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Sweat, tears and camaraderie as 20,000 runners take on world’s largest ultramarathon

In the early morning dark, thousands of runners waited, jostling with anticipation. South Africa’s national anthem rang out. Then the haunting swell of Shosholoza, first sung by Zimbabwean migrant workers in South Africa’s goldmines. Finally, that unmistakable, spine-tingling piano: Chariots of Fire. Runners gather before the start of the marathon 5am. A cock crowed. A gun fired. The runners streamed across the start line of the Comrades marathon. The Comrades is the world’s oldest and largest ultramarathon. The first race in 1921 took the runners 54.6 miles (88km) from Pietermaritzburg downhill to Durban on the coast. The following year the race was run in reverse, uphill back to Pietermaritzburg, and it has changed direction every year since, pausing only for the second world war and the Covid-19 pandemic. Over its 99 iterations, the route distance has averaged just under 55 miles. L-R clockwise: Athletes gather before the start of the Comrades Marathon in Durban; supporters gathered to watch the start of the 2026 Comrades; the race begins That first year, 34 runners, all white men, lined up for the race, conceived by the first world war veteran Vic Clapham as a way of honouring his fallen comrades. Sixteen of them finished. More than a century later, on 14 June, more than 20,000 people stood outside Durban city hall, hoping to make it to Pietermaritzburg before the 12-hour cutoff. What started as an all-white, all-male test of physical endurance has become part of the fabric of South African life, something so ordinary that you would be hard-pressed to find someone here who does not know a Comrades finisher. Running clubs bus in from all over the country. Security guards and shop workers line up alongside bankers and celebrities. And, for one day, every June, South Africa’s searing racial inequality seems to melt away. Nomusa Shelembe, from the Run Alex team, passes through Pinetown You hear it all around the race: every runner has their reason. William Seleka started running in March 2025, amid a deep depression after the break-up of his marriage. “I thought for me to stay alive, I had to keep myself busy,” he said, as he stretched before a run, outside the single room he rents in the Johannesburg township of Alexandra, two weeks before Comrades. Seleka was persuaded to join Run Alex, a local club. Six months later, having never run further than 10km, he finished a 50km ultramarathon, from Johannesburg to Pretoria. “I used to hear people saying, ‘This is Comrades, you are running from Durban to Pietermaritzburg.’ I said, ‘It’s insane, you can’t do that.’ But now we are facing reality – I’m doing that as well,” he said. To train, Seleka ran at least 10km every weekday evening, after a day spent repairing appliances for fridge-maker Smeg. On Saturdays, the 38-year-old would run up to 50km with Run Alex. “Recovery,” he said, was a half marathon. Seleka said he wanted to create a legacy for his 15-year-old son and three-year-old daughter. “I can’t wait to have my red cap and the medal to show my kids.” William Seleka On a Comrades “up run”, runners must climb about 1,800 metres (5,900ft) on their journey to Pietermaritzburg, 650 metres higher than Durban. This year, runners started in three batches, at 5am, 5.15am and 5.30am. About 12 miles into the race, the sun began peeking above the horizon in Pinetown, a suburb above Durban. “Let’s go! Let’s go!” spectators shouted. Seleka appeared up the hill. “Good to see you,” he beamed, sweeping in for a glancing hug. In 1923, Frances Hayward became the first woman to start and finish the Comrades. In 1935, Robert Mtshali was the first black man to complete the race. Nonetheless, with only white men officially allowed to compete, the Comrades seemed fated to stay what most ultramarathons remain today – a niche, elite pursuit. L-R: A runner receives a leg-rub from a volunteer along the route in Camperdown; spectators cheer on the runners