World news | The Guardian

Up to 150,000 residents of El Fasher are missing since North Darfur capital fell to paramilitary Rapid Support Forces

The Sudanese city of El Fasher resembles a “massive crime scene”, with large piles of bodies heaped throughout its streets as the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) work to destroy evidence of the scale of their massacre.

Six weeks after the RSF seized the city, corpses have been gathered together in scores of piles to await burial in mass graves or cremated in huge pits, analysis indicates.

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Climate crisis and overfishing contributed to loss of 95% of penguins in two breeding colonies in South Africa, research finds

More than 60,000 penguins in colonies off the coast of South Africa have starved to death as a result of disappearing sardines, a new paper has found.

More than 95% of the African penguins in two of the most important breeding colonies, on Dassen Island and Robben Island, died between 2004 and 2012. The breeding penguins probably starved to death during the moulting period, according to the paper, which said the climate crisis and overfishing were driving declines.

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Trump envoy fails to secure deal as Norway prepares to host talks on how to restore civilian government in Sudan

The US is considering a much broader range of sanctions on the belligerents in the war in Sudan, in a tacit acknowledgment of the inability of the US envoy Massad Boulos to persuade the parties to accept a ceasefire.

Last week Donald Trump announced that work had begun to end the war after a personal request for his direct intervention from the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.

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Global Witness says plan to upgrade railway line to Angola puts up to 1,200 buildings at risk of demolition

Up to 6,500 people are at risk of being displaced in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by a multi-billion-dollar infrastructure project funded by the EU and the US, amid a global race to secure supplies of copper, cobalt and other “critical minerals”, according to a report by campaign group Global Witness.

The project, labelled the Lobito Corridor, aims to upgrade the colonial-era Benguela railway from the DRC to Lobito on Angola’s coast and improve port infrastructure, as well as building a railway line to Zambia and supporting agriculture and solar power installations along the route. Angola has said it needs $4.5bn (£3.4bn) for its stretch of the line.

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Government once seen as progressive on migration says aid cuts to blame for excluding countries ‘not experiencing war’

The Ugandan government has stopped granting asylum and refugee status to people from Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia, citing severe funding shortfalls for the significant policy shift.

Hillary Onek, Uganda’s minister for refugees, announced that the government would no longer grant the status to new arrivals from countries “not experiencing war”.

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Footage seen by US senators shows two unarmed, shirtless men struggling to stay afloat before they were killed, sources say

• Experts say Trump’s ‘drug boat’ war is legally shaky

Two men who survived a US airstrike on a suspected drug smuggling boat in the Caribbean clung to the wreckage for an hour before they were killed in a second attack, according to a video of the episode shown to senators in Washington.

The men were shirtless, unarmed and carried no visible radio or other communications equipment. They also appeared to have no idea what had just hit them, or that the US military was weighing whether to finish them off, two sources familiar with the recording told Reuters.

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Rinaldo Nazzaro says detention of suspected Base members in Spain justifies ‘resistance … by any means necessary’

After Spanish police and Europol’s counter-terrorism section arrested three suspected members of the Base – a globally proscribed neo-Nazi terrorist group – in the eastern province of Castellón, its American leader living in Russia was defiant and signaled further actions.

In a text message to the Guardian, Rinaldo Nazzaro called the arrests another “example of political persecution” by world governments that are “further justifying our resistance to its hegemonic rule by any means necessary”.

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Donald Trump has in recent months turned his attention to ousting Venezuela’s leader, Nicolás Maduro. But the US president and his secretary of war, Pete Hegseth, are under scrutiny over military strikes on suspected drug boats from Venezuela in the Caribbean Sea.

This week, Jonathan Freedland speaks to the Guardian’s Tom Phillips about why people are accusing Trump of war crimes

Archive: 60 Minutes, CBS News, ABC News, PBS Newshour, C-SPAN, Al Jazeera English, CBS Miami, City News, CBC, Reuters

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Strike comes amid congressional turmoil over legality of US attacks on suspected drug smugglers

The Pentagon announced on Thursday that the US military had conducted another deadly strike on a boat suspected of carrying illegal narcotics, killing four men in the eastern Pacific, as questions mount over the legality of the attacks.

