Read the daily news to learn English

Latvia prime minister resigns days after ‘stray’ drone incursion – Europe live

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it has been informed of “a major increase in drone activity” near Ukrainian nuclear power plants. The UN nuclear watchdog recorded more than 160 drones “flying in the vicinity” of the South Ukraine, Chornobyl and Rivne nuclear power plants since yesterday. In a statement on social media, the IAEA said: While the IAEA’s teams report no direct impact on nuclear safety at these sites, IAEA director general Rafael Grossi expresses deep concern about such military activities near NPPs [nuclear power plants] and reiterates need to fully respect the 7 indispensable pillars for ensuring nuclear safety and security during the conflict. Grossi also calls again for maximum restraint to avoid the risk of a nuclear accident.

Philippine politician wanted by ICC flees senate after days holed up in building

A Philippine lawmaker wanted by the international criminal court for his alleged role enforcing Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody anti-drugs crackdown has secretly fled the senate after spending days holed up in the building to avoid arrest. The senate president, Alan Peter Cayetano, confirmed to the media that senator Ronald dela Rosa was “no longer in the building” after reports that he had slipped out of the heavily guarded building before dawn. “I’m waiting for a complete incident report on what time he left,” Cayetano said. Dela Rosa’s disappearance follows a dramatic week in which he earlier avoided arrest by outrunning government agents as they chased him through the hallways and staircases of the senate. When he reached the building’s chamber, he was given protective custody by the senate president, a longtime Duterte ally. Dela Rosa had remained in the building for days, but chaos erupted on Wednesday when he announced his arrest was imminent and called upon his supporters to gather outside, leading to a heavy security presence at the building. Gunshots were later fired in the senate, forcing journalists to scramble for cover. Senate security personnel and National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) personnel exchanged fire, according to an official from the president’s office. Police are investigating the incident. At a press conference on Thursday, Cayetano read a text message he had been sent by Dela Rosa’s wife in which she thanked senators for their support and apologised for the “confusion and havoc” caused. “It is for this reason I am sure that Ronald made his ‘escape’,” the message added, according to Cayetano, who said “escape” was written in quotation marks. “He told me that the longer he stays inside the senate, the more all of you will be dragged into the situation. We know that the NBI, the CIDG [Criminal Investigation and Detection Group], the police, or even the military would not storm the senate if he were not inside,” the message continued. The Philippines president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, has said there were no instructions to arrest Dela Rosa and questioned whether the event was an attempt to “destabilise the government or trigger chaos”. Marcos is embroiled in a fierce feud with the Duterte family that intensified last year when the former leader Duterte was arrested and transferred to the ICC. A police spokesperson, Randulf Tuaño, said the shooting was being investigated and that one person detained had “provided names” that were being verified. It is unclear how Dela Rosa managed to slip out of the building. Maria Ela L Atienza, a professor at the department of political science, University of the Philippines, called for the senate’s leadership to be held accountable. “In trying to protect [Dela Rosa] they made the senate a laughing stock … because they’re harboring a fugitive,” she said. Their actions had affirmed the need for Dela Rosa to be tried abroad in the ICC by showing the double standards that exist in the Philippines’ justice system, Atienza said. “Here, a senator who has all the power and the networks, he can be protected by his friends who are part of the elite of the Philippines,” she said. “Whereas it’s so easy for a regular Filipino, a poor Filipino to be accosted by the police and not even given a proper due process.” Thousands of people were killed during Duterte’s “war on drugs”, after they were accused of being drug addicts or dealers. Most of the victims were men from poor, urban areas, who were shot dead in the streets or their homes by police, or in some cases unidentified assailants. Dela Rosa was head of the Philippine national police during Duterte’s administration and is accused of being a chief enforcer of anti-drugs crackdowns. He is one of eight co-perpetrators named by the ICC in its case against Duterte, who is detained at The Hague. An arrest warrant accuses him of “authorising, condoning and promoting” drug war killings, providing weapons, promising impunity and rewarding perpetrators, according to an ICC arrest warrant that was unsealed on Monday. He did not respond to a request for comment but has denied wrongdoing. Cayetano did not state Dela Rosa’s whereabouts but denied accusations that the senate leadership had helped him to leave. Separately, he announced the impeachment trial of the vice-president, Sara Duterte, a daughter of the former leader, would begin next week. She was impeached on Monday after a vote in the house of representatives, which is dominated by Marcos allies. A trial will be held in the senate, where her family’s allies have a stronger presence. If impeached she would be banned from public office, derailing her plans to run for president in 2028. In a video message, she accused Marcos’s administration of “using all government resources to demolish political opposition”. With Reuters and Agence France-Presse

