A yellow-orange haze of dust from the Sahara desert has blanketed parts of Greece, creating spectacular scenes and prompting authorities to issue health warnings.

The Greek meteorological service said weather conditions on Tuesday had favored the movement of dust from Africa and this was showing up in “increased concentrations in the atmosphere,” particularly in the south of the country.

The dust is expected to gradually decrease on Wednesday morning, the service predicted, and from midday onwards it would be “limited to the east.”

Videos and images shared online showed people in Athens observing the yellow-orange fog from the hills near the Greek capital.

Others took evening walks in the city and shared the bright orange scenes on social media. Greek Meteorologist Kostas Lagouvardos posted on Facebook that Athens looked like “a colony of Mars.”

Clouds of dust moving from northern Africa to Greece and other regions is a phenomenon that occurs occasionally, bringing limited visibility and prompting warnings of breathing risks.

The eastern Mediterranean country of Cyprus has also been affected by the dust.

A low-pressure system over northern Africa swept dust over Cyprus several times in mid-April, “darkening skies and reducing air quality,” NASA said Tuesday.

An image from NASA’s Terra satellite showed “a shroud of tan” over Cyprus on April 22. Dust was expected to continue to cross the Mediterranean, impacting both Cyprus and Greece over the next several days, NASA said.

‘Freak’ weather hits Finland

As parts of Greece turned orange, Finland has been dealing with an unusually white April week. Heavier-than-usual snow in the north of the continent brought public transport to a standstill across soutern Finland, public broadcaster YLE reported.

“Freak April weather” brought more than 20 centimeters (7.9 inches) of snow to some areas, stranding trams and delaying bus and metro services in the Finnish capital and causing flight cancellations and delays at Helsinki Airport, YLE reported Tuesday.

Meanwhile, police in the southwest of the country reported around a dozen road traffic accidents — although no serious injuries — and maintenance workers struggled to clear the snow from power lines.

While snowfall is not uncommon in Finland’s winter months, a press officer for Helsinki’s public transport operator HSL, Johannes Laitila, told YLE such weather was “unusual” for late April and urged travelers to allow more time for journeys.

Photos showed Helsinki residents walking through thick snow and ice, carrying umbrellas under heavy snowfall, and tall clusters of snow piled up on sidewalks, cars and scooters.

Finland’s airport operator Finavia said that overnight freezing rain “which turns to ice almost immediately when it hits the ground” had fallen at Helsinki Airport.

“As a result, runway de-icing and aircraft wing de-icing must be done much more than usual for the time of year,” Finavia added.

African leaders discussed anti-terrorism solutions on the continent during a high-level security summit in the Nigerian capital Abuja Monday amid a rise in terror attacks.

According to the African Center for the Study and Research on Terrorism (ACSRT), Africa witnessed an average of eight terror-related incidents and 44 daily casualties in 2023. The toll included 7,000 civilians and 4,000 military personnel killed in attacks.

Nigeria’s National Security Adviser and organizer of the summit, Nuhu Ribadu, emphasized the urgent need to combat terrorism in Africa. He highlighted the diverse threats posed by terrorist groups and stressed the importance of integrated security strategies.

“These groups exploit local vulnerabilities and contribute to ongoing instability, necessitating integrated security strategies that combine military, economic and regional cooperation efforts,” Ribadu said.

For 15 years, Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation has battled a spate of violent attacks from insurgent groups that have entrenched their strongholds across swathes of Africa’s troubled Sahel region, leaving thousands dead.

Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the chair of the West African regional bloc ECOWAS, urged the proper establishment and strengthening of a regional standby military force. This force, initially proposed in response to the July 2023 coup in Niger, would act as a deterrent against large-scale terrorist operations, he said.

However, political instability in the Sahel region has hindered regional unity. Leaders from Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, severely impacted by insurgency, were absent from the summit after facing sanctions for coups.

During the summit, Togolese President Faure Gnassingbe underscored the critical need for cooperation among states and defense and security forces to effectively address security threats.

Supporting Africa’s fight

The two-day counter-terrorism summit, supported by the United Nations, was also attended by the chairperson of the African Union Commission Moussa Faki Mahamat.

“The moment has come to work out an all-encompassing Continental Strategic Plan of Action to effectively fight against terrorism across Africa,” Faki said.

Tinubu and Faki also urged the international community to do more in supporting Africa’s fight against terrorism.

