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Kampala (AFP) – Stripped naked, beaten until she could no longer walk, sexually assaulted and covered in excrement: award-winning Ugandan activist Agather Atuhaire told AFP of the torture she suffered at the hands of security forces in Tanzania this week.

Atuhaire, who won an International Women of Courage Award from the United States last year, was arrested on Monday in Tanzania's business hub Dar es Salaam.

She had travelled there to support opposition leader Tundu Lissu, who is on trial for treason, facing a potential death penalty, ahead of elections in October.

Atuhaire was abandoned early Friday by Tanzanian agents near the Ugandan border after a brutal ordeal, she said.

"What happened in Tanzania stays in Tanzania," she said she was told. "We have videos of you."

Atuhaire was arrested along with Boniface Mwangi, a well-known rights activist from Kenya who also wanted to attend the trial.

Police told her: "Whites are sending you to destabilise our country," she told AFP in an interview in the Ugandan capital Kampala on Friday.

After being interrogated, Atuhaire and Mwangi were blindfolded and driven to an unknown location.

There, they took Mwangi out of the car and began beating him.

"He was screaming," said Atuhaire, adding that the agents had played gospel songs on the car radio, apparently trying to muffle the sound.

She says she was stripped naked, her hands cuffed to her ankles. She has injuries on her forearms and legs.

One of the Tanzanian officers then hit the soles of her feet "with all his might", while another inserted an object into her anus, she said.

"I had never known pain like that existed," she said.

"I don't remember which pain was worse," she added. "After that beating, I scream, I scream."

Then they smeared her body with excrement, she said.

The whole scene was filmed -- "to humiliate, instil fear but also silence you", she said.

"They are used to sexual abuse being something a victim is ashamed of. (But) I am not that victim... I am not the one who should be ashamed. You are the one who is committing a heinous crime, so you are the one who should be ashamed," Atuhaire said.

The US State Department said Saturday it was "deeply concerned" about the reports of mistreatment of Atuhaire and Mwangi, calling for "an immediate and full investigation".

Amnesty International also said the "torture and forcible deportation" of Mwangi and Atuhaire must be "urgently investigated".

AFP attempted to reach the Tanzanian government for comment, but there was no immediate response.

Atuhaire, a lawyer and journalist, is a fierce critic of the government of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who has ruled the country for almost 40 years.

Her work in exposing corruption as head of the Agora Centre for Research has earned her international recognition.

Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan said Monday foreign activists were attempting to "intrude and interfere" in the country's affairs.

She urged the security services "not to allow ill-mannered individuals from other countries to cross the line here".

Rights groups accuse Hassan of a brutal crackdown on the opposition ahead of the October elections.

Lissu's Chadema party has been banned from taking part after refusing to sign an electoral "code of conduct" without significant reforms.

The day after Hassan warned foreign activists, Atuhaire was still in detention and "couldn't step on the floor" due to the beatings on her feet, she said.

"The pain was unimaginable," she said, but her captors forced her to "get up and exercise".

In the following days, until her release, she says she was kept blindfolded, living in fear of what might happen next.

"We were both treated worse than dogs, chained, blindfolded and underwent a very gruesome torture," said Mwangi, struggling to walk, after he was released and had returned to the Kenyan capital Nairobi on Thursday.

"The situation in Tanzania is very bad. I think what happened to us is what happens to all Tanzanian activists," he said.

Atuhaire says she will file a complaint against Tanzania for the torture she suffered.

"For me, the need for justice supersedes anything, any feeling of shame, which I don't even feel," she told AFP.

"Of course it is difficult. I have physical pain. I am sure after that I'll deal with mental psychological pain. But I will not give anyone, any of these murderers, criminal organisations that we have as governments, the pleasure" of seeing her broken, she said.

Dhaka (AFP) – Bangladesh's interim government, which took over after a mass uprising last year, warned on Saturday that unity was needed to "prevent the return of authoritarianism".

The South Asian nation of around 170 million people has been in political turmoil since ex-prime minister Sheikh Hasina was ousted by student-led protests in August 2024, ending her iron-fisted rule of 15 years.

However, after a week of escalation during which rival parties protested on the streets of the capital Dhaka, the government led by Muhammad Yunus said political power struggles risked jeopardising gains that have been made and pleaded for people to give it their full support.