in Pinetown That changed in 1975 when the privately run race was desegregated and also opened to women. South Africa at the time had been shut out of all major global sporting events in response to apartheid, driving the sport-obsessed country mad. “Some people in the sporting world in South Africa had the idea that if they start desegregating some minor sports … it’ll show that South Africa is not as backward and racist a place as it’s made out to be,” said Ryan Lenora Brown, a journalist who has been covering the Comrades since 2017. Then there was the introduction of TV in 1976. The single, heavily censored state channel started showing Comrades highlights. In 1986, it broadcast the entire, all-day race in full. South Africans were mesmerised by the sight of delivery driver Hoseah Tjale going toe to toe with Bruce Fordyce, a professional athlete who won eight Comrades in a row from 1981. Runners fill the road from Durban to Pietermaritzburg “You would have these scenes in the 1980s of a white runner sharing a bottle of water with a black runner, which was such a small gesture, but such a huge thing in that society that was so divided,” said Brown. Apartheid had forced black South Africans on to the lowest rungs of society. But Tjale and Sam Tshabalala, the first black man to win Comrades in 1989, were proof that they could do anything. L-R: Supporters take photos with a runner in Pinetown; spectators line the route out of Camperdown As the runners left Durban, they wound their way upwards through lush trees, open fields and small towns. Families braaied by the roadside. Running clubs handed out supplies from gazebos pumping out music. Everybody was cheering the runners, willing them on. By the halfway point, most were walking up each hill. At the Run Alex aid station, Seleka changed into a spare pair of shoes. It was the wrong choice: by 34 miles he was in agony. The only way he could distract himself from the pain was by counting or singing. William Seleka near Camperdown “I’m not a person who goes to church,” he said. “But on that day I started to sing. I don’t know where those songs came from.” Around 46 miles, Seleka found another Run Alex aid station and put on a clubmate’s shoes. He pushed on. The light turned golden. Some runners danced across the finish line, arms outstretched. Some were arm in arm, complete strangers who had become friends on the road. Many stumbled over the line, or collapsed and were carried away on waiting stretchers. Darkness began to fall. Guns were fired for the first 12-hour cutoff, and then the second. Around a third of Comrades runners finish in the final hour. An official prepares to fire the shot to mark the final 12-hour cutoff South Africa’s pacing “buses” are unique in long-distance running for their size and camaraderie, racers singing and chanting, led by a metronomic pacer, known as a bus driver. Perhaps the biggest cheer of the day came when the final 12-hour bus driver, Shahieda Thungo, crossed the line at 11:56:34, carrying dozens of runners home with her. About 91% of runners finished this year, according to The Running Mann blog. L-R: Jenny Da Silva misses the 12-hour cutoff time by seconds; an exhausted runner rests shortly after crossing the finish line in Pietermaritzburg Then there were those who just missed the cutoff. At exactly 5.30pm, a wall of people stepped across the finish line. Two women ran into them, seconds short. One, wearing the green bib of a 10-time finisher, doubled over in anguish, her face in her hands. Seleka cried as he crossed the line at 10:30:49. He was thinking of his sister, whose kidneys failed in 2018. “At the start, everything changed,” he said. “I said this pain today is for my younger sister.” A runner crosses the finish line of the 2026 Comrades Marathon in Pietermaritzburg Everyone needs a reason if they are to finish the Comrades, said Seleka, who was already planning his race next year. “If you’re going through a lot, once you say why, then it’s a mission,” he said. “After Comrades is accomplished, it’s a new chapter again.”

