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UN adds Israel and Russia to blacklist for sexual violence in conflict

The UN has added Israel and Russia to a blacklist for sexual violence in conflict, citing abuse by security forces including rape of male detainees. . The UN verified sexual abuse of 31 Palestinian men, women and children from the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank between 2023 and 2025. Israeli attacks included repeated gang-rapes and the use of sexual violence as a form of torture, the report said. Other violations include rape with objects, attempted rape, attacks on genitals, targeted shooting of genitals, touching of breasts and genitals, forced nudity and threats of rape. These cases were “indicative of incidents and patterns” rather than a comprehensive summary of conflict-related sexual violence by Israelis, because of restrictions on UN investigators. Israel barred UN experts from detention centres, blocked travel to Gaza, and has threatened Palestinian detainees if they report abuse after their release. Russia also obstructed investigations into “systemic” sexual violence against Ukrainians, barring monitors from accessing prisoners of war and civilians in detention, the UN said. Despite these challenges, investigators verified 310 cases of abuse, including rape and gang-rape, genital mutilation and applying electric shocks to genitals. Most victims were men, with 26 women and four girls also abused. Russia deploys systematic sexual torture against Ukrainians, both civilians and prisoners of war, in “almost all” detention centres, the UN previously found. In two-thirds of cases, Russian forces used multiple forms of sexual violence, and more than half of survivors endured repeated sexual attacks, the report said. Most were interviewed in Ukrainian-held territory after their release. Israel and Russia both deny the use of sexual violence by their military. Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, said the country had cut ties with the UN secretary general, António Guterres, in response to the blacklisting. Danon said in a social media post that “Israel submitted evidence, documents, and detailed responses to every claim”. He did not share any evidence publicly. Israel has not allowed the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit detainees since October 2023. Details of the report, which lists 77 countries and armed groups, were shared by Israeli diplomats at the UN before its release, and the full report was posted online by the US news site PassBlue. Worldwide, the report found that conflict-related sexual violence rose sharply from 2024, “marked by extreme brutality, and overwhelmingly targeted women and girls”. Israel and Russia however both diverge from this trend by also targeting men. The UN documented nine cases of rape by Israeli forces, mostly of men or boys from Gaza, who were targeted in detention centres or during interrogation. One attack took place in a police station in the Gush Etzion settlement in the occupied West Bank, the report said. Perpetrators included Israeli soldiers, prison officers and members of an elite police counter-terror unit. A “systemic lack of accountability” for sexual violence helped create a culture of impunity, the UN said, citing the assault and rape of a detainee from Gaza that was filmed on security cameras and reported to police by Israeli medics. The prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, described the alleged perpetrators as “heroic” and an attempt to prosecute them, which failed, as “criminal”. The victim was never charged or tried and has since been released. Over the past three years, violence, including rape, extreme hunger and humiliation, has been normalised in Israeli jails. Rights groups say detention centres have become “torture camps” for Palestinians. The far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has boasted of a “prison revolution”, caused a diplomatic crisis last week by publishing footage of Israeli security forces abusing international activists detained while trying to sail to Gaza with aid. The forms of abuse captured in the video have been routinely used against Palestinian prisoners in Israel. After the activists’ release, at least 15 said they had been sexually assaulted in custody, including a rape. The UN previously added Hamas to the sexual violence blacklist for the October 7 attacks in Israel and for abuse of hostages in Gaza. The militant group has not recognised any cases of sexual violence or held any alleged perpetrators responsible. Ukrainian forces have also committed conflict-related sexual violence, with 31 incidents, including beating of genitals, applying electric shocks and forced nudity, verified since 2022, most before 2025. The Ukrainian government allowed access to independent monitors and lawyers and is taking steps to strengthen laws to address sexual violence, the report said.

