Authoritarian governments are extending their pursuit of critics far beyond their borders

Forty-five years ago, the Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov was killed in London with a poison-tipped umbrella as he made his way home from work. The horrifying case transfixed the British public.

So transnational repression is not new, including on British shores. But unless its target is unusually high-profile, or it uses startling tactics such as those employed by Markov’s killers – or in the attempt to assassinate Sergei Skripal – much of it passes with minimal attention.

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Inadvertent poisoning of scavengers across Indian subcontinent is forcing some communities to give up ancient custom

Traditional Zoroastrian burial rites are becoming increasingly impossible to perform because of the precipitous decline of vultures in India, Iran and Pakistan.

For millennia, Parsi communities have traditionally disposed of their dead in structures called dakhma, or “towers of silence”. These circular, elevated edifices are designed to prevent the soil, and the sacred elements of earth, fire and water, from being contaminated by corpses.

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Threats from the state have led many journalists across the world to flee their home countries to report from elsewhere. But for many the intimidation did not stop when they left

Illustrations by Joe McKendry

Fardad Farahzad, journalist, Iran International

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The regime wants to crush resistance. But those it rules continue to push back against its brutality

The protests that exploded across Iran following Mahsa Amini’s death in custody in September 2022 were a turning point. The young Iranian-Kurdish woman had been detained by the “morality police” for “improper hijab”. Not only did young women take to the streets and cast off their scarves in fury, but parents and grandparents came too. The protests were strikingly socially diverse. Critically, men joined the cries of “woman, life, freedom”. The regime reacted with predictable fury, killing hundreds and arresting thousands . It succeeded in suppressing the demonstrations. But many women refused to return to obeying the strict dress code.

It was inevitable that the Iranian leadership would strike back. Its quarrel is not only with women’s liberties, but with the precedent set for defiance. It is determined to crush opposition as it crushed the street protests, with a court sentencing a popular rapper to death – not for violence but simply dissent. Toomaj Salehi, courageous in supporting the nationwide protests in 2022, was found guilty of “corruption on Earth”. He had previously been sentenced to six years over his role, before being freed by a court citing a technicality.

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Andromeda Star targeted with three missiles, UK Maritime Trade Operations security agency said

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Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the crisis in the Middle East.

A ship has been damaged when it was targeted twice with multiple missiles off Yemen’s coast on Friday, in the latest attack on international shipping in the Red Sea to be claimed by Houthi rebels.

Hamas said it was studying the latest Israeli counterproposal regarding a potential ceasefire in Gaza, a day after a delegation from mediator Egypt reportedly arrived in Israel in a bid to jump-start stalled negotiations. Egypt, Qatar and the United States have been unsuccessfully trying to seal a new truce deal in Gaza ever since a one-week halt to the fighting in November saw 80 Israeli hostages exchanged for 240 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

An official briefed on the Egyptian delegation’s meeting with Israeli counterparts on Friday said Israel had no new proposals to make. However, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Israel was willing to consider a limited truce in which 33 hostages would be released by the Islamist movement Hamas, instead of the 40 previously under discussion.

Aid shipments to Gaza from Cyprus resumed late on Friday, a Cypriot source said, with a ship carrying food to the besieged Palestinian enclave after a pause following Israel’s killing of seven aid workers . The World Central Kitchen NGO paused aid to review its activity in the territory after the early April attack, halting the direct shipments into Gaza from Cyprus. A small cargo vessel left the port of Larnaca on Friday night with aid donated by the United Arab Emirates, a Cypriot source said.

China will host Palestinian unity talks between Islamist militant group Hamas and its rivals Fatah, the two groups and a Beijing-based diplomat said on Friday . Hamas controls Gaza while Fatah is the movement of Mahmoud Abbas, president of the western-backed Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the Israeli occupied West Bank. The two rival Palestinian factions have failed to heal their political disputes since Hamas fighters expelled Fatah from Gaza in a short war in 2007.

