UK Maritime Trade Operations says military authorities exploring apparent explosion near vessel
The UK is investigating reports that a cargo ship has come under attack off the coast of Yemen, after an apparent explosion close to the vessel on Sunday.
Following the reports of damage to the vessel, the UK Maritime Trade Operations said: “Military authorities are investigating. UKMTO has received a report of an incident 35 NM [nautical miles] south of Al Mukha, Yemen.
Continue reading...Outrage over jailed opposition leader’s death grows with detention of over 350 people in Russia who attended vigils
Alexei Navalny’s allies have accused the Kremlin of “covering their tracks” as, two days after the imprisoned opposition leader’s death in custody, uncertainty continued to surround the whereabouts of his body and what it may reveal about how he died.
Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, and his lawyer travelled over the weekend to the notorious “Polar Wolf” IK-3 penal colony in Russia’s Arctic north, where Navalny had been held since last year, to track down his body, but received contradicting information from various institutions over its location and left without recovering or seeing her son.
Continue reading...Israeli swimmer Anastasia Gorbenko was jeered by some of the crowd after finishing second in the women’s 400m medley on the closing day of the World Aquatics Championships in Qatar on Sunday.
The 20-year-old Gorbenko was being interviewed after the race when the jeers rang out at the Aspire Dome in Doha. She smiled and then sighed when she was booed again, this time as she mounted the podium at the medal ceremony. Others in the crowd clapped and cheered, partially drowning out the jeers.
Continue reading...With Ukraine retreating and western sanctions having little impact, the Russian president is growing bolder and may embark on more reckless moves
Vladimir Putin smiled and looked unusually festive on Friday as he praised factory workers and joked with state reporters at an industrial plant in the Ural city of Chelyabinsk.
Putin’s confidence was unmistakable – a sign of his full belief that he would get away with the death that day of his biggest critic in jail while outlasting Ukraine on the battlefield.
Continue reading...Six were known to Rome’s criminal underworld for tenacity in carrying out burglaries at post offices
A gang of six alleged robbers in their 60s and 70s known in Rome’s criminal underworld for their tenacity in carrying out a series of armed burglaries at post offices in the city have been arrested by police in Italy.
The gang’s leaders were 70-year-old Italo De Witt, nicknamed “the German”, who became renowned in the mid-1990s after a sophisticated heist of a bank near the Spanish Steps, and a 75-year-old who played the role of lookout.
Continue reading...Palestinian Authority ‘ready to engage’, says prime minister ahead of talks on formation of new Gaza government
Western powers have rejected suggestions that Hamas as an entity can be allowed a role in governing Gaza at the end of the war, saying only that they recognise that Palestinian militancy will still exist.
Speculation that a weakened Hamas might be willing to form a partnership with the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority, and govern Gaza and the West Bank jointly, have been revived by a Russian invitation for Palestinian factions to meet in Moscow on 26 February.
Guardian Newsroom: the unfolding crisis in the Middle East On Wednesday 20 March, 7-8.15pm GMT, join Devika Bhat, Peter Beaumont and Ghaith Abdul-Ahad as they discuss the developing crisis in the Middle East. Book tickets at theguardian.live
Continue reading...Controversy in West Bengal centres around Akbar and Sita, named for a Hindu deity, being placed in the same enclosure
An Indian Hindu nationalist organisation has launched a court petition to stop two lions named after a Hindu deity and a 16th-century Muslim emperor from sharing a zoo enclosure.
Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), a prominent rightwing Hindu organisation, went to court in the state of West Bengal after reports a lioness named Sita had been put with a lion called Akbar.
Continue reading...Mati Diop, the director of Dahomey, which charts the restitution of 26 objects to Benin, says the tiny number involved is ‘humiliating’
The first major return of looted treasures from Europe to Africa in the 21st century has left a lingering feeling of humiliation because of the lack of follow-up action, a French-Senegalese film-maker who accompanied a hoard of artefacts on their journey from Paris to their country of origin has said.
In her film Dahomey, which premiered at the Berlin film festival on Sunday, the director, Mati Diop, documents the 2021 journey of 26 treasures that the commander of French forces in Senegal looted from the royal palace of the kingdom of Dahomey, part of modern-day Benin, in 1890.
Continue reading...Chilean social media users target institution, forcing it at one point to close comments on posts
The British Museum is tackling an influx of social media trolls from Chile, who have flooded the museum’s Instagram posts calling for the return of a moai statue, one of the stone monuments from Easter Island.
The museum has two moai, which were taken from Rapa Nui (Easter Island) by British surveyors in 1868, and there have been longstanding demands for the British to return them to Rapa Nui, which is Chilean territory.
Continue reading...Hospital in Khan Younis no longer functional due to Israeli forces’ ‘week-long siege’; US ambassador to UN says text could jeopardise negotiations
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said his government would vote on a “declaratory decision” regarding Israel’s opposition to any unilateral imposition of Palestinian statehood, Reuters reports.
