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Secret son revelation ignites bitter succession dispute in Ugandan kingdom

A traditional Ugandan kingdom has become engulfed in a bitter succession dispute after the family of a king who recently died rejected the selection of a television news anchor as his successor. King Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru Rukidi IV, who became the world’s youngest reigning monarch when he took the throne in the kingdom of Tooro in 1995 at the age of three, died on 27 August in the US, where he was receiving cancer treatment. On Wednesday, the royal clan’s succession committee announced it had chosen Oyo’s cousin Prince Edward Rukidi Kijanangoma, a news anchor and editor at the public broadcaster UBC, as crown prince. However, at a press conference held later the same day, Oyo’s sister, Princess Ruth Nsemere Komuntale, said that according to her brother’s will, a son whose existence had not been publicly known until his death should succeed him. The kingdom’s ‌spokesperson shared a section of the document, which says: “I hereby declare and direct that if, at the date of my death, I am survived by a son lawfully recognised as my biological son, I appoint him as my heir to the throne of the kingdom of Tooro.” In a statement on Thursday, Oyo’s mother, Queen Mother Best Kemigisa Akiiki, denounced a “self-appointed group of clan members” who had selected a new king despite having had the will read to them hours earlier. She also claimed that the royal family had been put under house arrest. Troops had “removed the royal guards without notice, and ... were deployed around the palace,” she said. “We cannot leave or receive people freely.” Oyo was unmarried and was not known to have any children. The Tooro kingdom’s prime minister, Calvin Armstrong Rwomiire Akiiki, revealed the existence of a son in a social media post on 27 August when announcing Oyo’s death. “His majesty leaves behind a prince as his heir, whose identity will be formally revealed at the appropriate time, in accordance with the traditions and customs of Tooro kingdom,” he said. Another contender had been Prince George Desmond-Kamurasi, who plays for the London amateur football club South East Dons. According to the committee, the goalkeeper had declined the offer of the throne because of his other responsibilities. The Tooro king is selected by a succession committee appointed by the royal clan. A committee member told the local NTV station that a royal child must be officially introduced to elders in order to be considered for leadership. Andrew Mwenda, ⁠a prominent Ugandan journalist and relative of the royal family, wrote on X on Thursday that Oyo’s family had not been able to produce a photo of the purported son, and declined to disclose details about the family of the boy’s mother. He added that, in Tooro, a king’s son could only succeed him if he were born to ‌a queen officially married to the king. The prime minister called for restraint on Thursday. “There will be time to examine the will, to hear those advancing a different position, and to consider our customs, the applicable law and the proper institutions through which succession should be determined,” he said in a social media post. “That process should take place calmly and credibly, not through competing announcements, confrontation, or attempts to establish facts on the ground while our king still awaits burial.” Edward, a popular TV news presenter, is the son of Prince Christopher Paul Kijanangoma and a grandson of the former king George David Rukidi III. Oyo, who was crowned after his father’s death, will be buried on Saturday at the Karambi royal tombs in the kingdom’s capital of Fort Portal in western Uganda. Uganda has several ancient kingdoms that lack formal sovereignty, but whose leaders are revered as symbols of tradition and wield vast social influence. Tooro is one of five that are recognised by the government. Their monarchs have no political authority and are legally barred from engaging in partisan politics. In 1967 Uganda’s then president, Milton Obote, abolished the kingdoms, saying he wanted to unify the country. They were restored by the current president, Yoweri Museveni, in 1993. The Tooro are the latest African royal family to become mired in a succession dispute. King Misuzulu Sinqobile kaZwelithini, the reigning king of the Zulu people in South Africa, waited 15 months for his coronation after the death of his father because of a bitter feud involving accusations of forgery and poisoning. Reuters and the Associated Press contributed reporting

Orthodox church sends medieval prince’s remains to Russian troops in Ukraine

The Russian Orthodox church has sent a fragment of a medieval warrior prince’s remains to troops fighting in Ukraine, saying the relic would “spiritually strengthen” soldiers and help them achieve victory. A reliquary containing part of the right hand of Dmitry Donskoy, the 14th-century prince revered in Russia for his victory over the Mongolian Golden Horde in 1380, has been taken to Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine and is now being transported along the frontline. The Russian Orthodox church said in a statement: “The holy commander is going to where the fate of the fatherland is being decided today, so that he may invisibly take his place in the same battle ranks as our defenders.” The relic was first brought on Tuesday to the Saur-Mogila war memorial in the Russian-occupied Donetsk region of Ukraine, where senior Orthodox clergy held a prayer service alongside representatives of the Russian military. The Russian-installed Metropolitan Vladimir of Donetsk and Mariupol said its presence would help soldiers and civilians “mobilise their strength” and secure victory over the enemy. The relic’s journey is the latest example of the Russian Orthodox church’s rabid embrace of the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine, which Patriarch Kirill, its leader, has repeatedly portrayed in religious terms. Since Vladimir Putin launched the full-scale invasion in February 2022, the church hierarchy has become deeply embedded in the Russian war effort. Priests have been sent to military units and occupied territories, while churches across Russia have been instructed to recite prayers asking God to grant victory. Donskoy’s relics were first formally uncovered only last month during restoration work at the Cathedral of the Archangel inside the Kremlin, where generations of Russian princes and tsars are buried. Putin, who has grown increasingly close to the Russian Orthodox church over his more than two decades in power, personally attended the ceremony marking the unearthing. Critics have accused the church of breaking with religious protocol by opening Donskoy’s centuries-old tomb. The location of the prince’s burial had long been known, but the church had previously made no attempt to exhume his remains after he was canonised in 1988. Alexander Zanemonets, an Orthodox priest and historian based outside Russia, said the decision to uncover the relics almost four decades after Donskoy’s canonisation appeared driven by the demands of wartime patriotism. He wrote in a piece for the Carnegie thinktank: “By the fifth year of war, the church leadership in Moscow began to wonder what else it could do to show its support for what Russia terms its ‘special military operation’.” Zanemonets said the portrayal of Donskoy as a defender of the homeland fitted neatly with the Kremlin’s insistence that Russia was defending itself rather than conducting a war of aggression against its neighbour. Earlier this year, relics of Alexander Nevsky, another medieval prince and military hero revered by the Russian Orthodox church, were also sent to the front.

Russia’s actions have strengthened European case for boosting defence spending, says Nato chief – as it happened

And, on that note, we will be closing the blog for today. Nato secretary general Mark Rutte has warned that Russia’s “reckless, dangerous” actions in Europe and “unrelenting” attacks on Ukraine will only strengthen the resolve to support Kyiv and invest in European defence (12:01). Rutte said that Russia’s escalatory behaviour was “a sign of weakness and a symptom of its failure to get its war in Ukraine” (11:45, 12:10). But European leaders “increasingly understand taking greater responsibility for our own security is not optional,” Rutte said (12:06), even as he insisted he had “no doubt” the US remained fully supportive of European allies (12:28). Speaking alongside Rutte, German foreign minister Johann Wadephul warned that the Russian threat “has reached our doorstep and it’s tangible” (11:41, 11:53) as he discussed Germany’s lessons from a recent attempted drone attack in Leipzig. And in the last few minutes, Poland’s prime minister Donald Tusk said Poland averted ⁠a threat to one of its border crossings with Ukraine overnight and expects its crossings will ⁠be targeted in the coming weeks. One to watch. 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.

