Hungary’s parliament on Monday passed an amendment to the constitution that allows the government to ban public events by LGBTQ+ communities, a decision that legal scholars and critics call another step toward authoritarianism by the populist government.

The amendment, which required a two-thirds vote, passed along party lines with 140 votes for and 21 against. It was proposed by the ruling Fidesz-KDNP coalition led by populist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

Ahead of the vote — the final step for the amendment — opposition politicians and other protesters attempted to blockade the entrance to a parliament parking garage. Police physically removed demonstrators, who had used zip ties to bind themselves together.

The amendment declares that children’s rights to moral, physical and spiritual development supersede any right other than the right to life, including that to peacefully assemble. Hungary’s contentious “child protection” legislation prohibits the “depiction or promotion” of homosexuality to minors aged under 18.

The amendment codifies a law fast-tracked through parliament in March that bans public events held by LGBTQ+ communities, including the popular Pride event in Budapest that draws thousands annually.

That law also allows authorities to use facial recognition tools to identify people who attend prohibited events — such as Budapest Pride — and can come with fines of up to 200,000 Hungarian forints ($546).

Dávid Bedő, a lawmaker with the opposition Momentum party who participated in the attempted blockade, said before the vote that Orbán and Fidesz for the past 15 years “have been dismantling democracy and the rule of law, and in the past two or three months, we see that this process has been sped up.”

He said as elections approach in 2026 and Orbán’s party lags in the polls behind a popular new challenger from the opposition, “they will do everything in their power to stay in power.”

Opposition lawmakers used air horns to disrupt the vote, which continued after a few moments.

Hungary’s government has campaigned against LGBTQ+ communities in recent years, and argues its “child protection” policies, which forbid the availability to minors of any material that mentions homosexuality, are needed to protect children from what it calls “woke ideology” and “gender madness.”

Critics say the measures do little to protect children and are being used to distract from more serious problems facing the country and mobilize Orbán’s right-wing base ahead of elections.

“This whole endeavor which we see launched by the government, it has nothing to do with children’s rights,” said Dánel Döbrentey, a lawyer with the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, calling it “pure propaganda.”

Constitution recognizes two sexes

The new amendment also states that the constitution recognizes two sexes, male and female, an expansion of an earlier amendment that prohibits same-sex adoption by stating that a mother is a woman and a father is a man.

The declaration provides a constitutional basis for denying the gender identities of transgender people, as well as ignoring the existence of intersex individuals who are born with sexual characteristics that do not align with binary conceptions of male and female.

In a statement on Monday, government spokesperson Zoltán Kovács wrote that the change is “not an attack on individual self-expression, but a clarification that legal norms are based on biological reality.”

Döbrentey, the lawyer, said it was “a clear message” for transgender and intersex people: “It is definitely and purely and strictly about humiliating people and excluding them, not just from the national community, but even from the community of human beings.”

The amendment is the 15th to Hungary’s constitution since Orbán’s party unilaterally authored and approved it in 2011.

Facial recognition to identify demonstrators

Ádám Remport, a lawyer with the HCLU, said that while Hungary has used facial recognition tools since 2015 to assist police in criminal investigations and finding missing persons, the recent law banning Pride allows the technology to be used in a much broader and problematic manner. That includes for monitoring and deterring political protests.

“One of the most fundamental problems is its invasiveness, just the sheer scale of the intrusion that happens when you apply mass surveillance to a crowd,” Remport said.

“More salient in this case is the effect on the freedom of assembly, specifically the chilling effect that arises when people are scared to go out and show their political or ideological beliefs for fear of being persecuted,” he added.

Suspension of citizenship

The amendment passed Monday also allows for Hungarians who hold dual citizenship in a non-European Economic Area country to have their citizenship suspended for up to 10 years if they are deemed to pose a threat to public order, public security or national security.

Hungary has taken steps in recent months to protect its national sovereignty from what it claims are foreign efforts to influence its politics or even topple Orbán’s government.

The self-described “illiberal” leader has accelerated his longstanding efforts to crack down on critics such as media outlets and groups devoted to civil rights and anti-corruption, which he says have undermined Hungary’s sovereignty by receiving financial assistance from international donors.

