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.Russian forces have captured five villages as part of a renewed ground assault in Ukraine’s northeast, the country’s Defense Ministry said Saturday. Ukrainian journalists reported Friday that Russian troops took the villages of Borysivka, Ohirtseve, Pylna and Strilecha, all of which lie in a militarily contested “grey zone” on the border of Ukraine’s Kharkiv region and Russia.

Russian officials said they had also captured another village, Pletenivka, in a renewed attack on the region that Ukrainian authorities said forced more than 1,700 civilians to flee.

Artillery, mortar, and aerial bombardments hit more than 30 different towns and villages, killing at least three people and injuring five others, said Kharkiv Gov. Oleh Syniehubov.

Ukraine rushed reinforcements to the Kharkiv region on Friday to hold off a Russian attempt to breach local defenses, authorities said.

Ukrainian forces also launched a barrage of drones and missiles on Saturday night, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said, with air defense systems downing 21 rockets and 16 drones over Russia’s Belgorod, Kursk and Volgograd regions. One person died in a drone strike in the Belgorod region, and another in the Kursk region, local officials said.

A searing heat wave has prompted blackouts nationwide and pushed the power grid to the brink.Mexico registered record-high temperatures in 10 cities, including the capital, authorities said on Friday, amid a searing heat wave that has prompted blackouts nationwide and pushed the power grid to the brink.

In the normally temperate high-altitude capital of Mexico City, North America's largest metropolis, thermometers on Thursday peaked at 34.3 degrees Celsius, a tenth of a degree higher than the record hit just a month earlier.

Neighbouring Puebla broke its previous record of 34.3deg C - set in 1947 - when it reached 35.2C on Thursday.

In Ciudad Victoria, in the northern border state Tamaulipas, across from Texas in the United States, the temperature hit a sweltering 47.4C on Thursday, breaking the previous high set in 1998.

The intense heat caused blackouts lasting several hours in some areas of Mexico this week, mainly in the north, and caused classes to be suspended in the central state of San Luis Potosi, which this week reached 50C.

In a weekly report published on Thursday, Mexico's health ministry reported seven heat-related deaths this heat season between its start on 17 March 17 and 4 May, a tally that could rise after this week's brutal heat.

Human-caused climate change and El Nino have been pushing up temperatures worldwide and causing deadly heat waves.

Ceasefire and divestment calls have spread beyond US campuses, with more expected as Rafah offensive begins

University campuses around the world have been the stage of a growing number of protests by students demanding academic institutions divest from companies supplying arms to Israel.

The protests, which first spread across college campuses in the US, have reached universities in the UK, the rest of Europe, as well as Lebanon and India.
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Some students have begun hunger strikes in protest against their university’s “silence and inaction”.
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Russia and Ukraine have accused each other at the global chemical weapons watchdog in The Hague of using banned toxins on the battlefield, the organisation said on Tuesday.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said that the accusations were "insufficiently substantiated" but added: "The situation remains volatile and extremely concerning regarding the possible re-emergence of use of toxic chemicals as weapons."

Neither Russia nor Ukraine has formally asked the OPCW to investigate the alleged use of chemical weapons, it said.
Last week, the U.S. said Russia had violated the international chemical weapons ban overseen by the OPCW by deploying the choking agent chloropicrin against Ukrainian troops and using riot control agents "as a method of warfare" in Ukraine.

It followed Ukrainian assertions in April that Russia had increased its use of tear gas in the trenches.
Russia denied the allegations.

Ukrainian officials on Tuesday did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The OPCW said it had been monitoring the situation since February 2022, when Moscow invaded Ukraine.
Under the Chemical Weapons Convention, any toxic chemical used with the purpose of causing harm or death is considered a chemical weapon.

Israel carried out airstrikes in eastern Rafah after issuing orders for the evacuation of 100,000 Palestinians from part of the city earlier on Monday, triggering an exodus of thousands of people. The Israeli military said late on Monday it was conducting targeted strikes against Hamas in Rafah, where 1.4 million Palestinian civilians are sheltering.

