At least 12 people have died and two others are missing after a boat carrying dozens of people seeking asylum in the UK was “ripped open” in the Channel.

The French interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, said several people had been injured in the “terrible shipwreck” off Cap Gris-Nez on Tuesday morning.

The boat was carrying 65 people, the news channel BFMTV reported, citing an official statement.

The French coastguard said more than 50 people had been rescued about 28 miles (45km) south-west of Calais.

Darmanin said French rescue services had been mobilised to look for missing people.

“Terrible shipwreck in Pas-de-Calais, off Wimereux. The provisional toll stands at 12 dead, two missing and several injured,” he wrote on X. “All state services are mobilised to find the missing and take care of the victims. I will go to the elected officials and the emergency services.”

Olivier Barbarin, the mayor of Le Portel, a coastal town near Boulogne-sur-Mer where casualties are being treated, said: “Unfortunately, the bottom of the boat ripped open. It’s a big drama.”

French emergency services have been deployed since 11.30am. It is understood the shipwreck took place in French waters and UK search and rescue vessels are on standby.

In the past week more than 2,000 people seeking asylum have arrived in the UK on small boats. More than 600 arrived on 28 August in 10 boats, while 351 arrived on 2 September in six vessels.

The latest tragedy comes after two migrants died on 11 August and another 50 were rescued as they attempted to cross the waters. On 19 July one person died after being rescued from the Channel; another person died a few days earlier when a boat carrying 72 people deflated.

Enver Solomon, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, said the number of deaths this year in the Channel was “shockingly high” and called on the government to develop safe routes for people escaping war and famine.

“It is a devastating trend that shows the urgent need for a comprehensive and multi-pronged approach to reduce dangerous Channel crossings. Enforcement alone is not the solution. Heightened security and policing measures on the French coast have led to increasingly perilous crossings, launching from more dangerous locations and in flimsy, overcrowded vessels.

“In addition to taking action against the criminal gangs themselves, the government must develop a plan to improve and expand safe routes for those seeking safety. People risk their lives out of desperation, fleeing violence and persecution in countries like Afghanistan, Syria and Sudan in search of safety. We must create effective and humane pathways for those seeking refuge to reduce the need for dangerous crossings and prevent further tragedies,” he said.

The Channel is one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes and currents are strong, making crossing on small boats dangerous. People smugglers typically overload rickety dinghies, often leaving them barely afloat trying to reach British shores.

The worst maritime disaster in the Channel for 30 years took place in on 24 November 2021, when 31 people died. They had repeatedly made SOS calls to French and UK emergency services, but no help was sent.

Benjamin Netanyahu has condemned the UK government’s decision to suspend some arms export licences to Israel, describing it as a shameful decision that would embolden a genocidal Hamas.

The Israeli prime minister said his country was at war to also protect British hostages and vowed the UK measures would not prevent it from winning the conflict in Gaza.

In his first intervention since the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, told MPs some arms export licences were being suspended, Netanyahu wrote on X: “This shameful decision will not change Israel’s determination to defeat Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organization that savagely murdered 1200 people on October 7, including 14 British citizens.”

He added: “Hamas is holding over 100 hostages, including 5 British citizens. Instead of standing with Israel, a fellow democracy defending itself against barbarism, Britain’s misguided decision will only embolden Hamas. Just as Britain’s heroic stand against the Nazis is seen today as having been vital in defending our common civilization, so too will history judge Israel’s stand against Hamas and Iran’s axis of terror.

“With or without British arms, Israel will win this war and secure our common future.”

His remarks ensure a deep diplomatic rift between Israel and the UK is likely, although Britain hasgone to lengths to explain the decision as carefully calibrated and not amounting to a full embargo, let alone a step that would weaken Israel’s security.

Netanyahu is facing unprecedented pressure over claims inside Israel that his intransigence over the ceasefire talks had indirectly led to the deaths of six Israeli hostages at the hands of Hamas.