“We cannot understand that elsewhere in the world, coalitions to fight against terrorism were established and that similar efforts are not made in, at least, one of the five regions in Africa, where the destructive phenomenon is ravaging human lives, infrastructures and institutions. Why our voices are not heard and heeded?” Faki asked.

Soldiers on the front lines in Ukraine say the prospect of final approval in the US Congress of a $60 billion military aid package for Kyiv will serve as a giant morale boost as Russia looks to step up its advance.

The Ukraine aid bill, passed in the United States’ House of Representatives on Saturday, is now due to go to the Senate on Tuesday. If passed in Congress’s upper chamber then President Joe Biden has said he will sign it into law immediately, so that “we can quickly send weapons and equipment to Ukraine to meet their urgent battlefield needs.”

Ukraine’s wish list is no secret. At the top: artillery shells and air defense systems.

For months, Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines have spoken of being badly outgunned by Russian forces. President Volodymyr Zelensky recently said the ratio was 10 to one in Russia’s favor.

Teren knows what he’s talking about, having spent two years defending the industrial town of Avdiivka before it fell to Russia in February. Since then, Moscow’s forces have enjoyed considerable success pushing further west.

To highlight just one of several locations in the Donetsk region: The Ukrainian monitoring group, DeepState, has tracked a series of Russian advances in the last week along a railway line into the center of a large village called Ocheretyne.

Now, with new US military aid apparently just days away from receiving the green light, the question is how quickly vital munitions like 155mm Howitzer shells can get to the front line to stop Russia’s advance.

Pentagon spokesperson Patrick Ryder, speaking last week ahead of the House vote, said the US Department of Defense was “poised to respond quickly,” once any order was given.

“As you know, we have a very robust logistics network that enables us to move materiel very quickly. As we’ve done in the past, we can move within days,” he said.

That message was echoed by Mark Warner, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who told CBS News on Sunday he hoped the materiel would be “in transit by the end of the week.”

While American officials will not say so openly, a US source familiar with the provision of military aid to Ukraine said much of it is already pre-positioned in storage facilities in Germany and Poland, which would obviously cut down on the amount of time needed to get it into Ukraine. The source also said artillery shells would be among the first materials moved forward.

Once across the border, officials in Kyiv will look to get it where it is needed as quickly as they can – but doing so will still present a considerable logistical challenge given the sheer quantity of materiel involved.

In other words, the cited ratio advantage of 10 to one that Russia currently enjoys will not be wiped out immediately.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) warns Ukraine will “likely continue to face ongoing shortages of artillery ammunition and air defense interceptors in the coming weeks and the corresponding constraints that these shortages are placing on Ukraine’s ability to conduct effective defensive operations.”

The ISW speculates that Russia might look to attack transportation networks like railways to complicate distribution – something it targeted on Friday in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region – and seek to up the tempo along the front lines in the limited window before US aid arrives.

One place that could be a focus of any stepped-up, immediate-term, Russian offensive could be the town of Chasiv Yar, an important forward military location for Ukraine since the Russian capture of Bakhmut – about 10 kilometres (6 miles) to the east – almost a year ago.

Multiple reports from Ukrainian soldiers describe heavy fighting in a string of villages between Chasiv Yar and Bakhmut as Russian forces try to advance. Ukraine’s army chief has said he believes the Kremlin has ordered the town’s capture by May 9, the day Russia celebrates its victory over Nazi Germany in 1945.

Chasiv Yar is also being pounded from the air by huge “guided” bombs dropped from Russian warplanes. Analyst Rob Lee has posted a series of videos on his X account in recent days showing Russian Su-25 planes flying unimpeded in the skies above the town, something he calls “a clear sign of a lack of Ukrainian air defense ammunition.”

Ukraine will be looking for the US to provide a range of surface-to-air missile systems to counter that threat, in addition to more interceptors for the Patriot air defense system, the primary means of defeating missile attacks on cities and key infrastructure, like power plants.

“We need front-line air defense as much as we need protection for our cities and villages,” Zelensky said.

Finally, in addition to its immediate weapons needs, Ukraine also looks likely to receive longer-range Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) in the initial tranche of weapons deliveries, after Warner, the Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, indicated he believed they would be part of a first shipment.

The US has already provided Ukraine with shorter-range versions of the ATACMS, but Ukrainian officials have made no secret of their desire to get their hands on the newer version. With a range of about 300 kilometers (186 miles), the missiles would give Kyiv the ability to increase attacks on Russian airfields, fuel depots and weapons storage sites, having a more long-term impact on Russia’s war effort.

