President-elect Donald Trump has reportedly decided to appoint Republican congressman Mike Waltz of Florida as his national security adviser.

Waltz, a Trump loyalist who also served in the national guard as a colonel, has criticized Chinese activity in the Asia-Pacific and has voiced the need for the United States to be ready for a potential conflict in the region.

Last week, Waltz won re-election to the US House seat representing east-central Florida, which includes Daytona Beach. He defeated Democrat James Stockton, a pastor and former president of a local NAACP branch.

Waltz is a combat-decorated Green Beret and a former White House and Pentagon policy adviser. He was first elected in 2018, replacing Republican Ron DeSantis, who ran for governor, in Florida’s sixth congressional district.

Waltz served multiple combat tours in Afghanistan, and he was awarded four Bronze Stars.

Walt was one of the lawmakers appointed in July to serve on a bipartisan congressional taskforce to investigate the attempted assassination of Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania in July.

After Waltz left the US army, he worked in the Pentagon in the George W Bush administration as policy director for former defense secretaries Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates.

Under former vice-president Dick Cheney, Waltz served as a counter-terrorism adviser.

In 2021, after Joe Biden ordered a chaotic evacuation from Afghanistan, Waltz asked Biden to reverse course and relaunch military operations in the region. The war in Afghanistan began under Bush after the 11 September 2001 attacks.

The Intercept reported that before his run for Congress in 2018 Waltz managed a lucrative defense contracting firm with offices in Afghanistan.

Waltz has consistently expressed the need for protecting the Afghan people, saying that US “soldiers will have to go back”. Government reports have stated that US nation-building efforts resulted in the deaths of more than 48,000 civilians, over 66,000 Afghan police and military, and widespread torture.

In the latest development of Trump’s appointments, the president-elect is also expected to name senator Marco Rubio of Florida as his secretary of state, according to the New York Times. Rubio, a failed challenger to Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, was rumored to be one of the leading contenders for Trump’s vice-presidential pick before JD Vance was announced.

Since his failed run for president, Rubio has served as an informal foreign policy adviser and helped Trump prepare for his first debate against Biden in 2020.

Donald Trump has picked Lee Zeldin, a former New York congressman, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), vowing the appointment will “ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions” by the regulator.

Trump, who oversaw the rollback of more than 100 environmental rules when he last was US president, said that Zeldin was a “true fighter for America First policies” and that “he will ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses, while at the same time maintaining the highest environmental standards, including the cleanest air and water on the planet”.

Zeldin, a Republican who was in the House of Representatives until last year as a member for a New York district that covers part of Long Island, said the nomination was an “honor” and that he was looking forward to cutting red tape as the EPA administrator.

“We will restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the US the global leader of AI,” Zeldin wrote on X. “We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water.”

Zeldin, 44, is considered a close Trump ally and ran in a surprisingly close race for New York governor in 2022, before being pipped by Kathy Hochul, a Democrat. During the campaign, Zeldin attacked Hochul’s “far-left climate agenda” and assailed Democrats for allegedly forcing people to drive electric cars.

The EPA nominee, who will have to be confirmed by the US Senate, has rarely spoken out on environmental or climate issues, although he said in 2014 he was “not sold yet on the whole argument that we have as serious a problem as other people are” with global heating, and added in 2018 that he did not support the Paris climate agreement, which Trump is again expected to withdraw the US from.

Zeldin, who has a score of just 14% from the League of Conservation Voters on his votes on environmental issues in his 15 years in Congress, is expected to oversee an overhaul of the EPA that will rival anything seen since its foundation in 1970.

An exodus of staff is expected from the agency, with employees already raising fears they will be subject to political interference and that their work to protect Americans from toxic chemicals and planet-heating emissions from cars, trucks and power plants will be torn up.

“Naming an unqualified, anti-American worker who opposes efforts to safeguard our clean air and water lays bare Donald Trump’s intentions to, once again, sell our health, our communities, our jobs, and our future out to corporate polluters,” Ben Jealous, executive director of the Sierra Club, said of Zeldin’s nomination.