There were reports of Israeli tanks being seen on the eastern outskirts of Rafah and a Palestinian security official and an Egyptian official said they had reached as close as 200 metres from Rafah’s crossing with neighbouring Egypt. The Axios news site cited unnamed sources as saying Israeli forces planned to take over the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing, the sole gateway between Egypt and Gaza for humanitarian supplies and people. The Guardian could not independently verify that report.

Palestinian hospital officials said one strike on a house in Rafah late Monday killed five Palestinians, including a woman and a girl. Twenty-two people including two babies and other children were killed in earlier strikes on Monday.

The strikes came as Hamas said it had agreed to a Gaza ceasefire proposal from mediators. Hamas said in a brief statement that its chief, Ismail Haniyeh, had informed Qatari and Egyptian mediators that the group accepted their proposal for a ceasefire, prompting initial celebrations from Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

Seventy-five people are now known to have died in the flooding in Brazil’s southern Rio Grande do Sul state, while more than 100 people remain missing, local authorities said on Sunday. The state’s civil defence authority said 101 people were unaccounted for and more than 80,000 had been displaced after record-breaking floods swept across the state, which borders Uruguay and Argentina.

Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, arrived in Rio Grande do Sul on Sunday, along with most members of his cabinet, to discuss rescue and reconstruction works with local authorities.

Rescue workers are continuing to race against the clock to save people from raging floods and mudslides. Using four-wheel-drive vehicles and at times jetskis, rescuers made their way through waist-deep water, searching for those who had been left stranded by the rising waters.

Video posted online by Lula appeared to show a helicopter dropping a soldier on the roof of a house, and the soldier using a brick to pound a hole in the roof and rescue a baby wrapped in a blanket.

Storms have affected almost two-thirds of the state’s 497 cities, leading to landslides, destroyed roads and collapsed bridges as well as power outages and water cuts. More than a million people lacked access to drinking water, according to Brazil’s civil defence agency.

Israeli air attacks kill at least 10 Palestinians in Rafah as Hamas fires rockets at the Karem Abu Salem crossing, killing three Israeli soldiers and wounding 11 others. The latest round of negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza has ended in the Egyptian capital Cairo, but crucial gaps remain between Israel and Hamas.

Gaza’s civil defence office said its crews in Rafah are dealing with “several attacks” on inhabited and uninhabited homes in the southern city.

It said Israeli forces have hit 11 homes in the southern area between Sunday evening and the early hours of Monday. The attacks have resulted in dozens of people killed, wounded, and missing under the rubble.

Time is running out to prevent starvation in Darfur, in western Sudan, a UN agency has warned, as escalating violence devastates the African nation. People have been forced to consume “grass and peanut shells,” the regional director for Eastern Africa of the World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday. “If assistance doesn’t reach them soon, we risk witnessing widespread starvation and death in Darfur and across other conflict-affected areas in Sudan,” Michael Dunford added.

Sudan has been gripped by civil war since April 2023, when fighting erupted between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). It quickly descended into a brutal conflict characterized by reports of sexual and genocidal violence and civilian casualties, triggering an exodus of refugees.

On Thursday, two International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) drivers were killed by gunmen in South Darfur, in an attack that left three other staff members injured, according to the humanitarian organization.

The ICRC team was attacked en route to assess the crisis among communities affected by armed violence in the region, the organization said.

The latest surge in violence comes as the RSF encircles North Darfur’s capital, El Fasher.

In the city and its surrounding localities, there have been “increasing arbitrary killings,” systematic “burning of entire villages” and “escalating air bombardments,” the UN deputy humanitarian coordinator for Sudan, Toby Hayward, said on Thursday.

Spread of Tory losses leads former minister to say there’s ‘no such thing as a safe seat any more’. The Conservatives are facing one of their worst local election results in 40 years, with striking Labour gains across England and Wales in key battlegrounds they need to secure victory at the general election.

The spread of the Conservative losses led one former minister to claim there was “no such thing really as a safe Tory seat any more”, but the prime minister appeared committed to clinging on until polling day, with rebels in his own party lacking the support to oust him.

