As the climate crisis forces people to abandon their land in Rajasthan, a new industry has sprung up in the desert state, with thousands of gaily decorated vans setting off to sell ice-cream across the country

The parched villages of Gangapur in the desert state of Rajasthan have a new season in their calendar. Between November and February , car workshops along the town’s dusty mile-long market open before sunrise, cylindrical stainless-steel food containers are put on display, and traders stock up on chocolate and strawberry syrups.

Come March, the villagers start preparing to migrate. In the workshops, thousands of vehicles are converted into vans for selling a variety of ice-cream, from plain condensed milk flavoured with cardamom to chocolate, vanilla and pistachio, while local farmers turned dessert makers have their old mini-trucks serviced in readiness for the drive to distant towns and cities, where they will sell the sweet treat for the next nine months.

Bishop of Dover praised people who stopped removal of men from Margate to Bibby Stockholm barge

A prominent Church of England bishop has praised the protesters who successfully disrupted the Home Office’s attempts to move asylum seekers to the Bibby Stockholm barge in Dorset.

Using words which could put her in conflict with Downing Street, the Right Rev Rose Hudson-Wilkin, the former chaplain to the late Queen and the House of Commons, thanked the local people who had blocked buses and said: “Our Lord showed compassion for the most vulnerable.”

Shocked people from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria herded on to coaches as 200 tents removed and streets cleaned

The convoy arrived just after sunrise, a stream of police vehicles, council trucks, mounted cranes and coaches, ready to dismantle a tent city of migrants and refugees in the heart of Dublin that had become too big, too visible, too political.

They fenced off streets and herded shocked, sleepy men from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria and other countries on to buses and began to extirpate about 200 tents, gradually extinguishing all traces of the camp, but no amount of sweeping and hosing could remove the whiff of elections and diplomacy gone wrong.

Business secretary defends move, saying it ‘puts to bed myth that Rwanda is not a safe place’

Good morning. When the safety of Rwanda (asylum and immigration) bill was in the House of Lords before Easter, a mysterious delay crept in. There was plenty of time to get it passed before the Easter recess, but the government held it back, without giving a good reason, and even when parliament returned, the government did not make passing the law a matter of urgency. It only cleared parliament, and got royal assent, last week.

And now it is fairly clear why. With the bill on the statute book, we are seeing a flurry of Rwanda-related activity from the government – which, by miraculous coincidence, seems to be turning up in the papers just days and hours before people in England vote in the local elections.

The Tories are so desperate to get any flight off to Rwanda before the local elections that they have now just paid someone to go.

British taxpayers aren’t just forking out £3,000 for a volunteer to board a plane, they are also paying Rwanda to provide him with free board and lodgings for the next five years. This extortionate pre-election gimmick is likely to be costing on average £2m per person.

This is cynical nonsense from a Conservative party that is about to take a drubbing at the local elections. Paying someone to go to Rwanda highlights just how much of a gimmick and farce their plan is.

This is somebody who has actually volunteered to go to Rwanda, which puts to bed this nonsensical myth that Rwanda was not a safe place.

It is. People go on holiday there. I know somebody who’s having a very lovely gap year there. We need to move past a lot of those myths, which are actually just disparaging about an African country.

There is no cost free option, that is the truth of it. It’s better this way than for him to be in the UK, either claiming benefits or being entitled to things that other people in this country can’t have, which be much more expensive for the taxpayer. But there is no free way to police our borders.

Nine people rescued from boat sailing perilous Atlantic route that reportedly left Senegal with 60 people onboard nine days ago

At least 50 people are feared to have drowned after a boat sailing the perilous Atlantic route from west Africa to Europe began to sink 60 miles south of the Canary island of El Hierro early on Monday.

Nine people were rescued from the craft after a passing bulk carrier alerted Spain’s Salvamento Marítimo rescue service, which dispatched a fast boat and a helicopter from its base in Tenerife.

There is still a misrepresentation of the colonial past. Without the truth of what we have been, how can we move forward?

I thought I knew Britain in 1969, when I came to this country from India to study at Loughborough University. But I quickly realised that was not the case. For me, the last half-century has been a long process of learning. At times this was very painful. Once, I even feared for my life at the hands of football racists. I have also seen the UK reinvent itself as a much more caring, welcoming place. However, we still have some way to go to become a truly diverse society.

My initial surprise was to discover that, on their little island, the British did not live as they had done in India during the Raj. Not only were bathrooms not en suite, but many homes even had outside loos. The dinner jacket that had been specially tailored for me before I left Mumbai proved redundant, as I found the British no longer dressed for dinner. The only people I saw wearing dinner jackets were waiters in Indian restaurants.

Prime minister dismisses potential deal with Dublin, increasing prospect of an escalating UK-Irish crisis

• UK politics – latest updates

Rishi Sunak has said the UK will not accept the return of asylum seekers from Ireland and dismissed the prospect of a deal with Dublin.

The prime minister doubled down on his Rwanda deportation plan and appeared to reject any deal with the Irish government, which is alarmed at asylum seekers entering the republic from Northern Ireland .

Supporters of the Rwanda deportation scheme fail to understand the lessons of Australia

‘It underscores why you need a deterrent.” So claimed Rishi Sunak in response to the Channel tragedy last week that led to the deaths of five migrants off the coast of France, hours after the “ Safety of Rwanda Bill ”, Sunak’s “deterrent”, passed its final parliamentary hurdle.

“Deterrence” has become the magic word to ease through every immigration policy, however cynical, cruel or unworkable. There is only one problem. When it comes to immigration, deterrence does not deter. “The available evidence suggests that the deterrent effect of asylum policies tends to be small,” observes Oxford University’s Migration Observatory . However tough they may seem, concluded a study from the development thinktank ODI, “deterrent policies… have virtually no effect on people’s behaviour ”. Those seeking to cross the Channel “have already travelled thousands of miles and spent thousands of pounds getting to that point”; they are “unlikely to drastically rethink their ‘migration project’, regardless of how strict the UK’s border controls become”.

Activists say little has changed in treatment of migrants and refugees under Donald Tusk’s new government

The case of a woman from Eritrea who was forced to give birth alone in the forested border area between Poland and Belarus has raised questions about the new Polish government’s response to the continuing humanitarian crisis at the border between the two countries.

The previous, rightwing government of the Law and Justice party (PiS) used the migration issue to score political points and was accused of encouraging rights abuses by guards along the border, with reports of frequent violent “pushbacks” of people to Belarus.