Ukraine hit by second day of large-scale Russian missile and drone strikes

Russian missiles and drones are pounding Ukraine for a second day, as almost continuous heavy attacks hit the country, with Kyiv bearing the brunt of an assault that has killed at least five and injured 44 in the capital. The overnight attacks followed heavy daylight raids with missiles and drones across the country on Wednesday, one of the longest single attacks of the war. “As of now, already 5 people have been reported killed in Kyiv as a result of last night’s Russian attack,” the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, wrote in a statement on social media, adding: “There must be a just response to all these strikes.” The assault began at 3am on Thursday with hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles fired by Moscow as the sound of explosions echoed through Kyiv. Water and power supplies were disrupted in the east of the city. The scale of the Russian attacks and their intensity appeared to put paid to claims by the US president, Donald Trump, that a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine was close, following recent remarks by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, that the war may be approaching an end. Ukraine’s air force said the latest attack involved 56 missiles of various types and almost 700 drones. Separately, Ukraine reported that Russian drones on Thursday had struck a UN vehicle in the southern city of Kherson. Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said a large apartment block had collapsed in the Darnytskyi district. “Eighteen apartments have been destroyed. A rescue and search operation is ongoing. According to preliminary information, 11 people have been rescued from the building,” he told local media. “Forty people have been injured in the capital as a result of the enemy large-scale attack. Among them are two children. Thirty-one of the injured have been taken to hospital, including one child,” the mayor added. Ukraine’s interior minister, Ihor Klymenko, said “more than 10 people were still believed to be missing” from the attack. Wednesday’s daytime raids killed at least 14 people and injured more than 80 others. They appear to have included “double-tap” strikes aimed at first responders sent to the sites of attacks, and also struck two-dozen sites associated with Ukraine’s railway system and other critical infrastructure. After strikes in western Ukraine close to the Hungarian border, Hungary summoned Russia’s ambassador on Thursday, a stark example of the change brought about by the election of Péter Magyar as prime minister after years of cosy relations between Budapest and Moscow under his predecessor Viktor Orbán. The scale of the recent raids led to warnings that Russia was attempting to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defence systems by swarming them with drones and missiles. In a late afternoon post on Wednesday, Zelenskyy had described the raids as “one of the longest [and most] massive Russian attacks against Ukraine”, suggesting Moscow’s aim was to spoil the “political atmosphere” during Trump’s visit to China. He added that Ukraine’s intelligence had assessed Moscow was attempting to overwhelm Kyiv’s air defences through the scale and intensity of the attacks to cause “as much grief and pain as possible”. The attacks followed Trump’s latest claims of progress in negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow, which were offered on Wednesday with scant detail and followed similar unfounded claims. “The end of the war in Ukraine I really think is getting very close,” the US president told reporters as he left the White House for a summit in Beijing. “Believe it or not, it’s getting closer.” His comments follow remarks by Putin in a speech last weekend that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was possibly coming to an end. The attacks came as Ukraine’s battlefield prospects appeared to have been improving in recent months. It has gone from pleading for international help with its defence to offering other countries expertise on how to counter attacks thanks to its domestically developed drone technology.

