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A call to prayer is made from a destroyed mosque as a drone shot shows the ruins of the building and surroundings in Khan Younis. The video shows the scale of destruction caused by Israeli bombardment in response to the Oct 7 Hamas attack.

A Russian court has banned LGBTQ groups from operating across the country and said gay activists should be classed as extremists.

The Supreme Court in Moscow declared LGBTQ activists should be banned from taking part in campaigning in Russia, sparking fears gay people will be rounded up and thrown in jail.

The landmark ruling today effectively outlawed LGBTQ activism, in another step Russian authorities have taken in recent years against gay, lesbian and transgender rights.

The legal request was made by the justice ministry earlier this month, in a move to shut down those pushing for increased rights for the community.

In the filing, it was claimed “signs and manifestations of an extremist nature” by an LGBTQ “social movement” had been discovered operating in Russia, including “incitement of social and religious discord”.

However, no evidence of this was submitted to the court as part of the government department’s case.

The Supreme Court took just over two hours to issue its ruling, after opening its session at 10am local time (7am UK time).

The proceedings took place behind closed doors and no media were inside the court during the deliberations, but reporters were allowed in to hear the decision.

It is the latest move in a pattern of increasing restrictions in Russia on expressions of sexual orientation and gender identity, including laws outlawing the promotion of “non-traditional” sexuality and banning legal or medical changes of gender.

In 2013, the Kremlin adopted the first legislation restricting LGBTQ rights, known as the “gay propaganda” law, banning any public endorsement of “non-traditional sexual relations” among children.

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Then in 2020, constitutional reforms pushed through by President Putin to extend his rule by two more terms, also included a provision to outlaw same-sex marriage.

After sending troops into Ukraine in 2022, the Kremlin ramped up its comments about protecting “traditional values” from what it called the West’s “degrading” influence.

Vladimir Putin, expected shortly to announce that he will seek a new six-year term as leader in March, has long sought to promote an image of Russia as a guardian of traditional moral values – in contrast with a ‘decadent West’.

In a speech last year, he said the West was welcome to adopt “rather strange, in my view, new-fangled trends like dozens of genders and gay parades” but had no right to impose them on other countries.

Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters before the court decision was announced that the Kremlin was “not following” the case and had no comment on it.

Alexei Sergeyev, an LGBT activist in St Petersburg, said in an interview earlier this month after the filing was made on 17 November: “Of course it’s very alarming, and I don’t remember the threat ever being so serious and real.”

More than 100 groups are already banned in Russia as “extremist”, including the Jehovah’s Witnesses religious movement and organisations linked to opposition politician Alexei Navalny – all leading to arrests of activists.

Sergeyev said activities such as psychological and legal support, or even “meetings where you can just sit and drink tea”, would be driven underground, depriving many LGBTQ people of support.

He added: “They will either commit suicide or simply be in some terrible state – their life will be shortened and their health will deteriorate, they will drink and smoke more, and so on, somehow trying to escape from this reality.”

Four migrants have died after being thrown from a speedboat off the coast of southern Spain.

The boat was yards away from a beach in Cadiz when the incident occurred, Guardia Civil police and rescue service said.

Thirty-one other people from the boat, including six children, survived the incident and four were taken to a hospital.

Officials said 27 passengers were forced out by the vessel’s drivers near Camposoto beach, which is where the four died.

Another eight were left on the shore of Sancti Petri beach, in nearby Chiclana, who were attended to by medics and the Guardia Civil police.

Three of them were taken to hospital suffering from hypothermia.

Eyewitness Javier Gonzalez told a local TV station: “We saw a drug trafficking boat arriving but they weren’t trafficking drugs but [were] with migrants.

“Suddenly, they began jumping and some were thrown. There are even images showing one of the bosses was pointing with a gun to a migrant, like saying, ‘you jump, or I shoot you’.”

Read more from Sky News:
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Gonzalez is a windsurfer who was at the time on the beach with a group of about 15 to 20 colleagues and helped rescue the migrants from the water.

“We went towards the guys, the migrants and by that time, within one minute or two, there were already three of them facing down,” he said. “What we did first was to take the ones facing down and then pulling the rest out.”

Cadiz is on the southern tip of Spain, around 12 miles (19km) from the North African coast.

It is not a common destination for migration routes from the Maghreb as it is located on the Atlantic coast where sea conditions are more complicated and there is a lot of surveillance in the Strait of Gibraltar.

Elon Musk has apologised for endorsing an antisemitic conspiracy theory, admitting it may have been “literally the worst and dumbest post I’ve ever done”.

The apology came amid a fiery rant against advertisers who have stopped promoting on his social media platform X.

The advertising row, which has seen Disney and Warner Bros pull their ads, could spell the end for the site formerly known as Twitter – Musk has admitted as much himself.

Here’s what the world’s richest man said to trigger the advertiser exodus and a look at some of his other divisive moments since his $44bn X takeover in 2022.

