World

Umm Shukry inspects her olive trees one by one, just as she did every year for a decade. But this olive harvest season is different. Nearly all her trees are damaged; their branches bare and brittle. Examining each limb, she feels exhausted with sorrow. “I am suffocated. I am suffocated from seeing my hard work turn out like this,” she …

African and international efforts to stop the war have been slow. Now, swift action, including the possible invocation of R2P, is vital. After an 18-month siege, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) captured El-Fasher, the capital of Darfur, Sudan, on 26 October. The city, until recently the last stronghold of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in Darfur, is now under …

Nancy Pelosi has announced her retirement from Congress, ending a decades-long career that saw the California Democrat become one of the most powerful figures in US politics. In a video message on Thursday, Pelosi said she will not be seeking re-election to Congress at the end of her term in January 2027. It marks the end of a storied political …

US President Donald Trump has ordered the military to prepare for action in Nigeria to tackle Islamist militant groups, accusing the government of failing to protect Christians. Trump did not say which killings he was referring to, but claims of a genocide against Nigeria’s Christians have been circulating in recent weeks and months in some right-wing US circles. Groups monitoring …

Two suspects have been arrested over the theft of precious crown jewels from Paris’s Louvre museum, French media say. The Paris prosecutor’s office said one of the men had been taken into custody as he was preparing to take a flight from Charles de Gaulle Airport. Items worth €88m (£76m; $102m) were taken from the world’s most-visited museum last Sunday, …

Ghana’s former First Lady, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, has died at the age of 76. She was the widow of Ghana’s longest-serving leader, Jerry John Rawlings, who died five years ago after leading two coups and later serving as an elected president. Presidential spokesperson Felix Kwakye Ofosu confirmed that Agyeman-Rawlings died on Thursday morning after a short illness. Tributes have since …

Wishing for peace is far easier than making peace. President Donald Trump’s grand ambitions in the Middle East and Ukraine are struggling against their own internal limitations and the horrific hangovers of two brutal wars. Trump ditched plans for a quick second summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, declaring Tuesday that he didn’t want to waste his time, in the latest …

The United Nations’ top court issued a legal opinion Wednesday stating that Israel, as an occupying power, is obligated to work with UN agencies to facilitate humanitarian aid in Gaza, a rebuke of the blockade it imposed on the Palestinian enclave earlier this year. The International Court of Justice also said in its advisory opinion that the UN Relief and Works Agency for …

Nicolas Sarkozy has become the first French ex-president to go to jail, as he starts a five-year sentence for conspiring to fund his election campaign with money from late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Not since World War Two Nazi collaborationist leader Philippe Pétain was jailed for treason in 1945 has any French ex-leader gone behind bars. Sarkozy, who was president …

Sanae Takaichi has been elected Japan’s prime minister by parliament, making her the first woman to hold the office. The 64-year-old won a clear majority on Tuesday – 237 votes in the powerful Lower House and another 125 in the Upper House – as leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). A staunch conservative and admirer of the late …