Netanyahu said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting that the move comes after “recent talk in the international community about an attempt to unilaterally impose on Israel a Palestinian state”.
Continue reading...Russian troops have full control and have advanced 8.6km beyond that region of frontline, Russian news agencies say
Responding to US Republican senator JD Vance on a panel at the Munich Security Conference on Sunday, German politician Ricarda Lang pushed back at the idea of a deal with Russia.
Putin has shown over and over again – and he just showed this with the murder of Navalny on Friday – that he has no interest in peace at the moment. That he does not want peace.
So if you say we stop supporting Ukraine, stop giving weapons to them, you are not having some scenario where this leads to peace, but at the moment this leads to two scenarios: either you are prolonging this war, or you give up Ukraine and Putin wins.
Continue reading...Formerly exiled billionaire freed six months into eight-year sentence due to age and health
Former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra has been freed on parole and returned home, six months after he was arrested on his dramatic return to the kingdom from 15 years of self-imposed exile.
The controversial billionaire, twice elected premier and ousted in a 2006 military coup, was jailed for eight years on graft and abuse-of-power charges after he arrived in Thailand in August.
Continue reading...Move comes as ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas make little progress, according to key Qatar negotiator
Egypt is preparing safe areas for Gaza refugees, Cairo has said, as the key Qatar negotiator in the ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas admitted they have made no progress in recent days.
Egypt’s foreign minister, Sameh Shoukry, said at a security conference in Munich on Saturday that while his country would deal with civilians humanely, the displacement of Palestinians remained unacceptable.
Continue reading...The environmentally friendly LignoSat probe – set to orbit this summer – has been created to combat harmful aluminium particles
Japanese scientists have created one of the world’s most unusual spacecraft – a tiny satellite that is made of timber.
The LignoSat probe has been built of magnolia wood, which, in experiments carried out on the International Space Station (ISS), was found to be particularly stable and resistant to cracking. Now plans are being finalised for it to be launched on a US rocket this summer.
Continue reading...In Russia, the battle to eradicate the opposition leader and his legacy will continue long after his death
In Russia, it is not enough to kill an opposition leader. His ageing mother must travel to the Arctic Circle to search a prison colony and a morgue for his body. Russians with the temerity to lay carnations in his memory must be detained.
Even a preliminary cause of death, “sudden death syndrome”, was misleading, as though his death behind bars was not years in the making.
Continue reading...Retreat from Avdiivka deals military blow and hands initiative to Putin as war’s second anniversary looms
Volodymyr Zelenskiy issued a desperate plea for fresh arms on Saturday as his army commanders announced that Ukrainian troops were pulling out of the key eastern city of Avdiivka, handing Moscow its first major military victory since last May, just days before the second anniversary of the Russian invasion.
Ukraine’s leader told the Munich Security Conference that the slowing of weapons supplies was having a direct impact on the frontline and was forcing Ukraine to cede territory.
Continue reading...Amid biting austerity and rising inflation, the al-Sisi government is off-loading assets – some to a convicted murderer with Emirati cash
As dusk fell over the verdant grounds of the Marriott Mena House hotel, the reflection of the Great Pyramid of Giza grew darker in a pool built to reflect the last of the seven wonders of the world.
A band played a smooth jazz rendition of the Eagles’ Hotel California on the grassy lawns as guests assembled for dinner, while the staff attempted to project a sense of business as usual, despite the hotel’s recent acquisition by an infamous Egyptian real estate tycoon, Hisham Talaat Moustafa, and two powerful Emirati conglomerates.
Continue reading...Confession by Punjab commissioner exacerbates tension over legitimacy of February general election results
A senior official in Pakistan has admitted to election rigging amid protests breaking out across the country over claims that its general election results were unfair.
The confessional statement throws further questions over the legitimacy of the 8 February elections, which were marred by controversies and allegations of rigging in Pakistan.
Continue reading...Russian opposition leader’s death occurred on Friday, say supporters, but official cause remains disputed
The death of Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, has been confirmed by his representatives, who are calling for the return of his body amid confusion over the cause of the death of Putin’s once most significant political challenger.
Navalny, 47, died in jail on 16 February at 2.17pm local time, said his official spokesperson, Kira Yarmysh, citing a message from Navalny’s mother and challenging Russia’s official explanation that Navalny died after a fall at the Arctic penal colony where he was being held.
Continue reading...Iris Haim says she does not blame soldiers who shot Yotam and two other escaped captives
Iris Haim cannot bear to think about how close her kidnapped son came to freedom before he was mistakenly shot dead by Israeli soldiers. After being held captive by Hamas in Gaza for more than two months, Yotam Haim and two other Israeli hostages escaped and evaded their captors for five days, only to be killed by the IDF.
Haim has repeatedly insisted she does not blame the soldiers who mistakenly identified Yotam as a threat. But she said it was devastating to know how close she had come to being reunited with the 28-year-old, who had dreamed of becoming a professional musician.
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