November 2023 – Promoting an antisemitic conspiracy theory

The Tesla chief agreed with a post on X 16 November that falsely claimed Jewish people were stoking hatred against white people, saying the user who referenced the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory was speaking “the actual truth”.

That conspiracy theory holds that Jewish people and other minorities are engineering the ethnic and cultural replacement of white populations with non-white immigrants that will lead to a “white genocide”.

He has since admitted that the post was “foolish of me”.

Speaking on stage at the New York Times DealBook summit on Wednesday, he said: “I mean, look, I’m sorry for that … post.

“It was foolish of me. Of the 30,000 it might be literally the worst and dumbest post I’ve ever done.

“And I’ve tried my best to clarify six ways from Sunday, but you know at least I think it’ll be obvious that in fact far from being antisemitic, I’m in fact philosemitic.”

His comments came shortly after Musk visited Israel, where he toured a kibbutz attacked by Hamas militants and held talks with top leaders.

Adding fuel to the ‘Pizzagate’ fire

You don’t need to go back far to find Musk’s last controversial comment – only to Tuesday, in fact.

On 28 November, Musk was accused of promoting a long-debunked conspiracy theory which alleged high-profile Democrats ran a paedophile abuse ring from a Washington pizza restaurant.

The billionaire posted and later deleted a meme referencing “Pizzagate” on X.

It was an image from TV show The Office, with fake dialogue superimposed on to the scene to make it look like the characters were arguing about whether the conspiracy was real.

“Does seem at least a little suspicious,” Musk wrote.

NBC News reports Musk has replied to X posts about Pizzagate at least four times since 20 November.

October 2023 – Backing controversial war accounts

X has long been criticised for failing to tackle the spread of disinformation about the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

But Musk was accused of contributing to the issue directly just a few days after Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israeli civilians when he posted the names of two controversial accounts, claiming they were “good” for “following the war in real-time”.

Journalists and X users swiftly pointed out that both accounts had previously shared a fake AI-generated image of an explosion at the Pentagon, and that one of them had posted numerous antisemitic comments in recent months.

Musk later deleted his post.

September 2023 – Musk admits denying request from Ukraine

On 7 September this year, Musk admitted he withheld the use of his satellite network near the Crimean coast – effectively thwarting a sneak attack by Ukrainian forces on Russian ships.

Ukrainian military forces planned to use the Starlink satellites for a drone attack on a Russian naval base in September 2022, but Musk wouldn’t allow it, later saying that doing so would have made his company SpaceX “explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation”.

Ukrainian officials condemned the billionaire’s intervention, saying he was enabling Vladimir Putin and costing the lives of civilians.

December 2022 – ‘My dog is the CEO of Twitter’

On 18 December 2022, mere months into his X reign, Musk decided to create a poll on his social media site, posing the question: “Should I step down as the CEO of Twitter?”

He promised to abide by the results of votes, which ultimately swung 57.5% in favour of his resignation.

“I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job,” he pledged once voting was closed.

“After that, I will just run the software and servers teams.”

Months went by without any word on a potential successor.

When he was reminded of his promise in April 2023, the billionaire stated: “I did stand down. I keep telling you I’m not the CEO of Twitter, my dog is the CEO of Twitter.”

He did eventually appoint Linda Yaccarino as his successor, labelling himself the company’s new chief technology officer.

December 2022 – Musk bans journalists from X

Musk was told he faced EU sanctions after he claimed a number of prominent reporters had been booted off X for sharing personal information about him.

He claimed the journalists in question had “doxxed my exact location in real-time” because they had tweeted about @ElonJet, an account which tracked his private plane.

Musk said people sharing his location were basically giving out “assassination coordinates”.

Musk later reinstated the accounts after the majority of people voted in favour of letting them back onto the platform through a poll he created.

But critics claimed the billionaire had shown hypocrisy by removing the journalists’ free speech despite regularly promising to uphold it.

November 2022 – Trump is reinstated after permanent suspension

One of Musk’s first radical moves as X’s new owner was to welcome former US president Donald Trump back to the platform after he was banned in January 2021 – again claiming it was in the name of free speech.

He had been banned after the January 6 attack by his supporters on the US Capitol that left several people dead.

Twitter had said the ban was “due to the risk of further incitement of violence” – but Musk was clear about his opposition to the move, calling it a “mistake” and “morally wrong”.

Trump ultimately opted to leave his Twitter account dormant after creating his own social media platform, Truth Social.

But his reinstatement marked the start of more lax rules on X that would eventually see controversial figures granted access to their accounts despite breaking previously established guidelines.

Rapper Kanye West, for example, was reinstated on X in July 2023 despite tweeting an image of a swastika hours after he praised Hitler and made antisemitic jokes in an interview eight months prior.

October 2022 – Sharing a baseless claim after the attack on Paul Pelosi

Musk marked his first week as X’s chief executive by tweeting a link to an unfounded rumour about the attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband which left him in hospital for six days.

The article Musk shared at the end of October 2022 recycled a baseless claim that the personal life of Paul Pelosi, the former House Speaker’s husband, somehow played a role in an intruder’s attack in the couple’s San Francisco home.

