Spanish state news agency Efe and other media said that some 1,500 passengers were meanwhile on board the MSC Armony hoping to continue the cruise to Croatia.

A statement from the Bolivian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday said the Bolivian Embassy in Spain and the country’s consulate General in Barcelona “are carrying out the pertinent steps to address this case,” coordinating with Spanish authorities, as well as with the MSC Cruises Company.

MSC Cruises said in a statement the Bolivians included families and children.

It said the “passengers appeared to have proper documentation upon boarding in Brazil. We have been informed by the authorities that the visas are not valid for entry into the Schengen area.

As a result, passengers have not been able to disembark in Barcelona, which was their final destination.”

The company said the ship remained in port while it works with authorities to facilitate the process.

UK leader says investment is vital in ‘more dangerous and contested world.’

United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is set to announce plans to invest 200 million pounds ($252m) in the country’s nuclear deterrent and civil nuclear industry.

Sunak will on Monday announce a “national endeavour” to secure the future of the nuclear submarine-building and nuclear energy industries, creating 40,000 jobs in the process, the prime minister’s office said in a statement on Sunday.

Under the plan, the government will create a fund for the northern England town of Barrow-in-Furness to help support people taking up jobs, improve transport links and build more homes.

The government will also partner with industry players, including BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce, EDF and Babcock, to invest at least 763 million pounds ($962m) in skills, jobs and education by 2030, the statement said.

The UK’s nuclear industry is experiencing an “unprecedented period of growth” due to the government’s nuclear energy targets and will need 123,000 new workers by 2030, the statement said.

The UK’s nuclear submarine industry is also set to grow in the coming years following the formation of the AUKUS security pact, under which the UK and the United States are assisting Australia in acquiring nuclear-powered submarines.

“In a more dangerous and contested world, the UK’s continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent is more vital than ever,” Sunak said. “And nuclear delivers cheaper, cleaner home-grown energy for consumers.”

“That’s why we are investing in Barrow, the home of UK submarines, and in the jobs and skills of the future in the thriving British nuclear industry. Today we usher in the next generation of our nuclear enterprise, which will keep us safe, keep our energy secure, and keep our bills down for good.”

Paris, France – One of Paris’s most fashionable districts was flooded with white-shirted waiters balancing trays of coffee and croissants as the iconic Course des Cafes (“coffee race”) returned to the French capital on Sunday.

The competition, which began in Paris 110 years ago, sees waiters race each other while holding trays of typical French fare.

The event had not been held since 2011 because of budget issues. But with the Olympics coming to town this year, the city of Paris decided to revive the tradition to contribute to the spirit of athletic competition.

“Slaloming between tables and serving orders in record time without spilling one’s plate – that’s a sport,” the city said in a statement.

Thousands of people gathered to watch around 200 waiters take part in the race, which traverses a 2km (1.2-mile) route around Le Marais in central Paris. Without running, each waiter had to reach the finish line while balancing a tray with a glass of water, a cup of coffee and a croissant – and without spilling anything.

Competitors were required to wear a white top, black trousers and a waiter’s apron, the traditional garb for Parisian waiters. The dress code was meant to “pay homage to this legendary historic race”, said Paris Deputy Mayor Dan Lert.

Lert is also president of Eau de Paris. The public service company sponsored the race as part of a public relations campaign to encourage people to drink more tap water and consume fewer single-use plastic water bottles.

The race starts and finishes at the Paris City Hall, an imposing Renaissance Revival building in the 4th arrondissement, close to the River Seine. Competitors must weave their way through some of the narrower streets of Le Marais district, one of the only parts of the city where the cramped alleys common to medieval Paris remain intact.

Racing waiters also have to contend with hordes of tourists coming to explore the Marais, a popular spot for visitors thanks to its elegant 17th-century mansions, the Picasso Museum and writer Victor Hugo’s house.

The district is also known for its boutique shops and, due to its roots as the Jewish Quarter following the French Revolution, home to a couple of famous falafel shops as well.

The race’s female and male winners, ⁠Pauline Van Wymeersch and ⁠Samy Lamrous, were each given tickets to the opening ceremony of the Olympics this summer. Other top finishers received gift cards to restaurants around the city.

Harris will be voted in as Ireland’s youngest-ever prime minister when parliament next sits on April 9.

Simon Harris is set to become Ireland’s youngest prime minister after he was appointed as the new leader of the governing Fine Gael party.

The 37-year-old said it was the “absolute honour of my life” to be appointed party leader on Sunday, replacing Leo Varadkar, who resigned unexpectedly on Wednesday, saying the party would be better governed under another leader.

