits by the US.
Vaccines and treatments for the virus should not be patented, say the signatories to an open letter published in the run-up to next week’s meeting of the World Health Assembly, the policy-setting body of the UN’s World Health Organization. Instead, scientific breakthroughs must be shared across borders, they urge.
Japan expected to ease state of emergency in many regions; Russia has second highest number of infections; Wuhan mass testing begins; follow the latest updates
Morning/evening/whatever-it-is-where-you-are everyone. This is Simon Burnton taking on the live blog for the next few hours. If you have seen any stories that deserve our attention, or if you have any tips, comments or suggestions for our coverage then please let me know by sending me a message either to @Simon_Burnton on Twitter or via email. Thanks!
Today I leave you with something a little different – a Ghanaian pallbearer and his band of merry, morbid men, who have become the unofficial mascots of the pandemic in countries around the world: