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Iran hosts Pakistani delegation amid diplomatic flurry to avert new US strikes

Iran’s top negotiator has said there will be no compromise over its national rights during a meeting with the Pakistani army chief in Tehran on Saturday, amid a flurry of diplomacy aimed at preventing renewed US strikes on Iran. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s parliamentary speaker, said Tehran would secure its “legitimate rights”, whether through the battlefield or through negotiations, while accusing the US of not being an honest negotiating partner, Iranian state media reported. “If Trump acts foolishly and the war resumes, the response against the United States will certainly be more crushing and bitter than on the first day of the war,” Ghalibaf said during the meeting. He added that the Iranian military had rebuilt its capabilities during the ceasefire that began in early April. His comments came amid reports that the US was considering fresh strikes on Iran as negotiations for an enduring truce between the two countries sputtered. The Trump administration was preparing for a renewed round of strikes, CBS news reported on Friday, citing informed sources. Trump has frequently threatened to strike Iran if it does not reach a deal with the US, though military analysts have expressed doubt that a renewed aerial campaign could tip the balance in the Washington’s favour. Amid the escalated rhetoric from both sides, Iranian state TV reported that Iran was in the “final stage” of drafting a framework for a deal with the US. Pakistan, which has been mediating talks between Iran and the US, has led a renewed push in recent days to bridge the gap between the two parties. Pakistan’s army chief, Syed Asim Munir, also met Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, and foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, on Saturday, before leaving Tehran. The talks reportedly focused on a 14-point peace proposal by Iran, as well as messages between the two parties. A Qatari delegation met with Iranian and Pakistani mediators in Iran on Friday, and on Saturday, Trump spoke with the Qatari emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, to discuss “regional and international efforts to stabilise the ceasefire”, according to a statement by Tamim’s office. A ceasefire between the US, Israel and Iran has been in place since early April after more than a month of war. The truce was meant not only to stop fighting, but also to give space for negotiations over reopening the strait of Hormuz – a chokepoint for about a fifth of the world’s oil and gas supplies – as well as Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programme. Talks have largely not progressed and the strait remains mostly closed, despite the ceasefire and mediation efforts. On Saturday, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, expressed cautious optimism for negotiations. “There’s been some progress done, some progress made. Even as I speak to you now, there’s some work being done,” Rubio told reporters in New Delhi during a visit to India. “There might be some news a little later today. There may not be. I hope there will be,” he said. Iran’s official IRNA news agency meanwhile quoted the Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei as saying that positions had moved closer in recent days. Trump met the US secretary of defence, Pete Hegseth, in the White House on Friday reportedly to review options for restarting the bombing campaign. Trump also announced that he would be skipping his son’s wedding this weekend for reasons “pertaining to the government”. It is unclear what the target of a renewed bombing campaign would be. In the past, Trump threatened to wipe out “a whole civilisation”, and targeted civilian infrastructure such as bridges. Israel had also attacked energy facilities, and strikes damaged desalination facilities during the war in March. Human rights groups have criticised the attacks on civilian infrastructure, saying that attacks against public infrastructure could be considered war crimes for their impact on civilians. Sites that hold Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, which has been a key point in negotiations, could be targeted, but those facilities and other nuclear sites are probably deep underground and would require complex operations using tons of bunker-buster bombs. Iranian stockpiles of drones, ballistic missiles and missile-launching sites could also be targets, as they were in the last round of conflict. Targeted assassinations of Iranian officials could also be on the table. Analysts, however, have warned that the US is in an even more vulnerable position than it was at the beginning of the Iran war. The Washington Post revealed that the US had depleted much of its stockpile of advanced missile-defence interceptors, a key munition it needs to defend its bases and allies in the Middle East. Much of the US public is against the war and is frustrated with soaring gas prices and inflation that have occurred as a result of the closure of the strait of Hormuz. Trump’s popularity has declined, with an approval rating of about 37% – a historic low. It is also unclear how much the US actually achieved in the first round of conflict. The Iranian leadership remains in place, and intelligence assessments indicate that as much as 60% of Iran’s missile and drone stockpile remains.