Alarm at Mexico bill allowing elections to be annulled for ‘foreign interference’

Amid fierce criticism from opposition groups, Mexico’s senate has passed ‌a constitutional amendment to include “foreign interference” as grounds to annul election results in the country. The bill, which was presented by the country’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, defines foreign interference as “illicit financing, propaganda, the systematic ⁠dissemination of misinformation, digital manipulation, and ⁠the intervention of foreign governments ⁠or agencies”. But critics say that the broadness of the bill’s language means virtually anything could be used to annul the results of an election: an article in a British newspaper, a statement from a US official, a report from an international NGO. “This is one of the most egregious, alarming and retrograde pieces of legislation in Mexico’s young democratic history,” said Arturo Sarukhan, a former Mexican ambassador to the US, on X. “This law doesn’t prevent foreign interference. It hands the government a veto over election outcomes it doesn’t like.” The amendment has already been passed by the lower house of congress and now needs to be ratified by a majority of Mexico’s 34 states. Sheinbaum’s Morena controls 24 statehouses. The bill comes as Mexico has faced increased pressure from the US on security, with Donald Trump repeatedly threatening to invade the country and tackle cartels. Last month, the US justice department indicted 10 current and former officials from the state of Sinaloa, including the governor, for ties to a powerful drug-trafficking group. The indictment of Rubén Rocha Moya, the governor of Sinaloa and a close ally of former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (known as Amlo), sent shock waves across Mexico’s political establishment. Sheinbaum has called for more evidence from the US before considering extradition. The Mexican president also doubled down on the importance of sovereignty and non-intervention since the indictment was made public. “All Mexicans should agree that there should be no foreign interference in elections in Mexico,” Sheinbaum said at a news conference on Thursday. “We must all agree that in Mexico, we Mexicans decide who governs us.” The bill comes as Mexico faces midterm elections next year, which could see the governing Morena party lose its stranglehold on power: it currently controls the presidency and both the upper and lower chambers of congress. The bill would allow Mexico’s electoral court to toss out election results if it determines there was interference from an overseas organization, a foreign government or citizen. But the court was stripped of its independence under Amlo and is now largely aligned with Morena. “If [Morena] wanted, they could allege foreign intervention and the court would rule in their favor,” said Carlos Bravo Regidor, a political analyst. “The truth is, I don’t see any point in [the bill], any merit, any validity. This is an abuse.” The Mexican opposition has been equally critical of the proposed change. “It’s a trap so that Morena can literally annul any election they want,” Ricardo Anaya, a senator from the opposition Pan party, told reporters. “What they want to ensure is total control.”

Trump claims to be on verge of approving peace deal with major Iranian concessions