“Our lives, our livelihoods, and our collective future cannot afford Lee Zeldin – or anyone who seeks to carry out a mission antithetical to the EPA’s mission.”

The naming of Zeldin, less than a week after Trump won the presidential election, is far quicker than his previous term in the White House, when he took until December to name Scott Pruitt as his pick for the EPA.

Pruitt resigned in 2018 amid a flurry of ethics scandals, including allegations that he gave staffers improper pay raises, that he constructed an expensive soundproof phone booth in his office, and that he tasked employees with fetching him moisturizer and a favorite mattress.

Donald Trump is expected to announce that he will appoint immigration hardliner and close adviser, Stephen Miller, as his White House deputy chief of staff for policy.

Miller worked in the White House during the president-elect’s first administration, serving as a senior adviser to Trump and as director of speechwriting. He played a key role in developing several of Trump’s immigration policies, including the Muslim travel ban and the family separation policy.

Although Trump has not officially announced the appointment yet, CNN reported the news earlier on Monday, citing two sources familiar with the matter, and later on Monday, JD Vance appeared to confirm the report in a post on X, where he congratulated Miller.

“This is another fantastic pick by the president. Congrats @StephenM!” the vice-president-elect said.

It had been expected that Miller would take on an expanded role in Trump’s second term if the former president won the 2024 election, and assist him in carrying out his mass deportation plan for millions of undocumented migrants in the US.

Miller has been a frequent presence during Trump’s 2024 campaign, according to the Associated Press, often traveling with him and speaking ahead of Trump at his rallies.

Miller is also known for his extremist rhetoric. He spoke at Trump’s infamous Madison Square Garden rally, where he told the crowd that “America is for Americans and Americans only” and promised to “restore America to the true Americans”.

In an interview with the New York Times last year, Miller also outlined plans in the event that Trump was re-elected, to restrict legal and illegal immigration. The plans included rounding up undocumented immigrants in the US and detaining them in camps while they await expulsion.

Over the years, reports have alleged that during Trump’s administration, Miller had advocated for blowing up migrants with drones – which he has denied – and that he suggested sending 250,000 US troops to the southern border.

In 2019, after the US raid killed the Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, it was alleged by Mark Esper, the former defense secretary, that Miller had proposed beheading al-Baghdadi, dipping the head in pig’s blood and parading it around “to warn other terrorists”. Miller also denied this, and called Esper a “moron”.

That same year, Miller was found to have promoted white nationalist views in emails sent to rightwing journalists. This led a number of Democrats to call on him to resign and more 50 civil rights groups penned a letter to Trump, urging him to fire Miller.

“Stephen Miller has stoked bigotry, hate and division with his extreme political rhetoric and policies throughout his career,” the letter stated. “The recent exposure of his deep-seated racism provides further proof that he is unfit to serve and should immediately leave his post.”

After the Trump presidency ended, Miller founded the non-profit America First Legal Foundation, which he described as the right’s “long-awaited answer” to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Over the years, the group has launched more than 100 legal actions against Democratic policies and what it sees as “woke corporations” such as Disney, Nike and more, according to the New York Times.

It was also reported last year that Miller’s legal group also had a board seat with Project 2025, the controversial policy effort led by the Heritage Foundation and other conservative groups, to roadmap rightwing policy plans for a second Trump term.

Project 2025, a document which consists of more than 900 pages, outlines plans and strategies on how Trump and his allies could dismantle the US government. The plans include shrinking environmental protections, the replacement of civil servants with Trump loyalists, the elimination of the the education department, the reduction of LGBTQ+ and reproductive rights and more.

In 2022, Miller reportedly testified to the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection on the US Capitol, where he was asked about whether Trump encouraged his supporters to march on the Capitol that day.

Miller reportedly defended Trump, stating that his use of the word “we” in his remarks outside the Capitol that day was not an effort to incite the crowd to storm the Capitol, but rather a rhetorical device used in political speeches for decades.

In April this year, Axios reported that Miller was helping to drive a plan to tackle supposed “anti-white racism” if Trump was re-elected.