Harris will be voted in as the Republic of Ireland’s youngest-ever prime minister – known as the taoiseach – when the country’s parliament or Oireachtas next sits on April 9 due to support from Fine Gael’s coalition partners.

“I think he’s done a really good job in securing the leadership in as comprehensive a way as he has,” Fine Gael deputy leader Simon Coveney said.

Harris told the centre-right party’s members that he would repay their faith with “hard work, with blood, sweat and tears, day in and day out with responsibility, with humility and with civility”.

Setting out his priorities, Harris insisted that Fine Gael “stands for law and order” and told members he wanted to “take our flag back” from nationalists, to loud cheers.

He also said that he would pursue a “more planned and sustainable” immigration policy, following increased tension over the issue, and that he would “fight against the dangers of populism”.

On the international front, he called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and condemned Russia’s “horrific illegal invasion of Ukraine”.

He will have no more than a year to save the coalition from defeat at parliamentary elections.

In the last three years, polls have put Sinn Fein, a left-wing party that backs unification with Northern Ireland, a British province, as the preferred choice to lead the next government.

However, two more polls on Sunday confirmed a recent trend of support for Sinn Fein dropping off highs of 12-18 months ago.

A Business Post/Red C poll conducted before Varadkar’s departure as taoiseach put Sinn Fein’s lead over Fine Gael at six percentage points, while an Irish Independent/Ireland Thinks survey showed a five-point edge.

Harris, formerly a minister for education, research and science, is best known for taking responsibility for Ireland’s COVID-19 response.

He said recently that he became involved in politics as an “opinionated, moody teenager” bothered by the lack of educational supports for his autistic brother.

Although he has spent most of his adult life in parliament, Harris has cast himself as an “accidental politician”.

His online presence led one opponent in the Oireachtas to dub Harris the “TikTok taoiseach”.

While the economy grew strongly under Varadkar, successive governments, of which Harris has been part, have struggled to tackle a decade-long housing crisis and, more recently, the pressure from record numbers of asylum seekers and refugees.

Inheriting a three-party coalition government working off an agreed policy programme will not give the incoming leader much room for major new policy initiatives.

Before Harris, Varadkar was the country’s youngest-ever leader when first elected at age 38, as well as Ireland’s first openly gay prime minister.

His mother is Irish and his father is Indian, which also made Varadkar Ireland’s first biracial taoiseach.

Varadkar, 45, has had two spells as taoiseach — between 2017 and 2020, and again since December 2022 as part of a job-share with Micheal Martin, head of coalition partner Fianna Fail.

The Ukrainian military has said it hit two large Russian landing ships in overnight attacks on the occupied Crimean peninsula as well as other infrastructure used by the Russian navy in the Black Sea.

“The defence forces of Ukraine successfully hit the Azov and Yamal large landing ships, a communications centre and also several infrastructure facilities of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in temporarily occupied Crimea,” Ukraine’s military said on Sunday.

The military’s statement did not say how it hit the targets, but a Moscow-installed official in the region reported a major Ukrainian air attack, and said air defences had shot down more than 10 missiles over the Crimean port of Sevastopol.

“It was the most massive attack in recent times,” the Russian-appointed governor of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhayev, said in a Telegram post.

He said that a 65-year-old man was killed and four people were injured and that transport infrastructure including passenger boats and buses were partially damaged, with windows broken on five boats.

Three passenger buses, 13 school buses and one trolley bus were among the vehicles damaged, he added.

Footage shared on social media showed a large blast in the city sending a fireball and plume of black smoke into the air, as well as what appeared to be Russian air defences intercepting incoming projectiles.

Ukraine has claimed to have destroyed around a third of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, usually in attacks at night using sea-based drones packed with explosives.

Satellite images show Russia has moved much of the fleet further east, to the port of Novorossiysk, amid the spate of attacks.

Patrick Bury, defence and security analyst at the University of Bath, said the attack would not have a strategic impact on the war.

“Up until a few weeks ago, this would have been really important because the Russians were using those landing crafts to resupply troops down south. But it looks like they have now engineered a railway line, so it won’t have a strategic impact,” Bury told Al Jazeera.

“But by pushing the Black Sea Fleet back further east and out of the Black Sea essentially, it is allowing Ukraine to get more grains exports out which is important to the war economy,” he added.

Increased frequency of Russian attacks

Russia has significantly escalated its air attacks against Ukraine in recent days, in what it says is retaliation for a wave of Ukrainian strikes on its border regions.

In the early hours of Friday, Moscow launched its largest aerial barrages against Ukraine’s energy sector since the start of the war.