UN urges Equatorial Guinea to halt plans to return US deportees to home countries

Human rights experts at the United Nations issued a rare public appeal to Equatorial Guinea, urging the West African country to halt its plans to return US deportees to their home countries where they face political violence, torture and death. The statement, cosigned by a representative of the African Commission on Human and People’s rights, adds diplomatic pressure on Equatorial Guinea, one of the world’s most repressive regimes, to comply with international human rights standards and avoid refoulement, or the expulsion of people to countries where they face persecution. “States must ensure that no one is returned, directly or indirectly, to a situation where their life, freedom or physical or mental integrity would be in danger,” the experts implored in a statement on Wednesday. The Trump administration made deals with dozens of countries to receive US deportees, as part of the president’s goal of “mass deportation”. The US gave Equatorial Guinea $7.5m to take in third-country nationals, who had been granted protections against expulsion to homelands where they faced persecution. The UN’s public plea came after several deportees sent by the US to Equatorial Guinea said security officials presented nine of the US deportees with salvo-conductos – temporary travel documents – and told them they would be deported imminently to their home countries. “Equatorial Guinea should never be treated as a safe country for migrants or asylum seekers. This is a highly repressive authoritarian state,” said Tutu Alicante, director of the human rights group Equatorial Guinea Justice. “Vulnerable migrants are being transferred into a country where they have no legal status, no family networks, and no meaningful protection mechanisms.” Esther, who landed in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, weeks ago, said the conditions at the hotel where she has been detained are not unlike a prison. She and at other deportees had been held without access to soap, toothbrushes or clean clothes. “I have cried. I have struggled. I have done everything,” she said in a phone call with the Guardian from the hotel room where she has been confined. “I have fought and fought. Now I don’t have anything left in me.” Esther is from a different West African country. The Guardian is using a pseudonym for her, and not naming her home country in order to protect her safety. She said she fled in 2024, after she was arrested and tortured at the behest of government officials – first making her way to South America, and then migrating north through Mexico before arriving at the US southern border. She spent 14 months at a US immigration detention center before a judge heard her case, and granted her a “withholding of removal” – a special immigration status guaranteeing she wouldn’t be sent back to her home country where she faced violence. She moved in with her uncle, in New York, and had complied with requirements to regularly check in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, she said. It was during a check-in appointment that she was arrested, she said, denied access to her lawyer, moved to Louisiana and then eventually shackled and placed on a plane to Equatorial Guinea. Officials repeatedly declined to tell her where she was being sent, she said, until she boarded the flight and an airline employee informed her of the destination. Since then, she has been confined to a hotel in Malabo, guarded by armed officials. Her only access to the outside world is through her hotel room window, she said, and via her cell phone, which she managed to retain even after officials in the US and Equatorial Guinea confiscated her travel documents and other belongings. Lawyers were repeatedly blocked from delivering her and other deportees phone chargers, soap, fresh clothes and pads. Eventually, she was able to receive a charger and pads, she said – but she was wearing the same clothes she had on when she was arrested in the US. She has also been unable to get medication after catching the flu, she said, or any treatment for the pain she feels in her hands and ankles from being shackled for hours during her journey. On Saturday, Esther said, officials told her at least eight others that they would be expelled. “I know what awaits me if they send me where they want to send me. I will be locked up, I will be in jail,” she said. Two years ago, she said, authorities arrested and disappeared her father, then arrested, beat and starved her until she was at the brink of death. Her mother, who begged officials to let her escort Esther