Iran’s foreign minister said the crew of a seized Portuguese-flagged ship linked to Israel have been granted consular access and are expected to be freed, Iranian media reported on Saturday. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards seized the container vessel MSC Aries with a crew of 25 in the Strait of Hormuz on 13 April, days after Tehran vowed to retaliate for a suspected Israeli strike on its consulate in Damascus.

A pro-Hamas Lebanese militant group said on Friday that two of its senior commanders were killed in an Israeli strike in eastern Lebanon . Jamaa Islamiya said in a statement that Mosab Saeed Khalaf and Bilal Mohammed Khalaf “died while carrying out their jihadist tasks... in a Zionist strike in the Bekaa” valley.

A UN probe into Israeli allegations that 19 members of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) participated in the October 7 Hamas attacks has closed one case due to the absence of any evidence from Israel and suspended four others, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Friday. An independent review led by a former French foreign minister earlier this week said that Israel had yet to provide supporting evidence of its claims which led major donors including the US to suspend funding to the agency.

Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday that any rulings issued by the International Criminal Court would not affect Israel’s actions but would “set a dangerous precedent”. “Under my leadership, Israel will never accept any attempt by the International Criminal Court in the Hague to undermine its basic right to defend itself,” Netanyahu said in a statement shared on Telegram.
“While decisions made by the court in the Hague will not affect Israel’s actions, they will set a dangerous precedent that threatens soldiers and public figures.”

Four workers from Yemen were killed in a drone attack on an Emirati-owned gas complex in Iraq’s northern autonomous region of Kurdistan on Friday, Reuters reported citing local officials . A security source confirmed the attack against the site which is owned by the United Arab Emirates firm Dana Gas. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

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Increase in cost of crude could drive inflation up and force central banks to keep interest rates high

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A serious escalation of tensions in the Middle East would push the price of oil above $100 (£80) a barrel and reverse the recent downward trend in global inflation, the World Bank has said.

The Washington-based institution said the recent fall in commodity prices had been levelling off even before the recent missile strikes by Iran and Israel – making interest rate decisions for central banks tougher.

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Dissidents and broadcasters feeling unsafe after stabbing of Pouria Zeraati in London call for ‘deterrent signal’

A former BBC journalist has said the UK government will “pay a heavy price” for its lack of action against the Iranian regime, which could lead to more “threats” and “operations” in Britain, after the stabbing of an Iranian journalist in London.

Sima Sabet, a former journalist at the BBC World Service and the dissident channel Iran International, said there would be more transnational repression unless the government issued a “deterrent signal” to the Iranian regime.

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Tit-for-tat attacks present Sunni monarchies with complicated choices over region’s future

Iran’s missile and drone attack on Israel had, by the end of this week, become one of the most interpreted events in recent modern history. Then, in the early hours of Friday, came Israel’s reported riposte . As in June 1914, when Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated in a moment which ultimately led to the first world war, these shots were heard around the world, even if few can agree conclusively on what they portend.

By one de minimis account, Tehran was merely sending a performative warning shot with its attack last Saturday, almost taking its ballistic missiles out for a weekend test drive. The maximalist version is that this was a state-on-state assault designed to change the rules of the Middle East. By swarming Israel with so many projectiles, such an assessment goes, Iran was prepared to risk turning Israel into a mini-Dresden of 1945 and was only thwarted by Israeli strategic defences and, crucially, the extraordinary cooperation between the US, Israel and Sunni Gulf allies.

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Tit-for-tat attacks have breached taboo of direct strikes on each other’s territory but Tehran has no ‘immediate’ plans to retaliate

• Middle East crisis – live updates

World leaders urged calm on Friday after Israel conducted a pre-dawn drone sortie over Iran following a cycle of tit-for-tat attacks that crossed an important red line that has for decades held the Middle East back from a major regional conflict.

There were tentative hopes late on Friday that the apparent strike attempt against an airbase near the city of Isfahan was sufficiently limited to fend off the threat of a bigger Iranian response and an uncontrolled spiral of violence between a nuclear power and a state with the capacity to develop nuclear weapons quickly.

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