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More than 400 people were arrested in London on Saturday during a tense protest in support of the Palestine Action group, which has been banned under terror laws, police said.Several hundred people demonstrated in front of the UK parliament, with some holding placards that read: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”The capital’s Metropolitan Police force (Met) had warned people that it would not hesitate to arrest anyone who explicitly expressed support for the prohibited group.The Met said in a statement late on Saturday that it had arrested “more than 425 people… in relation to the protest”.”The majority of these arrests were made for supporting a proscribed organisation,” the force said.Polly Smith, a 74-year-old retiree, said those at the rally “are not terrorists”, adding: “The ban must be lifted.”Nigel, a 62-year-old CEO of a recycling company who declined to give his surname, said the government’s ban imposed in July was “totally inappropriate”.”They should spend more time working on trying to stop genocide, rather than trying to stop protesters,” he told AFP before being arrested as protesters chanted “Shame on you!” at police.Skirmishes broke out between officers and demonstrators who tried to prevent arrests.More than 25 people were arrested for alleged “assaults on police officers and other public order offences”, the Met said.Deputy Assistant Commissioner Claire Smart said officers had been subjected to “intolerable” abuse, including being punched, kicked and spat on.Palestine Action was banned under the UK’s Terrorism Act of 2000 following acts of vandalism including at a Royal Air Force base, which caused an estimated £7 million ($10 million) in damage.Critics, including the United Nations and campaign groups such as Amnesty International and Greenpeace, have condemned the ban as legal overreach and a threat to free speech.More than 800 people had already been arrested before Saturday’s demonstration, with 138 charged with supporting or encouraging support for a proscribed organization.Most face six months in prison if convicted but organisers of the rallies could be sentenced to up to 14 years if found guilty.The government has been granted permission to appeal an earlier ruling which allowed Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori to challenge the ban.A separate pro-Palestinian demonstration saw several thousand people take to the streets elsewhere in London on Saturday, as Israel launched new strikes on Gaza, with the stated aim of seizing Gaza City to defeat the militant group Hamas.

A gentle study of dysfunctional families by veteran American director Jim Jarmusch clinched the top prize at the Venice Film Festival Saturday, while a harrowing docudrama about the Gaza war took second.Jarmusch’s “Father Mother Sister Brother” starring Cate Blanchett, Adam Driver and Tom Waits, drew mostly positive reviews for its humorous portrayal of awkwardness and guilt.The “Broken Flowers” director, who wrote the script for three family get-togethers in upstate New York, Dublin and Paris, had called it “a kind of anti-action film”.”Thank you for appreciating our quiet film,” the 72-year-old said during his acceptance speech.  In a move that might disappoint campaigners against the Gaza war, the Venice jury under American director Alexander Payne did not reward “The Voice of Hind Rajab” with the Golden Lion.Instead, the film about a five-year-old Palestinian girl killed by Israeli troops last year, which reduced many festival viewers to tears, was given the grand jury second prize.Franco-Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania produced a dramatised re-telling of Hind Rajab Hamada’s ordeal after she was trapped in a car that came under fire while she and her relatives were fleeing Gaza City.It was the most talked-about movie on the Venice Lido and tipped by many as the likely winner after a 23-minute standing ovation at its premiere on Wednesday.Hind Rajab’s story “is not hers alone”, Ben Hania said as she accepted her award.”It is tragically the story of an entire people enduring genocide, inflicted by a criminal Israeli regime that acts with impunity,” she added. Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix and Oscar-winning directors Jonathan Glazer (“The Zone of Interest”) and Mexico’s Alfonso Cuaron (“Roma”) joined the film as executive producers after editing had been completed.Jarmusch signalled his opposition to Israel’s continued siege and bombardment of Gaza by wearing a badge saying “Enough” at the Venice awards ceremony.- Best actors -Elsewhere on Saturday, China’s Xin Zhilei won the best actress award for her role in “The Sun Rises on Us All”, directed by compatriot Cai Shangjun.The 39-year-old actress plays a woman trying to make amends with her former lover, who served time in prison for a crime she had committed.Italy’s Toni Servillo won the best actor award after wowing audiences in Paolo Sorrentino’s “La Grazia”, playing an Italian president wrestling with whether to sign a euthanasia bill into law.Servillo was one of several award-winners to speak about Gaza from the stage, expressing “admiration” for activists on a flotilla of boats attempting to break Israel’s siege of Gaza.They “have decided to set sail with courage to reach Palestine and to bring a sign of humanity to a land where human dignity is daily and cruelly demeaned”, Servillo said.”Father Mother Sister Brother” is the first Jarmusch film to compete at Venice.Film bible Variety said it had his “trademark wry humor but also new notes of mellow, generous wisdom”.Screen called it a “tender family triptych”.In the secondary “Orizzonti” (“Horizons”) section of the festival, gay Mexican truck driver drama “En el Camino” by David Pablos scooped the top prize.- Major platform -Critics were broadly positive about the line-up of films in Venice this year. The festival is an important launch platform for big-budget international productions and arthouse films.Several previous winners of the prestigious Golden Lion have gone on to Oscar glory, such as “Nomadland” and “Joker”.”The Smashing Machine” by American director Benny Safdie, a touching film about late 1990s mixed martial-arts (MMA) pioneer Mark Kerr, picked up the third-place directing prize on Saturday.The Hollywood Reporter called the film starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson a “compellingly gritty and offbeat biopic”, while Johnson was even tipped by some for a best actor award.”Sotto le Nuvole” (Below the Clouds), a sumptuous documentary about Naples by acclaimed Italian documentary maker Gianfranco Rosi, won a special jury prize.The Gaza conflict has been a major talking point throughout this year’s festival.  An open letter calling on festival organisers to denounce the Israeli government over its offensive in Gaza has been signed by around 2,000 cinema insiders, according to the organisers.