In a speech laden with conspiracy theories in March, Orbán compared people who work for such groups to insects, and pledged to “eliminate the entire shadow army” of foreign-funded “politicians, judges, journalists, pseudo-NGOs and political activists.”

Between 60,000 and 80,000 households – or up to 400,000 people – have been displaced from Sudan’s Zamzam camp in North Darfur after it was taken over by the Rapid Support Forces, according to data from the UN’s International Organization for Migration.

The RSF seized control of the camp on Sunday after a four-day assault that the government and aid groups have said left hundreds dead or wounded.

The United Nations said on Monday that preliminary figures from local sources show more than 300 civilians were killed in fighting on Friday and Saturday around the Zamzam and Abu Shouk displacement camps and the town of al-Fashir in North Darfur.

This includes 10 humanitarian personnel from Relief International, who were killed while operating one of the last functioning health centers in Zamzam camp, said a UN spokesperson.

Rights groups have long warned of possible atrocities should the RSF succeed in its months-long siege of the famine-stricken camp, neighbor to the army’s only remaining stronghold in the Darfur region, al-Fashir.

Satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies showed burning buildings and smoke in Zamzam on Friday, echoing prior RSF attacks.

The RSF has dismissed such allegations, and says the Zamzam camp was being used as a base for army-aligned groups.

At the start of the war, the camp was home to about half a million people, a number that is thought to have doubled.

In a video shared by the paramilitary force, RSF second in command Abdelrahim Dagalo is seen speaking to a small group of displaced people, promising them food, water, medical care and a return to their homes.

The RSF accelerated its assault on the camp after the army regained control of the capital Khartoum, cementing its retaking of the center of the country.

It has also accelerated drone attacks into army-controlled territory, including an attack on the Atbara power station in the north of the country on Monday according to the national electricity company, cutting off power to the wartime capital of Port Sudan.

The war in Sudan erupted in April 2023, sparked by a power struggle between the army and the RSF, shattering hopes for a transition to civilian rule. The conflict has since displaced millions and devastated wide swathes of the country, spreading famine in several locations.

One of Russia’s most outspoken generals, sacked and detained after a withering attack on the Defense Ministry two years ago, is returning to the front, according to his lawyer.

But according to Russian state media, he’s been handed a poisoned chalice: front-line command of a notorious battalion of ex-prisoners that has suffered massive casualties in Ukraine.

Two years ago, Major General Ivan Popov was the decorated commander of the 58th Combined Arms Army in southern Ukraine, receiving plaudits for his leadership.

Then he made a mistake – sending a voice note to colleagues excoriating the leadership of the Defense Ministry, and saying he’d been fired for complaining.

“The armed forces of Ukraine could not break through our army from the front, (but) our senior commander hit us from the rear, treacherously and vilely decapitating the army at the most difficult and tense moment,” Popov said in the message, sent in July 2023.

Most of his ire was reserved for the Russian military’s chief-of-staff, Valery Gerasimov.

Popov said that when he complained about a lack of artillery support and other issues, “the senior commanders felt the danger in me and swiftly, in one day, concocted an order for the Minister of Defense, removed me from the order, and got rid of me.”

Kateryna Stepanenko, at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, says that Popov’s dismissal “outraged Russian ultranationalists, officers, and veterans, who accused the Russian MoD of removing Popov to mask problems in the Russian military.”

The military establishment was especially sensitive to criticism at the time – less than a month after the abortive revolt by Wagner mercenary group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Life for Popov was soon to get worse. At first, he was sent to Syria to be deputy commander of the Russian contingent there, but in May last year he was arrested for alleged fraud, a charge he has consistently denied.

Prosecutors sought a six-year jail sentence if convicted, and Popov was dismissed from the armed forces. But his supporters continued to speak up for him.

Stepanenko believes the Kremlin “largely failed to convince the Russian ultranationalists, officers, and veterans of Popov’s alleged involvement in the embezzlement case, resulting in persistent backlash online.”

Popov wrote an open letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, which was published in state media in late March, appealing to be allowed to return to the battlefield. He described Putin as his “moral guide and role model” whose example “made me finally understand what the legendary words mean: ‘a cool head, a warm heart and clean hands.’”

Popov’s wish has now been granted, after a fashion.

Last week, Russian state media reported that his lawyer and the Ministry of Defense had agreed to Popov’s request to return to active duty rather than face the prospect of a prison sentence.

Popov’s lawyer, Sergei Buinovsky, was quoted on TASS as saying: “We, together with the Ministry of Defense, have a motion to suspend on the case… with the positive decision to send Ivan Ivanovich to the SVO (The Special Military Operation.)” Moscow continues to use this term to refer to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine it launched in 2022.

It’s yet to be confirmed that the military court has agreed to the deal, but Popov’s supporters among Russian military bloggers rejoiced.

“The legendary combat general returned to the front!” wrote Vladimir Rogov, a popular blogger.

But there was a sting in the tail. Popov would not be returning to his beloved 58^th Army.

On Thursday, Russian business daily newspaper Kommersant reported that Popov would “be sent to the SVO not as a regular stormtrooper, but as the commander of one of the Storm Z units,” citing a source in the security forces.

That same day, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on a call with journalists “on the intention of General Popov, accused of embezzlement, to take up a special operation.”

But Stepanenko describes Popov’s assignment as “effectively a death sentence because the Russian military command primarily uses ‘Storm Z’ penal detachments in suicidal frontal assaults.”

The Kremlin has continued to support the use of prisoners in combat. Putin recently promised to get members of Storm Z veteran status.

“We will definitely fix this. I don’t see any problems here,” Putin said at a meeting last month. “I have great connections, I will come to an agreement with both the government and the deputies,” he added.

As the Russian military seeks to bolster the number of experienced officers in Ukraine, it’s increasingly turning to those who have fallen out of favor.

“Putin appears to have set up a new redemption system in which disgraced officials and commanders have a chance at regaining Putin’s favor, provided they publicly plead guilty to their charges and then volunteer to fight in Ukraine,” says Stepanenko.

Popov has denied the charges against him and a military court is yet to green-light the deal between his lawyer and the Defense Ministry.

But he is certainly familiar with Russia’s notorious units of ex-convicts, which played an outsize role in the assault on Bakhmut in 2023, suffering immense casualties in the process.

When in charge of the 58th Army, Popov was affiliated with a battalion of former prisoners known as “Storm Gladiator,” a special assault unit within Storm Z.

It had “hundreds of convicts with prior military experience who received training from former Wagner Group and Chechen ‘Akhmat’ forces,” says Stepanenko. But it suffered significant losses in what became known as “meat grinder assaults,” frontal infantry assaults on well-defended positions. Detachments of Storm Gladiator had a survival rate of 40%, according to some investigations.

As and when he returns to the battlefield, Popov is likely to need all his military prowess to keep his ex-prisoners’ battalion, and himself, alive.

For hundreds of millions of people living in India and Pakistan the early arrival of summer heatwaves has become a terrifying reality that’s testing survivability limits and putting enormous strain on energy supplies, vital crops and livelihoods.

Both countries experience heatwaves during the summer months of May and June, but this year’s heatwave season has arrived sooner than usual and is predicted to last longer too.

Temperatures are expected to climb to dangerous levels in both countries this week.

Parts of Pakistan are likely to experience heat up to 8 degrees Celsius above normal between April 14-18, according to the country’s meteorological department. Maximum temperatures in Balochistan, in country’s southwest, could reach up to 49 degrees Celsius (120 Fahrenheit).

That’s like living in Death Valley – the hottest and driest place in North America – where summer daytime temperatures often climb to similar levels.

Ayoub Khosa, who lives in Balochistan’s Dera Murad Jamali city, said the heatwave had arrived with an “intensity that caught many off guard,” creating severe challenges for its residents.

“This has intensified the impact of the heat, making it harder for people to cope,” he said.

Neighboring India has also been experiencing extreme heat that arrived earlier than usual and its metrological department warned people in parts of the country to brace for an “above-normal number of heatwave days” in April.

Maximum temperatures in capital Delhi, a city of more than 16 million, have already crossed 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) at least three times this month – up to 5 degrees above the seasonal average – the meteorological department said.

The searing heat is being faced in several neighboring states too, including Rajasthan in the northwest, where laborers and farmers are struggling to cope and reports of illness are beginning to emerge.

Maximum recorded temperatures in parts of Rajasthan reached 44 degrees Celsius (111 Fahrenheit) on Monday, according to the meteorological department.

Anita Soni, from the women’s group Thar Mahila Sansthan, said the heat is much worse than other years and she is worried about how it will impact children and women in the state.

When the laborers or farmers head out, there is an instant lack of drinking water, people often feel like vomiting, they fall sick, or they feel dizzy, she said.

Farmer Balu Lal said people are already falling sick due to working in it. “We cannot even stand to work in it,” he said. “When I am out, I feel that people would burn due to the heat outside.”

Lal said he worries about his work and how he will earn money for his family. “We have nowhere else to go,” he said.

Testing survivability limits

Experts say the rising temperatures are testing human limits.

Extreme heat has killed tens of thousands of people in India and Pakistan in recent decades and climate experts have warned that by 2050 India will be among the first places where temperatures will cross survivability limits.

Under heatwave conditions, pregnant women and their unborn children are particularly at risk. “There is unexplained pregnancy loss and early babies,” said Neha Mankani, an advisor at the International Confederation of Midwives in Karachi.

“In the summers, 80% of babies are born preterm with respiratory issues because of the weather. We also see an increase in pregnancy induced hypertension, (which could) lead to preeclampsia – the leading cause of maternal mortality.”

India and Pakistan, both countries with glaring disparities in development, are expected to be among the nations worst affected by the climate crisis – with more than 1 billion people predicted to be impacted on the subcontinent.

The cascading effects will be devastating. Likely consequences range from a lack of food and drought to flash floods from melting ice caps, according to Mehrunissa Malik, a climate change and sustainability expert from Pakistan’s capital Islamabad.

Communities without access to cooling measures, adequate housing and those who rely on the elements for their livelihoods will feel the effects much more acutely, said Malik.

“For farmers, the weather is erratic and difficult to predict,” she said. “The main challenge is the fact that temperatures (are) rising at a time when crops aren’t at the stage to be harvested. They start getting ready earlier, yields get lower, and in this dry heat they need more water… If your plants are still young, severe heat causes little chance of them making it.”

Tofiq Pasha, a farmer and environmental activist from Karachi, said summers begin much earlier now.

His home province, Sindh, which, along with Balochistan, has recorded some of the hottest global temperatures in recent years, suffered a major drought during the winter months and the little rainfall has led to water shortages, he said.

“This is going to be a major livelihood issue among farmers,” Pasha said, explaining how temperatures also affect the arrival of pests. “Flowers don’t set, they fall, fruits don’t set, they fall, you have pest attacks, they decimate the crop, sometimes it gets too hot… the cycles are messed. Food production is extremely affected.”

Heatwaves have in the past have increased demand for electricity, leading to coal shortages while leaving millions without power. Trains have been cancelled to conserve energy, and schools have been forced shut, impacting learning.

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.

Voters in Ecuador are casting their ballots in a presidential runoff election between conservative incumbent Daniel Noboa and leftist lawyer Luisa González – a race overshadowed by drug-fueled violence that has consumed the once-peaceful South American country.

“Tranquility … is the most important thing for the country because there is a lot of insecurity,” one voter said.

“Security is in pieces,” another voter said, adding that she hopes whoever wins will keep their promise to tackle violence.

Polls opened at 8 a.m. ET and are scheduled to close at 6 p.m. The first results are expected to be announced a few hours after that.

This is the latest electoral contest between the two candidates. In the 2023 snap election, Noboa defeated González with just over 50 percent of the vote.

Noboa, who won a special election in 2023 to complete his predecessor’s term, is seeking a full four-year term to continue his controversial war on gangs and drug traffickers, which has so far had limited results.

The 37-year-old leader has declared numerous states of emergency, deployed military units to tackle gang activity, and began construction on a new maximum-security prison after an infamous criminal leader escaped from custody last year.

