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Villa once owned by Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels to be given away, Berlin government officials say
Berlin’s government is offering to give away a villa once owned by Adolf Hitler’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, hoping to end a decades-long debate on whether to repurpose or bulldoze a sprawling disused site in the countryside north of the German capital.
"I offer to anyone who would like to take over the site, to take it over as a gift from the state of Berlin," Berlin’s finance minister, Stefan Evers, told the state parliament on Thursday, dpa reported.
Berlin has repeatedly tried to hand off the site to federal authorities or the state of Brandenburg, where the villa lies, rather than continue to pay for maintenance and security at the complex, which has become overgrown and fallen into disrepair.
BIDEN COMPARES TRUMP TO NAZI PROPAGANDIST JOSEPH GOEBBELS
Evers renewed that offer on Thursday, calling for proposals that reflected the site’s history. He didn’t say if proposals from private individuals would also be considered.
"If we fail again, as in the past decades, then Berlin has no other option but to carry out the demolition that we have already prepared for," Evers said.
Goebbels, one of Hitler’s closest allies, had the luxury villa built in 1939 on a wooded site overlooking the Bogensee lake near the town of Wandlitz, about 25 miles north of Berlin.
A retreat from Berlin, where he lived with his wife and six children, Goebbels used the villa and an earlier house on the site to entertain Nazi leaders, artists and actors — and reputedly as a love-nest for secret affairs.
After the war, the 42-acre site was used briefly as a hospital, then taken over by the youth wing of the East German communist party, which constructed a training center, including several large accommodation blocks.
After German reunification in 1990, ownership of the site returned to the state of Berlin. However, the city found no use for it. The site has since become an attraction for day-trippers who can pick their way through the overgrown grounds and peer through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the villa.
Goebbels moved back to Berlin in the final phase of the Second World War. He and his wife killed themselves and their children with cyanide capsules in Hitler’s bunker as Soviet troops closed in.
The family’s opulent home on an island in Berlin was sold at auction in 2011.
UK government's approval of climate plan ruled unlawful by High Court judge
A High Court judge ruled Friday that the U.K. government acted unlawfully when it approved a plan to meet climate targets without evidence that it could be delivered.
It was the second time in two years that the government's main climate action plan was found to be unlawful and insufficient in meeting legally-binding targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Justice Clive Sheldon sided Friday with three environmental groups that brought the case, ruling that the government's decision to approve its Carbon Budget Delivery Plan last year was "simply not justified by the evidence."
UK PRIME MINISTER RISHI SUNAK MAKES CLIMATE ACTIVISTS SEETHE IN BOLD MOVE FOR ENERGY INDEPENDENCE
The plan outlined how the U.K. aims to achieve its climate targets, including pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about two-thirds of 1990 levels by 2030 and to reach net zero by 2050.
The judge said the details in the draft plan were "vague and unquantified," and didn't provide officials with enough information on whether the plan should be approved.
Lawyers acting for the environmental organizations told the court that the government failed to share "risk tables," or information about whether its policies could be implemented, with Parliament and others, meaning the plan couldn't be properly scrutinized.
"The courts have now told the U.K. government not once, but twice, that its climate strategy is not fit for purpose," said Sam Hunter Jones, a lawyer for the group ClientEarth. "This judgment means the government must now take credible action to address the climate crisis with a plan that can actually be trusted to deliver and with numbers that can be relied on."
The government defended its record on climate change, saying it has set out "more detail than any other G20 country on how we will reach our ambitious carbon budgets," referring to the Group of 20 leading rich and developing nations.
"The claims in this case were largely about process and the judgment contains no criticism of the detailed plans we have in place. We do not believe a court case about process represents the best way of driving progress towards our shared goal of reaching net zero," it said in a statement.
Officials said they would publish a new report within 12 months following the judge's ruling.
Last year, the U.K. government's own climate advisers, which tracks the country's decarbonization efforts, said that it was losing confidence in the government's ability to meet its emission targets, and slammed officials for backtracking on fossil fuel commitments.
Georgia PM slams US criticism of draft 'foreign agents' law, dismissing it as false
Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze rejected on Friday U.S. criticism of a draft "foreign agents" law, saying Washington's statements on the issue were false and reminiscent of earlier meddling which had fuelled violence.
The draft legislation, which is winding its way through the Georgian parliament, would require organisations receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as agents of foreign influence, a requirement opponents attack as authoritarian and Kremlin-inspired.
Protesters have taken to the streets of Tbilisi for weeks to show their opposition. The European Union and the United States have urged Tbilisi to drop the legislation or risk harming its chances of European Union membership and a broader Euro-Atlantic future.
The standoff is seen as part of a wider struggle that could determine whether Georgia, a country of 3.7 million people that has experienced war and revolution since the fall of the Soviet Union, moves closer to Europe or back under Moscow's influence.
"I explained to (senior U.S. diplomat Derek) Chollet that false statements made by the officials of the U.S. State Department about the transparency bill and street rallies remind us of similar false statements made by the former U.S. Ambassador in 2020-2023," Kobakhidze said in a statement on X.
He said the previous U.S. statements had encouraged violence from what he called foreign-funded actors and had supported "revolutionary processes" which he said had been unsuccessful.
"I clarified to Mr. Chollet that it requires a special effort to restart the relations (between Georgia and the United States) against this background, which is impossible without a fair and honest approach."
Bidzina Ivanishvili, the billionaire founder of the ruling Georgian Dream party and a former prime minister, has said he will fight for what he called "the full restoration of the sovereignty of Georgia", and has suggested that the West is trying to meddle and drag his country into conflict.
Base housing US military entered by Russian troops in Niger, defense official says
Russian military personnel have entered an air base in Niger that is hosting U.S. troops, a senior U.S. defense official told Reuters, a move that follows a decision by Niger's junta to expel U.S. forces.
The military officers ruling the West African nation have told the U.S. to withdraw its nearly 1,000 military personnel from the country, which until a coup last year had been a key partner for Washington's fight against insurgents who have killed thousands of people and displaced millions more.
A senior U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Russian forces were not mingling with U.S. troops but were using a separate hangar at Airbase 101, which is next to Diori Hamani International Airport in Niamey, Niger's capital.
RUSSIA TARGETS DISSENTERS ABROAD, EVEN IN COUNTRIES ONCE THOUGHT SAFE, EXPERTS SAY
The move by Russia's military, which Reuters was the first to report, puts U.S. and Russian troops in close proximity at a time when the nations' military and diplomatic rivalry is increasingly acrimonious over the conflict in Ukraine.
It also raises questions about the fate of U.S. installations in the country following a withdrawal.
