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Nationals leader David Littleproud is backing his record to hold on to the party’s top job as he faces a challenge from a fellow Queenslander.

The minor Coalition party faces a leadership tussle after Queensland senator Matt Canavan threw his hat in the ring.

We shouldn’t get upset about democracy taking place.

This is healthy for our democracy.

From my perspective, I still think I have a contribution to make and I want to do so. Someone once said that success isn’t final, failure isn’t fatal and the courage to continue is what matters. Here I am, a Labor MP quoting Churchill on Insiders. That’s where we’ve got to.

Indeed. Can I say, the party has given me great opportunities. Its faith in me, particularly with my faith, allowed me in part to make and break records, I’ve challenged the status quo and conservativism. It provides hope and aspiration for others. I want to be part of that.

Under pressure from Reform and from the former PM, Keir Starmer is facing a series of tests of his resolve on green policy

Populist politicians are striking a chord with the public in their attack on “the green agenda” because they are right – climate policies are elitist. So says the man standing to be the next leader of the UK’s Green party.

“We should all be angry about net zero,” argues Zack Polanski, currently the Greens’ deputy leader. “The poorest people in our society are being expected to step up to tackle the climate crisis. But it’s the government’s fault, not the people’s fault.”

Babies such as Siwar Ashour are suffering from malnutrition as crucial supplies run out amid Israel’s total blockade on aid

Siwar Ashour was born into war and hunger and has known nothing else. She is now in real danger of dying without ever having known a moment of peace or contentment.

The six-month-old Palestinian girl, whose painfully emaciated body symbolised the deliberate starvation of Gaza when she appeared on the BBC this week, was only 2.5kg when she was born on 20 November last year.

PhD student says she is excited to get back to her studies during what has been a ‘very difficult’ time

A Tufts University student from Turkey has returned to Boston, one day after being released from a Louisiana immigration detention center where she was held for more than six weeks after being arrested for her political speech.

Rümeysa Öztürk told reporters at Logan Airport on Saturday that she was excited to get back to her studies during what has been a “very difficult” period.

“In the last 45 days, I lost both my freedom and also my education during a crucial time for my doctoral studies,” she said. “But I am so grateful for all the support, kindness and care.”

A federal judge ordered Öztürk’s release Friday pending a final decision on her claim that she was illegally detained following an op-ed she co-wrote last year criticizing her university’s response to Israel and the war in Gaza.

She filed a lawsuit challenging her detention now assigned to US district judge William Sessions in Burlington, Vermont. He granted her bail after finding she had raised substantial claims that her rights were violated.

US president praises ‘very good’ discussions as top US and Chinese officials meet over trade war triggered by Trump’s tariff blitz

Donald Trump has hailed a “total reset” in US-China trade relations after the first day of talks between top American and Chinese officials in Geneva aimed at defusing a trade war sparked by his tariff rollout.

The US president praised the “very good” discussions and deemed them “a total reset negotiated in a friendly, but constructive, manner”.

Price joins shadow treasurer Angus Taylor’s ticket in Tuesday’s leadership ballot

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Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has formally put her hat in the ring for the deputy Liberal leadership, joining shadow treasurer Angus Taylor’s ticket.

It comes days after Nampijinpa Price defected from the National party room, where the Country Liberal party senator has been sitting since being elected in 2019.

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Husic says speaking out on Gaza was a factor in him being dropped from the ministry

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Ed Husic has blamed Richard Marles for his shock ousting from the cabinet this week, accusing the deputy prime minister of being a “factional assassin”.

Husic on Sunday said he believed his speaking out on issues like Gaza was a “factor” in his departure, and said the prime minister should have intervened.

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The 1,110 blocks of cocaine on board are worth more than half a billion dollars on the street, police said

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More than a tonne of cocaine has been seized off the east coast of Australia and five men arrested after police raided a suspicious motorboat.

Detectives said they were tipped off about the purchase of a 13-metre-long boat with a large sum of cash in Sydney’s Sutherland shire on 28 April.

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Leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Poland told Russian president to accept unconditional 30-day ceasefire by Monday or face increased sanctions and weapons transfers to Ukraine

Vladimir Putin has rejected an ultimatum by European leaders to agree to a ceasefire with Ukraine or face increased sanctions, but has proposed holding direct negotiations with Kyiv this week.

The leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Poland told the Russian president either to sign up to an unconditional ceasefire by Monday or face increased sanctions and weapons transfers to Ukraine.