The polling expert Prof John Curtice of Strathclyde University said the results added up to “one of the worst, if not the worst” performances by the Conservatives in four decades.

The party is expected to lose up to 500 seats when all votes are counted, with Labour advancing in areas of both the “red wall” north won by the Tories under Boris Johnson and the traditional southern Conservative heartlands.

Keir Starmer hailed “seismic” results, including winning a landslide byelection in Blackpool South, with the third largest swing since the second world war, as well as mayoralties in the East Midlands, North East and North Yorkshire, which covers Sunak’s own constituency.

Labour also ousted a number of Tory police and crime commissioners, and took control of at least seven new councils, including in Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hampshire and Sussex in the south of England.

Paris rubbish collectors could strike over the summer, a major French union said Thursday, raising the spectre of piles of stinking trash on the streets during the Olympic Games. Walkouts could start in May and continue from July 1 to September 8, the CGT union branch representing binmen warned, a period that includes the Games, which run from July 26 to August 11.

Refuse workers in the Paris region are demanding an extra 400 euros ($430) per month and a one-off 1,900-euro bonus for those working during the Olympics.

"We're going to be giving it our all and we want that taken into consideration," Nabil Latreche, a member of the CGT-FTDNEEA union, told AFP.

"The municipal police are getting a bonus and we have the same employer. We're going to have an excessive workload too with the 15 million tourists that are expected," Latreche said.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) director said the comprehensive famine in northern Gaza might spread south. Northern Gaza is experiencing "full-blown" famine, according to the UN World Food Programme (WFP) Director Cindy McCain. 

"Whenever you have conflicts like this, and emotions rage high, and things happen in a war, famine happens," she said during an interview with NBC aired on Saturday. 

"What I can explain to you is - is that there is famine - full-blown famine - in the north." 

McCain warned mass starvation was "moving its way south", where the vast majority of Gaza's population has fled fighting between Israel and Hamas. 

The UN has claimed since mid-March that northern Gaza is "nearing" a state of famine, though the organisation has not yet officially stated one had begun.

Human Rights Watch recently reported that children were dying from starvation-related complications in Gaza, claiming Israel was using starvation as a "weapon of war" - a war crime under international law.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell also said in March that Israel was "provoking famine" as a weapon of war.

Mediators renew efforts to secure a truce ahead of invasion of city, where more than 1 million people are sheltering. Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that Israel will proceed with an offensive on the southern Gaza city of Rafah even if renewed efforts at internationally brokered talks with Hamas result in the release of hostages and a ceasefire.

Mediators led by Egypt have made fresh attempts to broker a truce in recent days after it became clearer that Israel is preparing for its long-threatened ground operation in Rafah. The city on the Egyptian border is the only part of the Palestinian territory that has not faced ground fighting, and more than half of the strip’s 2.3 million population has sought shelter there.

Speaking in Jerusalem on Tuesday, the Israeli prime minister said: “The idea that we will halt the war before achieving all of its goals is out of the question. We will enter Rafah and we will eliminate the Hamas battalions there – with or without a deal, in order to achieve total victory.”

BUENOS AIRES, April 30 (Reuters) - Argentina's lower house of Congress gave President Javier Milei a boost on Tuesday by approving his sweeping reform bill ahead of a final Senate vote and backing articles related to privatizing state bodies and labour reform.
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The US ambassador to the United Nations on Monday warned of an impending "large-scale massacre" in the Sudanese city of El-Fasher, a humanitarian hub in the Darfur region.

Niger’s military government sides with Russia in the latest sign of Moscow’s growing influence in Africa. Armed troops in Niger overthrew the government in July 2023, seizing power for themselves. The following months were rife with speculation that the military government would align with Moscow and possibly form ties with the Russian military or its associates.

This has now become a reality, to the detriment of western interests in the country. On Wednesday, April 10, a Russian plane arrived in the Nigerien capital, Niamey, reportedly carrying Russian military trainers and equipment, including a Russian air defence system. It marked the beginning of a new alliance between the Kremlin and Niger’s military leaders.

