UK Minister for Work and Pensions Mel Stride has urged people over 50 to look for work as delivery drivers to “break down age stereotypes”. This was expressed during a visit to the London headquarters of the home delivery company Deliveroo, which has experienced a 62% increase in the number of “riders” over the age of 50 since 2021, Stride told the newspaper “The Times” that the elderly should consider other job alternatives.

“There are a lot of great opportunities out there for people and it is good that options are being considered that would not have been thought of,” said the Conservative minister.

In his opinion, companies like Deliveroo allow the flexibility that many seek in the labor market, as there is no requirement for hours worked and offer the possibility of connecting at the most convenient time for the worker.

Stride said it is incumbent on employers to create a conducive environment for those over 50 to feel comfortable, so that neither the company's culture nor its positioning on social issues makes them feel alienated.

Stride, 61, is a deputy, not a delivery man

At the age of 61, however, Stride showed no desire to leave politics to become a delivery man, but rather intends to continue his work as an MP and run as a “Tory” candidate in the next elections.

According to the Office for National Statistics, more than 3.4 million people over 50 but below the retirement age are classified as “economically inactive”, something that worries the British Government due to the problems of many companies to hire workers .

“Widespread war crimes are being committed in Sudan as the conflict between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) rages through the country,” denounces Amnesty International in a new report detailing the atrocities they are suffering. thousands of Sudanese civilians.

Under the title 'Death Came Home: War Crimes and Civil Suffering in Sudan' the organization has documented numerous civilian deaths in both deliberate attacks and indiscriminate attacks by warring parties.

Likewise, the organization details acts of sexual violence against women and girls, selective attacks against civilian objects such as hospitals and churches, and widespread looting, both in Khartoum and Western Darfur.

Some of the documented human rights violations—such as attacks against the civilian population and humanitarian infrastructure, rape and other acts of sexual violence, and looting—constitute war crimes.

“Civilians across Sudan suffer unimaginable horror with each passing day as the Rapid Support Forces and Sudan Armed Forces recklessly compete for control of territory,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International's Secretary General.

“People are killed inside their homes or while desperately searching for food, water and medicine; caught in the crossfire while fleeing or deliberately shot in targeted attacks. Members of the warring parties have raped and subjected to other forms of sexual violence dozens of women and girls, some as young as 12. There are no safe places.

Since April 15, 2023, the control of Sudan has been disputed between the SAF (led by General Abdel Fattah al Burhan, head of the Sovereign Council of Sudan) and the paramilitary RSF (led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti).

deaths in crossfire

Men, women and children have been caught in the crossfire as both sides, often using explosive weapons with wide-area effects, launch attacks in densely populated neighbourhoods.

Fighting began in the Kalakla neighborhood in southern Khartoum on April 20.. Kodi Abbas, a 55-year-old teacher, told Amnesty International that 2 of his sons – Hassan, 6, and Ibrahim, 8 – and his nephew Koko, 7, were killed trying to escape being shot: ” My wife and children fled from home when fighting broke out in our neighbourhood…but my two youngest children…were young and couldn't run fast enough…I don't know who shot them. The war has killed them.” Amnesty International has not been able to confirm which of the two parties fired the shots.

Ala Fawzi al Mardi, a 26-year-old doctor, died at her home in the Hay al Manara neighborhood of Omdurman on 15 April, the day the fighting broke out. Fawzi al Mardi, his father, told Amnesty International that his wife was also seriously injured.. “A bullet entered through the living room window and hit my wife in the face, through her right side and through her neck, and then hit Ala in the chest, killing her instantly.”

deliberate attacks

Paramilitaries have launched targeted attacks that have deliberately killed and injured civilians. As an example, Amnesty details that on May 13, members of the RSF broke into the complex of the Coptic church of Mar Girgis (Saint George), in the Bari area of Khartoum.. According to witnesses, they shot five members of the clergy and stole money and a gold cross.

And there have also been ethnically motivated attacks, as tensions have risen in West Darfur, for which many ethnic Masalits have fled to eastern Chad.