"Broader unity is essential to maintain national stability, organise free and fair elections, justice, and reform, and permanently prevent the return of authoritarianism in the country," it said in a statement.

Yunus, the 84-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner who returned from exile at the behest of protesters last year, says he has a duty to implement democratic reforms before elections that are due by June 2026 at the latest.

However, the government warned that it had faced "unreasonable demands, deliberately provocative and jurisdictionally overreaching statements", which it said had been "continuously obstructing" its work.

Sources in his office and a key political ally said on Thursday microfinance pioneer Yunus had threatened to quit.

"If the government's autonomy, reform efforts, justice process, fair election plan, and normal operations are obstructed to the point of making its duties unmanageable, it will, with the people, take the necessary steps," Saturday's statement said, without giving further details.

Wahiduddin Mahmud, who heads the finance and planning ministry, insisted that Yunus will not step down early.

"We are going to carry out the responsibilities assigned to us," Mahmud told reporters on Saturday. "We can't simply abandon our duties."

Yunus is due to hold talks late on Saturday with key political parties who have protested against the government this month.

Yunus's team has confirmed he will meet leaders of the powerful Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), as well as leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, the Muslim-majority nation's largest Islamist party.

No agenda has been released but the BNP, seen as the front-runners in elections, are pushing hard for polls to be held by December.

"If he is unable to announce a specific election date by December, we will reconsider our support for his administration," senior BNP leader Salahuddin Ahmed said in an interview on a private TV channel broadcast on Friday.

According to Bangladeshi media and military sources, army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman also said this week that elections should be held by December, aligning with BNP demands.

Bangladesh has a long history of military coups and the army retains a powerful role.

The upcoming elections will be the first since Hasina fled to India, where she remains in self-imposed exile in defiance of an arrest warrant to face trial for crimes against humanity related to last year's police crackdown on protesters during which at least 1,400 people were killed.

Yunus has said polls could be held as early as December but that holding them later -- with the deadline of June -- would give the government more time for reform.

Nahid Islam, leader of the National Citizen Party (NCP) made up of many students who spearheaded the uprising that ended Hasina's rule, said he feared an army-backed leadership wanted to replace the interim government.

Islam, an ally of Yunus who previously served in his cabinet, told reporters on Saturday that he foresaw a situation similar to January 11, 2007, when a state of emergency was declared resulting in a military-backed government that lasted for two years.

"There are indications that a 1/11-style military-backed government could re-emerge -- one that is anti-democratic and anti-people," Islam said.

"While the military is an essential institution for state security, it should not interfere in political affairs," he said.

Islam said he wants later elections to allow time for "fundamental reforms" to the constitution, but fears rival parties want swift elections to "assume power".

Paramaribo (Suriname) (AFP) – Suriname, South America's smallest country, is preparing for an inflow of cash from a huge offshore oil find, with the president insisting the population will receive a direct share of the wealth.

The Dutch-speaking nation of about 600,000 people expects to rake in about $10 billion in the next decade or two, with crude extraction set to begin in 2028.

Projected output is 220,000 barrels per day (bpd) -- up from about 5,000 to 6,000 -- in a country where one in five people live in poverty.

"From 2028, we'll be an oil-producing country," President Chan Santokhi told AFP ahead of elections Sunday for lawmakers who will choose the next president.

He is one of several candidates in the running to steer the former Dutch colony wedged between Brazil, Guyana and French Guiana.

"It will be a huge amount of income for the country," Santokhi said. "We are now able... to do more for our people so that everyone can be part of the growth of the nation."

Besides investing in agriculture, tourism, health, education and green energy, some of the oil money is being paid directly to Surinamese citizens under a program Santokhi has dubbed "Royalties for Everyone" -- RVI for its Dutch acronym.

"It's their share," he said.

Victorine Moti, a finance ministry official responsible for the fund, told AFP: "The whole population of Suriname is eligible for this program, everybody who was born before the 1st of January 2025 and had the Surinamese nationality."

"In figures, it's 572,000 people."

All eligible citizens can register to receive a one-off payment equivalent to $750 paid into an account with an interest yield of seven percent per year.

