Tanzania’s main opposition party CHADEMA has been disqualified from elections due later this year, a senior election commission official said on Saturday, days after the party’s leader was charged with treason for allegedly seeking to disrupt the vote.

Ramadhani Kailima, director of elections at the Independent National Elections Commission, said CHADEMA had failed to sign a code of conduct document due on Saturday, thereby nullifying its participation in the presidential and parliamentary elections expected to take place in October.

“Any party that did not sign the code of conduct will not participate in the general election,” he said, adding that the ban would also cover all by-elections until 2030.

CHADEMA leader Tundu Lissu, a former presidential candidate, was charged with treason on Thursday.

The decision to disqualify his party will intensify scrutiny of President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s record on rights as she seeks re-election.

Rights campaigners and opposition parties have accused Hassan’s government of a growing crackdown on political opponents, citing a string of unexplained abductions and killings.

The government has denied the allegations and has opened an investigation into reported abductions.

Hassan’s party Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM) has said in the past that the government respects human rights and has denied any involvement in human rights violations.

CHADEMA did not immediately comment on the election commission’s decision.

Earlier on Saturday, the party said it would not participate in the election code of conduct signing ceremony, as part of a push it is making for reforms.

Prosecutors accused Lissu on Thursday of calling on the public to launch a rebellion and prevent the election from taking place.

He was not allowed to enter a plea on the treason charge, which carries a death penalty.

CHADEMA had previously threatened to boycott the elections unless significant reforms are made to an electoral process it says favors the ruling party.

Asked why she and other Ukrainian people choose to keep living under Russian occupation instead of fleeing, the woman paused for a moment.

“I don’t know how to explain the feeling,” she said. “It’s like you just can’t believe that evil could win. Even after three years, people can’t believe that this is it. They still believe that the occupation will end. That’s why they are still staying here and not running away.”

The woman, a member of the all-female resistance group Zla Mavka, lives in a city in southeastern Ukraine that fell under Russian control just days after Moscow launched its full-scale, unprovoked invasion of the country in February 2022.

“You can be arrested for anything. You have to worry about everything. You have to check your phone, you have to check what you have in your apartment, you have to hide a lot of things, you can’t say what you’re thinking and you cannot trust anyone,” she said.

US President Donald Trump has made it clear that he wants the war in Ukraine to end, even if it means further territorial loses for Kyiv. Trump has said it was “unlikely” Ukraine would get all of its pre-war territory back, saying: “(Russia) took a lot of land, and they fought for that land, and they lost a lot of soldiers.”

This could include the Zla Mavka woman’s hometown.

“People abroad always talk about territories, and they forget, maybe, that it’s not only about territories. It’s about people. And people here are still waiting. People have not moved, and they don’t want to move. And why (should) they have to move from their homes?” the woman said.

Russian forces currently occupy nearly a fifth of Ukraine’s territory, home to about 6 million people, including 1 million children, who are living in what the United Nations has described as a “bleak human rights situation.”

Stepan, a 22-year-old Ukrainian man who recently escaped from an occupied area in southern Ukraine to Kherson, which is under Kyiv’s control, has experienced firsthand what the occupying forces are capable of.

Stepan and his parents were detained by Russian troops in summer 2022. He was held for two weeks and repeatedly beaten and tortured with electricity. His parents were held for several more months.

None of the family was ever told why they were being detained. They have never been convicted or charged with any crimes.

When Stepan was released, he was separated from the rest of his family. He ended up on the left bank of the Dnipro River, which is still occupied by Russia. His mother Olha managed to escape to a government-controlled area after she was released in spring 2023.

Stepan was lucky – he managed to escape and was reunited with his family last month. He was brought back thanks to a “coordinated effort” that involved the “Angels,” a Ukrainian special forces unit that rescues vulnerable people from occupied territories, according to Roman Mrochko, the head of Kherson City Military Administration. Stepan and his family said they were not allowed to share details of the operation.