In another case, five brothers were shot to death in their home, one of whom —Al Haj Mohamed Abu Bakr— was the husband of Zeinab Ibrahim Abdelkarim.. The 27-year-old mother of two told Amnesty: “Six members of the RSF broke into our house at 8 in the morning and went to the room where my husband and his 4 brothers were and shot them to death. everyone […] The RSF then came to the room where I was with my children and 12 other women and children […] They beat us with sticks and whips and said: 'Where are the guns?' and then they stole our phones.”

sexual violence

Members of the warring parties have subjected dozens of women and girls, some as young as 12, to sexual violence, including rape.. Some were held for days in conditions of sexual slavery.

In most of the cases documented by Amnesty International, the survivors said the perpetrators were members of the RSF or allied Arab militias.

A 25-year-old woman from Geneina told Amnesty International that 3 armed Arab men in civilian clothes forced her into the Civil Registry building in the Al Jamarik neighborhood on 22 June, where they raped her.. “There is no security anywhere in Geneina. I left home because there were shots everywhere […] and these criminals raped me. Now I'm afraid of being pregnant.”

In another case, members of the RSF kidnapped a group of 24 women and girls who were taken to a hotel where they were held for several days in conditions that amounted to sexual slavery.. Many survivors have not had access to medical and psychological help.

Extend the arms embargo

Amnesty International in its report urges the UN Security Council to promptly extend and ensure compliance with the current arms embargo on Darfur to all of Sudan, and to extend humanitarian aid to the country.

“The international community must also immediately extend the existing arms embargo to all of Sudan and ensure its compliance.. Countries that have significant influence over the parties to the conflict must use this to put an end to rights violations.”

It has taken more days than expected, but finally this Tuesday Donald Trump has been accused of having allegedly tried to reverse the result of the 2020 elections, in which he lost to Joe Biden. Special counsel Jack Smith has filed four charges against the former US president. It is the third accusation in four months against the politician and businessman.

The country has reached an unprecedented situation, not only because Trump was president of the country, that is, its first authority, but because he intends to be so again. He is, by far, the favorite for the Republican Party nomination and the polls place him tied with President Biden in a hypothetical repeat of the 2020 electoral duel.

This new accusation against the Republican politician takes the form of a 45-page document entitled The United States of America against Donald J.. Trump. So much is its importance, that this Tuesday it became in a few hours one of the most consulted documents in American history.

It is the third accusation in four months against the former president of the United States

And it is that, for the first time, the US is preparing to put a former president on trial and also for trying to boycott its democratic system. The special counsel alleges that Trump violated several laws in his attempt to overturn the 2020 election because he “was determined to stay in power” after losing the election.

So serious, unique and momentous that CNN analyst Stephen Collinson describes it this way: “The indictment details an alleged clear and chilling plot to subvert the will of voters and cut the chain of voluntary transfers of power between presidents inaugurated by George Washington leaving his nation “to command its own fortunes” when he declined a new term in 1796″.

The keys of the accusation

Reading the 45-page indictment of Jack Smith is summarized in these key points, which are the reasons for charging him.

1. A conspiracy of at least two months

Far from focusing on a single incident, such as the capture of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, the special counsel focuses on all of Trump's actions during the two months after the elections.. “Despite having lost, the defendant was determined to remain in power,” reads the first page of the charging document.

The defendant spread lies that there had been decisive fraud in the elections and that he had actually won.”

“So for more than two months after Election Day on November 3, 2020, the defendant spread lies that there had been determined fraud in the election and that he had actually won,” the prosecutors' text says.. They accuse him of harming not only the Government and Congress, but also American citizens.

According to them, there was a criminal conspiracy that violated various elements of section 18 of the United States Code.. All this would have been in three movements:

2. Trump knew he was lying

The lie was the basis of the former president's conspiracy to stay in power. Prosecutors say Trump lied, but also knew he was doing it. “The claims were false and the defendant knew they were false,” the document says.

The claims were false and the defendant knew they were false.”