White House pauses removal of detainees to the DRC as Ebola outbreak widens

The Trump administration will temporarily pause the removal of refugees to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) during a spiraling Ebola outbreak, according to reporting by Politico, but experts say the move won’t help prevent the spread of the disease. At least one woman is now in limbo after officials moved her to Kinshasa, the capital of the DRC, and now say they won’t bring her back because of the Ebola travel ban – despite a judge’s order for her return. Adriana Zapata, 55, fled Colombia to the US, but she was sent to Kinshasa over a month ago – even though the DRC said it could not care for her complex medical needs. A US judge ordered her return to the US, but American officials are saying they cannot bring her back because of the travel ban instituted on Monday. “I’m just really worried about losing her,” Zapata’s lawyer, Lauren O’Neal, told the Gothamist. “I don’t want her to die before we can get her back here.” Immigration agents could come into contact with the virus during the trips, and the virus could spread closer to the US because of Trump’s immigration tactics, unnamed officials told Politico. Yet they said the decision is at least partly motivated by legal concerns – that removal to a third country with an active Ebola outbreak could be used in an immigrant’s defense. “By the government’s own logic, if it is not safe for people to come from there to here, it is equally unsafe to send people there,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International and the top Ebola response official at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) during the 2014-15 outbreak. As long as the US has a ban on travelers from the DRC, Uganda and South Sudan, “on what grounds could it possibly be safe to deport people there?” Konyndyk asked. It’s not clear what happens next to refugees who were already moved against their will to countries affected by or near the outbreak. At least 37 people have been moved to these countries in recent months, according to Gillian Brockell, an independent journalist who tracks third-country removals by the US. Brockell suspects US officials are using the travel ban as an excuse for not returning Zapata. Sending people in detention centers to African nations far from home is a common threat, Brockell said, “so to publicly take one of their main scare tactics off the table, they are only going to do that if it helps them in some way”. The US government has evacuated people from Ebola-affected regions before – including patients with active Ebola cases. One of the world’s leading experts on high-risk medical evacuations, the former state department official William Walters, is now an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contractor, Brockell pointed out. “The Trump administration could absolutely return Adriana Zapata to the US; telling the judge it can’t be done just isn’t true,” she said. ICE “follows all applicable health and safety guidelines, including those outlined in the US Department of State’s travel advisories, when conducting removal operations,” said a spokesperson for the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS). But the DHS did not respond to the Guardian’s questions about Zapata’s return and the agency’s third-country removal plans during the Ebola outbreak, including whether flights to Uganda, South Sudan and Rwanda would continue. Sending immigrants against their will to other countries could risk violating international law, said Camille Mackler, an immigration lawyer. “Basically, the US can’t send people back to where they will be persecuted, so we’re exporting our immigration enforcement.” There are no official numbers, but experts estimate that between 8,000 and 15,000 people have been flown to third countries. “We’ve already seen that people who are being detained by immigration are not receiving adequate medical care,” Mackler said. “They’re taking no protections for them, and then not thinking about the ripple effect that can have.” If the outbreak continues expanding, there’s a chance detainees in the affected areas could get sick themselves – and if they were then sent to their countries of origin, they would be bringing the virus to South and Central America, where countries have little experience battling the viral hemorrhagic fever. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says it has plans in place to test and monitor passengers from the region. The US announced on Thursday that all passengers traveling from the DRC, Uganda and South Sudan would be diverted to the Washington-Dulles international airport for screening. “The US is putting in place travel measures to limit risk,” said Satish Pillai, the CDC’s Ebola response lead. Even passengers from places like Kinshasa, with no known Ebola cases, will be monitored because “the outbreak in the affected area continues to expand”, Pillai said at a press conference on Friday. “That is why CDC has initiated entry screening processes, which is a part of an overall broader, layered public health approach, starting with exit screening, airline illness reporting and public health monitoring after arrival,” Pillai said. Measures like these mean it’s very unlikely travelers – including Zapata – will bring Ebola into the United States, said Alexandra Phelan, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. The “proper and equitable process that also protects public health” would be to bring Zapata to the US, per the judge’s order, and have her undergo the same health protocols as returning US citizens and residents at Dulles, Phelan said. That could include quarantine if there has been any high-risk exposure – though that’s “unlikely if she has remained in Kinshasa, which is not a known active transmission location”, Phelan added. “If the Trump administration is serious about countering the spread of Ebola, the US government should restore health-related humanitarian funding it gutted across Africa; designate temporary protected status for the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and South Sudan; and halt all deportation flights to the region – including flights involving Latin Americans and other third country nationals,” said Yael Schacher, director for the Americas and Europe at Refugees International.

‘Every health facility said they were full’: alarm over rapid spread of Ebola in DRC

