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Spain train collision investigators examine rail damage theory

Experts investigating the deadly rail collision in southern Spain, which killed 45 people and left dozens more injured, believe the accident may have happened after one of the trains passed over a damaged section of rail. The disaster occurred near the Andalucían town of Adamuz on Sunday, when a high-speed train operated by Iryo, a private company, derailed and collided with an oncoming high-speed train operated by the state rail company, Renfe. A preliminary report published by the Rail Accidents Investigation Commission (CIAF) on Friday found nicks in the wheels on the right-hand side of the three front carriages of the Iryo train consistent with an impact with the top of the rail. “These nicks in the wheels and the observed deformation in the rail are consistent with the rail being fractured: with the rail’s continuity interrupted, the section before the break would initially bear the full weight of the wheel, causing that part of the rail to sag slightly,” the report said. “Since the section of rail after the break would not be acting in unison with the section before it, a step would momentarily form between the two sides of the fracture, which would strike the wheel rim.” Given the available information, the report added: “We can hypothesise that the rail fracture occurred prior to the passage of the Iryo train involved in the accident and therefore prior to the derailment.” But the CIAF also stressed that the theory was provisional and would be subject to further testing and investigation. Spain’s transport minister, Óscar Puente, told reporters on Friday afternoon that if the cause of the accident had been a damaged rail, the fault must have occurred “in the minutes or hours before the train derailment and, therefore … could not be detected”. Puente also said investigators were looking into whether the rail may have suffered a defect during its manufacture. Pedro Marco de la Peña, the president of Spain’s state rail infrastructure administrator, Adif, said the batch of track in question had been identified and would be carefully tested. Two days after the Adamuz accident, a train driver was killed and 37 people injured when a train was derailed by the collapse of a retaining wall near Gelida in Catalonia. The two deadly events have led Semaf, Spain’s largest train drivers’ union, to call a three-day strike in February to demand measures to guarantee the safety of railworkers and passengers. Semaf said industrial action was “the only legal avenue left for workers to demand the restoration of safety standards on the railway system and, consequently, guarantee the safety of both railway professionals and passengers”. The tragedy has been seized on by opposition parties which have accused Spain’s socialist-led coalition government of a chaotic response and a lack of transparency. “The state of the railways is a reflection of the state of the nation,” Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the leader of the conservative People’s party, said on Friday. He added: “Right now, we don’t have the best rail system in our history; what we have is the worst government in our history.”