to the hospital, had also arranged for her daughter to escape. Lawyers from a coalition of legal and human rights non-profits who are advocating for at least 28 people sent to Equatorial Guinea said the deportees were granted protections under US immigration laws or the international Convention Against Torture – meaning that they proved, before an immigration judge, that they would likely face severe pain and suffering at the hands of the government in their home countries. Nonetheless, officials in Equatorial Guinea had already refouled several of them – including a West African man who had been persecuted for his sexual orientation. He is now in hiding, his lawyers said. These sorts of secondary and tertiary expulsions have become increasingly common. The Trump administration has made deals with at least 25 countries – including Panama, Costa Rica, Eswatini and Cameroon – to receive third-country nationals from the US, according to a report released by Democratic members of the Senate foreign relations committee in February. Some countries, such as El Salvador, agreed to incarcerate deportees from the US; that is how more than 250 Venezuelan nationals ended up at a notorious Salvadoran megaprison for four months last year. In other cases, foreign governments have been holding migrants in hotel rooms or temporary accommodations before sending them onward to their home countries. “The Trump Administration is utilizing all lawful options to carry out the largest deportation operation in history, just as President Trump promised,” a spokesperson for the US Department of Homeland Security told the Guardian. The agency did not respond to detailed questions about its policies on third-country deportations, and why US officials had declined to inform Esther and other deportees of where they were being sent prior to their expulsions. The Trump administration was empowered by a supreme court ruling last summer that cleared the way for the US government to send deportees to South Sudan. In many cases, US deportees are being sent to countries with troubling human rights records, active civil conflict or repressive leadership. Many of these agreements have been conducted in a “secretive” manner, said Beatrice Njeri, the Africa Regional Litigator for the Global Strategic Litigation Council, which is representing Esther and several other migrants sent to Equatorial Guinea. “Our clients, like Esther, had been granted protection in the US, including survivors of female genital mutilation, women subjected to various forms of sexual violence, LGBTQ+ persons, and individuals facing political or religious persecution,” Njeri said. Instead of receiving protection, she added, the deportees have been subject to “prolonged, inhumane detention” and onward journeys where they face grave danger. The Global Strategic Litigation Council and a coalition of other human rights groups have been working to stop these “third country” deportations and help those who have already been forcibly expelled to these countries find asylum or safety. “What we are seeing in Equatorial Guinea is not an isolated issue. It is the expansion of a deliberate system designed to outsource cruelty and erode protections for people seeking safety in the US,” said Bella Mosselmans, director of the Global Strategic Litigation Council. “These agreements are causing immense human suffering and flagrantly violating international law. They must end.” In September, the United Nations human rights office called on Ghana to stop the removal of migrants sent there from the US to their home countries where they faced torture. In their statement on Wednesday, human rights experts from the UN and African Commission said they were alarmed by the Trump administration’s tactic of expelling migrants, including asylum seekers, to third countries without any arrangements for their long term safety. “We are also concerned that these developments appear to reflect broader trends of migration externalisation arrangements involving transfers of migrants, asylum seekers and persons in need of international protection to third countries, including African States, without sufficient human rights safeguards.” For now, Esther said, she is surviving by trying her best not to think about the future. She has been able to call her uncle and her mother, she said, who are panicked. “My mother told me I am still young, I have so much life to live – that is why she has helped me escape,” she said. When they last parted, her mother thought she might never see her daughter again. Now she worries they will reunite, “but she’ll see me as a corpse, to bury”, Esther said.

