Electoral commission says it is pushing back polling due to problems with digital voting system
Nigeria has postponed Saturday’s crucial state elections amid wrangling over a presidential vote that opposition parties claim was rigged.
The electoral commission emerged from an hours-long meeting on Wednesday night to announce it was pushing back polls to elect powerful state governors by a week.
Continue reading...Ex-PM has been accused of stopping a police investigation into former staff members at a university
Former Fijian leader Frank Bainimarama has been released on bail and said he “served with integrity,” after pleading not guilty to abusing his power as prime minister by stopping a police investigation.
“I served as prime minister with integrity and with the interests of all Fijians at heart,” he told reporters outside a courtroom in Suva on Friday.
Continue reading...Secretary of state’s reluctance to speak to Russian counterpart impedes US, says envoy who helped arrange WNBA star’s release
A former US diplomat who participated in efforts to free the WNBA star Brittney Griner from jail in Russia has harshly criticised the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and the Biden administration over their approach to diplomacy with Moscow.
Cameron Hume, a career diplomat who was an ambassador under Bill Clinton, George W Bush and Barack Obama, said: “For a secretary of state to not want to even get body language or two words from Sergei Lavrov about the situation in Moscow, in the Kremlin, in the people who are close to [Vladimir] Putin, during a time of war was striking to me.
Continue reading...Élysée sees moment as a turning of the page after a nightmare chapter in cross-Channel relations
As Emmanuel Macron prepares to welcomes Rishi Sunak to Paris’s Franco-British summit on Friday, the Élysée sees it as a “turning of the page” – the end of a nightmare chapter in cross-Channel relations.
The mood between France and the UK had in recent years plummeted to its worst state in decades with bitter rows over submarine contracts, fishing rights and who was to blame for the catastrophic deaths of people trying to reach the UK coast on small boats.
Continue reading...After criticism law was similar to Russian legislation used to stifle dissent, ruling party says it will withdraw bill
Georgia’s ruling party has said it will drop its bill on “foreign agents” after fierce opposition culminated in two nights of violent protests and criticism that the draft law would limit press freedom and undercut the country’s efforts to become a candidate for EU membership.
The Georgian Dream party said in a statement it would “unconditionally withdraw the bill we supported without any reservations”. It cited the need to reduce “confrontation” in society.
Continue reading...Rishi Sunak said to have been ‘buzzing’ about result of 18-month negotiations, part of Aukus defence pact with US
An enthusiastic Rishi Sunak has told ministers to expect a positive outcome next week when he travels to San Diego to unveil a deal to supply nuclear-powered submarines to Australia as part of the Aukus pact with the US.
Multiple sources said they believed the UK had succeeded in its bid to sell British-designed nuclear submarines to Australia, a deal that will safeguard the long-term future of the shipyard at Barrow-in-Furness.
Continue reading...Witnesses described the chaos and panic of the 2021 US departure during the Republican inquiry, which had people in tears at times
Military members and veterans of the Afghanistan war offered harrowing eyewitness testimony of the chaotic and deadly withdrawal from the country’s longest conflict, during an hours-long congressional hearing on Wednesday. They also pleaded with Congress to help the Afghan allies left behind.
In searing, sometimes graphic detail, several witnesses recounted their experiences as active-duty service members sent to assist with the evacuation of US troops and civilians from Afghanistan as the Taliban swept to power in August 2021.
Continue reading...Defence department reportedly unwilling to share intelligence over fears precedent could be set against US soldiers
The Pentagon has been accused of blocking the sharing of US intelligence with the international criminal court (ICC) about Russian war crimes in Ukraine.
The Biden White House and state department have been a proponent of cooperation with the Hague-based ICC, as a means of holding Russian forces accountable for widespread war crimes, but the defence department is firmly opposed on the grounds that the precedent could eventually be turned against US soldiers.
Continue reading...Officers used excessive force and failed to protect Black residents, a report launched following the death of Breonna Taylor has found
A report published by the US justice department following the botched police raid that killed Breonna Taylor has found that Louisville’s Metro police department routinely engaged in a pattern of excessive force that deprived people of their rights.
The litany of abuses revealed in the report comes amid a reckoning in the US with the brutality and racism of American policing.
Continue reading...Police fire teargas at protesters rallying against ‘Russian law’ critics say could harm efforts to join EU
Police in the Georgian capital Tbilisi used tear gas, water cannon and stun grenades late on Wednesday as they moved to break up the second straight day of protests against a “foreign agents” law which critics say would limit press freedom and undercut the country’s efforts to become a candidate for EU membership.
Thousands of people clashed with police o taken to the streets of Georgia’s capital for a second day to rally against a “foreign agents” law that critics say would limit press freedom and undercut the country’s efforts to become a candidate for EU membership.