"With the certificate, they can go to the bank and they have two options: they can withdraw the money or they can choose to save. Hopefully, they will try to save and not cash out immediately," said Moti.

The first beneficiaries are the elderly and disabled, paid with funds advanced by banks.

Next in line will be people 60 and older, then -- once the revenues start flowing in 2028 -- the biggest group of people aged 18-59.

People who save their money for 10 years will receive a bonus of $150 on top of interest earned.

Naslem Doelsan, 80, has already received her certificate and told AFP she will cash out "to buy good food and some household stuff."

"Why do I need... money in the bank? I'm already old and I want to enjoy my money," she said.

Fellow retiree Jai Abas, 91, told AFP he would keep the money in the bank for now, and maybe give his granddaughter, who lives in the Netherlands, some "pocket money" when she visits.

"What would I do with money? I am old. I can't go anywhere," said Abas, adding his only vice is cigarettes.

Anuschka Tolud, a 38-year-old in a wheelchair, said she would save her payout in the hopes it can one day augment her $113 monthly welfare payout.

Santokhi had previously spoken about avoiding the so-called "oil curse," also known as "Dutch disease," that had befallen other resource-rich countries, such as Venezuela, Angola and Algeria, that were unable to turn oil wealth into economic success.

Norway became an exception by creating a sovereign wealth fund.

Suriname, the president said, would take a "unique" approach, well aware that its crude resources will last only about 40 years.

"We have income from the profit of the oil, we will have income from our fiscal revenues and we will have income from the royalties," he said.

In 2024, French multinational TotalEnergies committed to investing $10.5 billion in the offshore oil field of GranMorgu in the Atlantic Ocean.

An article in the Surinamese Constitution states that "natural riches and resources are property of the nation and shall be used to promote economic, social and cultural development."

But some worry that the benefits may not find their way to all citizens, especially those who live in rural areas, Indigenous communities and Maroons -- descendants of African slaves.

"I myself am curious as to how funds and bureaucracy will be accessed by Indigenous and Maroon communities," Giovanna Montenegro, director of the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program at Binghamton University in New York State, told AFP.

Rovaniemi (Finland) (AFP) – A fighter jet roaring through the grey sky breaks the tranquillity of a boreal forest in northern Finland, one more sign of a growing military presence that is challenging the ability of reindeer herders to exercise their livelihood.

"Military activity has increased massively here since Finland joined NATO," reindeer herder Kyosti Uutela said on a tour in Rovajarvi, the largest artillery practice range in western Europe, on a day when no ground exercises were underway.

Located 100 kilometres (60 miles) from the Russian border, Rovajarvi covers an area of 1,070 square kilometres on land that also makes up part of the reindeer husbandry district that Uutela heads.

Finland, which shares a 1,340-kilometre border with Russia, dropped decades of military non-alignment to join NATO in 2023 in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

And in 2024, a defence cooperation agreement between the United States and Finland came into force.

"Training activities and exercises have increased since the beginning of the war in Ukraine" because of the worsened security situation, the Finnish Defence Forces told AFP in a statement.

"This is naturally also reflected in Rovajarvi," it said, saying the firing range provided unique training possibilities for international troops thanks to its size, terrain and seasonal changes.

Last year, Finland participated in 103 military exercises at home and abroad, up from 89 in 2023.

Ascending a small hill where the forest has been clear-cut and trenches dug for training purposes, Uutela said the spot "had been lost" as a grazing ground.

"The use of heavy army tanks and the presence of thousands of soldiers in the forest destroy the lichen pastures," Uutela said, referring to the reindeer's main source of food.

"Reindeer will not be able to live here anymore," he said.

Finland has 4,305 reindeer owners and around 184,000 reindeer, living in 57 reindeer husbandry districts that cover 36 percent of the country's total area.

A part of them belong to the indigenous Sami population that lives in Sapmi, which straddles northern regions of Finland, Sweden, Norway and Russia.

The non-Sami people such as Uutela who also practise reindeer husbandry include herders living near the Rovajarvi range, outside the Sapmi homeland.

Full-time herders sell reindeer meat, pelts and handicrafts as their main source of income, and husbandry has been an integral part of the indigenous Sami culture for generations.