Following the arrival of Russian military equipment and advisers, hundreds of protesters gathered in Niamey to demand the withdrawal of American forces. Niger has been the centre of US operations in west and north Africa since the two countries signed a military pact in 2012.

The US has since announced that it will pull more than 1,000 military personnel out of Niger. This will result in the closure of Base 201, a key US drone facility that has been used in operations against jihadist terrorist groups in the Sahel region.

At least four people have been killed in a Russian missile strike that hit a Gothic-style building in the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa.

Known to locals as the "Harry Potter Castle", its turrets were still burning at nightfall and emergency services graded the blaze severe.

Residents reportedly did not have enough time to take shelter as air raid alerts only happened a few minutes before the strike.

"The type of missile is currently being checked; forensic specialists are carrying out the appropriate evaluations to this end," said a spokesperson for Ukraine's Southern Defense Forces, Dmytro Pletenchuk.

"All services, including the State Emergency Service, are currently working to eliminate the consequences of the missile strike - yet another war crime."

Private job providers can claim public money when jobseekers find work. But they need their payslips to do so, and some resort to extreme methods to get them

MOSCOW, April 25 (Reuters) - Russia said on Thursday that Poland was playing a "very dangerous game" by considering the possibility of hosting U.S. nuclear weapons.

Polish President Andrzej Duda said on Thursday he had invited Prime Minister Donald Tusk for talks on May 1 about the possibility of nuclear weapons from NATO states being deployed in Poland.

Duda has reiterated his position that Poland would be ready for such a possibility, prompting Tusk to say he would like a clarification from the president.
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Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said any U.S. nuclear missiles in Poland could become targets in the event of a Russia-NATO war.

"It is not difficult to assume that if American nuclear weapons appear on Polish territory, the corresponding objects will immediately join the list of legitimate targets for destruction in the case of direct military conflict with NATO," she told reporters at her weekly briefing.

The Freedom Flotilla could depart Friday with 5,500 tons of aid for Gaza, amid Israel’s ongoing siege and blockade.

Activists are planning to lead a flotilla of ships to Gaza, amid Israel’s ongoing siege. They’ll transport 5,500 tons of desperately needed food and supplies from Istanbul to the Palestinian territory, where famine looms.

The activists don’t necessarily expect to make it there. They hope they do. But in the event that Israel blocks them, boards them, and detains them — or worse — they hope their efforts will inspire international outcry and put more pressure on Israel to end its war in Gaza and blockade around the territory.
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A Biden spokesperson declined to comment on the flotilla and did not respond to questions about whether the administration has been lobbying Turkey to block the voyage.
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Wynd Kaufmyn, an activist from Berkeley traveling with the flotilla, says the participants hope that “there will be enough international eyes on us that Israel will leave us alone, and we get the aid in, and we hope that it’s just the beginning of getting aid in.”

She acknowledges, though, if the flotilla is allowed to depart from Istanbul, participants need to be ready for Israel to “board us, take control of the boat, confiscate everything, deport us, and not treat us very well in the process.”

“We are totally idealistic,” she says. “We’re not being unrealistic.”

April 23, 2024 (GENEVA) – Hundreds of thousands of people and refugees fleeing from the Sudan war going to neighbouring Chad or Ethiopia, the European Union (EU) High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security, Josep Borrel said. Borrell, also the Vice President of the EU Commission, was speaking during the 25th EU-Non Governmental Organization (NGO) Forum for Human Rights. He described the situation in Sudan as a struggle for power among at least three warlords, with each one of them allegedly supported by some of the neighbours. “One neighbour supports one, the other neighbour supports the other,” said Borrell. Last month, a joint statement from the EU strongly condemned a ban by the Sudanese de facto authorities on the delivery of cross-border humanitarian assistance from Chad to Sudan to the civilians suffering at the hands of the SAF and the RSF. Borrell and the EU Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarčic then described the ban as a flagrant violation of International Humanitarian Law (IHL). In the context of widespread hostilities, cross-border assistance is the lifeline to the people of Darfur, the EU said, adding denying access to vital aid for people in need, especially in conflict-affected regions is exacerbating an already …

The world is seeing a near breakdown of international law amid flagrant rule-breaking in Gaza and Ukraine, multiplying armed conflicts, the rise of authoritarianism and huge rights violations in Sudan, Ethiopia and Myanmar, Amnesty International warned on Wednesday as it published its annual report.