The warnings from aid groups and healthcare workers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have been stark, their calls for coordinated international action impassioned. As the country reels from the return of the Ebola virus, there is growing concern that its fragile healthcare system will struggle to cope with an outbreak that experts say goes well beyond the number of confirmed cases. “The speed at which this Ebola outbreak is spreading is deeply worrying,” said Rose Tchwenko, the DRC country director at the NGO Mercy Corps. “The risk of wider spread is real, and more regional and global support is urgently needed.” Hama Amado, a field coordinator in the city of Bunia for the Alima aid group, said the virus was gaining momentum and spreading in many areas. “Everyone must mobilise,” he told Associated Press on Thursday. “We are still far from saying that the situation is under control.” It has been a week since the DRC reported its 17th outbreak of Ebola, a viral disease with a mortality rate of between 25% and 90% that is spread through body fluids or contaminated materials and causes organ damage, blood vessel impairment and sometimes severe internal and external bleeding. Nearly 750 suspected cases and 177 suspected deaths have been recorded since the first known victim died in Bunia, the capital of Ituri province in north-western DRC, on 24 April. Mourners touched him during a funeral in the nearby town of Mongbwalu, contributing to the spread of the virus. Hospitals and other healthcare facilities have quickly become overwhelmed. Trish Newport, an emergency programme manager at Médecins Sans Frontières, said a team had identified suspected cases over the weekend at Bunia’s Salama hospital but found no available isolation ward in the area. “Every health facility they called said: ‘We’re full of suspect cases. We don’t have any space,’” she said on social media. “This gives you a vision of how crazy it is right now.” *** Several factors are impeding the aid response, including the strain of the virus, for which there is no approved treatment or vaccine; the remote and conflict-scarred location of the outbreak; and local funeral customs which are at odds with strict disease-control practice. All this is set against the backdrop of big shortfalls in aid budgets, driven largely by the Trump administration’s cuts to foreign aid. According to a study by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) this year, more than half of health facilities surveyed in North and South Kivu provinces – where cases have also been reported – were damaged or destroyed, and nearly half had reported significant staff departures since January 2025 owing to conflict and insecurity. Two incidents this week laid bare some of the aggravating factors. On Tuesday, at least 17 people were killed in an attack by the Allied Democratic Forces, a militant group operating in eastern DRC and parts of Uganda, on several villages near the town of Mambasa, in Ituri. “We are facing a double war: one of weapons and another of the disease outbreak,” said Zawadi Jeanne, a woman from the town who lost her brother and uncle in an ADF attack last month. On Thursday, a crowd set fire to a treatment centre in Rwampara, near Bunia, after authorities refused to give them the body of a victim they wanted to bury themselves. The burial of bodies, which can be highly contagious, is handled by authorities for containment of the disease, but some families prefer traditional burials, which involve washing and touching the body. In previous outbreaks this has proven to be a key driver of the disease’s spread. Batakura Zamundu Mugeni, a customary chief who was at the scene in Rwampara, told Agence France-Presse that authorities were working with health officials to track down any patients who may have fled, as well as contact cases. He blamed the unrest on “young people who do not grasp the reality of the disease”. On Friday, the province banned funeral wakes and said burials must be conducted only by specialised teams. It also prohibited the transport of dead bodies by non-medical vehicles and limited public gatherings to a maximum of 50 people. Instructions to avoid physical contact more generally are hampered by a strong culture of expressing affection through touch. “We live in a society where shaking hands is on the menu every day,” said Jackson Lubula, who lives in Bunia. “With this disease, anything is possible. A small mistake can cost you dearly, so I decided to wash my hands with soap every time after each greeting.” Reports from across the affected areas add to the impression that the virus has been spreading unnoticed. A rapid needs assessment by ActionAid in the Bunia, Nizi and Nyankunde areas found nearly a third of schools had registered at least one suspected Ebola case or close contact. On Saturday, the Red Cross said three of its volunteers who died this month were believed to have contracted the virus as long ago as 27 March while carrying out dead body management as part of an unrelated humanitarian mission. People in Rwampara said the disease struck suddenly, and that early symptoms were mistaken for illnesses such as malaria. Botwine Swanze, whose son died, told a reporter for Associated Press: “He told me his heart was hurting. Then he started crying because of the pain. Then he started bleeding and vomiting a lot.” *** Dr Núria Carrera Graño, a clinician with ICRC who has provided services in two previous Ebola outbreaks, described the situation in the DRC as a humanitarian, political and security crisis resulting from cumulative and unfortunate events. She said responders should learn from past outbreaks about the importance of international cooperation and coordination. “We don’t have time to lose,” she said. To control the outbreak, the DRC government is working with medics including those who have experience in handling the disease. Dr Richard Kojan, an intensive care clinician with Alima who has provided services in several Ebola outbreaks, said there were many similarities between them, such as late discovery, insufficient resources to respond, and the lack of a vaccine at the outset. “The outbreak is out of control,” he said from Kinshasa, the DRC’s capital, this week. In the absence of a vaccine and approved treatment for the Bundibugyo strain of the virus, Kojan said, medics were working to optimise the standard of intensive care for patients and put in place surveillance and contact tracing for suspected cases. “If they are admitted to the treatment centre early, the viral load will be low in their samples, and then, with optimised care, they will have a high probability of surviving,” he said. The Alima team is also deploying a portable treatment unit called Cube, a transparent plastic structure that allows interaction between patients and their relatives and medics without the need to wear personal protective equipment. Kojan developed the concept after his experience with Ebola in the 2014-16 outbreak. As the virus spreads, increasing numbers of people in Bunia are discovering friends and relatives have fallen victim, fuelling their anxiety. “The mere thought of the name ‘Ebola’ scares me,” said Jeanne, who has a nephew in a health facility in Rwampara. But she remains optimistic. “God is the one who knows what’s ahead,” she said. “I tell myself that the disease will spread but not to an alarming level. We can just hope for the best.”