The Labour government’s decision was facing a growing domestic backlash from all sides, with Boris Johnson accusing Labour of abandoning Israel and asking if it wanted Hamas to win the war in Gaza.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews said the decision sent the wrong message at the wrong time, while on the left there was growing anger at the loophole that would allow the UK to continue to supply parts to the F-35 fighter jet programme.

Even one of the advocates of the ban, the former national security adviser Peter Ricketts, said he left it to ministers to explain the timing of the announcement so soon after the killing of six Israeli hostages by Hamas.

In a provocative attack, Johnson, the former Conservative prime minister, said on X: “Hamas is still holding many innocent Jewish hostages while Israel tries to prevent a repeat of the 7 October massacre. Why are Lammy and Starmer abandoning Israel? Do they want Hamas to win?”

Phil Rosenberg, the president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, criticised the government’s decision as sending a “terrible message” in Israel’s “hour of need”.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said: “On the day that those beautiful people were being buried, kidnapped from a music festival like Reading or Glastonbury, the UK decides to send a signal that it’s Israel that it wants to penalise, and that is a terrible, terrible message to be sending both to Israel in its hour of need, also to Hamas about the consequences – where consequences are for the horrific actions that Hamas has taken as a terrorist organisation, but also to other allies and adversaries around the world. So it is the wrong decision taken very much at the wrong time.”

Asked if his decision had upset both sides of the conflict, the defence secretary, John Healey, told Radio 4’s Today programme: “This is a government with a duty to the rule of law. This is not a decision about pleasing any side in this.”

He added that the government remained resolute in Israel’s right to self-defence and the decision “will not have a material impact on Israel’s security”.

Inside the Labour party, the biggest pro-Israeli campaign group, Labour Friends of Israel, did not defend all of the Israeli government’s methods, but said: “Since 7 October, Israel has come under repeated, unprovoked and indiscriminate attack by Iran and its proxies Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.

“We do not believe that restrictions on UK arms sales will help bring the tragic conflict in Gaza to a close or help ensure the release of the hostages, six of whom Hamas brutally murdered just days ago.

“Moreover, we are deeply concerned by the signal this sends to Iran, the world’s leading sponsor of state terrorism and Vladimir Putin’s closest ally in Ukraine. We fear therefore that these restrictions risk encouraging Israel’s enemies, leading to greater escalation rather than de-escalation.”

Lord Ricketts, saying he would leave it to ministers to defend the sensitive timing of the announcement, argued the government had acted to defend international law and not to influence Benjamin Netanyahu, who he said seemed impervious even to influence by its major ally the US.

He added he believed the government was concerned by the imminent prospect of judicial review, something that might undermine the whole UK arms exports control system.

Andrew Mitchell, the shadow foreign secretary and one of the ministers in the Foreign Office in the last Conservative government that shelved any arms ban, sharpened his criticism of Labour after reading the official memorandum explaining the decision to parliament.

He said: “Announcing an arms embargo on the day when Israel is burying its murdered hostages, and within weeks of British military personnel and arms defending Israel from Iranian attack, is not easy to swallow.

“Having now looked at Labour’s memorandum, it has all the appearance of something designed to satisfy Labour’s backbenches, while at the same time not offending Israel, an ally in the Middle East. I fear it will fail on both counts.”

Conservative leadership candidate Robert Jenrick said it was “shameful gesture politics to appease the hard left”.

But there was little sign the announcement had quietened the left, with the MP Zarah Sultana, currently with the whip suspended, saying: “Labour shouldn’t just ban a small fraction of arms licences to Israel. This ban still allows the UK to keep 320 arms licences including selling parts for F-35 fighter jets, known as ‘the most lethal’ in the world. The government needs to ban all arms sales.”

The large loophole of continuing to supply parts for the F-35 taken on commercial grounds and to protect British Aerospace was the subject of intense criticism.

Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International UK’s chief executive, said: “Exempting the F-35 fighter jet programme – essentially giving this programme a blank cheque to continue despite knowing that F-35s are being used extensively in Gaza – is a catastrophically bad decision for the future of arms control and misses a clear obligation to hold Israel accountable for its extensive war crimes and other violations.”