And if Ukraine’s European allies believe they might now have a bit of breathing room before they are pressed again for more assistance, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba made it clear he sees the US move as providing momentum across the board.

“We can prevent the worst-case scenarios if we act together and without fear,” he told an online meeting of EU foreign and defense ministers on Monday, appealing to those countries with Patriot and the European-made SAMP/T air defense systems to donate them to Ukraine, along with artillery and ammunition.

“Now that you are all here at the table, it’s time to act, not to debate,” Kuleba said.

Britain’s Prince and Princess of Wales have released a new photo of Prince Louis to mark his sixth birthday on Tuesday, the first image to be released by the family since a photo-editing scandal erupted last month.

In the photo, Louis – who is fourth in line to the British throne – can be seen grinning at the camera lying on a blanket.

A royal source said the Waleses were grateful for the birthday messages they have received for Louis and the photo was taken by Kate, 42, in the last few days in Windsor.

“This is in an unprecedented time for the Wales family as the princess continues her recovery,” the source said.

It has been a challenging period for the family as Kate announced she was in the early stages of chemotherapy for cancer last month.

“The family were cognisant of the fact that they have asked for privacy during the princess’ recovery, however, on balance, they wanted to share the image on their social media channels as a way to thank those who have sent birthday wishes,” the source continued.

The source said the photo is unedited. An edited photograph of Catherine and her family last month raised concerns over transparency and honesty.

It has become something of a tradition for William and Catherine to mark their children’s birthdays by sharing new images each year. Many of the past portraits have been taken by Kate, who is a keen photographer herself.

However, a handful of instances have also seen renowned professional photographers, including Mario Testino, Chris Jackson and Millie Pilkington, capture some of the contemporaneous portraits.

The Waleses have released a celebratory photo of Louis each year to mark his birthday. He was last seen in public during the family’s traditional Christmas Day walk to church alongside his mom on the Sandringham estate.

The latest official photograph of the youngest member of the Wales family is likely to be heavily scrutinized as it is the first since a Mother’s Day photo triggered a scandal last month.

Kensington Palace had released an official family photo, said to have been taken by Prince William, which was later found to have been tampered with. The image should have put a stop to the rabid speculation over the princess’s whereabouts having retreated from the public eye after a January abdominal surgery.

However, only a few hours after its release, several international news outlets pulled the photograph from circulation citing concerns of manipulation at the source.

As eagle-eyed royal-watchers continued to pore over potential discrepancies, Kate – as she is known by many – took responsibility for the chaos that ensued.

She said that she dabbled with editing “like many amateur photographers” and “wanted to express my apologies for the confusion,” in a short statement posted to X, formerly Twitter.

A second round of controversy was sparked weeks later when another official photograph was identified as being digitally manipulated.

The princess revealed an unspecified cancer was identified in post-operative tests on March 22. Kate said it had “been an incredibly tough couple of months” in a deeply personal video message during which she asked the public for privacy.

The family subsequently kept a low profile over the Easter school holidays, but William resumed official duties last week.

While visiting a surplus food redistribution center, the prince promised to “take care” of Kate in response to receiving get well cards for his wife and father. King Charles III has also taken a step back from public-facing duties after revealing his own cancer diagnosis earlier this year.

German authorities have arrested an aide to a high-ranking, far-right member of the European Parliament on suspicion of spying for China, the latest in a number of arrests in Europe linked to alleged Chinese espionage.

German national Jian G, who worked for AfD MEP Maximilian Krah, was arrested by Saxony State criminal police in Dresden and had his residences searched, the prosecutor’s office said early Tuesday. German authorities routinely identify suspects by their first name and first initial of their family name.

His arrest comes days after two men and a woman were arrested elsewhere in Germany for allegedly spying for China, and after two men in the UK were charged for allegedly breaching Britain’s Officials Secrets Act.

“Jian G. is an employee of a Chinese secret service. He has been working for a German Member of the European Parliament since 2019,” the prosecutor’s office statement said.

“In January 2024, the accused repeatedly passed on information about negotiations and decisions in the European Parliament to his intelligence service client. He also spied on Chinese opposition members in Germany for the intelligence service,” it added.

German media quickly identified Krah as the lawmaker who employed the suspect. The 47-year-old sits on the chamber’s Committee on International Trade, as well as its subcommittees on human rights and on Security and Defence. He is also part of the parliament’s delegation for relations with the United States.