The Axios report stated that if Trump returned to the White House, Miller and other aides planned to “dramatically change the government’s interpretation of civil rights-era laws to focus on ‘anti-white racism’ rather than discrimination against people of colour”.

Trump’s spokesperson, Steven Cheung, told Axios: “As President Trump has said, all staff, offices, and initiatives connected to [Joe] Biden’s un-American policy will be immediately terminated.”

The news about the expected appointment of Miller on Monday follows Trump’s announcement that former acting director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Tom Homan would be appointed “border czar”.

Miller will also work alongside Susie Wiles, whom Trump last week named as his chief of staff.

Social media platform Bluesky has picked up more than 700,000 new users in the week since the US election, as users seek to escape misinformation and offensive posts on X.

The influx, largely from North America and the UK, has helped Bluesky reach 14.5 million users worldwide, up from 9 million in September, the company said.

Social media researcher Axel Bruns said the platform offered an alternative to X, formerly Twitter, including a more effective system for blocking or suspending problematic accounts and policing harmful behaviour.

“It’s become a refuge for people who want to have the kind of social media experience that Twitter used to provide, but without all the far-right activism, the misinformation, the hate speech, the bots and everything else,” he said.

“The more liberal kind of Twitter community has really now escaped from there and seems to have moved en masse to Bluesky.”

Bluesky began as a project inside Twitter but became an independent company in 2022, and is now primarily owned by chief executive Jay Graber.

The platform has previously benefited from dissatisfaction with X and its billionaire owner, Elon Musk, who is closely tied to US president-elect Donald Trump’s successful election campaign. Twitter shed millions of users after rebranding to X and usage in the US slumped by more than a fifth in the subsequent seven months.

Bluesky reported picking up 3 million new users in the week after X was suspended in Brazil in September and a further 1.2 million in the two days after X announced it would allow users to view posts from people who had blocked them.

“We’re excited to welcome all of these new people, ranging from Swifties to wrestlers to city planners,” Bluesky spokesperson Emily Liu said.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian and professor at New York University, had 250,000 followers on X but picked up 21,000 followers in her first day on Bluesky this week.

“I am still on X but after January, when X could be owned by a de facto member of the Trump administration, its functions as a Trump propaganda outlet and far-right radicalization machine could be accelerated,” she said.

Bluesky is still second to Threads in the social networking category on Apple’s US App Store, which reported reaching 275 million monthly active users in November, up from 200 million in August.

The independent platform has recently added features including direct messaging and video compatibility to more closely resemble X and distinguish itself from its Meta-owned competitor.

Ben-Ghiat has found the site’s “starter packs”, or groups of people with similar expertise and interest, a refreshing way in.

“[They] promise to give Bluesky some of what I valued on Twitter/X: informed takes on a subject from multiple points of view,” she said.

Bruns, a professor at Queensland University of Technology’s Digital Media Research Center, said the explosion in user numbers had created “growing pains” as new users learned to navigate the site but was ultimately adding to the site’s momentum.

“It really feels like a throwback to those days of the early excitement about social media in many ways, and that’s what, at the moment, attracts quite a few people,” he said. “It just makes it more vibrant, more active place.”

On Monday night, New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez posted that she was “back” on Bluesky, saying “Good GOD it’s nice to be in a digital space with other real human beings.” Her post was liked by 27,000 people.

Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Saar, said on Monday that “certain progress” had been made on ceasefire talks in Lebanon, where Israel has been engaged in fighting Hezbollah for more than 13 months.

“We will be ready to be there if we know, first of all, that Hezbollah is not on our border, is north of the Litani River, and that Hezbollah will not be able to arm with new weapons systems,” Saar said.

He added that diplomatic efforts were taking place through US mediation, but that the lack of an enforcement mechanism in any future deal remained a stumbling block.

Israel’s stated objective in its ground invasion of south Lebanon was to enable the return of residents of north Israel, of whom tens of thousands have been displaced since Hezbollah began firing rockets “in solidarity” with Hamas on 8 October 2023.

Israel has said that Hezbollah would need to retreat north of the Litani, 18 miles from its northern border, to ensure the security of north Israel.

