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Cyril Ramaphosa says theories, promoted by Donald Trump, ‘conveniently align with wider notions of white supremacy’

White supremacist ideology and false claims that South Africa’s Afrikaner minority is being racially persecuted pose a threat to the country’s sovereignty and national security, the country’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has warned.

Since taking office for his second US presidential term in January, Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed without evidence that South Africa’s government is seizing land and encouraging violence against white farmers.

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First-century luxury vessel matches description by the Greek historian Strabo, who visited city around 29-25BC

An ancient Egyptian pleasure boat that matches a description by the first-century Greek historian Strabo has been discovered off the coast of Alexandria, to the excitement of archaeologists.

With its palaces, temples and the 130 metre-high Pharos lighthouse – one of the seven wonders of the ancient world – Alexandria had been one of the most magnificent cities in antiquity. The pleasure boat, which dates from the first half of the first century AD, was 35 metres long and constructed to hold a central pavilion with a luxuriously decorated cabin.

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Gunmen abducted 315 pupils and staff last month from St Mary’s school in Niger state as part of spate of kidnappings

Nigerian authorities have secured the release of 100 kidnapped schoolchildren taken by gunmen from a Catholic school last month, a UN source and local media said on Sunday, though the fate of another 165 students and staff thought to remain in captivity remained unclear.

In November 315 students and staff were kidnapped from St Mary’s co-educational boarding school in north-central Niger state, as the country buckled under a wave of mass abductions reminiscent of the infamous 2014 Boko Haram abduction of schoolgirls in Chibok.

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West African Ecowas forces sent to country after group of soldiers announced dissolution of government on state TV

West African troops were deployed to Benin on Sunday after what the country’s president described as an unsuccessful coup attempt.

Benin’s president, Patrice Talon, said on Sunday that the situation was “totally under control” after security forces acted to end a coup attempt by a group of soldiers who attacked state institutions.

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Police launch ‘manhunt’ after 25 people are shot in early morning in township attack west of Pretoria

Gunmen have stormed into a hostel in South Africa’s capital and killed at least 12 people, including a three-year-old child, and injured more than a dozen others.

Police said they had launched a “manhunt” for three people and were investigating whether the killings were linked to a bar within the hostel that may have been selling alcohol illegally.

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President accuses neighbor of violating treaty governing water-sharing and urges water to be released ‘immediately’

Donald Trump has threatened to impose an additional 5% tariff on Mexico if it does not immediately provide additional water to help US farmers, accusing the country of violating a treaty that outlines water-sharing between the neighbors.

Under the treaty, which dates back to 1944, Mexico must send 1.75m acre-feet of water to the US from the Rio Grande through a network of interconnected dams and reservoirs every five years. The agreement also stipulates that the United States must annually allocate 1.5m acre-feet of water from the Colorado River to Mexico.

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Father of student detained at Boston airport on her way to visit family in Austin, says agents showed up at Texas home

Immigration agents appeared on Sunday at the Texas home of the family of Any Lucia López Belloza, the 19-year-old college student who was recently deported to Honduras while on her way to visit them for Thanksgiving, her family reportedly said.

López Belloza, who attended Babson College in Massachusetts, was detained on 20 November at Boston airport while she was on her way to surprise her family in Austin, Texas, for the holiday. Within 48 hours she was deported to Honduras, a country she left at age seven when her family came to the US.

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Actor, who starred in The Passion of the Christ, will play the disgraced ex-Brazilian president in film written by his one-time secretary of culture

Jair Bolsonaro, the former Brazilian president now in prison for plotting a coup, is getting the biopic treatment.

Jim Caviezel, who played Jesus in Mel Gibson’s 2004 film The Passion of the Christ, is reportedly filming a “heroic” portrait of the rightwing ex-politician in secret. Dark Horse, directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh and written by Mário Frias, who served as secretary of culture under Bolsonaro, started shooting three months ago in Brazil, where Bolsonaro served as president from 2019 until 2023. He was sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison in September 2025 for leading a criminal conspiracy to stop his leftwing rival, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, taking power, though his supporters deny the allegations and have compared the prosecution to the “lawfare” allegedly faced by Donald Trump before he was re-elected.

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Juan Orlando Hernández thanked the Lord for being ‘a free man’ and then Trump for ‘changing my life’

Former Honduras president Juan Orlando Hernández recently thanked God and Donald Trump – in that order – for being pardoned by the latter of a drug trafficking conviction won by federal US prosecutors less than two years earlier.