The far-right AfD party has nine seats in the European Parliament, and is competing alongside Germany’s traditional parties in the European elections in June. Krah is the party’s top candidate in those elections.

Germany’s interior minister Nancy Faeser said on Tuesday that if the allegations against Jian G are true, it would represent an “attack from within on European democracy.”

She also criticized the AfD lawmaker for the saga, alleging that “whoever employs such a person is responsible.”

On Monday, three German nationals were arrested on suspicion of violating the Foreign Trade and Payments Act on behalf of China. The Federal Prosecutor’s Office said the homes and workplace of the trio were searched in Düsseldorf and Bad Homburg.

It alleged that Thomas R acted as an agent for a Chinese Ministry of State Security employee, gathering information on German military technologies. He used the two other suspects – Herwig F and Ina F, who operate a Düsseldorf-based company – to establish connections within the German scientific community, the office said.

The pair are accused of buying and exporting a specialized laser to China without authorization, and in violation of European Union regulations. The three will be presented to the investigating judge on Monday and Tuesday, where their pre-trial detention will be decided.

China reacted angrily to the spate of arrests in Germany on Tuesday, calling it “hype” intended to “discredit and suppress China.”

Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Wang Wenbin added on Tuesday that the reports intend to “destroy the atmosphere of cooperation between China and Europe.”

Separately in the UK, the Crown Prosecution Service announced charges against two men who allegedly breached the Officials Secrets Act on behalf of China.

A mass grave with more than 300 bodies has been uncovered at a hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, Gaza Civil Defense workers said, following the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the area earlier this month.

Suleiman alleged that some of the bodies had been found with hands and feet tied, “and there were signs of field executions. We do not know if they were buried alive or executed. Most of the bodies are decomposed.”

The bodies were then placed in at least one collective grave, the stringer said.

“I haven’t found him yet. We had buried him over there. But we can’t find him. And we wanted to make him a decent grave.”

Another man, who said his brother Alaa was also killed in January, said: “I am here today looking for him. I have been coming here to the hospital for the last two weeks and trying to find him. Hopefully, I will be able to find him.”

Pointing to a fallen palm tree, the man said his brother had been temporarily buried in that spot.

“I had buried him there on the side, but I can’t find him. The Israelis have dug up the dead bodies, and switched them. They took DNA tests and misplaced all the dead bodies.”

The man’s mother said they had been searching for two weeks and had been unable to find his body.

She said the Israelis “have dug out the dead bodies out and they switched them. She and her uncle’s wife were buried at the same hour.”

The mother added: “We have found the body of her uncle’s wife. But the rest we can’t find them.”

“We have information that there are 400 missing people, and we are continuing to search for the rest of the bodies.”

The IDF has said it has removed dozens of bodies from Gaza for DNA tests in Israel, before returning the remains in containers.

Teenage Indian chess prodigy Gukesh Dommaraju, better known as Gukesh D, became the youngest player to claim the men’s Candidates Tournament in Toronto, Canada Sunday.

The 17-year-old grandmaster’s win sets up an opportunity to dethrone reigning world champion Ding Liren of China at the 2024 World Chess Championship later this year.

Should Gukesh beat Ding, who has struggled with poor form recently, he will break Garry Kasparov’s long-held record of being the youngest world champion aged 22.

Gukesh, ranked 16th in the world by the International Chess Federation (FIDE), sealed his title after a comfortable draw with world number 3 Hikaru Nakamura, a five-time US chess champion who is more than twice his age.

Gukesh is set to become the youngest player ever to challenge for a world chess title.

“I was completely emotional but after the game I’m feeling quite good,” Gukesh said in a press conference after finishing atop the round robin tournament.

“I don’t really care about [being] the youngest and all these records, but it’s a nice thing to say.”

Gukesh was swarmed by Indian fans outside his hotel as the South Asian nation celebrates yet another young chess talent.

“I’m very excited to play in the world championship and really looking forward to all the preparations,” he said, adding that his journey is “only halfway through.”

The previous youngest winner of a Candidates tournament was Russian prodigy Kasparov, then 20, in 1984.

Kasparov, who went on to win multiple world championships, praised Gukesh and the conveyor belt of chess talent coming from both Asia and Asian diaspora communities in countries like the United Stated and Britain.

