Joe Biden has urged Israel’s prime minister to “move on” and make progress towards a ceasefire in Gaza after the killing of Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader and mastermind of the 7 October attack, as world leaders renewed a push for an end to the conflict.

Hours after the killing on Thursday in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost town, the US president congratulated Benjamin Netanyahu, saying Sinwar “has a lot of blood on his hands – American blood, Israeli blood, and others”.

Speaking as he arrived in Germany to meet European leaders, Biden said he felt “more hopeful” about the prospects of a ceasefire and would send the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, to Israel in the next four or five days.

Biden joined figures including his vice-president, Kamala Harris, the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, in urging progress towards a ceasefire.

Blinken held separate phone calls on Thursday with the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, and the Qatari prime minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, on ending the conflict in the Middle East, the US state department said.

The push came as Iran’s mission to the UN said the killing would strengthen the “spirit of resistance” and inspire future generations, while Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed group in Lebanon, announced “the transition to a new and escalating phase in the confrontation with Israel”.

At time of writing, Hamas was yet to comment on the death of its leader.

In a TV address, Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, described Sinwar’s death as the “beginning of the end” but added that Israel must “stand firm on our ground” and “continue to fight”.

“We have demonstrated today that all those who try to harm us, this is what happens to them,” Netanyahu said. “And how the forces of good can always beat the forces of evil and darkness. The war is still ongoing, and it’s costly.”

It was yet to become clear what impact Sinwar’s killing would have on Israel’s campaign in Gaza. Most analysts said Israel remained intent on military occupation of the Palestinian territory for the foreseeable future.

Ahead of his visit to Germany, Biden said: “There is now the opportunity for a ‘day after’ in Gaza without Hamas in power, and for a political settlement that provides a better future for Israelis and Palestinians alike. Yahya Sinwar was an insurmountable obstacle to achieving all of those goals. That obstacle no longer exists. But much work remains before us.”

Earlier, Blinken called Sinwar a “vicious and unrepentant terrorist” and said he had repeatedly torpedoed agreements that would have ended the conflict. “On multiple occasions over the past months, Sinwar rebuffed efforts by the United States and its partners to bring this war to a close through an agreement that would return the hostages to their families and alleviate the suffering of the Palestinian people,” Blinken said.

As news of Sinwar’s death, and gruesome images of his body, spread in Gaza, many were left wondering what the future holds.

“The assassination of Yahya Sinwar is a tragedy for the people of Gaza, we did not expect it,” said Amal al-Hanawi, 28, from Nuseirat in the centre of the Gaza Strip where she took refuge after fleeing fighting in the north. “I have the impression that Hamas is over, that there is no longer a powerful resistance, it has fallen apart,” she told AFP, saying that this is “exactly what Netanyahu wants”.

“We are exhausted, the war has gone too far, it has taken everything from us,” said Shadi Nofal Abou Maher, 23, saying he hoped “the world will intervene” to end the war.

In Khan Younis in the south of the Gaza Strip, a displaced Palestinian named Thabet Amour told Reuters the Palestinian fight would continue. “This is resistance that does not disappear when men disappear,” he said. “The assassination of Sinwar will not lead to the end of the resistance or to a compromise or surrender and raising the white flag.”

In the streets as well as on social networks, some welcomed the “resistance” led by Sinwar, praising him for fighting until the end. “He will be remembered as a leader who died on the battlefield,” said 36-year-old Ahmed Omar.

Families of Israeli hostages said that while the killing of Sinwar was a significant achievement, it would not be complete while hostages remained in Gaza.

Avi Marciano, the father of Noa Marciano, who was killed in captivity by Hamas, told Israeli broadcaster KAN that “the monster, the one who took her from me, who had the blood of all our daughters on his hands, finally met the gates of hell”.

“A little justice, but no comfort,” he said. “There will be comfort only when Naama, Liri, Agam, Daniela and Karina, our girls’ friends, return home.”

Some Israelis hailed the news of Sinwar’s death as a sign of better things to come. “I am celebrating the death of Sinwar, who has brought us nothing but harm, who has taken people hostage,” said one Israeli woman, Hemda, who only gave her first name. Attending a Tel Aviv rally demanding the hostages’ release, 60-year-old Sisil, who also gave only her first name, said his killing presented a “once in a lifetime opportunity” for “a hostage deal to end the war”.

The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas attacks on southern Israel on 7 October 2023 that killed 1,200 people and in which 250 people were taken hostage. Israel’s retaliation has killed at least 42,438 people, mostly civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, which the UN considers reliable.

With Agence France-Presse and Reuters

The Israeli military has released drone footage it says shows Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s final moments: alone in a ruined Gaza apartment with the walls blown out from shelling, sat hunched in a chair covered by dust, with his head and face obscured by a scarf.

With his right arm appearing severely wounded, the video shows Sinwar flinging a stick over his head in the direction of the approaching drone. The Guardian has not independently verified the footage.

When the footage was taken, Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said Sinwar was only identified as a fighter. The military then fired an additional shell at the building, causing it to collapse and kill him, Hagari said. He said Sinwar was found with a bulletproof vest, grenades, and 40,000 shekels ($10,707).