Speaking in a video posted to social media and referring to the US president, Hernández eventually said Trump “changed my life, and I’ll never forget that”. But first he praised God, saying in Spanish, “You saw the injustice and suffering, and in your infinite mercy you helped us.

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Brazil aide says Trump’s closure of Venezuelan airspace amounts to an ‘act of war’ that could escalate

• Maduro says the real reason for Trump’s Venezuela fixation is oil – is he right?

A US invasion or attack on Venezuela could plunge South America into a Vietnam-style conflict, the chief foreign policy adviser to Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has warned.

In an interview with the Guardian, Celso Amorim called Donald Trump’s recent decision to order the closure of Venezuelan airspace “an act of war”, and voiced fears the crisis could intensify over the coming weeks.

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Commerce department finalizing deal to allow H200 chips to be sold to China as strict Biden-era restrictions relaxed

Donald Trump has cleared the way for Nvidia to begin selling its powerful AI computer chips to China, marking a win for the chip maker and its CEO Jensen Huang, who has spent months lobbying the White House to open up sales in the country.

Before Monday’s announcement, the US had prohibited sales of Nvidia’s most advanced chips to China over national security concerns.

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90,000 people advised to take shelter after 7.5-magnitude quake, with 20 injuries reported

A powerful 7.5-magnitude earthquake has shaken north-eastern Japan, injuring more than 20 people and triggering a tsunami of up to 70cm in Pacific coast communities.

The earthquake and tsunami warnings prompted orders for about 90,000 residents to evacuate their homes, although the warnings were later downgraded to advisories.

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Escalation follows killing of Thai soldier and four Cambodian civilians weeks after Trump-brokered ceasefire

Thailand has launched airstrikes along its disputed border with Cambodia after both countries accused each other of breaching a ceasefire deal brokered by Donald Trump.

Four Cambodian civilians and at least one Thai soldier have been killed in the renewed clashes, which have forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes.

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• Yang extorted £153,000 from former Spurs player

• Co-conspirator receives two-year sentence in Seoul court

A woman has been sentenced in Seoul to four years in prison for blackmailing South Korean football star Son Heung-min.

The woman, identified only as Yang, was charged with extorting 300 million won (£153,000) from Son in 2024 after sending him an ultrasound photo of a baby that she claimed was his and demanding money to stay silent.

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Sunday’s ‘patriots only’ Legislative Council elections took place in the shadow of the Tai Po fire that killed at least 159 people

Turnout for Hong Kong’s “patriots only” Legislative Council elections on Sunday was at a near-record low, with fewer than 32% of voters casting ballots, as the number of registered voters fell for the fourth consecutive year.

At 31.9%, Sunday’s turnout is marginally higher than 2021’s record low of 30.2%. But fewer people overall voted this year: 1.3 million compared to 1.4 million in 2021. Hong Kong’s population is about 7.5 million.

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The state opposition called for a division on the apology motion, meaning each vote had to be counted before it passed the lower house. Follow today’s news live

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Kevin Hogan says no one ‘gobsmacked’ by Barnaby Joyce’s decision to join One Nation

Kevin Hogan, the deputy leader of the Nationals, compared Barnaby Joyce to Mark Latham after the former said yesterday he would join One Nation.

The only other person I can think of that has left who has been a previous leader of a political party and joined One Nation is Mark Latham. And Barnaby Joyce joins those ranks as having been a previous leader of a party and joining One Nation. But I’ll leave others to make their judgment about that.

Barnaby has said this: he doesn’t want to be on the backbench. He doesn’t like where he sits. So I don’t think there was much that could have been done to stop that.

David [Littleproud] was always saying publicly and privately to Barnaby that the door was open for him to return. And obviously, he’s very disappointed that he left. So, look, I think it was always going to be a tough call. And I think no one is, you know, gobsmacked that he’s made the decision yesterday.

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Police say ‘active crime scenes remain at houses and dwellings’ in Koolewong on the Central Coast after devastating weekend blaze

• ‘It came from everywhere’: NSW town counts the cost after bushfire hits

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Arson squad and forensic officers are investigating the cause of a bushfire that destroyed 16 homes on the New South Wales Central Coast on the weekend.

Fanned by high temperatures and strong winds, the out-of-control blaze swept across Koolewong on Saturday afternoon, with the flames at one point jumping a stretch of water 1km wide.

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Platform to introduce age-prediction model analysing users but argued to eSafety commissioner it was a source of information not a social media platform

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Reddit will comply with Australia’s under-16s social media ban, due to begin on Wednesday, but says it is “legally erroneous” and “arbitrary” in its effect.