United Arab Emirates plans to bankroll first ‘planned community’ in south Gaza

The United Arab Emirates plans to fund “Gaza’s first planned community” on the ruined outskirts of Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city. Palestinian residents there will have access to basic services like education, healthcare and running water, as long as they submit to biometric data collection and security vetting, according to planning documents and people familiar with the latest round of talks at the US-led Civil Military Coordination Center in Israel. The planned city would mark the UAE’s first investment in a postwar reconstruction project located in the part of Gaza currently held by Israel. The wealthy Gulf state has contributed more than $1.8bn of humanitarian assistance to Gaza since 7 October 2023, according to UAE state media, making it Gaza’s largest humanitarian donor. Blueprints for the Emirati-backed endeavor are laid out in an unclassified slide deck obtained by the Guardian and first reported by Dropsite, but the UAE’s role as its planned financier has not previously been reported. The presentation was prepared for a cohort of European donors who visited the CMCC on 14 January, according to an aid official who shared details about the briefing on the condition of anonymity. Israeli military planners have given the plans their stamp of approval. Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff and Josh Gruenbaum, all members or advisers to the US-led Board of Peace, arrived on Friday in Abu Dhabi to broker peace talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators. The Gulf ally agreed to host the landmark trilateral meeting after pledging its support for several US-led efforts, including the Board of Peace. The group is newly mandated to oversee reconstruction efforts in Gaza, following Donald Trump’s endorsement of its founding charter on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos. The United Arab Emirates did not comment on its decision to endorse the Board of Peace, or its plans to fund one of the first US- and Israeli-backed reconstruction projects in Gaza. One US official said that the first Emirati-backed compound could “become a model” for a string of residential camps that US and Israeli officials have described as “alternative safe communities”. Within the first Rafah community, billed as a “case study”, planners envision several efforts to prevent the influence of Hamas, including the introduction of electronic shekel wallets “to mitigate the diversion of goods and funds to the Hamas financial channels”, and a school curriculum that will “not be Hamas-based”, but supplied by the UAE. Planners also specify that residents will be permitted to “enter and exit the neighborhood freely, subject to security checks to prevent the introduction of weapons and hostile elements”. Plans do not indicate who will conduct security checks at the entry and exit points of the planned community. Any new residential compounds will be built atop of the rubble left from Israel’s two-year war on Gaza – an assault that has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians and leveled three-quarters of the structures in Gaza amid Israel’s efforts to rout out Hamas militants after their deadly 7 October attack. Rebuilding Gaza will cost at least $70bn, according to the United Nations, which estimates that at least three-quarters of Gaza’s roads, water pipes and buildings have been damaged or destroyed by Israeli bombardment. UN experts estimate that rebuilding efforts could take up to 80 years, given the level of destruction. Clearing debris, disarming unexploded ordnance and retrieving bodies trapped under the rubble could all complicate the process. ‘New Rafah’ Under the terms of Trump’s brokered peace agreement, Gaza is now divided into two halves: a “green zone”, controlled by the Israeli military; and a “red zone”, in effect governed by Hamas. Initial reconstruction efforts are only slated for the Israeli-held half of Gaza. Kushner dispensed with the artificial red zone and green zone divisions during a presentation at Davos on Thursday, where he unveiled Board of Peace ambitions to redevelop Gaza’s entire Mediterranean coast. On a slide titled “master plan”, Kushner’s group re-envisioned a map of Gaza featuring eight “residential areas” spanning Gaza, including two development blocks called Rafah 1 and Rafah 2. The first city, called “New Rafah” in the Board of Peace slide deck, would be built during an early phase of Trump’s 20-point peace plan. The Board of Peace plans promise 100,000 permanent housing units, 200 education centers and 75 medical facilities in the new city. A White House spokesperson said that the Emirati-backed compound would be built during the board’s initial reconstruction push. Land-clearing efforts