It continues: “The defendant repeated [the lies] and disseminated them widely anyway, to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate, to create an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger, and to erode public faith in the administration of the elections”.

Smith and his team accuse the former president of lying and echoing false claims of voter fraud for months, despite being repeatedly told they were not true.. Telling him, that is, giving Trump “sincere advice”, took care of many “whom he trusted” and who were part of his circle of trust. They would be at least:

3. There were six other conspirators

Smith's indictment points to six anonymous conspirators who allegedly helped Trump carry out his plan to illegally overturn the election results.. The document does not give their names.. It describes four of them as lawyers working for the Trump campaign, one as a political consultant and one as a Justice Department official.

According to prosecutors, all of these individuals pressured officials in contested election states to ignore the popular vote, disenfranchise millions of voters, and substitute fake voters for legitimate voters.

They are also accused of trying to use the power of the “Ministry” of Justice to carry out bogus investigations into alleged fraud and of pressuring then-Vice President Mike Pence to fraudulently rig the election result.

These six people have not been charged in this process. For sure, the reasons are not yet known, but they could be cooperating with prosecutors. In any case, it has been included in the accusation document to support the thesis of a conspiracy.. As Aziz Huq of the University of Chicago Law School told the BBC, “You can't conspire with one person, you have to conspire with others.”

4. legitimate false voters

The indictment alleges that Trump and his associates effectively misled individuals in seven states into creating and submitting certificates claiming they were legitimate voters.. The goal, prosecutors say, was to create a “false controversy” in the certification procedure in those states on December 14, 2020, and “position the vice president (presiding on January 6 as president of the Senate) to impersonate voters.” legitimate” by Trump's fake ones.

The charging document indicates that, beginning in early December 2020, Trump and the other conspirators undertook a change of strategy after they failed to convince state officials not to certify the correct result.. When describing the plot, it is said that they filed lawsuits in the states where the false voters were being organized as a pretext to justify the assembly of alternative lists.

5. They 'exploded' the attack on the Capitol

The indictment alleges that Trump and his accomplices “exploited” the “violence” and “chaos” of the attack on the Capitol, continuing their efforts to convince members of Congress to delay certifying the election that day, while rejecting petitions. to order the rioters to leave.

The prosecutors' document refers to a phone call the night of the riots in which Trump refused a request by his then White House adviser, Pat Cipollone, to withdraw his objections and allow congressional certification of the results of the riots. 2020 elections.

It also describes the phone calls that Rudolph Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer, made to members of Congress that night.. In a voicemail he left with an unnamed US senator, Giuliani asked him to “go against all the states and spread it out a bit like a filibuster,” according to a voicemail line cited in the indictment.

Additionally, Smith's indictment alleges that Trump repeatedly refused to order rioters to leave the Capitol.

Freedom of expression?

The Achilles heel of the prosecution could be freedom of expression. The First Amendment to the US Constitution recognizes as sacred the right of any citizen to express their opinions. That being the case, the special prosecutor prefers to start by acknowledging it.

Like any American, Trump had the right to challenge the results of the elections and even to claim that he lost due to alleged voter fraud, even if it was a lie.. Smith acknowledges this in the indictment, but for that reason insists that they were more than opinions; that they were a key component of a conspiracy to overturn the election result.

“Defendant's knowingly false statements were an integral part of his criminal plans to defeat the function of the federal government, obstruct certification, and interfere with the right of others to vote and to have their votes counted,” the charging document read. .

General Abdourahamane Tiani, leader of the Nigerien coup junta, said in a speech on Wednesday that he rejects the “unfair and inhumane” sanctions imposed by West African countries against Niger and has warned that he will not give in to the threat of military intervention.

In his second public appearance after the coup d'état on July 26, carried out by a self-proclaimed junta National Committee for the Safeguarding of the Homeland (CNSP), Tiani addressed the nation this Wednesday night in a speech televised on the occasion of Independence Day, which is celebrated this Thursday.