Violence erupts in Yemen again: why it matters globally and how it is linked to the US-Iran war

Violence has erupted again in Yemen, killing and wounding around 1,000 people and displacing tens of thousands. It is the most significant fighting between the Iran-aligned Houthis and the Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces in years. Saudi Arabia and the Houthis have targeted each other with air, missile and drone strikes, threatening to open another front in the US-Iran war. At stake is the balance of power in Yemen, as well as another waterway critical to global shipping. Though the immediate catalyst for the fighting has been the US-Iran war, it stems from years of conflict in Yemen itself. Who are the warring parties in Yemen’s civil war and who are their backers? The two main parties fighting in Yemen’s civil war are the Yemeni government forces alongside their allies, and the Houthi movement. Yemen’s government controls the north-east of the country, and its southern port. The government is the internationally-recognised authority in the country, but is chiefly backed by Saudi Arabia and a coalition of Arab countries which intervened on behalf of the government during Yemen’s civil war. The Saudi-led coalition, in addition to supporting the Yemeni government forces, directly intervenes militarily in the country, mainly through airstrikes. The government’s control of the country is contested by the Houthis, who hold the western part of the country, including its capital, Sana’a. The Shia group is broadly aligned with Iran and comprises part of the “axis of resistance”, a coalition of Iran-aligned armed groups in the Middle East, such as Hezbollah. But while the group is aligned ideologically with Iran, which supplies some arms shipments, the Houthis are considered an independent group with their own policies. A variety of smaller armed groups are also active in the country. How did the war in Yemen begin? The civil war began in 2014 when fighting broke out between the Houthis and the Yemeni army after Houthi supporters were shot at during mass protests against fuel subsidy cuts in the capital, Sana’a. The Houthis promptly seized the capital, and by 2015 had toppled the government. A coalition of mostly Arab countries, led by Saudi Arabia, then intervened on behalf of the ousted government, with a mostly aerial campaign that was widely criticised for its deadly impact on the civilians of Yemen. The Yemeni government declared the southern port city of Aden to be its temporary capital, while the Houthis continued to maintain their control over Sana’a and much of the rest of north-west Yemen. The government-aligned side was made up of several groups that fractured over the course of the war, primarily along the lines of their two chief backers: Saudi Arabia, which backed the Yemeni government itself, and the United Arab Emirates, which mainly supported the Southern Transitional Council (STC) and the Joint Forces. The country also fractured, with al-Qaida seizing territory in east Yemen, and separatist groups, such as the STC, pushing for division of the country. The Saudi-led coalition also brought foreign mercenaries into the conflict. Frontlines hardened and the war entered a deadlock. The Saudi-led coalition’s intervention was becoming increasingly unpopular internationally and had not led to the defeat of the Houthis. Weary of fighting, warring parties agreed to a temporary UN-mediated truce in 2022. The truce was extended twice, and calm largely held across the country until this September. Why has the UN-brokered peace plan broken down? The peace plan has been strained since the war in Gaza started on 7 October 2023. Israel launched the war in response to a Hamas-led attack in Israel that killed around 1,200 people. Israel’s war in Gaza, which has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians and earned widespread condemnation for what a UN committee said was genocide, drew the axis of resistance into the fray. The Houthis, in what it said was a move of solidarity with the people of Gaza, began targeting ships in the Red Sea that it said were heading for Israel. The western coast of Yemen occupies a strategic position for global shipping because it overlooks Bab al-Mandab, a strait that links the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. The Houthi campaign brought about a US military intervention and strained the truce in Yemen. At the same time, its intervention brought the Houthis support regionally and within the territory they hold. With the Houthis’ position strengthened, the group stopped seriously engaging in negotiations, frustrating Saudi Arabia. In July, an Iranian plane landed in Sana’a airport, despite the protests of the Yemeni government, leading Saudi Arabia to strike the airport. The Houthis then declared a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea, a key route for Saudi oil since Iran closed the strait of Hormuz in March. Why did fighting start again last week? Last week the Houthis launched a wide-ranging offensive to take parts of the western coast of Yemen and gain a more strategic position over Bab al-Mandab. Fighting then broke out across multiple fronts in Yemen as the Saudi-backed government forces tried to reconsolidate their position, with clashes starting in al-Jawf, al-Baydaa, Taiz and Hodeida. The Yemeni government forces then released a statement saying they were launching their own campaign to try to retake Sana’a from the Houthis. The Houthis launched missile strikes on Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, injuring 73 people and causing huge fires at Saudi oil installations. Saudi Arabia then launched more than 50 airstrikes on Yemen in a 12-hour period on Wednesday. It was the most significant fighting in the country since the UN-brokered peace plan in 2022. What has been the humanitarian impact of the war? The war in Yemen, and the Saudi-led coalition aerial campaign in particular, has devastated the country’s population. At least 150,000 people have been killed since 2014 by fighting alone, while hundreds of thousands more have died from related causes, such as hunger and disease. About 4.5 million people have been displaced by fighting and more than 18.2 million are in dire need of humanitarian assistance, according to the UN. The renewed fighting has further exacerbated humanitarian conditions. The World Health Organization said the latest clashes have killed or wounded more than 1,000 people and displaced tens of thousands. Why is Bab al-Mandab emerging as a new flashpoint in the region? Bab al-Mandab is a critical waterway for shipping, with about 10% of global maritime trade passing through the strait. It has become more important since the US started its war against Iran and the latter closed the strait of Hormuz. The Red Sea, via Bab al-Mandab, has become a vital lifeline for Saudi Arabia to export its oil. If the Houthis gained control over the strait, the group would be able to virtually close shipping through the waterway, or charge tolls. It would give Iran and its allies control over two key shipping lanes in the region.