for the Rafah site are already under way, an Israel Defense Forces spokesperson told the Guardian. “Israel’s mission on the east side of the yellow line is to clear the infrastructure in that territory, including tunnels, booby-trapped houses – all of the infrastructure left on our side,” the IDF spokesperson said. They also said that Israel would not participate in building or running the Emirati compound. “When construction begins, that’s when the ISF participates with boots on the ground.” The ISF, or International Stabilization Force, is a concept introduced by the Trump-brokered peace agreement. It envisions countries pledging troops to serve as a neutral security body responsible for overseeing public security in Gaza. Countries have yet to pledge forces. A project timeline obtained by the Guardian indicates that site planning began with a “land deed” review in late October and will entail at least four to six months of preparations before construction begins. A deed review was a top priority for planners, according to two people briefed on the process. If Palestinian landowners can prove deeded claims to the site, Gulf funders and other groups linked to “Gaza’s first planned community” could be accused of forcible displacement of a civilian population, which is a war crime. Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator, expressed skepticism that the Emirati-backed compound would ever be built, but said that, either way, the plans serve Israel’s political goals. “Without one brick being laid, it gives a further layer of permission to Israel clearing the area, and displacing or killing Palestinians in the process,” Levy said. The Emirates’ participation allows Israel to insist that construction is proceeding with the support of an Arab state, Levy added. “It distracts from the fact that Israel occupies 58% of Gaza because this portion of Gaza they will attempt to label as ‘happy Gaza’, with schools and a judiciary and hospitals,” Levy said. It’s not clear exactly how reconstruction efforts will proceed. United Nations programs that once serviced 80% of Gaza’s schools have been largely dismantled, following Israel’s allegations that UN staff participated in 7 October. And Israel has barred several longstanding aid groups from Gaza, including those that once staffed and supplied its hospitals or funded community water projects. Private contractors have been courting White House officials in hopes of securing lucrative reconstruction bids since October, when Trump brokered the peace agreement. One group, led by a Republican insider, has claimed to have an “inside track” to reconstruction work, the Guardian reported in December. Muhammad Shehada, a visiting Middle East fellow for the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that reconstruction planners at the CMCC seem to be operating under the assumption that Palestinians will leave the Hamas-controlled red zone and move into newly constructed communities “if you dump enough food there”. He said that those tactics may not work and overlooked the politics of the area, which he said “did not interest” military planners. To move into the Emirati compound, Palestinians living in the “red zone” will have to cross an Israeli checkpoint into the “green zone”. Next, they will be subjected to “security vetting” and “biometric documentation”. The plans do not specify who would complete the vetting or manage biometric data collection, nor do they articulate why someone would be turned away. Palestinians approved for entry will use their Palestinian ID numbers, as issued by the Palestinian Authority in coordination with Israel’s COGAT, the Israeli agency charged with administration of Gaza, to join the community registry, planning documents say. Matt Mahmoudi, an assistant professor at the University of Cambridge and researcher and adviser on AI and human rights at Amnesty International, reviewed planning documents for “Gaza’s first planned community” and raised concerns the plan would “expand biometric surveillance in Gaza”. “Israel’s deployment of biometric surveillance reinforces apartheid and the oppression of Palestinians by perpetuating a coercive environment intended to force Palestinians out of areas of strategic interest to Israeli authorities,” Mahmoudi said. Should Palestinians voluntarily subject themselves to the surveillance and biometric measures proposed for “Gaza’s first planned community”, Levy and others suggested that Israel would be happy to see this first “case study” succeed. “As far as Israel is concerned, if Gaza ends up with four or so model Palestinian communities of say 25,000 each, all of them vetted, and everything else is a hellscape where you’re further encouraging the ethnic cleansing, or the physical removal of Palestinians from there, that’s a desirable outcome.”