Donald Trump has claimed he could approve an Iran peace deal on Friday that contains major concessions from Tehran, including the opening of the strait of Hormuz and the elimination of the country’s nuclear programme. However, top Iranian officials signalled a final agreement had not been reached. The two versions indicate Trump may once again be practising his “art of the deal” as he seeks to talk his way out of a war that has disrupted global energy supplies and rocked the world economy. Describing the terms of the purported deal on his Truth Social platform, the US president said Iran “must agree that they will never have a Nuclear Weapon or Bomb”, open the strait of Hormuz for all traffic without tolls, eliminate mines in the waterway and allow the US to unearth and destroy highly enriched uranium from a secure nuclear site in Iran. He also said the deal would preclude the transfer of frozen assets to Iran. Trump also said he would lift the US naval blockade against Iran, although it was not immediately clear whether that would be subject to the agreement being confirmed. “I will be meeting now, in the Situation Room, to make a final determination,” he wrote. The virtual wishlist of US demands in the negotiations was presented as a completed deal and would indicate that Iran had capitulated on key positions, including its right to exact tolls from ships traversing the strait of Hormuz, the release of the frozen assets and an insistence on the country’s right to maintain its nuclear programme. But Iranian officials signaled defiance after Trump’s announcement, and those close to the government denied that a deal has been reached. The semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on Friday that no final understanding had been reached between Iran and the US and that Trump’s post was “in line with his usual pattern of making unilateral and egotistical statements”. The foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei told state media: “Regarding the understanding, as I said while speaking to you, exchanges of messages are continuing, but no final agreement has been reached yet.” Tasnim reported that there had been no discussion about the nuclear issue, and that Trump’s reports of lifting the US’s own blockade in the strait of Hormuz should be met with “scepticism”. Iran’s Fars news agency said Trump had published a “mixture of truth and lies” about the terms of an agreement, which did not include provisions for the opening of the strait of Hormuz without fees, or the destruction of Iran’s nuclear material. On Friday, Iran’s top negotiator, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, wrote that Iran had “no trust in guarantees or words – only actions are the measure”. Ghalibaf also sent out a defiant message that Iran was ready for another round of fighting if talks to extend the ceasefire and end the war failed. “We seize concessions not through dialogue, but with missiles; in negotiations, we merely make them understand,” he wrote. “The winner of any agreement is the one who is better prepared for war from the day after.” The US vice-president, JD Vance, hinted on Thursday night that an agreement was close, but Trump was reported to need more time to decide whether to back a negotiated agreement that would defer many of the difficult issues, including the fate of Iran’s remaining stockpile of nuclear materials, into subsequent negotiations. Senior Iranian officials repeated there was no plan to allow the export of its uranium, but observers have suggested that does not rule out downblended uranium that is further from weapons grade. Trump may need time not just to reflect, but to persuade a reluctant Benjamin Netanyahu to accept the need for a ceasefire in Lebanon as part of the agreement. The Israeli prime minister has been using the past few days to step up attacks on Hezbollah positions throughout Lebanon, including in the capital, Beirut. Netanyahu did not immediately comment on the Iran deal, saying: “Our forces have crossed the Litani and advanced into strategic areas. We are operating in Beirut, in the Bekaa Valley, and across the entire front, and we are directly targeting Hezbollah.” Baghaei, has said the “silence and the indifference of international institutions” will provoke Israel to “further embitterment”. He also described the US as “an accomplice and partner in all of Israel’s crimes” in Lebanon, the Palestinian territories and the entire region. Ebrahim Rezaei the spokesperson for the Iranian parliament’s national security and foreign policy commission, suggested Iran was in no mood to back down on its plans to change the management of the strait of Hormuz. He claimed Iran’s management of the waterway had been recognised worldwide, which is “why countries obtain permission, pay the costs, and, with the guidance of the IRGC Navy, pass their vessels through. The only one who hasn’t believed it, or doesn’t want to believe it, is Trump; every now and then he sends his army to open the strait, they come and get beaten and go back.” In a televised interview, Rezaei questioned whether it was necessary for Iran in the agreement to renounce any desire to acquire nuclear weapons. “Why should we commit to America that we will not build a nuclear weapon?” he said. “This matter is none of America’s business.” At the same time, Ebrahim Azizi, the chair of the parliament’s national security and foreign policy commission, denied reports about the possible transfer of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpiles to a third country or mediator, saying the Islamic Republic has no intention of handing over or transferring these materials. Earlier, the Iranian president, Mahmoud Pezeshkian, adopted a more conciliatory tone, thanking Pakistani mediators for their effectiveness toward reaching an agreement. He spoke by phone with the Pakistani prime minister, Shahbaz Sharif, as Pakistan’s foreign minister, Mohammad Ishaq Dar met with the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, in Washington.

Lula says Brazil will not be treated like ‘tinpot country’ after US designates gangs as terrorists

