​ More than 200 Iranian sailors stranded after US torpedo attack return home. 33 minutes ago. Gabriela Boccaccio. More than 200 Iranian sailors left stranded in Sri Lanka after a US torpedo attack are returning home after being stuck in the country for more than a month.. On Wednesday, Sri Lanka’s Deputy Defence Minister, Aruna ⁠Jayasekara, confirmed 32 sailors rescued from the Iris Dena and 206 from Irins Bushehr, had left the country.. The Iranian warship, Iris Dena, sank on 4 March about 40km (25 miles) from Sri Lanka’s southern coastline after it was hit by a torpedo from a US submarine, killing 104 sailors.. On March 5, Sri Lanka took control of the Iranian naval vessel, Irins Bushehr, after it had requested to dock at one of country’s ports after one of its engines malfunctioned.. Speaking to Reuters, ⁠Jayasekara confirmed the crew of both ships were flown out on Tuesday night.. The stranded sailors were granted 30-day entry visas by the Sri Lankan government and were housed in navy and air force camps.. The Iris Dena had been returning from a military exercise hosted by India when it was attacked.. Video released by the US Department of Defense after the incident showed a ship being struck, causing the stern to rise up before exploding.. The bodies of 84 Iranian sailors killed in the attack were recovered and later repatriated in a chartered plane arranged by Iran.. Its sinking in international waters came just a few days into the current US-Israeli war with Iran and marked a dramatic widening of the conflict.. Iran has since launched retaliatory strikes across the Middle East – targeting Gulf countries allied with the US.. About 15 Iranian sailors will remain in Sri Lanka to operate the Irins Bushehr, which is anchored off Trincomalee in the northeast of the island.. Sri Lanka had allowed the Iranian vessel to dock at a north-eastern port on 5 March after hours of discussion, with its president saying they would “never hesitate to protect humanity”.. “Our position has been to safeguard our neutrality while demonstrating our humanitarian values,” President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said in a statement at the time.. “[Sri Lanka] intervened in a way that demonstrated our commitment to international conventions, protecting the reputation and dignity of our country, and protecting human lives,” he said.. Sri Lanka has maintained a long-standing policy of non-alignment since it became independent in 1948.. It has strong economic and diplomatic ties with both Iran and the US.. Iran war lands ‘triple blow’ to flood-ravaged Sri Lankans. ‘There’s no hiding place on a ship’: The sailors stranded near Iran. Trump says talks could resume this week as Vance says US wants ‘grand bargain’ with Iran. Middle East. Iran. Iran war. Sri Lanka  

​ South Africa names apartheid-era politician as new ambassador to the US. 1 hour ago. Khanyisile NgcoboJohannesburg. Gallo via Getty Images. South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa has appointed Roelf Meyer, who served in the last government of the apartheid era, as his new ambassador to the US, his office has said.. The country has not had a top envoy in the US since Ebrahim Rasool was expelled last year after he accused President Donald Trump of trying to “project white victimhood as a dog whistle”.. This worsened already strained relations between the nations, which took a downward spiral after Trump’s return to office last year.. Ramaphosa’s spokesperson Vincent Magwenya confirmed Meyer’s appointment to the BBC, saying it would be “immediate”.. “I can confirm that President Cyril Ramaphosa has appointed Meyer as South Africa’s ambassador to the US,” he said.. Meyer, 78, played a key role as one of the chief mediators, alongside Ramaphosa, during the talks to end the racist system of white-minority rule known as apartheid in South Africa in the 1990s.. He was the chief representative of the National Party (NP), which introduced apartheid, while Ramaphosa represented the African National Congress led by Nelson Mandela.. Meyer was constitutional affairs minister in the last NP government and went on to join the government of national unity formed in 1994 when Mandela became president.. More BBC stories on South Africa:. The expelled envoy at the heart of the latest US-South Africa row. Ramaphosa keeps cool during Trump’s choreographed onslaught. Ramaphosa struggles to mend fences with Trump. Getty Images/BBC. Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent.. Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica. BBC Africa podcasts. Africa Daily. Focus on Africa. Cyril Ramaphosa. South Africa. Africa. United States  

​ Three years of messages arrive all at once—a chronicle of Sudan’s war as a trapped reporter’s phone finally comes back to life. By Barbara Plett Usher, Africa correspondent, and Mohamed Zakaria. Mohamed Suleiman’s account anchors the scene. Soon after he entered the telecoms office in the coastal city of Port Sudan on 13 January, he began to cry. He hadn’t heard his phone ring for most of Sudan’s civil war, which began exactly three years earlier after a power struggle between the army and its then-ally, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group. The journalist and academic had made it to Port Sudan after being trapped in the western city of El-Fasher, largely cut off from the world by a communications blackout and unable to convey fully the horrors he was witnessing. “I was flustered because people were talking on their phones inside the office,” he tells the BBC. “Throughout the past three years, my phone was silent. After I inserted the SIM card, my tears flowed.”

When his phone finally sprang to life, it was pinging with three years’ worth of messages, an inventory of loss: news of colleagues who had died, friends asking whether he was still alive. “A few days ago, a person called me saying he thought I had died,” he says. “Some people had told him that I was in Port Sudan, so he called me, but he didn’t believe (it was me) until I called him back by video, then he broke down in tears.” In some ways the silence was almost as deadly as the violence, Suleiman says. He describes it as “a suffocating feeling because I was watching systematic killings through drone strikes and bombs or deadly killings through the tight siege” imposed on El-Fasher by the RSF for 18 months. And when the RSF finally took over the city in October last year, “It was like the Day of Judgment on Earth,” he says. “We witnessed the Day of Judgment on Earth.” The fall of El-Fasher was one of the most brutal chapters of the civil war, which began in the capital Khartoum on 15 April 2023. It soon spread to other parts of the country and has been particularly vicious in the western region of Darfur, the RSF stronghold, where El-Fasher is located. As the conflict enters its fourth year, the fighting has led to a de facto partition between territory held by the army and the paramilitaries. Millions of Sudanese citizens are scattered, some outside the country, forced from their homes in the midst of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Diplomatic efforts to end the war led by the US have failed, with both sides given support by regional powers that enables them to keep fighting. Mohamed Suleiman’s account is a story about the worst of the war, and the way it can strip the innocent of food, shelter, life and even identity. Civilians in El-Fasher were caught up in the fighting between the RSF and local armed groups which helped the army defend the city. And as the paramilitaries tightened their siege, a UN-backed food monitor declared famine conditions.  