Côte d’Ivoire wary of jihadist threat in north 10 years on from major attack

These days, when she is not organising the annual International Day of Reggae celebrations in Côte d’Ivoire, Rose Ebirim picks up litter scattered on the beach in the historic port town of Grand Bassam, 25 miles east of Abidjan. Both activities have become a form of therapy since the time she saw someone die. “13 March 2016 was a Black Sunday for me,” she said. On that day, she saw three gunmen open fire at close range as they stalked three adjacent hotels on the beach in a 45-minute shooting spree. By the time security agencies shot the attackers dead, they had killed 19 people including nine foreigners, and traumatised the entire nation. Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was in retaliation for Côte d’Ivoire arresting its men and handing them over to Mali. It was not until December 2022 that an Abidjan court sentenced 11 men – including seven in absentia – to death for their roles in the attack. “Our forces have strengthened their operational vigilance to ensure that such tragedies never happen again,” the defence minister, Téné Birahima Ouattara, said at a ceremony this March to commemorate the 10th anniversary of what was the first major terrorist incident on Ivorian soil. Grand Bassam, a Unesco world heritage site and the country’s first capital, forms part of a relatively peaceful three-hour drive to the border with Ghana lined with resort towns that once again cater to residents and tourists. But up in the north, on the borders with Mali and Burkina Faso, the threat of jihadism continues to lurk. Both states have expelled French and American troops in recent years after military takeovers, pivoting to stronger partnerships with Russia instead. Côte d’Ivoire, now a key western ally for counterinsurgency in the region, stands as a buffer state between the Gulf of Guinea and the core of the Sahel. The violence in its neighbours has driven thousands of refugees into the country’s north. At the time of the 2016 attack, the insurgency had just emerged in Burkina Faso as a spillover from Mali. Terrorism incidents linked to jihadists have almost tripled in coastal west Africa as armed non-state actors proliferate. Military formations and security personnel in the region have been repeatedly targeted by Al-Qaida-affiliated Jama’at Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM), which swallowed AQIM. In June 2020, Katiba Macina, another group in the JNIM coalition, killed 14 Ivorian soldiers in the village of Kafolo near the Burkinabé border. The groups are beginning to employ more sophisticated tactics and are adept at carrying out complex raids in a region that is now “the world’s most active zone of Islamist militancy”, said Héni Nsaibia, senior analyst for west Africa at the conflict monitor Acled. “JNIM’s use of armed drones has rapidly proliferated from fewer than 10 recorded strikes in 2024 to around 80 in 2025,” he added. Since the Kafolo attack, the number of policemen and gendarmerie recruited in the Ivorian north has more than doubled. Five years ago, an EU-backed counter-terrorism academy opened in Jacqueville, another beach town west of Abidjan, where elite units are being trained to counter the evolving threat. A spokesperson for the Ivorian government did not respond to questions about the status of talks about a speculated US drone base or American troops sharing an existing airbase with their Ivorian counterparts. Backed by international development funding, the state has also been at work in remote border villages in the north – building primary schools, deploying mobile health clinics and funding vocational micro-loans for young cashew farmers who might otherwise be tempted by the financial promises of militant groups. But its dense forests and porous borders are still cause for concern to citizens and residents. The Ivorian government spokesperson did not also respond to questions about regional and international counterinsurgency collaborations. In Grand Bassam, the three hotels are shuttered. Near them, Ebirim still goes on with awareness about beach pollution and the reggae splash, which is now in its sixth year. “I occupy myself with those activities,” she said. “After 10 years, I’m starting to sort myself out.”

‘Canada is handing people over to ICE’: refugees rejected at border face US detention