But according to figures from the government, the start to the year has seen an unprecedented level of violence with more than 1,000 homicides. Data from organized crime research center InSight Crime suggests Ecuador has the highest homicide rate in Latin America.

González, a protégé of Ecuador’s left-wing former President Rafael Correa, is offering an alternative model for security based on what her party describes as “prevention, violence reduction and coexistence.”

Running on a campaign to “Revive Ecuador,” González is also proposing a return to high social spending to help the country’s poorest citizens. She says her party represents hope and transformation, arguing that “Noboa represents fear.”

Both candidates cast their ballots on Sunday morning, with Noboa guaranteeing a victory.

“We’ll win today. Today is a very important day for Ecuador,” he said in brief remarks to the press.

González, meanwhile, promised to defend democracy as she cast her vote.

“With all the faith, the homeland … with all the conviction of serving a country. And through that change, today we will change the history of Ecuador,” she said.

Mario Vargas Llosa, the Peruvian-Spanish Nobel Prize-winning author whose work focused on the evils of totalitarianism and who once ran for president, has died at age 89, according to his family.

“It is with deep sorrow that we announce that our father, Mario Vargas LLosa, passed away peacefully in Lima today, surrounded by his family,” said a family statement shared by his son Álvaro Vargas Llosa on X on Sunday.

Vargas Llosa will be best remembered for novels including “Conversation in the Cathedral” (1969), “The War of the End of the World” (1981), and “Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter” (1977), which was adapted for the 1990 feature film “Tune in Tomorrow,” starring Barbara Hershey and Keanu Reeves.

In 2010, Vargas Llosa was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for what the Swedish academy called “his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt, and defeat.”

In their statement Sunday, the novelist’s three children said Vargas Llosa’s “departure will sadden his relatives, his friends and his readers around the world.”

“But we hope that they will find comfort, as we do, in the fact that he enjoyed a long, adventurous and fruitful life, and leaves behind him a body of work that will outlive him,” they said.

Vargas Llosa will be farewelled by his family and close friends at a private event, the statement added.

Born in Arequipa, southern Peru, Vargas Llosa spent his early years in Cochabamba, Bolivia, where his grandfather was the Peruvian consul, before attending a military school and the National University of San Marcos in the Peruvian capital Lima.

By 1952 he had published his first work, a play called “La guide del Inca,” and he soon became a regular contributor to the Peruvian literary press.

Vargas Llosa worked as a journalist and broadcaster, and attended the University of Madrid before moving to Paris.

In 1963 he published his first novel, “La ciudad y los perros” – known in English as “The Time of the Hero” – to wide acclaim. It was eventually translated into more than a dozen languages. It was followed by novels including “The Green House” (1966) and “Captain Pantoja and the Special Service” (1973).

After stints in London, where he lectured at King’s College; the United States, where he spent a year as writer in residence at Washington State University; and Barcelona, he moved back to Lima in 1974. A translated collection of his essays was published in English in 1978.

In 1990, Vargas Llosa ran for president of Peru, on a platform of what he called classical liberalism – a belief in individual initiative, free from interference by the state.

After losing the election to outsider candidate Alberto Fujimori in a second-round landslide, he moved to Spain, becoming a Spanish citizen in 1993. He won the Cervantes Prize, a prestigious Spanish literary award, a year later.

Later novels included “The Feast of the Goat” in 2000 and “The Bad Girl” in 2006.

When Vargas Llosa was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2010, he told the organizers in an interview that he had been inspired by French writer Gustave Flaubert, “because he managed, not being a born genius, to build his genius through effort, commitment, perseverance, discipline.”

Vargas Llosa also revealed how he believed that literature and politics were linked.

“I am convinced that, for example, democratic culture, culture based on freedom, on respect of human rights, was something that was possible because we had people that were sensibilized by art, by literature, by culture in general, about the sufferance, the injustices, the inequalities, the abuses who were so extended in real life,” he said.

“So, I think literature is pleasure but it’s also a very important instrument to move forward in life.”

This story has been updated with additional information.