Video of the new strike was posted on social media by the US southern command, based in Florida, with a statement saying that, at the direction of Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, “Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel in international waters operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization”.

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Democrat Jim Himes calls footage ‘one of the most troubling scenes’ he’s observed in public service

• Analysis: Killing of survivors sparks outrage – but entire US ‘drug boat’ war is legally shaky

Top Democratic and Republican lawmakers in Congress on Thursday said that the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, had not ordered the military to kill surviving members of a deadly attack on a boat alleged to be carrying drugs in the Caribbean, but differed over whether the double strike was appropriate.

The allegation that Hegseth ordered the killing of survivors sparked bipartisan concern in Washington that he or others involved may have committed a war crime. On Thursday, US navy admiral Frank Bradley, who commanded the attack, and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Dan Caine, appeared before the House and Senate’s armed services and intelligence committees for a closed briefing in which they showed video and discussed the attack with lawmakers.

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The writer of the Tony award-nominated Slave Play remains in custody after authorities say they found MDMA in his bag

American actor and playwright Jeremy O Harris, known for the Tony-nominated Slave Play, was arrested last month at an airport in Japan on suspicion of attempting to smuggle illegal drugs into the country, local authorities said late on Thursday.

Harris, 36, was stopped on 16 November at Naha airport on Okinawa island after a customs officer discovered 0.78 grams of crystal containing the synthetic drug MDMA in his tote bag, an Okinawa regional customs spokesperson said.

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Six days after alleged incident, evidence emerges without requiring medical intervention, New Zealand police say

Police say they have recovered a Fabergé egg pendant from a man accused of swallowing the item in a jewellery story.

New Zealand police have spent six days monitoring every bowel movement of the suspect, a spokesperson said, and the NZ$33,000 ($19,000) James Bond Octopussy pendant was recovered from his gastrointestinal tract on Thursday night by natural means, without requiring medical intervention.

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The surprise visitor waddled around the pub during what’s known as ‘silly season’ where seals pop up in unexpected places

On a wet, lazy Sunday evening a baby fur seal waddled into a craft beer bar in Richmond, at the top of New Zealand’s South Island. Accustomed to seeing animals in the pet-friendly bar, co-owner Bella Evans initially assumed the visitor was a dog before she took a closer look.

“Everyone was in shock,” Evans said. “Oh my gosh. What do we do? What’s going on?”

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Prohibited from working, people sent to the island by Australia say they are struggling to survive because food is so expensive

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Asylum seekers sent to Nauru by Australia say they are going hungry on the island, prohibited from working to support themselves and given insufficient money to buy enough food.

Others say they fear the Nauru government will deport them to their home countries, from where they say they have fled persecution and violence.

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Seizures and warrants involve Chinese-Cambodian tycoon Chen Zhi, who heads US-sanctioned Prince Group, and Cambodians Kok An and Yim Leak

Thailand has seized assets worth more than $300m, including shares in a major regional energy company, and issued arrest warrants for 42 people in a high-profile push against regional scam networks, officials said on Wednesday.

Parts of south-east Asia, including the border areas between Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia, have become hubs for online fraud, with criminal networks earning billions from illegal compounds where trafficking victims are often forced to work.

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Social media is driving a boom in the use of peptides to improve appearance and physical performance. Many are experimental and come with risk of serious side effects

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On TikTok, a 21-year-old fitness influencer is spruiking a drug that hasn’t even finished clinical trials.

“This stuff is actually hard to come by in Australia, so I’ll leave a reputable source in the description,” the Sydneysider says. “Obviously, not approved for human use, so do with it as you will.”

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The changed outlook is a result of unwelcome inflation data, but could slow down the hot property market

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Financial markets are now pricing in a 100% chance the Reserve Bank will hike rates in 2026, in what would be a blow to mortgage holders but may take some steam out of an overheating property market.

The latest forecasts represent a turnaround from just two weeks ago, when traders were factoring in an even chance that the next RBA move would be a cut by its May meeting.