Diplomatic efforts were not only confined to US channels, as Israel’s army radio reported that Israel’s minister of strategic affairs, Ron Dermer, visited Russia last week to discuss ways to reach a ceasefire in Lebanon.

Saar said Russia could play a role in a ceasefire agreement by helping ensure that arms do not flow to Hezbollah via Syria, where Russian troops are present.

Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, also met a number of Arab leaders, including Jordan’s King Abdullah II and the crown prince of Kuwait, at the Arab-Islamic Summit in Riyadh on Monday.

Despite the reported progress on a ceasefire deal, Hezbollah has said that it had not seen any actual proposal come across its desk, nor does it expect to anytime soon.

Mohammad Afif, the head of Hezbollah’s media office, said at a press conference on Monday: “There is great movement between Washington and Moscow and Tehran and a number of capitals.

“I believe that we are still in the phase of testing the waters and presenting initial ideas and proactive discussions, but so far there is nothing actual yet.”

Any ceasefire in Lebanon would have to be approved by Hezbollah, and presumably its patron, Iran. Hezbollah’s secretary general, Naim Qassem, has said the group is ready for a ceasefire with Israel and that it has backed away from its previous demand that a ceasefire in Gaza come before it stops fighting.

Despite apparent movement on a ceasefire deal, Israel’s military announced on Sunday that it was expanding its ground assault in southern Lebanon. The head of Israel’s military, Herzi Halevi, approved the expansion of the ground operation in southern Lebanon, which could involve thousands of more permanent and reserve soldiers, Israel’s state broadcaster, Kan, reported.

Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, said on Sunday that Israel had defeated Hezbollah and that further gains could be made in Lebanon.

“Now it is our job to continue to put pressure in order to bring about the fruits of that victory,” Katz said. He added that he hoped Lebanon would join other countries in normalising relations with Israel.

Israel said that its ground invasion of southern Lebanon, which it launched on 30 September, would be “limited and targeted” and was aimed at dismantling Hezbollah infrastructure in the area.

Wide swathes of the border area in southern Lebanon have been flattened since then, with dozens of border villages partly or completely destroyed by Israel.

Hezbollah has been reportedly fighting against advancing Israeli troops, with Afif, its media office head, claiming on Monday that Israel has not been able to “occupy one single village” in 45 days of fighting.

The extent of Israel’s progress in southern Lebanon is unclear, but Israeli troops and tanks have been photographed as far as two miles inside southern Lebanon.

More than 3,190 people have been killed and more than 14,000 wounded by Israel in Lebanon since fighting began a year ago, the vast majority in the last two months.

The amount of aid reaching Gaza has dropped to the lowest level since December, official Israeli figures show, despite the US having issued a 30-day ultimatum last month threatening sanctions if there was no increase in humanitarian supplies reaching the territory.

The ultimatum was delivered on 13 October, so will expire on Tuesday or Wednesday. It is unclear what measures Israel’s apparent failure to fulfil US demands will trigger, but they may include a temporary halt to the supply of some munitions or other military assistance.

Only 8,805 tonnes of food aid has crossed through Israeli checkpoints into the territory so far this month.

In an apparent last-minute concession on Monday, Israeli authorities announced an extension of the designated “humanitarian zone”, adding inland areas which could partially relieve intense overcrowding and allow some displaced people to move away from the coast as winter approaches.

However, Israel appears to have ignored most of the demands made in a letter sent jointly by Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, and Lloyd Austin, the defence secretary, on 13 October.

Aid officials in Gaza describe the situation in much of the territory, where more than 80% of the population of 2.3 million have been displaced and more than two-thirds of buildings have been destroyed or damaged in 13 months of war, as “apocalyptic”.

“Almost nothing is getting in any more. The small street markets that sprung up have all gone. There’s a bit of flour, some washing-up liquid … a kilo of tomatoes costs nearly $20 [£16]. Even if you have money there is nothing to buy. Everyone is going hungry again,” said one UN official.

Israel imposed a total blockade of Gaza in the first weeks of the war, before gradually easing restrictions under international pressure. Deliveries of aid peaked in May, when 117,000 tonnes of food entered Gaza on more than 6,000 trucks. Tents, medicine and other vital supplies also reached the territory.