The human rights organisation said the most powerful governments, including the United States, Russia and China, have led a global disregard for international rules and values enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with civilians in conflicts paying the highest price.

Agnes Callamard, Amnesty's secretary general, said the level of violation of international order witnessed in the past year was "unprecedented".

"Israel's flagrant disregard for international law is compounded by the failures of its allies to stop the indescribable civilian bloodshed meted out in Gaza," she said. "Many of those allies were the very architects of that post-World War Two system of law."

The report highlighted the United States' failures to denounce rights violations committed by Israel and its use of veto power to paralyse the UN Security Council on a cease-fire resolution in Gaza, as well as Russia's ongoing aggression in Ukraine. It also pointed to China's arming of military forces in Myanmar and the way Beijing has shielded itself from scrutiny over its treatment of the Uyghur minority.

"We have here three very large countries, superpowers in many ways, sitting on the Security Council that have emptied out the Security Council of its potentials, and that have emptied out international law of its ability to protect people," Callamard told The Associated Press in London.

The report, which detailed Amnesty's assessment of human rights in 155 countries, underlined an increasing backlash against women's rights and gender equality in 2023.

Israel has taken significant steps in recent weeks on allowing aid into Gaza, the U.S. special envoy for humanitarian issues said on Tuesday, but considerable work remained to be done as the risk of famine in the enclave is very high.

David Satterfield declined to say whether Washington was satisfied by Israel's moves, weeks after U.S. President Joe Biden demanded action to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, saying conditions could be placed on U.S. support for close ally Israel if it did not implement a series of "specific, concrete and measurable" steps.

"Israel has taken significant steps in these last two and a half weeks," Satterfield told reporters. "There is still considerable work to be done. But progress has been made."

The risk of famine throughout war-devastated Gaza, especially in the north, is "very high", he said, calling for more to be done to get aid to those in need in that part of the tiny, densely populated Palestinian territory.

The United Nations has long complained of obstacles to getting aid in and distributing it throughout Gaza in the six months since Israel began an aerial and ground offensive against Gaza's ruling Islamist militant group Hamas.

Israel's military campaign has reduced much of the territory of 2.3 million people to a wasteland with an unfolding humanitarian disaster since October, when Hamas ignited war by storming into southern Israel.

Karim Bouyakhrichan, the most wanted man in the Netherlands, was arrested in January by the National Police and was provisionally released.

Karim Bouyakhrichan, leader of one of the families of the dangerous Mocro Maffia of Dutch origin, the man most wanted by the Dutch authorities, has escaped from Justice and has fled from Spain.

Arrested last January in one of the most important operations of the National Police, he was provisionally released, and after an extradition order and a court summons, he has not appeared in court. The National Court has already issued an international search and arrest warrant.

His arrest occurred, specifically, on January 24, in an operation that had been in progress for five years. The agents, after five years of a long investigation that dismantled the structure of their clan, based on the Costa del Sol. The magnitude of that operation lies in the fact that up to 172 real estate properties were intervened for an approximate value of 50 million euros with which This organization allegedly laundered its money in Marbella and its surroundings.

Bouyakhrichan was arrested and imprisoned by order of the head of the Investigative Court No. 4 of Marbella for his participation in this criminal network. Before that judicial instance, his lawyer requested provisional release, which was opposed by the Anti-Drug Prosecutor's Office. The lawyer of the Dutch mafia leader alleged roots in the Bouyakhrichan peninsula. The Provincial Court of Malaga, despite recognizing the risk of escape, decided to release him.

On February 22, a month after the UDEF operation that led to his arrest, he was released provisionally after paying bail of 50,000 euros and under the conditions of surrendering his passport and appearing every 15 days before the nearest court. This is confirmed to EL ESPAÑOL by police sources familiar with this surprising and controversial release.

