Peace prize winner and women’s rights activist is refusing to attend hearings in Tehran
A new trial against the jailed Iranian Nobel peace prize winner Narges Mohammadi opened on Saturday in her absence, said a lawyer for the women’s rights activist who has refused to attend hearings.
Mohammadi, 52, has been jailed since November 2021 over several past convictions relating to her advocacy against the obligatory hijab for women and capital punishment in Iran.
Continue reading...Woman and three men freed from Nuseirat, as EU diplomat condemns ‘reports from Gaza of another massacre of civilians’
Israeli special forces have freed four hostages held in Nuseirat, central Gaza, as Israeli attacks and airstrikes in the same area killed at least 93 Palestinians, including children, local medics said.
The rescue raid was the largest of the war, bringing three men and a woman who were kidnapped at the Nova music festival back to Israel.
Continue reading...Indian high commission made claim bronze depicting Tirumankai Alvar which it believes may have been looted
Oxford University has announced it is to hand back a 500-year-old sculpture of a Hindu saint to India.
The almost 60cm-tall bronze statue, which depicts Tirumankai Alvar, had been on display at the university’s Ashmolean Museum.
Continue reading...Péter Magyar’s Tisza party trails the populist leader in the polls, but is offering liberal voters renewed hope
Thousands of people rallied in Budapest on Saturday as a political newcomer led a push to mobilise voters against Hungary’s populist prime minister, Viktor Orbán, ahead of European elections on Sunday.
“We defeated apathy,” declared Péter Magyar, a former government insider who switched sides and launched an opposition movement, as he stood in front of a vast crowd which filled the capital’s Heroes’ Square.
Continue reading...Attack on Mette Frederiksen unlikely to be ‘politically motivated’, authorities say, as 39-year-old man remanded
An attack on the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, which left her “shaken” and with a whiplash injury, was probably not “politically motivated”, Danish authorities have said.
A 39-year-old Polish man, who was apprehended after allegedly hitting the prime minister on Friday evening, was remanded in custody until 20 June after appearing before a Copenhagen court, the prosecutor Taruh Sekeroglu told reporters.
Continue reading...Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, was hit by a man on Friday evening
Robert Fico, Slovakia’s prime minister who was shot and seriously injured in May, cast his vote at a hospital in Bratislava.
Fico, a populist politician who is closely allied with Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and has promoted a foreign policy more friendly toward Russia, wrote on social media:
I voted in the hospital because these elections are also important. It is necessary to vote for MEPs who will support peace initiatives and not the continuation of war.
Consent of western countries given to Ukraine to use western weapons to attack targets on Russian territory is just a proof that big western democracies do not want peace, but an escalation of tensions with the Russian Federation, which will surely happen.
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Here are some images of the hostages and their family and friends embracing after their release:
Noa Argamani
Continue reading...Video is believed to be one of last two sightings before British TV doctor left village of Pedi on Greek island
The wife of the British TV doctor Michael Mosley, who has gone missing on the Greek island of Symi, has said her family “will not lose hope” as the search for her husband continues.
Mosley, known for his appearances on The One Show and This Morning, disappeared during a walk in the north-east of the island on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Foreign secretary had brief video call with person claiming to be Petro Poroshenko, says Foreign Office
The UK foreign secretary, David Cameron, has been the victim of a hoax video call with someone claiming to be Petro Poroshenko, the former president of Ukraine, it has been revealed.
A number of text messages were exchanged followed by a brief video call between Lord Cameron and someone purporting to be Poroshenko, the Foreign Office said in a statement.
Continue reading...Business secretary is due to meet Czech tycoon to discuss a takeover the Guardian has raised questions about
The business secretary, Kemi Badenoch, is being pressed to question the Royal Mail bidder Daniel Křetínský on his business links, after the Guardian raised questions about a series of controversial global property deals connected to the Czech billionaire’s longtime business partners.
Badenoch is scheduled to meet the tycoon next week to discuss his £3.57bn bid for the 500-year-old institution, which will be subjected to a review under the National Security and Investment Act.
Continue reading...Figurine sits in front garden of family that previously claimed to have seen tears of blood from another statue
In the front garden of the Gregori family home on the outskirts of Civitavecchia, a port city close to Rome, is a well-curated grotto containing a tiny, rusting statue of the Virgin Mary surrounded by plants and flowers. The figurine was bought from a souvenir shop at the Catholic pilgrimage site in Medjugorje, Bosnia.
In late April, as a group of pilgrims huddled around the grotto to pray, the statue purportedly exuded a scented oil. It was not the first time it was said to have sweated oil, but the moment, filmed by some of those present and shared on social media, reignited fascination in Italy over claims of the supernatural, pitting believers against naysayers. The story was all the more intriguing because the Gregoris were the protagonists of another mysterious weeping statue case in the mid-1990s.