The general dedicated part of his speech to condemning the economic and financial sanctions approved against Niger by the countries of the Economic Community of West African States (Cedeao), which were greeted with “astonishment” by Nigeriens for being “illegal, unfair and inhumane”

He has also criticized the “bellicose attitude” of Cedeao, which last Sunday gave the coup junta a week to restore constitutional order without ruling out military intervention if it failed to do so.

“The CNSP rejects these sanctions en bloc and refuses to give in to any threat,” said Tiani, for whom neighboring countries seek to “humiliate” Niger and “have not taken into account the sovereignty” of the country. “We reject any interference in the internal affairs of Niger,” he added.

For the general, the coup has the support of the Nigerien people and “the opposition comes mainly from some individuals who believe they have a particular right over the Nigerien State and who are allied with some lobis and foreign powers.”

And, above all, he added, “of some heads of state in our subregion who are using our community institutions for selfish and lobbying purposes.”

“This hostile and radical attitude”, he added, does not provide solutions for the fight against terrorism in the region, but rather “creates mistrust between partners”.

Regarding the future, Tiani has affirmed that, “once the emotions of each other have passed”, the CNSP aspires to “create the conditions for a calm transition before carrying out, in a short and reasonable period, general elections” .

He will do so, he said, “aware of the seriousness that Niger is experiencing and “open to dialogue.”

Mention of France in the speech

Tiani has also referred to France, without naming it, when criticizing its “excessive reaction” to the assault suffered by the French embassy in Niamey last Sunday during a pro-coup demonstration.

After the incident, in which protesters tried to enter the embassy, the French government stated in a statement that it would respond “immediately and decisively” in the event of an attack on its interests.

The general stated in his speech that he was surprised that “a partner country” threatened “to resort to force to protect its citizens, its diplomatic representatives and its interests in Niger, which have never been the object of any threat.”

As well as that “a government orders the use of military force against the Nigerien population to protect its citizens”, in reference to the response of the French forces to the attack.

World Bank closes its deals with Niger

The World Bank announced this Wednesday that it has stopped its operations in Niger “until further notice” due to the deterioration of the security situation after the military coup that took place at the end of last week in the country.

“The World Bank believes that peace, stability and the rule of law are fundamental to creating a world free of poverty on a livable planet.. We are alarmed by the attempts to overthrow the democratically elected government in Niger,” he said in a brief statement.

For all these reasons, the organization has warned in the aforementioned statement that it will stop “disbursements for all operations until further notice, except for agreements with the private sector, which will continue with caution.”

The United States cuts attention to its embassy

The United States has ordered on Wednesday the departure of non-essential personnel from its embassy in Niamey, the capital of Niger, in the midst of the attempted coup that the African country has been experiencing since last week.

In addition, he reported that the legation has suspended its routine services and only processes emergency assistance to US citizens in the country.

However, it warned that it has “limited capacity” to provide emergency services due to the “temporary reduction” of its staff, according to a new travel notice published on the embassy's website, in which it raised the level to 4 (” do not travel”), the highest.

A South Florida mother arrested and charged with murder for the death of a newborn baby, whose lifeless body was found in June 2018 in waters off the southeast coast of the state, has been sentenced this Wednesday to 14 years in prison after plead guilty in a case resolved with DNA evidence.

Arya Singh, 30, the mother of the girl nicknamed “Baby June”, pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter of a minor, for which she has been sentenced to 14 years in prison and another 10 years of probation, according to the outlet. local WPTV5, from West Palm Beach.

Singh had been charged with second-degree murder in the case known as “Baby June,” but pleaded guilty Wednesday to a lesser charge of aggravated murder of a child, along with another charge of abuse of a dead human body, the aforementioned details. half.

After being held without bail in December 2022, Singh denied guilt, stating that she did not know she was pregnant until she gave birth in a hotel room bathroom and that she also had no knowledge of whether the baby was alive or dead.

Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw offered details at a press conference last December about the resolution of this media case, resolved 4 years after the newborn baby was found floating in the Boynton Beach cove (this of Florida) on June 1, 2018.

