More than 300 British nationals have fled bombing and shelling to reach a rescue flight out of Khartoum
After embarking on a perilous escape through military checkpoints and continuing clashes, British nationals evacuated from Sudan have spoken of their nightmare ordeals.
More than 300 Britons made the dangerous journey to the Wadi Seidna airbase north of Khartoum in the hope of boarding a rescue flight out of Sudan to Cyprus.
Continue reading...Bogdan Bitik was working as a fixer for Corrado Zunino, Italian correspondent for La Repubblica, who was wounded
A Ukrainian journalist working with reporters for La Repubblica has been shot dead by Russian snipers in southern Ukraine, while his Italian colleague was injured, the Italian newspaper said on Wednesday.
“Today, our correspondent Corrado Zunino and his fixer Bogdan Bitik were victims of an ambush near the bridge in Kherson by Russian snipers on the outskirts of Kherson, in southern Ukraine,” La Repubblica said.
Continue reading...Former president of Brazil says he shared video ‘by mistake’ while on morphine in US hospital
Brazil’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro, has been ridiculed by his political opponents after he was questioned by federal police as part of a criminal investigation into January’s alleged coup attempt and claimed he had shared a video questioning last year’s election result “by mistake”.
Bolsonaro spent more than two hours in the company of police investigators on Wednesday morning, nearly four months after thousands of hardcore supporters ran riot in the capital, Brasília, in what the new administration called a botched coup intended to reinstall the far-right former army captain as president.
Continue reading...UK all-party group says failure to bring to justice Darfur abusers 20 years ago has led to current violence
The UK should impose sanctions on human rights abusers in senior Sudanese military positions as well as designate the Wagner group operating in Sudan as a terrorist group, a report from the all-party group on Sudan has urged.
The group, including the Conservative former Africa minister Vicky Ford, said on Wednesday the west has allowed impunity to become the norm, and the failure to bring to justice many of those responsible for the genocide in Darfur 20 years ago has allowed the same militia to regroup and form part of the forces now blocking democracy in the country.
Continue reading...With partially held ceasefire due to expire on Thursday, UN says neither side ready to seriously negotiate
Sounds of gunfire and explosions have continued to rock Sudan’s capital, but the intensity of the fighting across the country has eased for a truce that residents hope will provide relief for people trapped with dwindling food, water and medicine.
On Wednesday afternoon, an army jet thundered across Khartoum and bombed militant positions in the city’s western outskirts, hitting an apartment block in the neighbourhood of Ombada.
Continue reading...The award-winning director who was released from prison in February is rumoured to be a juror at the Cannes film festival
Jafar Panahi, the acclaimed Iranian director whose life has been dominated by clashes with his country’s government, has left Iran for the first time in 14 years.
Panahi’s wife, Tahereh Saeedi, posted a picture on Instagram on Tuesday night showing her arriving with her husband at an undisclosed airport.
Continue reading...Allies of opposition leader already serving 11 years say charges may be linked to death of pro-war blogger
The jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny says he is facing potential life imprisonment on fresh charges of terrorism amid an ongoing campaign to silence the prominent Kremlin critic more than a year into the invasion of Ukraine.
Speaking over video link at a hearing before a separate trial for “extremism”, Navalny, 46, said investigators had told him he would also be tried by a military court for terrorist attacks he had allegedly committed while behind bars.
Continue reading...Frankfurt judges said people would have to lean far out of window to see naked sunbathing in courtyard
A German court has said that a landlord sunbathing naked in the courtyard of his building was not a reason for his tenants to reduce their rental payments.
The case involved a building in an upmarket residential district of Frankfurt, which included an office floor rented by a human resources company. The company withheld rent because it objected, among other things, to the landlord’s naked sunbathing. In response, the landlord sued.
Continue reading...Growing number of social media users find using Korean American actor Ma Dong-seok’s image as avatar gets better response
Chinese social media users are turning to a Korean American action star for help in their daily lives, with a growing trend of swapping out their online avatar for Ma Dong-seok’s photo to get better responses from landlords and customer service agents.
In recent weeks a growing number of Chinese people have changed their profile photos to shots of Ma, who also goes by the name Don Lee and has starred in horror-action film Train to Busan and Marvel’s The Eternals, saying “it makes life easier”.
Continue reading...Freedom to use devices could curb prostitution, divorce and sex-related crimes, says Democrat party politician
A conservative Thai political party has backed the legalisation of sex toys as it seeks to revive its appeal before a looming general election.
The Democrat party representative Ratchada Thanadirek said sex toys were being smuggled into Thailand regardless of laws that prohibit their sale, and that the government was missing out on collecting taxes and regulating such products.
Continue reading...Months before 43 Ayotzinapa students vanished, army was repeatedly warned of criminal gang presence
The Mexican military received nearly a dozen complaints about cartel activity in the region where 43 students were abducted in September 2014, emails hacked from the country’s defense ministry reveal, but the armed forces apparently did little to tackle organized crime in the area.
The students’ kidnapping and disappearance, which took place in the city of Iguala in Guerrero state, was one of the most horrific and high-profile human rights abuses in Mexico’s recent history, and remains unsolved despite years of protests and a relentless pursuit of justice by the students’ parents.
Continue reading...Hakuto-R may have miscalculated altitude, says company after losing contact with spacecraft
Japan’s ispace said its attempt to make the first private moon landing had failed after losing contact with its Hakuto-R Mission 1 (M1) lander when it unexpectedly accelerated and probably crashed on the lunar surface.