Moscow has also resumed targeting the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. On Sunday, Kyiv and the western region of Lviv came under a “massive” Russian air attack, according to Ukrainian officials. They said that while there were no casualties, Russia had fired 29 cruise missiles and 28 drones at its territory overnight.

Russian forces are also seeking to press their advantage in manpower and ammunition as Kyiv faces delays in supplies of additional Western aid.

On Saturday, Moscow claimed to have seized a village on the western outskirts of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine.

Its capture last month of Adviivka, near the Russian-held stronghold of Donetsk, was the first major territorial gain made by Russia since the devastated city of Bakhmut was seized 10 months ago.

Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed that success as a sign that Russian forces were back on the offensive.

“[Ukraine’s President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy himself said that Russia has won the winter, and I think the momentum has shifted to the Russian forces on the ground at least. Adviivka is proof of that,” Bury said.

“The big question now is whether there is something brewing in probably the month of May once the mud starts to dry in that area of Ukraine. So we will have to wait and see,” he said, adding that the Russians will be doing their absolute best to camouflage any kind of troop build-up if a spring offensive is on the cards.

Russian missile breaches Polish airspace

Meanwhile, Poland’s army said that one of the Russian missiles fired at western Ukraine had entered its airspace.

“Polish airspace was breached by one of the cruise missiles fired in the night by the air forces… of the Russian Federation,” the army posted on X.

“The object flew through Polish airspace above the village of Oserdow [in Lublin province] and stayed for 39 seconds,” it said.

Poland, which has been a staunch ally of its neighbour Ukraine in the two years since the invasion, said on Sunday that it would demand an explanation from Moscow.

We, a diverse group of employees at the Max Planck Society (MPS), Germany’s top research institution, are writing this letter to express our disapproval of the position our employer has taken on Israel-Palestine and call for a serious change in discourse, both within the MPS and in Germany as a whole, about Israel-Palestine.

On October 11, MPS published a “statement on the terror attacks against Israel”, which began with a condemnation of “the horrific attacks by Hamas against Israel in the strongest possible terms”.

It went on to express solidarity with Israel, grief for Israeli and other lives lost, and sympathy for affected families, friends, and loved ones. It lamented that students, young academics, and other employees of universities and research institutions would be “called up as reservists” and reaffirmed a commitment to maintaining “close scientific and personal ties” with research institutions in Israel, and using those connections to “extend support wherever possible”.

The only sentence that mentioned Palestinians was one that ascribed responsibility for their “unspeakable suffering” not to Israel or the Israeli army, but to Hamas.

The statement did not sit well with numerous employees of the MPS, nor have subsequent statements and actions of the MPS in the past six months.

In November, MPS President Patrick Cramer went on a visit to Israel and the Weizmann Institute of Science and expressed his support for Israeli researchers, but voiced no criticism of the actions of the Israeli army in Gaza. In December, the MPS announced it was allocating one million euros ($1.1m) for German-Israeli research collaboration. The programme seeks “to help stabilise Israel’s world-leading scientific community during the current crisis”.

The way the programme was framed to the public reflects the MPS leadership’s perception that there is only one victim that needs to be supported – the Israeli research community, which allegedly suffers severely as a consequence “of the Hamas attack on Israel” – meaning only the Israeli research community suffers from the relentless war carried out by Israel against Gaza. Why German taxpayers’ money should be spent to stabilise a research community impacted by the actions of its own government remains inexplicable to us.

On the other hand, not a single euro, or indeed word, has been spent on offering any kind of help to the scientific communities in Gaza and the West Bank, which are the primary victims of Israel’s war and policies of violent occupation. According to a statement issued by the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, “the Israeli army has killed 94 university professors, along with hundreds of teachers and thousands of students, as part of its genocidal war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip”.

In February, an article appeared in the German newspaper Die Welt, attacking eminent Lebanese-Australian scholar Ghassan Hage, employed at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, which is part of the MPS. Within a few days, the MPS announced it was firing him for “expressing views that are incompatible with the core values of the Max Planck Society”. Hage had been critical of Israel in his online posts.

An open letter from Max Planck researchers was circulated in protest of Hage’s dismissal, appealing for the reversal of this decision. We support the letter and also stand behind an earlier statement by colleagues published on December 17, criticising the MPS’s stance on Israel-Palestine and asking it to reconsider its position of unconditional support of Israel and its academic institutions in their entirety.

The events of the last months have fully confirmed that such a reconsideration is absolutely necessary. In particular, as members of the MPS, we should not support indiscriminate killings of civilians, massive destruction of civilian infrastructure, and a nearly comprehensive denial of humanitarian conditions for Palestinians in Gaza.