Dire consequences

Both Stepan and the Zla Mavka member said that even the slightest suspicion of being “pro-Ukrainian” can have dire consequences for people living under occupation.

“My friends and acquaintances were often taken away because they did not want to get a Russian passport or for not registering for military service. They were taken away and brought back a week later with broken arms and legs, sometime heads. There were many, we are talking about dozens of people,” Stepan said.

Human rights groups say that Moscow has intensified its campaign to “Russify” occupied Ukraine in recent months, likely to stake claim to the areas in any future peace negotiation.

“They try to remove anything Ukrainian from our city, from the language to traditions,” the Zla Mavka woman said, adding that the group has made it one of its missions to keep Ukrainian culture alive under occupation.

“We are spreading Ukrainian poems and the works of Ukrainian authors, and (celebrating) Ukrainian holidays, the traditional ones, just to remind to everybody that this is not Russia, and never was, and never will be,” she said.

She described living in the city like “getting into a time machine and going back to the USSR.”

“There’s propaganda and Soviet-style monuments, and Soviet holidays, and we are always waiting in lines, like in Soviet times, to get help, or to go to the doctor, or to get some documents, you have to wait in these long lines and there are no normal shops and no brands… just stuff you can get in the street markets and some strange Chinese products.”

Russian authorities have been meticulously erasing Ukrainian national identity, religion and language in occupied Ukraine. They have staged sham referenda on joining Russia and have been forcing the local population to become Russian citizens.

Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a new decree ordering Ukrainian citizens living in these areas to “regulate their legal status” by adopting Russian citizenship. According to the decree, those who don’t do so by September will become foreigners and will only be allowed to stay for limited time.

But Moscow has already effectively coerced many Ukrainian people into accepting Russian passports because life is nearly impossible and very dangerous without them.

Those who don’t have Russian documents face the daily threat of arrest and deportation to Russia, have no right to work, no access to even the most basic health services or pensions and are barred from owning property.

“You can’t even call an ambulance without (a Russian passport). If you don’t have a Russian passport, the ambulance will not come,” the resistance woman said.

Human rights watchdogs have repeatedly said that Moscow is breaking international law by forcing the Ukrainian population to adopt Russian passports.

“And then the big problem for men, the men who (were forced to get) Russian passports, they are now trying to mobilize them into the Russian Army. They want to force them to fight against their own people,” the woman added.

The risk of trying to leave

Millions of Ukrainians are refusing to leave their homes in occupied territories – most because they still believe that Kyiv, with the help of its Western allies, will eventually liberate all its land.

There are also some who sympathize with Russia and are happy with the new regime – although both the Zla Mavka woman and Stepan said they believe this is only a small minority.

“These are often people who did not have a very good life before. For example, they didn’t have education and didn’t have a good job, but now, if they cry out loud ‘I love Russia,’ they will get a job in the government, they will get help and money from Russia,” the Zla Mavka member said.

SOS Donbas, a Ukrainian helpline for people living in occupied territories and combat zones, received more than 57,500 calls last year. Violeta Artemchuk, the director of the organization, said most people are asking for advice on how to leave safely, how to access help and what are the implications of staying and being forced to take a Russian passport.

The Ukrainian authorities have repeatedly told people in occupied areas to do whatever they need to stay safe.

“If you need to get some documents, get them. This does not change your status,” Heorhii Tykhyi, a foreign ministry spokesperson, said after the decree requiring Ukrainians in occupied territories to become Russian citizens was announced.

Tykhyi said that “the best solution, if possible, is to leave for the controlled territory of Ukraine.”

But for many, leaving is impossible because it’s too dangerous, too expensive and too treacherous.

“Theoretically, it’s possible to leave, but you have to go through filtration,” the Zla Mavka woman said, referring to a security screening process conducted by Russian forces on all exits from the occupied areas.