Brazil’s Atlantic forest records lowest deforestation in 40 years

Brazil’s Atlantic forest, the country’s most threatened biome, last year recorded its lowest level of deforestation since monitoring began 40 years ago, a new report shows. The forest is Brazil’s most populous biome, and home to 80% of the population and major cities such as Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. In 2025 it recorded 8,658 hectares of deforestation, marking the first time it has fallen below 10,000 hectares since 1985. Environmentalists have welcomed the results, which they say could even lead to “zero deforestation” in the Atlantic forest within just a few years, but warned of potential risks that could reverse the downward trend of recent years. One is the recent approval of the so-called “devastation bill” in Brazil’s congress that drastically weakens environmental law. The other is the prospect of a far-right government, opposed to environmental protection policies, returning to power in the October presidential election: Flávio Bolsonaro, the senator and son of the former president Jair Bolsonaro, is tied in the polls with the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who will seek re-election. “It’s a very worrying scenario,” said Luís Fernando Guedes Pinto, executive director of the NGO SOS Mata Atlântica, who added that, with a victory for Bolsonaro, “Brazil could lose the opportunity to be a global environmental leader”. During the elder Bolsonaro’s 2019–23 administration, his policies led to a historic surge in deforestation and a gold rush into Indigenous lands. Many scientists, environmentalists and activists fear such rampant destruction could return if his son, who has vowed to follow his father’s playbook, comes to power. “We have seen the return of a policy to combat deforestation under the current government … [If Flávio Bolsonaro wins] there is a risk of returning to a path of rising deforestation across all biomes, because his political group – the same as his father’s – is anti-science, denies climate science, and sees nature and forests as obstacles to development,” said Pinto. Two new sets of data were released on Thursday, both based on monitoring carried out in partnership between the NGO and other organisations. One, conducted over four decades, showed a 40% drop in deforestation from 2024 to 2025, falling from 14,366 to 8,658 hectares. Under Bolsonaro’s presidency, it exceeded 20,000 hectares in each of his final two years in office. The other dataset showed a 28% decline, from 53,303 to 38,385 hectares. This monitoring has been conducted only since 2022, and last year’s figure was the lowest. The difference between the two monitoring systems, according to the NGO, stems from the satellites they use – the newer system is more precise, while the older one provides a longer historical record. Despite the decline, “deforestation is still high” in the biome, said Pinto, adding that “in the Atlantic forest, every fragment lost makes a huge difference”. The biome is the country’s third largest, behind the Amazon and the Cerrado savanna, but is by far the most urbanised and degraded. The Atlantic forest now has only 24% of its original forest cover, while the Amazon retains about 80% and the Cerrado around 50%. Even so, if the downward trend of recent years continues – which the NGO attributes to a combination of public pressure, civil society mobilisation, environmental policies and enforcement actions – Pinto believes the biome could reach “zero deforestation” within the next three years. Standing in the way, however, is the new law, considered the greatest setback to Brazil’s environmental legislation since licensing first became a legal requirement in the 1980s. Lula vetoed parts of it, but his vetoes were overturned by the largely conservative congress at the end of 2025. The new law removes the requirement for prior approval from the federal environmental agency for states to authorise deforestation, leaving the decision entirely to local authorities, and its constitutionality is being challenged in the supreme court. Malu Ribeiro, director of public policy at SOS Mata Atlântica, said the law is a “distortion” that puts Brazil at odds with the Paris agreement and could exacerbate climate disasters. “Weakening protection instruments now risks everything we have spent years building,” she added.

Benjamin Netanyahu says he made secret trip to UAE at height of Iran war

Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed he made a secret trip to the United Arab Emirates at the height of the Iran war to meet the president, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. “This visit has led to a historic breakthrough in relations between Israel and the UAE,” the Israeli prime minister’s office said on Wednesday night. The two leaders met for several hours in Al Ain, an oasis city by the Oman border, on 26 March, Reuters reported. A source told the news agency that the Mossad director, David Barnea, made at least two visits to the UAE during the war with Iran to coordinate military actions. The intelligence chief’s visit was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. The supposed visit would be the latest milestone in a rapidly developing Middle East alliance. On Tuesday, the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, disclosed that Israel had shared its air defence system with the UAE, sending Iron Dome batteries and military specialists to operate them over the course of the war. “There’s an extraordinary relationship between the UAE and Israel,” Huckabee said. But the United Arab Emirates’ foreign ministry denied the reports of Netanyahu’s visit to the country, saying such claims were “baseless”. It was also reported that the UAE had secretly carried out its own strikes on Iran, including an attack on a refinery on Lavan island in early April, in retaliation for Iranian attacks on its oil facilities, according to the Wall Street Journal. Reuters news agency has reported that Saudi Arabia also carried out retaliatory airstrikes against Iran and Iranian-backed Shia militias in Iraq in the early weeks of the war, which would be the first time that Riyadh has struck Iranian territory. In 2020, the UAE was the first Islamic country to agree to normalising relations with Israel, and was followed by three other Islamic countries: Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan, in what were described as the “Abraham accords”. The UAE has gone much further than the other members in tightening the relationship into a de facto alliance. The Emirati rulers have increasingly sought to chart an independent foreign policy course from their larger neighbour, Saudi Arabia. At the beginning of the month, the UAE left the Saudi-led oil cartel, Opec, severely weakening the organisation’s clout in global markets. Israel and the UAE have close relationships with the Trump administration, which have been deepened by their involvement in the Iran war. But they are vulnerable to a change of administration and policy direction in Washington. Both are under intense scrutiny for their alleged involvement in war crimes. Israel has been accused of genocide in Gaza, and arrest warrants have been issued by the international criminal court for Netanyahu and his former defence minister, Yoav Gallant. The UAE is widely believed to be arming and funding the Rapid Support Forces, which have been accused of mass atrocities in Sudan. Its government has denied the allegations, despite considerable evidence underpinning them.