As each day in US detention passes, Markens Appolon can feel the life he had dreamed of slipping away. The 25-year-old fled Haiti to escape the rampant gang violence that upended his university studies in economics, and planned to join family in Montreal. But for the last four and a half months, Appolon has been incarcerated in a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility. He wonders how he would even begin to rebuild, if he is released. “Every day that passes, my mental heath is just getting worse. You see the world going on and you’re just stuck here, watching,” he said. “I’m here, and even when I get out, the problem is going to be worse.” Appolon had sought refuge in Canada, believing that it offered a haven to those at risk. The fact that he had Canadian family should have meant he was eligible to claim asylum. Yet it was Canadian officials who handed him over to the ICE agents who detained him. “This is what is so shocking about this case and others like it,” said Erin Simpson, a Toronto-based immigration lawyer who is representing Appolon. “Canada is participating in this. Canada is handing people over to ICE.” Simpson and other Canadian immigration lawyers say they have been inundated with cases like Appolon’s since the start of Donald Trump’s second term in office. Refugees like Appolon attempt to claim asylum in Canada through an exception to the country’s Safe Third Country Agreement with the US. Under the agreement, refugees must seek asylum in the first “safe country” they arrive in. But legal experts argue that the US should not be considered a safe third country. They argue that the country’s long-term detention of those seeking refuge and threats to deport asylum seekers to countries where they could be harmed or killed indicate that the US is not safe. Meanwhile, Canada is tightening its own asylum system. New legislation enacted in March has created further ineligibility rules for refugee claimants, prompting critics to accuse Mark Carney’s government of introducing Trump-style immigration policies. Refugees like Appolon remain jailed in the US “because Canada conducted proceedings at the border in a manner that was rigid and, frankly, unfair”, said Simpson. “The consequences for him couldn’t be more serious,” she said. Appolon fled Haiti in 2023 when the country was mired in devastating gang warfare, a political power vacuum, economic collapse and famine. He moved to Florida where he lived with an uncle on a special humanitarian visa program granted by the Biden administration that allowed him to work and study. When Trump returned to power and threatened to end the program, Appolon decided to claim asylum in Canada. A refugee attempting to enter Canada from the US must prove they have Canadian family members in the country to be allowed in. Otherwise, they are meant to make use of the US system. Appolon reached the Quebec-Vermont border on 28 December, but was rejected and turned over to ICE. His aunt, a Canadian citizen, was temporarily out of the country for a family emergency, and border agents told him without her physically present in the country, he could not enter. According to Simpson, Canadian border guards have been more lenient in previous cases and should have given Appolon’s aunt time to return. Canadian legislation does not specify that a relative must be physically in the country at the time a refugee is making a claim, she said. Despite recent legislation, Canada still enjoys a global reputation as a welcoming country for refugees and immigrants. But the consequences for rejection have become more severe, according to several immigration lawyers. While people seeking refugee status have in the past been turned away at the Canadian border, immigration lawyers say the situation has become significantly worse since Trump returned to power. The Trump administration has created turmoil for those who previously entered the US before 2025 under humanitarian visas and other temporary immigration statuses that are now under threat. As a result, more are considering Canada. This has prompted a tightening of controls at the border as Canada seeks to ward off a potential cascade of claims, even if the country is capable of receiving claimants. Tenzin, a refugee from Tibet, said Canada’s willingness to send him into ICE incarceration seemed entirely antithetical to its international image. The 29-year-old tried to claim asylum in Canada at the US border in August. His Canadian family was waiting for his arrival. “I thought Canadians are better than the US … but when I was treated like that, I thought there are some bad people in Canada,” he said. He was soon placed in ICE’s Buffalo facility. By December, Tenzin started to lose control of the muscles on the left side of his face. After begging to be seen by a doctor for days, he said ICE agents finally took him to a hospital. His hands and ankles were handcuffed and he was transported in the middle of a snowstorm wearing a thin sweatsuit. The agents told him they had run out of coats. A doctor diagnosed him with Bell’s palsy, an illness that causes sudden facial paralysis. The Guardian is only using Tenzin’s first name as he fears that speaking publicly about his time in ICE detention will affect employment opportunities. Heather Neufeld, an Ottawa immigration lawyer who represents Tenzin, said as a stateless refugee in Nepal, he did not qualify for travel documents. His only chance to leave Nepal was through obtaining a fraudulent passport from India in order to reach Canada from the US border. When he tried to claim asylum, she said border officials refused to interview Tenzin’s family. “The officer was not willing to consider the possibility that he really was a Tibetan refugee,” she said. Neufeld was able to successfully argue that Tenzin’s treatment at the Canadian border was riddled with procedural. He was freed in February, and joined family in Toronto. Canada could afford to take in many more refugees coming from the US, said Audrey Macklin, an immigration and refugee law professor at the University of Toronto. Yet the country’s upholding of the Safe Third Country Agreement and the recent tightening of its asylum system shatters that image, she said. “[Canada] constantly intones how generous it is to refugees,” she said. “But clearly, there’s no political will there,” she said. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, the federal department that manages the arrival of asylum seekers, said the US Safe Third Country Agreement was an “important tool for the orderly management of asylum claims”. Canadian law requires a Safe Third Country to uphold a commitment to human rights. The agency said the US was “continuously monitored” to ensure it meets those standards. Gurbir Singh said he fled India after receiving death threats from the police, and attempted to seek asylum in Canada on 25 March, planning to join family in Brampton, a city on the outskirts of Toronto. But Canadian border officials did not believe he was Singh, despite his documents, and the fact that his fingerprints matched those already in the system. He was turned over to ICE and held in the agency’s Buffalo detention centre before Simpson managed to convince Canadian officials of his identity. He was released and allowed to enter Canada in late April. “I’ve certainly never seen that. But we are seeing a real rigidity in the exceptions at the border and a real failure to recognize the extraordinary cost of erroneous decision making,” said Simpson. “I felt that Canada is known for its human rights. But they did not give me any rights … they said ‘you cannot stay here,’” said Singh. Canadian Border Service Agency, the federal organization responsible for border control, said it could not comment on Appolon, Tenzin and Singh’s cases due to privacy concerns. But it maintained that border services officers process claims “impartially” and that claimants “understand their rights”. Refugees are responsible for proving their eligibility to enter Canada, the agency said. Border officials must be “satisfied” that it is “more likely than not that a family relationship exists”. The spokesperson said CBSA agents can reconsider a refugee’s claim in “exceptional” cases. US ICE did not respond to a request for comment.

‘If something goes wrong, you can’t simply surface’: Maldives tragedy shines light on dangers of cave diving

