El Salvador press cries censorship as anti-gang law targets media

El Salvador’s congress has authorised sentences of 10-15 years for media spreading gangs’ messages

El Salvador’s congress has authorised prison sentences of 10 to 15 years for news media that reproduce or disseminate messages from gangs, prompting accusations of censorship from press freedom groups.

The vote late on Tuesday was the latest in a flurry of legislative action against the gangs after 62 suspected gang killings on 26 March led President Nayib Bukele to seek and win a state of emergency. Harsh measures against imprisoned gang members and increased prison sentences followed, as well as the arrests of some 6,000 people accused of being gang members.

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Rishi Sunak’s wife claims non-domicile status

Tax status allows Akshata Murthy to avoid tax on foreign earnings

Rishi Sunak’s multi-millionaire wife claims non-domicile status, it has emerged, which allows her to save millions of pounds in tax on dividends collected from her family’s IT business empire.

Akshata Murthy, who receives about £11.5m in annual dividends from her stake in the Indian IT services company Infosys, declares non-dom status, a scheme that allows people to avoid tax on foreign earnings.

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Peru president at bay as fuel and fertiliser prices detonate political crisis

Pedro Castillo lifted a curfew in Lima but is still facing calls to resign after a rash of bad decisions and allegations of corruption

Peru’s beleaguered president, Pedro Castillo, is at the centre of a spiralling political crisis caused by rising fuel and fertiliser prices triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – and his own heavy-handed efforts to quell the unrest.

On Tuesday Castillo lifted a curfew in Lima that he had decreed less than a day earlier in an attempt to quell sometimes violent protests over rising fuel and food prices. But the move came too late to defuse public anger.

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Ancient cemetery of flying reptiles unearthed in Chile’s Atacama desert

Scientists say remains belong to pterosaurs, who lived alongside dinosaurs more than 100m years ago

Scientists in Chile have unearthed a rare cemetery with well-preserved bones of ancient flying reptiles that roamed the Atacama desert more than 100m years ago.

The remains belong to pterosaurs, scientists determined, flying creatures that lived alongside dinosaurs and had a long wingspan and fed by filtering water through long, thin teeth, similar to flamingos.

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Russia-Ukraine war: Russia will regard weak sanctions as ‘permission to attack’, says Zelenskiy – live

Ukraine president says latest economic measures are not enough; authorities in eastern Ukraine urge civilians to leave

Zelenskiy questioned the ability of the UN Security Council to provide security, undermining the very functions for which it was created during his Tuesday night national address.

The UN Security Council exists, and security in the world doesn’t. For anyone.

This definitely means that the United Nations is currently unable to carry out the functions for which it was created. And only one state is to blame for this - Russia, which discredits the UN and all other international institutions where it still participates.

Even if we sign the most powerful agreement, we understand that in two years Russia may return. And if you and I accept this, then we act accordingly,” he said.

All this is being discussed at the level of advisers and leaders with France, the United States, Turkey, the United Kingdom, Poland, Italy, Israel, and there are many friends who want to join. So far, we have not received a specific list of guarantees and a list of countries that are ready to join us 100%.

We do not need to have 40 countries of the world that are ready to join and fight for Ukraine under the agreement. We need serious players who are ready for anything. We need a circle of states that are ready to provide any weapons within 24 hours. We need individual countries on which sanctions policy really depends, so that these sanctions are deeply elaborated in advance. So that in the first second when we feel the threat from the Russian Federation, these states will unite and within three days introduce everything at once, block everything.”

If we are offered to join Nato tomorrow, if they don’t play with our lives again, but seriously offer, we will join. But this will not happen, unfortunately, and did not happen.

That is why we will build those security guarantees that can protect us, protect people’s lives.”

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Liz Truss announces full asset freeze against Russia’s biggest bank

Eight more oligarchs will also face sanctions and UK oil and coal imports will stop by end of year, says foreign secretary

The UK will impose a full asset freeze on Russia’s largest bank and end all imports of oil and coal by the end of the year, the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has said.

Eight more oligarchs will also be sanctioned, including Moshe Kantor, the largest shareholder of the fertiliser company Acron and Andrey Guryev, the founder of another key fertiliser company, whom the UK described as a close associate of Vladimir Putin.

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Putin’s daughters targeted in US sanctions against Russia

Joe Biden links new measures directly to accounts of atrocities committed by Russian forces in Bucha

The US has announced a new round of sanctions targeting Russia’s top public and private banks and two daughters of Vladimir Putin, following mounting global accusations of Russian war crimes in Ukraine.

The sanctions targeted Maria Vorontsova and Katerina Tikhonova, two adult daughters of Putin’s with his former wife Lyudmila Shkrebneva.

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Hong Kong security official to stand as chief executive

John Lee’s bid for top political post is sign of power security officials are gaining

Hong Kong chief secretary John Lee, a security official during the global financial hub’s prolonged and often violent 2019 pro-democracy protests, has resigned in a bid to run in an election in May to become the city’s new leader.

Lee, 64, a former deputy commissioner of police, was promoted to the role in 2021 in a move that some political analysts said showed Beijing’s priorities for Hong Kong were security rather than the economy.

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Biden vows to ‘ratchet up the pain’ on Putin with new Russia sanctions – as it happened

The US and its allies are preparing to impose new sanctions on Moscow over civilian killings in Ukraine as the west makes a fresh attempt to cripple Vladimir Putin’s economy and war effort.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy described the atrocities in his country as “war crimes” while Ukraine authorities said close to more than 4,400 incidents were being investigated.

