CNN
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According to his nonprofit Institoto Terra, award-winning Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado has passed away. He was 81 years old.

“It is a deep sadness to announce the death of Sebastian Salgado, founder, mentor and eternal source of inspiration,” Instagram Terra said in an Instagram post that did not list the cause of death.

Salgado was survived by two sons, two grandchildren and his partner, Lelia Delziwanic Salgado.

“Sebastian was more than one of the greatest photographers of our time,” the post continued. “Along with his life partner, Lélia Deluiz Wanick Salgado, he let hopes in places where devastation was, bringing back the belief that restoring the environment is also an act of love for humanity.”

Initially trained as an economist, Salgado spent much of his long career documenting the impact of heavy industry on the environment, from his native Brazilian gold mining monographs to books on the oil fires in Kuwait.

Salgado’s final book, “Amazônia,” featured a Brazilian region of the same name, focusing on the sustainable examples offered by the indigenous Amazon community and the beauty of its river landscape.

“We’re introducing another Amazonia,” Salgado told CNN in 2021. “There’s no fire or destruction.

“We cannot build our future — humanity’s future based solely on technology,” Salgado continued. “We must look at the past. We must consider anything we have done in our history. There is a great opportunity for humans. The prehistoric period of humanity is now in Amazonia.”

The continued destruction of the rainforest was in the pain of Salgado and dedicated to planting trees through his nonprofit organization for many years to restore Brazil’s exposed forests. In 2021, he told CNN that he and his volunteers planted more than 3 million trees in his family’s estate in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest over 22 years.

“We can rebuild the planets we destroyed. We must,” Salgado said.

CNN’s Thomas Page provided the report.

CNN
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Russia and Ukraine have completed the first phase of what is expected to be the largest prisoner exchange since the start of the war, with around 800 people being released on Friday.

The swap begins on Friday and continues on Saturday and Sunday, with Kyiv and Moscow expecting to trade 2,000 people.

It was the only significant result of the meeting between Kiev and Moscow in Istanbul last week, and the first time I had met in person shortly after Russia’s full-scale unprovoked Ukrainian invasion in February 2022.

“We’re bringing people home,” Ukrainian President Voldimi Zelensky told X, adding that 390 people returned to Ukraine on Friday. He said the group includes 270 troops and 120 civilians.

The Ukrainian Coordination Centre for Ukraine’s POW Treatment said three women and 387 men were among the women released on Friday.

In a statement, the Russian Ministry of Defense said that “270 Russian military personnel and 120 civilians” had been returned to Russia. Civilians said they were captured by Ukrainian troops in Kursk, the Russian region where Ukraine launched a surprising invasion last summer. Russia then regenerated most of its territory.

However, Zelensky later said that the Russian civilians returned by Ukraine were “Russian destroyers and collaborators” arrested by Ukrainian law enforcement officials.

Similar to previous exchanges, the released prisoners were taken to the meeting place by several buses after being released by Russia at the Ukrainian border. Many were given a Ukrainian flag and bracelet at the border.

Photos and videos released by the Ukrainian government showed dozens of men wearing military fatigue, most of whom had their heads shaved and posed in flags.

Several of the released men were able to see them talking to their loved ones on the phone. I let out tears as I heard the other side.

One video showed people from the village along the convoy route coming out with flags and greeted the returnees.

“I feel happy because I’m at home. That’s what it’s all about. It’s happy for you that we’ve come… We prayed for this and asked to wake this up,” Vasyl Gulyach, who spent two and a half years, told CNN.

CNN also spoke with 29-year-old Anton Kobylnyk. “I belong to you, I’ve received your letter,” he told his girlfriend Yulia over the phone. “What you did, waiting for me for the last 37 months is a very great feat on your part and an invaluable contribution to our relationship,” he told her.

At the same time, Russian soldiers who were taken prisoner by Ukraine were handed over to Russian authorities at the border.

On the Ukrainian side, dozens of people waited for hours to greet the returnees at meeting venues in the Chernichv region of northern Ukraine.

Many have brought Ukrainian flags and pictures of their loved ones – in case any of the returnees recognize them and give them information about their whereabouts.

While they wait, air raid sirens have sounded throughout Ukraine, indicating that a Russian attack may be imminent.

Thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been snatched by Ukrainian authorities, occupied by Russian authorities, and deported to Russia, where they are detained without charges or trial.

Their status is complicated – Ukraine considers them to be civilian hostages because they are illegally detained. Russia has insisted that in some cases they should be recognized as prisoners of war. Kiev did not do so as it could potentially put civilians living in occupied areas in Ukraine at risk of being detained intentionally.

Ukrainian and Russian authorities were not expected to publicly say that it was going on until it was completed. But US President Donald Trump defeated the convention on Friday, announcing the swap as social media rolls out.