Russia keeps up demand for Ukrainian land as three-way talks begin in UAE

Ukraine, Russia and the US have begun three-way talks for the first time since Russia’s full-scale military invasion began in February 2022, but with the Kremlin maintaining its maximalist demands for Ukrainian territory, it is unclear whether Donald Trump will be able to broker a ceasefire even by putting heavy pressure on Kyiv. The talks in Abu Dhabi on Friday are the highest-level known summit between the three sides since the beginning of the war, and come as Trump’s demands to take over Greenland have strained tensions among Ukraine’s western allies as the country endures a harsh winter with much of its civilian energy infrastructure damaged by Russian attacks. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said the three sides were meeting at “negotiator level” and that the “format is happening for the first time in a long time”. Kyiv’s delegation “knows what to do,” he said in a voice note to journalists. Russia sent a delegation led by the GRU military intelligence chief, Adm Igor Kostyukov, indicating a focus on military rather than political negotiations. The talks come after a seventh meeting between Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Vladimir Putin in Moscow, where the main topics of discussion were Russia’s demands for territory and Ukraine’s security guarantees, which Zelenskyy has said were agreed with Trump at this week’s World Economic Forum in Davos. Witkoff was accompanied in Moscow by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. They were joined by Josh Gruenbaum, the commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service (FAS). He was recently appointed as a senior adviser on Trump’s international “board of peace” for Gaza. The Kremlin’s diplomatic adviser, Yuri Ushakov, told reporters the talks had been “useful in every respect” and that it was “agreed that the first meeting of a trilateral working group on security issues will take place today in Abu Dhabi”. As the talks were about to begin on Friday, the Kremlin repeated its demand that Kyiv withdraw its forces from the eastern Donbas region for the war to end. Other senior Russian officials have gone on record demanding Ukraine adopt other measures that have been left out of a “20-point peace plan”, in what they indicated were plans to pursue regime change in Kyiv. “Any settlement proposal founded on the primary goal of preserving the current Nazi regime in what remains of the Ukrainian state is, naturally, completely unacceptable to us,” Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said on Tuesday. Before the talks, a German government spokesperson questioned whether Moscow would be willing to concede on any of its demands, which include taking over territory currently not under its military control. “There are still major questions about the extent to which Russia is really willing to move away from its maximalist demands,” Steffen Meyer said. “Nothing would be gained if a peace agreement ultimately only gave Russia some breathing space and allowed it to launch new attacks at a later date. That is why we have focused very strongly on the issue of security guarantees.” The full details of the UAE talks had not been released at the time of writing, and it was not clear whether Russian and Ukrainian officials would meet face to face. Zelenskyy said the meetings would last for two days. The Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said: “Russia’s position is well known on the fact that Ukraine, the Ukrainian armed forces, have to leave the territory of the Donbas. They must be withdrawn from there … This is a very important condition.” The Trump administration has been pushing for a peace settlement, with representatives of the US president shuttling between Kyiv and Moscow in a flurry of negotiations that some worry could force Ukraine into an unfavourable deal. Trump said on Wednesday that Putin and Zelenskyy would be “stupid” if they failed to come together and get a deal done. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday, Witkoff said one key issue remained to be resolved, without giving further details. Zelenskyy said the future status of land occupied by Russia in eastern Ukraine was unresolved, but that peace proposals were “nearly ready”. Both sides have previously highlighted the issue of territory as crucial. Putin has repeatedly demanded that Ukraine surrender the 20% of the eastern region of Donetsk it still holds. Zelenskyy has refused to give up land that Ukraine has successfully defended since 2022 through grinding and costly attritional warfare. Russia also demands Ukraine renounce its ambition to join Nato and rejects any presence of Nato troops on Ukrainian soil after a peace deal. Zelenskyy said from Davos: “The Russians have to be ready for compromises because, you know, everybody has to be ready, not only Ukraine, and this is important for us.” He said postwar security guarantees between Washington and Kyiv were ready, should a deal be reached, although they would require each country’s ratification. Zelenskyy was speaking after a closed-door meeting with Trump and a blistering Davos speech in which he accused European leaders of being in “Greenland mode” as they waited for US leadership rather than taking action themselves. Despite Trump’s limited and scattergun support for Ukraine since taking office a year ago, Zelenskyy focused on Europe’s role in the conflict, accusing the continent’s leaders of complacency and inaction. “Just last year, here in Davos, I ended my speech with the words: ‘Europe needs to know how to defend itself,’” he said. “A year has passed, and nothing has changed.” Speaking to reporters as he flew back to Washington, Trump said his meeting with Zelenskyy had gone well,and that the Ukrainian president had told him he wanted to make a deal to end the war. “I had a good meeting, but I’ve had numerous good meetings with President Zelenskyy and it doesn’t seem to happen,” he said.

Spanish prosecutors drop sexual assault complaint against Julio Iglesias

Spanish prosecutors have shelved a complaint brought by two women who have accused the singer Julio Iglesias of sexual assault and human trafficking, arguing the country’s courts have no jurisdiction as the alleged offences took place outside Spain. Two female former employees who worked at Iglesias’s Caribbean mansions 10 days ago accused the veteran entertainer of sexual assault, saying they had been subjected “to inappropriate touching, insults and humiliation … in an atmosphere of control and constant harassment”. The allegations emerged at the end of a three-year joint investigation by the Spanish news site elDiario.es and the Spanish-language TV network Univision Noticias, which gathered testimony from 15 former employees who worked for the 82-year-old singer between the late 1990s and 2023. The two complainants – a domestic worker and a physical therapist employed at mansions in the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas – filed their complaint with prosecutors at Spain’s highest criminal court, the Audiencia Nacional. In a decision issued on Friday, prosecutors rejected the case, saying Spanish courts “lacked jurisdiction” because the alleged offences had not taken place in the country. A filing seen by Reuters from the prosecutors said while the high court was unable to hear the case, prosecution could still be sought in the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas. One of the women, referred to as Rebeca to protect her identity, said Iglesias, who was 77 at the time, would frequently call her to his room at the end of the working day. She said he would then penetrate her anally and vaginally with his fingers without her consent. “He used me almost every night,” she told elDiario.es and Univision Noticias. “I felt like an object, like a slave.” According to Rebeca, the assaults habitually took place in the presence – and with the participation – of another employee who was her superior. Another woman, using the pseudonym Laura, said Iglesias kissed her on the mouth and touched her breasts without her consent. Eldiario.es also published documents suggesting that Iglesias allegedly ordered some women who worked for him to undergo tests for sexually transmitted diseases. The singer, whose career spans six decades, has denied all the allegations and said he would defend himself against what he described as “a serious affront”. In a statement posted on Instagram a week ago, Iglesias wrote: “With great regret, I am responding to the allegations from two people who used to work in my house. I have never abused, coerced or disrespected any woman. These accusations are absolutely false and pain me deeply.”