On that date, off-duty firefighter Chris Lemieux, who was sailing, found the body of the baby, who doctors determined was no more than 2 weeks old.

The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office Forensic Biology Unit used a pilot program to help identify the newborn girl's father and ultimately her mother, Singh.

A forensic doctor had determined that it was a homicide, given the conditions in which the body was found.

According to genetic DNA tests carried out, the baby was of 50% Asian and 50% African descent, a combination that occurs in places like Barbados, Trinidad or Jamaica.

Investigators believe the body was in the water for at least a day and may have floated from Broward County to its northern neighbor Palm Beach.

Investigators obtained a covert DNA sample from the woman they identified as a suspect from a piece of trash and began building the case.

They used search warrants for phone records and GPS data.

“The Mrs. Singh went to a hotel room alone and gave birth to a boy. As a result of your actions or inactions, the baby died. (She) never called 911, never sought medical treatment, never asked for help for herself, never left the baby at a fire station. She was the only person who could have saved that child's life,” the Palm Beach County State's Attorney's Office said in a statement after the sentence was announced today.

A lifeless body was found trapped in the new area of wire buoys placed in the Rio Grande, near the city of Eagle Pass, in Texas, United States, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) of Mexico reported this Wednesday. .

In a statement, the Mexican Foreign Ministry has said that the information arrived at around 2:35 p.m. local time (9:35 p.m. in Spain) by the Texas Department of Security (DPS), which after the discovery notified the Mexican Consulate in this demarcation US.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) of the Mexican Government has reported that it is already carrying out actions to rescue the lifeless body through personnel from its Beta Group, in charge of migrant protection and attached to the National Institute of Migration. (INM) in the country.

Regarding the body that was floating in the Rio Grande, the border between the United States and Mexico, the Mexican Foreign Ministry has stressed that “the cause of death and the nationality of the person are still unknown.”

Likewise, the SRE has emphasized through the statement that the position of the Mexican Government is maintained with respect to the placement of wire buoys in this section of the border between both nations.

“We reiterate the position of the Government of Mexico that the placement of wire buoys by the Texas authorities is a violation of our sovereignty,” the statement read.

In addition, he has indicated that there is concern about the impact on the human rights and personal safety of migrants that these state policies will have in the United States.. and “that go in the opposite direction to the close collaboration between” Mexico and the US government.

For its part, the SRE, headed by Foreign Minister Alicia Bárcena, has indicated that it will maintain timely monitoring of the case through the Mexican Consulate in Eagle Pass, as well as that it will maintain contact with the corresponding authorities in Mexico and the United States.

This in order to “obtain more information about what happened and request that the necessary investigations be carried out.”

The scope of the collaboration with the Justice of Nicolás Petro Burgos, eldest son of the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, has the country in suspense, which awaits to know the revelations about corruption cases that the first-born promised to make to the Prosecutor's Office starting this Thursday .

The question Colombians are asking themselves this Wednesday is whether Petro Burgos, who according to his ex-wife, Daysuris Vásquez, also detained, received illegal money for his father's presidential campaign – which ultimately never reached its destination, as he used it for his own benefit. -, will share what he knows about campaign finance.

“How much can the denunciations that deputy Nicolás Petro will deliver to the Prosecutor's Office destabilize Gustavo Petro? It is curious that the 'soft coup' that the Government was talking about did not take place, but a 'hard coup' has developed that comes from the same presidential family,” political analyst Juan Carlos Flórez wrote on Twitter today.

The president's son is a deputy to the Asamblea del Atlántico, a department in northern Colombia where complaints of vote buying are frequent at election time.

Petro Burgos, 37 years old and arrested on Saturday in Barranquilla along with his ex-wife, was charged this Tuesday in Bogotá for the crimes of money laundering and illicit enrichment after a prosecutor questioned his assets, clearly incompatible with his income as regional deputy.

campaign finance

Illegal campaign financing returned to public discussion in Colombia last June after Armando Benedetti, a former ambassador to Venezuela who was key to Petro's 2022 electoral triumph on the Atlantic coast, threatened to reveal what he knows.