In its declaration of January 26, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) placed Israel under the obligation to undertake all possible measures to protect civilian life in Gaza, to guarantee the provision of basic services and adequate humanitarian aid, and to take all measures to prevent incitement to and acts of genocide. None of this has happened until now. On the contrary, Israel continues its inhumane campaign of annihilation in Gaza without shame.

The participation in the Holocaust of scientists from the MPS’s predecessor, the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, obliges us to stand together against all crimes against humanity and the possibility of genocide: “Never again” must be “Never again now”. As inheritors of this legacy, we have four clear demands for a rapid change in the MPS’s position on Israel-Palestine:

To uphold the ICJ´s stipulation to do everything to protect civilians in Gaza, we demand that the MPS call for a complete, unconditional, and immediate ceasefire.

We demand that the MPS take a clear public stance against the long-standing Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and its violence against the Palestinian people.

We demand that the MPS allocate the same amount dedicated to the Israel Programme, to the reconstruction of scientific institutions in Gaza. This is even more important since all universities in Gaza have now been completely destroyed.

Finally, we demand a public declaration by the MPS as to whether – and if so, in what manner – it has been and continues to be involved in dual-use research, meaning research that can be used for peaceful as well as military purposes, with its academic partners in Israel.

Any continuation of the one-sided and unconditional support of Israeli academic institutions by the MPS threatens to make the MPS and all its members complicit in the crimes committed by Israel in Gaza. We categorically reject this.

In addition to these immediate issues of morality, law, and justice, we, as scholars of the MPS, want to raise some pertinent and long-overdue questions of political and academic relevance:

What are the effects of excluding Palestinians from the MPS’s articulation of its historical relationship with the State of Israel?

How has collaborating with scientists in Israel but not in Palestine shaped the content and contours of the scientific knowledge produced?

How is this collaboration entangled in the formation of structural violence toward Palestinians, whether within Israel, in Gaza, or in the West Bank and East Jerusalem?

In an environment of public censorship and vilification of dissenting voices on this issue in Germany – which motivated us not to sign this letter with our individual names – does the MPS not feel an obligation to foster and actively call for an open and critical dialogue on Palestine-Israel, within the organisation and, more importantly, in the wider German public sphere?

How can we, a large group of internationally diverse researchers living in Germany, help to build bridges, not only between Germany and the State of Israel, but with Palestine too, and in so doing nurture a more peaceful and just future?

These and other questions urgently need to be discussed objectively and critically both within the MPS and the entire academic community in Germany and across the world if further horrific outbreaks of violence, and our complicity in them, are to be prevented in the future.

The views expressed in this article are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Russia has lowered flags to half-mast for a day of mourning after scores of people were gunned down with automatic weapons at a rock concert outside Moscow in the deadliest attack inside Russia for two decades.

President Vladimir Putin declared a national day of mourning for Sunday after pledging to track down and punish all those behind the attack, in which 133 people were killed, including three children, and more than 150 injured. The death toll is likely to further rise.

“I express my deep, sincere condolences to all those who lost their loved ones,” Putin said in an address to the nation on Saturday, his first public comments on the attack. “The whole country and our entire people are grieving with you.”

ISIL (ISIS) armed group claimed responsibility for Friday’s attack, but Putin has not publicly mentioned the group in connection with the attackers, whom he said had been trying to escape to Ukraine. He asserted that some on “the Ukrainian side” had prepared to spirit them across the border.

Ukraine has repeatedly denied any role in the attack, which Putin also blamed on “international terrorism”.

People on Sunday laid flowers at Crocus City Hall, the 6,200-seat concert hall outside Moscow where four armed men burst in on Friday just before Soviet-era rock group Picnic was to perform its hit, Afraid of Nothing.

The men fired their automatic weapons in short bursts at terrified civilians who fell screaming in a hail of bullets.

It was the deadliest attack on Russian territory since the 2004 Beslan school siege, when attackers linked to a Muslim group took more than 1,000 people, including hundreds of children, hostage.

Governor of the Moscow region Andrei Vorobyov said on Sunday the rescue operation was completed and the search operation is still ongoing.

“Identification by relatives is ahead. In hospitals, doctors are fighting for the lives of 107 people,” he said.

Al Jazeera’s Yulia Shapavalova, reporting from outside the concert hall, said people have been bringing flowers, candles, stuffed animals and posters for a makeshift memorial outside the hall.

“We can see flags raised to half-staff on the Russian house of parliament and other buildings. People are shocked, they’re grieving… there are numerous memorials throughout Russia,” she said.

“The clearance of the rubble continues with rescue dogs looking for people under the rubble… the death toll could rise.”