Campaign Against Arms Trade said the decision came just as it had become possible for the first time to confirm the F-35s’ involvement in an identifiable attack in Gaza specifically an attack on 13 July, on an Israeli-designated safe zone in al-Mawasi in southern Gaza that killed 90 people and injured at least 300.

The Israeli military said the target of the attack was Mohammed Deif, the head of Hamas’s military wing. The attack involved three GBU-31 2,000lb bombs, which have a “lethal radius” of 360 metres.

The government said it was precluding the F-35 from the 30 suspended arms export licences owing to the possible impact on the global supply chain but Sam Perlo-Freeman, the research coordinator for the Campaign Against Arms Trade, said it would have been possible to remove Israel from the list of approved recipients for the open general licence. “Exempting parts for Israel’s F-35 is utterly outrageous and unjustifiable.” he said.

The brief assessment published by the government said it had been the treatment of Palestinian prisoners and the inadequate supply of humanitarian aid, not the destruction of Gaza, that represented the two clearest breaches of international humanitarian law (IHL).

It added that it was the overall Israeli approach to IHL revealed over these two issues that led ministers to believe there was a clear risk that British arms would be used to commit a serious breach.

David Lammy’s announcement of a suspension on 30 arms export licences to Israel finally returns some credibility to the UK’s arms control rules, but its obvious incoherence may leave the Labour government in a position that is unsustainable.

The UK government’s own guidance has long been clear. Britain’s position is that it will “not issue export licences if there is a clear risk that the items might be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian law”.

Yet, in practice, the so-called clear risk test has been anything but transparent. The high level of casualties in Gaza – 40,786 according to Gaza health authorities, the majority civilian, at the last count – includes over 100 recorded as killed in at least three individual bombing attacks.

It raises obvious questions about whether they are war crimes because of a sheer lack of proportionality, even though Israel says it is targeting Hamas fighters and leaders who are embedded within the Palestinian population, and that some civilian casualties are tragically inevitable.

Leaks about the number of civilians the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are willing to accept as collateral damage are higher than those Nato militaries are generally considered prepared to accept. One report from +972 magazine said it was considered acceptable by the IDF to kill 100 civilians in an effort to eliminate a Hamas battalion or brigade commander.

Nevertheless, the previous Conservative government repeatedly concluded that Britain’s modest arms sales to Israel (£42m in 2022) were perfectly legitimate. A similar approach was taken during Saudi Arabia’s long air campaign against Houthi rebels in Yemen where civilians were killed repeatedly, but UK arms sales continued.

Lammy recognised on Monday that there “does exist a clear risk” that British munitions could be used to facilitate a “serious violation” of international law – before going on to exempt parts for F-35 fighters, which are used by Israel during its Gaza bombing campaign. Though assembled by US defence supplier Lockheed Martin, UK manufacturers supply a significant 15% of its components.

F-35 components going directly to Israel for certain would be banned, but the UK government claim is that is impossible to separate out for certain what is going to jets for Israel and what is not, a claim at odds with the high levels of control displayed by western governments over arms supplied for Ukraine.

If there was any doubt about the importance of F-35s, Information, a Danish news site, reported that one of the jets was engaged in the 13 July strike on the al-Mawasi ‘safe zone’ in southern Gaza, which the IDF said had killed Hamas leader Mohammed Deif. Reports said that at least 57 people were killed – and perhaps as many as 90.

However, there is a more fundamental incoherence in Lammy’s position. The grounds he cited for halting 30 arms export licences was not how Israel might have used them in bombing Gaza, but rather separate concerns about whether enough humanitarian relief was being permitted and the mistreatment of Palestinian detainees.

On the critical point, whether there was a clear risk that the intensity of the assault on Gaza was legitimate or not, the decision was fudged. “In many cases, it has not been possible to reach a determinative conclusion on allegations regarding Israel’s conduct of hostilities,” he said, partly because of lack of evidence from Jerusalem.

