There was a worrying rise in executions in 2021 as Covid-19 restrictions were eased, Amnesty International says, with spikes seen in Iran and Saudi Arabia. A report by the human rights group says at least 579 executions were known to have been carried out in 18 countries – a 20% increase on the previous year. Iran accounted for the biggest portion of this rise. It put to death at least 314 people, compared with 246 in 2020. Saudi Arabia more than doubled its number of executions to 65. The global total is the second-lowest figure, after 2020, that Amnesty has recorded since at least 2010. However, as in previous years it does not include China. Although it is believed to execute thousands of people each year, the data on its use of the death penalty is a state secret. Amnesty says secrecy also made it impossible to verify reports from North Korea and Vietnam, where an extensive number of executions is thought to have taken place.(BBC)…[+]

Amber Heard’s team will not call Johnny Depp to the stand, a source close to Ms Heard said, a strategic U-turn in the last days of the high-profile trial. Ms Heard’s team had planned to call Mr Depp for more questioning on Monday, but changed course without explanation at midday. Mr Depp, 58, sued his ex-wife for $50m (£40m) for a column she wrote in which she claimed to be a victim of domestic abuse. Ms Heard, 36, has countersued. The case is expected to wrap this week. British supermodel Kate Moss, a former girlfriend of Mr Depp, is among witnesses expected to take the stand in the remaining days of the defamation trial. On Monday, the court in Fairfax, Virginia, heard from several witnesses called by Ms Heard’s team, including psychologist David Spiegel.(BBC)…[+]

Argentine President Alberto Fernández has made a large donation as part of a deal to end an investigation into a lockdown party he and his wife hosted. The couple came under investigation after photos emerged showing them having a birthday dinner attended by about a dozen people while lockdown measures were in force. At the time, public gatherings, including funerals, were banned.The photos caused outrage and caused the president’s popularity to plummet. A judge agreed to the offer by the president and First Lady Fabiola Yáñez to donate three million pesos ($25,000; £20,000) in exchange for the case against them to be dropped. Prosecutors had stipulated that the amount donated should be the equivalent of a respiratory machine and a stay in intensive care in hospital.(BBC)…[+]

Six people have been killed and dozens more are thought to be trapped after an unfinished building collapsed in south-west Iran, state media report. The Iranian Red Crescent said rescue teams had pulled 32 survivors from the rubble of the 10-storey Metropol office block in Abadan. Pictures showed that concrete floors and steel beams had fallen on to the street below, crushing several cars. Officials said the cause of the collapse was being investigated. Local prosecutor Hamid Maranipour said both the Metropol’s owner and the building contractor had been arrested.(BBC)…[+]

The influential French street artist Miss. Tic has died in Paris aged 66, her family has announced. In a short statement her family said the artist, whose real name was Radhia Novat, passed away on Sunday after suffering from an unspecified illness. Miss. Tic is seen as one of the pioneers of stencil art and her graffiti of enigmatic female figures became a common sight in Paris. She was briefly arrested in 1997 on charges of defacing public property. But her works came to be shown in galleries in France and abroad. She also collaborated with the fashion brands Kenzo and Louis Vuitton.(BBC)…[+]

Monkeypox can be contained in countries outside of Africa where the virus is not usually detected, the World Health Organization (WHO) says. More than 100 cases of the virus – which causes a rash and a fever – have been confirmed in Europe, the Americas and Australia. That number is expected to rise still, but experts say the overall risk to the broader population is very low. The virus is most common in remote parts of Central and West Africa. “This is a containable situation,” the WHO’s emerging disease lead Maria Van Kerkhove said at a news conference on Monday. “We want to stop human-to-human transmission. We can do this in the non-endemic countries,” she added – referring to recent cases in Europe and North America.(BBC)…[+]

The US has barred Guatemala’s Attorney General Consuelo Porras from entering the country, accusing her of being involved in corruption. The US state department said Ms Porras had “repeatedly obstructed and undermined anti-corruption investigations in Guatemala”. Ms Porras has denied any wrongdoing and said that fighting corruption has been her priority. On Monday, she was sworn in for a second four-year term in office. As he re-appointed her, Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei described Ms Porras as “a professional who meets all the constitutional requirements” to serve another term. He also said that the independence and autonomy of the attorney general’s office would be strengthened so that it “will not be used ever again by [Guatemalan] nationals or foreigners to impose an ideological or political agenda”.(BBC)…[+]

A huge drugs tunnel has been found running from Tijuana in Mexico to a warehouse in San Diego in the US. With a length of 1,744ft (531m), the passage had a rail track, electricity and a ventilation system. US authorities had been carrying out surveillance at a property previously used as a stash house for smuggling cocaine when they made the discovery. They seized cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin. Six people are being held on drug-trafficking charges. The US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California said the tunnel was 61ft (18m) deep and 4ft (1m) in diameter. Prosecutors say that before the discovery, officers saw several vehicles come and go from the property in Tijuana and the warehouse on Friday 13 May. They were then stopped and searched, the drugs were seized and arrests were made. When officers entered the warehouse, the cross-border tunnel exit point was found carved out of the floor.(BBC)…[+]

The number of people reported as disappeared in Mexico is at a record high of 100,000, figures suggest. Government data, which goes back to 1964, shows that almost all the disappearances have occurred since 2007, when then-President Felipe Calderón launched his “war on drugs”. The United Nations has called it “a human tragedy of enormous proportions”. Many of the missing are victims of organised crime and hardly any of those responsible are punished. The latest update to the national registry of missing people kept by Mexico’s attorney general’s office shows that over the past two years, the number of disappeared has risen from 73,000 to more than 100,000.(BBC)…[+]

Stargazers have been treated overnight to a stunning and unusual sight – a super blood Moon. Shortly after 03:30 GMT on Monday, Earth’s orbit meant that for several minutes our planet was positioned directly between the Sun and the Moon. In that time the Moon fell completely into Earth’s shadow – temporarily turning it a dusky shade of dark red. Its hue was created by sunlight being projected through Earth’s atmosphere onto the Moon’s shadowed surface. The lunar eclipse coincided with a separate event – a super Moon. This is when the Moon is at its closest point to Earth in its orbit and so appears larger than usual.(BBC)…[+]