Newark’s Ras Baraka says court fight against Geo Group will go on despite being jailed and charged with trespassing

Speaking out after his arrest on Tuesday, the Newark mayor Ras Baraka said his city would continue its fight in court against the company that runs an immigration detention facility in New Jersey.

“I know there are some protests that other people are planning, and if I feel obligated to be there, I will,” Baraka told the Rev Al Sharpton on MSNBC Saturday afternoon. “This doesn’t stop the city’s contention with the Geo Group, and we’re going to continue in court with them.”

Yvette Cooper to announce proposals to reduce net migration as government reacts to growing pressure from Reform UK

Visas for skilled overseas workers will be time-limited for those not taking a graduate-level job, the Home Office has announced.

The measure comes as part of a preview of wider plans being unveiled this week that are designed to reduce net migration to the UK.

Actor tells BBC about his relationship with the playwright, his ‘mentor’, and how he went ‘off the rails’

The actor Danny Dyer said the death of his mentor, the Nobel prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter, triggered a “spiral of madness” in his life.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, Dyer reflected on how he had stayed at Pinter’s home while performing in his play Celebration. The play opened at London’s Almeida theatre in 2000, before transferring to the Lincoln Center in New York.

Three Peruvians and two Colombians missing since setting sail from Peru in March arrive in Galápagos Islands

Five fishers who spent 55 days adrift at sea arrived on Saturday at a port in the Galápagos after being rescued by a tuna boat, the Ecuadorian navy said on X.

The three Peruvians and two Colombians had been missing since mid-March and were found on 7 May by an Ecuadorian boat called Aldo.

Swiss study finds wellbeing and life quality can be improved more than with insulin and other antidiabetic drugs

Weight loss jabs may be good for people’s mental health as well as helping curb their appetite, according to research.

A study by scientists from the University of Bern in Switzerland has found that appetite-suppressing injections also improve mood, wellbeing and quality of life more than insulin and other antidiabetic drugs.

Ban of former PM Sheikh Hasina’s party under Anti-Terrorism Act will remain until trial over student deaths completes

The interim government in Bangladesh has banned all activities of the former ruling Awami League party headed by former influential prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted last year in a mass uprising.

Asif Nazrul, the country’s law affairs adviser, said on Saturday the interim cabinet headed by the Nobel peace prize laureate Muhammad Yunus decided to ban the party’s activities online and elsewhere under the country’s Anti-Terrorism Act. The ban would stay in place until a special tribunal completes a trial of the party and its leaders over the deaths of hundreds of students and other protesters during an anti-government uprising in July and August last year.

The state government is aware of koala welfare problems but says it has ‘no cost-effective’ solutions

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Thousands of koalas are being displaced each year as blue gum plantations are cut down in Victoria, worsening overcrowding in nearby forests and exacerbating the risk of injury and death during bushfires.

An estimated 42,500 koalas live in blue gum plantations in south-west Victoria, data shows. Between 8,000 and 10,000 hectares of plantation are harvested each year, making thousands of koalas homeless.

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Forestry Corporation says suggestion that it can be compared to a criminal bikie gang is ‘ridiculous’

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A former magistrate and one of Australia’s most experienced scientists have launched an extraordinary attack on the New South Wales government’s logging agency, describing it as effectively a “criminal organisation” that should be shut down after a string of court convictions.

Prof David Heilpern, a NSW magistrate between 1998 and 2020 and now the dean of law at Southern Cross University, said the state’s Forestry Corporation should be “disbanded” as it was was no longer fit for purpose.

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This liveblog is now closed. Read our full report on the ceasefire agreement here

Who is Asim Munir, the army chief leading Pakistan’s military amid the crisis with India?

The general once fell foul of Imran Khan, but since taking the top spot has been quietly amassing power over the government and supreme court, as our profile here says.

Yet even now that the country is out of the clutches of martial law, it is still widely understood that the most powerful man in Pakistan is not the head of the government but instead the chief of the army.

Since Gen Munir took over as Pakistan’s army chief more than two years ago, he has been accused of quietly consolidating greater power without even having to topple the country’s civilian rulers. As he kept himself largely out of the limelight, he consolidated an iron grip over the army’s ranks and bent government policy and even the supreme court to his will.

At a demonstration in Westminster, people from both sides of India-Pakistan divide call for more than mere ceasefire

People around the world held their breath this week as India and Pakistan appeared to edge closer and closer towards war.