Musk posted a link to the fringe website and added: “There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye.”

He later deleted the post.

Juchitán, Mexico – Felina Santiago was cutting hair in her salon when she heard that one of her oldest friends, Oscar Cazorla, had been stabbed to death at the age of 62.

“I was paralysed with pain,” she recalled. “I knew we had lost a pillar of our community that day.”

Santiago and Cazorla both belong to Mexico’s muxe community, pronounced “mu-shay”, made up of people who identify as a third gender, neither male nor female.

Traditionally, in Indigenous Zapotec society, muxes have been respected, even celebrated. But Cazorla’s murder in 2019 — along with the death of another prominent non-binary figure this month — has left the community shaken, fearful of further violence.

The latest high-profile incident came on November 13, when Jesus Ociel Baena, Mexico’s first openly non-binary magistrate, was found dead at home with multiple wounds.

“Hatred is harming our cities, our towns and the people in our communities,” Santiago said.

“When one hears about tragic deaths, like that of Jesus, who was well-known — an academic, smart and very influential — it makes us think we need even more protection.”

The news of Baena’s death broke just four days before the biggest muxe event of the year, called the “Vela de las Auténticas Intrépidas Buscadoras del Peligro”. The name loosely translates to the Vigil for the Authentic and Fearless Seekers of Danger.

Taking place in Juchitán, a town in the southern state of Oaxaca, the three-day festival brings together thousands of revellers each year.

But for Santiago, the president of the festival, the latest celebration was particularly poignant. It was a chance to show “no fear” in the face of the violence.

“The sadness affects us all deeply, but we must show our resistance to stop the feeling of fear growing. We stand together in solidarity to show society we are one and we want justice.”

High rates of violence

Violence and threats have haunted the muxes and other members of Mexico’s LGBTQ community for years. From 2018 through 2022, homicide claimed at least 453 LGTBQ people in the country, according to the advocacy group Letra S.

In the last year alone, the group estimated that, on average, seven LGBTQ people were murdered each month, with transgender and non-binary people at particular risk.

Studies suggest the violence is a regional issue. Earlier this month, the Trans Murder Monitoring project found that 74 percent of all documented murders of transgender or gender-diverse people took place in Latin America.

In the region, Brazil registered the highest number of murders, but Mexico came in second, with 52 homicides between October 2022 and September 2023.

Part of Zapotec tradition, the muxes are their own distinct community, similar to but separate from categories like “transgender”. They are often described as representing a “duality” that embodies both sides of the gender spectrum.

Many are declared male at birth but embrace feminine roles and characteristics, sometimes wearing dresses and makeup.

Calling for justice

The annual “vela” festivity was conceived in the mid-1970s as a celebration of muxe identity, full of dancing, opulent gowns and round-the-clock music. Cazorla, the muxe who was murdered in 2019, was one of a few key figures who founded the event.

But Cazorla’s death — and that of Baena — cast a shadow over this year’s celebration, the 48th edition of the “vela”.

Justice remains elusive: No arrests have been made in either case. Authorities have said that Baena’s partner Dorian Herrera may have killed him in a murder-suicide.

But that suggestion has sparked outrage among LGBTQ leaders, who question how such a conclusion could be reached so quickly after Baena’s and Herrera’s deaths.

“A huge number of crimes perpetrated against our community go unanswered,” said one muxe attendee at this year’s “vela”, Valkis Lopez.

“And this is just the crimes that are reported to the authorities in the first place.”

Even at one of the high points of the festivity — the crowning of a victor in the muxe beauty pageant — cries for justice rang out from the stage.

Elvis Guerra, a muxe poet, accepted the towering, jewel-encrusted tiara with a speech that acknowledged the violence LGBTQ people face.

“There are still those who, from behind the shield of ignorance, continue to murder us today,” Guerra said.

A place of power

But the founders of the “vela” have created a space where muxes can demand respect, Guerra explained in the speech.

“Today, we can go out into the street and look straight ahead, bending only when you put the crown on us,” Guerra said.

“Why? Because of social warriors like the matriarch Felina [Santiago] and the late Oscar Cazorla, whose devious and dastardly murder remains unpunished to this day. We owe freedom to them.”

Another attendee, muxe activist Mistica Sanchez Gomez, said the violence was likely aimed at suppressing LGBTQ identity. “Hateful murders seek to provoke fear in us,” she told Al Jazeera.

But for Santiago, the “vela” remains a moment of joy first and foremost.

Every year, the festivity begins with street parades, with muxes sailing through the streets atop wooden carts pulled by bulls. Fireworks and seemingly unending brass-band music provide the soundtrack to the carnivalesque atmosphere, while local muxes and tourists dance side by side until sweat drops from their breathless faces.

Santiago believes this year’s vela brought more attendees than ever before, a sign of popular support and greater awareness despite the high-profile murders.

That fact makes her smile, but her stare remains pensive as she thinks of the friend she lost: “Oscar would have been very proud.”