Canadian Olympic snowboarder turned alleged cocaine kingpin in US custody

Ryan Wedding, the Canadian Olympic snowboarder turned alleged drug kingpin, has been arrested after turning himself in at the US embassy in Mexico, law enforcement officials announced on Friday. Wedding, 44, had been sought by the FBI and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) for his role in overseeing what the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, called the “one of the most prolific and violent drug-trafficking organizations” in the world. “He thought he could evade justice … here we are today, bringing him to justice,” the FBI director, Kash Patel, said from an airfield in California, calling Wedding the “largest narco-trafficker in modern times”. Mexico’s security minister, Omar García Harfuch, said that Wedding “surrendered voluntarily” at the US embassy in Mexico City on Wednesday after evading police for nearly a decade. Wedding was flown from Mexico to California and is custody. He is due to appear in court on Monday in California. He is charged with drug trafficking, conspiracy to murder, witness tampering and money laundering. Officials in the US allege that Wedding’s organisation had moved nearly 60 metric tons of cocaine a year into Los Angeles from Mexico using a network of semitrucks. Wedding is also accused of ordering the killing of a key FBI witness as well as several other murders, including that of a couple who were killed in a case of mistaken identity. Since 2023, the RCMP and the FBI have been collaborating on a sprawling investigation known as Operation Giant Slalom. In March, 2025, Wedding was added to the FBI’s Most Wanted List. “We told you in November we would find Mr Wedding. Today, that day has arrived,” said Akil Davis, assistant director of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office. “The long arm of the law extends beyond our border.” David said the arrest was a “good day” for victims. “Ryan Wedding tormented several people and several families that will never be the same,” he said. “But today, they get the justice that they sought.” Davis said in addition to “crushing sanctions” against 19 people, including Wedding, authorities also seized a Mercedes sports car worth $15m and motorcycles worth $40m. US authorities had previously said that they believed Wedding to be in hiding in Mexico. On Thursday, Patel was in Mexico City for what he called “pre-planned” meetings with the country’s security chief, García Harfuch. And on Friday morning he left with a souvenir: Ryan Wedding, and another, unnamed, “priority objective”. The decision for an FBI director to be present in the field for an arrest is exceedingly rare and speaks to the political focus on capturing Wedding. García Harfuch released a statement saying that Patel was leaving with “a non-US citizen who was arrested by Mexican authorities and is among the FBI’s 10 most wanted, and a Canadian citizen who voluntarily surrendered yesterday at the US embassy”. “If it’s true that he handed himself in, this may be an attempt to negotiate better terms,” said Cecilia Farfán-Méndez, an analyst with the Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime. “Maybe it gives him a little more room for manoeuvre.” Or there could be another explanation: he feared for his safety in Mexico, said Farfán-Méndez. The arrest comes at a time of tension in North America, with Mark Carney and Donald Trump clashing at Davos, and renewed threats of US military strikes on Mexican cartel targets. “There was a message from the secretary of state, talking about the need for tangible results [against organised crime],” said Farfán-Méndez. “I think grabbing Ryan Wedding is a very media-friendly way to show tangible results. I think it could be filed under that column.” Alejandro Rosales Castillo, one of the FBI’s 10 most wanted fugitives, who is accused of the murder of a woman in North Carolina in 2016, was also arrested. A US citizen, he crossed the border to Mexico in 2017 and was in hiding for almost a decade until he was captured in Pachuca, Hidalgo, on 16 January. NBC News first announced news of the arrest and US law enforcement officials familiar with the operation confirmed it to the Guardian. In March, the FBI announced a $15m reward for the capture of Wedding, whose nicknames allegedly include “Public Enemy”, “El Jefe” and “Giant”. At the time,Patel, compared Wedding to Pablo Escobar and Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. The head of the RCMP, Michael Duheme was also present at the announcement and said “no single country” can break up transnational drug-trafficking organizations. Wedding was allegedly being protected by the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico while he was on the run. Some analysts have suggested that Wedding’s significance in the international drug trade had been exaggerated by US authorities and the media. “There’s been a high-level characterisation of Wedding as a major kingpin. There was a $15m reward for him. At least from a media standpoint, he was a big fish,” said Farfán-Méndez. “But I think the indictment gives a different sense of proportion.” Though US authorities claim Wedding’s enterprise was trafficking 60 tonnes of cocaine a year, this figure does not appear in the indictment, which only mentions specific cases of a few hundred kilos being moved at a time. “These arrests are important for law enforcement,” said Farfán-Méndez. “But whether they impact [drug] supply is another question.”