“They’re checking everything there, so… let’s say there is a woman whose husband was a soldier in 2014, and if they find out, she will have a huge problem, so for her, it is safer not to try. But this could be anything, like a comment on social media, something on your phone, they can just arrest you and deport you to Russia,” she said.

It is impossible to cross directly from occupied Ukraine into government-controlled areas, which means that anyone wishing to flee must travel through Russia, get out of Russia and then travel through Europe back to Ukraine.

“It’s not easy to leave everything and become a refugee. You can’t sell your apartment, you cannot cross the border with a large amount of money, you can’t take much… so it is possible, but not for everyone,” the woman said.

So, for now, she and millions of others are staying and watching the news coming from the White House and elsewhere in horror.

“People are very nervous and they’re very afraid to hear about a negotiation, and how our cities will become Russia, this is the biggest fear. But I can tell you that even if this happens, resistance won’t stop.”

Russian missiles hit the northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy in the deadliest attack this year, killing at least 24 people, including one child, as residents gathered for Sunday church services, local officials said.

At least 84 people, including seven children, have also been wounded in the strike on the city’s center, according to the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, making it the worst single attack on Ukrainian civilians since 2023.

Last week, a Russian missile attack killed 20 people in the central city of Kryvyi Rih.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said the deadly strikes were carried out by ballistic missiles and called for a “strong response from the world” in a statement.

“Russia wants exactly this kind of terror and is dragging out this war,” Zelensky said. “Without pressure on the aggressor, peace is impossible. Talking has never stopped ballistic missiles and bombs. We need to treat Russia as a terrorist deserves.”

The strikes hit the city center on Palm Sunday as residents were attending church services on one of the busiest church-going days of the year, according to Ukraine’s Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko.

Two ballistic missiles were fired by Russia into the city center, said Volodymyr Artyukh, head of the military administration in the region. “At that time, a lot of people were on the street,” he said.

“The enemy was hoping to inflict the greatest damage on people in the city of Sumy.”

Artem Kobzar, acting mayor of Sumy, confirmed the death toll, saying, “Many people were killed today as a result of the missile strike.”

A video posted by Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko shows firefighters responding at the scene, putting out cars on fire and evacuating a woman from her home. Among the destruction seen in the city center are destroyed buildings, blown-out windows and piles of rubble. Bodies covered in emergency blankets can be seen on the ground.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha called it “absolute evil” to launch the attacks on a Christian holiday and noted that the missiles hit a residential area of the city.

“We urge partners to provide Ukraine with additional air defense capabilities and increase pressure on Moscow,” Sybiha said in a statement posted to X. “Strength is the only language they can understand and the only way to put an end to the horrific terror.”

Unverified photos and video from the scene show bodies lying on the street and rescue efforts underway. Footage posted to Telegram shows the moment strikes hit the city, registering a loud noise and a large cloud of black smoke billowing into the air.

Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, called the incident a “horrific example of Russia intensifying attacks while Ukraine has accepted an unconditional ceasefire.”

Russia has increased air attacks and missile strikes on the Sumy region in recent weeks as it has pushed Ukrainian forces out of much of the adjoining Russian territory of Kursk. Its forces have also occupied a few small settlements just inside Sumy region.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

An Israeli air strike early on Sunday destroyed part of the last fully functioning hospital in Gaza City as the military expands and intensifies its campaign across the territory.

No casualties were reported from the strike but the Anglican church in Jerusalem – which runs the Al-Ahli Baptist hospital – said a boy with a head injury died in the rushed evacuation of patients. It said that the hospital had received only 20 minutes warning ahead of the strike and were forced to take patients into the streets.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that they had struck “a command-and-control center used by Hamas” in attack, without offering proof. They said steps had been taken ahead of the strike to mitigate harm to civilians. Hamas denied the allegation the hospital was being used for military purposes.