According to the Jerusalem Post, Hagari told reporters: “Sinwar fled alone into one of the buildings. Our forces used a drone to scan the area, which you can see here in the footage I’m presenting.”

“Sinwar, who was injured in his hand by gunfire, can be seen here with his face covered, in his final moments, throwing a wooden plank at the drone,” he said.

“He tried to escape and our forces eliminated him.”.

Hamas has not commented on the killing of Sinwar.

Photos circulating online showed the body of a man resembling Sinwar with a gaping head wound, dressed in a military-style vest, half buried in the rubble of a destroyed building.

Israeli officials said Sinwar was found by infantry soldiers searching an area in the Tal El Sultan area of southern Gaza on Wednesday, where they believed senior members of Hamas were located.

The troops saw three suspected militants moving between buildings and opened fire, leading to a gunfight during which Sinwar escaped into a ruined building.

In the last months of his life, Sinwar, the main architect of the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel that set off the war in Gaza, appears to have stopped using telephones and other communication equipment that would have allowed Israel’s powerful intelligence services to track him down.

Israeli officials said they believed he was hiding in one of the vast network of tunnels that Hamas dug beneath Gaza over the past two decades, but as more and more have been uncovered by Israeli troops, even the tunnels were no guarantee of escaping capture.

Intelligence services had been searching for Sinwar for months and had been gradually restricting the area where he could operate, the military said. Dental records, fingerprints and DNA testing provided final confirmation of Sinwar’s death.

Hamas is seeking to frame the death of its leader, Yahya Sinwar, in Gaza as a victory. It is emphasising how the 62-year-old veteran died on Thursday fighting on the frontline, armed and wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh, and how the organisation has survived for 37 years despite the assassination by Israel of a series of its leaders.

In a statement, Bassem Naim, a Hamas spokesperson and member of the leadership council, acknowledged the pain and distress of losing “beloved people, especially extraordinary leaders like ours” but said the group was sure of eventual victory as “this is the outcome for all people who fought for their liberty”.

Naim pointed to the previous assassinations of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the charismatic cleric who founded Hamas, and Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, Yassin’s successor, as examples of how the militant Islamist organisation had “each time became stronger and more popular”.

But rhetoric cannot entirely obscure reality. Since the surprise attack launched into Israel by Sinwar just over a year ago, a series of Hamas’s top officials have died in Israeli strikes, most notably Ismail Haniyeh, Sinwar’s predecessor at the head of the militant Islamist organisation, who was killed in a blast in a government guesthouse in Tehran in July. Other key veterans have been killed, along with thousands of lower-level officials, administrators, commanders and foot soldiers. The exact number is hard to calculate, but even if Israeli claims appear exaggerated, the toll has been devastating.

Hamas, too, has lost its hold on Gaza and its more than 2 million inhabitants. For 17 years, this allowed the group to impose its conservative Islamist agenda, recruit a new generation of officials and fighters, construct a vast complex of tunnels and build an arsenal of rockets. Gaza also generated vast and essential funds from taxes, smuggling and rackets.

This has all gone. Hamas currently maintains a presence in much of Gaza, constituting a shadow government amid the chaos and violence of continuing Israeli operations, but nothing to compare with actually being in power. Nor can it translate gains in popularity in the occupied West Bank, where it has also suffered from Israeli raids and strikes, into anything that could compensate.

An immediate priority is to choose a leader, or at least set up some functioning mechanism to provide direction. Hamas has in previous years used a secret ballot in Gaza, the West Bank, Israeli prisons and abroad to select the political chief, but that is impossible under the current circumstances. Sinwar’s younger brother Mohammed, a military commander in Gaza, is unlikely to be able to rally and unify the organisation, or even survive very long.

Many experts point to veterans such as Khaled Mashal, who has done the job before, or Khalil al-Hayya, who headed Hamas’s ceasefire negotiation team, and is reportedly well liked by officials in Tehran. But both are based in Qatar, which brings its own complications and diminishes their appeal to rank and file. One possibility would be to follow Hezbollah’s example after the assassination first of its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, last month and then, possibly, his replacement, and so leave the post formally empty.

Analysts say overseas support is crucial to Hamas. Factions have long argued bitterly over whether to align with Iran as part of Tehran’s regional axis of resistance, or tack closer to Sunni Gulf states. Sinwar favoured the former, and the debates will only be sharper following his sudden demise. The many existing splits within the organisation may widen as regional powers intrigue to advance their own interests and Israel keeps up the military pressure in Gaza, hunting Hamas’s senior figures there and elsewhere.

Instead of a Hamas 2.0, this could end with multiple factions of Hamas operating more or less independently. This process is already under way in Gaza, where previously well-organised “battalions” have disintegrated into small, chaotic and largely ineffective squads of often inexperienced militants. Observers close to the organisation say it has “ceased to exist” in anything resembling its previous form and so will need decades to rebuild.

The Philippine vice-president, Sara Duterte, has threatened to dig up the remains of President Ferdinand Marcos’s dictator father and throw them into the sea, launching a scathing attack on her rival.