Canada’s policies force asylum seekers into US to face deportation, critics say

It was the threat of gang violence in Honduras that pushed Carlos and Antonia to flee their home. In 2021, with their toddler, Alejandro, and a handful of belongings, the married couple ventured north hoping to reach safety in the US. The journey, through Guatemala and Mexico, was filled with danger and uncertainty “We were in constant fear, every time we had to cross the border and travel with a young child,” said Antonia. “We were terrified.” Arriving as the US began Donald Trump’s migration purge, their opportunity to make an asylum claim vanished. A lawyer advised them if they appealed, they risked being detained at their migration hearing and deported. Because Carlos has family members in Canada, they pushed farther north. But their arrival at the Fort Erie border crossing did not end of their precarious journey. A Canadian border agent said he would let Carlos and Alejandro in, but Antonia – who did not have family in Canada – would be sent back to the US. Or all three could return to the US and risk detention and deportation. “[I said]: ‘What am I supposed to tell my son about why they’re not going to let his mother come in with us?’ And the border officer just said, ‘That’s your problem, you’ve got 20 minutes to make a decision,’” Carlos later recalled. Antonia began crying. “There was no way I could be separated from my son. I was completely in shock,” she later said. “And then my son started crying, too.” The family, whose names have been changed for safety, opted to stay together. They were sent back to the US – and then deported to Honduras. Their story is central to a court challenge by the Canadian Council for Refugees, Amnesty International Canada and the three Hondurans, which argues that Canadian border officials are failing to uphold court-ordered safeguards for asylum seekers before turning them back to the US under the Safe Third Country Agreement. Until 2004, asylum claims could be made at any legal port of entry in Canada, where they would then be processed and claimants admitted if their claim was approved. That changed when Ottawa successfully lobbied for the passage of the Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA), forcing migrants to make asylum claims in the country where they first arrived. It initially applied to land-based ports of entry – but not to irregular or unofficial crossings. But advocacy groups and legal experts increasingly argue that the US should not be considered a safe third country. They point to the country’s long-term detention of those seeking refuge and threats to deport asylum seekers to countries where they could be harmed or killed. At the same time, Canada is also tightening its own asylum system. New legislation has created further ineligibility rules for refugee claimants, prompting critics to accuse Mark Carney’s government of introducing “Trump-style” immigration policies. Carlos, Antonia and Alejandro – who is now six years old – have gone into hiding in Honduras, over fears of retribution from the same gang they fled. In 2023, Canada’s top court ruled the STCA was constitutional, ending a lengthy legal challenge by advocacy groups such as the Canadian Council for Refugees and Amnesty International Canada, which have long argued the deal violates the rights of asylum seekers. But in its judgment, the court also found that the inclusion of legislative “safety valves” in the agreement, including the discretion to exempt someone from returning to the US on the basis of humanitarian and compassionate grounds, meant the rules align with “the principles of fundamental justice”. Advocacy groups say those “safety valves” only exist in theory, citing the growing number of asylum seekers sent by Canadian authorities to detention in the US. “Every day, people fleeing danger present themselves at the Canadian border expressing grave fears about what will happen to them if they are returned to the US,” Asma Faizi, president of the Canadian Council for Refugees, said in a statement. “While their fears are very real, the ‘safety valves’ supposedly offered by the Canadian government do not in practice exist and refugees’ pleas for protection are ignored.” In court documents, those groups point out that asylum seekers are typically not told they can seek an exemption or give evidence. Instead, often without access to legal counsel, they must make a quick decision that will define their lives for decades to come. Canada’s border agency said in a statement that officers have limited discretion in “exceptional cases only” to delay a removal. A claimant must demonstrate clear and credible evidence they would face death, inhumane treatment or the threat of deportation without due process if sent to the US. But Canada’s federal government has defended the US, saying it continues to meet the legal requirements under the agreement to remain a safe third country. The allegations of the claimants have not been tested in court. A judge must first decide whether to grant leave before the challenge can proceed. “We wish we could show our faces and shout to the world and let everyone know that this is what happened to us. It is just not safe for us. But we are doing what we can to fight this,” said Carlos. “The hardest thing has been trying to explain this all to our son. From one day to the next, everything was turned upside down for him: his world, his community, his space. It’s not easy for a child to compartmentalize. It’s not easy for an adult either.”