Some 150 people were arrested in London on Saturday during a tense protest in support of the Palestine Action group, which has been banned under terror laws, police said.Several hundred people demonstrated in front of the UK parliament, with some holding placards that read: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”The capital’s Metropolitan Police force (Met) had warned people that it would not hesitate to arrest anyone who explicitly expressed support for the prohibited group.”We are not terrorists,” 74-year-old retiree Polly Smith told AFP, adding: “The ban must be lifted.”Nigel, a 62-year-old CEO of a recycling company who declined to give his surname, said the government’s ban imposed in July was “totally inappropriate”.”They should spend more time working on trying to stop genocide, rather than trying to stop protesters,” he told AFP before being arrested as protesters chanted “Shame on you!” at police.Skirmishes broke out between officers and demonstrators who tried to prevent arrests.Some of the alleged offences committed included “assault on a police officer”, the Met said on X.Palestine Action was banned under the UK’s Terrorism Act of 2000 following acts of vandalism including at a Royal Air Force base, which caused an estimated £7 million ($10 million) in damage.Critics, including the United Nations and campaign groups such as Amnesty International and Greenpeace, have condemned the ban as legal overreach and a threat to free speech.More than 800 people had already been arrested before Saturday’s demonstration, with 138 charged with supporting or encouraging support for a proscribed organization.Most face six months in prison if convicted but organisers of the rallies could be sentenced to up to 14 years if found guilty.The government has been granted permission to appeal an earlier ruling which allowed Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori to challenge the ban.A separate pro-Palestinian demonstration saw several thousand people take to the streets elsewhere in London on Saturday, as Israel launched new strikes on Gaza, with the stated aim of seizing Gaza City to defeat the militant group Hamas.

A gentle study of dysfunctional families by veteran American director Jim Jarmusch clinched top prize at the Venice Film Festival Saturday, while a harrowing docu-drama about the Gaza war took second.Jarmusch’s “Father Mother Sister Brother” starring Cate Blanchett, Adam Driver and Tom Waits, drew mostly positive reviews for its humourous portrayal of awkwardness and guilt.The “Broken Flowers” director, who wrote the script for three family get-togethers in upstate New York, Dublin and Paris, had called it “a kind of anti-action film”.”Thank you for appreciating our quiet film,” he said during his acceptance speech.  In a move that might disappoint campaigners against the Gaza war, the Venice jury under American director Alexander Payne did not reward “The Voice of Hind Rajab” with the Golden Lion.Instead, the film about a five-year-old Palestinian girl killed by Israeli troops last year, which reduced many festival viewers to tears, was given the grand jury second prize.Director Kaouther Ben Hania produced a dramatised re-telling of Hind Rajab Hamada’s ordeal after she was trapped in a car that came under fire while she and her relatives were fleeing Gaza City.It was the most talked about movie on the Venice Lido and tipped by many as the likely winner after a 23-minute standing ovation at its premiere on Wednesday.Hind Rajab’s story “is not hers alone”, Ben Hania said as she accepted her award.”It is tragically the story of an entire people enduring genocide, inflicted by a criminal Israeli regime that acts with impunity,” she added. Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix as well as Oscar-winning directors Jonathan Glazer (“The Zone of Interest”) and Mexico’s Alfonso Cuaron (“Roma”) joined the film as executive producers after editing had been completed.Jarmusch signalled his opposition to Israel’s continued siege and bombardment of Gaza by wearing a badge saying “Enough” on the red carpet for the Venice awards ceremony. – Best actors -Elsewhere on Saturday, China’s Xin Zhilei won the best actress award for her role in “The Sun Rises on Us All” directed by Cai Shangjun. The 39-year-old actress plays a woman trying to make amends with her former lover, who served time in prison for a crime she had committed. Italy’s Toni Servillo won the best actor award after wowing audiences in Paolo Sorrentino’s “La Grazia”, playing a principled politician facing a moral dilemma. The veteran film and stage actor portrayed an Italian president at the end of his career wrestling with whether or not to sign a bill to legalise euthanasia. Big-budget productions such as Netflix’s “Frankenstein” by Guillermo del Toro and “Jay Kelly” by Noah Baumbach as well as Yorgos Lanthimos’s “Bugonia” with Emma Stone went home empty-handed.In the secondary “Orizzonti” (“Horizons”) section of the festival, gay Mexican truck driver drama “En el Camino” by David Pablos scooped top prize.”Father Mother Sister Brother” is the first Jarmusch film to compete at Venice. The American had previously opted to showcase his productions at rival festival Cannes.Film bible Variety said his film had his “trademark wry humor but also new notes of mellow, generous wisdom”.Screen called it a “tender family triptych”.- Major platform – Critics were broadly positive about the line-up of films in Venice this year. The festival is an important launch platform for big-budget international productions and arthouse films.Several previous winners of the prestigious Golden Lion have gone on to Oscar glory, such as “Nomadland” and “Joker”.”The Smashing Machine” by American director Benny Safdie, a touching film about late 1990s mixed martial-arts (MMA) pioneer Mark Kerr, picked up the third-place directing prize on Saturday.The Hollywood Reporter called the film starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson a “compellingly gritty and offbeat biopic”, while Johnson was even tipped by some for a best actor award.”Sotto le Nuvole” (Below the Clouds), a sumptuous documentary about Naples by acclaimed Italian documentary maker Gianfranco Rosi, won a special jury prize.The Gaza conflict has been a major talking point throughout this year’s festival and many prize winners mentioned the war while on stage on Saturday night.  An open letter calling on festival organisers to denounce the Israeli government over its offensive in Gaza has been signed by around 2,000 cinema insiders, according to the organisers.