Much of Europe already levies a tourist tax – a nice little earner for Italian hotspots

A nightly tourist tax may be unfamiliar territory in the UK, but countries in continental Europe have been cashing in on these kinds of levies for decades. Tourists usually need to pay the tax on the day they check out of a hotel or holiday let, and are often surprised by an extra fee on top of their accommodation costs. Among the earliest introductions of a tourist tax was in Austria in 1842, specifically targeting those who stayed in spa and wellness retreats. Similar measures were later implemented in France, Italy, Germany and Switzerland as a way to prevent the inhabitants of towns hosting such high-end resorts from paying for costs incurred by wealthy visitors. Italy’s tourist tax structure has gone through various changes. During Benito Mussolini’s fascist regime, it was broadened to include any town or city classified as a tourist destination. The tax was then completely abolished for the World Cup in 1990 as Italy embraced more visitors, only to be brought back in nationally in 2011, with Rome becoming the first city to reintroduce the levy. Depending on the destination, and sometimes the hotel type, the nightly fee typically ranges from between €1 (£0.86) and €10 per person, although guests of five-star hotels in Milan pay €12. Venice has also had an entrance fee in place since 2024, although that is only targeted at day-trippers. The overnight levy is a serious earner for popular Italian destinations. In 2024, Rome made €222.4m, followed by Milan (€109.3m), Florence (€82.9m) and Venice (€38.9m), according to data from Siope, the finance ministry’s tracker of public money flows. The revenues are supposed to be spent on local services, especially in towns and cities buckling under the pressure of overtourism, or on maintaining monuments. However, the reality is that cash-strapped municipalities use it for other expenses. “All municipalities want the fee because they need the money,” said Gianluca De Gaetano, the manager of the Rome unit for Federalberghi, the hotels’ association. Tourists mostly just absorb the payment, even if begrudgingly. “They tend to complain when they find that the services in a city are not up to par, especially if they’ve already paid a lot for their accommodation,” said De Gaetano.

Secret systems used by Israel in mass killings of Gaza civilians revealed in new film