An Armenian tycoon has a private zoo. Now he wants the world’s biggest Jesus statue

Behind the walls of a sprawling estate on the outskirts of Yerevan, six tigers prowl behind a fence, three lions pace their enclosures, and alligators bask in the afternoon heat. Further into the compound, more animals appear. Beneath a gilded, hand-painted ceiling, a dining hall houses a taxidermy menagerie: white tigers reared on their hind legs, a stuffed eagle perched atop a table, bear and wolf pelts spread across the floor. All of these, the owner proudly said, had been shot by him. The scene offers a glimpse into the tastes of Gagik Tsarukyan, Armenia’s most flamboyant business tycoon and opposition politician, whose displays of wealth have long been the stuff of local folklore. Having secured less than 4% of the vote in this month’s parliamentary election, Tsarukyan’s chances of ever leading Armenia look slim, but one of Armenia’s richest and most divisive men remains determined to leave his mark on the country. His chosen monument: erecting the world’s tallest statue of Jesus Christ, perched atop a 2,500-metre (8,200ft) mountain overlooking Yerevan. It is, depending on who you ask, either a celebration of the small Caucasian nation’s ancient Christian heritage or the ultimate expression of one oligarch’s appetite for excess. “This will be Armenia’s calling card,” Tsarukyan said during a rare interview at one of his homes in the village of Arinj, where he was born. “Christianity will become Armenia’s new brand.” A former athlete turned businessman and politician, Tsarukyan built his fortune in gambling, alcohol and mining during the turbulent decades that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. Dressed head-to-toe in white linen and matching trainers, the barrel-chested one-time arm wrestling champion said the project was designed to resonate with a growing international movement that blends religious faith with nationalism and cultural conservatism – a trend most visible in Donald Trump’s Maga movement and among far-right parties across Europe. “Trump is, of course, invited. We hope he comes,” Tsarukyan said, adding that an unofficial American delegation from the US embassy had already visited the mountain site. Once completed, the 101-metre (331ft) statue will stand atop Hatis, a mountain about 25km (15.5 miles) east of Yerevan, making it visible from much of the Armenian capital. Tsarukyan noted with evident satisfaction that it would dwarf Brazil’s iconic Christ the Redeemer and stand slightly taller than New York’s Statue of Liberty. “We are the oldest Christian nation in the world,” Tsarukyan said. “It only makes sense we should have the biggest Jesus statue in the world.” Although most of its neighbours today are Muslim-majority countries, Armenia is widely regarded as the world’s oldest officially Christian nation, traditionally dating its conversion to AD301. But the Armenian Apostolic church has repeatedly opposed the project, arguing that its mass scale and style sit uneasily with Armenia’s religious and architectural traditions. Church leaders say Armenian Christianity has historically expressed itself through monasteries, churches and khachkars – intricately carved stone crosses unique to Armenia – rather than colossal statues modelled on monuments elsewhere in the world. The proposal has also drawn criticism from environmentalists, who warn that construction could cause lasting damage to the natural landscape of Hatis. Tsarukyan brushed aside the clergy’s and activists’ objections, insisting he enjoyed good relations with the Armenian Apostolic church and pointing to the eight churches he says he has financed across the country. More importantly, Tsarukyan said, the monument was intended to appeal to a far broader audience than Armenia’s faithful alone. He claimed that 10 million tourists a year would eventually visit the site. “There’s nothing else like it in the world. From ocean to ocean, everyone will be talking about it.” At present, however, the monument, which has been under construction on and off since 2022, looks less like the centrepiece of a future pilgrimage site than a giant relic abandoned in a construction yard outside Yerevan, where it is being pieced together before its eventual ascent to the mountain. On the Guardian’s recent visit to the site, Christ’s vast white figure loomed over piles of stone, cranes, and workshop buildings, appearing almost surreal against the sparse landscape. Back at the estate, Tsarukyan appeared tired after a bitter election campaign that had only just ended. Voting results showed his nationalist and Russia-friendly Prosperous Armenia party hovering just below the 4% threshold needed to enter parliament, a result the party was challenging in court. The poor showing continued a reversal for a politician who, for two decades, had been one of Armenia’s most durable power brokers. Tsarukyan built that position on close ties to the former president Robert Kocharyan, expanding his empire as part of a small group of politically connected businessmen who came to dominate much of Armenia’s economy. With his private zoo, marble mansions and fleet of luxury cars, he can seem like a relic of the post-Soviet boom years, when fortunes were amassed at dizzying speed and displayed with little concern for subtlety. That image made him a natural target for the current prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, who rose to power in the 2018 Velvet Revolution pledging to