Duterte was once allied with Marcos Jr, and ran on a joint ticket with him in the 2022 election, winning a landslide victory. However, she resigned from the cabinet in June and the two powerful dynasties are now engaged in a bitter struggle for power before next year’s midterm elections, with both also preparing for presidential polls in 2028.

The stakes are especially high for the Dutertes, as the vice-president’s father, the former president Rodrigo Duterte, is facing an investigation by the international criminal court (ICC) for crimes against humanity over his bloody “war on drugs”.

In a press conference on Friday, Sara Duterte launched her fiercest attack yet on the president, saying the country was on a “road to hell”, that his administration lacked clear policies to tackle inflation and food security, and that she had once thought about cutting off his head.

Duterte said she had been left feeling “used” after teaming up with Marcos before the 2022 election. She realised their relationship had become toxic, she said, after watching him apparently cause the “humiliation” of a young graduate.

The graduate had asked Marcos if he could have Marcos’s watch as a graduation gift, only for Marcos to ask him to repeat the question, and then to ask why he should do so, prompting the laughter of those around – and the humiliation of the graduate, she said. “I wanted to remove his head. I realised the relationship was already toxic,” she said. “[I] just imagine myself cutting his head,” she repeated, gesturing with her hands.

Tensions between the two rivals have increased after a recent investigation alleging that Duterte’s office misused funds while she was education secretary, something she has denied, as well as recent parliamentary hearings on the “war on drugs”, which heard claims the office of Rodrigo Duterte paid “rewards” of up to $17,000 to police who killed drugs suspects.

Rodrigo Duterte has denied authorising killings. However, he repeatedly and openly threatened drug dealers with death before and during his presidency.

Marcos Jr has previously said he would not comply with the ICC’s investigation into the “war on drugs” but analysts say it is possible he could change his stance if he senses his rivals are politically weak.

Sara Duterte said if political attacks against her did not stop, she would throw the body of the late dictator Marcos Sr into the sea. “One of these days, I will go there. I will get the body of your father and throw it in the West Philippine Sea,” Duterte said, using the Filipino name for the portion of the South China Sea claimed by Manila.

In 2016, when relations between the two families were warm, Rodrigo Duterte caused controversy by allowing a hero’s burial with military honours for Marcos Sr. The late dictator is accused of having plundered up to $10bn from state coffers during his rule, and of presiding over widespread human rights abuses.

The presidential communications secretary, Cesar Chavez, said Marcos would not be responding to Sara Duterte’s remarks.

Donald Trump has raised more money from the oil and gas industry than at this stage of his previous campaigns for the US presidency, with a surge of fossil fuel funding coming in the six months since he directly requested $1bn from oil executives and then promised he would scrap environmental rules if elected.

While the Republican nominee hasn’t quite managed to get to that $1bn figure, he has received $14.1m from the oil and gas industry in the period up to 31 August, donation filings show. This is more than he got from the industry at the same stage of his presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2020.

Support from just a handful of oil executives has become vital to the overall Trump campaign, with Kelcy Warren, the billionaire chief executive of the pipeline operator Energy Transfer, giving nearly $6m to help elect the former president and Timothy Dunn, boss of the Texas-based oil firm CrownQuest, handing $5m to a Trump-aligned Super Pac.

Harold Hamm, another billionaire and the founder of Continental Resources, has helped push a further $1.2m to the campaign. Hamm has reportedly hit the phones to drum up industry support for Trump, whose campaign mantra has been “drill, baby, drill”, while railing against the policies of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. “We’ve got to do this because it’s the most important election in our lifetime,” Hamm has said.

The oil and gas industry is now Trump’s fourth-biggest source of cash, up six places from the 2020 election cycle, according to an analysis of donations to candidates and their affiliated groups by OpenSecrets.

Further, more recent Federal Election Commission filings emerged this week, which are still being fully analyzed. But Climate Power, a climate advocacy group, pointed out the latest filings show that Trump garnered another $5m from Energy Transfer’s Warren in September, as well as $400,000 from Vicki Hollub, chief executive of Occidental Petroleum and $400,000 from Jeff and Melinda Hildebrand of the oil and gas firm Hilcorp.

The fundraising haul follows an April dinner at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida where the former president asked more than 20 executives, from companies including Chevron, Exxon and Occidental, for $1bn and promised, if elected, to remove barriers to drilling, scrap a pause on gas exports and reverse new rules aimed at cutting car pollution.

Democrats have called this apparent deal “the definition of corruption” and have launched a congressional investigation. Last month, Democrats from the Senate and House of Representatives wrote to eight oil companies and the American Petroleum Institute to complain of their “woefully inadequate” responses to a request for information on the alleged quid pro quo.

“Trump basically has a ‘for sale’ sign around his neck and we know the fossil fuel industry is keenly interested in political influence, so we need to know if this is bluster or the solicitation of a crime,” Sheldon Whitehouse, the Democratic chair of the Senate budget committee, said. Whitehouse conceded, however, the investigation would not advance before the election.

