Israel accused of denying doctors re-entry into territory after they gave first-hand testimony on conflict
Medics in the UK and US believe they have been denied re-entry to Gaza after speaking out on the conflict.
Following reports of rising refusal rates, medical workers and organisationswho have provided humanitarian aid in Gaza have described what they see as arbitrary denials.
Continue reading...Reina Sofía’s three-year rehang of works by artists from Spain and beyond is billed as a ‘critical reinterpretation’
The Reina Sofía’s new rehang opens, quite pointedly, with a painting of a detained man sitting, head bowed and wrists shackled, as he waits for the arbitrary hand of institutional bureaucracy to decide his fate.
The picture, Document No …, was painted by Juan Genovés in 1975, the year Francisco Franco died and Spain began its transition to democracy after four decades of dictatorship. Genovés’s faceless, everyman victim of the Franco regime’s control and repression is the natural starting point for the Madrid museum’s exploration of the past 50 years of contemporary art in Spain.
Continue reading...Japanese prime minister’s refusal to back down over Taiwan comments brings more criticism and travel warnings from China
Chinese tourists are continuing to shun Japan in large numbers, with the country falling out of the top 10 destinations for those celebrating the lunar new year with a trip abroad.
Japan has had a dramatic drop in the number of Chinese visitors since the end of last year as a diplomatic row between Tokyo and Beijing over the security of Taiwan continues.
Continue reading...Unnamed suspect accused of planning to bomb one of singer’s Eras tour shows in Vienna
Austrian prosecutors have filed terrorism-related charges against a 21-year-old who they say planned to attack one of Taylor Swift’s concerts in Vienna in August 2024.
Three dates in Swift’s record-breaking Eras tour were cancelled after authorities warned of the plot.
Continue reading...Yoon Suk Yeol could face the death penalty when judges rule on the martial law crisis that many in South Korea see as a dark moment they would rather forget
South Korea is awaiting one of the most consequential court rulings in decades this week, with judges due to deliver their verdict on insurrection charges against the former president Yoon Suk Yeol and prosecutors demanding the death penalty.
When Yoon stands in courtroom 417 of Seoul central district court on Thursday to hear his fate, which will be broadcast live, he will do so in the same room where the military dictator Chun Doo-hwan was sentenced to death three decades ago. The charge is formally the same. Last time, it took almost 17 years and a democratic transition to deliver a verdict. This time, it has taken 14 months. Chun’s death sentence was later reduced to life imprisonment on appeal, and he was eventually pardoned.
Continue reading...Advisory board member says Europe already paying price for lack of preparation but adapting is ‘not rocket science’
Keeping Europe safe from extreme weather “is not rocket science”, a top researcher has said, as the EU’s climate advisory board urges countries to prepare for a catastrophic 3C of global heating.
Maarten van Aalst, a member of the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change (ESABCC), said the continent was already “paying a price” for its lack of preparation but that adapting to a hotter future was in part “common sense and low-hanging fruit”.
Continue reading...From the classic To Kill a Mockingbird to blockbuster Gone in 60 Seconds, the Oscar-winning actor’s films spanned a remarkable range
Robert Duvall, the veteran actor who had a string of roles in classic American films including Apocalypse Now, The Godfather, M*A*S*H and To Kill a Mockingbird, has died aged 95.
“Bob passed away peacefully at home, surrounded by love and comfort,” wrote his wife, Luciana Duvall, in a message on Facebook.
Continue reading...Experts say the detention centres were a breeding ground for extremism and a new generation of IS members
Humanitarians warned for years that the camps in north-east Syria holding tens of thousands of family members of suspected Islamic State (IS) fighters would have to be dealt with. Calling them a “ticking time bomb”, relief groups said the women and children could not just be left to rot in squalid desert camps indefinitely, because eventually they would come home.
Despite the warnings, most states ignored the problem, refusing to repatriate their citizens. At least 8,000 women and children from more than 40 countries have been stranded in the camps of north-east Syria since 2019.
Continue reading...More than 130,000 people considered missing or disappeared in Mexico as drug cartels expand
It was a bright morning in August 2022 when Ángel Montenegro was taken. A 31-year-old construction worker, Montenegro had been out all night drinking with some work buddies in the city of Cuautla and was waiting for a bus back to nearby Cuernavaca, where he lived.
At about 10am, a white van pulled up: several men jumped out and dragged Montenegro and a co-worker inside before speeding off. Montenegro’s co-worker was released a few hundred meters down the street, but Montenegro was driven away.
Continue reading...Israel says strikes were in response to Hamas violations of ceasefire as Hamas calls attacks ‘massacre’ of displaced people
At least 12 Palestinians were killed and several more injured across the Gaza Strip on Sunday as the Israeli military said it carried out airstrikes in response to ceasefire violations by Hamas.
The Gaza civil defence agency said five people were killed and several others hurt when an airstrike targeted a tent sheltering displaced people in the northern city of Jabaliya.