For diaspora communities with family in the region, especially in Kashmir and along the border between the two countries, recent days in particular have been filled with fear and anxiety.

Ramona Sarsgaard, 18, given ticket for criminal trespassing after Wednesday’s actions against Israel’s war in Gaza

The daughter of actors Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard was among those arrested at the latest Columbia University protests, marking the latest development in the anti-war demonstrations that also led to the temporary suspension of student journalists.

On Friday, the New York Post reported that 18-year-old Ramona Sarsgaard, a Columbia freshman, was arrested during Wednesday’s campus protests where students demonstrated against Israel’s deadly war in Gaza.

State attorney general said company secretly tracked users’ movements, searches, voiceprints and facial geometry

Google has agreed to pay $1.375bn in a settlement in principle reached with the state of Texas over allegations the company violated users’ data privacy, the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, said on Friday.

The agreement settles two lawsuits that covered three products for allegedly violating Texas consumer protection laws.

Meteorologists at television news stations serving Georgia and North Carolina reported feeling the tremors

A 4.1-magnitude earthquake in Tennessee woke up families and rattled homes as far away as Atlanta as it spread tremors across portions of the southern US on Saturday morning. No injuries or major damage were immediately reported.

The website for the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said the earthquake originated shortly after 9am EDT about 12 miles (20km) from Greenback, Tennessee, which is about 30 miles (48km) south of Knoxville.

Robert Hadden, sentenced to 20 years in prison for sexual abuse, kept practicing even as allegations piled up

It was a shocking scandal involving the betrayal of one of the most sacred bonds in medicine, as one of New York’s top doctors abused hundreds of women under his care.

Now, after a fresh settlement agreement last week from Columbia University and NewYork-Presbyterian hospital, the compensation for the crimes of Robert Hadden has approached almost a billion dollars and raised further questions as to how he was able to carry out his crimes for so long.

Truce agreed after US mediation but both sides accuse each other of violations only hours later

• Analysis: now the battle turns to India and Pakistan’s narratives of Kashmir

India and Pakistan have agreed to a US-mediated ceasefire with immediate effect, though its longevity was thrown into question after reports of cross-border shelling and explosions in Indian-administered Kashmir just hours after it was announced.

The ceasefire – which was hoped to end days of escalating clashes between the two nuclear-armed countries – was first declared by the US president, Donald Trump, on Saturday afternoon, after 48 hours of diplomacy between India and Pakistan, apparently brokered by the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and vice-president, JD Vance.

Reports suggest four detained under Terrorism Act were allegedly targeting Israeli embassy

Four Iranian men who were arrested on suspicion of preparing a terrorist attack in London can be detained and questioned in custody for another week, police said on Saturday.

Five men were arrested last week, with armed police and in at least one instance special forces soldiers sent in to detain them, with reports suggesting the alleged target was the Israeli embassy in Kensington.

Lindsay Hoyle’s freebies include champagne, whisky, food hampers, skincare sets and presents for his pets

• Hampers, cufflinks … and a lot of alcohol: some of the gifts Lindsay Hoyle has kept

Lindsay Hoyle, the speaker of the House of Commons, has kept almost 300 gifts over the last four years including dozens of bottles of alcohol, hampers, ties, cufflinks and chocolates, his declarations show.

The speaker received a large volume of presents from foreign dignitaries such as ambassadors, MPs and sometimes companies and chose to keep hundreds of them rather than donating them to Speaker’s House – his residence and office – or parliament.

Work to raise the Bayesian is put on hold as investigators seek to establish the cause of the 39-year-old Dutchman’s death

Recovery operations to raise the late tech tycoon Mike Lynch’s superyacht Bayesian from the seabed off Sicily have been suspended after a diver died during underwater work.

Rob Cornelis Maria Huijben, a 39-year-old Dutch diver, died on Friday while doing preparation work to cut the ship’s mainmast. He was employed by the maritime company Hebo, whose barge arrived last week in Porticello, a fishing port near Palermo. The luxury vessel was anchored just off Porticello when it was struck shortly before dawn by a violent storm on 19 August 2024. It sank within seconds, killing seven people, including Lynch and his daughter Hannah.

As both countries step back from the brink, the animosity generated by decades of dispute still endures

• Kashmir crisis live – latest updates

Just over 26 years ago, thousands of Pakistani soldiers quietly made their way on to high, rocky ridges on the Indian side of the de facto border that divides the former princely state of Kashmir. The war that this rash operation triggered lasted much of the summer of 1999.