Statistics released by Cogat, the Israeli military authority charged with coordinating humanitarian aid for Gaza, show that only 25,155 tonnes of food aid entered Gaza in October, less than in any full month since December 2023.

In October, 57 trucks a day were allowed to cross into Gaza on average – far short of the 350 trucks a day demanded by the US and the 600 a day that aid agencies say are necessary to meet basic needs. So far, only 624 trucks have entered the territory in November, the Cogat statistics show.

It is unclear if the statistics include crossings on Sunday, when more than 170 trucks and fuel tankers entered Gaza, according to Cogat.

Israeli officials reject the charge that aid is deliberately restricted and accuse humanitarian agencies of failing to organise its distribution. UN logistics specialists in Gaza say Israeli military operations and general lawlessness often prevent them from collecting supplies, leaving hundreds of truckloads stranded at the border.

Humanitarian agencies also suffer from a shortage of drivers, communications equipment, protective gear and much else. Since May, only a tenth of more than 300 requests to Cogat to issue permits to individual drivers have been granted, UN officials said.

Coordination with the Israeli military authorities is also laborious and time-consuming, and many requests for convoys are turned down. In October, Israeli authorities directly denied or impeded 58% of aid movements, aid agencies said.

Lawlessness has led to systematic looting of about a third of all aid brought into Gaza, UN officials said. Some was taken by Hamas, which retains some influence in much of the territory, but most was stolen by criminal gangs for resale. Private commercial convoys have also been stopped.

The US has previously demanded that Israel allow in more aid but done little to enforce its requests, even reportedly ignoring its own agencies after they concluded that Israel had deliberately blocked deliveries of food and medicine to Gaza. US law requires that weapons shipments be cut off to countries that prevent the delivery of US-backed aid.

Last week, the US state department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, said Israel had made some progress by announcing the opening of a new crossing into central Gaza and approving new delivery routes, but said it must do more. “It’s not just sufficient to open new roads if more humanitarian assistance isn’t going through those roads,” he said.

The most acute crisis is in the far north of Gaza, where the towns of Jabaliya, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya have been under a month-long siege. The Israeli military has said it is rooting out Hamas militants who have regrouped in the area and have been carrying out hit-and-run attacks from tunnels and bombed-out buildings. The military has surrounded the area with checkpoints, ordering residents to leave. Many Palestinians fear Israel aims to depopulate the north in the long term.

“People in north Gaza have got nothing. Every single day from 3 October to end of month, UN asked to take stuff into Jabaliya, but [was] turned down,” said one UN official in Gaza.

Last week, a committee of global food security experts known as the IPC warned of a “strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas” of northern Gaza.

Cogat denied there was a risk of famine, saying that previous projections by the IPC had proved incorrect and relied on partial, biased data. Israeli officials say they also successfully facilitated a polio vaccination campaign across Gaza, which reached 94% of the target population of 600,000 children under the age of 10.

“There is a glaring gap between the reality on the ground and the distorted declarations that some NGOs have been stating about Israel,” Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador to the UN, told the Jerusalem Post.

The conflict in Gaza was triggered by a surprise Hamas attack into southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed, mostly civilians, and 250 abducted. Since then, more than 43,500 have died in the Israeli offensive in Gaza, more than half women and children.

A Victorian man who tricked his wife into travelling to Sudan before taking her children and passport back to Australia has been sentenced to four and a half years in prison.

After a county court trial, the 52-year-old man in April became the first Victorian convicted of exit trafficking – where someone is coerced, threatened or tricked into leaving Australia against their will.

The man had pleaded not guilty to the charge and denied having deceived the woman, who was abandoned in Sudan for 16 months. The woman cannot be named for legal reasons.

Judge Frank Gucciardo said the man’s offending “required a degree of planning”.

“You treated her as a chattel that could be simply discarded,” he said.

“She was grief-stricken and traumatised by the departure of her children with you.”

The man must serve at least three years and three months in jail before he can be eligible for parole.

• Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

He appeared in the county court in Melbourne on Tuesday morning, wearing a grey jumper and beige pants. Gucciardo said the man “intentionally misled” his wife to believe she had a valid visa to return to Australia when they travelled to Sudan in September 2014.

“What you had not told her was, in June 2014, you had withdrawn the visa and her application for a visa would be under threat,” he said.

The man had told her it was for a holiday and later departed Sudan with their children, leaving her stranded for 16 months, the court heard.

Gucciardo said the woman would not have left Australia if she had “known the truth about her visa status”.

The man travelled back to Australia with the pair’s two children, both aged under two, and his wife’s passport, Gucciardo said.

Gucciardo said “depriving the children at this tender age” was an aggravating factor in the offending.

He said the “abrupt separation” from her children had caused the woman “immense physical pain and agony.”

After her husband departed Sudan, the woman contacted the Australian embassy in Egypt and was told her visa had been cancelled, the court heard. After the woman received legal aid and migration support, the Department of Home Affairs issued her a temporary visa, allowing her to travel to Australia at the end of February 2016.

Gucciardo said the man was a well educated and community-minded individual.

But he said the moral culpability of the offending was high and the man lacked remorse and insight into the offending. He said his likelihood of reoffending was low and his chances of rehabilitation were good if he developed insight into his conduct.

During a pre-sentencing hearing in July, the court heard the man’s former wife describe being stranded without her children as “the most devastating experience of my life”.

In a letter read to the court, she said her children had endured “unimaginable suffering” after they were removed without her consent. She said one of her children experiences severe separation anxiety and fears her mother will never return when she leaves.

The man’s barrister, Brett Stevens, argued that the two children were not victims of the offence.

He said at the time of the offence the children did not have separation anxiety and said other circumstances such as family court proceedings that may have contributed to the impact on them were not derived from the offence.

After an arranged marriage in Sudan in 2010, the woman moved to Australia on a partner visa in 2012 and was sponsored by her husband, the court heard. She had their first child in 2012 and the second two years later.

The Australian federal police charged the man in 2022.

Diplomats have greenlit key rules that govern the trade of “carbon credits”, breaking a years-long deadlock and paving the way for rich countries to pay for cheap climate action abroad while delaying expensive emission cuts at home.

The agreement, reached late on the first day of Cop29 in Azerbaijan, was hailed by the hosts as an early win at climate talks that have been snubbed by prominent world leaders and clouded by the threat of a US retreat from climate diplomacy after Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election.

But critics have warned the rules were rushed through without following proper process.

“We welcome this positive momentum,” said Mukhtar Babayev, the president of Cop29, praising a “spirit of compromise that I hope will inspire all our work here in Baku”.

The rules deal with some of the final hurdles to creating a system in which countries can buy credits for removing or avoiding planet-heating pollution in other parts of the world – for instance, by planting trees or saving rainforests – and count the progress toward their own emissions targets.

The agreement is expected to provide the clarity needed to trade emissions within a global carbon market, supervised by the UN, that would be open to companies as well as countries. A separate article on the trade of carbon credits between individual nations will be addressed later in the Cop29 negotiations.

Carbon markets are a polarising force in climate policy. Supporters say they help direct crucial funds to saving the planet while critics point to the tattered history of fraudulent and harmful projects – particularly in the voluntary carbon market that some companies have enthusiastically embraced – that have eroded trust in the concept and driven calls for stricter rules.

Efforts to agree on carbon market rules – known in Cop jargon as article 6 – have been a persistent stumbling block in UN talks to stop the planet from heating. Diplomats at the last climate talks rejected proposals from a UN supervisory body that was tasked with recommending solutions for countries to debate.

This year, with pressure to make progress on carbon markets riding high, the group took a different approach, and adopted new standards on methods and removals while recommending the Cop29 negotiators give it the green light.

Isa Mulder, a policy expert at the nonprofit group Carbon Market Watch, said that adopting the rules on the first day of the summit without discussion “undermined trust” in the UN climate conference process. “Kicking off Cop29 with a backdoor deal … sets a poor precedent for transparency and proper governance,” she said.

The rules are expected to reduce the risk of double-counting emissions – a big concern of critics – and include stronger safeguards to protect human rights.