Continue reading...Pentagon tracked sanctioned Veronica III from Caribbean Sea after it left Venezuela on day Maduro was captured
US military forces boarded another sanctioned tanker in the Indian Ocean after tracking the vessel from the Caribbean Sea in an effort to target illicit oil connected to Venezuela, the Pentagon said on Sunday.
Venezuela had faced US sanctions on its oil for several years, relying on a shadow fleet of falsely flagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains. Donald Trump ordered a quarantine of sanctioned tankers in December to pressure the president, Nicolás Maduro, before Maduro was apprehended in January during a US military operation.
Continue reading...Worst weather forecast to hit late on Sunday, a day after floods caused power outages, road collapses and home evacuations
New Zealand’s weather bureau has warned more flooding could hit the country’s North Island, a day after floods caused power outages, road collapses, home evacuations and caused the death of a man whose vehicle was submerged on a highway.
There was “threat to life from dangerous river conditions, significant flooding and slips” as a deepening low-pressure system east of the North Island brought heavy rain and severe gales to several regions, the weather bureau said.
Continue reading...Diplomats in Havana are preparing for an alternative Trump tactic: the country being starved until people take to the streets and the US can step in
Among the verdant gardens of Havana’s diplomatic quarter, Siboney, ambassadors from countries traditionally allied to the United States are expressing increasing frustration with Washington’s attempt to unseat Cuba’s government, while simultaneously drawing up plans to draw down their missions.
Cuba is in crisis. Already reeling from a four-year economic slump, worsened by hyper-inflation and the migration of nearly 20% of the population, the 67-year-old communist government is at its weakest. After Washington’s successful military operation against Cuba’s ally Venezuela at the beginning of January, the US administration is actively seeking regime change.
Continue reading...Residents who escaped violence tell of bandits riding in on motorbikes and shooting indiscriminately
Armed assailants on motorbikes killed at least 32 people and burned houses and shops during raids on three villages in north-west Nigeria’s Niger state early on Saturday, local officials and residents who escaped the violence said.
The dawn raids targeted the communities of Tunga-Makeri, Konkoso, and Pissa.
Continue reading...Destined to a perilous life with no right to an education or to vote, state recognition ‘gives them hope’, campaigners say
Through the decades that the Daulatdia brothel in Bangladesh has existed, children born there have been invisible, unable to be registered because their mothers were sex workers and their fathers unknown. Now, for the first time, all 400 of them in the brothel village have their own birth certificates.
That milestone was reached after a push by campaigners who have spent decades working with Bangladesh’s undocumented children born in brothels or on the street. It means they can finally access the rights afforded to other citizens: the ability to go to school, to be issued a passport or to vote.
Continue reading...Jamaat e-Islami, oppressed under Sheikh Hasina’s rule, could take unprecedented share of the vote on Thursday
As the clock hit midnight, the women held their flame torches aloft and marched into the Dhaka night. “The people have given their blood, now we want equality,” they shouted above the roar of the traffic.
For many in Bangladesh, the past few weeks have been a cause for jubilation. The first free and fair elections in 17 years have been promised for Thursday, after the toppling of the regime of Sheikh Hasina in a bloody student-led uprising in August 2024 in which more than 1,000 people died.
Continue reading...Only two survivors rescued after boat overturned off Libyan coast, UN migration agency says
Fifty-three people are dead or missing after a boat capsized in the Mediterranean Sea off the Libyan coast, the UN migration agency said on Monday. Only two survivors were rescued.
The International Organization for Migration said the boat overturned north of Zuwara on Friday, in the latest disaster involving people attempting the perilous Mediterranean crossing in the hope of reaching Europe.
Continue reading...Donation of $6.25bn for children’s investment accounts prompts wave of questions – but details remain scarce
A tech billionaire and his wife said on Tuesday they would pour $6.25bn into individual investment accounts for 25 million children under 10, prompting a wave of new questions about how these so-called “Trump accounts” will work.
The creation of these accounts was included as part of Donald Trump’s massive tax and spending bill, which he signed into law in July. Every child born between 1 January 2025 and 31 December 2028, can receive a Trump account that includes a $1,000 initial deposit from the administration. The money will then be invested.
Continue reading...US president’s xenophobic rant comes amid reports of stepped-up effort to deport Somalis in Minneapolis-St Paul
Donald Trump on Tuesday called Somali immigrants “garbage” and said they should be sent back home in a rant that came as the administration is reportedly increasing immigration enforcement against undocumented Somalis in Minnesota.
In a xenophobic rant during a cabinet meeting, Trump went off on Somalis and Ilhan Omar, the representative who is from Somalia and is a US citizen. He said Somalia “stinks” and is “no good for a reason”.
Continue reading...Trump signals imminent land strikes in Venezuela, blaming a navy admiral for a deadly September attack
Donald Trump warned on Tuesday that any country he believes is making drugs destined illegally for the US is vulnerable to a military attack.
The US president’s comments came during a question-and-answer session at the White House at which he also said military strikes on land targets inside Venezuela, which he has accused of narco-terrorism, would “start very soon”.
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