Ukraine troops pull back in Kharkiv after Russia offensive

Police are evacuating villages and Kviv has sent reinforcements to the Kharkiv region following Russia's incursion

James Gregory and James Waterhouse, BBC News

Ukraine has pulled back its troops from several villages in the border region of Kharkiv following continued pressure from Russian forces.

Soldiers had come under heavy fire and moved to “more advantageous positions” in two areas of the north-eastern region, a military spokesman said.

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Children ‘piled up and shot’: new details emerge of ethnic cleansing in Darfur

Refugees wait for a food distribution point to open at a camp in Adré, Chad, on 22 April. More than 8 million people have been displaced since fighting erupted between the RSF and Sudan’s military in April 2023. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

As El Fasher stands on the ‘precipice of a massacre’, rights groups call for sanctions after new testimony describes atrocities carried out by RSF paramilitaries in Sudan

Gruesome new testimony details one of the worst atrocities of the year-long Sudanese civil war – the large-scale massacre of civilians as they desperately tried to flee an ethnic rampage in Darfur last summer.

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Revealed: UK government was warned of infected blood risks in 1970s

An NHS blood bag. Photograph: NHS Blood and Transplant/PA

Documents show officials were told blood plasma harvested from US convicts was contaminated with viruses

Read more: the true story of the UK infected blood scandal; plus: ‘My mum gave the injections that killed my brothers’

Jon Ungoed-Thomas and Robin McKie

A commercial blood product at the centre of the biggest treatment scandal in the history of the NHS was approved for use after government officials were told convicts were among the paid donors and virus contamination “should be assumed”, corporate filings reveal.… Read the rest

Botswana threatens to send 20,000 elephants to Germany in trophy hunting row

Botswana, home of the world’s largest elephant population, has already offered 8,000 elephants to Angola and another 500 to Mozambique Photograph: Charmaine Noronha/AP

President Mokgweetsi Masisi voices anger over Berlin’s opposition to the import of trophies over poaching concerns

Guardian staff and agencies

Botswana’s president has threatened to send 20,000 elephants to Germany amid a dispute over the import of hunting trophies.

Earlier this year Germany’s environment ministry raised the possibility of stricter limits on the import of hunting trophies over poaching concerns.

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