The company argued to the eSafety commissioner that its platform was a source of information, not primarily social media.

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As Bulahdelah mourns dead firefighter, residents recall lucky escapes and say they have ‘never had fires like this’

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When Garry Morgan arrived home on Friday afternoon, his rural mid-north coast property was surrounded by a “big plume of smoke”. Less than 24 hours later, two houses on his street would be lost and the surrounding forest reduced to blackened skeletal remains.

Morgan’s township of Bulahdelah, about 200km north of Sydney, was where a veteran firefighter died on Sunday evening when he was struck by a falling tree, marking what the NSW premier called a “foreboding start” to the bushfire season.

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Blazes in NSW and Tasmania have already led to a firefighter losing his life and close to 40 homes being destroyed as an ominous fire season begins

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Australians should “expect the unexpected” this bushfire season amid dangerous conditions, experts have warned, after a severe start that saw a firefighter killed and homes destroyed in several states.

Bushfires at Koolewong and Bulahdelah in New South Wales destroyed 20 homes and a natural disaster has been declared in several local government areas, while wind-driven fires at Dolphin Sands in eastern Tasmania razed 19 houses and damaged dozens more.

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The group were at a popular seawater pool when the wave struck, prompting a major rescue operation

Four people are dead and one is missing after a powerful wave dragged a group of swimmers out to sea while they were in a popular seawater pool along the rocky, western coastline of the Spanish island of Tenerife, Spanish authorities said on Monday.

Crews recovered three bodies on Sunday – a 35-year-old man, a 55-year-old woman and another man about whom no information was given – during a major rescue operation that used jet skis and helicopters to locate and pick up people dragged out to sea. The fourth victim, a woman, died on Monday, a day after being revived at the scene and airlifted to a hospital.

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UK foreign secretary urges action against ‘information warfare’ made easier by advances in technology

Foreign countries are flooding social media with AI-manipulated videos to undermine western support for Ukraine, Yvette Cooper will warn on Tuesday.

The UK foreign secretary will urge other countries to help Britain fight what she calls “information warfare”, as officials warn Russia is using forged documents and deepfake material to advance its geopolitical goals.

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Hopes rise of a breakthrough in using £78bn of frozen Russian assets to bankroll Kyiv

European leaders rallied behind Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday night amid hopes they might finally achieve a breakthrough to allow Ukraine access to billions of pounds of frozen Russian assets.

Despite vociferous support for the Ukrainian president, who has come under heavy pressure from Donald Trump to cede territory in order to bring the war to a speedy end, there was still no agreement on the thorny question of turning immobilised assets into a loan for Kyiv.

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Zelenskyy says talks with Starmer, Macron and Merz were a ‘small progress towards peace’

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Meanwhile, we are starting to look towards 10 Downing Street as the leaders should start arriving in the next hour. Last preparations are under way, and we have a live stream for you at the top of the page.

In the last few minutes, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has just landed in the UK, Sky News has reported.

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Nicolas Sarkozy’s new book, The Diary of a Prisoner, is being released this week – and also details the time he spent in jail

The former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has said Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) party is “not a danger” to France, and he would not support a united front of parties against Le Pen at the next election.

In his new book, written at a “small plywood table” in prison where he recently served 20 days of a sentence for criminal conspiracy, Sarkozy said many of his former supporters were now potential Le Pen voters, and he appeared to include the RN in his vision of a broad French right.

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Eyal Zamir said Israel would hold on to current positions, giving it control of more than half of the territory

The “yellow line” that divides Gaza under Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan is a “new border” for Israel, the country’s military chief told soldiers deployed in the territory.

The chief of the general staff, Eyal Zamir, said Israel would hold on to its current military positions. These give Israel control of more than half of Gaza, including most agricultural land and the border crossing with Egypt.

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Former UK leader loses out on key role in transitional authority after objections from Arab and Muslim nations

Tony Blair will not occupy a key position on Donald Trump’s Gaza “peace council” after Arab and Muslim nations were reported to have objected to the involvement of the former UK prime minister.

According to the Financial Times (FT), Blair has been quietly dropped from consideration for Trump’s “board of peace”, which Trump has said he would chair himself.

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Sanctions, instability and external meddling are still problems for Ahmed al-Sharaa, one year after Assad’s fall

• Ddivided Syria struggles to escape cycle of violence

• The fall of the house of Assad – in pictures

If ubiquity and handshakes were the only measures of success, Ahmed al-Sharaa would be diplomat of the year.