Western governments struggle, and often refuse, to accept claims about civilian harm caused by bombing or other military activity without conducting a level of investigation – typically via an on the ground inspection – that is practically impossible when a war is ongoing. But that does not mean it is impossible.

Local groups, specialist investigators and media organisations are able to compile consistent and accurate reports about incidents of bombing, list the fatalities involved and raise legitimate questions about whether such attacks may amount to a war crime. Airwars, a conflict monitor, has named 3,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza in almost 350 separate episodes during the first 17 days of the war.

Politically, it is hardly surprising that Labour have sought a fudged middle ground. Its aim is to register diplomatic concern about the conduct of the war with Hamas, ahead of party conference later this month, while trying to make clear, as the defence secretary, John Healey, did on Tuesday morning, that the UK would be ready to help defend Israel if it came under drone and missile attack from Hezbollah or Iran.

But the reality is that the UK’s guidelines for arms sales are simpler than the complexities of realpolitik. On Tuesday morning, lawyers representing al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights group and the Global Legal Action Network, who are challenging the legality of Britain’s arms exports, said they would continue their case – refocusing on F-35 parts and the overall use of munitions in Gaza.

The debate is far from concluded.

A Russian attack on a military educational institute in the central Ukrainian city of Poltava on Tuesday killed at least 47 people and injured more than 206, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.

The Ukrainian president said in a video address that according to preliminary information the attack was carried out using two ballistic missiles.

“One of the buildings of the [Poltava Military] Institute of Communications was partially destroyed. People found themselves under the rubble. Many were saved,” Zelenskiy said in a video posted on his Telegram channel.

“All necessary services are involved in the rescue operation,” he added. According to reports, the second building hit was a hospital.

The strike triggered anger on Ukrainian social media after unconfirmed reports said it had targeted an outdoor military ceremony, or roll call, with many blaming reckless behaviour from officials who allowed the event to take place despite the threat of Russian attacks.

Zelenskiy said he held Russia accountable but had ordered a “full prompt investigation into all the circumstances of what happened”.

Poltava’s governor, Philip Pronin, said his administration could not provide more details of the circumstances of the strike “for security reasons”.

“The enemy is using any means to bring Ukraine more pain and disorientate Ukrainians. Please trust only reliable sources,” he said.

Maria Bezugla, an MP who regularly criticises the country’s military leadership, accused high-ranking officials of endangering soldiers by allowing such events. “These tragedies keep repeating themselves. When will it stop?” she wrote on Telegram.

The attack came in the middle of the day on Tuesday, and if the death count is confirmed it would be one of the deadliest single strikes of the war to date. Poltava is about 200 miles (300km) south-east of Kyiv, far from the frontlines.

Photographs posted on social media in Ukraine showed several bodies lying on the ground covered in dust and debris. Substantial damage could be seen on two separate nearby multistorey buildings, with at least five floors struck in one of them where the outer wall had been blown out.

A statement from Ukraine’s defence ministry said the “time between the air raid siren and the incoming deadly missile was so short that it caught people at the moment they were evacuating to the shelter”.

It added that rescue crews and medics had saved 25 people at the scene, including 11 who were dug out from the rubble.

Although the identities of the victims were not immediately disclosed, Serhiy Beskrestnov, a prominent Ukrainian Telegram blogger followed by many radio, communications and electronic warfare specialists in Ukraine’s military, posted a tribute to “my signals operator comrades”.

Russian Telegram channels described the site of the hit as a military training facility. A military communications college is located in Poltava. It was not immediately clear how many of the victims of the attack were military or civilians.

Russia has struck civilian targets repeatedly throughout the two and a half years of full-scale war, and has intensified its relentless air assault on Ukraine in recent weeks.

It launched a large missile and drone attack on Kyiv in the early hours of Monday, most of which was intercepted by Ukrainian air defence.

On Monday night, two people were killed in the city of Zaporizhzhia, according to the regional governor, including an eight-year-old boy.

Ukraine also targeted Russia with more than 158 drones at the weekend, damaging an oil refinery near Moscow and a power station, and last week the country was pummelled with the heaviest bombardment to date.

