Iran says it wants 'fair agreement' as nuclear talks with US begin in Oman
Barbara Tasch
Iran and the United States have begun talks in Oman over Tehran's nuclear programme - the highest level meeting between the two nations since 2018.
Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Iranian state television his country wanted a "fair agreement", with his spokesperson saying he did not expect talks to last long.
President Donald Trump pulled the US out of a previous nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers in 2018, and has long said he would make a "better" deal.
IDF unit involved in Gaza paramedics’ killing was under command of brigade led by notorious Israeli general
Golani troops were under command of reservist Armoured 14th Brigade, part of division led by Brig Gen Yehuda Vach
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) unit involved in the killings of 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers in the Gaza Strip last month was under the command of a brigade led by a notorious Israeli general previously accused by some of his own troops of having “contempt for human life”.
The IDF has confirmed that troops from Golani, one of the army’s five infantry brigades, opened fire on two convoys of ambulances in Rafah on 23 March and dug a mass grave to cover the bodies of those killed until the corpses could be retrieved by a UN team six days later. It has disputed allegations from two witnesses who exhumed the bodies and newly released postmortem results that found several of those killed had close-range gunshot wounds to the head and chest and were discovered with their hands or legs tied.
Gabon's junta chief expected to win election as polls open
Gabon is voting on Saturday in a presidential election. Brice Oligui Nguema, who led a 2023 coup, is widely expected to win.
Polls have opened in Gabon in a presidential election widely expected to hand junta chief Brice Oligui Nguema a comfortable win.
Oligui Nguema, who led a coup in August 2023 and declared himself transitional president in September 2023, has been leading in opinion polls.
He is campaigning on an anti-corruption ticket. He has also emphasized the need to break from the dynasty of Omar Bongo Ondimba and his son and successor Ali Bongo, who together ruled Gabon for more than 50 years.
In post-Roe America, women who suffer miscarriages face threat of jail
Since the US Supreme Court overturned the landmark “Roe v. Wade” ruling in 2022, more and more American women have faced prosecution for miscarriages, accused of carrying out illegal abortions. These prosecutions are based on a legal concept known as “fetal personhood”, which means that fetuses, and in some cases even fertilised eggs, now have the same legal rights as a person – making any pregnancy loss potentially criminal.
Selena Maria Chandler-Scott thought she was getting help. Instead, she ended up in a prison cell. At the end of March, 24-year-old Chandler-Scott was found unconscious and covered in blood at an apartment in the southwestern state of Georgia. Alone, and 19 weeks into her pregnancy, she had just miscarried. Emergency responders rushed to her aid, but the story soon took an unexpected turn. After a witness said they had seen Chandler-Scott place “the fetus in a bag and placed that bag in a dumpster outside”, police recovered the remains and Chandler-Scott was charged with concealing the death of another person and abandoning a dead body, meaning she faced a possible jail term of 13 years.
Hong Kong's biggest pro-democracy party moves to disband as freedoms dwindle
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
April 12, 2025 at 17:10 JST
When Yeung Sum co-founded the city's largest pro-democracy party more than 30 years ago, he knew building a democratic Hong Kong would be a “difficult dream." Still, it was not impossible.
Today, his Democratic Party is moving toward dissolution, a symbolic marker of the diminishing Western-style civil liberties and high degree of autonomy that the ruling Communist Party in Beijing promised to keep intact in the former British colony for at least 50 years when it returned to China in 1997.
Israel threatens to ‘expand’ Gaza war after surrounding Rafah
- The Israeli army completely encircles Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, severing it from the rest of the Strip as part of its “security zone”.
- Israel’s attacks on water systems in Gaza, and its blocking of repairs, have led to “absolutely catastrophic” conditions for Palestinians, a UN humanitarian official tells Al Jazeera.
- Gaza’s Health Ministry says at least 50,912 Palestinians are confirmed dead and 115,981 wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza. The Government Media Office updated its death toll to more than 61,700, saying thousands of people missing under the rubble are presumed dead.
- At least 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attacks and more than 200 taken captive.
‘Unbearable’: Gaza conditions dire as food, water supplies expire
The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has warned of a deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza where food and drinking water are increasingly scarce for thousands of families.
“Food and clean water are in short supply in the Gaza Strip due to the blockade and the denial of aid for nearly six weeks,” UNRWA said.
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