New satellite images show what could be North Korea’s biggest warship ever – possibly more than double the size of anything in leader Kim Jong Un’s naval fleet.

Images taken by independent satellite providers Maxar Technologies and Planet Labs on April 6 show the ship under construction in the water at the Nampo shipyard on North Korea’s west coast, about 60 kilometers (37 miles) southwest of the capital Pyongyang.

Analysts say the pictures show ongoing construction of weapons and other internal systems of the ship, which is likely a guided-missile frigate (FFG) designed to carry missiles in vertical launch tubes for use against targets on land and sea.

“The FFG is approximately 140 meters (459 feet) long, making it the largest warship manufactured in North Korea,” an analysis by Joseph Bermudez Jr. and Jennifer Jun at the Center for Strategic and International Studies said.

For comparison, the US Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class destroyers are about 505 feet long and its under-construction Constellation-class frigates will be 496 feet long.

The existence of the warship is not a surprise.

The Kim regime has been engaged in a rapid modernization of its armed forces, developing a range of new weapons and testing intercontinental ballistic missiles that can reach almost anywhere in the United States.

It’s done that despite United Nations sanctions that have puts strict limits on its access to the materials and technology to develop those weapons.

But the closer ties with Russia since the beginning of the Ukraine war could be helping North Korea overcome that sanctions, analysts say.

Kim Duk-ki, a retired South Korean admiral, said he thinks Moscow may be providing the technology for the frigate’s missile systems.

Pictures of the vessel appeared in a report by state-run Korean Central Television released late last year on the ruling Workers’ Party’s end-of-year plenary session. The images showed leader Kim inspecting the ship’s construction.

The images shown in the KCTV video show the warship could have the kind of weaponry possessed by modern navies, including vertical launch cells that could be used to fire a variety of missiles.

Analysts also noted the ship seems to be set up to have phased-array radar, which can track threats and targets more quickly and accurately than previously displayed North Korean capabilities.

Despite those indications of advanced warfighting abilities, analysts urged caution in making assumptions.

The challenge of building warships

Almost any shipbuilder can get the hull and propulsion systems right, said Carl Schuster, a former US Navy captain and Hawaii-based analyst.

“However, modern warships represent an integration challenge of communications, electronics, weapons, and both electronic and acoustic sensor technologies” that is not so easily achieved, he said.

“Operating such a big military warship takes significant amount of budget. They not only have to build a warship, but make a team that would operate it, and it costs to operate it including the equipment and fuel. Also, one huge warship cannot go out on its own. So the question is, can North Korea afford the cost?” he said.

Kim, the retired South Korean admiral, was cautious on not underestimating what the final product may look like, especially its lethality.

“If North Korea equips the new frigate with the hypersonic ballistic missile it claimed to have successfully tested in January, that will cause a game changing impact in the regional security,” the former naval officer said.

“This ship’s construction is being delayed by the lack of the superstructure, sensor and weapons systems intended for installation,” he said.

North Korea’s aged fleet

North Korea’s navy has about 400 patrol combatants and 70 submarines, according to the most recent estimate from the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in a 2021 report.

Though that’s a large number of vessels, most of them are old and small.

Joseph Dempsey, an analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, wrote in a January blog post that Pyongyang has only two principal surface combatants. Those Najin-class frigates – 1,600-ton warships dating to the early 1970s – are obsolete, he wrote.

The DIA report said the North Korean navy would largely be reduced to coastal defense in any conflict with South Korea or the United States, both of which have vastly superior naval forces.

But North Korean leader Kim has been pushing to modernize his naval fleet. It is also developing submarine-launched missiles and the subs to carry them.

In September, Kim inspected the site for a new naval port.

“Now that we are soon to possess large surface warships and submarines which cannot be anchored at the existing facilities for mooring warships, the construction of a naval base for running the latest large warships has become a pressing task,” he said at the time.

Yu Yong-won, a South Korean lawmaker, said the ship under construction at the Nampo yard is only one example of Kim trying to modernize his navy.

A nuclear-powered submarine is under construction at a shipyard in the North Korean port of Sinpo and another frigate or destroyer is in the works in Chongjin, Yu said.