Long lines formed in Moscow to donate blood. Blood banks said on Sunday they now had enough blood supplies for four to six months.

Countries worldwide have expressed horror at the attack and sent their condolences to the Russian people.

Following a Palm Sunday Mass at St Peter’s Square in Vatican City, Pope Francis sent prayers to victims of the attack.

“I assure my prayers for the victims of the cowardly terrorist attack carried out the other evening in Moscow,” the 87-year-old pope said.

Headed for Ukraine

Putin said 11 people had been detained, including the four gunmen, who fled the concert hall and made their way to the Bryansk region, about 340km (210 miles) southwest of Moscow.

“They tried to hide and moved towards Ukraine, where, according to preliminary data, a window was prepared for them on the Ukrainian side to cross the state border,” Putin said.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said the gunmen had contacts in Ukraine and were captured near the border.

Meduza, a Russian publication based in Latvia, confirmed the claims by Russian state officials that the suspects were headed for Ukraine, by geolocating the filming location of the reported arrest of one of the suspects.

According to footage provided by the FSB, officials arrested a 30-year-old near the town of Khatsun in Russia’s Bryansk region, located 14km (8.6 miles) from the Ukrainian border, Meduza reported on Saturday.

The suspects have been brought to Moscow and may appear in court later in the day, according to local news agencies.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said it was typical of Putin and “other thugs” to seek to divert blame.

ISIL, which once sought control over swaths of Iraq and Syria, claimed responsibility for the attack, the group’s Amaq agency said on Telegram.

On Saturday night, ISIL released on its Telegram channels what it said was footage of the attack.

In footage published by Russian media and Telegram channels with close ties to the Kremlin, one of the suspects said he was offered money to carry out the attack.

“I shot people,” the suspect, his hands tied and his hair held by an interrogator, a black boot beneath his chin, said in poor and highly accented Russian.

When asked why, he said: “For money.” The man said he had been promised half a million roubles ($5,400).

One was shown answering questions through a Tajik translator.

ISIL behind attack?

The White House said the US government shared information with Russia early this month about a planned attack in Moscow and issued a public advisory to Americans in Russia on March 7. It said ISIL bore sole responsibility for the attack.

“There was no Ukrainian involvement whatsoever,” US National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Sunday any statement made by US authorities to vindicate Kyiv until the end of the probe into the attack should be considered as evidence.

Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov told the TASS news agency on Saturday the US did not pass any specific information through the Russian embassy in Washington about preparations for the attack.

“Nothing was passed,” the ambassador said. “No concrete information, nothing was transferred to us.”

Popenguine-Ndayane is home to me.

This small fishing village on the Atlantic coast some 100km (62 miles) from Senegal’s capital, Dakar, is a site of pilgrimage for the country’s Christian minority.

For the past 135 years, pilgrims – including the pope – have travelled here to pray at a site where they say the Black Madonna appeared.

Some believe miracles happen in this village.

It is a place where the sick come to be cured.

Politicians also come here to get elected.

Their campaigns arrive with blaring mbalax music – the popular dance tunes of Senegal – free T-shirts, and sometimes handfuls of cash and a promise that if you “vote for us, your despair will turn to hope”.

“Politicians think they can make miracles,” one of my neighbours tells me with a hint of irony.

Senegalese voters are not duped though.

Macky Sall’s announcement

Voting is a tradition that precedes French colonial rule in Senegal: From the poet-President Leopold Sedar Senghor down to the current presidency of Macky Sall, there have only ever been peaceful transitions of power.

That is a source of pride for Senegal, which is surrounded by countries ruled by military governments. Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali – one after the other – the former French colonies in West Africa that became democracies are falling; a domino effect that has spared this small coastal nation of approximately 17 million.

Situated on the most westerly tip of Africa, Senegal remains standing as a bastion of democracy.

But then came that Saturday afternoon in early February when, just hours before the presidential election campaign was scheduled to kick off, journalists were told the president would address the nation.

Sensing trouble, colleagues called me. We were incredulous as we waited. We watched an old man play a traditional instrument until the president was ready to make his address.

Hours had passed. It seemed like a bad omen, or perhaps a distraction.

Then the national anthem played and President Sall appeared.

A colleague, her husband, and an entire nation – including the family dog – stood still in silence, ears alert and listening as the president made history for all the wrong reasons.

He was cancelling the presidential elections, and by doing so, he was also throwing Senegal into uncertainty.

‘Orchestrating a constitutional coup’

The president claimed that the process by which the list of election candidates was drawn up by the country’s constitutional council was flawed. Judges from the council, he continued, were suspected of taking bribes to eliminate candidates from running in the election, thus putting into doubt the outcome of the vote.