dismantle Armenia’s oligarchic system. Pashinyan has repeatedly cast Tsarukyan as a symbol of the country’s corrupt old order, at times reviving dark episodes from his Soviet-era past, including a 1979 gang-rape conviction that was later overturned after Armenia gained independence. In his victory speech on 7 June, Pashinyan further vowed to jail his political opponents, singling out Tsarukyan, Kocharyan and the billionaire businessman Samvel Karapetyan. The following day, investigators arrived at Tsarukyan’s estate to formally charge him with tax-related offences. Local media reported that he had attempted to flee the country before the charges were announced. Tsarukyan rejected the allegation, saying he had merely planned a short trip to the United Arab Emirates but had been prevented from boarding his flight and returned home. Yet Tsarukyan strongly dismissed suggestions that the authorities could derail his construction plans, arguing that the Jesus project had become too significant to abandon and would bring substantial benefits to Armenia’s economy and tourism industry. “How can a man be afraid?” he said. “Why be afraid? What will they put me in prison for?” For now, he said his team appeared more concerned with the practical challenge of getting Christ to the mountaintop. The logistics of building the monument have proved almost as ambitious as the project itself. Tsarukyan said the original plan was to transport sections of the statue by helicopter. The idea was eventually abandoned in favour of a more conventional solution: hauling the enormous pieces up the mountain by truck before assembling them onsite. And the Jesus statue, he insisted, is only the beginning. Construction has already begun on another biblical attraction nearby: a giant Noah’s Ark. Pulling out images of the project on his phone, he described a vessel 134 metres long, 24 metres wide and 18 metres high. The ground floor would house a museum, the first floor a hotel and the second a cafe. “These projects are sacred,” he said. “This is how I will inscribe my name in history, for the world to see during my lifetime and long after.” For now, though, on the hillside above Yerevan, the world’s largest Jesus has yet to rise. In the summer heat, passersby stopped to photograph the towering figure and debate its merits. “It’s beautiful. It will make Armenia known across the world,” said Arman, a 54-year-old taxi driver who had pulled over to admire the statue. “I am really proud of this.” Others were less convinced. “I don’t quite understand why it has to be this big,” said Mariam, a local resident, looking up at the monument. “It’s all a bit crass.”

Ukraine war briefing: Drones strike Russia’s Tyumen oil refinery 2,000km away, says Zelenskyy

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has confirmed that Ukrainian drones attacked an oil refinery in Russia’s Tyumen region ⁠in western Siberia, ⁠more than 2,000 km (1,200 miles) from Ukraine. He said Ukrainian company Fire Point had developed new long-range drones capable of ⁠travelling more than 3,000km and they had been “successfully deployed”. In his nightly video address, Zelenskyy thanked the Ukrainian ⁠military for special operations that “have reached Tyumen Region in Russia, including an oil refining facility. More ‌than 2,000km from ‌our state border. This is effective work.” Unverified videos posted online showed smoke and flame rising over what was said to be the burning Tyumen refinery, also known as the Antipinsky refinery. The Tyumen governor, Alexander Moor, claimed emergency services were working at the site of “fallen [drone] debris” – a phrasing often used by Russian officials to play down successful Ukrainian attacks. Ukraine’s forces struck an oil terminal at Kerch in occupied Crimea over Saturday night, according to Ukrainian media and online accounts monitoring the war. Nasa satellite monitoring showed a fire at the Kerch seaport where the terminal is located. In what appeared to be a broader wave of strikes against Russian-held targets in Crimea, an electrical substation at Bilohorsk was reportedly on fire, and there were other attacks at Yevpatoria and the main city of Sevastopol. Russian attacks killed three people in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk and Poltava regions in eastern Ukraine, local authorities said on Sunday. A woman aged 70 was killed in Nikopol and nine were wounded in other districts of Dnipropetrovsk, said Oleksandr Ganzha, head of the regional military administration. Vitali Dyakivnych, head of the Poltava regional military administration, said a Russian strike on Saturday evening killed two people and wounded 13, including six children. Russian ⁠forces struck the ⁠south-eastern Ukrainian ⁠city of Zaporizhzhia with glide ⁠bombs on Saturday, killing five ⁠people and ‌injuring 10, said Ivan Fedorov, the regional governor. Fedorov said there ‌had been nine strikes in the city. He ⁠said residents could be trapped in the rubble ‌of damaged buildings. Near the Russian border, a bomb attack killed one person on the outskirts of the city of Sumy, local officials said. In the southern Kherson region, the regional governor, Oleksandr Prokudin, said ‌one person had died in a drone attack on a village north of the region’s main city, also called Kherson. Russian bombs struck an apartment building on Saturday in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, killing at least one person and wounding nine including a six-year-old child, authorities said.