More than 300 South Koreans were among 475 people arrested by US immigration officials in a raid on a Hyundai-LG battery plant being built in the southern US state of Georgia, the foreign minister in Seoul said on Saturday.Thursday’s operation in the town of Ellabell was the largest single site raid carried out so far …

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In the remote mountain village of Tarasin in Sudan’s western Darfur, three successive landslides struck without warning last week.”The people lost everything,” Francesco Lanino, operations director at Save the Children, told AFP via Zoom from Port Sudan after a team from the charity arrived in the devastated village in Sudan’s Jebel Marra region.Torrential rains had saturated the mountains above and when the hillside finally gave way, it collapsed in seconds — burying homes, livestock and entire families under a tide of mud.”When our team arrived in the village, of course it was hard for them to imagine that under the mud there was an entire village and there were hundreds of bodies”, said Lanino.The latest figures from local authorities and Save the Children put the death toll at 373 confirmed bodies recovered, many of them children.But the true figure is believed to be far higher, with more than 1,000 people feared dead.Only 150 survivors, including 40 children, have been found from Tarasin and surrounding villages so far, according to Save the Children.- Digging with their hands -“There’s a lot of pain and tears,” said Lanino.”They’ve lost many of their relatives, many children. And of course they don’t know… how to rescue them or try to recover the bodies.”With no tools or machinery available, survivors were forced to dig through the mud with their bare hands, desperately searching for lost loved ones, Lanino said.”The survivors were left with no home, no food, no livestock, nothing,” he said.”They don’t know where to go because all the areas are somehow impacted by the heavy rains. They don’t really know which is a safe place to go.”Over the course of three days, Tarasin and neighbouring communities were struck by three separate landslides.The first, at 5 pm (1500 GMT) on Sunday, swept through Tarasin in seconds, engulfing the entire village at the base of the mountain.Two more followed on Monday and Tuesday, with one hitting a nearby valley and the other crashing down on residents who were trying to recover bodies from the initial disaster.”There are a lot of people that are still scared that a new landslide might come.”They heard some cracks coming from the mountains.”As well as experiencing heavy rain, Jebel Marra is one of Sudan’s most geologically active regions, sitting atop a major tectonic fault line. The General Authority for Geological Research has warned that continued landslides could lead to “catastrophic” humanitarian and environmental consequences. The mudslides also wiped out around 5,000 livestock — including cows, goats and camels — leaving families without food or income.Save the Children has deployed 11 staff, including doctors, nurses, midwives and social workers to the village. After travelling for ten gruelling hours on donkeyback from the remote town of Golo across rugged terrain with no roads and under heavy rain, the team arrived on Thursday.- Cholera fears -The NGO has set up an emergency health post, along with psychosocial support groups for women and children.But the challenges remain immense. With flooding contaminating water sources, cholera is now a major threat.”There was already some cholera cases in the area. So we are also very worried there could be a new and huge outbreak of cholera among the survivors but also in all the areas nearby.”Urgent requests from survivors included food, blankets and shelter.The landslides struck during Sudan’s peak flooding season, which runs from July to October, and amid a war that has triggered one of the worst humanitarian crises in recent history, according to the United Nations.More than two years of fighting between rival generals has killed tens of thousands, displaced millions and left some areas suffering from famine and cholera.The Jebel Marra region, which has no mobile phone network or road access, is controlled by the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army, led by Abdulwahid al-Nur — a rebel group that has largely remained uninvolved in the fighting.