“Trump talks some very stupid nonsense about climate, just loud noises to the fossil fuel industry that he will be their boy,” he said. “The industry is getting more desperate to keep a political leash on Congress and government generally so we are seeing a significant step-up in influence and money-seeking.”

Along with watered-down regulations, an estimated $110bn in tax breaks for the fossil fuel sector could also be provided if Trump returns to the White House. When he was last president, Trump opened up new areas for drilling and intervened to broker a deal with other countries to cut production to support crude oil’s value after prices crashed during the 2020 Covid pandemic.

In the past two weeks, the former president and his running mate, JD Vance, have attended four fundraisers thrown by oil executives in Texas, even as they both had to cancel other events due to the impact of Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton, which scientists say were both worsened by global heating from the burning of fossil fuels.

At recent rallies, Trump has vowed to unleash a wave of new oil and gas activity and has dismissed the climate crisis “one of the great scams of all time”. The former president has also, falsely, said that the planet is cooling down and has repeatedly attacked wind energy, calling it “bullshit” and “horrible”.

Trump has referred to oil and gas as “liquid gold under our feet” and has accused Biden and Harris of a “war on American energy” even as oil and gas production have hit record highs.

Harris, meanwhile, has largely steered clear of climate in her campaign appearances, even though she does acknowledge the dangers posed by global heating. The latest donations data, according to OpenSecrets, shows the Democratic presidential campaign, initially led by Biden, has has raised $1.3m from the oil and gas industry.

Industry donations to the vice-president account for more than $500,000 of this total since she took the Democratic nomination over from Biden, even though Harris pledged in 2019 to not take more than $200 from fossil fuel entities.

The largest contributions from oil executives to Harris have been from Richard Slifka of Global Petroleum and Lee Fikes of Bonanza Oil. Harris’s campaign, which has so far raised more than $1bn in total donations from all sources, did not answer questions as to whether taking this cash had broken her previous pledge, or if it still applied for this election.

A Trump campaign spokesperson said that Harris was “controlled by environmental extremists” while Trump was “supported by people who share his vision of American energy dominance to protect our national security and bring down the cost of living for all Americans”.

Barack and Michelle Obama will make their first appearances alongside Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris on the campaign trail next week, aiming to provide a powerful boost in the closing weeks of the election.

Harris is scheduled to appear with the former president in Georgia on 24 October and with Michelle Obama in Michigan on 26 October, according to a Harris campaign senior official. The specific cities and times in the key swing states have not yet been announced.

It will be the former first lady’s first appearance campaigning for Harris. She is also scheduled to headline a rally in Atlanta, Georgia, on 29 October hosted by When We All Vote, a non-partisan civic engagement group founded by Obama in 2018.

Barack Obama recently campaigned for Harris for the first time, appearing alone in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Now the two will rally together. And he is scheduled to make additional appearances in Arizona and Nevada on Friday and Saturday, followed by events in Madison, Wisconsin, and Detroit, Michigan, on 22 October, all in the group of crucial swing states that could decide who take the White House in this election.

Early voting begins in Michigan on 26 October. In Georgia, early voting began earlier this week, with record early turnout.

The Obamas and Harris have a friendship spanning 20 years. They first met when Harris helped host a fundraiser in San Francisco for Barack Obama’s 2004 senate run in Illinois, reported the New York Times.

Harris was an early supporter of Obama’s presidential campaign in the closely contested 2008 Democratic presidential primaries, and one of the few elected officials in California to back him over Hillary Clinton for the party’s nomination. Obama became America’s first Black president and, Clinton having failed to beat Donald Trump in 2016, if Harris wins in November she will become America’s first female president.

Since Biden stepped down in August 2024 from the presidential race and endorsed Harris, Barack Obama has reportedly been an important adviser to her campaign.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

The mother of a 16-year-old Iranian girl who became one of the faces of the unprecedented nationwide protests against the regime has reportedly been arrested.

Nasrin Shakarami, the grieving mother of Nika Shakarami, who was allegedly killed by the security forces in September 2022, had been outspoken in her criticism of the regime over the death of her daughter.

She had rejected official claims that Nika’s death was caused by falling from a building and insisted she was beaten to death by regime forces.

A wave of protests broke out across Iran in September 2022 after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, who was detained for allegedly wearing her headscarf incorrectly.

A video of Nika at a street protest, filmed days after Amini’s death, appeared to show her standing on top of a rubbish bin and setting fire to headscarves. Soon after, she reportedly went missing and her family found her body eight days later in a morgue. She was allegedly abducted, sexually assaulted and killed by the security forces.

This week Nika’s older sister, Aida Shakarami, announced in a social media post: “My mother was arrested this afternoon in Khorramabad [a city in western Iran]. I don’t know the reason for the arrest or what she has been charged with.”

Aida was arrested herself in April over mandatory hijab rules and released after a week in detention. On her release, she defied the hijab rules again, and shared a picture of herself without a headscarf.

Human rights activists say the Iranian authorities are punishing the families of protesters killed at the hands of the security forces for sharing posts in support of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement.

The family of Abolfazl Adinezadeh, 17, who was reportedly killed at a protest in 2022 after being shot repeatedly at close range by security forces, continues to face legal action. His sister and father were charged with “anti-government propaganda”, while his father, Ali Adinezadeh, was arrested in July and released after being detained for almost 50 days.