Colombia’s runoff election expected to trigger shift in decades-long armed conflict

Colombians go to the polls on Sunday in a presidential runoff expected to trigger to a dramatic shift in the country’s decades-long armed conflict, now at its most violent point since the landmark 2016 peace agreement between the government and most of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc). Polls show the frontrunner is the Trump-admiring far-right lawyer and millionaire businessman Abelardo de la Espriella, who has vowed to abandon President Gustavo Petro’s “total peace” plan of negotiating the disarmament of all criminal organisations and instead return to full-scale military confrontation with armed groups. De la Espriella’s opponent in the ballot will be Petro’s chosen successor and the main architect of “total peace”, the leftwing senator Iván Cepeda, who argues for the continuation of the plan, with “necessary changes”. Cepeda led the polls throughout most of the campaign but was defeated in the first round three weeks ago and has since struggled to attract centrist voters. The election, in which more than 41 million Colombians are eligible to vote, is expected to deliver another victory for a far-right candidate advocating an iron-fist approach to crime, after the examples of Keiko Fujimori, who is leading the vote count in Peru, and José Antonio Kast, who won last year’s election in Chile. Amid what many analysts see as a new wave of far-right victories across Latin America, a De la Espriella presidency would leave only Mexico, Brazil, Uruguay and Guatemala under leftwing governments. Sandra Borda Guzmán, an associate professor of political science at Los Andes University in Bogotá, said De la Espriella successfully tapped into two trends that have shaped recent elections around the world: presenting himself as an anti-establishment “outsider” and promising quick solutions to violence. He even promised that, if elected, he would restore state control over territories dominated by criminal groups within 90 days – although he later appeared to backtrack, telling Radio Caracol: “I never said I would solve the security problem in 90 days.” De la Espriella, a lawyer who launched his legal career defending leaders of rightwing paramilitary militias, maintained that his goal during his first three months in office would be to “capture or kill” 10 major narcoterrorist and organised crime leaders. “Between the international trend favouring candidates who present themselves as anti-political figures and Colombia’s domestic security situation, that combination has helped him significantly,” said Guzmán. Although violence remains far below the extraordinarily high levels recorded in the decades before the peace deal with the Farc, the past year has been the most violent since the 2016 agreement. Miguel Bermúdez, a 40-year-old business administrator from the coastal city of Cartagena, said he would vote for De la Espriella largely because he is an “outsider” despite his long history as a lawyer for the rich and powerful. “For a long time, I’ve been looking for something that feels fresh. I’m tired of that same old political narrative,” said Bermúdez. Kátia Outten, a 57-year-old dentist from the island of San Andrés, said she would vote for Cepeda because “he understands the needs of ordinary people”. During his presidency, Cepeda’s backer Petro expanded social programmes and increased the minimum wage. The poverty rate has fallen to its lowest level since records began in 2012. Outten also decided not to vote for De la Espriella because of what she sees as his sexist views, including a radio interview in which he claimed to have won support among female voters because of the size of his penis. “Women make up just over 50% of the population. If we go out and vote with women’s empowerment in mind, we can show that all of that rhetoric has no basis,” she said.