Zelenskiy repeated his calls for more western air defences and urged allies to allow their long-range weapons to be used for strikes deeper into Russian territory in order to protect Ukraine.

“We keep telling everyone in the world who has the power to stop this terror: air defence systems and missiles are needed in Ukraine, not in a warehouse somewhere.

“Long-range strikes that can protect us from Russian terror are needed now, not some time later. Unfortunately, every day of delay means loss of life.”

The deadly strikes came as Vladimir Putin received a red-carpet welcome to Mongolia on Tuesday, as the country ignored calls to arrest him on an international warrant for alleged war crimes stemming from Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

The trip is the Russian president’s first to a member nation of the international criminal court (ICC) since it issued the warrant in March 2023. Before the visit, Ukraine urged Mongolia to hand Putin over to the court in The Hague, and the EU expressed concern that Mongolia might not execute the warrant.

The ICC has accused Putin of being responsible for the abductions of children from Ukraine. Member countries are required to detain suspects if a warrant has been issued, but Mongolia needs to maintain its ties with Russia and the court lacks a mechanism to enforce its warrants.

Putin was welcomed in the main square in Ulaanbaatar, the capital, by an honour guard dressed in vivid red and blue uniforms styled on those of the personal guard of the 13th-century ruler Genghis Khan, the founder of the Mongol empire.

Ukraine has called for Mongolia to face “consequences” after its failure to arrest Vladimir Putin during the Russian leader’s first visit to a member nation of the international criminal court since it issued an arrest warrant for him last year.

Putin received a red carpet welcome on Tuesday during a state visit to Mongolia, a sparsely populated country sandwiched between Russia and China, where he held talks with President Ukhnaagiin Khürelsükh.

Heorhii Tykhii, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian foreign ministry, called Mongolia’s decision not to arrest Putin “a heavy blow to ICC and the international criminal justice system”.

“Mongolia allowed the indicted criminal to escape justice, thereby sharing responsibility for his war crimes. We will work with partners to ensure that this has consequences for Ulaanbaatar,” Tykhii wrote on X.

The international criminal court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant in March 2023 against Putin for illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine. The warrant obliges the court’s 124 member states, including Mongolia, to arrest the Russian president and transfer him to The Hague for trial if he sets foot on their territory.

Before his trip to Ulaanbaatar, the country’s capital, Ukraine and several leading human rights groups had urged Mongolia to arrest Putin on arrival.

“Mongolia would be defying its international obligations as an ICC member if it allows Russian president Vladimir Putin to visit without arresting him,” Human Rights Watch said on Monday.

“Welcoming Putin, an ICC fugitive, would not only be an affront to the many victims of Russian forces’ crimes, but also undermine the crucial principle that no one, no matter how powerful, is above the law,” it added.

There was little chance that Mongolia, which relies on Russia for 95% of its petroleum products and has abstained from criticising Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine, was going to follow up on its ICC commitments.

Instead, Putin was greeted with a cordial reception by an honour guard, some of whom were on horseback and dressed in traditional uniforms reminiscent of those worn by Genghis Khan, the 13th-century Mongol ruler.

President Khürelsükh later hailed Putin’s visit to the country while the Russian leader said the two nations’ relations were “developing in all directions”.

Putin’s visit was expected to focus on energy cooperation, as Mongolia lies along the planned route of a Russian pipeline. The pipeline is intended to transport 50bn cubic metres of natural gas annually from Russia’s Yamal region to China.

Mongolia, surrounded by Russia in the north and China to the south, has long tried to cultivate a balancing act between the two while also developing ties with Japan, South Korea and the US.

For Putin, the trip to Ulaanbaatar represents the latest in a series of recent overseas visits aimed at countering the international isolation he has faced as a result of the invasion of Ukraine.

He visited China in May, North Korea and Vietnam in June and went to Kazakhstan in July for a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

At the end of last year, Putin also visited the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia in an effort to strengthen political and economic ties with the two Middle Eastern nations, traditionally western allies.