"(The situation) is not great but in the short-term manageable," the official said.
Asked about the Reuters report, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin played down any risk to American troops or the chance that Russian troops might get close to U.S. military hardware.
"The Russians are in a separate compound and don't have access to U.S. forces or access to our equipment," Austin told a press conference in Honolulu.
"I'm always focused on the safety and protection of our troops ... But right now, I don't see a significant issue here in terms of our force protection."
PUTIN WARNS THE WEST THAT RUSSIA IS 'READY' FOR NUCLEAR WAR: 'WEAPONS EXIST IN ORDER TO USE THEM'
The Nigerien and Russian embassies in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The U.S. and its allies have been forced to move troops out of a number of African countries following coups that brought to power groups eager to distance themselves from Western governments. In addition to the impending departure from Niger, U.S. troops have also left Chad in recent days, while French forces have been kicked out of Mali and Burkina Faso.
At the same time, Russia is seeking to strengthen relations with African nations, pitching Moscow as a friendly country with no colonial baggage in the continent.
Mali, for example, has in recent years become one of Russia's closest African allies, with the Wagner Group mercenary force deploying there to fight jihadist insurgents.
Russia has described relations with the United States as "below zero" because of U.S. military and financial aid for Ukraine in its effort to defend against invading Russian forces.
The U.S. official said Nigerien authorities had told President Joe Biden's administration that about 60 Russian military personnel would be in Niger, but the official could not verify that number.
After the coup, the U.S. military moved some of its forces in Niger from Airbase 101 to Airbase 201 in the city of Agadez. It was not immediately clear what U.S. military equipment remained at Airbase 101.
The United States built Airbase 201 in central Niger at a cost of more than $100 million. Since 2018 it has been used to target Islamic State and al Qaeda affiliate Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM) fighters with armed drones.
Washington is concerned about Islamic militants in the Sahel region, who may be able to expand without the presence of U.S. forces and intelligence capabilities.
Niger's move to ask for the removal of U.S. troops came after a meeting in Niamey in mid-March, when senior U.S. officials raised concerns including the expected arrival of Russia forces and reports of Iran seeking raw materials in the country, including uranium.
While the U.S. message to Nigerien officials was not an ultimatum, the official said, it was made clear U.S. forces could not be on a base with Russian forces.
"They did not take that well," the official said.
A two-star U.S. general has been sent to Niger to try and arrange a professional and responsible withdrawal.
While no decisions have been taken on the future of U.S. troops in Niger, the official said the plan was for them to return to U.S. Africa Command's home bases, located in Germany.
Bombing at refugee camp kills 5 people, including children, in eastern Congo
A bomb at a refugee camp in eastern Congo has killed at least 5 people, including children, a spokesperson for the Congolese army said Friday.
Two children and their mother were among the dead, and more than 20 other people were injured, John Banyene, a civil society activist based in Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu, told The Associated Press.
Lt Colonel Ndjike Kaiko, the army spokesperson, blamed the attack on the Mugunga refugee camp in North Kivu on a rebel group, known as M23, with alleged links to Rwanda, in a statement provided to the AP.
M23 REBELS SEIZE KEY SMARTPHONE MINERAL MINING TOWN IN EASTERN CONGO
A military spokesman for the rebel group, Lt. Col. Willy Ngoma, denied any role and accused the army of planting the bomb.
M23 has seized more territory this week, capturing the mining town of Rubaya.
The town holds deposits of tantalum, which is extracted from coltan, a key component in the production of smartphones. It is among the minerals that was named earlier this month in a letter from Congo’s government questioning Apple about the tech company’s knowledge of "blood minerals" being smuggled in its supply chain.
The decades-long conflict in eastern Congo has produced one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with over 100 armed groups fighting in the region, most for land and control of mines with valuable minerals. Some are fighting to try to protect their communities.
Many groups are accused of carrying out mass killings, rapes and other human rights violations. The violence has displaced about 7 million people, many beyond the reach of aid.
Kenya postpones planned reopening of schools after more than 200 people killed by severe flooding
Kenyan President William Ruto has postponed next week’s planned reopening of schools until further notice, as heavy rains and floods that have killed more than 200 people continue.
The president in his state of the nation address on Friday said that "meteorological reports paint a dire picture," citing the possibility of Cyclone Hidaya hitting coastal Kenya in coming days.
Kenya and other parts of East Africa have been overwhelmed by flooding, with more than 150,000 displaced people living in camps across the country.
TOURISTS AIRLIFTED FROM KENYAN RESERVE AS FREAK FLOODS CONTINUE
Schools originally were to reopen this week, but the education ministry postponed that by a week. Students will now wait for the announcement of new reopening dates as some schools remain flooded and others have been damaged. Some displaced people have been living in schools while the government prepares to relocate them to camps.
The government has ordered people living near 178 dams and reservoirs that are either full or nearly full to evacuate or be forcefully moved.
Water levels at two major hydroelectric dams have reached historic highs and the government has warned those living downstream along the Tana River.
Last week, a boat capsized on the river, which flows to the Indian Ocean, leaving seven people dead and 13 others missing. A passenger bus was also swept off a bridge along the same river last month.
The government has been accused of an inadequate response to the floods.
The flooding has left more than 155 people dead in neighboring Tanzania, where Cyclone Hidaya is expected to hit coastal areas. Hundreds of people have been affected in Burundi, Ethiopia and Somalia as well.
French police peacefully remove anti-Israel students from university sites
French police on Friday peacefully removed dozens of students from a building at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, known as Sciences Po, who had gathered in support of Palestinians, echoing similar encampments and solidarity demonstrations across the United States.
Students waved Palestinian flags and chanted slogans in support of residents of Gaza, as Israel continues its offensive following the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack that triggered the Israeli-Hamas war.
The Sciences Po building had been occupied since Thursday evening. The university administration had closed the main buildings and moved classes online.
Anti-Israel students were planning to hold a protest later Friday in front of the Pantheon monument, near the elite Sorbonne University, to call for an end to Israel’s offensive in Gaza.
On Thursday, similar protests took place in some other universities across the country, including in Lille and Lyon.
The Prime Minister's Office said police had been requested to remove students from 23 sites on French campuses on Thursday and "all were evacuated within a few hours."
A police presence will be maintained near Sciences Po to prevent any further blockades, it said in a statement.
Last week, tensions broke out near the elite university, which counts President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Gabriel Attal among its many famous alumni. Pro-Palestine and pro-Israel demonstrators faced each other in a standoff in the street outside Sciences Po. Riot police stepped in to separate the groups.
The protest ended peacefully as pro-Palestinian students agreed to leave.