It comes at a time when executions are also at a record high. At least 570 prisoners have already been put to death this year, according to Iran Human Rights . Activists are making an urgent appeal to save Mohammad Reza Azizi, who is reportedly scheduled to be hanged on Monday.

Sara Hashash, of Amnesty International, said on Friday: “Using the death penalty against someone who was a child at the time of the crime is prohibited under international human rights and customary law, and violates Iran’s international obligations.”

South Korea’s intelligence agency said on Friday that North Korea has dispatched troops to assist Russia in its war against Ukraine, a development that could intensify the standoff between North Korea and the west.

In a statement on its website, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) said that Russian navy ships transferred 1,500 North Korean special operation forces to the port city of Vladivostok between 8 and 13 October and were now undergoing training.

“The North Korean soldiers … are expected to be deployed to the frontlines as soon as they complete their adaptation training,” the agency said, adding that more North Korean troops are expected to be sent to Russia soon.

NIS said North Korean soldiers were given Russian military uniforms and Russian-made weapons and were issued with fake ID cards of residents of the Yakutia and Buryatia, two regions in Siberia.

“It appears that they disguised themselves as Russian soldiers to hide the fact that they were deployed to the battlefield,” the agency said.

The NIS also published satellite and other photos showing what it calls Russian navy ship movements near a North Korean port and suspected North Korean mass gatherings in the past week in the far-eastern Russian cities of Ussuriysk and Khabarovsk.

The statement was the most comprehensive official report to date detailing North Korean involvement in Russia’s war in Ukraine. If proved accurate, it would amount to North Korea’s first major participation in a foreign war.

Additionally, South Korean media said on Friday, citing anonymous sources, that Pyongyang has decided to dispatch a total of 12,000 troops, formed into four brigades, to Russia. The NIS did not immediately confirm these reports.

The statements come a day after Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country had intelligence reports that 10,000 North Korean soldiers were preparing to enter the war

“This is the first step to a world war,” he told reporters in Brussels.

Russia has denied using North Korean troops in the war, with a Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, dismissing the claims at a media conference last week as “another piece of fake news”.

Nato’s chief, Mark Rutte, said on Friday that the alliance could not yet confirm South Korean intelligence that North Korea was deploying large-scale troops.

The Guardian earlier revealed that North Korean military engineers had already been deployed to help Russia target Ukraine with ballistic missiles.

A source in Ukraine said “There are dozens of North Koreans behind Russian lines, in teams that support launcher systems for KN-23 missiles.”

If confirmed, South Korean intelligence suggests that North Korea plans to engage in the war beyond merely sending military advisers. The extraordinary move also highlights Russia’s need to find new military personnel, amid reports of record casualties.

North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, who first met in 2019, have been seeking greater military and economic cooperation to counter their growing international isolation prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and North Korea’s ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programmes. In June, the two leaders signed a pact that includes a clause requiring the countries to come to each other’s aid if either is attacked.

Pyongyang is estimated to have provided about half the larger-calibre ammunition used on the battlefield this year, more than 2m rounds, a Ukrainian source said. It also provided KN-23 missiles, which were used in dozens of strikes across Ukraine last winter, Ukrainian media reported.

In return for its missiles and other military hardware, North Korea is thought to be seeking Russian cash as well as help with its spy satellite programme, which has had embarrassing failures over the past two years.

South Korea’s intelligence agency said on Friday that North Korea has dispatched troops to assist Russia in its war against Ukraine, a development that could intensify the standoff between North Korea and the west.

In a statement on its website, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) said that Russian navy ships transferred 1,500 North Korean special operation forces to the port city of Vladivostok between 8 and 13 October and were now undergoing training.

“The North Korean soldiers … are expected to be deployed to the frontlines as soon as they complete their adaptation training,” the agency said, adding that more North Korean troops are expected to be sent to Russia soon.

NIS said North Korean soldiers were given Russian military uniforms and Russian-made weapons and were issued with fake ID cards of residents of the Yakutia and Buryatia, two regions in Siberia.

“It appears that they disguised themselves as Russian soldiers to hide the fact that they were deployed to the battlefield,” the agency said.

The NIS also published satellite and other photos showing what it calls Russian navy ship movements near a North Korean port and suspected North Korean mass gatherings in the past week in the far-eastern Russian cities of Ussuriysk and Khabarovsk.

The statement was the most comprehensive official report to date detailing North Korean involvement in Russia’s war in Ukraine. If proved accurate, it would amount to North Korea’s first major participation in a foreign war.

Additionally, South Korean media said on Friday, citing anonymous sources, that Pyongyang has decided to dispatch a total of 12,000 troops, formed into four brigades, to Russia. The NIS did not immediately confirm these reports.

The statements come a day after Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country had intelligence reports that 10,000 North Korean soldiers were preparing to enter the war

“This is the first step to a world war,” he told reporters in Brussels.

Russia has denied using North Korean troops in the war, with a Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, dismissing the claims at a media conference last week as “another piece of fake news”.