Brazil will not be treated as a “tinpot country,” the country’s president, Luiz Inácio da Silva, said on Friday after the United States designated Brazil’s two largest criminal gangs, the First Capital Command (PCC) and the Red Command, as foreign terrorist organisations. The announcement, made by Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, on Thursday, is being widely seen in Brazil as a setback for Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the president who had strongly opposed the designation – and a boost for Lula’s main challenger in October’s presidential election, the far-right senator Flávio Bolsonaro. Chosen to run in place of his father, Jair Bolsonaro – the former president who is barred from running because he is in house arrest after being convicted of attempting a coup – Flávio spent this week in the US, where he met with Donald Trump and Rubio. Lula said he was “very saddened” by the news that “the United States secretary, from North America, a certain Marco Rubio, said that our criminals here are terrorists and that Americans can intervene”, he said during a speech at an event in the state of Sergipe. “We do not accept being treated like little boys. We do not accept being treated as if we were some tinpot country,” he added. In a statement, he also called the Bolsonaro family “traitors” and “false patriots”. “It is deplorable that members of the Bolsonaro family once again travel to the United States to advocate foreign intervention in Brazil, as they did over the tariffs, which caused so much damage to our country,” wrote the president. Flávio Bolsonaro was at his lowest point in the campaign, after revelations that he had been caught on tape asking a banker accused of corruption for $26.8m (£20m) to fund a film about his father caused a significant drop in his poll numbers. Announcing the designation, Rubio wrote that the groups were “two of the most violent criminal organizations in Brazil. Their reach extends throughout our region and into our country”. Both groups emerged inside Brazilian prisons, originally as a response to torture and abuse. They are now among the largest criminal organisations in Latin America, exporting cocaine produced in neighbouring Colombia, Peru and Bolivia primarily to the US and Europe, while expanding into other parts of the world. The Red Command is the older of the two, emerging in the 1970s from interactions between political prisoners jailed by the military dictatorship and common criminals in a prison in Rio de Janeiro. The PCC was founded in the 1990s in a São Paulo prison, months after 111 prisoners were killed when police crushed a rebellion at another prison. The two groups compete for control of drug distribution and trafficking routes, but operate in distinct ways: while the Red Command has a more decentralised leadership structure and resembles the more overtly violent and conspicuous crime factions of Mexico and Colombia, the PCC functions almost like a corporation, with well-defined hierarchies and a low-profile, businesslike approach. Lula had opposed the US proposal to classify the groups as terrorist organisations, describing the move as an affront to Brazilian sovereignty and arguing that the country already actively combats them. Just hours before the US announcement, Brazil’s federal police launched a new operation targeting PCC infiltration into the country’s financial sector. In his statement on Friday, the president said that “any international cooperation to combat criminal factions will be welcome ... But we will not accept arbitrary measures imposed from abroad being used as a pretext to attack our sovereignty and our economy ... National sovereignty is non-negotiable.” On Thursday, Flávio Bolsonaro immediately celebrated it. “On a trip as a presidential candidate, we did more for Brazil and for the security of Brazilians than Lula,” he said. Months earlier, commenting on US attacks against boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that have killed 196 people, he said he felt “jealous” of those countries and suggested the US could do something similar in Rio’s Guanabara Bay. “Wouldn’t you like to spend a few months here helping us combat these terrorist organisations?” he wrote to Pete Hegseth, the US secretary of defence. The US decision to classify the organisations as terrorist groups – following similar designations of organisations in Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela – had been widely anticipated for months, but was not mentioned during Trump’s meeting with Lula at the White House three weeks ago. Lula said on Friday that Rubio had not been present during his three-hour meeting with Trump. “Mr Marco Rubio was not there, possibly because he was busy helping the son of a Bolsonarista who is running for election in this country, someone who has no shame in betraying our homeland by going to the United States and asking for American intervention in Brazil,” the president said. Flávio’s visit to the White House last Tuesday was not listed on the president’s public schedule and, unlike Trump’s meeting with Lula – during which the US president even praised the Brazilian leftist – was not mentioned by Trump even in a social media post. The following day, Flávio posted a photograph of a meeting with Rubio and wrote: “We continue strengthening international relations, defending freedom, democracy and the values that unite millions of Brazilians and Americans.” The secretary of state is widely regarded as the Bolsonaro family’s main connection to Trump. There is still little clarity about the practical consequences of the designation. Analysts fear it could have financial repercussions even for innocent Brazilians, but the move is already being widely interpreted as another example of the growing pressure exerted by the White House across the region as part of its so-called “war on drugs”. A report published this week by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project found that US pressure drove an 18% increase in clashes between security forces and armed groups across Latin America and the Caribbean in 2025.

Nato says drone that crashed in Romania was ‘of Russian origin’ despite Moscow’s denials – as it happened

… and on that note, it’s a wrap for today! The Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, has said the alliance is “ready to defend every inch” of its territory (9:37) after a Russian drone hit an apartment building in Romania (9:30), a member state, during an overnight attack on neighbouring Ukraine, leaving two people injured. Nato has confirmed that the drone was of Russian origin (18:38), despite Vladimir Putin (17:56) and the Russian foreign ministry’s attempts to question its responsibility for the incident (15:29). In response, Romania’s president Nicușor Dan has declared a Russian consul in the southeastern seaside city of Constanța “a persona non grata” (13:52) prompted Russia’s immediate threats of retaliation (13:55). Nato allies have also offered to temporarily relocate some air defence equipment to Romania to help it deal with similar incidents as it builds up its own capacity to deal with drones, Dan said (13:52). The incident comes amid Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s warnings about a possible “new massive attack” on Ukraine from Russia in the coming days (13:27). Elsewhere, The EU is to release more than €16bn to Hungary that had been frozen under the rule of Viktor Orbán (14:11, 14:11, 14:14, 14:20), with Ursula von der Leyen hailing the “winds of change” in the country since the election of Péter Magyar last month. During a joint press conference in Brussels, von der Leyen and Magyar spoke about the planned reforms as they signed off on a political deal to reset tricky relations between Budapest and Brussels (14:09, 14:17, 14:29, 15:10). Budapest has to complete all the agreed reforms and investments by 31 August for the money to be paid out (17:45), with some major questions on Ukraine and defence projects yet to be fully answered (17:49). Earlier today, Hungarian police have said they will not ban next month’s Budapest Pride parade, signalling a shift in policy under the new prime government (11:15). If you have any tips, comments or suggestions, email me at jakub.krupa@theguardian.com. I am also on Bluesky at @jakubkrupa.bsky.social and on X at @jakubkrupa.

