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Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza says her banning shows Rwandan government does not adhere to international lawA Rwandan opposition leader who has been banned from standing for election has cast doubt on whether her government will stick to the terms of the deportation deal agreed with Rishi Sunak.Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza told the Guardian that the Rwandan government’s refusal to allow her to stand or leave the...

Minister says ‘officers are used to this’, as figures suggest Home Office is in contact with only 38% of people it wants to removeThe Home Office is “used to” losing contact with asylum seekers, a UK government minister has said, after official figures suggested thousands of people it hoped to deport to Rwanda had stopped reporting.The impact assessment on the Home Office’s website on...

In today’s newsletter: After months of wrangling, Parliament passed the government’s controversial plan to tackle small boats• Sign up here for our daily newsletter, First Edition Continue reading...

Lawyers prepare for legal battles on behalf of individual asylum seekers challenging removal to east AfricaHow the UK government’s Rwanda deportation plan was fought in courtRishi Sunak’s Rwanda deportation bill will become law after peers eventually backed down on amending it, opening the way for legal battles over the potential removal of dozens of people seeking asylum.After a marathon battle of “ping pong” over...

Saleh Ahmed Handule Ali, now 33, had indefinite leave to remain in UK, but Home Office failed to keep a recordA refugee who left the UK on holiday as a teenager in 2008 has been stranded in east Africa for the last 16 years in a case that senior judges have described as “extraordinary”.Saleh Ahmed Handule Ali, now 33, arrived in the UK at...

Paul Kagame flew to UK for Champions League match while national police told citizens to restrict activities including footballThe president of Rwanda, whose police force has asked the country’s people to restrict football-related activities during the 30-year anniversary of the Rwanda massacre, is facing questions after flying to the UK and watching Arsenal play Bayern Munich.Paul Kagame visited on Tuesday 9 April to watch...

Endurance athlete from Worthing says he is ‘just trying to soak it all in’ after completing 352-day, 9,940-mile runAfter sinking a strawberry daiquiri and a few beers and enjoying a reunion with his girlfriend after more than a year apart, Russ Cook, AKA the “Hardest Geezer”, who completed his 9,940-mile (16,000km) run along the entire length of Africa on Sunday, woke up feeling “a...

Russ Cook from Worthing reaches Ras Angela, Tunisia, after covering more than 9,900 miles in 352 daysAfter more than 9,940 miles (16,000km) over 352 days across 16 countries, Russ Cook, aka the “Hardest Geezer”, has completed the mammoth challenge of running the length of Africa.The 27-year-old endurance athlete from Worthing, West Sussex, crossed the finish line in Tunisia on Sunday afternoon, and planned to...

Actor and his childhood friend planning development on Sherbro to be a public-private partnershipIdris Elba has shared details of his “dream” to turn an island off the coast of Sierra Leone, the country where his father was born, into an environmentally friendly smart city.The actor is working with his childhood friend to develop Sherbro, which is roughly the size of the Isle of Man,...

Peers, including senior Tories, vote by margins of about 100 votes for changes to legislation, which will have to go back to CommonsRishi Sunak has suffered his heaviest defeat in the House of Lords after the archbishop of Canterbury and former Conservative ministers joined forces with the opposition to force through five amendments to the Rwandan deportation bill.The string of government setbacks, most passed...

Disclosure, calculated on basis of 300 deportations, called ‘staggering’ by chair of home affairs committeeRishi Sunak’s flagship plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda will cost taxpayers £1.8m for each of the first 300 people the government deports to Kigali, Whitehall’s official spending watchdog has disclosed.The overall cost of the scheme stands at more than half a billion pounds, according to the figures released...

Carved wooden tabot has been at Abbey since British forces looted it at Battle of Maqdala in 1868Westminster Abbey has agreed “in principle” to returning a sacred tablet to the Ethiopian Orthodox church, igniting a debate around restitution claims made by the East African nation.The tabot – a blackened flat piece of wood featuring a carved inscription that symbolically represents the Ark of the...

Successor unlikely to be appointed for six months – covering period when PM hopes flights will take offThe UK’s chief inspector of borders and immigration has called it “scandalous” that his watchdog role could be left vacant while the Rwanda scheme is introduced.In a break with the treatment of his predecessors, David Neal has been told he will not serve a second term as...

Amina Noor travelled from north London with the child to Kenya where the procedure was carried out in 2006A woman who was found guilty of handing over a three-year-old British girl for female genital mutilation (FGM) during a trip to Kenya has been jailed for seven years.Amina Noor, 40, was convicted last year of assisting a Kenyan woman to carry out the procedure overseas...

Scam involves more than 700 healthcare workers who used proxies to pass test in Nigeria enabling them to work in the UKHundreds of frontline NHS staff are treating patients despite being under investigation for their part in an alleged “industrial-scale” qualifications fraud.More than 700 nurses are caught up in a potential scandal, which a former head of the Royal College of Nursing said could...

Damning report by MPs warns policy places UK’s reputation for rule of law and human rights ‘in jeopardy’The UK government’s controversial Rwanda legislation that deems the African country as a safe place to deport people to is fundamentally incompatible with Britain’s human rights obligations and places it in breach of international law, according to a damning parliamentary report.MPs and peers from the cross-party joint...

Officials will be taught how to carry out deportations, including how to handle people who physically resistThe Home Office has hired an aircraft hangar and aeroplane body to train security staff on how to deport people, as the UK government increases the number of people it forcibly removes each year.Officials confirmed on Friday the department had increased its capacity to train officials to carry...

June Givanni founded London archive documenting Pan-African cinema over 40 yearsA pioneering curator, writer and programmer of African film is to receive Bafta’s outstanding British contribution to cinema award.June Givanni is the founder of a London archive that has amassed more than 10,000 items – including films, ephemera, manuscripts, audio, photography and posters – documenting Pan-African cinema over 40 years. Continue reading...

In today’s newsletter: The controversial Rwanda bill is back in the Commons – what happens next could shape the party’s future• Sign up here for our daily newsletter, First EditionGood morning. It’s been another miserable week for Rishi Sunak, and it’s only Wednesday. The fulcrum of his despair is today’s vote on the third reading of the government’s Rwanda deportation bill, which is meant...

Lee Anderson could be one of ‘six Conservatives on the payroll’ ready to support the amendmentsConservative rebels have said as many as 70 MPs could back amendments or abstain from supporting Rishi Sunak’s flagship Rwanda bill, telling the prime minister he will have “nowhere to go” if he does not toughen up the legislation.A leading figure on the right wing of the party said...