Some sighed in resignation. Others burst into fits of anger. Our family dog barked with rage.

We had seen it coming, though.

Months before the polls, Sall – always a shrewd politician – had left his intention ambiguous as to whether he would run for a third mandate as president.

Julie Sagna watched Sall’s speech at home.

At the age of 32, she had never taken the time to vote. But when members of Senegal’s security forces stormed the National Assembly, throwing members of the opposition out, she knew that she was being robbed of a fundamental right that she had long taken for granted.

“I couldn’t believe it,” she said.

“The president is orchestrating a constitutional coup to extend his time in power!”

Sagna took to TikTok to fight back. Others clashed with security forces.

After political manoeuvres and street protests, the Constitutional Council stepped in, announcing a new election date of March 24.

That shortened the campaigning period to two weeks, but scheduled the vote to be held before Sall’s mandate as president ended on April 2.

Campaigning

Meanwhile, Sall, seeing his reputation crumble on the international scene, signed an amnesty bill to free what human rights groups describe as political prisoners. Thousands were released, including opposition leader Ousmane Sonko and his deputy Bassirou Diomaye Faye – the election candidate representing the banned political party PASTEF.

But the campaign had started without him.

Getting a head start in canvassing voters was the governing party’s candidate and former prime minister, Amadou Ba.

Ba crisscrossed the nation with a throng of bodyguards and with the well-oiled machine of the state apparatus to support him. Several reputable PR firms from the West were also tasked with making him appear a man of the people, ready to deliver stability.

A former tax inspector who became prime minister, Ba is an experienced civil servant. But he has never been elected to office. During the 2022 parliamentary elections, he lost to the banned PASTEF party’s candidate in his home district of Parcelles Assainies. Yet, despite that defeat, he is the candidate of choice of President Sall.

Described by his critics as the “billionaire civil servant” – billions in local West African CFA franc currency, that is – the opposition accuse Ba of being another corrupt politician trying to make a buck by becoming president.

Ba’s former employee – and also a tax inspector –  Bassirou Diomaye Faye is running against him after his recent release from prison.

During a weeklong campaign supported by opposition figure Ousmane Sonko, Faye has gone from unknown contender to political stardom. He was seen on top of a car, waving a traditional broom – symbolising his intent to sweep the country clean of corruption and also sweep to victory. As the anti-establishment candidate, Faye is calling for an overhaul of the political system.

For many young people, including Julie Sagna, Faye is a break with the past that young people feel they need to move the country forward.

Where elections are won

In Mbour – located not far from the pilgrimage village of Popenguine-Ndayane ­– Faye held his final campaign rally in front of a raucous crowd.

Among those who attended, many were young men. It is uncertain whether they will come out to vote in the election on Sunday. Many do not have voter registration cards.

Missing from Faye’s rallies was a key demographic: Senegalese women from the countryside.

Their vote can tip the outcome.

“It is away from the bustle of the capital or the blaring caravans of candidates, deep in the countryside beneath the village tree that elections are won in Senegal,” a traditional village healer tells me.

In Popenguine-Ndayane there is talk among the local women of a country they feel is no longer their own. A record number of mostly young Senegalese men travelled to Europe illegally in 2023. They went in search of work despite a booming economy at home. The mothers and sisters of Popenguine-Ndayane do not want to see their sons and brothers leave.

Like the Black Madonna that pilgrims come to venerate here, Senegal’s women can also make miracles happen at election time.

But, more than the free T-shirts and cash given to win their votes, what they want to see most of all is certainty in times of uncertainty.

A wiretap recording of German military officials published over the weekend proves Western countries were participating in the conflict in Ukraine, the Kremlin has claimed.

The assertion was made by a spokesman on Monday, shortly after Moscow had reportedly summoned the German ambassador. The previous day, Berlin said that the release of the recording via social media was part of efforts to “destabilise” Germany.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the discussions among military officials of the potential use by Ukraine of German-made Taurus missiles to hit Russian targets, “once again highlight the direct involvement of the collective West in the conflict in Ukraine”.

Russian state-run agency RIA Novosti published a video of Germany’s envoy Alexander Graf Lambsdorff arriving at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Moscow, declining to answer the questions of Russian journalists.

“The German ambassador … was summoned in connection with the publicised conversation of German officers about Crimea,” RIA said.

However, Berlin said that, contrary to reports by Russian state media, the envoy was not summoned.

“Our ambassador went to a long-planned meeting in the Russian foreign ministry (on Monday) morning,” a foreign ministry spokesman said.