In July 2023, he skipped a Brics summit in Pretoria because of concerns that the South African hosts, as members of the ICC, would feel compelled to attempt his arrest.

A rightwing thinktank report proposing sweeping restrictions to abortions and fertility treatments was endorsed by JD Vance years before he became a fervent backer of Donald Trump and – eventually – his vice-presidential running mate known for his derisive views on childless women.

In 2017, months into Trump’s presidency, Vance wrote the foreword to the Index of Culture and Opportunity, a collection of essays by conservative authors for the Heritage Foundation that included ideas for encouraging women to have children earlier and promoting a resurgence of “traditional” family structure.

The essays lauded the increase in state laws restricting abortion rights and included arguments that the practice should become “unthinkable” in the US, a hardline posture the Democrats now say is the agenda of Trump and Vance, who they accuse of harbouring the intent to impose a national ban following a 2022 supreme court ruling overturning Roe V Wade and annulling the federal right to abort a pregnancy.

The report also includes an essay lamenting the spread of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and other fertility treatments, with the author attributing them as reasons for women delaying having children and prioritising higher education rather than starting families.

IVF has emerged as an issue in November’s presidential race after Trump said last week that he favoured it being covered by government funding or private health insurance companies – a stance seeming at odds with many Republicans, including Vance, who was one of 47 GOP senators to vote against a bill in June intended to expand access to the treatment.

The report’s contents provide fresh insights into the philosophy informing some of Vance’s inflammatory later public statements, which have included saying that America is run by “childless cat ladies” and that he is disturbed by the idea of teachers who do not have children.

He has also suggested that people without children are likely to become “more sociopathic”.

The 2017 report was released a year after the publication of Vance’s bestselling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, and also after he had made a series of statements denouncing Trump, whom the US senator called “cultural heroin” and speculated could become “America’s Hitler”. He also described himself as “a never Trump guy”.

However, its foreword contains hints that Vance’s thoughts on the then president were already evolving.

“We all seem to be waking up to the fact that things are not quite what they used to be,” he wrote. “When president Trump has spoken of the country as trapped in a losing game of international trade or decried the carnage on so many American streets, he has earned criticism for painting an overly pessimistic view of his own country. Yet that pessimism struck a chord with many Americans.

“The question for those concerned about the future of the country is not whether negativity is justified, but why negativity inspired so many at the polls.”

Vance’s views ultimately went full circle, and Trump endorsed his successful election campaign for the US Senate in Ohio in 2022.

The foreword to the 2017 report also seems to be one of Vance’s first known links to the Heritage Foundation, a thinktank responsible for producing Project 2025, a controversial and radical blueprint for remaking US government and society in a conservative image. Trump has disowned the 922-page document. But the campaign of Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, has depicted it as an assault on basic freedoms and typical of what lies in store under a second Trump presidency.

The Olympic marathon runner Rebecca Cheptegei is fighting for her life after her boyfriend reportedly poured petrol over her and set her on fire.

Cheptegei, who finished 44th competing for Uganda in the women’s race at the Paris 2024 Games, is in critical condition after suffering burns to more than 75% of her body following the attack outside her home in Kenya.

Trans Nzoia County’s police commander, Jeremiah ole Kosiom, said Cheptegei’s partner had bought a can of petrol, poured it on her and set her ablaze after a disagreement over the land where her home was built.

“The couple were heard quarrelling outside their house. During the altercation, the boyfriend was seen pouring a liquid on the woman before burning her,” he told the Standard newspaper in Kenya. “The suspect was also caught by the fire and sustained serious burns.”

Cheptegei, 33, was reportedly rescued by neighbours before she and her attacker were taken to Moi Referral Hospital in Eldoret.

The Ugandan Athletics Federation also reported the attack on social media.

“We regret to announce that our athlete Rebecca Cheptegei, who competed at the Olympics has suffered severe injuries and is hospitalised at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret,” it said in a statement. “This follows an incident involving her Kenyan boyfriend pouring petrol and setting fire on her.”