“The Indian earthquake in Toronto is the culmination of the shifting tectonic plates in the chess world,” Kasparov wrote on social media platform X.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also praised Gukesh’s “remarkable achievement” and “extraordinary talent and dedication” on social media.

Gukesh will face 31-year-old Chinese star Ding, who was crowed world champion in 2023. The title was previously held by five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen, who had decided not to defend his title at the time.

Ding became the first Chinese men’s player in history to become world champion. But the now-world number 5 immediately took a nine-month break from competitions and has struggled with form upon returning.

The date and location of the 2024 World Chess Championship between Ding and Gukesh has yet to be revealed.

China’s Tan Zhongyi won the women’s Challenger category to qualify for a world title match against compatriot and reigning world champion Ju Wenjun – date also unknown.

India, meanwhile, is not short of young chess talent.

Joining Gukesh in the men’s Candidates tournament was Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa (R Praggnanandhaa), 18, who famously stunned the chess world by beating  Carlsen in 2022.

“Pragg”, as he is known to fans, became the youngest international chess master at the age of 10 and the second-youngest grandmaster in the world at 12. Last year, he and his sister, 22-year-old Rameshbabu Vaishali (R Vaishali), became the first-ever brother and sister duo to obtain grandmaster titles.

Gukesh is the second Indian to play in a world championship after legendary Indian player Viswanathan “Vishy” Anand.

Gukesh overtook Anand, a five-time world champion and the country’s top player for nearly 40 years, to become India’s top-ranked player last September.

“I’m personally very proud of how (Gukesh) played and handled tough situations. Enjoy the moment,” Anand wrote in a post on X.

For the first time in five months, NASA engineers have received decipherable data from Voyager 1 after crafting a creative solution to fix a communication problem aboard humanity’s most distant spacecraft in the cosmos.

Voyager 1 is currently about 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away, and at 46 years old, the probe has shown multiple quirks and signs of aging in recent years.

The latest issue experienced by Voyager 1 first cropped up in November 2023, when the flight data system’s telemetry modulation unit began sending an indecipherable repeating pattern of code.

Voyager 1’s flight data system collects information from the spacecraft’s science instruments and bundles it with engineering data that reflects its current health status. Mission control on Earth receives that data in binary code, or a series of ones and zeroes.

But since November, Voyager 1’s flight data system had been stuck in a loop. While the probe has continued to relay a steady radio signal to its mission control team on Earth over the past few months, the signal did not carry any usable data.

The mission team received the first coherent data about the health and status of Voyager 1’s engineering systems on April 20. While the team is still reviewing the information, everything they’ve seen so far suggests Voyager 1 is healthy and operating properly.

“Today was a great day for Voyager 1,” said Linda Spilker, Voyager project scientist at JPL, in a statement Saturday. “We’re back in communication with the spacecraft. And we look forward to getting science data back.”

The breakthrough came as the result of a clever bit of trial and error and the unraveling of a mystery that led the team to a single chip.

Troubleshooting from billions of miles away

After discovering the issue, the mission team attempted sending commands to restart the spacecraft’s computer system and learn more about the underlying cause of the problem.

The team sent a command called a “poke” to Voyager 1 on March 1 to get the flight data system to run different software sequences in the hopes of finding out what was causing the glitch.

On March 3, the team noticed that activity from one part of the flight data system stood out from the rest of the garbled data. While the signal wasn’t in the format the Voyager team is used to seeing when the flight data system is functioning as expected, an engineer with NASA’s Deep Space Network was able to decode it.

The Deep Space Network is a system of radio antennae on Earth that help the agency communicate with the Voyager probes and other spacecraft exploring our solar system.

The decoded signal included a readout of the entire flight data system’s memory.

By investigating the readout, the team determined the cause of the issue: 3% of the flight data system’s memory is corrupted. A single chip responsible for storing part of the system’s memory, including some of the computer’s software code, isn’t working properly. While the cause of the chip’s failure is unknown, it could be worn out or may have been hit by an energetic particle from space, the team said.

The loss of the code on the chip caused Voyager 1’s science and engineering data to be unusable.

Since there was no way to repair the chip, the team opted to store the affected code from the chip elsewhere in the system’s memory. While they couldn’t pinpoint a location large enough to hold all of the code, they were able to divide the code into sections and store it in different spots within the flight data system.

“To make this plan work, they also needed to adjust those code sections to ensure, for example, that they all still function as a whole,” according to an update from NASA. “Any references to the location of that code in other parts of the (flight data system) memory needed to be updated as well.”