50,000 euros, sources specializing in the matter tell EL ESPAÑOL, is pocket change for a guy like Bouyakhrichan. At the same time that this was happening in Marbella, the Dutch authorities, who had celebrated the arrest of this dangerous individual like no other, were submitting the pertinent extradition order through the National Court so that he could be delivered to them so that they could try him for the charges. crimes that he had pending in his country.

It was Ismael Moreno, the head of the Central Court of Instruction No. 2 of the National Court, who initiated the process. When he took it, he encountered opposition from the Provincial Court of Malaga, because the macro-operation in which he had been arrested meant that he had pending cases in Spain, so it could not yet be carried out.

The Netherlands, police sources point out, insisted on the risk of flight and the danger of leaving such an individual free. They then filed an extension of the extradition order before the National Court, and the dangerous boss was summoned to be notified of his extradition. He never appeared in court and has not been heard from since: he has fled.

Now, as Cadena Ser has advanced and this newspaper has confirmed, the head of the Court of Instruction No. 2 of the National Court, Ismael Moreno, has issued a search order against him.

Arrested in January

His arrest was the result of the most important investigation so far against the most dangerous criminal organization in the Netherlands. Karim Bouyakhrichan's organization was dedicated to large-scale international trafficking of narcotic substances, specifically the introduction of large quantities of cocaine into our country as well as money laundering. To do this, they used a solid personal, maritime and commercial infrastructure with a presence mainly in Malaga, Barcelona, ​​Melilla or Marbella as well as abroad.

According to the investigators from the UDEF (Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit) who led the operation, in January the most wanted and dangerous criminal of the Dutch mafia was captured. Historical drug trafficker from the Costa del Sol, he has been involved in numerous police investigations and for years acted as a connection point in Spain with various international criminal organizations involved in international cocaine trafficking.

This allowed him to accumulate a large amount of income and properties that now, thanks to investigators, have been able to be intervened during the operation. In total, 75,000 euros in cash, jewelry worth approximately 10,000 euros, as well as two firearms were seized.

172 real estate properties worth approximately 50 million euros were also blocked, as well as nearly three million euros in the balances of the 148 bank accounts. This huge number of homes were acquired by his organization to hide in them the money they were amassing over the years.

During the investigation, it was possible to verify the existence of a complex company based in Morocco, the Dominican Republic, the Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates and Spain. The criminal organization used intermediary merchants, as well as the "Hawalla" methodology and the use of front men to launder significant amounts of money with which they subsequently acquired movable and immovable property.

Over the last few years, three large organizations have dominated the world of organized crime in Europe: the Albanian mafia, the Balkan cartel and the Mocro Maffia, a dangerous clan whose members are mostly second-generation Moroccans who have frightened the Netherlands and spread their tentacles across the continent. Karim Bouyakhrichan, one of the Mocro Maffia bosses, was the most wanted and dangerous criminal of all, according to UDEF investigators.

Bouyakhrichan heads one of the two main families of the Mocro Maffia. For years it has confronted the other large Dutch group, the one led by Ridouan Taghi, who had threatened Princess Amalia of the Netherlands, the president of the country and who even killed an investigative journalist who had dared to delve into the criminal activities of these organizations. It was that rival family that killed his brother Samir in 2014, in Benahavís (Málaga), starting an endless sequence of settling scores on the Costa del Sol.

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An independent review of the neutrality of the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees has found that Israel never expressed concern about anyone on the staff lists it has received annually since 2011

Snake bite victims are endangering medical staff by bringing the reptiles with them to hospital, doctors say.

In Queensland's Wide Bay region, doctors have come face to face with some of the world's most venomous snakes captured by patients believing it will help with identification and treatment.

In one case earlier this month, emergency staff at Bundaberg Hospital, four hours north of Brisbane, were handed a plastic food container with a small [highly venomous] eastern brown snake inside peering back at them.

The incident has prompted the hospital's director of emergency medicine, Adam Michael, to warn patients to leave snakes alone.