It is unknown if what Petro Burgos promised to reveal to the Prosecutor's Office is related to what Benedetti said, a doubt that may begin to be clarified this Thursday when the president's son is taken to a new hearing of the Prosecutor's Office, to which he promised to collaborate exchange for a reduced sentence.

“I want to announce to Colombia that we have decided to start a collaboration process where I will refer to new facts and situations that will help Justice. I do it for my family and for my baby who is on the way,” Petro Burgos said at Tuesday's hearing in which the charges were brought against him.

The decision of Petro's son to collaborate with Justice surprised the country and was not well received by some members of his defense, which Juan Trujillo Cabrera, one of his lawyers, resigned today.

“Because it is of general interest, I inform public opinion that today I have renounced the legal representation of the processes that are brought against Nicolás Petro Burgos, due to a difference in criteria that prevent me from continuing to lead the case,” Trujillo said in a statement.

extrajudicial controversies

In the midst of the political uproar that has caused the arrest and indictment of Petro's eldest son and his ex-wife -she for the crimes of money laundering and violation of personal data because she spied on her ex-husband's current partner-, the Prosecutor's Office denied this Wednesday that he infiltrated an agent in the security team of Petro Burgos.

According to journalist Daniel Coronell, Petro Burgos “decided to collaborate with the Prosecutor's Office and announce accusations” because “the evidence that persuaded him to turn around came from an undercover agent planted in his security scheme.”

“It is not true that the specialized technique of an undercover agent was used within the security scheme of Mr. Petro Burgos,” the Prosecutor's Office responded to that journalistic version in a statement in which it added: “All the actions established in this process are framed in current legal and constitutional proceedings”.

The political scandal, which has overtones of a soap opera with scenes of jealousy between Nicolás Petro's ex-wife and his current wife, eight months pregnant, rose in tone with the release of an audio in which Sofía, another of the president's daughters, He harshly reproaches his brother for his womanizing behavior and tells him that his current wife will not enter the presidential family.

A third plane carrying civilians evacuated from Niger arrived at the Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris on Wednesday.. This puts at 736 people who have left that country on flights organized by France. Of that number, 498 are French and 238 of other nationalities, reported the French Foreign Ministry.

In addition, the French government is preparing a fourth plane whose takeoff to Niamey could take place this Wednesday. Of the approximately 1,200 French civilians residing in Niger before last week's military coup, some 600 had expressed their desire to leave the country.

French flights are also being used to evacuate citizens of other countries, essentially European, as well as other people with the right to enter French soil.

France maintains a contingent of 1,500 soldiers in Niger who have been cooperating with the troops of that country in the fight against jihadist terrorism, the same as in other countries of the Sahel. However, the French government assures that it does not plan to withdraw its troops from Nigerian soil.

A popular jury decided this Wednesday to sentence to death the author of the shooting that killed eleven people in a synagogue in Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) in 2018, considered the largest anti-Semitic attack in the history of the United States, local media reported.

After a deliberation of more than ten hours, the jury voted unanimously to send Robert Bowers to death row, a decision that is binding on the judge who must sign the sentence.

The jury is the same that last June found the shooter guilty of all 63 charges against him, including the hate crime, which in Pennsylvania can carry the death penalty. After that phase, the jury had to decide whether to ask the judge to impose life imprisonment or capital punishment, an option for which he finally opted.

According to CNN, this is the first death sentence to be imposed by a federal jury since Joe Biden was president of the United States.

Bower, a Pittsburgh resident, stormed the Tree of Life synagogue, where members of three Jewish congregations were holding Sabbath activities, on Oct. 27, 2018, and began firing indiscriminately while chanting, “All Jews must die.” .

The shooting caused eleven deaths and another six wounded and became the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in the history of the United States.

During the trial, the defense tried to argue that Bowers, who is now 50 years old, suffers from mental problems, but the jury determined that he had a precise plan to murder Jews.