Kremlin spox slams French president, UK foreign secretary, calling criticisms of war in Ukraine 'dangerous'
Recent statements by France’s president and Britain’s foreign secretary about the war in Ukraine are "dangerous" and will deepen international tension around the conflict, the Kremlin’s spokesman said Friday.
French President Emmanuel Macron, in an interview published Thursday, repeated an earlier comment that he doesn’t exclude sending troops to Ukraine. U.K. Foreign Secretary David Cameron, meanwhile, said during a visit to Kyiv the same day that Ukraine will be able to use British long-range weapons to strike targets inside Russia — a possibility that some other NATO countries providing weapons have balked at.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov branded Macron’s comment "a very important and very dangerous statement." Remarks by Macron about possible direct French engagement in the conflict represent a "very dangerous trend," he said.
KYIV'S FORCES ARE UP AGAINST A CONCERTED RUSSIAN PUSH IN EASTERN UKRAINE, A MILITARY OFFICIAL SAYS
Cameron’s statement about Ukraine’s right to use British weapons provided to strike facilities inside Russia is "another very dangerous statement," Peskov told reporters.
"This is a direct escalation of tensions around the Ukrainian conflict, which potentially may threaten European security, the entire European security architecture," Peskov said.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 significantly heightened tension between the Kremlin and NATO countries. The alliance countries have provided much of the military hardware that Kyiv is using to fight Russia, ensuring that the tension has continued to simmer. Russia, in turn, has sought help from China, Iran and North Korea, according to the U.S.
As Russia heaps battlefield pressure on depleted Ukrainian forces and appears poised to launch a major offensive, that antagonism has become sharper.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu claimed Friday that Russian troops had captured more than 200 square miles of territory from Ukrainian forces since the start of the year.
"The Russian groups of forces continue to break through the enemy’s strongholds along the entire line of contact," Shoigu said at a meeting with top military brass.
It was not possible to independently verify claims about the battlefield.
Ukrainian officials have acknowledged that Russian forces have an overwhelming advantage in troops, weapons and ammunition.
Ukraine’s president and foreign minister pressed Cameron during his visit to accelerate the delivery of his country's promised military aid.
"It is important that the weapons included in the U.K. support package announced last week arrive as soon as possible," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on the social platform X.
He said armored vehicles, ammunition and missiles of various types were top of the list.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who also met with Cameron, said on X that the focus was on "speeding up military aid."
That message was rammed home by the deputy chief of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, Major-General Vadym Skibitsky, who said Russia is trying to exploit its current advantage in weapons and manpower and is planning a major offensive this summer.
"Our problem is very simple: We have no weapons," Skibitsky was quoted as saying in an interview with The Economist published Friday.
Vital support pledged by Western allies to help Ukraine fend off the Kremlin’s forces has been delayed by political disagreements in the United States and a lack of manufacturing capacity in Europe. That has opened a door to advances for the bigger and better-equipped Russian army, especially along the front line in eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine and its Western partners are in a race against the clock to deploy the new military aid, especially a fresh batch of U.S. support, in coming weeks and prevent Russia taking more ground.
The pressing concern at the moment is keeping the strategic eastern hilltop city of Chasiv Yar out of Russian hands. Capturing the city would offer Russia the opportunity of attacking other key cities deeper inside the Donetsk region and hitting important Ukrainian supply lines.
Chasiv Yar is being battered by Russian artillery, drones and missiles. Glide bombs have also been deployed. They are half-ton bombs fitted with wings and launched from aircraft from behind Russian lines. They demolish buildings and leave huge craters, unnerving local defenders.
Russia used a similar strategy of relentless bombardment to force Ukrainian troops out of Avdiivka in February.
Cambodia's Supreme Court upholds prison sentence for labor union leader in strike
Cambodia’s Supreme Court on Friday upheld the two-year prison sentence of a labor union leader who led a long-running strike against the country’s biggest casino.
Chhim Sithar, president of the Labor Rights Supported Union of Khmer Employees of NagaWorld, had originally been convicted in May 2023 of incitement to commit a felony.
She had been leading a strike that began in December 2021 to protest mass layoffs and alleged union-busting at the NagaWorld casino in the capital, Phnom Penh, and was arrested and charged after a January 2022 demonstration of dismissed employees who were demanding to be rehired.
CAMBODIA'S PIONEERING POST-KHMER ROUGE ERA PHNOM PENH POST NEWSPAPER WILL STOP PRINT PUBLICATION
NagaWorld in late 2021 had fired 373 employees amid financial struggles related to the coronavirus pandemic.
Some dismissed workers continue to hold regular protests, appealing for Chhim Sithar to be released and for them to get their jobs back, Am Sam Ath of the rights groups Licadho said Friday. More than 200 others had accepted compensation under the labor law and dropped their demands, the Ministry of Labor and Vocational Training announced in December 2022.
Supporters of Chhim Sithar gathered outside the Supreme Court on Friday with banners calling for her release on appeal. The court also upheld the convictions and sentences of eight of her fellow union members. Five received sentences of 1 1/2 years each. Three others had been given suspended sentences of one year each.
Chhim Sithar could be released later this year when her prison term ends due to time already served before her conviction.
NagaWorld is owned by a company controlled by the family of Malaysian billionaire Chen Lip Keong. The company received its casino license in 1994 and the property is now a huge integrated hotel-casino entertainment complex.
Labor union actions had not been rare in Cambodia but usually had taken place at factories in outlying areas or in industrial estates in other provinces. The protest by the NagaWorld workers in the capital was unusually high-profile and drew police action that was sometimes violent.
In February last year, the U.S. Department of State named Chhim Sithar among 10 recipients around the globe of its annual Human Rights Defender Award. She was described by U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia W. Patrick Murphy as "a courageous and tenacious labor union leader who peacefully advocates for the rights of Cambodian workers."
2 military personnel to face court martial over drone attack that killed 85 villagers in Nigeria
Two Nigerian military personnel will face a court martial over the killing of 85 villagers in a military drone attack in December in the West African nation’s conflict-battered north, authorities said, prompting calls from a rights group Friday for more transparency and justice for victims.
The two personnel will be subjected to military justice proceedings "for acts of omission or commission" after investigations found that the civilians killed by the strike "were mistaken for terrorists," Nigeria’s Defense Headquarters spokesperson Maj. Gen. Edward Buba said in a statement Thursday without providing further details.
Nigeria’s military often conducts air raids as it fights the extremist violence and rebel attacks that have destabilized Nigeria’s northern region for more than a decade, often leaving civilian casualties in its wake.