Iran says it is closing strait of Hormuz over Israeli strikes in Lebanon

Iran has said it is closing the strait of Hormuz after waves of Israeli strikes in Lebanon in a move that threatens to derail the fragile interim peace deal with the US, signed just days ago. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned ships not to approach the strategic waterway, which before the war carried a fifth of global oil and liquid gas supplies, citing what it called Israeli crimes in Lebanon and a US violation of commitments to establish a ceasefire there. It was unclear if the threat had been carried out, or if it would jeopardise talks in Switzerland scheduled for Sunday that were supposed to start the process of turning the current interim agreement between the US and Iran signed this week into a more detailed deal covering Iran’s nuclear programme. Donald Trump promptly declared that “NO TOLLS” would be charged on ships seeking to pass through the strait during or after the ⁠60-day interim ceasefire. In a social media post on Saturday, however, he raised the prospect of the US imposing a toll should negotiations fail. US Central Command denied the strait, which Iran is required to keep open under the interim deal, has been closed. “Iran does not control ‌the strait ‌of Hormuz,” a spokesperson, Navy Capt Tim Hawkins, told Reuters. “Traffic continues to flow, and US forces are monitoring the situation to ensure ‌this remains the case.” JD Vance, the US vice-president, landed in Switzerland on Sunday to take part in the negotiations. Vance and his wife, Usha Vance, arrived at Emmen Air Base outside Lucerne just before 6am local time, his office said. “I can only be there for a day or two,” Vance said on Saturday evening before boarding a plane at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. “I think we’re going to hopefully make progress on the nuclear issue, make progress on the Lebanon ceasefire issue.” Pakistan, the key mediator, said the talks would go ahead and reports from Tehran suggested that a delegation of top officials had left Iran to participate in the negotiations. The continuing hostilities in Lebanon between Hezbollah, which has close ties to Iran, and Israel have emerged as the main challenge to the new deal to end the war in the Gulf. Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon on Saturday killed at least 16 people, local authorities said, despite reports of a renewed ceasefire aiming to end the continuing clashes. Lebanon’s civil defence agency said its personnel transported “16 dead and 12 wounded” to hospital, adding that they had been working “since the early morning hours” in the Nabatieh district. The interim agreement calls for a cessation of hostilities on all fronts, including Lebanon. It has been fiercely criticised by Israeli ministers, officials and commentators, who argue that it stops Israel countering threats posed by Hezbollah. The Israeli military said it was striking Hezbollah targets in response to overnight projectile launches from the Lebanese militant organisation. Violence flared on Friday after four Israeli soldiers including a senior officer were killed when a tank was hit by Hezbollah, which said the strike had come after Israel broke a previous ceasefire agreement by advancing. The Israeli attacks that followed killed 83 people, local authorities said, across southern Lebanon and the Bekaa valley. The exact status of the new ceasefire reported to have come into effect locally on Friday evening was unclear. In public statements, Hezbollah has said it will abide by a ceasefire if Israel does, but has not said a ceasefire is actually in place. Hassan Fadlallah, a Hezbollah parliamentarian in Lebanon, said his group had the right to respond to Israeli attacks. “There is talk of a ceasefire. For us, what concerns us is that the enemy fully … doesn’t attempt to attack our country and villages or seek to occupy any new position,” he said. The most recent round of war between Hezbollah and Israel began days after the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran on 28 February, with Hezbollah firing rockets and drones at civilian communities in northern Israel, and Israel seizing and occupying large swathes of southern Lebanon to establish a “buffer zone”. The continuing violence and diplomatic back and forth over the planned talks between Iran and the US have fuelled scepticism that a definitive end can be found to a regional war that has killed at least ‌7,000 people, sent energy prices soaring and threatened global economic chaos. The interim US-Iran agreement signed this week called for the US to lift its naval blockade in return for the reopening of the strait of Hormuz, which was closed to most shipping by Tehran shortly after the beginning of the conflict. Neither Israel nor Hezbollah are signatories to the deal, which calls for a halt to military operations in Lebanon and for the country’s sovereignty to be respected. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, has vowed to keep Israeli forces in southern Lebanon until any threat to Israel is eliminated. Hezbollah has refused to halt its attacks unless Israel commits to withdrawing from Lebanon, which Iran says is also a condition of the deal. Despite the violence in Lebanon, Vance said he was confident the ceasefire agreed in Washington’s 14-point deal with Tehran would hold, and that he had seen no evidence that ⁠the strait was closed. He added that the US negotiators Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff had been in Switzerland “for a few hours, dealing with some of the technical elements ‌of this negotiation”. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, however, signalled that little progress would be made until Iran was convinced the US was fulfilling its commitments under the deal. “This trip is therefore about demanding that the other side fulfil its obligations,” Baghaei said. The interim deal gives negotiators 60 days to come up with a nuclear agreement but that can be extended. Many observers warn that it will be very hard to reach an agreement on such a complex issue within two months. The 2015 nuclear deal, which Trump scrapped during his first term, took more than 18 months to negotiate.

