Move follows Algiers’ expulsion of diplomats, after France’s arrest of man linked to abduction of influencer Amir DZ
France has expelled 12 Algerian consular and diplomatic officials and recalled its ambassador in Algiers, the French presidency said on Tuesday, in a retaliatory measure as a spat escalates between the two countries.
“The Algerian authorities are responsible for the sudden degradation of our bilateral relations,” President Emmanuel Macron’s office said.
Continue reading...Steve Witkoff’s switch from saying low-level production could continue seen as example of chaotic US foreign policy
Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, has announced Iran must totally eliminate its nuclear programme, seeming to reverse the policy he had articulated on Fox News only 12 hours earlier that would have allowed Iran to enrich uranium at a low level for civilian use.
The switch to a more hardline policy is likely to make it much harder for the US to reach a negotiated agreement with Tehran, bringing back the threat of an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites.
Continue reading...Issue is seen as a key stumbling block in talks with US as Washington seeks to scale back Iran’s nuclear programme
Iran is expected to resist a US proposal to transfer its stockpile of highly enriched uranium to a third country – such as Russia – as part of Washington’s effort to scale back Tehran’s civil nuclear programme and prevent it from being used to develop a nuclear weapon.
The issue, seen as one of the key stumbling blocks to a future agreement, was raised in the initial, largely indirect, talks held in Muscat, Oman, between Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, and Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff.
Continue reading...NGOs and UN say country is ‘worse off than ever before’ with wide-scale displacement, hunger and attacks on refugee camps
Sudan is suffering from the largest humanitarian crisis globally and its civilians are continuing to pay the price for inaction by the international community, NGOs and the UN have said, as the country’s civil war enters its third year.
The UK is hosting ministers from 20 countries in London on Tuesday in an attempt to restart stalled peace talks. However, diplomatic efforts have often been sidelined by other crises, including the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
Continue reading...As crucial London peace talks set to begin, report seen by the Guardian raises questions over ‘multiple’ flights into bases in Chad
Pressure is mounting on the United Arab Emirates over its presence at a crucial conference in London aimed at stopping the war in Sudan after a leaked confidential UN report raised fresh questions over the UAE’s role in the devastating conflict.
The UAE has been accused of secretly supplying weapons to Sudanese paramilitaries via neighbouring Chad, a charge it has steadfastly denied.
Continue reading...Families of those displaced wait for news from Darfur amid reports of hundreds killed by paramilitary RSF
Sudan’s information blackout has left relatives of those in Sudan’s Zamzam refugee camp struggling for news of their safety after it was overrun by militiamen at the weekend.
As leaders across the globe prepared to meet for peace talks in London to pressure the backers of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese army to agree a ceasefire, the RSF launched a deadly assault, seizing Zamzam after weeks of tightening its siege.
Continue reading...Move by Algiers follows arrest of Algerian consular official in Paris over alleged involvement in kidnap of influencer
France is considering its response after Algeria ordered the expulsion of 12 embassy staff over the arrest of an Algerian consulate official in Paris over alleged involvement in the kidnap of a TikTok influencer.
Algiers has given the French representatives 48 hours to leave the country in a move that has stretched already strained relations between the two countries to breaking point. The French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, has warned that if the expulsions go ahead Paris would be forced to respond immediately.
Continue reading...Relief International medics among dead as paramilitaries step up violence against region’s displaced people
Paramilitaries in Sudan have murdered more than 200 civilians in a wave of attacks in displacement camps and around the city of El Fasher, the last big city still in the hands of the Sudanese army in the Darfur region.
The deaths include at least 56 civilians killed by the Rapid Support Forces over two days of attacks in Um Kadadah, a town they seized on the road to El Fasher.
Continue reading...Emily Thornberry calls for UK to join France, as Emmanuel Macron says June UN conference must be decisive moment
The Foreign Office is under pressure from Labour MPs to recognise a Palestinian state if Emmanuel Macron, the French president, presses ahead with plans to recognise Palestine at an international conference set for June.
France is co-chairing the conference at the UN in New York alongside Saudi Arabia, and Macron has said the conference must be a decisive moment.
Continue reading...Turkey’s president lashes out shortly after talks with Netanyahu’s government aimed at defusing tensions
The Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has lambasted Israel for undermining stability in neighbouring Syria during a diplomatic forum, days after the two countries held talks aimed at defusing an escalating conflict between them on Syrian soil.
“Turkey will not allow Syria to be dragged into a new vortex of instability,” Erdoğan told attendees at the Antalya diplomacy forum on the southern Turkish coast, accusing Israel of “trying to undermine the 8 December revolution”, in reference to the insurgency that toppled the former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad after decades in power.
Continue reading...Iranian foreign minister hails ‘calm and respectful environment’ to mediated talks in Oman
Iran and the US completed a successful opening round of indirect talks in Oman designed to prevent the weaponisation of Iran’s nuclear programme. In a sign the talks over a joint agenda had gone well, they agreed to meet again on 19 April.
A breakdown would have come if Donald Trump had demanded the complete dismantling of Iran’s civil nuclear programme, something that Iran is not prepared to contemplate. Iran insists it is pursuing only a civil nuclear programme, but Donald Trump took the US out of the previous nuclear deal claiming Tehran’s regime was seeking a nuclear weapon.