Narrative

The 38-minute recording of the discussion was posted late on Friday on Russian social media. Subsequently, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson demanded on social media “an explanation from Germany”.

The officers were discussing the potential impact of the use of Taurus missiles. The conversation included aiming the missiles at targets such as the Kerch Bridge, which links the Russian mainland to Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014.

The audio leak came amid a debate in Germany over whether to supply the missiles. Ukraine is seeking a boost to its arsenal as ammunition stocks run short, Ukraine has been seeing setbacks on the battlefield after two years of war, with military aid from the United States being held up in Congress and the EU struggling to source enough weapons to send.

However, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has so far refused to send the missiles, fearing that it would lead to an escalation of the conflict.

Peskov sought to press home the Kremlin narrative that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was really a defensive action against a proxy war, led by the US.

“The recording itself suggests that the Bundeswehr [German armed forces] is discussing substantively and specifically plans to strike Russian territory,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

The spokesman added that it was not clear whether the German armed forces were acting on their own initiative.

‘Information war’

A German Ministry of Defence spokeswoman confirmed to the AFP news agency that the ministry believed a conversation in the air force division had been “intercepted”.

German Chancellor Scholz has promised a full investigation into the leak.

On Monday he reaffirmed his reluctance to send Taurus to Ukraine.

“You cannot deliver a weapons system that has a very wide reach and then not think about how control over the weapons system can take place,” he said. “And if you want to have control and it’s only possible if German soldiers are involved, that’s out of the question for me.”

His hesitancy is a source of friction within his three-party coalition, and of contention with Germany’s conservative opposition.

Berlin’s defence minister said on Sunday that Russia was conducting an “information war” aimed at creating divisions within Germany.

“The incident is much more than just the interception and publication of a conversation… It is part of an information war that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is waging,” Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said on Sunday.

“It is a hybrid disinformation attack. It is about division. It is about undermining our unity.”

The Kremlin has repeatedly denied accusations of spreading false or misleading information when faced with allegations from other countries.

In comments, Pistorius said that while the German officers discussed scenarios to use Taurus missiles, that did not mean a green light had been granted to supply weapons to Ukraine, Russian state media TASS reported on Monday.

“I think the officers did what they are there for. They are thinking through different scenarios without planning anything in any way and leaving no doubt about it,” Pistorius told reporters. “Neither I nor the chancellor have given the green light for the use of Taurus.”

He said it is “their job as leaders” to contemplate what scenarios were possible.

Germany is among the NATO countries that have supplied weaponry to Ukraine, including tanks. Russia accuses what it calls the “collective West” of using Ukraine to wage a proxy war against it; NATO says it is helping Kyiv to defend itself against a war of aggression.

Thousands of third-country nationals who found refuge in the Netherlands after Russia’s February 24, 2022 invasion have been told to leave the country by Monday.

Many of those affected, mostly students and young workers from Ukraine, have been gathering in the streets of Amsterdam to protest in recent weeks, accusing the recently-elected far-right Dutch government of discrimination.

The expulsion order came after a high court of the Netherlands ruled in January that a European Union policy that allowed both Ukrainian nationals and residents to settle in the country since the war would no longer apply to temporary residents. Those affected must exit the country by March 4 or risk forced deportation.

Here’s why the Dutch government is asking this group to leave now and how lawyers are hoping to overturn the ruling:

Why is the Netherlands asking third-country nationals to leave?

Like most of the European Union, the Netherlands initially opened up its borders to those fleeing Ukraine right at the start of the war, in March 2022. A Temporary Protection Directive (TPD) from the EU provided that Ukrainian refugees and permanent residents be offered refuge for two years until March 4, 2024, and that permits could be extended by the bloc as needed.

However, unlike several other EU members, the Netherlands did not assess individual cases to distinguish Ukrainian nationals from those with temporary permits, like the thousands of students – mostly from India, Nigeria, Morocco and Egypt – who lived and studied in Ukraine for years before the fighting.

“The point was to alleviate the burden on the asylum system,” Lotte van Diepen of Everaert Advocaten, an immigration law firm, told Al Jazeera. “In most other countries, they assessed if people were able to return safely,” she said, meaning that those with temporary permits were then either allowed to stay in other parts of Europe or return to their countries, according to the strength of individual cases.

The Netherlands’ approach, however, was more attractive. Thousands of third-country nationals trooped to Dutch cities and about 4,500 were registered in municipalities across the country. The government provided most people with accommodation in refugee centres, a stipend, healthcare access and work permits.

Change of heart?

Early in 2023, the Dutch government announced it would end protection for third-country nationals, and informed them via multiple letters to leave their shelters and the country by September 4, 2023 – or be kicked out.