Riikka Poropudas, another herder in Rovajarvi, said the military presence in the area had increased "radically" since Finland's NATO accession, forcing herders to feed their reindeer in fenced areas more often than before.

Finland's Defence Forces said the needs of reindeer husbandry were "taken into account in the planning of exercises, for example in terms of the times and locations", adding that they were in daily contact with Rovajarvi herders.

But Poropudas worries that a large live-fire and combat exercise involving around 6,500 soldiers from Finland, Sweden and Britain this month would disturb her reindeer.

The calving season is at its busiest in mid-May.

"The activities stress both female reindeer and newborn calves, and drive them away from their natural pastures," she said.

Tuomas Aslak Juuso, acting president of the Sami parliament in Finland, said climate change and land use changes -- including the militarisation of the Arctic -- posed special challenges for the roughly 1,200 Sami reindeer herders in Finland.

"Our way of reindeer husbandry depends fully on the herding model and the reindeer being able to graze freely on natural pasture lands," he said.

But the effects of climate change on winter conditions already mean that herders increasingly have to provide their reindeer with supplementary feed "in order to avoid mass deaths".

A large international military exercise conducted in Finnish Sapmi in 2023 had been "quite a negative experience for the Sami people", Juuso said.

"The local reindeer herders had not been informed beforehand, grazing conditions for that spring were damaged and tractors damaged the lichen cover, which may never grow back," he said.

"When these things are planned, there should be early consultation with the Sami and responsibility for damage and harm."

Caracas (AFP) – Leading Venezuelan opposition politician Juan Pablo Guanipa was arrested Friday on charges of conspiring to sabotage upcoming parliamentary and regional elections that the opposition has vowed to boycott.

The arrest of Guanipa, a 60-year-old former MP and close ally of opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, comes amid rising tensions ahead of Sunday's election.

Machado has called on voters to spurn the ballot, which comes 10 months after elections that leftist President Nicolas Maduro is widely accused of stealing.

Guanipa, like Machado, went into hiding after the July 2024 presidential vote, which the opposition and much of the international community believes opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia rightfully won.

Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello linked Guanipa's arrest to what the government called a foiled plot by foreign mercenaries to sabotage Sunday's vote for members of parliament and 24 state governors.

"He is one of the leaders of this terrorist network," Cabello said on state television, adding that the plan to disrupt the vote was detailed on four telephones and a laptop found in Guanipa's possession.

The suspects planned to plant bombs in hospitals, metro stations, police stations and power plants, Cabello said, adding that authorities had seized explosives, weapons, detonators and cash.

He added that 70 other people had also been arrested in connection with the alleged plot, including citizens of Ecuador, Argentina, Germany, Serbia and "a few" Pakistani nationals.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a statement expressing "concern following the unjustified and arbitrary arrest of opposition leader Juan Pablo Guanipa and over 70 individuals" in what he labeled a "new wave of repression from the Maduro regime."

A message on Guanipa's X account, shortly after his arrest, read: "If you are reading this, it is because I have been kidnapped by the forces of Nicolas Maduro's regime."

"I am not sure what will happen to me in the coming hours, days and weeks. But what I am sure of is that we will win the long fight against the dictatorship."

Machado accused Maduro of "STATE TERRORISM, pure and simple," saying Guanipa was "an example for all citizens and political leaders, inside and outside Venezuela."

Maduro has presided over the collapse of oil-rich Venezuela's economy over his past 12 years of increasingly repressive rule.

Millions of people have fled the country, mostly to other Latin American countries.

In July, Maduro claimed to have won a third term, without producing detailed results to back his claim.

The opposition published its own tally of results, which showed a convincing win for Gonzalez Urrutia.

The state prosecutor's office on Friday accused Guanipa of having been part of a "criminal organization" that attempted to sabotage that election, as well as this weekend's vote.

Maduro, a former bus driver who was handpicked by late firebrand socialist leader Hugo Chavez to succeed him in 2013, frequently claims to be the target of US- and Colombian-backed coup plots.

Mass arrests of government critics have become routine.

The government on Monday suspended flights from Colombia after arresting dozens of people it said were mercenaries that had slipped into Venezuela from its neighbor.