MORE THAN 130 ABDUCTED SCHOOLCHILDREN IN NIGERIA ARE RETURNING HOME AFTER WEEKS IN CAPTIVITY
Since 2017, some 400 civilians have been killed by such accidental strikes by the military, according to the Lagos-based SBM Intelligence security firm.
The December misfire occurred while villagers observed the Muslim holiday marking the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad in Kaduna state’s Tudun Biri village.
Nigerian military authorities must provide more information on the investigation, compensate victims, and put in place systems and processes to avoid future misfires, said Anietie Ewang, Nigerian researcher with Human Rights Watch.
"There really needs to be a well-thought-out process to ensure accountability and justice for victims of these airstrikes," said Ewang.
Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu had said such "avoidable errors are unacceptable and cannot be repeated." Rights groups and activists also condemned the attack and called for increased scrutiny of the military’s operations in conflict zones.
One major concern has been the proliferation of drones within Nigerian security agencies such that "there is no guiding principle on when these can be used," Kabir Adamu, an Abuja-based security analyst, told The Associated Press.
"The military will take extra precautions in the future to ensure that non-combatants are safe," Buba said.
Houthis would welcome students suspended for anti-Israel protests to the militia's own university
Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi militia, which has disrupted global shipping to display its support for Palestinians in the Gaza conflict, is now offering a place for students suspended from U.S. universities after staging anti-Israeli protests.
Students have rallied or set up tents at dozens of campuses in the United States in recent days to protest against Israel's war in Gaza, now in its seventh month.
Demonstrators have called on President Joe Biden, who has supported Israel's right to defend itself, to do more to stop the bloodshed in Gaza and demanded schools divest from companies that support Israel's government.
Many of the schools, including Ivy League Columbia University in New York City, have called in police to quell the protests.
"We are serious about welcoming students that have been suspended from U.S. universities for supporting Palestinians," an official at Sanaa University, which is run by the Houthis, told Reuters. "We are fighting this battle with Palestine in every way we can."
Sanaa University had issued a statement applauding the "humanitarian" position of the students in the United States and said they could continue their studies in Yemen.
"The board of the university condemns what academics and students of U.S. and European universities are being subjected to, suppression of freedom of expression," the board of the university said in a statement, which included an email address for any students wanting to take up their offer.
The U.S. and Britain returned the Houthi militia to a list of terrorist groups this year as their attacks on vessels in and around the Red Sea hurt global economies.
The Houthi's offer of an education for U.S. students sparked a wave of sarcasm by ordinary Yemenis on social media. One social media user posted a photograph of two Westerners chewing Yemen's widely-used narcotic leaf Qat. He described the scene as American students during their fifth year at Sanaa University.
Russia targets dissenters abroad, even in countries once thought safe, experts say
The military defector was killed in a hail of gunfire and then run over by a car in Spain. The opposition figure was struck repeatedly with a hammer in Lithuania. The journalist fell ill from a suspected poisoning in Germany.
Since President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine, attacks and harassment of Russians — prominent or not — have been blamed on Moscow's intelligence operatives across Europe and elsewhere.
Despite attempts by Western governments to dismantle Russian spy networks, experts say the Kremlin apparently is still able to pursue those it perceives as traitors abroad in an attempt to silence dissent. Opponents of Putin increasingly fear the long arm of Moscow’s security services, including in countries they once thought were safe.
RUSSIA WILL FACE CONSEQUENCES FOR 'ABSOLUTELY INTOLERABLE' CYBERATTACK, GERMAN FOREIGN MINISTER SAYS
"We just escaped Russia and had this illusion that we’ve escaped prison," said journalist Irina Dolinina, who works for the independent outlet Important Stories, based in the Czech capital of Prague.
Dolinina and colleague Alesya Marokhovskaya were harassed in 2023, leading to fears they were under surveillance. They were sent threatening messages via comments on the media outlet's website and told not to travel to a conference in Sweden. To underscore the point, the threat included their airline ticket numbers, seat locations and hotel booking.
"It was a mistake for us to think that here, we are safe," Dolinina told The Associated Press.
The Kremlin, which routinely denies going after its opponents abroad, has been blamed for decades for such attacks.
The most famous cases include Soviet revolutionary-turned-exiled dissident Leon Trotsky, who was killed in 1940 in Mexico after being attacked with an ice ax by a Soviet agent, and Georgi Markov, a dissident working for the BBC's Bulgarian language service, who died in 1978 in London after being jabbed with a poison-tipped umbrella.
Britain was the site of other poisonings blamed on Russian security services under Putin. Defector and former intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko died after drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium-210 in 2006, and former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter fell gravely ill but recovered following an attack with a Soviet-era nerve agent in 2018. The Kremlin repeatedly denied involvement in the British cases.
Now, with a full-scale domestic crackdown underway inside Russia, most of the Kremlin's political opponents, independent journalists and activists have moved abroad. There are strong suspicions, as well as accusations from officials, that Moscow is increasingly targeting them.
The breadth of those individuals pursued by Russia, "even if they look and sound completely insignificant," is because Russian authorities believe they "might come back to the country and destroy it completely," said security expert Andrei Soldatov.
There are multiple reports of exiles being persecuted not only in former Soviet countries with a large Russian diaspora but also in Europe and beyond.
Activists and independent journalists have reported symptoms that they suspect to be poisoning.
Investigative journalist Elena Kostyuchenko fell ill on a train from Munich to Berlin in 2022, and German prosecutors later said they were investigating it as an attempted killing.
Natalia Arno, the head of the U.S.-based Free Russia Foundation, told AP she still suffers from nerve damage after a suspected poisoning in Prague in May. She believes Russian security services tried to "silence" her because of her pro-democracy work.
In an especially brutal incident, the bullet-riddled body of pilot Maksim Kuzminov was found in La Cala, Spain, near the eastern port of Alicante, after being shot and run over with a car. Threats against him surfaced soon after he stole a Russian Mi-8 helicopter in August, flew it to Ukraine and defected.
Kuzminov, 33, became a "moral corpse" the moment he planned his "dirty and terrible crime," said Sergei Naryshkin, head of Russia’s foreign intelligence service.
In March, Leonid Volkov, chief of staff to the late opposition politician Alexei Navalny, had his arm broken in a hammer attack in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius.
Lithuania's security service said the assault was probably "Russian-organized and implemented." On April 19, Polish police detained two people on suspicion of attacking Volkov on the orders of a foreign intelligence service.
In the decades Putin has held power, the Kremlin has denied multiple times that it is targeting its enemies at home and abroad. It has not commented on the suspected poisonings and Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, declined comment on Volkov's case, saying it was a matter for Lithuania's Interior Ministry.
Even fledgling anti-war groups find themselves in Moscow's sights.
