6 d. ago Belarus releases 123 prisoners including opposition leaders after US lifts sanctions

Nobel prize winner Ales Bialiatski and opposition figure Maria Kalesnikava among those freed after US talks with Alexander LukashenkoThe Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, freed 123 prisoners on Saturday, including Nobel peace prize winner Ales Bialiatski and leading opposition figure Maria Kalesnikava, after the US lifted sanctions on Belarusian potash, a key export.The announcement came after two days of talks with an envoy of the US president, Donald Trump, the latest diplomatic push since the Trump administration started talks with the autocratic leader. Continue reading...

Events

9 d. ago The Latest: Hegseth tells congressional leaders he is weighing release of boat strike video

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is weighing whether to release the full video of an attack on an alleged drug boat that legal experts said may have been a war crime or murder, awakening the Republican-controlled Congress to its oversight role

Politics

1 week ago The Guardian view on Marwan Barghouti: Palestinians need a political future as well as aid and reconstruction | Editorial

Pushing for the release of the jailed leader could prove central to the peace that Donald Trump claims to seek in the Middle EastIn a sort-of ceasefire, the killings – including of children – have slowed, not stopped. Israeli military operations continue to displace hundreds of families in Gaza. Aid has increased but Israel is still blocking vital supplies. Palestinians desperately require security, humanitarian relief and reconstruction. But they need and expect a political horizon too. Donald Trump’s plans make only the vaguest and most conditional reference to a Palestinian state, and Israelis – as well as their ultra-right government – have entrenched their opposition since the atrocities of 7 October 2023. Yet after two years of annihilation, Palestinian nationhood has won international support that many thought unimaginable.The political fate of Palestinians is bound to the personal fate of Marwan Barghouti. After more than two decades in an Israeli jail for murder, the charis...

Politics

2 w. ago More than 200 leading cultural figures call for release of jailed Palestinian leader

Group including Margaret Atwood, Ian McKellen and Richard Branson sign open letter to free Marwan BarghoutiMore than 200 leading cultural figures have come together to call for the release of Marwan Barghouti, the jailed Palestinian leader seen as capable of uniting factions and bringing the best hope to the stalled mission of creating a Palestinian state.The prestigious and diverse group calling for his release in an open letter includes a variety of prominent names, including the writers Margaret Atwood, Philip Pullman, Zadie Smith and Annie Ernaux; actors Sir Ian McKellen, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tilda Swinton, Josh O’Connor and Mark Ruffalo, and the broadcaster and former footballer Gary Lineker. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago Global ‘Free Marwan’ campaign calls for Palestinian political leader’s release

Locked away in prison for decades, Marwan Barghouti is a longstanding advocate for a two-state solutionA global campaign is being launched to secure the release of Marwan Barghouti, the Palestinian prisoner seen by many as the best hope of leading a future Palestinian state, as negotiations continue in the context of the current Gaza ceasefire.The campaign, being led by Barghouti’s West Bank-based family with UK civil society support, is seeking to put the 66-year-old’s fate at the centre of the next stage of the ceasefire. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson leaves hospital after treatment for neurological disorder

The Rev. Jesse Jackson's family says that the civil rights leader has been released from a hospital where he was treated for a rare neurological disorder

Politics

3 w. ago Alexis Tsipras says Yanis Varoufakis was ‘unsuitable’ as Greek finance minister during debt crisis

Then PM says his finance minister was ‘more celebrity than economist’ with an agenda to promote his booksYanis Varoufakis, the firebrand economist who rose to fame at the height of Greece’s debt drama, was not only egotistical but ultimately more interested in testing out his game theories on the nation than winning its battle to keep afloat.So writes the former prime minister Alexis Tsipras in his newly released memoir, Ithaki, as the once radical leftwing leader, sparing no punches, seeks, 10 years later, to put the record straight. Continue reading...

Politics

4 w. ago New Caledonia activist says France is impeding travel home after prison release

Exclusive: Kanak leader Christian Tein, who was freed from prison in June, says France is ‘deliberately dragging out’ re-issue of his passportA pro-independence leader from the French overseas territory of New Caledonia has accused the French government of “deliberately dragging out” his passport application, preventing him from flying home after his release from prison.Christian Tein, an Indigenous Kanak leader, was arrested in New Caledonia in June 2024 over allegations that he had instigated the deadly pro-independence protests that had taken place on the island a month earlier. Continue reading...

Events

4 w. ago Megachurch with more than 1.4 million YouTube followers fires pastor accused of child abuse

The former religious leader has since posted bond and been released from jail, according to officials

Events

4 w. ago Republicans warn Bondi not to bury Epstein files after law’s passage

Senate majority leader, John Thune, and others push the attorney general to release Epstein records within 30 daysUS politics live – latest updatesWithin hours of Donald Trump signing the Epstein Files Transparency Act into law, Republican senators were on the ground to issue a pointed message to the US attorney general, Pam Bondi: don’t bury these documents.The bill’s passage marked a rare moment of bipartisan support in an otherwise ideologically fractured Congress as it now sets a 30-day deadline for the release of Department of Justice files related to the actions of convicted sex offender of minors and financier Jeffrey Epstein, dubbed by a judge “the most infamous pedophile in American history”. Continue reading...

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