Dutch authorities argued that third-country nationals who could safely go back home to their countries had “abused” the protection system. Minister of Migration Eric van der Burg said not taking action would “overburden” municipalities and promised 5,000 euros ($5,422) in “remigration” compensation for those willing to leave voluntarily.

“We didn’t know what to do because those letters were very petrifying, very scary,” said Isaac Awodola, a Nigerian graduate of Odessa State University and co-founder of the Derdelanders group, which represents third-country nationals. “We had like six months to prepare to do whatever we wanted, [but] at that moment we were still traumatised,” he said.

Some third-country nationals working with immigration lawyers like van Diepen sued the Dutch government, questioning if it could terminate protection for a group it had previously greenlit under the EU directive. Many of those cases were fast-tracked in the courts, while others were left pending.

With the legal intervention, Migration Minister van der Burg was forced to suspend the September 4 deadline, granting thousands like Awodola temporary relief.

Many want to stay because they are still tied to Ukraine, Awodola said. There are those who need to return to recoup lost certificates, or those, like medical students, who need to stay close because, although their university studies are held online, they have to be physically present for practical exams – and flight costs from their countries are not cheap.

“We are also human beings regardless of our background or where we come from, because the bombs and rockets that dropped on Ukraine did not ask for a passport,” Awodola added. “There should not be any segregation or separatism involved.”

What did the courts say?

In several individual cases, including those filed by van Diepen who represents at least six people, district courts ruled that the authorities did not have the power to terminate the stay of third-country nationals without an explicit EU directive. However, other courts ruled that van der Burg could ask third-country nationals to leave, even without a European law saying so.

Due to the split, appeals went up to the Council of State, the highest administrative court in the Netherlands. The court had to decide if the Dutch government had the authority to expel people protected under the EU directive. In October, the EU extended the temporary protection directive until March 4, 2025.

On January 17, the council ruled that Dutch authorities don’t have such powers, and that the minister could not separate third-country nationals from Ukrainian nationals when everyone had been initially provided with blanket protection. Whatever applied to Ukrainian refugees, the court said, should apply to third-country nationals, too.

However, the court also said permits for third-country nationals would expire on March 4 – the initial, flexible expiry date the EU set at the start of the war. In its ruling, the court said the EU extension in October did not explicitly mention third-country nationals, and thus, protection no longer covered that group.

It was a convenient win for the Dutch authorities, but shocking for third-country nationals and their lawyers.

The court “went beyond [the] scope of the initial dispute brought before it,” van Diepen argued, referring to the original question around the powers of the Dutch government. “The consideration about the end date being 4 March 2024 … was not a topic of the debate in court. It was only an additional expression of opinion uttered by the court in the final judgement, not essential to the decision and therefore – we argue – not legally binding as a precedent.”

What next?

The Council of State’s ruling cannot be appealed, meaning that people like Awodola may have to leave the country on Monday. The Dutch government has granted an extra 28 days for people to organise their exits, but state-covered amenities like accommodation and stipends will be removed, and after the grace period, people could be deported.

Dutch authorities have asked third-country nationals who don’t feel safe returning to their homes to file for asylum, but most don’t fall under that category. About 2,700 to 2,900 of the original 4,500 who initially settled in the Netherlands still remain.

“I don’t have a plan yet,” one person from Zimbabwe, who just graduated from their online Ukraine university, said of this week’s deadline. Awodola, the Nigerian, has vowed to keep protesting.

Van Diepen and other lawyers are going back to lower district courts to argue in pending cases that the EU’s extension did not have to explicitly mention third-country nationals, since it protected them before. If the lower courts disagree, they can request the EU’s Court of Justice to intervene. A ruling from the bloc supersedes national law.

Third-country nationals say Ukraine was home for them, too, and that they are affected by the war. In several instances, African and Asian students said they were refused exit from the war zones back in 2022 because they were not Ukrainian.

But migration is a tense topic in a Netherlands that voted for the far-right, anti-migration Party for Freedom – headed by politician Geert Wilders – in November’s parliamentary elections. Some Dutch citizens say third-country nationals are diverting resources meant for Dutch people and Ukrainian refugees, and that the government has a right to cancel their stay.

“No one is arguing that they don’t have the right and we recognise their move was very generous in the first instance,” van Diepen said. “But the issue is, for those who were already allowed in, you can’t now turn around and say we don’t want you again. It’s an unjust decision with no legal basis.”

Some of the lower court cases, the lawyer said, will be heard in the next few weeks. But time is fast running out for the thousands of third-country nationals who now have to pack up. Again.