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Burkina Faso’s ex-president guilty of complicity in murder of predecessor

Blaise Compaoré sentenced to life imprisonment at military tribunal over role in 1987 killing of Thomas Sankara

Burkina Faso’s former president Blaise Compaoré has been sentenced to life imprisonment after being found guilty of complicity in the 1987 murder of his predecessor Thomas Sankara, concluding a landmark trial and a decades-long quest for justice.

Sankara, a Marxist icon of pan-Africanism hailed across Africa and beyond, was gunned down along with 12 colleagues in the west African nation’s capital, Ouagadougou, at the age of 37, four years after he took power in a coup.

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Briton who died with son in Australia landslide named as Mehraab Nazir

Lawyer’s wife still in critical condition while second son stable after rockslide in Blue Mountains near Sydney

Tributes have been paid to a British lawyer and his nine-year-old son killed in a landslide while on holiday in Australia.

Mehraab Nazir, 49, had been hiking with his family in the Wentworth Pass area of the Blue Mountains, a national park west of Sydney, on Monday when they were caught in the rockslide. His and his son’s bodies were recovered the next morning.

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Russian teacher ‘shocked’ as she faces jail over anti-war speech pupils taped

Fears of ‘Stalinisation’ of society after Irina Gen was called in by spy agency and prosecuted over recorded message

When Irina Gen, a 55-year-old English and German language teacher in the Russian city of Penza, embarked on an anti-war speech in her classroom, little did she know she was being recorded by her own students.

“I just wanted to broaden my students’ worldview. I hoped to break through the propaganda that is being fed to this country. But look where it got me,” said Gen, who faces a long-term prison sentence for “discrediting” the Russian army after her message went viral.

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Putin adviser promises legal action against attempts to seize Russian assets

Ex-president Dmitry Medvedev says businesses subject to sanctions will take action in international courts

Moscow will fight attempts to seize Russian property abroad in courts around the world, the former president Dmitry Medvedev has said.

Medvedev, who advises Vladimir Putin on national security matters, said in a post on Telegram on Wednesday that Russian businesses whose assets were subject to sanctions would take legal action in the US, EU and elsewhere.

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Ex-P&O Ferries chef sues for unfair dismissal and racial discrimination

John Lansdown seeking up to £76m, which he will use to set up trust to help fellow seafarers

A former P&O Ferries chef is suing the company for £76m over its decision to sack almost 800 staff without notice last month.

John Lansdown, the only seafarer to launch a legal action, has filed a tribunal claim against the company and its chief executive for unfair dismissal, racial discrimination and harassment.

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From grief to paw prints, people share Ireland census ‘time capsule’ messages

People could write a message in a blank space on the census, to be read by future generations in 100 years

Some were funny, some were angry, some were utterly heartbreaking and all were written in the same blank space of Ireland’s census form, a “time capsule” section.

In what Ireland’s Central Statistics Office says is a world first, the official census left a blank space for people to leave messages for future generations. The voluntary section of the 27-page form is to be made public in 100 years but many people have shared their messages on social media.

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Médecins Sans Frontières suspends operations in parts of Cameroon over detained staff

Health charity in an ‘untenable position’ in anglophone parts of the country as it is accused of taking sides in internal strife

Medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has suspended its work in Cameroon’s south-west region and demanded the release of four staff members who have been detained for months, accused of helping secessionists.

Two MSF staff were detained at a checkpoint in December when they were transferring a patient with gunshot wounds. Another two were held by Cameroonian gendarmerie in January.

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Israel’s Naftali Bennett loses majority after MP quits coalition

Idit Silman’s departure amid row over Passover bread leaves PM with same number of seats as opposition

A key member of Naftali Bennett’s Yamina party has quit the Israeli coalition government after a row about unleavened bread during Passover, in a surprise move that leaves the prime minister without a parliamentary majority.

Idit Silman’s announcement left Bennett’s coalition, an alliance of parties ranging from the Jewish right and Israeli doves to an Arab Muslim party, with 60 seats – the same as the opposition.

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Maradona’s shirt from ‘hand of God’ England match expected to sell for £4m

Former England midfielder Steve Hodge has owned Maradona’s no 10 shirt since the 1986 match

Diego Maradona’s infamous “hand of God” goal made footballing history and cemented the legendary status of the Argentinian superstar. Now the shirt he wore when he scored that goal at the 1986 World Cup is estimated to sell for at least £4m.

Maradona’s no 10 shirt has been owned for the past 35 years by the former England midfielder Steve Hodge. The two players swapped shirts at the end of the quarter-final between Argentina and England.

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Bobby Rydell, US pop idol of the early 1960s, dies aged 79

Singer, drummer and actor had five US Top 10 hits, and inspired the Beatles to write She Loves You

Bobby Rydell, who enjoyed numerous US hits during the teen pop craze of the early 1960s, has died aged 79. He suffered complications from pneumonia, and died in hospital in his native Philadelphia.

With songs of decorous romance sung in his clean, hearty voice, Rydell reached the US Top 10 five times – with We Got Love, Swingin’ School, his version of the standard Volare, Wild One (also a UK Top 10 hit) and Forget Him. The latter is believed to be the inspiration for the Beatles’ She Loves You after Paul McCartney said the song was inspired by an unnamed Rydell number.

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US rightwing figures in step with Kremlin over Ukraine disinformation, experts say

False narratives pushed by Tucker Carlson and key Republicans in Congress have been embraced and recycled by Moscow

False and conspiratorial narratives pushed by some American conservative politicians and media figures about Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine have bolstered and created synergies with the Kremlin’s legendary disinformation machine, experts on information manipulation say.

But even though Russia has embraced and promoted American disinformation, as well as the Kremlin’s own much larger stock of Ukraine war falsehoods, both brands have been widely debunked by experts and most media outlets, underscoring Moscow’s setbacks in the information war.

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