The diving tragedy in the Maldives – which claimed the lives of four Italian divers inside an underwater cave, followed by the death of a Maldivian navy diver – has renewed warnings from experts about the risks of cave diving without proper training, planning and specialised equipment. On Thursday, the Divers Alert Network (DAN), which coordinated the complex search and recovery operation at the Dhekunu Kandu dive site in Vaavu atoll, announced all the divers’ dead bodies had been recovered. The victims were identified as Monica Montefalcone, an ecology professor; her daughter Giorgia Sommacal; marine biologist Federico Gualtieri; researcher Muriel Oddenino; and diving instructor Gianluca Benedetti. The body of Bendetti was recovered earlier outside the cave. Mohamed Mahudhee, a member of the Maldivian national defence force, also died in the tragedy, as a result of decompression sickness after taking part in a recovery mission. After initial attempts by the Maldives National Defence Force, DAN deployed a specialised rescue team to the site. It included Finnish cave diving experts Sami Paakkarinen, Jenni Westerlund and Patrik Grönqvist. Working with Maldivian authorities, the team recovered all the bodies during multiple long dives over several days, using closed-circuit rebreathers, underwater scooters and extensive backup equipment. Investigations into the circumstances of the fatal dive by Maldivian and Italian authorities are still still ongoing. But diving experts are already calling for stricter adherence to established cave-diving safety protocols. Experts have also stressed the need for greater awareness of the many factors involved, including proper training, equipment configuration and even diver mindset. Speaking to the Guardian, Jonathan Volanthen – one of the British cave divers who helped rescue 12 schoolboys from a flooded cave in Thailand in 2018 – says cave diving carries risks fundamentally different from open-water diving. The vastly experienced Volanthen says cave divers cannot make a direct ascent in an emergency. “If something goes wrong, you can’t simply head to the surface because there’s usually something that’s preventing that … Quite often in caves as well, it’s very easy to swim in somewhere and then find you stirred some silt up,” Volanthen says. The combination of not being able to ascend to the surface and a poor-visibility exit makes it “much more difficult to get out” if a diver hits trouble, he says. Adding depth to the equation, he says, exacerbates the dangers. “The deeper you are, the more air you use, or the more gas, depending on what you’re breathing … Depth generally equals an increase in danger,” Volanthen says. Divers must carefully manage gas supplies to ensure a slow ascent, to reduce the risk of decompression sickness. “Pressure [as a result of depth] creates a situation where gas dissolves into the bloodstream, and that means you have to ascend slowly,” he says. Edd Sorenson, an American cave diving expert who has led more successful cave diving rescues than anyone else in the world, explains a common misconception about caves. “Caves are not dark. Everybody thinks they’re dark … They’re devoid of light. Your house at night is dark … When your light goes out [in a cave], there’s nothing,” Sorenson says. “You don’t see a reflection, your eyes don’t get used to it.” As a result, divers can lose track of all spatial awareness: “That’s why we learn to always have a continuous guide line to the surface.” Sorenson also emphasises a philosophy known as “redundancy” in cave diving – multiple independent backups for all critical systems. “We have a minimum of two tanks for your two regulators, we have a three-light minimum rule … If we’re going to go a long way, we’re going to have more. We have to have two computers,” he says, referring to the devices that track depth, time and ascent rate. “We have to have two writing devices, we have to have dual, redundant everything.” He also highlights anti-silting techniques that cave divers should use, because common open-water flutter kicks in caves can quickly reduce visibility. “If you get close to the bottom, that’s going to disrupt the sediment on the bottom … so on a flutter kick, you can instantly go from crystal clear water to zero visibility in the blink of an eye,” Sorenson explains. Instead, cave divers use a frog kick. “Our propulsion goes horizontal or up from horizontal,” Sorenson says. With decades of technical experience, Volanthen and Sorenson both stress the importance of training and personal limits. “If you are trained properly by a reputable instructor and a training agency, you’ll understand the limits,” Volanthen says. “Hopefully you can make good decisions, whether that’s going into a cave or not going into a cave.” Sorenson warns that experience can also create false confidence. Often, he says, when people reach the status of a divemaster or an instructor, “they think they know it all … However, a bad idea is a bad idea”. “If they’re exceeding their training limit, exceeding their experience and exceeding their knowledge limits, they’re playing Russian roulette … Cave diving is a very, very safe sport with good training. It’s a very unforgiving sport without.” Beyond technical skill and proper gear, experts say human factors and mindset are critical elements in diving decisions. Cristina Zenato, a Bahamas-based cave diving instructor with more than 4,500 cave dives and over 80km of guide lines laid across different cave systems, cautioned against vilifying cave diving as a discipline, despite its technical complexity. She says the underwater environment – “an alien place for us” – demands a level of respect. “Is cave diving potentially dangerous? Absolutely. So is being two metres below the surface because we’re not aquatic animals.” In addition to proper training, human factors and mindset are critical, Zenato says. “You can be super hyper-trained, but I’ve sat on that water’s edge when I said ‘not today’, and then you’re in a car driving back, [wondering] did I call it right? And usually when you question yourself … you know it’s the right answer,” she says.