Reporting on the conflict was a bizarre experience. In high mountain valleys, at altitudes more suited to mountaineers than soldiers, howitzers hurled massive shells across icy, rocky peaks and infantry readied for bayonet assaults. A Pakistani artillery officer read memoirs of English cricket stars and the Qur’an in his bunker. As spent shrapnel and rock splinters thrown up by incoming Indian shells rattled against the walls of the canvas mess tent, his commander spoke of Pakistan’s “historic national and religious duty” to free Kashmir, partitioned 50 years before, and waited for servants to bring dessert.

Fire at warehouse storing pool cleaning products sends cloud over wide area around Vilanova i la Geltrú

Spanish authorities have told more than 160,000 people near Barcelona to stay indoors after a fire at an industrial warehouse released a toxic cloud of chlorine over a wide area.

The blaze, in the coastal city of Vilanova i la Geltrú, south of Barcelona, started at dawn on Saturday in a warehouse storing pool cleaning products, the regional fire service said.

This blog is now closed, you can read our full report on this story here

It is the first time the leaders of the four European nations (France, the UK, Germany and Poland) have made a joint visit to Ukraine, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“We are clear the bloodshed must end. Russia must stop its illegal invasion,” the leaders said in a joint statement, adding:

Alongside the US, we call on Russia to agree a full and unconditional 30-day ceasefire to create the space for talks on a just and lasting peace.

We will continue to increase our support for Ukraine. Until Russia agrees to an enduring ceasefire, we will ratchet up pressure on Russia’s war machine.

US secretary of state urged both sides to de-escalate as he leads efforts to secure a solution to the deepening crisis

• Kashmir crisis live – latest updates

US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has offered US assistance in starting “constructive talks” to end the conflict between India and Pakistan, as the two states traded heavy missile fire on Saturday, prompting concerns over wider military escalation.

Rubio has been engaged in back-and-forth diplomacy between the two countries in recent days, calling for de-escalation as India and Pakistan have been engaged in daily clashes since Wednesday.

Palestinian rights group says remarks criticising a Lancet analysis on impact of the conflict are ‘sickening’

A UK-based advocacy group for Israel has been criticised for suggesting a reduction in obesity resulting from the war in Gaza may increase life expectancy there.

The comments by UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI), which came amid warnings of impending famine in Gaza, were condemned as “sickening” by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC).

The rules-based world order is in retreat and violence is on the rise, forcing countries to rethink their relationships

In a week in which former allies in a redividing globe separately commemorated the 80th anniversary of the end of the second world war, the sense of a runaway descent towards a third world war draws ever closer.

The implosion of Pax Americana, the interconnectedness of conflicts, the new willingness to resort to unbridled state-sponsored violence and the irrelevance of the institutions of the rules-based order have all been on brutal display this week. From Kashmir to Khan Younis, Hodeidah, Port Sudan and Kursk, the only sound is of explosions, and the only lesson is that the old rules no longer apply.

TikTok trend is inspiring tourists to seek out cheaper locations such as Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina

It will take more than a TikTok trend to break Britons’ love affair with Mediterranean beaches. But latest figures show travellers are increasingly swapping Málaga for North Macedonia and Benidorm for the Balkans as part of a social media craze for “destination dupes”.

Flights from the UK to Bosnia and Herzegovina soared by 284% in 2024 compared with the previous year, while trips to Montenegro increased by 164%. Getaways to Albania – billed by some as “the new Croatia” – rose by 61%, according to an analysis of Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) data.

Rightwing opposition party claims some artists will receive benefits having contributed little to the state

Slovenia’s populist opposition has mounted a campaign against “degenerate” artists as it seeks to topple government plans for special pension top-ups for award-winning artists in a referendum on Sunday.

Voters in the central European country will cast their verdict on a government bill that details the conditions and terms under which certain artists can claim an allowance to be added to their pensions.

Former SAS officer led a group of 70 who attempted to overthrow Equatorial Guinea’s president

Simon Mann, an Eton and Sandhurst-educated ex-SAS officer, who led a botched coup involving Margaret Thatcher’s son to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea, has died aged 72.

Mann led a group of 70 fellow mercenaries who were arrested in Zimbabwe in 2004 for attempting to topple Equatorial Guinea’s despotic president, Teodoro Obiang.