The Istanbul Conference was originally proposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in response to the ultimate in the ceasefire or lineage given to Moscow by Kiev’s European allies.

But the return of hundreds of Ukrainian detainees will come as a great relief for families and loved ones, but as the only concrete result of the highly promoted meeting, it remains somewhat overwhelming.

In his daily speech, Zelensky added that Friday’s prisoner exchange was the “only significant result” of last week’s meeting in Turkey, with Russia blocking “everything else.”

Inmate swaps are regularly performed, most recently earlier this month.

The Ukrainian prisoner of war treatment centre said the May 7 exchange, which had returned to Japan with more than 200 Ukrainian service members, was the fifth swap this year, and the 64th exchange since the beginning of a full-scale Russian invasion.

The department said at the time, 4,757 Ukrainian citizens had been released since March 2022.

Ukraine and its allies demanded that Russia agree to an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Istanbul, but that did not happen.

Kiev also provided direct consultations between Zelensky and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

CNN
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Jihad Al Shafi was still waiting a few hours after Al Haj Bakery handed out his final bread on Thursday.

Like many in the crowd standing outside a bakery in central Gaza, Al Shafi lined up early in the morning and predicted freshly baked pita from the first delivery of flour to enter the besieged territory from early March. He was forced to leave empty-handed. Because billions of away were left with food from the promised trucks in southern Gaza.

“We see people waiting for bread, but no one has received it,” Al Shafi told CNN. “It’s important for our staff to understand our suffering and act on it.”

For an hour on Thursday afternoon, the bakery “experienced an unprecedented invasion,” mob came down at the facility with meal scrambles. A desperate hand reached out from the small window separating the workers in the crowd, fortunate enough to secure a bag of bread. The chaos disappeared as quickly as bread, leaving no scores left.

Inam al-Burdeni walked an hour from the refugee camp in Al-Magazi to the bakery, but when she arrived, she was already to find the crowd. She left empty-handed too. “It’s exhausting and we feel lost and abandoned,” said Al Burdeni. “People are desperate. It’s not the promise of the sky, it’s time for action. Hamas should leave!”

This week, Israel began allowing the first trucks equipped with food and humanitarian supplies since imposing a complete blockade of humanitarian goods on Gaza on March 2.

According to the United Nations, only a small portion of the aid came before the war, with 500-600 trucks coming to Gaza a day. On Thursday, Kogat claimed that “there is no food shortage in Gaza,” but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said this week that Israel has allowed Gaza “a basic amount” to “prevent the humanitarian crisis.”

“The aid ongoing is the needle in the haystack,” said Philip Lazarini, director of the United Nations Relief Agency for Palestinian Refugees on social media. “The meaningful and uninterrupted flow of aid is the only way to prevent the current disaster from swirling even further.”

And some hold up as not all aid reaches the Palestinian population, and they are being plundered on their way to unsafe transport routes and distribution points. The truck, which Israel recently issued several evacuation warnings, did not reach northern Gaza.

Later Thursday night, 30 aid trucks in southern Gaza and central Gaza were attacked and destroyed, according to Nahid Shuheiber, head of the Territorial Transport Association. At Deir Al-Balah, an armed gang fired and plundered with trucks, he said. When Hamas-backed local security team arrived to secure a convoy, Hamas government media office said multiple Israeli strikes targeted the site and killed six people. CNN contacted the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) for comment.

The World Food Program (WFP) said 15 trucks were looted in southern Gaza and are on their way to a bakery backed by UN organizations.

“Hunger, despair and anxiety over whether more food aid is coming, contribute to the growing anxiety,” WFP said in a statement Friday. “We need to get much more food aid to be delivered faster, more consistent, more consistent and safer routes, as was done during the ceasefire.”

Palestinian NGOS networks have condemned the looting of humanitarian trucks. “Trucks designed to load flour and supply bakeries in the governors of Gaza and northern regions have been looted, taking away children and families from already enduring the serious hunger of basic food needs,” the umbrella organization said.

The Joint US Israel Aid Program, known as the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, is scheduled to begin operation of four distribution sites by the end of the month. However, the United Nations and other humanitarian organisations have refused to cooperate with the new group.

The new plan has been criticized by humanitarian officials who warn that it is inadequate and that it could put civilians at risk and encourage forced evacuation for them.

UN Aid Chief Tom Fletcher wrote about X last week, saying that he shouldn’t waste time on alternative Gaza aid programs.

On Friday, the Gaza Bakery Owners Association announced that Bakeries would refuse to operate “in light of the difficult situation facing the Gaza Strip,” and called on WFP to first distribute flour to their families.

The association’s chairman, Abdel Nasser al-Ajrami, appealed to Israel to allow international organisations to enter “flower, sugar, yeast, salt and diesel fuel” to “intervene in urgently.”