Board of Peace focus on Hamas risks return to war in Gaza, critics say

The top diplomat from the Board of Peace has blamed Hamas for the stalled ceasefire, but critics have said the US-backed board’s lack of even-handedness in implementing the truce risks a return to war. The “high representative for Gaza”, Nickolay Mladenov, told the UN security council on Thursday that Hamas was the “principal obstacle” to the ceasefire’s continued implementation because “it refused to accept verified decommissioning, relinquish coercive control and allow a genuine civilian transition”. Hamas rejected the Bulgarian diplomat’s accusations. Its spokesperson, Hazem Qassem, said the report “reflects continued adoption of the Israeli position and serves as an attempt to justify further Israeli escalation”. Critics of the Board of Peace, launched by Donald Trump in January, said the Mladenov report gave a misleading and one-sided account of the ceasefire, in which Israel has been the main violator. Israeli forces have continued to carry out airstrikes on Gaza. They have also moved forward from the ceasefire line agreed in October, increasing the area under direct Israeli control from the agreed 53% to at least 60%, and have regularly shot at Palestinians who came within a few hundred metres of the shifting line. More than 850 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire was declared in October. Israel has also fallen short of its obligation to allow in 600 trucks of humanitarian supplies a day, and has refused to relax restrictions on “dual-use” items, which have prevented aid agencies bringing in basic humanitarian supplies, such as water pipes, or heavy machinery to begin clearing rubble. Israel was not directly criticised in Mladenov’s report, only by implication in references to “all parties”. Critics said that by putting the blame solely on Hamas, Mladenov’s report could lend legitimacy to any future decision by Benjamin Netanyahu to return to war. “Israel never fulfilled any of its obligations under phase one of the deal, so why would anyone trust they’d live up to phase two, especially once the weapons (Gaza’s only leverage) are gone?” said Muhammad Shehada, a visiting fellow at the Middle East programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “If they say no, then Netanyahu is going to get a free hand in Gaza and basically be absolved of any obligations under the Trump deal and declare war whenever he wants.” Successive versions of Mladenov’s roadmap were presented to Hamas and other Palestinian factions in March and then April. The April version proposed the creation of an “implementation verification committee” to oversee the disarmament of Hamas and other armed groups, while ensuring Israel took reciprocal steps. The documents said inventory and collection of weapons would be “implemented gradually in phases”, with “heavy weapons” to be handed in within 90 days, though the definition of “heavy” included assault rifles. The April version of the roadmap said disarmament would be monitored by multilateral bodies, but it added that the “process will be under Palestinian leadership”. Gershon Baskin, an Israeli analyst who has been involved in past back-channel negotiations with Palestinian groups, welcomed the roadmap, saying: “Israel and Hamas should agree to it and its implementation should begin immediately.” However Baskin was critical of Mladenov’s characterisation of the stalemate, putting sole blame on Hamas. He said the militant group had “indicated its willingness to begin the process of disarmament and decommissioning of weapons”. “Hamas’s demand is that it be done in parallel to the commitments that Israel has undertaken and has not fulfilled,” Baskin added. In his report to the UN, Mladenov accused Hamas of tightening its grip on the 40% of Gaza still under its control. However, Hamas has been calling since February for the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), a panel of 12 Palestinian technocrats created by the Board of Peace in January, to be allowed into the territory to begin the transfer of power. “The Hamas guys inside Gaza are much more pragmatic,” Baskin said. “They don’t have money, they don’t have the resources, and the people in Gaza don’t want them. And they know that they can’t continue like this.” Under Mladenov’s plan, the NCAG is supposed to oversee the disarmament of armed groups in Gaza, however Baskin said Israel had adamantly refused to allow the committee members to enter Gaza from Egypt, where they have become an administration in waiting. “It is the Israeli insistence that NCAG not go in,” he said. “Americans have been told by the Israelis that if NCAG is allowed to go in, it will create a situation like Lebanon, where there will be an official government but the real power will be with the guys with guns in the streets.” “I don’t think that’s the big problem,” Baskin added. “The big problem is that Israel wants to renew the war, and they’re creating the conditions where the Israeli public is being pumped every day, with the media telling them that Hamas is rebuilding itself, Hamas is gaining strength; that’s a really overblown exaggeration of reality.” Daniel Levy, the British-Israeli head of the US/Middle East Project and former peace negotiator in earlier Israeli-Palestinian talks, said Hamas had not rejected disarmament and the transfer of power. “It’s well established that they are ready to hand over governance. There’s never been a question about that,” Levy said. “But they’ve also talked in terms of non-rearmament, non-display of weapons, and [surrendering] heavy weapons. They’ve set out some of these things, but they are not going to wave a white flag of surrender.” The limbo has left the Palestinians officials in the NCAG stuck in a hotel in Cairo. They have attended seminars on governance and state-building, and they recently flew to Brussels to meet EU officials, but they have been prevented from talking to the press. Shehada said four NCAG members had threatened to resign. “With the lack of progress in Gaza, they came to realise that they are a distraction to buy Israel more time,” he said, adding that the four members were persuaded to stay by Mladenov. A source close to the NCAG said its members were aware their reputation for integrity was suffering among Palestinians by their association with the Board of Peace, but he said: “They also know there is no alternative. If there is any hope of stopping the killing in Gaza, this is the only game in town.”

Can hybrid village stores answer rural Germany’s ‘cry for help’ and fend off far right?