Since he formally became president of Syria on 29 January 2025, the former leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham – a jihadist group with an al-Qaida lineage – has made a total of 21 public international trips to 13 countries. These include a visit to the UN general assembly, the climate change conference in Brazil, and numerous Arab summits.

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While country’s return to global stage has filled many Syrians with pride, domestically old grievances threaten efforts to rebuild the state

• Anniversary of the fall of house of Assad in Syria – in pictures

Lying in bed recovering after his latest surgery, Ayman Ali retells the story of Syria’s revolution through his wounds. His right eye, lost in an attack on a rebel observation post he was manning in 2012, is covered by yellow medical tape. Propped against the wall is a cane he uses to walk, after a rocket attack in 2014 left him with a limp.

For 14 years, Ali dreamed of freedom and of justice. A year after the ousting of Bashar al-Assad, he has his freedom but not his justice. The man he was dreaming of holding accountable – a member of his extended family who was a part of an Assad militia – had already fled the country by the time Ali returned to his home in Damascus.

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Concerns over recording of meetings at coordination centre excluding Palestinians that was set up to provide support for Trump’s Gaza plan

Israeli operatives are conducting widespread surveillance of US forces and allies stationed at a new US base in the country’s south, according to sources briefed on disputes about open and covert recordings of meetings and discussions.

The scale of intelligence gathering at the Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) prompted the US commander of the base, Lt Gen Patrick Frank, to summon an Israeli counterpart for a meeting to tell him that “recording has to stop here”.

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Officials say the Birch nightclub had contravened multiple safety regulations and that the basement had no fire safety exit

Four members of the same family on their first holiday to Goa were among the 25 killed in a deadly fire at a nightclub in the popular Indian tourist state on Saturday night.

The massive blaze broke out at just before midnight at Birch by Romeo Lane, a buzzing bar, restaurant and nightclub in north Goa’s Aporna district.

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Fire broke out at midnight in Arpora with victims mostly kitchen workers, according to state’s chief minister

At least 25 people have been killed in a fire at a nightclub in Goa, an Indian state popular for its nightlife and tourism.

Several tourists were among the 25 dead in the fire, which broke out at about midnight at Birch by Romeo Lane, a popular restaurant, cocktail bar and club in Arpora, a district of north Goa.

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Russia and India will reshape their defence ties to take account of New Delhi’s push for self-reliance, the two countries said in a joint statement after a summit between president Putin and Indian prime minister Narendra Modi.

“In response to India’s aspirations for self-reliance, the partnership is currently being reoriented toward joint research and development, as well as the production of advanced defence platforms,” the statement said.

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Narendra Modi says energy security is ‘pillar of the India-Russia partnership’ as two leaders meet in Delhi

Vladimir Putin has told the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, that Russia is ready to continue “uninterrupted” shipments of oil to India, signalling a defiant stance to the US as the two leaders met in Delhi and affirmed that their ties were “resilient to external pressure”.

The statement, made on Friday after the annual India-Russia summit, appeared to be directed at western countries – particularly the US – that have attempted to pressure New Delhi into scaling back its ties to Moscow.

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Delhi visit gives Russian leader a chance to reduce Moscow’s isolation but both countries need each other to negotiate Trump’s US and a powerful China

When Vladimir Putin last set foot in India almost exactly four years ago, the world order looked materially different. At that visit – lasting just five hours due to the Covid pandemic – Putin and the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, discussed economic and military cooperation and reaffirmed their special relationship.

Three months later, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine would turn him into a global pariah, isolating the Kremlin from the world and restricting Putin’s international travel.

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Livery for renationalised railway features red, white and blue alongside familiar double arrow symbol

No matter how much train fares cost under Great British Railways, no one can accuse the government of wasting money on an expensive redesign.

The logo, branding and livery for the impending renationalised and reformed railway will be unveiled by ministers at London Bridge on Tuesday. It is red, white and, yes, blue.

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Costs in England have now risen to £2.3bn a year, with local authorities arguing eligible pupils don’t always need a ‘door-to-door taxi service’

“Home-to-school transport” should be renamed “assisted travel to school” to help manage parental expectations, MPs on the public accounts committee have been told.

While councils are committed to helping children entitled to support to get to school, it does not have to be “a door-to-door taxi service”, leading local authority figures have said.

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Norfolk county council wants to demolish a ‘beloved’ 1950s bus shelter in Sheringham, but campaigners are staging a 24/7 sit-in

It was about 4am on Monday, under the cover of darkness, when protesters camping at their town’s 1950s bus shelter were woken by the arrival of bailiffs. Days earlier, the council had served an eviction notice to those fighting to save the shelter, claiming their occupation was illegal.