Testimony from 24 Israeli military insiders on the secret systems used in the war on Gaza has been revealed in a new documentary film about the mass killing of Palestinian civilians. NAZA, a film from the Oscar-winning Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, was shown at the Venice international film festival on Thursday as the only documentary competing for its prestigious Golden Lion award. The film’s title comes from an Israeli military acronym used euphemistically to refer to civilians expected to be killed in a military attack. Produced by the Guardian, it features extensive testimony from Israeli intelligence officers and soldiers involved in the surveillance and remote killing of Palestinian civilians. Interviews were filmed at night on rooftops in Tel Aviv, on the condition of anonymity because of the risks involved in speaking publicly about Israel’s war activities. The appearance and voices of participants in the film were digitally altered to disguise their identities. The interviewees detail the secret methods used by the Israeli military in Gaza, including AI-based systems built to identify large numbers of potential low-ranking Hamas targets, who were then bombed in their homes at night, in the knowledge attacks would also kill their families. The Israeli military hacked into phones to identify the location of such targets, and covertly listened into conversations with their wives and children moments before they were all killed. The film also features first-person accounts about the destruction of neighbourhoods where the Israeli military estimated that up to 25% of residents were still sheltering in their homes, the systematic burning of civilian homes, and the killing of civilians at a food distribution site. Abraham said at a press conference in Venice on Thursday: “We just told these officers: ‘Please describe to us what you did. How do these systems work? Sketch it out for us.’ Sometimes, in just asking the questions, you get the answers. “Some of them did not express remorse and some did. Some spoke out of indifference, some out of pride.” Several interviewees worked in a secret intelligence unit that reports directly to the office of Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu; one said their mission was to “thwart peace”. “We made this film out of a sense of obligation to use our position as Israeli film-makers and journalists to examine the systems behind the mass killing of Palestinian civilians for which our country is responsible,” Abraham and Szor said in their directors’ statement. The directors stressed the film’s focus was not on “sporadic war crimes committed by rogue soldiers”. “It is on the orders themselves, the policies, the accepted practices, the language and logic that make those practices possible, and the people who operate within them,” they said. “The system and its cogs.” The documentary was co-produced by James Wilson and executive produced by Jonathan Glazer, the same team behind the Oscar-winning film The Zone of Interest. The film received a nearly 25-minute standing ovation after its screening, according to Variety, which called it a record for length of applause not just at Venice but at any major film festival and reported that Glazer embraced Abraham and Szor as it went on, while some members of the audience held up Palestinian flags. NAZA builds on revelations first published by the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine, the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call and the Guardian between 2023 and 2025. It was filmed and produced under tight security because of the risk to confidential journalistic sources, and its contents have remained a closely guarded secret before Thursday’s premiere. Paul Lewis, the Guardian’s head of investigations and an executive producer on the film, described NAZA as the culmination of “years of painstaking work to uncover and verify the systems used by Israeli military intelligence in Gaza”. Abraham said making the documentary had provided space to explore the collective impact of that work. “In this film we’re talking to 24 people. We are looking at systems of mass killing. There is something about cinema that allows you to explore structures and systems and how you put things together.” Before the premiere, Alberto Barbera, the Venice film festival’s artistic director, told journalists NAZA would be “truly groundbreaking”, calling it “a politically disruptive and cinematically extremely interesting work”. “It’s not just any collection of interviews,” Italy’s Cinecittà News quoted Barbera as saying. “It took them three years to convince these Israeli intelligence and military officials to share the work they did when the invasion of Gaza began, and I assure you, their testimonies are shocking.” Israeli attacks in Gaza since 2023 have killed more than 73,000 Palestinians, the majority of them civilians, and injured more than 174,000 others, together representing more than 10% of Gaza’s prewar population. Israeli restrictions on food shipments created a man-made famine last summer, and the Israeli military razed or damaged more than three-quarters of homes, so surviving Palestinians are now crowded into tent camps with little access to clean water or sanitation. Israel launched its war after the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attacks on Israel, when more than 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken to Gaza by militants. The majority of the dead and hostages were civilians. Abraham and Szor were two of the four co-directors of No Other Land, which won the Oscar for best documentary in 2025. Drawing a connection between the two films, the directors said: “In the film No Other Land, we spent five years, together with [Palestinian co-directors] Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal, documenting the army destroying Palestinian homes in order to paint a larger picture of a system of occupation and ethnic supremacy aimed at the removal of Palestinians from the West Bank. “In NAZA, we are similarly connecting the dots of a system, gathering the testimonies of two dozen intelligence officers and soldiers and depicting the military systems used to perpetrate what a UN commission and the world’s leading human rights groups have described as a genocide.”

