Global Witness says plan to upgrade railway line to Angola puts up to 1,200 buildings at risk of demolition

Up to 6,500 people are at risk of being displaced in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by a multi-billion-dollar infrastructure project funded by the EU and the US, amid a global race to secure supplies of copper, cobalt and other “critical minerals”, according to a report by campaign group Global Witness.

The project, labelled the Lobito Corridor, aims to upgrade the colonial-era Benguela railway from the DRC to Lobito on Angola’s coast and improve port infrastructure, as well as building a railway line to Zambia and supporting agriculture and solar power installations along the route. Angola has said it needs $4.5bn (£3.4bn) for its stretch of the line.

Government once seen as progressive on migration says aid cuts to blame for excluding countries ‘not experiencing war’

The Ugandan government has stopped granting asylum and refugee status to people from Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia, citing severe funding shortfalls for the significant policy shift.

Hillary Onek, Uganda’s minister for refugees, announced that the government would no longer grant the status to new arrivals from countries “not experiencing war”.

Artist who once draped Barbican in brightly coloured fabric says he is humbled by recognition in ArtReview rankings

The Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama has become the first African to be named the most influential figure in the art world in ArtReview magazine’s annual power list.

Mahama, whose work often uses found materials including textile remnants, topped the ranking of the contemporary art world’s most influential people and organisations as chosen by a global judging panel.

Kenyan parliament says UK army training unit ‘dismissed most complaints as false, without publishing its findings’

A report by the Kenyan parliament into the conduct of troops stationed at a British military base close to the town of Nanyuki in Kenya has alleged human rights violations, environmental destruction and sexual abuse by British soldiers.

The inquiry into the British Army Training Unit in Kenya (Batuk) was carried out by Kenya’s departmental committee on defencе, intelligence and foreign relations.

The establishment of a survivor liaison unit to offer legal aid to victims of crimes linked to Batuk personnel.

For the British and Kenyan governments to negotiate “mechanisms to hold Batuk soldiers accountable for child support”.

The creation of a military-linked crimes taskforce to oversee investigation and prosecution of offences committed by foreign military personnel.

Exclusive: Analyst claims UK officials deleted alert to threat of genocidal violence by paramilitaries to protect UAE

Warnings of a possible “genocide” in Sudan were removed from a UK risk assessment by Foreign Office officials, according to a whistleblower whose testimony raises fresh concern over British failures to act on the atrocities unfolding in the war-ravaged country.

The threat analyst said they were prevented from warning that genocide could occur in Darfur by Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) officials in a risk assessment collated days after Sudan’s brutal civil war erupted in April 2023.

Democratic representative Jim Himes, who saw footage of attack, called it ‘one of the most troubling scenes’ he’s observed in public service

• Analysis: Killing of survivors sparks outrage – but entire US ‘drug boat’ war is legally shaky

A Democratic congressman described an unedited video of an extrajudicial military strike that killed two survivors in the Caribbean as “one of the most troubling scenes” he’s seen in public service, as human rights advocates and policy experts are lining up to demand the video’s public release.

Congressman Jim Himes, the ranking member of the House intelligence committee, made the remarks on Thursday after viewing footage in a classified briefing of the 2 September follow-up attack that killed two men clinging to wreckage off the coast of Venezuela. His assessment came as experts called the operation murder under international law.