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Security or justice? Syria faces post-Assad reckoning after string of arrests

New government accused of ‘performative justice’ and making deals with suspects in 2013 Tadamon massacresAhmad al-Homsi is a deep sleeper, but when he was woken last month and told that Amjad Youssef, a Syrian intelligence officer who killed civilians in the 2013 Tadamon massacres, had been arrested, he bolted out of bed. He ran into the street to find other people already celebrating the news.“We stayed out for almost three or four days celebrating. People from neighbouring areas sent camels, sheep, livestock for us to slaughter and distribute them to people. The tears of joy didn’t stop,” said al-Homsi, a 33-year-old activist with the Tadamon Coordination Committee, which documented the atrocities in the Damascus neighbourhood. Continue reading...

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Labour MPs say ‘endless drama’ of leadership speculation must stop

Downing Street begins fightback against predictions of imminent challenge to Keir StarmerLabour MPs are calling for a close to the “endless drama” of leadership speculation, as Downing Street begins a fightback against predictions of an imminent challenge to Keir Starmer.Some backbenchers warned that repeated briefings about how and when the prime minister could be toppled were putting off voters, who similarly had disliked the Conservatives’ repeated shuffling of leaders when in power. Continue reading...

Thousands of cancer patients in England to benefit from new immunotherapy jab

Injectable pembrolizumab can treat several types of cancer and can be administered in under two minutesThousands of patients across England each year will benefit from a new immunotherapy treatment that can be used for several types of cancer, the NHS has announced.The injectable form of pembrolizumab, which can be administered in under two minutes, kills cancer cells by blocking a protein called PD-1, which acts as a brake on immune responses, allowing the immune system to recognise and attack cancer cells. Continue reading...

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EU forging closer ties with Armenia as it sends experts to help counter Russian interference

Bloc’s leaders to hold first summit with Armenia on Tuesday at it ramps up efforts to combat Kremlin’s influenceThe EU is sending a team of experts specialised in combating Russian propaganda and interference to Armenia, as it increases its support to the former Soviet republic in a tense political period.In a highly symbolic sequence of events, EU leaders will hold their first summit with Armenia on Tuesday, after a pan-European gathering of about 45 leaders at the European Political Community summit in Yerevan. Continue reading...

‘It’s a world heritage site, but it’s my home’: the last resident of Casa Milà on life in Gaudí’s masterwork

Ana Viladomiu has been a ‘privileged’ resident of the once derided, now revered Barcelona apartment building for almost 40 yearsImagine that you live in an enormous, beautiful apartment designed by one of the world’s most admired architects in the most expensive street in Spain and for which you pay a derisory rent, with the right to live there until you die.Meet the writer Ana Viladomiu, 70, the last tenant of Antoni Gaudí’s Casa Milà on the elegant Passeig de Gràcia in Barcelona. Viladomiu is in fact the last tenant in any of Gaudí’s buildings, unless you include the peregrine falcons that nest in the Sagrada Família. Continue reading...