After determining the code necessary for packaging Voyager 1’s engineering data, engineers sent a radio signal to the probe commanding the code to a new location in the system’s memory on April 18.

Given Voyager 1’s immense distance from Earth, it takes a radio signal about 22.5 hours to reach the probe, and another 22.5 hours for a response signal from the spacecraft to reach Earth.

On April 20, the team received Voyager 1’s response indicating that the clever code modification had worked, and they could finally receive readable engineering data from the probe once more.

Exploring interstellar space

Within the coming weeks, the team will continue to relocate other affected parts of the system’s software, including those responsible for returning the valuable science data Voyager 1 is collecting.

Initially designed to last five years, the Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, launched in 1977 and are the longest operating spacecraft in history. Their exceptionally long life spans mean that both spacecraft have provided additional insights about our solar system and beyond after achieving their preliminary goals of flying by Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune decades ago.

The probes are currently venturing through uncharted cosmic territory along the outer reaches of the solar system. Both are in interstellar space and are the only spacecraft ever to operate beyond the heliosphere, the sun’s bubble of magnetic fields and particles that extends well beyond the orbit of Pluto.

Voyager 2, which is operating normally, has traveled more than 12.6 billion miles (20.3 billion kilometers) from our planet.

Over time, both spacecraft have encountered unexpected issues and dropouts, including a seven-month period in 2020 when Voyager 2 couldn’t communicate with Earth. In August 2023, the mission team used a long-shot “shout” technique to restore communications with Voyager 2 after a command inadvertently oriented the spacecraft’s antenna in the wrong direction.

The team estimates it’s a few weeks away from receiving science data from Voyager 1 and looks forward to seeing what that data contains.

“We never know for sure what’s going to happen with the Voyagers, but it constantly amazes me when they just keep going,” said Voyager Project Manager Suzanne Dodd, in a statement. “We’ve had many anomalies, and they are getting harder. But we’ve been fortunate so far to recover from them. And the mission keeps going. And younger engineers are coming onto the Voyager team and contributing their knowledge to keep the mission going.”

The UK parliament has finally passed a contentious bill that will allow the government to send asylum seekers to Rwanda for their claims to be considered by the East African nation.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s efforts had been stuck between opposition in the Houses of Parliament and challenges in the British courts, as lawmakers and activists have sought to scupper the legislation on human rights grounds.

Sunak’s inability to implement the policy has caused considerable embarrassment, as the British government has sent millions of pounds to Rwanda to fund a scheme which to date has failed to deliver any results.

It is designed to deter irregular migration into the United Kingdom, particularly people traveling on illegal – and dangerous – small boats from France, arranged by criminal gangs.

In theory, the legislation will see some landing in the UK sent to Rwanda where their asylum claim will be considered. If their claim is accepted, they will stay in Rwanda. If it is declined, the bill says they cannot be deported by Rwanda to anywhere other than the UK, though it is unclear what would ultimately happen in this scenario.

Two years after the scheme was first conceived, the absence of any deportations so far has been considered a major failure for Sunak, who has previously marked out stopping small boats as a key priority.

The Supreme Court of the UK ruled last year that the policy is unlawful “because there are substantial grounds for believing that asylum seekers would face a real risk of ill-treatment by reason of refoulement to their country of origin if they were removed to Rwanda.”

Refoulement is the practice where asylum seekers or refugees are forcibly returned to a place where they would face persecution or danger, against important principles of international human rights law.

The judges also found that Rwanda’s asylum system, its poor human rights record, and its previous failure to comply with non-refoulement agreements meant that the British government could not be sure asylum seekers would have their claims considered safely and properly.

They also noted that, as recently as 2021, the UK government criticized Rwanda for “extrajudicial killings, deaths in custody, enforced disappearances and torture.”

The government responded by introducing the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill in January of this year, which effectively enshrines in UK law that Rwanda is a safe country, overriding the judges’ concerns.

Home Secretary James Cleverly said in a video posted on X on Monday that “the Safety of Rwanda Bill has passed in Parliament and it will become law within days.”

He added that the act would “prevent people from abusing the law by using false human rights claims to block removals. And it makes clear that the UK Parliament is sovereign, giving the government the power to reject interim blocking measures imposed by European courts,” he added.