Russians in Stockholm, Sweden, who in May 2022 formed one of the first organizations to support Ukraine and political prisoners, burned an effigy of Putin labeled "war criminal" outside the Russian Embassy.
Six months later, Russian authorities designated the group an undesirable organization, threatening members with fines and prison. Their relatives were visited at home in Russia by police, and their personal data was leaked, members told AP, speaking on condition of anonymity because of fears for their security.
The Russian Orthodox Tsargrad media outlet suggested the group’s members could be recruited by foreign intelligence services and dubbed them "terrorists." The pro-Kremlin outlet warned them of a nasty surprise if they continued opposing the war.
Days later, while visiting relatives in St. Petersburg, a group member named Marina said a police car stopped right in front of her as she exited a shop. Three men got out, asked for her documents, forced her into the car and drove to a police station, siren blaring.
"It was really scary. How the hell did they know my exact location?" Marina told AP, declining to give her surname because she fears for her safety.
She was confronted with the leaked data and video of the embassy protest, and investigators demanded she identify other members of the group, reveal its funding source and asked her views on the war. One even questioned why she was leaving Russia before her father’s birthday -– making clear they knew the identity of her family.
She was charged with an administrative violation, usually punishable by a fine. As police prepared to drive her to her parents’ apartment, it was suggested she "cooperate" and become an informant if she wanted to see her family again without fear of detention, Marina said.
"It’s a known modus operandi for Russian intelligence and the Russian regime to follow opponents in the Russian diaspora in other countries and subject them to different types of harassment or intelligence work," Fredrik Hultgren-Friberg, spokesperson for the Swedish Security Service, told AP.
Soldatov said the Kremlin is going after a wide range of opponents because it fears pro-Western uprisings like those in Georgia and Ukraine and wants to prevent the seeds of dissent from growing into "something new."
Even though Western countries expelled hundreds of Russian spies in coordinated actions after the 2018 poisoning of the Skripals and the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Russians abroad say they are concerned Moscow still can reach them.
Marokhovskaya, the investigative journalist in Prague, received anonymous threats, including one indicating close surveillance that said, "We’ll find her wherever she walks her wheezing dog."
She and Dolinina told AP they experienced such observation inside Russia, including after publishing award-winning investigations of corruption in Putin’s family.
After moving to Europe, Dolinina said she initially thought she was experiencing "constant paranoia." When she got the anonymous threats and was followed on Prague's streets, however, she realized the fears were well-founded.
Neither journalist has concrete proof that Russian security services targeted them, but they said they believe the personal data -– flight information, passport numbers and home addresses -– and physical surveillance were likely orchestrated by a state actor.
"I was really shocked that it’s happening in Europe," Dolinina said.
Although the many incidents the West blames on the Kremlin fuel speculation that Moscow still can intimidate Russians abroad, not everyone has been silenced.
"This is not the reason to quit," Marokhovskaya said. "It’s the reason to keep working."
US, Australia, Japan and Philippines vow to deepen defense cooperation amid South China Sea tensions
Defense chiefs from the U.S., Australia, Japan and the Philippines vowed to deepen their cooperation as they gathered Thursday in Hawaii for their second-ever joint meeting amid concerns about China's operations in the South China Sea.
The meeting came after the four countries last month held their first joint naval exercises in the South China Sea, a major shipping route where Beijing has long-simmering territorial disputes with a number of Southeast Asian nations and has caused alarm with its recent assertiveness in the waters.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters at a news conference after their discussion that the drills strengthened the ability of the nations to work together, build bonds among their forces and underscore their shared commitment to international law in the waterway.
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Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles said the defense chiefs talked about increasing the tempo of their defense exercises.
"Today, the meetings that we have held represent a very significant message to the region and to the world about four democracies which are committed to the global rules-based order," Marles said at the joint news conference with his counterparts.
Austin hosted the defense chiefs at the U.S. military’s regional headquarters, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, at Camp H.M. Smith in the hills above Pearl Harbor. Earlier in the day, Austin had separate bilateral meetings with Australia and Japan, followed by a trilateral meeting with Australia and Japan.
Defense chiefs from the four nations held their first meeting in Singapore last year.
The U.S. has decades-old defense treaties with all three nations.
The U.S. lays no claims to the South China Sea, but has deployed Navy ships and fighter jets in what it calls freedom of navigation operations that have challenged China’s claims to virtually the entire waterway. The U.S. says freedom of navigation and overflight in the waters is in America’s national interest.
Aside from China and the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei also have overlapping claims in the resource-rich sea. Beijing has refused to recognize a 2016 international arbitration ruling that invalidated its expansive claims on historical grounds.
Skirmishes between Beijing and Manila in particular have flared since last year. Earlier this week, Chinese coast guard ships fired water cannons at two Philippine patrol vessels off off Scarborough Shoal, damaging both.
The repeated high-seas confrontations have sparked fears of a larger conflict that could put China and the United States on a collision course.. The U.S. has warned repeatedly that it’s obligated to defend the Philippines — its oldest treaty ally in Asia — if Filipino forces, ships or aircraft come under an armed attack, including in the South China Sea.
President Joe Biden's administration has said it aims to build what it calls a "latticework" of alliances in the Indo-Pacific even as the U.S. grapples with the Israel-Hamas war and Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
Beijing says the strengthening of U.S. alliances in Asia is aimed at containing China and threatens regional stability.
China sees resurgence of rap music as emerging musicians find their voices
In 2018, the censors who oversee Chinese media issued a directive to the nation's entertainment industry: Don't feature artists with tattoos and those who represent hip-hop or any other subculture.
Right after that well-known rapper GAI missed a gig on a popular singing competition despite a successful first appearance. Speculation went wild: Fans worried that this was the end for hip-hop in China. Some media labeled it a ban.
The genre had just experienced a banner year, with a hit competition-format TV show minting new stars and introducing them to a country of 1.4 billion people. Rappers accustomed to operating on little money and performing in small bars became household names. The announcement from censors came at the peak of that frenzy. A silence descended, and for months no rappers appeared on the dozens of variety shows and singing competitions on Chinese TV.
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But by the end of that year, everything was back in full swing. "Hip-hop was too popular," says Nathanel Amar, a researcher of Chinese pop culture at the French Centre for Research on Contemporary China. "They couldn’t censor the whole genre."
What had looked like the end for Chinese hip-hop was just the beginning.
Since then, hip-hop’s explosive growth in China has only continued. It has done so by carving out a space for itself while staying clear of the government’s red lines, balancing genuine creative expression with something palatable in a country with powerful censors.
Today, musicians say they’re looking forward to an arriving golden age.