Cheptegei, who won the World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in Thailand in 2022, is the latest victim of attacks against female athletes in Kenya.

In October 2021 Agnes Tirop, a two-time world 10km bronze medallist who also finished fourth in the 5,000m at the Tokyo Olympics, was found stabbed to death in Iten.

In April 2022, Damaris Mutua, who competed for Bahrain, was found strangled with a pillow over her face in the same town.

Elle Macpherson has said she was diagnosed with breast cancer seven years ago but is now in remission despite refusing chemotherapy.

The Australian supermodel and actor, who rose to fame in the 1980s, is publishing a memoir – Elle: Life, Lessons, and Learning to Trust Yourself – in which she says she took a holistic approach to the illness, going against the advice of 32 doctors.

In an interview with the Australian Women’s Weekly, Macpherson discusses her choices after undergoing a lumpectomy seven years ago and being diagnosed with HER2-positive oestrogen receptive intraductal carcinoma – a type of breast cancer.

She says doctors advised her to undergo a mastectomy with radiation, chemotherapy, hormone therapy and reconstruction of her breast.

But the founder of the beauty and wellness firm WelleCo – who was dating the disgraced anti-vaxxer Andrew Wakefield at the time – decided against traditional medicine.

Macpherson, 60, says she rented a house in Phoenix, Arizona, for eight months, where she “holistically treated” her cancer under the guidance of her primary doctor, a doctor of naturopathy, holistic dentist, osteopath, chiropractor and two therapists.

She said: “It was a shock, it was unexpected, it was confusing, it was daunting in so many ways and it really gave me an opportunity to dig deep in my inner sense to find a solution that worked for me.”

On her decision to reject traditional medicine, she said: “Saying no to standard medical solutions was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. But saying no to my own inner sense would have been even harder,”, later adding she thought chemotherapy and surgery were too extreme.

Macpherson says she is in clinical remission, which she referred to as “utter wellness”. She told the magazine her sons Flynn, 26, and Cy, 21, and former partner Arpad “Arki” Busson had mixed reactions to her approach.

Typical cancer treatment centres on surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. There is no scientific or medical evidence that alternative therapies can cure cancer, Cancer Research UK (CRUK) says.

The charity says some patients use complementary therapies alongside conventional medical treatments, or alternative therapies instead of conventional medical treatment. Examples of complementary therapies include aromatherapy, acupuncture, herbal medicine, massage therapy, visualisation and yoga.

CRUK says some complementary therapies can help people feel better but may cause side effects, while some alternative therapies may be harmful and cause side-effects as well as interfering with conventional cancer treatment.

Wakefield prompted large drops in vaccination rates in the UK and Ireland when he published a paper in the Lancet in 1998 – since retracted by the medical journal – claiming there was a link between the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR), and autism and bowel disease.

His theories were subsequently debunked and his medical licence was revoked. Nevertheless, Wakefield has made a living promoting his discredited theories.

Eleven people, including an entrepreneur who once called herself the “queen of trash”, have gone on trial in Sweden accused of illegally dumping toxic waste in the country’s biggest ever environmental crime case.

The closely watched trial at Attunda district court in Sollentuna, near Stockholm, centres on the recycling company Think Pink, its former chief executive Bella Nilsson, who has since changed her name, and her ex-husband Thomas Nilsson.

Prosecutors have accused the company of dumping and burying waste in 21 locations in Sweden in a way that could harm human health and the environment. All of the defendants deny any wrongdoing.

The case has been in the making for several years and the trial is scheduled to take nine months. Nilsson and her employees were charged in December.

Nilsson was the last of the accused to arrive at the courthouse on Tuesday. Wearing big dark sunglasses, she refused to answer questions as she pushed away reporters’ microphones.

The Nilssons face charges of serious environmental crime and serious economic crime linked to the company, all of which they deny. The others face a combination of different charges, including serious environmental crime, serious economic crime linked to the company, aiding and abetting serious environmental crime and environmental crime.

From 2018-20, the company’s heyday, the trademark pink construction bags of Think Pink, offering cheap recycling and waste disposal, were a common sight in the capital. Nilsson won awards for her work as chief executive.