Canadian man admits sending ‘suicide packets’ to hundreds of people around world

A Canadian man who mailed “suicide packets” of poison to more than 100 people in dozens of countries – including Canada, the UK, the US, Italy, Australia and New Zealand – has pleaded guilty to 14 counts of assisting suicide. Kenneth Law appeared in a packed courtroom in Newmarket, Ontario, on Friday to enter the plea after prosecutors agreed to withdraw 14 murder charges. Sentencing is expected to take place in September. Law, 60, pleaded guilty to multiples charges of “counselling or aiding suicide”. He told Justice Michelle Fuerst he understood the scope of his crimes and was voluntarily entering a plea. Family members were emotional as the court read out each of the charges and Law confirmed his role in the deaths of 14 people, aged 16 to 36, across the province of Ontario. He also admitted sending the lethal substances that caused the death of 79 people in the UK. The closely watched case has highlighted the challenges of policing online forums that promote suicide and sell fatal substances. Bereaved families in the UK, where Law is linked to scores of deaths, have renewed their called for a public inquiry. The court was told that Law sent suicide kits to people in 40 countries and territories, but most were sent to people in the UK and the US. Law, a one-time engineer and cook at a Toronto hotel, ran a series of websites that sold lethal chemicals to at-risk people around the world. To evade detection, Law offered other products – including hot sauce – to give the illusion that he operated as an industrial food-prep wholesaler. The distinct silver packets warned that the use of the product was the sole responsibility of the user. He also sold suicide paraphernalia and gave detailed instructions about how to use the items. Investigators say Law sent 1,209 packages to people in 41 countries before his websites were shut down. Law had previously denied reports that he was willingly selling products to help people kill themselves. Prosecutors submitted a statement of facts that exceeded 60 pages and was expected to take hours to read in court. In many of the deaths, the victims were found by parents. In a particularly harrowing case, a young man was heard vomiting by his family and pleaded for help from his parents after telling them he had consumed a toxic substance. In another, a 29-year-old man called 911 himself, asking for medical help. He said he had ingested a toxic substance, repeating: “Please, and I am going to die soon”, and then began crying. He became unresponsive and had difficulty breathing when first responders arrived, and was pronounced dead at the hospital. One man in his 30s, who was found in a rental car in Toronto, made a donation to first responders in anticipation of the trauma they would experience on finding his body. A victim in the UK called emergency services and told the operator he had taken a substance to kill himself but did not want to die and began panicking, according to a transcript of the call. Paramedics arrived less than 30 minutes later and found him lying face down on his bed with his phone in his hand, still connected to emergency services. They were unable to revive him. Packages from Law’s companies were often found near the victims. At the time of his arrest, Law had received C$296,981 in his Shopify and PayPal accounts linked to his four companies. An investigation by the UK’s National Crime Agency into Canadian websites found that 286 individuals in the UK had received packages from Law, leading to 112 deaths. A deal between Canadian prosecutors and the UK’s National Crime Agency, announced on Friday, means Law’s role in the UK deaths will also be considered by the judge in his sentencing. Families in the UK have said the impunity with which Law operated for years – and British authorities’ failure to prevent deaths linked to an online pro-suicide forum – necessitated a public inquiry. They said that beginning in 2019, 65 warnings were issued by coroners to three government departments. In October 2025, those families petitioned for a public inquiry, but were rejected in March. They now have less than a month to appeal against the decision. “The driving force that keeps all bereaving families going is the fact that other people are still losing their loved ones,” said Adele Zeynep Walton, who lost her sister, Aimee, to a supplied poison. “The online forums linked to these deaths are still accessible. Unless something changes, then more people are going to continue to lose someone.” While the case centred on the 14 confirmed deaths in Ontario, police in other parts of Canada and countries around the world have also investigated Law’s links to deaths deemed to be suicides. When prosecutors initially brought first-degree murder charges against Law, the scope of the allegations appeared poised to make it one of the largest murder cases in Ontario history. But a ruling from the Ontario appeals court in an unrelated case suggested that merely supplying a substance used in a suicide might not be enough to sustain a murder or attempted murder conviction. Prosecutors would probably have needed to prove that Law played a more active causal role in the deaths, potentially in a way that “overbore” the victims’ free will. Canada’s top court later pushed back, suggesting the distinction between murder and aiding suicide was not so rigid. But it stopped short of creating a definitive rule for cases such as Law’s, in which the accused allegedly supplied lethal substances to people who later took their own lives. As a result, prosecutors downgraded the charges. Still, Canada’s criminal code punishes anyone who “counsels or abets” a person to die by suicide with a sentence of up to 14 years in prison. Experts believe the scope of Law’s actions suggest he will receive a harsh sentence. Victim impact statements and sentencing are expected in September. • In Canada, you can call or text the Suicide Crisis Helpline on 988. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