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Much of the energy can be found in Chengdu, a city in China's southwestern Sichuan region. Some of the biggest acts in China today hail from Sichuan; Wang Yitai, Higher Brothers and Vava are just a few of the names that have made Chinese rap mainstream, performing in a mix of Mandarin and Sichuan dialects. While hip-hop in Chengdu started out with the very heavy sounds of trap, its mainstreaming has meant artists have broadened out to lighter sounds, from R&B to the trending afrobeat rhythms popularized by Beyonce.
Although Chinese rap has been operating underground for decades in cities like Beijing, it is the Sichuan region — known internationally for its spicy cuisine, its panda reserve and its status as the birthplace of the late leader Deng Xiaoping — that has come to dominate.
"There’s a lot of rhymes in rap. And from a young age, we were exposed to language with a lot of rhymes. And I feel like we’re its origin," says Mumu Xiang, who is from Sichuan and attended a rap concert recently held in the city.
The dialect lends itself to rap because it’s softer than Mandarin Chinese and there are a lot more rhymes, says 25-year-old rapper Kidway, from a town just outside Chengdu. "Take the word ‘gang’ in English. In Sichuanese, there’s a lot of rhymes for that word ‘fang, sang, zhuang,’ the rhymes are already there," he says.
Chengdu is also welcoming to outsiders, says Haysen Cheng, a 24-year-old rapper who moved to the city from Hong Kong in 2021 to work on his music at the invitation of Harikiri, a British producer who has helped shape the scene and worked with Chengdu’s biggest acts.
Part of the city’s hip-hop lore centers around a collective called Chengdu Rap House or CDC, founded by a rapper called Boss X, whose fans affectionately call him "Xie laober" in the Sichuan dialect. The city has embraced rap, as its originators like Boss X went from making music in a run-down apartment in an old residential community to performing in a stadium for thousands. At Boss X’s performance in March, fans sang along and cheered in Sichuanese. Even with a ban on the audience standing up, standard at all stadium performances in China, the energy was infectious.
"When I came to mainland China, they showed me more love in like three or four months than I ever received in Hong Kong," Cheng says. He got to collaborate with the Higher Brothers, one of the few Chinese rap groups who also have global recognition. "The people here actually want each other to succeed."
The price of going mainstream, though, means the underground scene has evaporated. Chengdu was once known for its underground rap battles. Those no longer happen, as freestyling usually involves profanity and other content the authorities deem unacceptable. The last time there was a rap battle in the city, rappers say, authorities quickly showed up and shut it down. These days it’s all digital, with people uploading short clips of their music to Douyin, TikTok’s Chinese version, to get noticed.
Kidway says he learned to rap from going to these battles and competing against other rappers his age. He once worked at a renovation company but ditched it to pursue rap full time.
But even though the rap battles are gone, the field has more rappers than ever. That's a good thing. "The more players there are," he says, "the more interesting it is."
Rarely can a single cultural product be said to have originated a whole genre of music. But the talent competition/reality TV show "The Rap of China" has played an outsized role in building China's rap industry.
The first season, broadcast on IQiyi, a web streaming platform, brought rap and hip-hop culture to households across the country. The first season’s 12 episodes drew 2.5 billion views online, according to Chinese media reports.
In the first season, the show relied on its judges’ star power to draw in an audience — namely Kris Wu, a Chinese Canadian singer and former member of the hit K-pop group EXO. At that point in time, Wu was at the height of his fame, and his comments as a judge that season even became internet memes. "Do you have freestyle?" he asked a contestant, dead serious, on Episode One — a moment that went on to live in internet infamy because people doubted Wu's rap credentials.
Two winners emerged from the first season: GAI and PG One. Shortly after their win, the internet was awash with rumors about the less-than-perfect doings of PG One’s personal life. The Communist Youth League also criticized one of his old songs for content that appeared to be about using cocaine, very much violating one of the censor’s red lines.
Then came the 2018 meeting where censors reminded TV channels of who could not appear on their programs, namely anyone who represented hip-hop. PG One was finding that any attempts to release new music were quickly taken down by platforms. The platform, IQiyi, even took down the entire first season for a while.
But by late summer 2018, fans were excited to hear that they could expect a second season of "The Rap of China," though there was a rebrand. The name in English stayed the same, but in Chinese it signaled a new direction. The show’s name changed from "China Has Hip-Hop" to "China Has ‘Shuochang,’" a term that also refers to traditional forms of storytelling.
Regulators had given the go-ahead for hip-hop to continue its growth, but they had to follow the lines set by the government censors. Hip-hop was now shuochang and a symbol of youth culture; it had to stay away from mentions of drugs and sex. Otherwise, though, it could proceed.
"It was a success for the Chinese regulators. … They really succeeded in coopting the hip-hop artists," Amar says. "It’s like a contract: If you want to be popular, if you want to be on TV shows, you have to respect the red line."
With tight censorship on the entertainment industry and a ban on mentions of drugs and sex in lyrics, artists have reacted in two ways. Either they wholeheartedly embrace the displays of patriotism and nationalism, or they avoid the topics.
Some, like GAI, have fully taken on the government’s mantle in the mainstreaming of hip-hop. He won "The Rap of China" with a song called "Not Friendly" in which, in classic hip-hop fashion, he dissed other rappers that he didn't name. "I’m not friendly. I can break your pen at any moment. Tear down your flashy words. … My enemies you better pray for you to have a good end."
Just a few years later, Gai is singing about China’s glorious history on the CCTV’s Spring Festival New Year’s Gala broadcast, a tightly scripted entertainment show with comedy sketches, songs and dance performances that is watched by families while celebrating Chinese New Year.
"Five thousand years of history flows past like quicksand. I’m proud to be born in Cathay," he sings, wearing a Qing Dynasty-inspired Tang jacket.
The red lines have also pushed artists to be more creative. For Chinese rap to thrive, artists have to find original voices, they say. 32-year-old rapper Fulai describes his own music as chill rap or "bedroom music" — not in the euphemistic sense, but the type of music you listen to as you lay in bed. His upcoming album, he says, is about ordinary things like fights with his wife and washing dishes.
Still, Fulai says he talks about sex a lot in his lyrics. Chinese is a language with countless sayings and a strong poetic tradition: "There’s nothing you can’t touch," he says. "You just have to be clever about it."
Developing a genuine Chinese brand of rap remains a work in progress. Hip-hop got its start from New York’s boroughs of Brooklyn and the Bronx, where rappers made music out of their tough circumstances, from shootouts to crime to illegal drug dealing. In China, the challenge is about finding what fits its context. Shootouts are rare in a country where guns are banned, and the penalties for drug use are high.