Continue reading...Video shows Arizona Senate candidate repeating election-fraud claims at event with Confederate flag behind her
The Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake addressed supporters with a Confederate flag displayed behind her during a campaign event at a Trump merchandise store in Arizona last week, where she repeated false claims about election fraud.
In footage obtained by the Guardian, Lake is seen speaking into a microphone, surrounded by a group of supporters, at the Trumped Store in Show Low, Arizona. Behind her, a Confederate battle flag and a yellow “Don’t Tread On Me” flag are affixed to the wall. Both flags are available for purchase on the website of Trumped Store, which sells an array of merchandise with the former president’s name and likeness.
Continue reading...Patrol boat off Venezuelan coast shoots and sinks vessel suspected of carrying drugs as three people go overboard
A high-seas shootout pitting drug runners against the law ended with the smugglers’ boat at the bottom of the Caribbean Sea and the US Coast Guard seizing $63m worth of cocaine, authorities in Florida said on Friday.
The dramatic encounter took place on Tuesday about 25 miles (40km) north of Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, when the coast guard cutter Resolute – patrolling with the Dutch navy ship Groningen – identified a vessel in international waters suspected of carrying narcotics, according to a press release from the USCG south-east region.
Continue reading...Three US nationals on trial in Democratic Republic of Congo over events in May described as an attempted coup
More than 50 people, including three US citizens and a Belgian, have gone on trial in the Democratic Republic of Congo over what the army has described as an attempted coup.
The actions of the three Americans were “punishable by death”, Judge Freddy Ehume told the military court in the DRC capital, Kinshasa.
Continue reading...Warning comes amid visits by Israeli officials to region bordering Lebanon and speculation about an operation
The Biden administration has warned Israel that widening its conflict against the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah would risk drawing in Iran, even as Israeli officials said last week they had completed preparations for an operation if it were required.
According to an Axios report quoting two unnamed senior US officials, the administration has told Israel it does not believe “a limited war” in Lebanon or a “small regional war” is a realistic option because it would be difficult to end and be likely to spin out of control.
Continue reading...Territory’s civil defence chief says more than 40 killed with toll increasing due to lack of medical care
Survivors of an Israeli airstrike on a UN school in central Gaza have described finding children’s bodies that had been torn apart by the blast, as Israeli attacks on the area continued for a second night.
Gaza’s head of civil defence said his teams at al-Sardi school in Nuseirat found only civilians among the dead. Mahmoud Basal said the death toll from the attack was more than 40 and still climbing, because injured survivors could not get proper medical care.
Continue reading...Diane Rwigara’s name missing from list of candidates to challenge Paul Kagame in 15 July vote
A prominent opponent of the Rwandan president, Paul Kagame, has been barred from standing in next month’s election to challenge his three-decade rule.
Diane Rwigara, the leader of the People Salvation Movement, who was also barred in 2017, launched her election bid in May and submitted her candidacy last week. Her name was missing from the provisional list of candidates announced by the electoral commission on Thursday.
Continue reading...Amelia Sanjurjo, a member of Uruguay’s Communist party who disappeared in 1977, was identified and laid to rest
A Uruguayan woman who was abducted by security forces during the country’s military dictatorship has received a proper burial, nearly 50 years after she was forcibly disappeared.
Bone fragments of Amelia Sanjurjo were exhumed exactly a year ago from a military base in a small southern town in Uruguay. She was finally identified last week after investigators took DNA samples from her maternal aunt and nephews in Uruguay, Spain and Italy in hopes of finding a match.
Continue reading...‘Women at risk’ amid increasing number of femicides but assistance including emergency helpline will be cut
Javier Milei, Argentina’s far-right president, is poised to dissolve the government department responsible for tackling gender violence, prompting a furious backlash from human rights activists.
Claudia Barcia, the head of the undersecretariat for protection against gender violence, resigned on Thursday with a warning that the agency will soon be shuttered. “The Undersecretary of Protection against Gender Violence … will cease to exist,” Barcia wrote on Twitter, later confirming to the Guardian that she had received the news the previous day.
Continue reading...UN secretary general makes plea for nuclear states to agree on mutual pledge not to be first to use nuclear weapons
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has warned that the spread of artificial intelligence technology multiplies the threat of nuclear war, and that humanity is now “on a knife’s edge” as dangers to its existence coalesce.
Guterres’s warning is due to be shown on a recorded video to be played on Friday morning at the annual meeting of the US Arms Control Association (ACA) in Washington.
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