Ukraine-Russia-US talks start in Abu Dhabi – as it happened

Our live coverage is ending now. In the meantime, you can find out the latest from Europe here. Here is a summary of today’s events. The United Arab Emirates is hosting Ukraine, Russia and the United States for the first trilateral talks since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Talks have reportedly begun, and are expected to last for the remainder of the weekend. They will be focusing on a few outstanding issues, including the thorny problem of territorial concessions demanded by Moscow in eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy says the talks are “a step – hopefully towards ending the war”. The Russian delegation of the trilateral talks will be headed by Gen Igor Kostyukov, director of Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency. The Ukrainian team will by led by secretary of the National Security and Defence Council and former defence minister, Rustem Umerov. Elsewhere, Nato’s secretary general Mark Rutte met this morning with Denmark’s prime minister Mette Frederiksen to discuss the latest developments on Greenland, including Rutte’s meeting with US president Donald Trump in Davos, which seemingly led to him dropping his threats against European countries on tariffs. According to Norway’s prime minister, the Nordic prime ministers of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland were planning a unity trip to Greenland. Jonas Gahr Støre told NRK that the joint visit had been postponed after Trump’s U-turn on tariffs and pledge to not use force to take control of Greenland, with further talks expected through Nato channels – but he didn’t rule out it happening at a later date. Italy’s prime minister Giorgia Meloni was hosting German chancellor Friedrich Merz in Rome today for the latest round of Italian-German government consultations. The two countries also want to work on securing their supply chain for raw materials. Ireland’s deputy prime minister warns that the tariff conversation is unlikely to be over. Simon Harris said that it would be “foolish” to assume that Donald Trump will not threaten tariffs again during his tenure. Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni privately defended Donald Trump to EU leaders this week, asking for caution in dealing with the US president. She reportedly urged politicians to not brand Trump as “crazy or unpredictable”, and said “Europe has everything to lose from a conflict with America.”