Even with the bill passed, it is possible that the government will face legal challenges in the European Court of Human Rights, as the UK is still a signatory to the European Convention of Human Rights. The European court has previously barred it from sending asylum seekers to Rwanda. 

The bill has suffered long delays because of attempts to amend it. A process colloquially known as “ping pong,” where the two parts of the UK’s parliament – the House of Commons and the House of Lords – send legislation back and forth, has been going on for months. Every time the House of Lords makes amendments to the bill, the House of Commons, where Sunak has a majority, must vote to remove them.

The bill’s passage is not necessarily a major political win for Sunak. Even if the policy stopped all the small boat crossings Sunak says he wants to prevent, it would still barely touch the sides in terms of the UK’s net migration figures. In 2022, the number of people arriving by small boats was 45,744, according to Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford. Net migration the same year, according to government figures, was 745,000.

This is a problem for Sunak and his governing Conservative Party, as they are set to face the public in a general election that must be called before the end of this year. Parties on the right – most notably Reform UK, the new political home of arch-Brexiteer Nigel Farage – will push the issue of illegal migration as hard as possible.

There is also a danger that Sunak gets dragged into a wider debate around the UK leaving the ECHR, should deportations be blocked by the European court after the bill passes. This issue has already caused deep divisions between different sections of the Conservative Party.

To date, the Rwanda policy has cost the British government £220m ($274m), and that figure could rise to £600m after the first 300 people have been sent to East Africa. That leaves Sunak open to criticism from both the left and the right, who can say not only that the policy violates international human rights law, but that it is expensive and ineffective.

The opposition Labour Party, currently expected to win at the next general election, has already said that it will scrap the policy should it come to power.

Early results from Ecuador’s referendum suggest President Daniel Noboa has won public backing for security measures aimed at boosting his war on crime.

His government looks on track to win support for nine of the 11 proposals it put forward in Sunday’s vote, including for four of its key security measures, according to data from the National Electoral Council (CNE).

And the good news for Noboa was compounded Monday when police announced they had arrested a notorious alleged gang leader.

Early results from the referendum suggest 72% of the public approve of allowing the military to patrol with police to combat organized crime (something that can presently only happen under a state of emergency) and 65% back allowing the extradition of Ecuadorians under certain conditions (among them, guarantees of humane treatment and no use of the death penalty).

Both those proposals would require modifying Ecuador’s Constitution, which currently forbids the extradition of Ecuadorians under any circumstances. If the final results of the vote continue to show public backing for these measures, they will go into effect as soon as they are published in the official registry. It is unclear exactly when this would happen.

Two other security-related proposals – harsher prison sentences for some violent crimes and the establishment of a permanent armed forces presence in prisons to prevent weapons smuggling – also look on track to receive wide approval margins. These two proposals would not require changing the Constitution and will need the agreement of the National Assembly before they can go into effect.

The two measures that look likely to be rejected by the public are to allow workers to be contracted by the hour and to recognize international arbitrage to resolve investment disputes.

The early results will be seen as a win for Noboa, who swept into office last November as the youngest president in Ecuador’s history on the back of a promise to rein in the rampant crime that has transformed the once tranquil country into one plagued by drug cartel violence.

Since he came to office he has embarked on an uncompromising agenda in which he has declared “war” on more than 20 criminal gangs he has labeled as “terrorists,” declared a 90-day state of emergency, and authorized a highly controversial raid on the Mexican embassy in Quito to capture a fugitive Ecuadorian former vice president accused of corruption.

It was Ecuadorians’ growing discontent with the deteriorating security conditions that led Noboa’s predecessor Guillermo Lasso to call a snap election last year.

On Sunday, as an estimated 13 million Ecuadorians headed to the polls for the referendum, the country’s national prisons agency announced the director of the Manabi region prison had been killed in an attack.

Gang leader arrested

In another boost for Noboa, police said in a post on X that they had arrested notorious alleged gang leader Fabricio Colon Pico on Monday morning.

The arrest comes after several months of operations and investigative work by specialized units of the national police.

Colon Pico, the alleged leader of the Los Lobos gang, escaped from a prison in the central city of Riobamba in January, the city’s mayor said at the time.

Days earlier he had been captured after being publicly identified by Attorney General Diana Salazar as being part of a plan to attack her.

Colon Pico’s jailbreak came as another notorious gang leader – José Adolfo Macías, also known as “Fito,” of the rival gang Los Choneros – also escaped from prison, prompting a deployment of more than 3,000 members of the police and military to find him.