A Qatari plane sent to collect 26 kidnapped members of Doha’s ruling family has remained in Baghdad for a fourth day, as a regional deal that ties their release to the evacuation of four besieged Syrian towns resumed earlier this week. The jet, which Iraqi officials suspect was carrying millions of dollars, arrived on Saturday ahead of the group’s expected release, which was later stalled by the bombing the same day of a convoy carrying residents of two Shia towns in northern Syria, Fua and Kefraya, whose fate had been central to the plan.The suicide attack killed 126 people and wounded nearly 300 more in one of the most lethal strikes of the Syrian war, further complicating 16 months of negotiations that were underwritten by Iran and Qatar and involved four of the region’s most powerful militias.Qatari officials arrived in the Iraqi capital on Saturday with large bags they refused to allow to be searched. Senior Iraqi officials said they believed the bags to be carrying millions of dollars in ransom money, to be paid to the Iraqi militia holding the royals, Keta’eb Hezbollah, and two Syrian groups who had agreed to secure the Shia leg of the swap, the al-Qaida inspired Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and the Islamist group Ahrar al-Sham.(The guardian)…[+]

Security has been stepped up around political rallies and meetings in France amid heightened fears of a terror attack with just four days of campaigning until the first round of the fiercely contested presidential election.

The five main candidates have vowed to continue campaigning as it emerged that France’s police and intelligence agencies spent several weeks tracking the two men arrested on Tuesday and suspected of plotting an “imminent and violent attack” in the run-up to Sunday’s vote.

Officials say they are still investigating the men’s possible targets, but claim they were seeking to “have an impact in this [electoral] period” and had amassed an arsenal of weapons and bomb-making equipment, including 3kg of homemade explosive found in the flat where they were staying.It was reported on Wednesday that Paris’ anti-terror court had opened a preliminary investigation into suspect Mahiedine Merabet, 29, on 5 April, after receiving a tip-off from British intelligence that he had tried to make contact with Islamic State (Isis) in order to send them a video expressing his support for the terrorist group.(the guardian)…[+]

Venezuela braced for an outbreak of political violence on Wednesday as hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators flooded on to the streets of Caracas for what the opposition billed the “mother of all marches” against the government. Tensions – which have built up over several weeks of bloody protests – were ratcheted up after a student died having been shot in the head near a clash between pro- and anti-government groups. Fears of bloodshed were stoked after President Nicolás Maduro put troops on the streets, supplied guns to sympathetic civil militias and called for a simultaneous rally of his supporters against what he said was a United States-backed coup.

State TV images showed thousands of red-shirted government loyalists on the rival march “to defend the homeland”. But their numbers were far exceeded by the vast throng that gathered in the Baruta district to express their anger and frustration at an administration that has led the country with the planet’s biggest oil supplies into the world’s deepest economic recession.(the guardian)…[+]