Malta warned of corruption crisis after ‘utter disbelief’ over Daphne Caruana Galizia verdict

Malta is vulnerable to “repeated instances of high-level corruption” unless it strengthens the rule of law and protections for journalists, the Labour peer Shami Chakrabarti said at the opening of an inquiry into judicial failures following the death of Daphne Caruana Galizia. Chakrabarti, a member of the House of Lords and former director of the human rights group Liberty, has been named special rapporteur for a Council of Europe investigation into the fallout from the assassination of the anti-corruption journalist, who died in a car bombing in October 2017. Malta is in turmoil after the acquittal of a wealthy and politically influential businessman, Yorgen Fenech, of any involvement in Caruana Galizia’s murder. Fenech denies paying a middleman €150,000 to have her killed. At the inquiry’s first hearing, on Wednesday, Chakrabarti said the verdict had “staggered many throughout Maltese society and beyond. “It’s now almost nine years since the assassination that struck at the very heart of Maltese public life but a mastermind has not yet been held accountable,” she added. The first witnesses on Wednesday were the journalist’s eldest son, Matthew Caruana Galizia, and her sister Corinne Vella, who questioned the verdict, which dismissed both charges against Fenech by an 8-1 majority. Matthew Caruana Galizia told members of the council’s committee on legal affairs and human rights: “The Maltese public have seen all of the evidence against the accused, and the vast majority were convinced of his complicity in the murder. And this is why there is this atmosphere of utter disbelief at how the jury could have reached such a decision.” Malta’s state prosecutor is understood to be preparing an appeal, with the aim of securing a retrial. The Council of Europe, founded in 1949 after the second world war, created the European convention on human rights. It is led by an assembly drawn from members of the parliaments of its 46 member states. During the hearing, representatives expressed shock and concern about the verdict, calling for the European parliament and the European Commission to intervene. Iulian Bulai, a Romanian centre-right politician, suggested the EU could withhold funds from Malta. The procedure, known as the rule of law conditionality mechanism, was first used in 2022, against Hungary. “If there is such huge problem in matter of rule of law and a function of the Maltese institutions, the EU should apply a similar procedure on increasing pressure for reform,” said Bulai. He said the procedure had “functioned in other cases … So why shouldn’t it function in Malta’s case?” Malta, the EU’s smallest member state, with a population of 600,000, is a net recipient of EU money. Analysis suggests that since joining the block 22 years ago, the island has received €2.4bn more in subsidies than it has paid in. Chakrabarti said she would look at why Malta had failed to implement many of the recommendations from a public inquiry held after the murder. “The targeted assassination of a journalist in the middle of investigating high-level corruption sent a chill down the spine of everyone who cares about democratic values,” she said. “Many claim that the legal and policy changes needed to protect journalists to combat corruption and ensure the independent functioning of justice have not been carried out. “I’m extremely concerned by the apparent absence of reforms in critical areas which make Malta vulnerable to repeated instances of high-level corruption and limit the press freedom which should hold it in check.” The public inquiry found although there had been no evidence that the Maltese state had a direct role in the murder, the state bore responsibility for creating a climate of impunity. It recommended Italian-style anti-mafia laws, and making the hindrance of police investigations and abuse of office a crime for public officials. These measures have yet to be implemented. Chakrabarti compared the Caruana Galizia case to miscarriages of justice in the UK, where officials had been involved in coverups, citing the mismanagement of Grenfell Tower, the Post Office scandal and the Hillsborough football stadium disaster. She said her inquiry, titled Justice delayed: the unfinished implementation of the Daphne Caruana Galizia case, was likely to conclude in a year. Vella said fear that serious crimes could go unpunished had increased since the verdict. “Before the verdict was given, we lived in a country where a journalist was killed, but there was a chance of ending impunity. That disappeared as soon as the verdict was out.” She said journalists who had continued to investigate corruption allegations involving former members of Malta’s government “felt uneasy walking to their own cars following that verdict”.