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Ads to be removed from Adelaide Metro buses after advertising regulator rules they breach its environmental claims code

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South Australia’s transport department misled the public by running ads on buses claiming “natural gas” was “clean and green”, the advertising regulator has found.

The SA Department for Transport and Infrastructure has agreed to remove the advertising that has been on some Adelaide Metro buses since the early 2000s after Ad Standards upheld a complaint from the not-for-profit organisation Comms Declare.

Sign up to get climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as a free newsletter

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Snowfall moves south-east over Wyoming and Colorado and combines with dense fog in some areas

A cold spell continued to grip parts of the US this week. After a winter storm brought 20-30cm of snow across Wisconsin, and even up to 35cm in places last weekend, the focus of the winter weather hazards shifted elsewhere early this week.

A storm system moving south-east over Wyoming and Colorado brought a continuous period of snowfall until Thursday morning. Central Colorado and northern New Mexico bore the brunt of the snowfall with accumulations reaching 30cm in places. The heavy snowfall across the Denver region was its first of the winter and caused widespread disruption to flights into and out of Denver on Wednesday and Thursday. Almost 1,000 flights were delayed or cancelled as a result of the treacherous conditions.

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Heatwave warnings in place for parts of New South Wales, the Northern Territory, Queensland and Western Australia

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Sydney’s CBD has recorded its highest temperature in nearly two years as the east coast of NSW experiences its first heatwave of the summer, while fire authorities in Tasmania and NSW battled bushfires.

Temperatures at Observatory Hill in the Sydney CBD reached 37.8C on Friday, the highest since 26 January 2024, while Penrith Lakes in the city’s west hit 40.3C, the hottest day since 28 January this year.

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Ministers want to secure deal by end of 2026 as part of a broader reset of Britain’s relationship with Europe

Tens of thousands of young British and European citizens would be given the right to live and work in each other’s countries under plans for a scheme that ministers are aiming to finalise within the next year.

Ministers want to secure a youth mobility scheme with the EU by the end of 2026, as part of a broader reset of Britain’s relationship with Europe six years after leaving the bloc.

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All 18-year-old men to be screened for suitability for armed forces, but proposal falls short of conscription

The German parliament has rubberstamped a new model for military service that aims to boost its armed forces, as thousands of school pupils demonstrated across the country against the plans.

The change will include the obligatory screening of all 18-year-old men to gauge their suitability to serve in the military from 1 January, but does not include conscription, as favoured by some conservative politicians.

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‘I deny everything,’ Macron said when asked about a leaked transcript of his call with Kyiv

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 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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French president’s remarks come a day after a report claimed he had warned Washington could betray Kyiv

Emmanuel Macron has said there is “no mistrust” between Europe and the US, a day after a report claimed the French president had warned privately there was a risk Washington could betray Ukraine.

“Unity between Americans and Europeans on the Ukrainian issue is essential. And I say it again and again, we need to work together,” Macron told reporters during a visit to China.

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Death of commander of Popular Forces is blow to Israel’s efforts to confront Hamas through proxy groups

The leader of an Israeli-backed militia in Gaza has been killed, dealing a major blow to Israel’s efforts to build up its own Palestinian proxies to confront Hamas.

Yasser abu Shabab, a Bedouin tribal leader based in the Israeli-held zone of the devastated territory, is thought to have died from wounds sustained in a violent clash with powerful and well-armed local families, according to local media and sources in Gaza.

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Agency says missile struck citizens in Khan Younis, as Israel reports targeting ‘Hamas terrorist’ after clash with militants

An Israeli strike on Palestinian territory has killed five people including two children, Gaza’s civil defence agency told AFP on Wednesday.

“Five citizens, including two children, killed and others injured, some seriously, as a result of an Israeli missile strike,” in al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis, civil defence spokesperson Mahmud Bassal told AFP.

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Group including Margaret Atwood, Ian McKellen and Richard Branson sign open letter to free Marwan Barghouti

More than 200 leading cultural figures have come together to call for the release of Marwan Barghouti, the jailed Palestinian leader seen as capable of uniting factions and bringing the best hope to the stalled mission of creating a Palestinian state.