The Israeli military is extending its ground operations deep into Gaza, creating a large buffer zone between the Strip and Israeli territory and pushing hundreds of thousands of civilians into an ever-smaller area on the Mediterranean coast. In the south, the military announced it seized the Morag corridor, cutting off Rafah from the rest of Gaza

In all, according to the United Nations, some 400,000 people have been told to move over the past three weeks, with hospitals often used as a place of shelter throughout the conflict.

“We expected that we would all die inside the hospital… I have no treatment or anything right now. We have no option but to travel abroad for treatment,” Abu Naser added.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health said that the hospital was temporarily closed and directed people to three other hospitals.

The Jerusalem diocese condemned the strike and said that in addition to the damage to the emergency department the two-storey Genetic Laboratory was demolished. The diocese said it was the fifth time the hospital had been struck since October 2023.

As health facilities across Gaza come under pressure for lack of medicine and equipment, the World Health Organization said that two missions – to Al-Ahli and the Indonesian hospital – had been denied by the Israeli authorities.

In a post on X, WHO said that hospitals in Gaza are “in dire need, yet the shrinking humanitarian access is obstructing WHO’s ability to resupply them and preventing patients from safely receiving life-saving care.”

“The people here are exhausted, they’re hungry, they’re tired, they’re wounded, not just physically but also psychically,” he said.

Al-Ahli is one of the few functioning hospitals across Gaza, treating up to 1,000 patients a day. An Israeli siege left Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City – the largest in the territory – in ruins last year. It began accepting some patients months later.

Video showed another airstrike on a building in the area of Deir al Balah in central Gaza on Sunday.

The IDF said the building was another Hamas control center and at the time it was struck “numerous Hamas terrorists were operating from within the compound.”

Israel say it is expanding its campaign in Gaza as part of efforts to force Hamas to free the remaining hostages it is holding.

One of them – American-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander – appealed directly to President Donald Trump in the second proof-of-life video of the captive released by Hamas Saturday.

Alexander – who is almost certainly speaking under duress in the three-minute propaganda video – says he believed Trump would succeed in bringing him out of Gaza.

It’s unclear when the video was shot, but Alexander references being in Gaza for 551 days, which would indicate the video was recorded quite recently. The video was released on the eve of the Jewish holiday of Passover. The Hostage and Missing Families Forum asked Jewish families to leave an empty place setting for the hostages to mark their time in captivity.

Alexander’s family asked the media not to share the video. Instead, they requested the publication of a screenshot of the 21-year-old from the video.

The United Nations’ emergency and disaster response agency will reduce its global workforce by 20% and scale back operations in nine countries, as it confronts a severe funding crisis and escalating global needs, it announced on Friday.

In sobering letter to staff shared on the agency’s website, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) head Tom Fletcher outlined “brutal cuts” driven by a nearly $60 million funding shortfall for 2025, compounded by rising humanitarian demands.

OCHA will withdraw or adjust operations in Cameroon, Colombia, Eritrea, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkey, and Zimbabwe, and aim to prioritize “dynamic and full responses” in remaining locations where it operates.

OCHA plans to lay off approximately 500 staff members from its workforce of about 2,600 employees across over 60 countries with a more concentrated presence in fewer locations, according to Najwa Mekki, Director of Communications at OCHA citing a separate letter Fletcher wrote.

The cuts follow months of austerity measures, including a hiring freeze and travel restrictions, which saved $3.7 million.

“The humanitarian community was already underfunded, overstretched and literally, under attack. Now, we face a wave of brutal cuts,” Fletcher wrote, emphasizing that the reductions stem from financial constraints rather than diminished needs.

Fletcher stressed the agency’s pivot toward a “lighter, faster” model focused on core priorities: crisis response, sector reform, and humanitarian leadership. The moves align with the UN’s broader “Humanitarian Reset” – a ten-point plan agreed upon in February by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) – and Secretary-General António Guterres’ UN80 reform initiative.

Fletcher defended the decisions, insisting OCHA must “coordinate, not replicate” efforts to preserve lifesaving work. “We believe passionately in what we do,” Fletcher wrote, “but we cannot continue to do it all.”