‘It’s the sovereignty of the country’: Guinea-Bissau says US vaccine study suspended

US health officials insisted it was still on. African health leaders said it was cancelled. At the heart of the controversy is the west African nation of Guinea-Bissau – one of the poorest countries in the world and the proposed site of a hotly debated US-funded study on vaccines. The study on hepatitis B vaccination, to be led by Danish researchers, became a flashpoint after major changes to the US vaccination schedule and prompted questions about how research is conducted ethically in other countries. On Thursday, Quinhin Nantote, a military doctor and the recently appointed minister of health in Guinea-Bissau, confirmed to journalists that the trial had been “cancelled or suspended” because the science was not well-reviewed. Guinea-Bissau experienced a coup in November, and top leaders were recently replaced. A team of research experts at the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, at Nantote’s request, will travel to Guinea-Bissau to help officials review the study. Officials from Denmark and the US have also been invited to review the trial, Jean Kaseya, director-general of the Africa CDC, said at the press meeting. The decision to halt the trial is not for international organizations or foreign countries to determine, Kaseya said. “It’s the sovereignty of the country,” he said. “I don’t know what will be this decision, but I will support the decision that the minister will make.” Officials with the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have called into question the credibility of the Africa CDC, after officials with the organization confirmed the study was cancelled. “To be clear, the trial will proceed as planned,” Andrew Nixon, an HHS spokesperson, said in a statement on Wednesday. He said the Africa CDC was waging “a public-relations campaign aimed to shape public perception rather than engaging with the scientific facts”. When asked by the Guardian, he offered no proof of either claim. An HHS official also called the Africa CDC “a powerless, fake organization attempting to manufacture credibility by repeating its claims publicly”, adding that the organization was “not a reliable source”. Kaseya said he had spoken to senior HHS officials, who were unaware of the statement, and he pointed to the Africa CDC’s key role in responding to outbreaks with global implications. “It’s very important to fund research that Africans actually want,” said Abdulhammad Babatunde, a medical doctor and global health researcher in Nigeria. “Africans want to solve Africa’s problems, not satisfy the curiosity of the funders.” The researchers would have given hepatitis B vaccines to 7,000 infants at birth and withheld the vaccines for another 7,000 infants until six weeks of age in order to study the overall health effects of giving the vaccines alongside other shots. Nearly one in five adults and about 11% of young children in Guinea-Bissau have hepatitis B – putting them at high risk of severe illness and death. “This is not acceptable,” said Babatunde of the study’s design. “To prevent things like the Tuskegee study and others, the control group has to get the standard of care, and the intervention group should get [potentially] better care.” The World Health Organization recommends giving the hepatitis B vaccine to all newborns within 24 hours of birth. Infants in Guinea-Bissau currently receive the shot at six weeks of age, but the doses will roll out to all newborns in 2028 in order to close gaps in care standards. “The current reason why the vaccine is not achieving coverage in Guinea-Bissau is because there’s no funding, and the funding should try to promote the vaccine, not use children as lab rats,” Babatunde said. Officials in an imbalanced power structure might be intimidated, he said. “It might be a very tough call for the officials in Guinea-Bissau, depending on what they stand to lose if they restrict the study. At this moment, it’s [time] for other African member states to come support Guinea-Bissau, to maintain their sovereignty and protect the children of Guinea-Bissau.” When deciding whether a revised version of the study will move forward, “the most important voice” was that of Guinea-Bissau’s ministry of health, which is responsible for protecting the health of all Bissau-Guineans, said Gavin Yamey, professor of global health at the Duke Global Health Institute. “So hearing from ministry officials today is hugely important.” The confusion in Guinea-Bissau comes back to how the trial was given the green light, said Nantote, who spoke in Portuguese through a translator. An early version of the study was approved by Guinea-Bissau’s six-person ethics committee, Comité Nacional de Ética em Pesquisa em Saúde (CNEPS), on 5 November, according to the Danish researchers. The researchers have since made updates that have not been approved by the committee. The Guinea-Bissau ethics committee, CNEPS, initially approved the study, according to an individual who identified himself to the Guardian as the interim director of CNEPS. The study did not mention that infants would go unvaccinated, he said – but the ethical concern is that the vaccine would be withheld from some newborns at birth, when it is most needed. No further changes have been made to the design of the trial because it was “suspended” by the country’s ministry of health, he said. “We think that they did not meet and they did not address this issue adequately,” Nantote said of the ethics committee. The Danish researchers did not appear to seek approval from ethics boards in Denmark or the US, though the Helsinki declaration requires approval from research ethics committees in both the sponsoring and host countries. The HHS said in a statement to the Guardian after publication on Friday that the trial is paused, but did not respond to the Guardian’s questions on ethical concerns and its characterization of the Africa CDC. The researchers did not respond to inquiries about the trial’s cancellation or questions about their research. The HHS, the researchers and the University of Southern Denmark did not respond to inquiries about whether US or Danish ethical committees were consulted. Nantote and Kaseya both highlighted the challenges to health in Guinea-Bissau. Less than a quarter of the country has access to basic services such as water and sanitation. Poverty and food insecurity are persistent. With limited access to healthcare, maternal mortality is high, and malaria is a leading cause of death. “The authorities of Guinea-Bissau, they know that,” Kaseya said. “They are doing their best to address that.”