WHO puts Ebola outbreak death rate at ‘huge’ 30-50% as chief arrives in DRC

The death rate of the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is between 30% and 50%, the World Health Organization has said, as its head arrived in the country to support efforts to contain the disease. Anaïs Legand, from the WHO’s high threat pathogens team, said the revised death rate estimate is based on confirmed cases. “It’s huge. It means that up to five out of 10 people are likely to die,” Legand told reporters in Geneva. She also said that a patient had recovered from Ebola and was discharged from a health centre in the DRC on 27 May after two negative tests, the first recovery to have been confirmed in the outbreak. The WHO has recorded 10 confirmed and 223 suspected Ebola deaths in the DRC since the outbreak was declared on 15 May, among more than 1,000 confirmed and suspected cases. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the organisation’s director general, arrived in Kinshasa on Thursday and was due to travel to the centre of the outbreak, in the north-east Ituri province, on Friday, but the trip has been pushed back by a day. “That thing can be stopped,” Tedros told reporters, adding that the WHO did not support travel bans because they “don’t help much”. “Together, we will overcome this outbreak,” he said in a separate message to Congolese citizens, promising to do “everything in my power to help”. The true scale of the outbreak may be significantly larger, the WHO said, because the virus is believed to have circulated undetected for some time. The outbreak is the 17th recorded Ebola epidemic in the vast central African country, which has a population of more than 100 million. The disease was first identified there in 1976 and its death rate has averaged 50% across all outbreaks, according to the WHO. Complicating relief efforts, the outbreak is centred on a mineral-rich region fought over by armed groups. “Conflict and displacement make everything harder,” Tedros said. “I am making a direct appeal to all warring parties in this region: please declare a ceasefire. No cause, no conflict, no grievance is worth condemning innocent people to death from a preventable disease.” More than 245,000 people have fled eastern DRC to neighbouring countries since January 2025, according to the UN refugee agency. Armed groups operating in the area include the Rwanda-backed M23, which controls large parts of the North and South Kivu provinces south of Ituri. Early symptoms of Ebola include fever, exhaustion, muscle pain, headaches and a sore throat. These can progress to vomiting, diarrhoea, abdominal pain, rash and impaired kidney and liver function. The disease spreads through direct contact with the blood or body fluids of an infected person or someone who has died from Ebola. There is no approved treatment for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, responsible for the current outbreak. However, the WHO said on Thursday that its advisory groups had recommended clinical trials of vaccines and treatments. The head of the African Union’s health agency, Jean Kaseya, said a vaccine could be ready by the end of the year. Neighbouring Uganda, which has recorded one Ebola death and eight additional cases, announced on Wednesday it would immediately close its border with the DRC. The WHO warned that border closures could drive up informal crossings and make it harder to monitor and contain the disease. Meanwhile, Kenya’s high court temporarily suspended plans to establish a quarantine and treatment facility for affected US citizens in Kenya. The US had said it would deny entry to its territory to anyone infected with the disease. The judge, Patricia Nyaundi, ruled that Kenya was not allowed to admit anyone exposed to or infected by Ebola under the proposed deal with the US until a challenge to the deal brought by the Kenyan rights group Katiba Institute was heard. The group’s lawsuit said the plan “raises grave constitutional concerns regarding the rights to life, health, fair administrative action, public participation and parliamentary oversight”. Health officials had said the proposal could place additional strain on Kenya’s already stretched healthcare system. The country’s main medical union threatened on Thursday to take strike action unless the terms of the agreement with the US were released within 48 hours. US officials had said the 50-bed facility at an air force base would become operational on Friday. More than 30 staff from the US Public Health Service, a uniformed branch of the Department of Health and Human Services, left the US for Kenya on Wednesday after receiving three days’ training in Washington DC. Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, said on Thursday that the US government planned “to commit $13.5m [£10m] toward Kenya’s Ebola preparedness efforts”, adding that it had already pledged $112m to the regional response to the outbreak. “The United States’s highest priority remains protecting the health and security of the American people by working to prevent the Ebola outbreak from reaching our shores,” he said. Ebola has killed more than 15,000 people in Africa over the past 50 years. The deadliest outbreak in the DRC killed nearly 2,300 patients from 3,500 cases between 2018 and 2020. The WHO said it had received 4.6 tonnes of aid at the airport in Bunia, the capital of Ituri. Unicef, the UN children’s agency, said it would send 100 tonnes of aid. With Agence France-Presse and Reuters • This article was amended on 29 May 2026 to clarify that Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’s comments were from two separate sources, a message to Congolese citizens and when speaking with reporters.