A trained lawyer, Guanipa was named vice president in the now-defunct parallel government established by former opposition leader Juan Guaido after 2018 presidential elections which returned Maduro for a second term.

The opposition boycotted those elections after its most popular candidates were barred from running.

New York (AFP) – The Justice Department said Friday it reached a preliminary agreement with Boeing to settle a long-running criminal probe into deadly 737 MAX crashes, drawing condemnation from some crash victim families.

Under an "agreement in principle," Boeing will pay $1.1 billion and the Department of Justice (DOJ) would dismiss a criminal charge against Boeing over its conduct in the certification of the MAX, DOJ said in a federal filing.

A judge must approve the accord, which would scuttle a criminal trial scheduled for June in Fort Worth, Texas.

The agreement would resolve the case without requiring Boeing to plead guilty to fraud in the certification of the MAX, which was involved in two crashes in 2018 and 2019 that claimed 346 lives.

Family members of some MAX victims slammed the proposed settlement as a giveaway to Boeing.

"The message sent by this action to companies around the country is, don't worry about making your products safe for your customers," said Javier de Luis in a statement released by attorneys for plaintiffs suing Boeing.

"This kind of non-prosecution deal is unprecedented and obviously wrong for the deadliest corporate crime in US history," said Paul Cassell, an attorney representing relatives of victims. "My families will object and hope to convince the court to reject it."

But the DOJ, in its brief, cited other family members who expressed a desire for closure, quoting one who said "the grief resurfaces every time this case is discussed in court or other forums."

Family members of more than 110 crash victims told the government "they either support the Agreement specifically, support the Department's efforts to resolve the case pre-trial more generally or do not oppose the agreement," the filing said.

The DOJ filing called the accord "a fair and just resolution that serves the public interest."

"The Agreement guarantees further accountability and substantial benefits from Boeing immediately, while avoiding the uncertainty and litigation risk presented by proceeding to trial," it said.

Boeing declined to comment when contacted by AFP.

Friday's proposed agreement marks the latest development in a marathon case that came in the wake of the two crashes that tarnished Boeing's reputation and contributed to leadership shakeups at the aviation giant.

The case dates to a January 2021 DOJ agreement with Boeing that settled charges that the company knowingly defrauded the Federal Aviation Administration during the MAX certification.

The 2021 accord included a three-year probation period. But in May 2024, the DOJ determined that Boeing had violated the 2021 accord following a number of subsequent safety lapses.

Boeing agreed in July 2024 to plead guilty to "conspiracy to defraud the United States."

But in December, federal judge Reed O'Connor rejected a settlement codifying the guilty plea, setting the stage for the incoming Trump administration to decide the next steps.

Under Friday's proposed accord, Boeing "will admit to conspiracy to obstruct and impede the lawful operation of the Federal Aviation Administration Aircraft Evaluation Group."

But this acknowledgment "doesn't carry any criminal penalties," said Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law.

"You don't have that kind of stigma or retribution or whatever it is that we think of as deterring that behavior," Tobias said. "It's a slap on the wrist."

Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat who held hearings into Boeing's problems in 2024, condemned the agreement as an "outrageous injustice" to victims and the public.

"After repeatedly rebuffing responsibility and lying, Boeing will now permanently escape accountability," Blumenthal said. "Victims, families, and the flying public deserve better. They deserve justice, not this sham."

Guatemala City (AFP) – A United Nations human rights expert warned Friday of intensifying persecution of independent judges, lawyers and others fighting corruption in Guatemala, urging its contentious attorney general to stop "criminalization."

The United States and the European Union have sanctioned top public prosecutor Consuelo Porras for graft and undermining democracy, whiled President Bernardo Arevalo has accused her of seeking to overthrow him.

During a visit to Guatemala, Margaret Satterthwaite, UN special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, warned of growing persecution of independent judges, prosecutors, lawyers, journalists and others.

"The instrumental use of criminal law by the prosecutor general's office appears to amount to a systematic pattern of intentional and severe deprivation of fundamental rights, targeted at specific groups," she said in a statement.

"This persecution appears to be intensifying, as those who have sought to end impunity and corruption, defend human rights, or speak out against abuses of power increasingly face digital harassment, threats, and criminal charges," Satterthwaite added.