The business came crashing down in 2020 when its owners were arrested. The company has been accused of dumping at least 200,000 tonnes of waste around Sweden.

Police investigators, whose report runs to 50,000 pages, found harmful levels of arsenic, dioxins, zinc, lead, copper and petroleum products. Several of the rubbish dumps caught fire, with one fire lasting for months.

Anders Gustafsson, one of the trial’s three prosecutors, has described the case as “the largest environmental crime in Sweden in terms of scope and organisation”.

On Tuesday he said Think Pink had dumped rubbish and used falsified documents to deceive authorities and make big profits. “There are claims for damages of 260m SEK [£19m], mainly from municipalities, when they were forced to clear away the large mountains of rubbish,” he told the broadcaster SVT. “It is exceptional that it is on a large scale and that it has been going on for such a long time in several places in the country.”

The senior prosecutor Linda Schön said the investigation had highlighted how ordinary people turned a blind eye to such crimes. “Don’t you think about that when you pay so little for the service? Can what you put in the construction bag even be recycled for that cost? It’s the same as turning a blind eye to who sews our cheap clothes and where,” she told the daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter.

According to the indictment, which covers sites across 15 different municipalities, the main suspects were involved in hauling thousands of tonnes of unsorted construction and demolition waste, which was then buried, wrapped in plastic in bales and used as filling material.

Nilsson, who has changed her name to Fariba Vancor, previously told Swedish media the company acted in line with the law, and said she was the victim of a plot by business rivals. “She has an explanation for all of this,” her lawyer, Jan Tibbling, told the Dagens Nyheter newspaper on Monday.

Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

A daughter of the former South African president Jacob Zuma and the king of Eswatini, formerly Swaziland, have become engaged during a traditional ceremony in which Nomcebo Zuma was among hundreds of women and girls dancing for the monarch.

Zuma, 21, appeared on Monday night at the annual reed dance as the liphovela – the royal fiancee or concubine – and will become King Mswati III’s 16th wife.

The 56-year-old king has led Africa’s last absolute monarchy since taking power in 1986, days after his 18th birthday, and has been criticised for his lavish lifestyle while most of the population lives in poverty.

The days-long reed dance is a traditional rite of womanhood, with young women singing and dancing bare-chested, wearing traditional clothing that includes anklets and thick colourful tassles, some carrying mock swords and shields.

Also known as the Umhlanga, it was regarded as an example of Eswatini’s “graceful” culture, said Bianca Dlamini-Holman, a Swazi influencer, in a 2023 YouTube vlog about that year’s dance. About 5,000 people attended this year’s celebrations at the Ludzidzini royal village in Lobamba.

It is not the first time King Mswati, who has dozens of children, has announced a much younger bride at the Umhlanga. In September 2005, 17-year-old Phindile Nkambule was presented as his 13th fiancee at a reed dance, with the BBC reporting at the time that she had caught his eye at the main dance the previous month.

Just days before, the king had rescinded a ban on sex for and with girls under 18, which he had implemented in an effort to fight HIV/Aids. Two months after imposing the ban in 2001, Mswati fined himself a cow for breaking his own rule by taking a 17-year-old as his ninth wife, according to the BBC.

The king rules the country of 1.2 million people by decree, with political parties banned and elected officials only existing in an advisory capacity.

In 2003, Mswati’s 10th wife, Zena Mahlangu, was abducted, aged 18, while preparing for her A-level exams, her mother, Lindiwe Dlamini, who fought an unsuccessful legal battle to have her daughter returned, alleged.

The king’s latest bride also comes from a large polygamous family. Jacob Zuma, 82, has been married six times and currently has four wives and more than 20 children.

He was South Africa’s president from 2009-18, when he was forced to resign by his African National Congress party after a series of corruption allegations. The shrewd political operator upended the country’s elections earlier this year, when his new uMkhonto we Sizwe party came third, with 14.6% of the vote.

Associated France Presse contributed to this story.