‘Island of peace’: Israeli-Palestinian restaurant in Berlin to close – but live on as TV series

An Israeli-Palestinian restaurant in Berlin conceived as an “island of peace” will close in the spring, but its Jewish and Arab owners say their dream will live on in a television series based on their unlikely partnership. Kanaan, a decade-old casual eatery in the Prenzlauer Berg district of the German capital, gained an international profile for its message of “unity over hate” after the 7 October attacks on Israel by Hamas and the outbreak of the Gaza war. Now as the owners Oz Ben David, an Israeli, and Jalil Dabit, a Palestinian, say they will wind down operations, the German production company Traumfabrik Babelsberg has announced plans for a miniseries based on Kanaan. Called Breaking the Binary, it is described as a politically charged “dramedy” with echoes of The Bear, the hit US series set in a hectic restaurant kitchen. The German show will tackle “the difficulties faced by the two protagonists between social expectations, economic pressure and personal contradictions”, the producers said. Participants will include the author and journalist Mirna Funk, who was born in East Berlin to a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother, the Arab-Israeli actor Yousef Sweid, whose credits include Game of Thrones and Unorthodox, and the screenwriter and director Thomas Mielmann. Kanaan, German for Canaan, was founded in 2015 and boasts a multi-ethnic team, serving up remixed specialities like shakshuka lasagne. Its slogan is: “Make Hummus Not War.” The 120-seat restaurant became a neighbourhood mainstay and a potent symbol of dining across religious and political divides. Germany’s president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, invited the owners to his Berlin palace in late 2023 to share their thoughts on how best to address the tensions sparked locally by the conflict in the Middle East. Ben David used the occasion to call out the country’s often hardline on pro-Palestinian rallies and expressions of support for the Palestinian people. The restaurant’s premises were ransacked in 2024 after it hosted a queer Jewish-Muslim brunch and the owners have faced persistent anonymous threats. Soon after the attack, Berlin’s mayor, Kai Wegner, visited Kanaan in a show of support that coincided with its regular drag brunch, calling the restaurant “exemplary” in trying to conquer seemingly intractable divisions. An online fundraising campaign to help rebuild drew nearly €30,000 (£26,000). Ben David and Dabit told the Guardian Kanaan would now shut its doors “probably in March” owing to economic factors, the bite of German bureaucracy but also the fraught political environment. “People say: ‘Unless we have a good reason to go out from the house and to spend some money, we want to do it in some quiet Italian place, a Japanese place, without the whole story behind it,’” Ben David said, describing a “political overdose” among patrons over the Middle East conflict. Dabit, speaking by telephone from Ramla, a mixed Israeli city of Arabs and Jews, called the impending end of Kanaan “bittersweet”. But he is excited about the television series, which he and Ben David are helping to shape with input on the writing and character development. “It was hard but after I talked with Oz we understood it is the best thing to do,” he said of closing the restaurant. “It’s like if you have a child and release him to the world – it’s a good thing.” Ben David agreed the next step felt like a new beginning, with a chance to spread their message of mutual understanding to a wider audience with the TV series and a Germany-wide cooking tour beginning in April. “It’s no longer (just) a story of Israelis and Palestinians but about people who disagree and still can dream and envision something together,” he said. “Hopefully we will reach more hearts.”