The UN expert, who is mandated by the UN Human Rights Council, but who does not speak on behalf of the United Nations, called on Porras's office to "halt its process of criminalization."

Satterthwaite met with civil society and Indigenous groups, judicial officials and legislators, as well as both Arevalo and Porras during her visit.

"I did hear people who are afraid," she said as she presented her initial findings at a news conference.

"Criminalization is terrifying. It's something that no one wants to experience," she said.

After meeting Satterthwaite last week, Porras said that her office "investigates" and "does not criminalize."

But the UN expert said the "facts point to a very different reality."

"Criminalization operates through a set of identifiable actions, involving the public prosecutor's office, members of the judiciary, and often certain private actors," Satterthwaite added.

Arevalo's anti-corruption crusade helped to seal his August 2023 election but also put him in the crosshairs of prosecutors themselves accused of graft.

The former lawmaker, diplomat and sociologist has repeatedly denounced a "slow-motion coup d'etat" and unsuccessfully tried to remove Porras.

New York (AFP) – A judge suspended Friday the Trump administration's move to block Harvard from enrolling and hosting foreign students after the prestigious university sued, calling the action unconstitutional.

On Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem revoked Harvard University's ability to enroll foreign nationals, throwing the future of thousands of students and the lucrative income stream they provide into doubt.

But Harvard sued and US district judge Allison Burroughs ordered that "The Trump administration is hereby enjoined from implementing... the revocation of Plaintiff's SEVP (Student and Exchange Visitor Program) certification."

There will be an injunction hearing on May 29, a court filing showed.

Chernigiv Region (Ukraine) (AFP) – Ukraine and Russia began a major prisoner exchange Friday, which if completed would be the biggest swap since Moscow invaded more than three years ago.

Both sides received 390 people in this first stage. They are expected to exchange 1,000 each in total under an agreement reached at direct talks in Istanbul last week.

The process will last three days, Kyiv said.

The two enemies have held regular exchanges since Russia launched its 2022 offensive -- but none have been on this scale.

Images released by Kyiv showed Ukrainian soldiers smiling and embracing after being released, some of them draped in bright Ukrainian flags.

"The first stage of the '1,000-for-1,000' exchange agreement has been carried out," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a post on X.

"Today -- 390 people. On Saturday and Sunday, we expect the exchange to continue."

Russia said it had received 270 Russian troops and 120 civilians, including some from parts of its Kursk region captured and held by Kyiv for months.

The two sides have not yet revealed the identities of those exchanged.

US President Donald Trump earlier congratulated the two countries for the swap.

"This could lead to something big???" he wrote in a post on Truth Social.

Trump's efforts to broker a ceasefire in Europe's biggest conflict since World War II have thus far been unsuccessful, despite his pledge to rapidly end the fighting.

Several Ukrainians told AFP they were anxiously waiting to see if their relatives were included in the swap.

"We have been looking for our son for two years," said Liudmyla Parkhomenko, a mother of a Ukrainian soldier who went missing during combat in the city of Bakhmut.

"Today I would like the Lord to send us good news... We feel in our hearts that he's alive," she said.

Anastasia Ruda, 28, said she hoped her brother would return.

"It's been eight months of silence, we don't even know whether he is in captivity or not, we hope that maybe the guys will help us today," she said.

After 39 months of fighting, thousands of POWs are held in both countries.

Russia is believed to have the larger share, with the number of Ukrainian captives held by Moscow estimated to be between 8,000 and 10,000.

Kyiv and Moscow have both accused each other of violating the Geneva Convention on the treatment of POWs. The UN said prisoners on both sides had been "subjected to torture and ill-treatment".

Shortly before the exchange, Kyiv released a statement accusing the Russian army of having executed around 270 Ukrainian POWs since its invasion.

Russia regularly violates international norms by putting POWs on trial, and allegations of torture are widespread and several Ukrainian captives confirmed to have died in custody.

Moscow's forces are also believed to have taken an unknown number of Ukrainian civilians into Russia in three years of seizing Ukrainian towns and cities.

Around 60,000 Ukrainians have been declared missing, 10,000 of whom were believed to be in captivity, Kyiv's Commissioner for Missing Persons, Artur Dobroserdov, told Ukrainian media last month.