This marked the latest escalation following a week-long sit-in at the Sheringham bus shelter on Station Approach near the heritage railway station, after Norfolk county council said it would demolish and replace the site due to accessibility and safety concerns.

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Bunches appear on West Sussex beaches after containers fell off ship, but council asks for space for cleanup

It isn’t quite Whisky Galore! – the classic British film in which residents of a Scottish island attempt to pilfer 50,000 cases of spirits from a shipwreck.

Rather than a warming dram or two, people on the south coast of England have been finding bunches of bananas from containers that fell off the back of a ship and washed up on beaches in West Sussex.

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Sandie Peggie wins harassment claim but tribunal dismisses allegations of discrimination and victimisation

A nurse who complained about sharing a women’s changing room with a transgender doctor has won part of her employment tribunal against NHS Fife but her claim against the doctor in question was dismissed.

Sandie Peggie, who has worked as a nurse for more than 30 years, contended she was subject to unlawful harassment under the Equality Act when she was expected to share a changing room with Dr Beth Upton.

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Agents who kneeled in 2020 accuse Kash Patel of retaliation and say they were trying to calm volatile situation

Twelve former FBI agents fired after kneeling during a 2020 racial justice protest in Washington have sued to get their jobs back, saying their action had been intended to de-escalate a volatile situation and was not meant as a political gesture.

The agents say in their lawsuit that they were fired in September by Kash Patel, the FBI director, because they were perceived as not being politically affiliated with Donald Trump. But they say their decision to take a knee on 4 June 2020, days after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, has been misinterpreted as political expression.

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• Trump news at a glance: US supreme court appears set to back Trump’s power to fire independent board members

In a statement, Pamela Smith said she was “deeply humbled, grateful and deeply appreciative” of her time in her role, which she described as the “greatest honor” of her career. She gave thanks to the mayor for appointing her in 2023 and supporting her throughout her tenure, which she acknowledged had been both “challenging and rewarding”.

Smith adds that “tremendous progress” has been made but the city is not at “zero percent crime” yet.

I am confident that the department is in a strong position and that the great work will continue, moving in a positive trajectory to combat crime and enhance public safety. Washington, DC is an extraordinary place to live, visit, and work, and I remain inspired by the resilience and spirit of this community.

I am profoundly grateful for the opportunity to serve in this capacity as Chief of Police. It has been an honor to lead the men and women of the Metropolitan Police Department, and I will always carry with the me the pride of having served this city.

When Chief Smith stepped up to lead the Metropolitan Police Department, we had no time to waste. She came in at a very challenging time for our community, when there was significant urgency to reverse the crime trends our city was facing post pandemic. Within a year of her tenure, we opened the Real-Time Crime Center.

We deployed newer and better technology. We worked with the Council to pass comprehensive legislation that prioritizes accountability. And Chief Smith got all of this done while also navigating unprecedented challenges and attacks on our city’s autonomy.

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Conservative justices seem to signal support for president over move to fire Democrat Rebecca Slaughter in March

• US politics live – latest updates

The US supreme court on Monday appeared poised to back the Trump administration’s argument that the president should be able to fire independent board members that for almost a century have been protected from presidential interference.

The court heard arguments concerning the legality of Donald Trump’s firing of a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) member and appeared to be split down partisan lines in favor of a historic expansion of executive power, with the conservatives – including the sometimes swing vote of Justice Amy Coney Barrett – seeming to side with the administration.

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Footage shows officer said ‘It’s him, dude’ as testimony sheds light on arrest at Pennsylvania McDonald’s

Moments after Luigi Mangione was handcuffed at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s, a police officer searching his backpack found a loaded gun magazine wrapped in a pair of underwear.

The discovery, recounted in court on Monday as Mangione fights to keep evidence out of his New York murder case, convinced police in Altoona, Pennsylvania, that he was the man wanted in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan five days earlier.

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A student at a San Jose high school posted a photo of eight students lying in the shape of a swastika on a football field

A photo of eight students lying in the shape of a swastika on a high school football field in San Jose, California, has caused shock and outrage among the Bay Area Jewish community.

A Branham high school student posted the photo to social media on 3 December, and included an antisemitic quote from Adolf Hitler in the caption. A screenshot of the post began circulating on Reddit last Thursday and garnered over 500 comments. The post and the account were removed by Instagram by Friday morning, according to J., the Jewish News of Northern California.

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