Nato’s chief, Mark Rutte, said on Friday that the alliance could not yet confirm South Korean intelligence that North Korea was deploying large-scale troops.

The Guardian earlier revealed that North Korean military engineers had already been deployed to help Russia target Ukraine with ballistic missiles.

A source in Ukraine said “There are dozens of North Koreans behind Russian lines, in teams that support launcher systems for KN-23 missiles.”

If confirmed, South Korean intelligence suggests that North Korea plans to engage in the war beyond merely sending military advisers. The extraordinary move also highlights Russia’s need to find new military personnel, amid reports of record casualties.

North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, who first met in 2019, have been seeking greater military and economic cooperation to counter their growing international isolation prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and North Korea’s ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programmes. In June, the two leaders signed a pact that includes a clause requiring the countries to come to each other’s aid if either is attacked.

Pyongyang is estimated to have provided about half the larger-calibre ammunition used on the battlefield this year, more than 2m rounds, a Ukrainian source said. It also provided KN-23 missiles, which were used in dozens of strikes across Ukraine last winter, Ukrainian media reported.

In return for its missiles and other military hardware, North Korea is thought to be seeking Russian cash as well as help with its spy satellite programme, which has had embarrassing failures over the past two years.

Weight loss jabs are not a “quick fix” and the health secretary’s plan to use them to help people get back to work could backfire, experts have warned.

Wes Streeting announced a real-world trial of the medication’s impact on worklessness this week, saying that “widening waistbands” were placing a burden on the NHS. He suggested that as well as bringing benefits to the health service, the jabs could help people get back into employment.

But scientists have said deploying the medications specifically for that purpose would carry serious logistical and ethical problems.

Wegovy, which contains the drug semaglutide, is already being prescribed on the NHS for obesity, however this is not yet the case for Mounjaro, which contains tirzepatide. There have also been concerns about worldwide shortages, although the NHS is thought to have enough.

While the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) has said Wegovy should only be prescribed through specialist weight loss services, it has suggested Mounjaro could be prescribed by GPs.

Experts have welcomed the recognition of obesity as a health issue that affects quality of life, and are excited about the potential of these drugs. But they say serious problems could arise should the medications be used to specifically tackle unemployment.

“Streeting is correct in saying that for some people their weight will be a burden to their ability to work, and for people who have significant levels of obesity, it is almost certain that their biology has led them to that weight. Providing people with proven, effective medications to help them lose weight may lead to them being able to enter the workforce,” said Dr Simon Cork, senior lecturer in physiology at Anglia Ruskin University. “But this is not a quick-fix solution.”

One major issue, he said, is that access is already hugely problematic. While he said that specialist services are the best approach to maximise results and ensure patient safety, overwhelming demand has already resulted in some trusts pausing all referrals to obesity services.

“The whole system is designed to bottleneck patients through the pipeline and reduce access to specialist services, but alternative provisions through primary care risk the NHS wasting money on partially effective medications and risks patient health,” he added, noting a complete overhaul of the system is needed.

Cork added that, should unemployed people end up being prioritised for the medications, one possibility is that people will quit their jobs, noting patients have been known to put on weight to become eligible for bariatric surgery.

“People will do things to get access to help because they’re desperate,” he said.

Some have also raised ethical concerns should access to weight loss medications be linked to employment potential, not least as people may not be in work because of caring responsibilities.

“In my view, let’s treat everyone who needs to be treated,” said Prof Giles Yeo, an expert in obesity at the University of Cambridge. “If we segment society into whether or not you have economic value, and hence whether or not I would treat you, where does that lead us to?”

Yeo added that it is also important people have the right to refuse medications.

“I think these drugs are effective and powerful, I think they’re a tool which should be used appropriately. I think not enough people are getting it at the moment and they should be, and the people who need to [have them] should be getting them,” he said. “We should not be blackmailing people into taking the drugs if they don’t wish to take it.”

And then there are fears that focusing on weight loss jabs risks distracting from preventing obesity. “People already suffering from obesity need help to manage their weight loss journey,” said Cork. “However, altering the environment which has led to the obesity crisis also needs to happen.”

Yeo agreed. “The drugs treat a disease, they don’t prevent a disease,” he said. “I don’t want [the government] to use [these medications] as an excuse not to make the hard policy decisions.”

Streeting’s comments came alongside the announcement of a new five-year study by Health Innovation Manchester and the pharma company Lilly, which is set to explore whether the drugs can not only bring clinical benefits but also have a health economic impact, including changing participants’ employment status.

“For many people, these jabs will be life-changing, help them get back to work, and ease the demands on our NHS,” he wrote in an opinion piece for the Daily Telegraph this week.

Kenya’s senate impeached the deputy president, Rigathi Gachagua, while he was in hospital on a day of high political drama in Nairobi.

Senators upheld five out of 11 charges against Gachagua in a vote late on Thursday, making him the first deputy president in the country to be ejected from office through impeachment.

“The senate has resolved to remove from office, by impeachment, his excellency Rigathi Gachagua. Accordingly, his excellency Rigathi Gachagua … ceases to hold office,” said the senate speaker, Amason Kingi, after the lawmakers cast their votes.