Continue reading...Move comes as White House backs bill that could give it power to ban Chinese-owned app nationwide
TikTok has announced a data security regime for protecting user information across Europe, as political pressure increases in the US to ban the social video app.
The plan, known as Project Clover, involves user data being stored on servers in Ireland and Norway at an annual cost of €1.2bn (£1.1bn), while any data transfers outside Europe will be vetted by a third-party IT company.
Continue reading...Thai authorities struggle to contain forest fires, a persistent cause of air pollution during the dry season
The Chiang Mai authorities in northern Thailand will hand out face masks to the public as the province struggles with dangerously high levels of air pollution caused by persistent forest fires.
The fires are an annual problem between the months of December and April, when farmers set light to their fields to clear the land ready for the next crop cycle.
Continue reading...‘Tonmai’, 26, given two-year sentence over cartoons of yellow ducks that became symbol of democracy protests
A 26-year-old man in Thailand has been sentenced to three years in prison, reduced to two years, for selling satirical calendars featuring pictures of cartoon ducks that officials say insult the monarchy.
The man, a legal officer known by the nickname Tonmai, was arrested on 31 December 2020 after police raided his home and confiscated desk calendars that included images of yellow ducks – one of the symbols of youth-led pro-democracy protests that began more than two years ago. Officials said the calendars, which were being sold through a Facebook protest group, defamed the king.
Continue reading...Latest updates from the UK and across the globe as world marks International Women’s Day 2023
This is a really excellent comment piece from Nilanjana Bhowmick who argues that in India – like in much of the world – International Women’s Day has been captured by commerce.
IWD is not a spa voucher people!
Is it any wonder that Indian women end up doing almost 10 times more unpaid caregiving than Indian men? If International Women’s Day (IWD) is for taking stock of gender inequalities, let’s do that. If the government was interested in bringing change, it would announce women-friendly work policies. If businesses were serious, they would take a good look at how gender-responsive their organisations are, and make changes.
In Indian society, businesses have managed to dumb down an important day for putting out calls of action to demand political, economic and social equality for women.
Continue reading...This live blog has now closed, you can read more of our coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war here
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, for today. My colleagues in London will be taking you through the rest of the day’s news.
Last night Kharkiv’s street lights were switched on for the first time since the start of the war, the city’s Mayor said.
Continue reading...Prominent Afghans and Iranians say current laws do not capture the systematic suppression of women
A prominent group of Afghan and Iranian women are backing a campaign calling for gender apartheid to be recognised as a crime under international law.
The campaign, launched on International Women’s Day, reflects a belief that the current laws covering discrimination against women do not capture the systematic nature of the policies imposed in Afghanistan and Iran to downgrade the status of women in society.
Continue reading...Woman who did not have a permit to keep alligator as a pet confessed to taking an egg from zoo near Austin 20 years ago
A Texas zoo said it had taken back an 8ft alligator which was stolen as an egg more than 20 years ago, then kept as a backyard pet.
In an Instagram post accompanying footage of three agents gingerly lifting the alligator into a truck and releasing it into a zoo enclosure, the state parks and wildlife department said: “Alligators don’t make good pets, y’all.”
Continue reading...Underground community of Sarajevans recall in new documentary the years they spent trapped in their city
As a radio operator during the siege of Sarajevo, Boris Siber made use of music to blast the enemy airwaves and destroy their communication. “The Clash, Jimi Hendrix and the Sex Pistols, as loud as possible on the frequencies they were using … they changed frequency, then I found them again. That was my task.”
Siber – a member of a hit Yugoslav comedy troupe before the war forced its breakup – also kept up civilian and military morale as a radio comic. “Music and mic were my weapons.”
Continue reading...Exclusive: papers kept classified for decades reveal India’s first PM acted on advice from most senior general
India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, was urged by his most senior general to agree to a ceasefire with Pakistan in 1948, the Guardian can reveal after viewing letters on Kashmir that have been kept classified in India for decades.
The correspondence from the then commander-in-chief, Gen Sir Francis Robert Roy Bucher, will have significant political ramifications for the current nationalist government in Delhi, which has discredited Nehru’s decision to come to a compromise on the status of disputed Kashmir as an ill-informed “blunder”.
Continue reading...Kremlin dismisses tentative intelligence from European and US agencies as a bid by the perpetrators to divert attention
European and US intelligence officials have obtained tentative intelligence to suggest a pro-Ukrainian saboteur group may have been behind the bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipelines last year, according to reports in the New York Times and German newspaper Die Zeit.
German investigators believe the attack on the pipelines was carried out by a team of six people, using a yacht that had been hired by a company registered in Poland and owned by two Ukrainian citizens, according to Die Zeit.
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