Danger

Draft treaty claims sexual and reproductive health and rights are an existential threat to the African familyAn African treaty that rejects longstanding international human rights obligations moved a step closer to becoming policy this week as governments across the continent met in Ghana.The draft African charter on family, sovereignty and values, seen by the Guardian, asserts that African values and culture are under attack from “foreign ideologies” and urges states to withdraw from any agreements that do not align with the principles of the charter, including the 2003 Maputo protocol, which promotes gender equality and protects the reproductive and health rights of women and girls. Continue reading...

• Researchers at the University of Toronto have demonstrated that artificial intelligence can be used to "supercharge" computer worms, allowing them to automatically identify and exploit vulnerabilities. • The AI-driven programs can target any known flaw in global computer systems, significantly increasing the speed and efficiency of cyberattacks. • This development is critical because it lowers the barrier for hackers to create sophisticated, self-propagating malware that can spread rapidly across networks.

Civil rights scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw warns Birmingham City University’s decision part of extremist campaign that has ‘travelled across Atlantic’A leading US civil rights scholar has urged Birmingham City University (BCU) to reverse its decision to close its black studies course, comparing it with the attack on diversity, equity and inclusion in the US.Kimberlé Crenshaw, a professor of law at the University of California, Los Angeles and Columbia University, expressed “profound concern” about plans to withdraw the MA in black studies and global justice, just months after the course was launched. Continue reading...

Home secretary’s condenmation of ‘misinformation and inflammatory commentary’ comes after death threats to policeUK politics live – latest updatesThe home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has warned of a “dangerous undercurrent” in the wake of the murder of Henry Nowak, who was falsely accused of racism by a Sikh man who had fatally stabbed him with a ceremonial dagger.Vickrum Digwa, 23, was sentenced on Monday to life in prison with a minimum term of 21 years for the December 2025 murder of 18-year-old Nowak. Continue reading...

The overwhelming majority of those deported had no criminal convictions, and at least 600 were childrenIn late January, the Trump administration was planning a war in Iran, weighing possible airstrikes and staging aircraft carriers and other military ships in the region. Around that time, government officials deported 18 people to Iran, the last of them arriving just days before American and Israeli bombs began falling across the country.These deportations were the latest in an aggressive campaign to deport Iranians from the United States, the first time in recent history the US government had done so in large numbers. In the 13 months of Donald Trump’s presidency leading up to the war, the United States deported more than 200 people to Iran, even as the state department decried human rights abuses by the Iranian government and warned US citizens not to travel there “for any reason”. Continue reading...

• The Supreme Court upheld the Election Commission’s powers regarding Bihar’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise to identify and remove fake voters from electoral rolls. • While Justice Surya Kant noted that exclusion from voter lists does not formally strip a person of their citizenship, the court left unresolved whether procedural legality can lead to the democratic exclusion of marginalized citizens. • The ruling carries significant stakes as the West Bengal Chief Minister has announced that individuals excluded from the rolls will be denied access to government welfare schemes.

Rising heat in Saudi Arabia threatens millions of Muslim pilgrims – but cutting fossil fuels would keep it saferGlobal heating has “fundamentally altered” the climate of Mecca and is exposing millions of hajj pilgrims to extreme and dangerous heat even in months outside summer, new analysis has found.Carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels means scorching temperatures of 40C (104F) are now regularly experienced in May, the study showed. In past decades, such peaks would only have occurred in summer. The researchers said that hajj, the annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, would take place amid dangerous heat almost all year round by the end of the century without a rapid transition away from fossil fuels. Continue reading...