Any Trump administration efforts to send non-Libyans to the north African country would violate a prior court order

Immigrants in Texas who were told they would be deported to Libya sat on a military airfield tarmac for hours on Wednesday, unsure of what would happen next, an attorney for one of the men has said.

The attorney, Tin Thanh Nguyen, told the news agency Reuters that his client, a Vietnamese construction worker from Los Angeles, was among the immigrants woken in the early morning hours and bussed from an immigration detention center in Pearsall, Texas, to an airfield where a military aircraft awaited them.

Pope faced questions about his handling of clerical sexual abuse cases earlier in his career after a survivors group filed a complaint

Groups supporting clergy-molestation survivors say they are gravely concerned and insulted by the election of Pope Leo XIV after he overcame questions about his handling of clerical sexual abuse cases earlier in his career to become the Roman Catholic church’s first-ever US-born leader.

Before Robert Prevost’s ascent to the papacy at age 69, he was leading a chapter of the Augustinian religious order in his home town of Chicago when allegations surfaced that a priest and Catholic high school principal under his jurisdiction had molested at least one student as well as kept child-abuse imagery.

President Claudia Sheinbaum says lawsuit has been filed after US lawmakers voted on name change

Mexico has sued Google for changing the Gulf of Mexico’s name to “Gulf of America” for Google Maps users in the United States, Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s president, said on Friday.

“The lawsuit has already been filed,” Sheinbaum said at her morning news conference, without saying where and when it was submitted.

Groups say plan to resume limited humanitarian assistance under strict Israeli rules ‘risks enabling war crimes’

• US politics live – latest updates

Aid groups have voiced alarm at US moves to pressure them into accepting an Israeli proposal to resume limited humanitarian assistance to the war-ravaged territory under strictly controlled conditions.

The Trump administration has attempted to strong-arm international agencies – including the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) – into accepting Israel’s stringent rules for resuming deliveries, according to sources familiar with the discussions and news reports.

Meeting aimed at de-escalating trade war after Chinese exports beat expectations despite slump in trade

Donald Trump has floated cutting tariffs on China from 145% to 80% before a weekend meeting as he looks to de-escalate the trade war.

Top US officials are expected to meet a high-level Chinese delegation this weekend in Switzerland in the first significant talks between the two nations since Trump provoked a trade war with stiff tariffs on imports.

Crowning of country’s first world champion set to give fresh boost to sport that has boomed in popularity in China

Chain smoking under the fluorescent lights of a cavernous billiards hall in Beijing, Brother Yuan can’t stop smiling. The previous day, along with 150 million other people across China, he had been at home watching the snooker world championships final. Now he’s with his fellow cue-heads, celebrating the win of China’s first snooker world champion, Zhao Xintong.

“He’s a great role model for young people in China,” Yuan, 55, says of the generation Z upstart who on Monday claimed snooker’s top prize. “He’s bringing the excitement back.”

Lai Ching-te says ‘message of history is clear’ as Taiwan for first time officially commemorates end of second world war

Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, has compared his nation to the European countries heading for conflict with Nazi Germany in the 1930s, in a punchy speech commemorating the end of the second world war in Europe.

“Eighty years after the end of the European war, the message of history is clear. Today, 80 years later, we share the same values ??and face similar challenges as many of the democracies that participated in the European war,” Lai said to a group of foreign dignitaries gathered in Taipei.

Leo XIV celebrated as second Latin American pope having spent many years in Peru’s church

• Pope Leo XIV – live updates

The election of Pope Leo XIV has been celebrated across Latin America, where many hailed him as the second pontiff from the region, after his Argentinian predecessor, Francis.

The news prompted particular elation in Peru, where he lived and worked for more than 20 years and was granted citizenship in 2015. In the capital, Lima, the bells of the cathedral rang in celebration.

In his first appearance from the Vatican balcony, Leo XIV briefly switched from Italian to Spanish to address the faithful “from my beloved diocese of Chiclayo, in Peru”, where he served as bishop for more than a decade.

Lawyers say they’re ‘still in dark’ about government’s efforts to free the man who was wrongly deported to El Salvador

The Trump administration is invoking the “state secrets privilege ” in an apparent attempt to avoid answering a judge’s questions about its erroneous deportation of Kilmar Ábrego García to El Salvador.

US district judge Paula Xinis disclosed the government’s position in a two-page order on Wednesday. She set a Monday deadline for attorneys to file briefs on the issue and how it could affect Ábrego García’s case. Xinis also scheduled a 16 May hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland, to address the matter.