“Women and dried pollock need to be beaten every three days for better taste” – so goes an old saying that was common in South Korea in the 1960s when Choi Mal-ja was growing up in a small city in the country’s southeast.

Back then, male violence against women was widely accepted. So when Choi bit off part of the tongue of a man who allegedly tried to rape her, it was she who was labeled the aggressor and jailed for grievous bodily harm.

At the time, Choi was 18 and living at home with her family. Now 78, she’s trying to clear her name in the hope that vindication will pave the way for other victims of sexual crime in South Korea, one of the world’s most advanced economies but one where society remains deeply patriarchal.

After Choi’s push for a retrial was rejected by courts in the city of Busan, she took her case to the Supreme Court. The top court ruled in her favor, sending the case back to Busan, where evidence will be called in coming months.

Experts say the verdict could rewrite the legal precedent set by her original trial, with far-reaching consequences for other women.

“The court must admit the fact that its unfair ruling has turned one person’s life upside down, and take responsibility with just judgement now,” Choi wrote.

‘Like I’d been hit with a hammer’

One spring evening in 1964, Choi, then a teenager, stopped to help a man who was asking for directions in Gimhae, South Gyeongsang province.

After walking with him for a few meters, Choi gave him further directions and turned around to go back home, but he tackled her to the ground.

“I was feeling woozy, like I’d been hit on the head with a hammer,” Choi told a local TV show in 2020.

Choi lost consciousness for a short while, but she remembers the man climbing on top of her and trying to force his tongue inside her mouth. She was only able to escape by biting 1.5cm (0.6 inch) of his tongue off, she said.

More than two weeks later, the man, who is not named in court documents, and his friends forced their way into Choi’s house and threatened to kill her father for what Choi had done.

Ignoring her claims of sexual assault, the man sued Choi for grievous bodily harm, leading her to sue him for attempted rape, trespassing and intimidation.

The police deemed Choi’s argument of self-defense reasonable; however, prosecutors in Busan thought otherwise.

They dropped the attempted rape charge against her assailant and accused Choi of grievous bodily harm, according to court documents.

In 1965, Choi was sentenced to 10 months in prison and two years of probation, a harsher punishment than that of the aggressor, who was sentenced to six months of prison and one year of probation for trespassing and threatening.

“It didn’t take a long time for the victim of a sexual crime to be turned into a perpetrator, nor did it take the strength of many people,” Choi wrote in a letter to the Supreme Court last year, as part of her application for a retrial.

Choi also claimed that her rights were infringed upon during the investigation and trial process, during which she and her supporters say she was handcuffed at one point and later made to undergo a test to prove her virginity, the result of which was made public.

No word for domestic violence

Until recent times, the social norm in South Korea was for women to support the men in their family. For example, when the country was developing rapidly after the 1950-53 Korean War, daughters were commonly sent to work at factories to financially support their brothers’ education.

And until the 1980s, South Korea was so focused on rebuilding from the devastation of the war and Japan’s brutal occupation before that, that fighting for women’s rights was considered “a luxury,” according to Chung.

In 1983 the Korea Women’s Hot-Line counseling center opened to campaign against “all institutions, customs and conventions that impose inhumane lives on women,” and establish a “just and peaceful family and society,” according to its statement.

At the time, there was no word for domestic violence.

“This is the 1980s. So, imagine what Choi Mal-ja had to go through for her case, in the 1960s,” said Kim.

According to Choi’s testimonies, prosecutors and judges asked her during the investigation and trial whether she would like to marry the aggressor to conclude the case.

Becoming his wife, so the theory went, might make amends for his injuries, as no other woman would want to marry a man with half a tongue.

Wang Mi-yang, the president of the Korea Women Lawyers Association, said the 1965 ruling reflected the “social prejudice and distorted views on victims of sexual violence that remained deeply rooted in our society.”