The startup said it was possible that as the lander approached the moon, its altitude measurement system had miscalculated the distance to the surface.
Continue reading...António Guterres says ‘conflict will not and must not be resolved on the battlefield’
The British government is considering a possible seaborne evacuation from Port Sudan, 500 miles from the capital, PA Media reports.
HMS Lancaster and the RFA Cardigan Bay have been sent to the region.
Continue reading...Airport says people will be able to ‘travel as normal’ in peak period around coronation despite strike
Heathrow airport has warned that it is still loss-making, even as it continues to be Europe’s busiest airport, welcoming almost 17 million passengers in the first three months of the year.
The airport also said that passengers would be able to “travel as normal” during the peak getaway period around the coronation of King Charles III, taking place on 6 May, despite a fresh planned strike by security staff.
Continue reading...This live blog has now closed, you can read more of our Ukraine war coverage here
Here are the images shared by the German air force of the Russian aircraft intercepted over the Baltic Sea.
They are reported to be two SU-27 flankers and one IL-20 aircraft.
Everybody fears that they won’t allow Belarusians to keep watching the war from a distance for too long.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: Amid gunsmoke and airstrikes, civilians must choose whether to travel towards uncertain safety, or risk violence by staying behind. What questions face anyone trying to leave – and what might happen if they go?
Good morning. For at least some of the British nationals attempting to flee the conflict that has broken out in Sudan, this morning is a moment of profound relief: the second of three evacuation flights from an airfield north of Khartoum recently arrived in Cyprus, with a third expected soon. Citizens of Turkey, France, and other countries were also flown out. But for Sudanese people – even those whose close relatives were aboard the UK flights – the exodus may simply have served as a reminder of the dangers from which they have far more limited respite.
A ceasefire between army units loyal to Sudan’s military ruler, Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by his former ally Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, came into effect at midnight on Tuesday, and it is supposed to last for two more days. In theory, this should provide an opportunity for civilians to flee the theatres of conflict and reach safe harbour.
US news | Joe Biden has formally announced his campaign for re-election in 2024, asking Americans for four years to “finish this job”, possibly setting up an extraordinary rematch with Donald Trump. Vice-president Kamala Harris, the highest-ranking woman and person of colour in US politics, will be Biden’s running mate again.
Monarchy | New court filings submitted by Prince Harry reveal that his brother Prince William received a previously undisclosed “very large sum of money” in 2020 to settle a phone-hacking claim against the owner of the Sun and the News of the World. The high court also heard that Queen Elizabeth II personally threatened News UK with legal proceedings over hacking, only to be undermined by the then Prince Charles.
Immigration | The UK government secretly deported more than 100 Nepali guards who risked their lives to protect British embassy staff in Afghanistan before the Taliban seized back control in 2021, days after they arrived. The decision was taken even though many had been issued with six-month visas on arrival.
Politics | The head of the civil service has attempted to block Sue Gray from working with Labour until after the next general election, the Guardian has been told. Keir Starmer’s choice for his new chief of staff caused controversy when it was unveiled as Gray had led the civil service inquiry into the Partygate scandal.
Music | Harry Belafonte, the singer, actor and civil rights activist who broke down racial barriers in the US, has died aged 96. Read a tribute by the director Steve McQueen: “He had everything, but his service was always to his people.”
Continue reading...Europe accused of ‘neocolonialism’ for using vassal small island states to sway policy and continue ‘disgraceful plundering’ of distant waters
More than half of the EU’s delegation to a crucial body of tuna stock regulators is made up of fishing industry lobbyists, the Guardian’s Seascape project can reveal, as Europe is accused of “neocolonial” overfishing in the Indian Ocean.
The numbers could shed some light on why the EU recently objected to an agreement by African and Asian coastal nations to restrict harmful fish aggregating devices (FADs) that disproportionately harvest juvenile tuna. Stocks of yellowfin tuna are overfished in the Indian Ocean.
Continue reading...The Inter-Religious Council of Uganda, which is openly homophobic, is a direct recipient of UK aid money
The UK government is helping to fund the work of a virulently homophobic religious organisation in Uganda, whose leaders have backed a proposed law that would make identifying as gay a criminal offence, a report has found.
Analysing official data given to the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI), the report by the Institute for Journalism and Social Change (IJSC) found a “staggering” number of connections between anti-LGBTQ+ organisations in Uganda and international aid donors, including the UK.
Continue reading...Thousands of refugees face transport chaos, cash shortages, scammers and visa delays as they race to escape to neighbouring countries
Long queues are building on Sudan’s borders, where people fleeing intense fighting are facing daylong waits and demands for visas in order to cross to safety.
On Tuesday, the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR) said it was expecting 270,000 refugees to cross into Chad and South Sudan, including South Sudanese returning home. It did not have projections for Egypt or Ethiopia, where many fleeing from the capital, Khartoum, have headed, or for other neighbouring countries. The UNHCR estimated that, so far, up to 20,000 refugees have crossed into Chad from Darfur, and 4,000 into South Sudan.
Continue reading...Islamic State suicide attack that killed 180 including 13 US service members occurred during US withdrawal from Afghanistan
The Islamic State leader behind the 2021 Kabul airport suicide bombing that killed about 180 people including 13 US service members has been killed by the Taliban, according to US officials.
The IS leader, whose identity has not yet been released, was killed in southern Afghanistan in early April as the Taliban conducted a series of operations against the Islamic State group, according to one of the officials. The Taliban at the time were not aware of the identity of the person they killed, the official added.
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