The rap crews in Chongqing, another mega-city in the Sichuan region, had a taste of gang culture reflected in their music as artists wrote about fights and vows of brotherhood. But most of today's biggest acts don’t rap about topics like knifing someone or drug use anymore.
Wang Yitai, who was a member of Chengdu’s rap collective CDC, is now one of the most popular rappers in China. His style has infused mainstream pop sounds.
"We’re all trying hard to create songs that not only sound good, but also topics that fit for China," Wang says. "I think hip-hop’s spirit will always be about original creation and will always be about your own story."
War-scarred village in Ukraine finds solace in vibrant new church
This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago, it also provided physical refuge from the horrors outside.
Almost 100 residents sheltered in a basement chapel at the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary while Russian troops occupied the village in March 2022 as they closed in on Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, 40 miles to the east.
"The fighting was right here," the Rev. Hennadii Kharkivskyi said. He pointed to the churchyard, where a memorial stone commemorates six Ukrainian soldiers killed in the battle for Lypivka.
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"They were injured and then the Russians came and shot each one, finished them off," he said.
The two-week Russian occupation left the village shattered and the church itself — a modern replacement for an older structure — damaged while still under construction. It’s one of 129 war-damaged Ukrainian religious sites recorded by UNESCO, the United Nations’ cultural organization.
"It’s solid concrete," the priest said. "But it was pierced easily" by Russian shells, which blasted holes in the church and left a wall inside pockmarked with shrapnel scars. At the bottom of the basement staircase, a black scorch mark shows where a grenade was lobbed down.
But within weeks, workers were starting to repair the damage and work to finish the solid building topped by red domes that towers over the village, with its scarred and damaged buildings, blooming fruit trees and fields that the Russians left littered with land mines.
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For many of those involved — including a tenacious priest, a wealthy philanthropist, a famous artist and a team of craftspeople — rebuilding this church plays a part in Ukraine's struggle for culture, identity and its very existence. The building, a striking fusion of the ancient and the modern, reflects a country determined to express its soul even in wartime.
The building's austere exterior masks a blaze of color inside. The vibrant red, blue, orange and gold panels decorating walls and ceiling are the work of Anatoliy Kryvolap, an artist whose bold, modernist images of saints and angels make this church unique in Ukraine.
The 77-year-old Kryvolap, whose abstract paintings sell for tens of thousands of dollars at auction, said that he wanted to eschew the severe-looking icons he’d seen in many Orthodox churches.
"It seems to me that going to church to meet God should be a celebration," he said.
There has been a church on this site for more than 300 years. An earlier building was destroyed by shelling during World War II. The small wooden church that replaced it was put to more workaday uses in Soviet times, when religion was suppressed.
Kharkivskyi reopened the parish in 1992 following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and set about rebuilding the church, spiritually and physically, with funding from Bohdan Batrukh, a Ukrainian film producer and distributor.
Work stopped when Russian troops launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Moscow's forces reached the fringes of Kyiv before being driven back. Lypivka was liberated by the start of April.
Since then, fighting has been concentrated in the east and south of Ukraine, though aerial attacks with rockets, missiles and drones are a constant threat across the country.
By May 2022, workers had resumed work on the church. It has been slow going. Millions of Ukrainians fled the country when war erupted, including builders and craftspeople. Hundreds of thousands of others have joined the military.
Inside the church, a tower of wooden scaffolding climbs up to the dome, where a red and gold image of Christ raises a hand in blessing
For now, services take place in the smaller basement, where the priest, in white and gold robes, recently conducted a service for a couple of dozen parishioners as the smell of incense wafted through the candlelit room.
He is expecting a large crowd for Easter, which falls on Sunday. Eastern Orthodox Christians usually celebrate Easter later than Catholic and Protestant churches, because they use a different method of calculating the date for the holy day that marks Christ’s resurrection.
A majority of Ukrainians identify as Orthodox Christians, though the church is divided. Many belong to the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine, with which the Lypivka church is affiliated. The rival Ukrainian Orthodox Church was loyal to the patriarch in Moscow until splitting from Russia after the 2022 invasion and is viewed with suspicion by many Ukrainians.
Kharkivskyi says the size of his congregation has remained stable even though the population of the village has shrunk dramatically since the war began. In tough times, he says, people turn to religion.
"Like people say: ‘Air raid alert — go see God,’" the priest said wryly.
Liudmyla Havryliuk, who has a summer home in Lypivka, found herself drawn back to the village and its church even before the fighting stopped. When Russia invaded, she drove to Poland with her daughters, then 16 and 18 years old. But within weeks she came back to the village she loves, still besieged by the Russians.
The family hunkered down in their home, cooking on firewood, drawing water from a well, sometimes under Russian fire. Havryliuk said that when they saw Russian helicopters, they held hands and prayed.
"Not prayer in strict order, like in the book," she said. "It was from my heart, from my soul, about what should we do? How can I save myself and especially my daughters?"
She goes to Lypivka’s church regularly, saying it’s a "place you can shelter mentally, within yourself."
As Ukraine marks its third Easter at war, the church is nearing completion. Only a few of Kryvolap’s interior panels remain to be installed. He said that the shell holes will be left unrepaired as a reminder to future generations.
"(It’s) so that they will know what kind of ‘brothers’ we have, that these are just fascists," he said, referring to the Russians.
"We are Orthodox, just like them, but destroying churches is something inhumane."
Death toll from heavy rains, flooding rises to 13 in southern Brazil
The death toll from heavy rains in Brazil's southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul rose to 13, local authorities said on Thursday, May 2, 2024, as the state government declared a state of public calamity to handle the dramatic situation.
The storms, which have caused the greatest devastation in the state in recent years, also left 21 people missing and 5,257 displaced in 134 cities, according to Rio Grande do Sul's civil defense.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is set to fly over the affected areas and meet with Governor Eduardo Leite later on Thursday in Santa Maria, which has seen three deaths, the most so far in one place.
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Leite declared a state of public calamity, citing the risk faced by the state as a result of climate events.
The Rio Grande do Sul floods are just the latest recent natural disasters in Brazil. The state had already been battered by a tropical cyclone last September, when more than 30 people were killed.
Paris implements massive water storage basin to clean up the River Seine for Olympic swimming
French officials inaugurated on Thursday a huge water storage basin meant to help clean up the River Seine, set to be the venue for marathon swimming at the Paris Games and the swimming leg of the Olympic and Paralympic triathlons.
Sports minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra praised Paris' ability "to provide athletes from all over the world with an exceptional setting on the Seine for their events."
