The Guardian·Monday, December 22, 2025

The Guardian - Monday, December 22, 2025

10 stories~15 min

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Stories Covered

Freed Nigerian schoolchildren to be reunited with families

Month-long ordeal ends but no details released on how they regained their freedom or who was behind abduction A final group of 130 kidnapped Nigerian schoolchildren freed by the government on Sunday are expected to be reunited with their families in the central Niger state on Monday, ending a month-long ordeal that drew global concern. Last month, unknown gunmen took hundreds of schoolchildren and 12 teachers from St Mary’s Catholic school, Papiri community in Niger state, which runs west from t

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Another 130 kidnapped schoolchildren released in Nigeria

Presidential spokesperson says all those abducted from a Catholic school in Niger state last month are now free Nigerian authorities say they have secured the release of a further 130 schoolchildren kidnapped from a Catholic school in November, after 100 were freed earlier this month. “Another 130 abducted Niger state pupils released, none left in captivity,” presidential spokesperson Sunday Dare said on X, in a post accompanied by a photo of smiling children. Continue reading...

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Manchester Museum seeks help to uncover hidden histories of African collection

New Africa Hub confronts colonial-era silences by asking visitors to share insights on 40,000 objects It’s a rare thing for a museum to talk about what it doesn’t know. But unanswered questions and archival silences are at the heart of the new Africa Hub at Manchester Museum, north-west England, which is inviting people around the world to help fill the gaps. The museum holds more than 40,000 items from across Africa, many of which were traded, collected, looted or preserved during the era of th

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Sweden and Germany slash aid budgets to focus on Ukraine and defence spending

Echoing the dismantling of USAID, other countries are changing funding priorities and health and hunger programmes in Africa will lose out The notion of humanitarian aid being used to combat poverty and hunger is being replaced in Europe with geopolitical “games” as states redirect aid to Ukraine and to defence spending, analysts warn after recent announcements by Sweden and Germany. Earlier this year, humanitarian groups called for European donors to fill the gap as President Donald Trump dism

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Gunmen kill nine in Johannesburg township in South Africa’s second mass shooting this month

Attackers wound 10 others in Bekkersdal after opening fire at people in a bar and ‘randomly’ shooting in the street, police say Nine people have been killed after gunmen opened fire at a bar near Johannesburg in the second mass shooting in South Africa this month. Ten more were wounded in the early morning attack at the tavern in the impoverished Bekkersdal township in a gold mining area about 25 miles (40km) south-west of Johannesburg. Continue reading...

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Outrage after CBS pulls 60 Minutes segment on El Salvador’s Cecot prison

Controversially appointed editor-in-chief Bari Weiss says: ‘I held that story and I held it because it wasn’t ready’ CBS News was dealing with internal and external uproar on Monday after it pulled at the last minute an investigation for its flagship 60 Minutes show into the harsh prison in El Salvador where the Trump administration deported hundreds of Venezuelans from the US earlier this year. The episode about the Cecot mega-prison was due to air on Sunday night. However, in an “editor’s note

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Ecuador court sentences 11 air force troops over disappearance of four boys

Long sentences in case of Afro-Ecuadorian ‘Guayaquil Four’ focuses attention on president’s crackdown on crime A court in Ecuador has sentenced 11 air force personnel to decades in prison over the forced disappearance” of four Afro-Ecuadorian boys aged between 11 and 15 during security operations in the country’s largest city last year. The case of the “Guayaquil Four” is widely seen as the starkest example of human rights abuses under the iron-fist security policy pursued by the rightwing presi

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CBS News delays 60 Minutes segment on El Salvador’s Cecot mega-prison

Backlash after broadcaster announces investigation, due to air on Sunday night, ‘needs additional reporting’ CBS News is facing a backlash, including from one of its own correspondents, after it cancelled a 60 Minutes investigation into a brutal prison in El Salvador where the Trump administration has deported hundreds of migrants. The episode of its flagship program about the Cecot mega-prison was due to air on Sunday night. However, in an “editor’s note” posted on X, the broadcaster’s official

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Man jailed for 1,335 years as El Salvador sentences almost 250 MS-13 gang members

Attorney general’s office also says 10 people received prison terms from 463 to 958 years amid crackdown on gangs under state of emergency El Salvador has announced prison sentences for hundreds of gang members, with some of the convicted receiving terms of hundreds of years. The attorney general’s office posted on X that 248 members of the notorious Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) street gang had received “exemplary sentences” for 43 homicides and 42 disappearances, among other crimes. Continue readi

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US Coast Guard pursuing another oil tanker off coast of Venezuela

Official indicates vessel is subject to sanctions after Trump’s ‘blockade’ on sanctioned tankers in and out of Venezuela US Coast Guard officials said on Sunday they were tracking an oil tanker in international waters close to Venezuela, multiple unnamed US officials have told US media, marking the second such action over the weekend – and the third within the past week. What officials described as an “active pursuit” in the Caribbean Sea took place a day after the coast guard seized another ves

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