​ Kanye West postpones France gig until further notice. 33 minutes ago. Gabriela Boccaccio. Reuters. American rapper Kanye West has announced the postponement of an upcoming concert in Marseille, France “until further notice”.. It comes a week after this summer’s Wireless Festival – which West had been scheduled to headline – was cancelled following the UK government’s decision to block him from entering the country.. French media reports that Interior Minister Laurent Nunez was looking to ban the 11 June gig. An unnamed source, said to be close to Nunez, was citing as telling AFP news agency that the minister was “highly determined” to ban the event.. For the last several years, West has caused outrage for a string of antisemitic, racist and pro-Nazi comments.. “After much thought and consideration, it is my sole decision to postpone my show in Marseille, France until further notice,” West, now known as Ye, said in the early hours of Wednesday in a post on X.. In a follow-up statement, the rapper said: “I know it takes time to understand the sincerity of my commitment to make amends.. “I take full responsibility for what’s mine but I don’t want to put my fans in the middle of it. “My fans are everything to me. Looking forward to the next shows”.. West was due to play Wireless in London and the Marseille concert as part of a European tour scheduled for this summer.. As of Wednesday, West’s official website still had him listed to perform in several other European countries throughout May, June and July, including Turkey, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and Portugal.. West, 48, was also scheduled to play in New Delhi, India in late May.. It was reported last week that Bart van den Brink, the Dutch asylum and migration minister, had said there were no plans there to bar the rapper.. In France, AFP reported that Nunez was exploring “all possibilities” to prohibit West from performing – but did not provide further details.. On the day Wireless was cancelled, the Home Office told the BBC the rapper had made an application on Monday to travel to the UK via an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA).. Visitors to the UK need an ETA if they do not need a visa for short stays of up to six months, or do not already have a UK immigration status.. The government said the decision to refuse permission was made on the grounds that West’s presence would not be conducive to the public good.. In 2022, he posted on social media saying he would go “death con 3 On Jewish people”.. Later the same year, he appeared on a podcast hosted by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and said: “I see good things about Hitler.”. In May 2025, West released a song called Heil Hitler and sold T-shirts featuring swastikas.. The rapper has been seeking a return to mainstream public view after apologising for his actions in a lengthy statement published in the Wall Street Journal in January.. “I am not a Nazi or an antisemite,” he wrote. “I love Jewish people.” He added that as a result of his bi  

​ Magyar meets Hungarian president as Trump says next PM ‘a good man’. 27 minutes ago. Paul KirbyEurope digital editor in Budapest. M1 TV/BBC. The man who ended Viktor Orbán’s 16 years in office, Péter Magyar, is meeting Hungary’s president, seeking a speedy transfer of power after Sunday’s landslide victory.. President Tamás Sulyok, who has refused Magyar’s demand to step down, is widely expected to nominate Magyar as the next prime minister. Magyar has said he needs to be in office by about 5 May. Hungary’s next PM appeared on public radio and TV for the first time in 18 months on Wednesday and made clear his intention to suspend their news coverage, which he has condemned as propaganda.. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said Magyar was a “good man”, having actively campaigned for Orbán.. “I think the new man’s going to do a good job,” Trump told ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl, having previously called on Hungarians to “get out and vote” for his friend and close ally, Orbán.. Magyar arrived for the talks at the presidential palace shortly before 10:00 (08:00 GMT). The two other party leaders with MPs in parliament were also invited to the meeting with President Sulyok, including Orbán.. Magyar broke with Orbán’s party in March 2024 and over two years attracted a cross-section of public support for his Tisza party, which swept the ruling Fidesz from power on Sunday with a so-called super-majority of two-thirds of the seats in parliament.. He said 70-80% of Hungary’s media had been requisitioned by Orbán allies, insulting him and his party with 300 lies every day, not allowing him a single appearance on state TV even once.. But that changed on Wednesday, first with a half-hour broadcast on state-run Kossuth radio followed by an appearance on M1 TV, in which he confirmed his aim to suspend their news coverage and form a new broadcast authority to ensure press freedom.. JD Vance defends backing ‘great guy’ Orbán’s campaign after landslide defeat. Who is Péter Magyar, the former Orbán ally heading for power in Hungary?. Katya Adler: Jubilation in Budapest will be felt in Europe but leaves Moscow cold. “Every Hungarian deserves a public service media that broadcasts the truth,” he told Kossuth radio, explaining he was not after personal revenge, even though he and his family had been insulted “morning, noon and night”.. His interviews were at times combative as he told the TV and radio hosts that their outlets had broadcast propaganda.. Magyar is in a rush to overturn years of Orbán policies that turned Hungary into what the European Parliament termed an “electoral autocracy”. Hungarians became angered by repeated scandals involving corruption and cronyism, and Magyar has spoken of his predecessor’s administration robbing his country bare.. Billions of euros of EU funding was frozen over rule of law and other issues, and Magyar talked to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Tuesday in a bid to unlock the cash.. Hungary