Once upon a time, every German village had its own Tante Emma laden (Aunt Emma shop), a family-run hub of community life where local people bought their groceries at affordable prices and shot the breeze with their neighbours. But in recent years the loose network of small businesses throughout Europe’s biggest economy has come under huge pressure from staffing shortages, competition from supermarket chains and rising inflation, which the Iran war has again sent surging. Concerned that the creeping death of the stores is also fuelling the rural disaffection that has driven many voters to political extremes, governments in several regions have stepped in with some 21st-century innovation. In Rhineland-Palatinate, where the far-right Alternative für Deutschland came third with nearly 20% in a state election in March – a record in a west German region – officials are seeking to root out the wellsprings of the party’s appeal in rural areas. Under a pilot programme known as hybrid village stores, existing businesses are being retrofitted so villagers over the age of 18 can shop out of hours autonomously: letting themselves in with an electronic fob or card, shopping and paying on their own. Because they are available to customers at all hours with lower labour costs, the shops make more money and are able to stay afloat. Irmtraut Ehtechame, 68, is the manager of the Dorfladen village shop that went hybrid in December in Seibersbach, a tidy community of 1,200 residents in the verdant Hunsrück hills. She said a range of factors beyond her control had previously threatened her business’s future. “I had written a cry for help that our shop wasn’t going to make it because we kept slipping into the red, between energy price hikes from the Ukraine war and the minimum wage increase [which rose to €13.90 an hour this year],” she said. “Last year and the year before it was really touch and go with the shop and so we decided to try something new.” Ehtechame, with her husband and business partner, Hamid, offers a full selection of staples from a major supplier, paired with specialty items including locally produced sausages, mustards and cheeses and crisp white wines from the nearby Moselle region. “We want customers to be able to buy everything on their list because if they go elsewhere for one or two products then they’ll buy the rest there,” she said. The nearest big supermarket is about 10km away. “Some say the food tastes better when they buy it here.” Over kaffee und kuchen (coffee and cake) on the shop’s sunny terrace off the village square, Ehtechame admitted that even with six security cameras on the premises, the shift to allowing villagers to come and go as they please in her shop was initially a leap of faith. But it ended up paying off, with no thefts or vandalism reported during the unstaffed hours. Frank Wilhelm, 66, a retired auto mechanic, said it did not take much for him and his fellow shoppers to get used to the new system. “It’s quite easy,” he said as he demonstrated how his plastic customer card gains him entry to the store he has frequented for more than three decades. “I love the freedom of being able to shop really early, before everyone is up, and if I’ve forgotten something at night or friends drop by, I can pop in to pick up some drinks and snacks.” But the best part for him is knowing that an anchor of community life will endure. “I still prefer to shop here when it’s staffed and see the ladies,” he said, nodding to Ehtechame and her team of cashiers. Wilhelm and a group of friends who call themselves the “robust retirees” regularly deliver supplies from the shop to their elderly neighbours, such as a case of bottled water or a sack of potting soil too heavy for them to carry. “And we meet here at the shop once a week after planting flowers or cleaning up the village square flower beds, to keep the centre looking pretty. Then we drink a coffee and have a bite here on the terrace of the shop and watch people come and go.” Volker Bulitta, 69, who received Ehtechame’s “cry for help”, leads an advisory programme sponsored by the Rhineland-Palatinate government aimed at shoring up rural businesses. It has spearheaded the hybrid village shops in the region. He said stores like Seibersbach’s would not survive without state aid in areas too remote for online deliveries. But the dividends paid are well worth the one-off investment to revamp the shops, usually costing between €30,000 and €50,000. Bulitta, whose background is in management consulting, said the idea was never to make the stores fully automated. “Then you wouldn’t have this character of the meeting place any more,” he said. Rhineland-Palatinate has backed four hybrid village stores since early 2025 with Bulitta’s guidance, with 40 more to come pending approval from the new conservative-led state government, after initial reports found a rise in customer satisfaction and a boost in profits of up to 20%. Several states including Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and Lower Saxony have tried similar schemes, as big retail chains roll out various models of autonomous shopping in other regions. “The good news is that the hybrid systems are getting cheaper – we assume that in two or three years they’ll cost maybe 20% less,” Bulitta said. The state currently assumes 90% of the transformation costs, which he also sees as a step toward banishing the spectre of “dead villages” – a fear the AfD often stokes. Cashier Tanja Behr, 55, said she had been “very sceptical” about the change at the store where she had worked for 16 years: “What sets us apart is actually talking to customers and listening to them. I had this feeling that we’d lose that personal touch with customers.” By concentrating staffing during peak shopping hours, however, Behr said the new system allowed her to catch up with her regular patrons with a minimal – and she said, welcome – reduction in her working time. “The customers are delighted about it every single day. And that’s just naturally a joy for me to hear,” she said. “And we cashiers wanted to cut back our hours a bit so it all worked out well.” About 57% of German residents – 47 million people – live in rural areas, according to the publicly funded Thünen institute. The regions are often marked by a lack of access to high-speed internet and sufficient public transportation among other key services, compounding a sense of isolation and abandonment. Daniel Posch, a researcher at Berlin’s Bertelsmann Foundation thinktank, has been looking at how effective regional policy can counter political polarisation and weaken support for the far right. Saving village stores can help restore community stability shaken by rapid change, he said. “I’m not sure if it immediately can win back voters, but it can make some space where everyday interactions recreate this kind of infrastructure for democracy. Denser local networks contribute to a more nuanced, less polarised and less radicalised electorate.”