Continue reading...Golani troops were under command of reservist Armoured 14th Brigade, part of division led by Brig Gen Yehuda Vach
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) unit involved in the killings of 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers in the Gaza Strip last month was under the command of a brigade led by a notorious Israeli general previously accused by some of his own troops of having “contempt for human life”.
The IDF has confirmed that troops from Golani, one of the army’s five infantry brigades, opened fire on two convoys of ambulances in Rafah on 23 March and dug a mass grave to cover the bodies of those killed until the corpses could be retrieved by a UN team six days later. It has disputed allegations from two witnesses who exhumed the bodies and newly released postmortem results that found several of those killed had close-range gunshot wounds to the head and chest and were discovered with their hands or legs tied.
Continue reading...Supreme court upholds earlier order that Kilmar Abrego Garcia should be released after being improperly sent to prison
The Mississippi library commission, which offers services such as specialized research assistance to libraries in the state, has ordered the deletion of two research collections: the race relations database and the gender studies database. The collections were stored in what’s called the Magnolia database, which is used by publicly funded schools, libraries, universities and state agencies in Mississippi.
The commission’s executive director, Hulen Bivins, confirmed the deletion to the Guardian, and said:
We may lose a lot of materials.
All of the states, we are in dire shape. We have had a reconsideration of everything with regard to what Doge [is doing].”
Commanders are expected to adhere to the highest standards of conduct, especially as it relates to remaining nonpartisan in the performance of their duties.”
Our message to Denmark is very simple: you have not done a good job by the people of Greenland. You have under-invested in the people of Greenland and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this incredible, beautiful land mass.”
I do not presume to understand current politics, but what I do know is the concerns of the US administration discussed by vice-president Vance on Friday are not reflective of Pituffik space base.”
Actions to undermine the chain of command or to subvert President Trump’s agenda will not be tolerated at the Department of Defense.”
Continue reading...Twice-daily hiking trips for civilians in Golan buffer zone recently seized by Israel sold out almost immediately
Israel’s military is organising hiking tours for civilians in newly occupied Syrian territory during the Passover holiday, local media has reported.
The twice-daily tours in the contested Golan Heights will run for a week beginning this Sunday. Tickets sold out almost immediately.
Continue reading...This blog is now closed, you can read more of our Middle East coverage here
Turkish and Israeli officials began talks on Wednesday aimed at preventing unwanted incidents in Syria, where militaries of the two regional powers are active, Turkish ministry sources said on Thursday.
According to Reuters, the sources said the technical talks, in Azerbaijan, marked the beginning of efforts to set up a channel to avoid potential clashes or misunderstandings over military operations in the region.
Continue reading...The Palestinian Islamist organisation, which launched deadly 7 October attacks on Israel, says it is a ‘resistance movement’ and no threat to Britain
The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas has submitted a legal filing saying it should be removed from the UK government’s list of proscribed terrorist groups.
Hamas, which carried out the 7 October 2023 attacks on southern Israel, in which more than 1,200 people, mainly civilians, were killed and a further 250 taken hostage, is arguing that it is not a terrorist group but “a Palestinian Islamic liberation and resistance movement whose goal is to liberate Palestine and confront the Zionist project”.
Continue reading...This blog is now closed, you can read more of our Middle East coverage here
The Gaza health ministry said on Wednesday that at least 1,482 Palestinians have been killed since Israel resumed intense strikes on the Gaza Strip on 18 March, taking the overall death toll since the start of the war to 50,846.
Hamas’s October 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) tally based on Israeli official figures.
Continue reading...Foreign ministers will gather in London and seek to exert diplomatic pressure demanding a ceasefire
The British government is bringing together foreign ministers from nearly 20 countries and organisations in an attempt to establish a group that can drive the warring factions in Sudan closer towards peace.
The conference at Lancaster House in London on 15 April comes on the second anniversary of the start of a civil war that has led to the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis, but has been persistently left at the bottom of the global list of diplomatic priorities. Half of Sudan’s population are judged to be desperately short of food, with 11 million people internally displaced.
Continue reading...Search for survivors continues at residential building, amid reports Israeli military preparing to seize entire city in south
At least 23 people have been killed in an Israeli airstrike that hit a residential building in northern Gaza, as reports emerged that the Israeli military is preparing to seize the entire city of Rafah as part of a newly announced security corridor.
Medics at al-Ahli hospital said that the bombing on Wednesday of a four-storey building in the Gaza City suburb of Shijaiyah had killed at least eight women and children, as rescue workers continued to search for survivors into the evening. The Israeli military said the strike targeted a senior Hamas militant.
Continue reading...US president had trailed ‘direct talks’ and said Iran would be in ‘great danger’ if they failed
Iran, wrongfooted by Donald Trump’s revelation that “direct talks” between the US and Iran on its nuclear programme are set to start in Oman on Saturday, insisted the talks would actually be in an indirect format, but added that the intentions of the negotiators were more important than the format.
Trump on Monday threw Tehran off guard by revealing the plan for the weekend talks and saying that if the talks failed Iran would be in “great danger”. There has been an unprecedented US military buildup across the Middle East in recent weeks, and Trump’s decision to make the talks public looks designed to press Iran to negotiate with urgency.
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