With Kyiv not knowing the fate of thousands, each exchange brings surprises, a senior official told AFP.

"Almost every exchange includes people no one had knowledge about," he said.

"Sometimes they return people who were on the lists of missing persons or were considered dead."

A sizeable number of Ukrainian troops held in Russia were taken captive during the 2022 siege of Mariupol.

Aside from the thousands held since Moscow's invasion in 2022, Russia has also held some Ukrainians since its annexation of Crimea in 2014.

The number of Russian POWs in Ukraine is believed to be considerably smaller.

Zelensky has throughout the war encouraged the taking of Russian troops as prisoners to fill up what he calls Kyiv's "exchange fund" for future swaps.

Until the Turkey talks last Friday, the only communication channels open between the warring neighbours in three years were on exchanges of prisoners and soldiers' bodies as well as on the return of children taken into Russia during Moscow's invasion.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday cast doubt on the Vatican as a potential venue for peace talks.

A special court in Senegal has charged four former government ministers from ex-president Macky Sall's cabinet with corruption and embezzlement related to the management of Covid-19 funds – under a wider anti-corruption campaign by President Bassirou Diomaye Faye.

The court on Thursday indicted Moustapha Diop, who was the industrial development minister under Sall. He is accused of misusing some $4 million dollars from the West African nation's fund for combating the Covid-19 pandemic.

On Wednesday, the Dakar court charged Aissatou Sophie Gladima, Sall's former mining minister, with embezzlement and placed her under a detention order, a source close to the case told French news agency AFP.

She is accused of embezzling more than 193 million CFA francs (approximately €295,000) from an aid fund intended for miners affected by the pandemic.

On Tuesday, the court charged former justice minister Ismaila Madior Fall with taking bribes and on Monday charged former women's minister Salimata Diop with "complicity in embezzlement". Diop was released after paying bail of about $97,750, according to a source close to the case and local media reports.

Former minister for community development Amadou Mansour Faye, Sall's brother-in-law, is also accused of diverting around $4.5 million from a fund set up to tackle the effects of the pandemic in the west African nation in 2020-21, according to a national assembly report.

The High Court of Justice, a special court that began operating earlier this year and is empowered to try presidents and ministers for acts committed in the exercise of their functions.

For the director of the NGO 3D, Moundiaye Cisse, these cases demonstrate the proper functioning of institutions.

"It's positive, because we have a justice system that tries to put everyone on an equal footing," he told RFI's correspondents in Dakar. "It's a good instrument."

President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who was voted in last year, vowed to crack down on corruption, particularly by the previous administration under Sall.

He decided that Senegal would summon former president Sall himself to court after the country's audit office unveiled irregularities in the treasury's bookkeeping on his watch, a government spokesman said on 28 February.

Sall led Senegal from 2012 to 2024 and is accused of having presided over "catastrophic" mismanagement of the public purse, after an independent report invalidated official figures under his stewardship, revising both debt and the public deficit sharply upwards.

Sall, who has lived in Morocco since leaving office last year, has rejected the row over the report as "political".

(with AFP)

Oslo (AFP) – The helmsman of a huge container ship that ran aground in Norway just a stone's throw away from a cabin as its owner slept was probably asleep as well at the time of the accident, Norwegian media reported Friday.

"Only one person was on the bridge at the time. He was steering the vessel, but didn't change course when entering the Trondheim fjord as he should have," the news agency NTB reported.

"Police have received information from others who were on board that he was asleep," police official Kjetil Bruland Sorensen told NTB.

The 135-metre (443-foot) NCL Salten sailed up onto shore just metres from Johan Helberg's wooden cabin around dawn on Thursday.

Helberg discovered the unexpected visitor only when a panicked neighbour who had rung his doorbell repeatedly to no avail gave up and called him on the phone.

"The doorbell rang at a time of day when I don't like to open," Helberg told television channel TV2.

His neighbour, Jostein Jorgensen, said he was roused at around 5:00 am by the sound of a ship heading at full speed toward land and immediately ran to Helberg's house.

None of the cargo's 16 crew members were injured, and Norwegian police have opened an investigation.

"We are aware of the police stating that they have one suspect, and we continue to assist the police and authorities in their ongoing investigation," the NCL shipping group said Friday.