Ending decades of silence

Anti-sexual violence movements flourished in the 1990s and even included campaigns seeking justice for “comfort women,” a euphemism for the victims of sexual slavery enforced by the Japanese military in Korea during and before World War II.

For many years, “comfort women” kept their trauma secret to avoid shame and humiliation, but they finally spoke out, becoming what Chung calls South Korea’s “first MeToo movement.”

“These people lived 70 years, unable to talk about what they’ve experienced, because they would get blamed… but them revealing themselves to the world means society has changed that much,” Chung said.

The global #MeToo movement properly took hold in South Korea in 2018, holding powerful men to account and pushing the government to enforce harsher punishments for crimes of sexual violence.

Changing attitudes motivated Choi Mal-ja to seek a retrial.

“The girl’s life, which couldn’t even blossom, was forever unfair and in resentment… the country must compensate for my human rights,” Choi wrote in her letter to the Supreme Court.

Kim, from the Korea Women’s Hot-Line counseling center, said while there’s still work to be done, attitudes toward victims of sexual violence have changed dramatically.

“The perception that the sexual aggressor is at fault, not the victim, that women are more vulnerable to sexual crimes, and it’s the government’s responsibility to punish the perpetrator and protect the victim is so widely spread out among the people now,” she said.

Protests in solidarity

With the help of the Korea Women’s Hot-Line, Choi requested a retrial in 2020, but the court denied her application, calling the original ruling “inevitable” due to the “circumstances of the time.”

Choi condemned that decision as “truly embarrassing.”

“I was so tired, having come such a long way, that I wanted to lay everything down,” she wrote in her letter last year to the Supreme Court.

But she persisted, driven by the thought of “women of future generations.”

A petition by the Korea Women’s Hot-Line gathered more than 15,000 signatures and Choi started a one-person relay protest in front of the Supreme Court for a month to pressure the highest court to annul the original decision to deny a retrial.

In total, 42 people including Choi took part, swapping out after each day of protest, to show their solidarity with her cause.

The Supreme Court granted her request, calling Choi’s testimonies about unfair treatment during investigation by the prosecutors “consistent” and “credible,” adding that there was no evidence that contradicted her claims.

“Every drop of water pierced the rock. When I heard the news, I shouted hooray!” Choi said in a live-streamed press conference after the Supreme Court’s ruling in December.

The retrial will be held at the Busan District Court, which originally dismissed Choi’s retrial application in 2021.

The right to self-defense

Choi’s long fight for justice is well known in South Korea.

Her case is even cited in the Criminal Procedure Act textbook – used to educate generations of student lawyers – as an example of using excessive force in defense.

A successful retrial could expand the definition of self-defense and set new protections for future victims of sexual violence, said Kim from the Korea Women’s Hot-Line.

“I think it will become a very important case in getting women’s rights to defense, their responses against domestic or sexual violence, acknowledged more widely,” she said.

In 2017, a woman was found guilty of grievous bodily harm, like Choi, for biting the tongue of a man who allegedly tried to rape her.

The Incheon District Court partially acknowledged the man’s fault, but sentenced the woman to six months of imprisonment and two years on probation, citing the severity of the injury and “the failure to reach a settlement.”

Kim said there’s still a perception among investigators and the courts that victims are responsible for sexual violence, particularly in cases involving “the victim going to the aggressor’s house, drinking together or going to a place where they’re left alone.”

According to police statistics, more than 22,000 rapes and indecent assaults occurred in 2023 in South Korea.

It’s unclear how many victims were charged after trying to defend themselves.

Kim said there were still “many cases of women’s right to defense not being recognized.”

In her letter to the Supreme Court, Choi said old, victim-blaming beliefs must change if women’s rights are to improve in South Korea.

“I believe that women will only be able to protect themselves from sexual abuse and make a world without sexual violence when the court indisputably redefines victim and perpetrator, recognizes self-defense, and changes the outdated law,” she wrote.