Last year, swimming test events had to be canceled due to poor water quality. One reason was heavy rains that overwhelmed the city's old sewers, causing a mix of rainwater and untreated sewage to flow into the Seine and leaving safety standards unmet.
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The giant reservoir dug next to Paris’ Austerlitz train station aims to collect excess rainwater and prevent bacteria-laden wastewater from entering the Seine.
It can hold the equivalent of 20 Olympic swimming pools of dirty water that will now be treated rather than being spat raw through storm drains into the river.
"We are on time," the prefect of the Paris region, Marc Guillaume, said. "The beginning of the Games will coincide with water quality allowing competition. That’s a tremendous collective success."
Paris mayor Anne Hildago promised she would herself swim in the Seine before the Olympics — possibly alongside President Emmanuel Macron.
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The new storage basin "guarantees" that water can be stored even during severe storms, and will help water levels to "return to normal as quickly as possible," she said.
The opening of the basin is the latest step toward a cleaner river and comes as part of a series of newly-built facilities, including a water treatment plant in Champigny-sur-Marne, east of Paris, that was inaugurated last month.
During the Olympics, water will be tested at 3 a.m. each day to determine whether events can go ahead as planned. If results were not up to the standards, events could be delayed by a few days, organizers said.
The estimated cost of the cleanup efforts amount to $1.5 billion, paid by the state and local authorities.
"For more than ten years already, we’ve seen a very significant improvement of the Seine water quality and our river’s fishes and wildlife are back," Hidalgo said.
About 35 fish species are now living in the Paris section of the river, up from only three in the 1970s, when waters were extremely polluted due to nearby industrial activities.
For decades, the Seine was used mainly as a waterway to transport goods and people or as a watery grave for discarded bicycles and other trash. Swimming there has, with some exceptions, been illegal since 1923.
Paris officials are planning to open several bathing sites to the general public in the summer, starting from next year.
The River Seine also is to be at the heart of the grandiose opening ceremony for the Olympics that will see over 200 athletes' delegations parade on more that 80 boats in central Paris.
UK's Boris Johnson turned away from voting station for not having ID
No ID, no vote — no matter who you are.
Former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson was turned away from a polling station on Thursday after forgetting to bring proper identification to vote, British media are reporting.
Johnson, who in 2022 introduced a contentious requirement for voters to show photo ID while voting, ran afoul of his own rules while attempting to cast a vote in local elections taking place across England, Sky News reports.
Staff were forced to turn Johnson away, although the BBC reports that Johnson returned later with the proper paperwork and cast his vote.
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The former Conservative Party leader was attempting to cast his ballot in South Oxfordshire, where a police and crime commissioner for the Thames Valley was being selected.
"The polls are now open. Vote Conservative today!" Johnson posted on X earlier in the day.
A spokesman for Johnson did not deny he had failed to bring ID, saying only: "Mr. Johnson voted Conservative," Sky News reports.
As prime minister, Johnson's government introduced the ID requirement to crack down on possible voter fraud.
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Critics said it would potentially disenfranchise parts of the electorate and the while an Electoral Commission warned the new law could exclude those with disabilities and from minority ethnic backgrounds.
Passports, driving licenses, disability blue badges and certain local travel cards are accepted forms of voter ID. Previously, voters only needed to give their name and address to be able to vote.
Last year, in the first vote where the new rules were implemented, around 14,000 people in England were denied a vote in local elections after being unable to provide ID.
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A poll by YouGov showed 14% of Britons were still unaware, in the days prior to Thursday's elections, of the voter ID requirement.
Former President Trump has long called for voter ID requirements in U.S. elections in order to bolster election integrity and to combat what he claims are non-citizens voting in elections. He blames it as one of the reasons he lost the 2020 election to President Biden.
Speaker Mike Johnson rolled out an election integrity package at a press conference with Trump last month when the Speaker said that "potentially hundreds of thousands of votes" are cast by undocumented immigrants in U.S. elections.
Reuters contributed to this report.
Anti-Israel college protests spread to Australia as encampments pop up
The anti-Israel protests that are sweeping college campuses across America are going global with pro-Palestinian encampments now popping up at numerous universities in Australia.
Images have captured hundreds of activists on Friday rallying around tents set up on the campus of the University of Sydney, calling for the institution to divest from companies with links to Israel.
"Once you understand what is going on you have a responsibility to try and get involved and raise awareness and show solidarity," one attendee told Reuters. He was identified as a 39-year-old father who brought his 2-year-old child to the scene to demonstrate that it is not just students protesting the war in Gaza.
At a counter-protest several hundred yards away, a crowd gathered around Australian and Israeli flags and listened to speakers who said the pro-Palestinian demonstrations are making Jewish students and staff feel unsafe on campus, according to Reuters.
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"There's no space for anybody else, walking through campus chanting 'Intifada' and 'from the river to the sea' it does something, it's scary," one speaker reportedly said.
Other encampments have popped up at universities in the cities of Melbourne and Canberra, Reuters reports.
University of Sydney Vice Chancellor Mark Scott said Friday that there was space for both groups of protesters.
"They may strongly disagree with the matters that have been discussed. ... We can host that conversation and we should be able to do that in a non-threatening way," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Scott said not all of the protesters were students, and that some might not be committed to peaceful and productive engagement.
"We are working with security and police," he added.
At one point there was a scuffle between the two groups at the University of Sydney, the Associated Press reported, citing ABC, but added that both sides later backed off due to security.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Russia will face consequences for 'absolutely intolerable' cyberattack, German foreign minister says
German's top diplomat on Friday said Russia will face consequences after accusing its military intelligence service of masterminding an "absolutely intolerable" cyberattack.
Relations between the two European countries were already tense, with Germany providing military support to Ukraine in its ongoing war with Russia.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said Russian state hackers were behind a cyberattack last year that targeted the Social Democrats, the leading party in the governing coalition.
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"Russian state hackers attacked Germany in cyberspace," she said at a news conference in the Australian city of Adelaide. "We can attribute this attack to the group called APT28, which is steered by the military intelligence service of Russia."
"This is absolutely intolerable and unacceptable and will have consequences," she said.
Baerbock is visiting Australia, New Zealand and Fiji, with the trip focusing on security policy as China pushes for influence in the Pacific region.
"The defense cooperation between Germany and Australia is close and we would like to deepen it further and together expand it, because we are in a situation where we face similar threats," said Baerbock, who is the first German foreign minister to visit Australia in 13 years.
Discussions between Baerbock and Australia counterpart Penny Wong centered on the conflict in Gaza. "I think we all understand that the only path out of this cycle of violence that we see in the Middle East at such great cost is one that ultimately ensures a two-state solution," Wong said.
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