Britain’s pothole problem is no quick fix | Letters

Esther Addley (The pothole puzzle: the bumpy ride to fixing Britain’s broken roads, 23 May) quotes Phill Wheat, a professor of transport econometrics at the University of Leeds, describing the “spiral that we could get into” if funding for road maintenance is not increased. In truth, many highway authorities are already well down that spiral. Once holes and cracks start appearing in a road, they grow and proliferate quickly. Vehicle wheels act like jackhammers around every bump and dip. Once the surface starts breaking up and water loosens the lower layers of the road structure, the opportunity to dress or replace the surface soon passes, and rebuilding at much greater expense becomes unavoidable. So repair costs rise rapidly in the short term and multiply in the long term. Highway authorities need to prioritise and schedule all roads for resurfacing or rebuilding. That will significantly increase the funding requirement in coming years, but once the programme is well advanced, reactive repair costs will decline sharply. Highway authorities need to model cost projections to show central government that more funding now will save money in the longer term. There must be no cutting corners when rebuilding roads: if they continue to deform under the weight of ever-heavier vehicles, we’ll end up in a spiral again. At least some of the extra funding could be raised by local traffic authorities from levies on road users, utilities that dig up roads, and employers that provide staff parking. Taxes rarely win votes, but if they guaranteed better roads and pavements, and lower insurance premiums, people might grudgingly accept them. When road maintenance costs do eventually start falling, surplus revenue could be invested in better bus services. Now there’s a thought. Edward Leigh Cambridge • With over a quarter of a million miles of paved roads in the UK but over 40m vehicles, it is easy to see how the road network might come under considerable strain. This raises the important question of a flexible maintenance strategy and the need to keep up with repairs to our roads. A recent personal experience where the road outside of my home was dug up by the local water company to repair a broken pipe is a case in point. The pipe repair was duly completed and the road surface repaired, but the huge pothole around a gully grating not six feet away was ignored. A few weeks later a county council lorry with an extending mechanical arm filled in this pothole with bitumen, without either of the two operatives ever leaving the vehicle, and then reversed over it to flatten the surface. I watched with fascination, but within days this had taken on a distinct concave profile. A couple of weeks after this, another council lorry, this time with four operatives, arrived on the scene, dug up the gully pothole again, but on this occasion proceeded to manually refill and compact it properly. The moral of this tale must surely be: if you are going to do something, do it once and do it properly. Additionally, foster better interagency working by allowing road maintenance and utility crews some latitude to repair all surrounding potholes irrespective of agency responsibility. Surely some arrangement could be established for agency counter-charging, thus enabling pothole repair to become more efficient and a better use of taxpayers’ money. Anthony Millett Stockbridge, Hampshire • Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.