"We are also conducting internal inquiries but prefer not to speculate further," it added.

Efforts to refloat the ship have failed so far, and the massive red and green container ship remained stuck, looming over the small cabin.

Dhaka (AFP) – The banning of fugitive ex-leader Sheikh Hasina's party offers a sliver of justice for Bangladeshis demanding she face trial for crimes against humanity but also raises concerns about the inclusivity of elections.

"The government has taken the right decision," said Jahangir Alam, whose 19-year-old son was killed during the mass uprising that forced Hasina into exile in August 2024, ending the 15 years of iron-fisted control by her once all-powerful Awami League party.

"Because of her, the Awami League is now ruined," Alam said, demanding Hasina return from India to comply with the arrest warrant on charges related to the crackdown that killed at least 1,400 protesters.

"Who gave Sheikh Hasina the authority to kill my son?" said Alam, the father of Ibrahim Hossain Zahid, accusing 77-year-old Hasina of being a "mass murderer".

Bangladesh's oldest political party played a key role in the country's liberation war from Pakistan in 1971 and was once led by Hasina's late father, the nation's founding figure, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

"People used to hang Mujib's photo over their heads," he said. "Because of Sheikh Hasina's wrongdoing, that photo is now under our feet."

Hasina's government was blamed for extensive human rights abuses and protesters demanded that the interim government led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus take action.

The South Asian nation of some 170 million people last held elections in January 2024, when Hasina won a fourth term in the absence of genuine opposition parties.

Yunus promises that inclusive elections will be held by June 2026 at the latest.

Among those demanding the Awami League ban was the National Citizen's Party made up of many of the students who spearheaded last year's uprising.

Others were supporters of the Hefazat-e-Islam group and Jamaat-e-Islami, the largest Islamist political party.

Jamaat-e-Islami was banned during Hasina's time in power and several of its leaders were tried and hanged. Unsurprisingly, its members were vocal supporters of the ban.

The government banned the Awami League on May 12 after protests outside Yunus's home, pending the trial of Hasina.

"The oppressed have begun becoming oppressors," said Latif Siddiqui, a veteran Awami League member and former minister, adding that the party was wider than Hasina alone.

"She is not the whole Awami League," he said. "Many loved the party."

Human Rights Watch issued stinging criticism on Thursday, warning that "imposing a ban on any speech or activity deemed supportive of a political party is an excessive restriction on fundamental freedoms that mirrors the previous government's abusive clampdown".

However, political analyst Farhad Mazhar, an ideological guru for many student protesters, said the ban was required.

"The democratic space may shrink, but the Awami League has shown no remorse," Mazhar said.

However, Jatiya Party chairman GM Quader said that banning any party stifled democracy.

"We believe in multi-party democracy," he said.

His party had been close with the Awami League under Hasina, Quader said, but it had also opposed the ban on Jamaat-e-Islami.

"We don't support banning any political party that... follows the rules," Quader said.

Jamaat-e-Islami supported Islamabad during Bangladesh's independence war from Pakistan in 1971. Rivals now question if it, too, should be restricted for its historical role.

"If the Awami League is banned for mass murder, then the question arises -- what will happen to those parties that were involved in genocide, directly or indirectly?" Quader said.

"In the history of Bangladesh, the most people were killed during the Liberation War."

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), widely tipped to win the elections when they happen, has taken a more pragmatic approach.

Key leader Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury has said there is no bar on former Awami League loyalists joining his party, so long as they had not previously worked to "suppress" the BNP.

Regardless, the upcoming vote will now take place without what was one of Bangladesh's most popular parties.

Mamun Al Mostofa, professor of political science at Dhaka University, pointed out the party had been "banned before and went through severe crises... but it made a comeback".

Shahdeen Malik, a Supreme Court lawyer and constitutional expert, said a strong opposition helped support democracy.

"AL had a vote bank of around 30 percent of the total electorate," Malik said, noting that Hasina escalated her grip on power after crushing opponents in the 2008 election.

"Due to their atrocities, they may have lost some of that support -- but it is still unlikely to drop below 20 percent," he said.

"Stripping the voting rights of this 20 percent won't benefit anyone."