Australians from hantavirus cruise ship fly out of Netherlands in full PPE after plane and crew secured

Four Australian citizens who were aboard the MV Hondius, the cruise ship at the centre of the hantavirus outbreak, will soon be home after the government secured a suitable aircraft and crew for the journey. The health minister, Mark Butler, said the citizens, along with a permanent resident and a New Zealand citizen, were due to take off from the Netherlands on Thursday and land in Perth on Friday local time. The flight was due to arrive at RAAF Base Pearce in Perth at about 11am with passengers to be transported to the WA Centre for National Resilience in Bullsbrook. “Six passengers are still in good health, they have all tested negative for hantavirus and are showing no symptoms as well,” Butler said on Thursday. Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email “Passengers and crew members will travel this flight for its duration in full PPE. There are very strict conditions about the flight, the landing, and the quarantine arrangements.” The passengers would be subject to a quarantine order, remaining at the Bullsbrook quarantine facility for at least three weeks. The flight crew bringing them home would also be required to quarantine, either in Australia or in another country. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade had scrambled to find an aircraft and crew able to complete quarantine after a 48-hour deadline was imposed on the international transfer through the Netherlands by Dutch authorities. The cruise ship outbreak now includes 11 reported cases, with nine officially confirmed. Three people have died. The MV Hondius, which is registered in the Netherlands, was on its way to Rotterdam, with 25 crew members and two medical staff on board. It was expected to arrive on Monday. After disembarking, the crew were to enter quarantine with the ship to undergo what its operator called a “thorough cleaning and disinfection process”. “The operation to bring all those on board home in the safest possible way was highly complex. It required intensive cooperation with national and international partners,” the Dutch government said in a statement on Tuesday. “The Dutch government thanks all those involved, including the shipping company, and expresses its gratitude and appreciation for the cooperation with Spain.” The Australian government has been working around the clock to bring its citizens home. “This is a difficult arrangement to make,” Butler told ABC News on Tuesday, adding the travellers were in “good health and relatively good spirits” at the time. “You’ve got to have crew that are willing to isolate at the end of the flight, you’ve got to have a flight that has some refuelling arrangements put in place between the Netherlands and Australia,” Butler said. “And it’s important that we’ve put those quarantine arrangements in place, ready to go when they do land in Australia.” Butler said the hantavirus had been listed under Australia’s Biosecurity Act, which allows the government to make quarantine orders. Hantavirus, a group of viruses found around the world, is generally spread via infected rodents to humans through faeces, urine or saliva. Human-to-human transmission is very uncommon, but can occur through close and prolonged contact, the Australian Centre for Disease Control says. Still, infection can be serious, resulting in critical illness or death. Three people have died from the outbreak, and a French woman is currently being treated after falling critically ill, with life-threatening heart and lung problems. The World Health Organization maintains that the threat to the general public remains low, but officials have urged caution. “At the moment, there is no sign that we are seeing the start of a larger outbreak,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director general, told reporters on Tuesday. “But of course the situation could change, and given the long incubation period of the virus, it’s possible we might see more cases in the coming weeks.” Butler said this week Australia’s quarantine protocols would be among the most stringent in the world. • This story was amended on 14 May 2026. An earlier version stated the plane would arrive in Perth on Friday afternoon. It was due to arrive on Friday morning.