The prestigious and diverse group calling for his release in an open letter includes a variety of prominent names, including the writers Margaret Atwood, Philip Pullman, Zadie Smith and Annie Ernaux; actors Sir Ian McKellen, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tilda Swinton, Josh O’Connor and Mark Ruffalo, and the broadcaster and former footballer Gary Lineker.

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Iranian film-maker won Cannes film festival’s Palme D’Or prize earlier this year for It Was Just an Accident

Iran has sentenced the Palme d’Or-winning film-maker Jafar Panahi in absentia to one year in prison and a travel ban over “propaganda activities” against the country.

The sentence includes a two-year ban on leaving Iran and prohibition of Panahi from membership of any political or social groups, his lawyer Mostafa Nili said, adding that they would file an appeal.

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Group beaten in early hours of morning in village where they volunteered to help protect Palestinians from settler violence

Italy and Canada have raised concerns about the treatment of their citizens who were beaten and robbed by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.

Three Italians and a Canadian were attacked early on Sunday morning in the village of Ein al-Duyuk, near Jericho, where they had volunteered to help protect the Palestinian population from intensifying settler violence.

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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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Inaugural prize expected to be handed to Donald Trump but ‘process’ for choosing future winners to be proposed by controversial tycoon’s committee

It was the timing that set off the first alarm bells. With Donald Trump brooding over missing out on the Nobel peace prize, and shortly before Gianni Infantino, the president of world football’s governing body, Fifa, was due to meet the US president in Miami, an announcement was made.

In a press release and a post on his personal Instagram account last month, Infantino said Fifa would launch its very own peace prize, to be awarded each year to “individuals who help unite people in peace through unwavering commitment and special actions”.

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Much improved response systems are struggling to cope with ever more powerful and destructive storms

• Death toll from Indonesia floods passes 700 as 1 million evacuated

Families stranded on their rooftops. Homes buried by fast-flowing mud. Jagged brown craters scarring lush green hillsides.

The scenes are the result of a series of cyclones and storms in a heavy monsoon season that have struck Asia with torrential rains, gutting essential infrastructure and reshaping landscapes. The violent weather has killed at least 1,200 people in the past week and forced a million to flee without knowing whether their homes will still be standing when they go back.

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Friends Melanie Watters and Janine Reid have been trapped in Pussellawa since Thursday

Two British women stranded by landslides in Sri Lanka’s tea mountains are running out of food and water, the daughter of one of them has said, as officials reported that the death toll of Cyclone Ditwah has reached 465.

Melanie Watters, 54, and her friend Janine Reid, 55, both from London, were being driven through the mountains from Kandy in central Sri Lanka on Thursday when the road in front of them was swamped, sending a bus nearby over a cliff-edge.

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Apple among big tech companies reportedly refusing to install Sanchar Saathi cybersecurity app on their devices

A political outcry has erupted in India after the government mandated large technology companies to install a state-owned app on smartphones that has led to surveillance fears among opposition MPs and activists.

Manufacturers including Apple, Samsung and Xiomi have 90 days to comply with the order to preload the government’s Sanchar Saathi, or Communication Partner, on every phone in India.

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Starmer hails child poverty strategy as a ‘moral mission’ which will include measures to help with childcare and getting families out of temporary housing

Readers may be aware, going into the weekend, that Edinburgh airport had to temporarily suspend flights this morning due to technical issues.

The delays lasted about an hour. A report here:

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RSPB says growing trend for honouring species that are in decline is not matched by action on conservation

Britain’s street names are being inspired by skylarks, lapwings and starlings, even as bird populations decline.

According to a report by the RSPB, names such as Skylark Lane and Swift Avenue are increasingly common. Using OS Open Names data from 2004 to 2024, the conservation charity found that road names featuring bird species had risen by 350% for skylarks, 156% for starlings and 104% for lapwings, despite populations of these having fallen in the wild.

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Logan Smith, 18, got out of ambulance driving him to hospital in Somerset, says official watchdog

A teenager who got out of an ambulance on a motorway hard shoulder was Tasered by police before being hit and killed by a car, official watchdogs have said.