Al Jazeera cameraman Ahmed Wishah killed in Israeli strike on Gaza

Qatar-based news network Al Jazeera has said one of its journalists was killed by an Israeli strike in Gaza on Saturday, becoming one of the at least 260 Palestinian journalists to have been killed since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023. Ahmed Wishah, a cameraman for the network, was killed in a strike targeting a house in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, the broadcaster said on its website. Al Jazeera said it “strongly condemns the heinous crime”, adding: “This constitutes a new and flagrant violation of all international laws and norms, and reflects a continued systematic policy of targeting journalists and silencing the voice of truth.” Ahmed’s brother Mohammed was killed on 8 April this year by Israeli shelling when he was travelling in his vehicle, Palestinian civil defence authorities said at the time. Following Ahmed’s death, the Israeli military said it had carried out the strike but said Wishah was a “Hamas terrorist”. “The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) confirms it carried out a strike on Ahmed Wishah, who was a Hamas terrorist,” a military spokesperson told AFP. The spokesperson did not immediately provide evidence to support the military’s claim about Wishah, but said “there will be a statement issued with further details”. At least 260 journalists have been killed since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Spanish PM’s wife to stand trial on corruption charges and banned from leaving country

A judge in Spain has ruled that the wife of socialist prime minister Pedro Sánchez must stand trial on corruption charges and has banned her from leaving the country. Begoña Gómez had previously been charged after a two-year investigation with embezzlement, influence peddling, corruption in business dealings and misappropriation of funds. Gómez, 55, denies any wrongdoing in the case, which was triggered by a complaint from the group Manos Limpias (Clean Hands), a self-styled trade union with far-right links. The judge in the case, Juan Carlos Peinado, ordered Gómez to surrender her passport, barred her ‌from leaving ‌Spain and required her to report to court twice a ‌month, according to a court order released on Saturday. She will face trial by jury on an unspecified date. Sánchez had repeatedly dismissed the case against his wife as a baseless and politically motivated smear. The prime minister, an outspoken leftist leader in Europe, has accused his political and media opponents of pursuing his family and has also openly questioned the impartiality of some members of the judiciary. The Socialist party quickly reacted to the judge’s ruling, posting on X: “(Begoña) has been subjected to judicial and political persecution for two years. Today’s development is another step in that process.” The case is one of a series of corruption investigations that have plagued Sánchez, who came to power in 2018 by promising to end the graft that had mired the ruling conservative People’s party (PP). Now, several investigations into Sánchez’s family and former top political allies threaten to topple the government. Sánchez has not been named in any of the ‌cases but his brother, David, is accused of influence peddling while the former transport minister, José Luis Ábalos, is accused of taking kickbacks on public contracts. Both deny the accusations. One of the most potentially damaging cases is against former socialist prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero – a titan of the Spanish left – who was placed under investigation last month for alleged influence peddling. Zapatero, who served as prime minister from 2004 to 2011, defended his innocence during hearings this week. Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report