The national assembly, the lower house of parliament, had overwhelmingly voted last week in support of an impeachment motion tabled by Mwengi Mutuse.

Despite attempts by the deputy president to halt the process in the courts, the motion moved to the senate this week. On Wednesday, Gachagua denied all 11 charges against him, which included corruption, inflaming ethnic tensions and undermining the authority of the president and the cabinet.

Moments before he was due to appear in parliament for cross-examination by lawyers on Thursday afternoon, his legal team said they could not find him. Minutes later, his lawyer, Paul Muite, said the deputy president had been admitted to hospital with “intense chest pains” and was in need of “complete rest”.

Muite asked the senate to temporarily stop the proceedings until Tuesday. “The sad reality is that the deputy president of the Republic of Kenya has been taken sick, very sick, and … he is in hospital,” said Muite, throwing the senate into confusion.

Kingi tabled a motion to move the hearing to Saturday but senators voted against it. He suspended the hearings for about two hours for Gachagua’s legal team to get details of his health status, and ordered that the impeachment should continue as it was time-bound, saying he expected the deputy president to take the witness stand after the break.

Outside Karen hospital, about seven miles (11km) from the parliament, Dr Dan Gikonyo told journalists that the deputy president had been taken there with chest pains but he was stable and he would remain under observation for 48-72 hours. “Stress can cause heart problems and the DP is definitely in a lot of stress,” he said.

Back in the senate chambers, the proceedings resumed, with arguments from legislators on the impeachment motion culminating in the unprecedented vote close to midnight.

Gachagua’s impeachment will widen the rift in his relationship with the president, William Ruto. Ruto’s allies have often accused Gachagua of disloyalty and undermining the president’s authority with controversial public statements.

In June, shortly after Ruto had held a press conference to announce the scrapping of a tax bill that had caused violent protests, the deputy president held his own press conference and blamed Noordin Haji, the director general of the National Intelligence Service, for alleged intelligence failures that led to the unrest.

At the national assembly last week, Gachagua said he believed the impeachment proceedings had the president’s approval.

Kenya has experienced a tumultuous period, including the June protests, which lasted nearly two months and led to dozens of deaths and disappearances.

On Friday morning, the president nominated the interior minister, Kithure Kindiki, who had been a leading candidate to be Ruto’s running mate in 2022, to replace Gachagua. But a court has suspended the process until 24 October after Gachagua’s legal team filed a petition claiming his removal was unfair.

A law that would ban “propaganda” seeking to champion a childfree lifestyle has cleared its first hurdle in Russia’s lower house of parliament, gaining unanimous approval among lawmakers for a bill promoted as a means to increase the country’s birthrate.

The new legislation sets out fines for those deemed to be discouraging people from having children, as official data released last month suggested Russia’s birthrate had slid to its lowest level in a quarter of a century, a slump exacerbated by the country’s ageing population and Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

Individuals could be fined up to 400,000 rubles (about £3,000), while the figure rises to 5m rubles for businesses or entities. Foreign nationals who create content advocating childlessness could be deported.

Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the Duma, said: “It is important to protect people, primarily the younger generation, from having the ideology of childlessness imposed on them on the internet, in the media, in movies and in advertising.”

Volodin, a powerful ally of Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, cast the bill as part of a “unified legal framework” that seeks to protect children, families and traditional values.

Proponents of the legislation described it as a matter of national security, claiming that the arguments against having children are part of a broader effort by the west to weaken Russia by encouraging population decline.

“It’s an element of professional propaganda, part of a hybrid war aimed at population reduction,” said Elvira Aitkulova, one of the bill’s authors. “This is a strategic bill for the sake of a strong, productive and healthy future.”

The legislation comes as Putin and his top officials seek to portray Russia as a bastion of “traditional values” and a bulwark against western liberal ideas. Last year Putin called on women to have as many as eight children to secure the demographic future of the country.

Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, who has described the low birthrate as “catastrophic”, said last month that halting the decline ranked among the “top priorities for the entire government and the entire country”.

This week’s legislation caused concerns among rights campaigners, who predicted it could set the stage for women’s rights to be further eroded.

“The message is clear: give birth, and that’s it,” Olga Suvorova, a rights activist who works with victims of domestic violence in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, told Reuters. “Women are being essentially turned into vessels for bearing children, not taking into account their circumstances, their motivations and whether they aspire to have a career or a family.”

Volodin insisted the law would not criminalise women who choose not to have children. “The decision to have children or not is up to the woman,” he wrote on Telegram.

Women were also free to consult whoever they wanted on this matter, he added. “But there should be no propaganda pressuring a woman in her decision to have children. That’s what is happening now in the US and Europe,” he claimed.

The bill remains in the early stages, with two more readings required in the Duma. If approved, it will be sent to the upper house for vetting and then to Putin for final approval.

The legislation marks an expansion of Russia’s recent efforts to curb public discourse in favour of what it describes as “traditional values”. In 2022, the country’s parliament passed a law criminalising any act deemed to promote what it called “non-traditional sexual relations”, leading LGBTQ+ activists to say that public mentions of same-sex relationships were now essentially outlawed in the country.

Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report

Robbie Williams has shared an impassioned tribute to the One Direction singer Liam Payne, who died this week after falling from a balcony in a Buenos Aires hotel.

Williams acted as a mentor to One Direction when the band competed on The X Factor in 2010, and continued a friendship with Payne and the group.

He says he felt, and continues to feel, “shock, sadness and confusion” at Payne’s death, and recalled meeting him and his bandmates. “They were all cheeky and lovely. I enjoyed the lighthearted pisstakery and thought about all the times I was that cheeky pisstaker with the pop stars that had gone before me when I was in Take That. Our paths have crossed ever since that day and I’m fond of them all. Liam’s trials and tribulations were very similar to mine, so it made sense to reach out and offer what I could. So I did.”

Drug paraphernalia was discovered in Payne’s hotel room, and he had previously been open about struggles with alcohol and drug use. Williams draws on his own history of addiction during his tribute.

“I still had my demons at 31,” he wrote – Payne’s age when he died. “I relapsed. I was in pain. I was in pain because I relapsed. I relapsed because of a multitude of painful reasons. I remember Heath Ledger passing and thinking ‘I’m next’. By the grace of God and/or dumb luck I’m still here.”

He called for more kindness and empathy from the public towards famous figures who might be experiencing difficulties in their personal lives, saying: “Even famous strangers need your compassion.”

He added, in block capitals: “We don’t know what’s going on in people’s lives. What pain they’re going through and what makes them behave in the way that they behave. Before we reach to judgment, a bit of slack needs to be given. Before you type anything on the internet, have a think: ‘Do I really need to publish this?’ Because that’s what you’re doing. You’re publishing your thoughts for anybody to read. Even if you don’t really think that celebrities or their families exist. They fucking do. Skin and bone and immensely sensitive.”

A coroner’s report found that Payne died of multiple injuries from the fall from the third-floor balcony, and that he was alone at the time of his death.

As well as an outpouring of grief from his global fanbase, his former bandmates wrote individual tributes, as well as a joint statement saying in part: “The memories we shared with him will be treasured for ever”.

Williams’ career – including his struggles with drugs – will be depicted in an unusual forthcoming biopic. Better Man, directed by The Greatest Showman’s Michael Gracey and released on Boxing Day, charts the pop singer’s rise to fame, with a CGI monkey playing Williams.

The Confederation of African Football’s audit and compliance committee has claimed that more than $16m of “unrecognised expenses” were not included in official accounts, meaning it should have posted losses of more than $25m.

A letter sent to members of Caf’s executive committee last Saturday and seen by the Guardian alleges that its review of a report compiled by the external auditors EY had revealed the apparent discrepancy in the accounts for the year ending 30 June 2023.

That includes almost $12m for “technical costs not allocated to clubs, federations and host countries”, with the remainder corresponding to “unrecorded expenses that should be accrued and recorded” and “unrecognised provision for debt balances” and “other debit balances”.

The audit and compliance committee has calculated that the $16.18m unaccounted for would take Caf’s deficit for the year to $25.43m after losses of $9.25m were revealed earlier this year. In July, Caf’s general secretary, Véron Mosengo-Omba, had cited the lower figure as evidence that it was reducing its debt. Mosengo-Omba inherited a deficit of about £30m in March 2021. “For the next fiscal year, it will be zero,” he said.

Neither Caf nor Mosengo-Omba responded to requests from the Guardian for comment.

Separately, an investigation into Mosengo-Omba and his office is ongoing after Caf’s head of governance, risk and compliance (GRC) accused them of “impeding” members of her department from performing their duties and, among other claims, of breaching internal governance and auditing regulations.

Last month, the audit and compliance committee claimed there had been “unauthorised interference” from Mosengo-Omba because the external auditor had been appointed by him.

He responded to those claims in a letter last week and said Caf’s statutes had not required him to seek their consent “before engaging a consultant”. Mosengo-Omba also dismissed concerns that the external auditor’s report “was prepared in such a way as to contradict all the allegations contained in the confidential report” by the GRC because he said the investigation remained ongoing. “To this end, it was deemed inappropriate to comment or discuss with her the matters under investigation, as this could have been taken as interference in the official proceedings,” he wrote.

In response, the audit and compliance committee said it would have been “even more inappropriate for the secretariat to present the documents under investigation to the external consultant for inclusion in her report submitted to our committee for validation. The Committee maintains its position expressed in the report of 11 September 2024 and remains of the opinion that this is an attempt to use it to pass documents and procedures that are the subject of the ongoing investigation.”

A letter from Mosengo-Omba – who has also denied allegations of dishonest management, fraud and forgery of documents in Switzerland – that was sent to national associations last week confirmed that Caf will extend the 70-year age limit by five years for prospective executive committee members at its general assembly next week.

It also gave prospective candidates until 12 November to register their intention to stand in next year’s presidential elections. The incumbent, Patrice Motsepe, is expected to face competition from the 71-year-old Egyptian and Fifa council member Hany Abo Rida, among others. The vote is likely to take place in March.