Researchers link suspected cases in New Brunswick to known diseases, suggesting ‘misdiagnosis and misinformation’

A new peer-reviewed scientific study has found no evidence of a mystery brain disease in the Canadian province of New Brunswick, suggesting instead a troubling combination of “misdiagnosis and misinformation”.

The research comes as the Maritime province prepares its own assessment of more than 220 suspected cases in the hope of giving families some answers to a medical mystery that has gripped the region for years.

Chinese leader describes talks as ‘friendly and fruitful’ during visit for Victory Day commemorations

Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin exchanged warm words in the Kremlin on Thursday during a grand ceremony welcoming the Chinese leader for his 11th visit to Russia, ahead of a military parade to mark 80 years since the end of the second world war.

After nearly four hours of talks, Xi described his meeting with his Russian counterpart as “in-depth, friendly and fruitful”.

South Korean skincare retailers want to capitalise on viral sales of beauty ranges by opening stores across the UK

Korean beauty products are moving from phone screens to UK high streets as social media drives sales of skincare with the help of eye-catching ingredients such as snail slime and salmon sperm.

Retailers are looking to capitalise on the TikTok and Instagram trend for skincare and makeup ranges from South Korea – known as K-beauty – by opening physical stores and launching brands in a push to get consumers to pick up products that havegone viral online.

RTÉ asks European Broadcasting Union for talks after 72 former contestants call for ban on Israeli broadcaster

Ireland’s public broadcaster has asked the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) for a discussion about Israel’s inclusion in the Eurovision song contest, as 72 former contestants called for the Israeli broadcaster Kan to be banned from next week’s event in the Swiss city of Basel.

The director general of Ireland’s RTÉ, Kevin Bakhurst, said in a statement on Wednesday that he was “appalled by the ongoing events in the Middle East and by the horrific impact on civilians in Gaza, and the fate of Israeli hostages”.

UN World Food Programme says $50m is urgently needed amid fears that Uganda may now begin forced repatriations

Food rations for a million people in Uganda have been cut off completely this week amid a funding crisis at the United Nations World Food Programme, raising fears that refugees will now be pushed back into countries at war.

The WFP in Uganda warned two weeks ago that $50m (£37m) was urgently needed to help refugees and asylum seekers fleeing conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan and Sudan.

Move sparks outrage in Iran as diplomats try to broker deal between Tehran and Washington over nuclear programme

• US politics live – latest updates

Donald Trump plans to announce while on his trip to Saudi Arabia next week that the US will now refer to the Arabian Gulf or the Gulf of Arabia rather than the Persian Gulf.

The move has prompted outrage from Iranian leaders, and last-minute efforts are being made to persuade Trump to pull back from offending Iran in the midst of vital talks on the future of the Iranian nuclear programme. “If Trump went ahead with the proposal he would manage to unite every Iranian, pro- or anti-regime, against him, and that is a near impossible achievement,” one diplomat said.

Lawyers say the Turkish national, who has been held in a Louisiana Ice center for six weeks, was illegally detained

A federal appeals court on Wednesday granted a judge’s order to bring a Turkish Tufts University student from a Louisiana immigration detention center back to New England for hearings to determine whether her rights were violated.

A judicial panel of the New York-based US second circuit court of appeals ruled in the case of Rümeysa Öztürk after lawyers representing her and the US justice department presented arguments at a hearing on Tuesday.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

Judge confirms move would breach order as Libya’s rival governments say both would refuse any US deportees

The Trump administration is reportedly planning to deport a group of immigrants to Libya, despite a judge’s efforts on Wednesday to block any such flights and the state department’s previous condemnation of the “life-threatening” prison conditions in the country.

Reuters cited three unnamed US officials as saying the deportations could happen this week. Two of the officials said the immigrants, whose nationalities are not known, could be flown to the north African country as soon as Wednesday, but they added the plans could still change. The New York Times also cited a US official confirming the deportation plans.

UAE insists it does not provide arms to paramilitary group as Sudanese ambassador recalled

Sudan’s security and defence council has declared that it will break diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates over its alleged backing of the paramilitary Sudanese Rapid Support Forces.

During a televised speech on Tuesday, Sudan’s defence minister, Yassin Ibrahim, said Sudan was “severing diplomatic relations with the UAE” and recalling its ambassador, claiming the Gulf nation had breached Sudan’s sovereignty through its RSF “proxy”, which has been fighting the army in a bloody civil war since April 2023.