Logan Smith, 18, was being taken to hospital when the ambulance pulled off the northbound carriageway of the M5 in Somerset because paramedics were concerned. The Independent Office for Police Conduct said Smith left the ambulance near the junction for Weston-super-Mare and walked on to the live lanes of the motorway.

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Defenders rally to Olivia Nuzzi amid book mockery, while rakish David Dimbleby channels his inner Dickens

It’s publication week for American Canto, the hastily turned around memoir by the former New York magazine journalist Olivia Nuzzi, who took on the challenge of explaining what it was about Robert F Kennedy Jr she found so alluring, a task for which no upper word limit is adequate. Nuzzi, if you’ve fallen behind, developed romantic feelings for the then presidential candidate, now Trump health minister, while profiling him for the magazine and since I’ve had to read this sentence, you do too: “He was exhausted, and he threw himself onto the bed, his pink shirt unbuttoned, revealing my favorite parts of his chest.” If you have a favourite part of RFK Jr’s chest, or consider chests in general subject to preference by localised area, this may be the book for you.

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With Dog Man making his London theatre debut next summer, theatre makers explain how to make a successful jump from page to stage

From Paddington and the BFG to The Gruffalo’s Child, My Neighbour Totoro to The Tiger Who Came to Tea, there is no shortage of stage adaptations of children’s classics filling theatres at the moment.

This week it was announced that Dog Man, the half-canine crime fighter from Dav Pilkey’s bestselling graphic novels, will make his London theatre debut at the Southbank Centre next summer.

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Four killed in attack on boat in eastern Pacific as questions continue over earlier double strike

• Pentagon announces it has killed four men in another boat strike in Pacific

In other pressing news, vice-president JD Vance is insisting that, amid a tonne of speculation online about missing rings and such, his marriage is just fine – in fact, it’s “as strong as it’s ever been”.

Asked whether he was frustrated by tabloid-style headlines about his wife Usha being spotted without her wedding ring on a number of occasions, Vance said in an interview with NBC News yesterday: “I think that we kind of get a kick out of it.” He went on:

With anything in life, you take the good with the bad. You accept that there are some sacrifices and there are some very good things that come along with it, too. But our marriage is as strong as it’s ever been, and I think Usha’s really taken to it, and it’s been kind of cool to see how she’s developed and evolved in this new role.

There are certainly ways in which it’s difficult on the family. I’m not going to pretend that it isn’t. But it’s the sacrifice that we signed up for.

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The congresswoman from Minnesota responded to Trump’s dismissal of Somali Americans as ‘garbage’

Ilhan Omar, the Somali-born Minnesota congresswoman, has said Donald Trump is lashing out at her and her community with bigotry because he “knows he is failing”.

The US president dismissed Somali Americans earlier this week as “garbage” in a racist rant.

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Community fears shooting will be written off as gang violence and says examination of complex factors such as online feuds is required

Tashante McCoy was celebrating her grandson’s fifth birthday in Stockton, California, on Saturday, when she learned that masked men had opened fire at another child’s birthday party on the other side of town.

Armed men had walked into the banquet hall where at least 100 people had gathered to celebrate a toddler’s birthday, a friend of McCoy’s who was at the event would later tell her. At least one man opened fire just as partygoers were preparing to cut the cake.

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Brian Cole Jr faces two charges related to the 5 January 2021 plot and could serve up to 20 years in prison if convicted

The man suspected of planting pipe bombs in Washington DC the night before the 6 January 2021 deadly attack on the US Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump trying to overturn his election defeat is due to make his first appearance in federal court on Friday.

Brian Cole Jr, 30, of Woodbridge, Virginia, will appear in court in Washington DC to face two explosives-related charges on the day after his arrest. Cole was accused of placing pipe bombs outside the headquarters of the Democratic and Republican parties not far from the US Capitol and the White House on the evening of 5 January 2021.

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Kristi Noem said the list of countries from which travel to the US is prohibited will increase to an unspecified number

• US politics live – latest updates

The US plans to expand the number of countries covered by its travel ban to more than 30, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Kristi Noem, has announced.

Noem, in an interview on Fox News’s The Ingraham Angle on Thursday evening, was asked to confirm whether the Trump administration would be increasing the number of countries on the travel ban list to 32.

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