But the text also leaves many unanswered questions, said Mulder, such as how to deal with projects whose carbon-saving successes face a risk of reversal.

Olga Gassan-zade, a former chair of the article 6 supervisory body and one of its current members, said the new standards were robust but added: “The criticisms of the process are fair – but it was also critically important to operationalise article 6.4 as soon as possible to scale up the delivery of carbon finance to the developing world.”

Critics of carbon markets have pointed to a history of offset projects overpromising and underdelivering, with wildfires burning through forests that were supposed to be protected and emissions from renewable energy projects being counted on balance books even though they would probably have been built anyway.

Erika Lennon, an attorney at the Centre for International Environmental Law, said: “We’ve seen over and over again how carbon markets are not doing what they claim to be doing, as well as market projects that violate people’s rights.

“If they don’t have strong rules in place to prevent all of the abuses, it can totally undermine the integrity of the Paris agreement.”

Diplomats have greenlit key rules that govern the trade of “carbon credits”, breaking a years-long deadlock and paving the way for rich countries to pay for cheap climate action abroad while delaying expensive emission cuts at home.

The agreement, reached late on the first day of Cop29 in Azerbaijan, was hailed by the hosts as an early win at climate talks that have been snubbed by prominent world leaders and clouded by the threat of a US retreat from climate diplomacy after Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election.

But critics have warned the rules were rushed through without following proper process.

“We welcome this positive momentum,” said Mukhtar Babayev, the president of Cop29, praising a “spirit of compromise that I hope will inspire all our work here in Baku”.

The rules deal with some of the final hurdles to creating a system in which countries can buy credits for removing or avoiding planet-heating pollution in other parts of the world – for instance, by planting trees or saving rainforests – and count the progress toward their own emissions targets.

The agreement is expected to provide the clarity needed to trade emissions within a global carbon market, supervised by the UN, that would be open to companies as well as countries. A separate article on the trade of carbon credits between individual nations will be addressed later in the Cop29 negotiations.

Carbon markets are a polarising force in climate policy. Supporters say they help direct crucial funds to saving the planet while critics point to the tattered history of fraudulent and harmful projects – particularly in the voluntary carbon market that some companies have enthusiastically embraced – that have eroded trust in the concept and driven calls for stricter rules.

Efforts to agree on carbon market rules – known in Cop jargon as article 6 – have been a persistent stumbling block in UN talks to stop the planet from heating. Diplomats at the last climate talks rejected proposals from a UN supervisory body that was tasked with recommending solutions for countries to debate.

This year, with pressure to make progress on carbon markets riding high, the group took a different approach, and adopted new standards on methods and removals while recommending the Cop29 negotiators give it the green light.

Isa Mulder, a policy expert at the nonprofit group Carbon Market Watch, said that adopting the rules on the first day of the summit without discussion “undermined trust” in the UN climate conference process. “Kicking off Cop29 with a backdoor deal … sets a poor precedent for transparency and proper governance,” she said.

The rules are expected to reduce the risk of double-counting emissions – a big concern of critics – and include stronger safeguards to protect human rights.

But the text also leaves many unanswered questions, said Mulder, such as how to deal with projects whose carbon-saving successes face a risk of reversal.

Olga Gassan-zade, a former chair of the article 6 supervisory body and one of its current members, said the new standards were robust but added: “The criticisms of the process are fair – but it was also critically important to operationalise article 6.4 as soon as possible to scale up the delivery of carbon finance to the developing world.”

Critics of carbon markets have pointed to a history of offset projects overpromising and underdelivering, with wildfires burning through forests that were supposed to be protected and emissions from renewable energy projects being counted on balance books even though they would probably have been built anyway.

Erika Lennon, an attorney at the Centre for International Environmental Law, said: “We’ve seen over and over again how carbon markets are not doing what they claim to be doing, as well as market projects that violate people’s rights.

“If they don’t have strong rules in place to prevent all of the abuses, it can totally undermine the integrity of the Paris agreement.”

The wreck of the long-lost US warship USS Edsall, sent to the bottom of the sea during the second world war by the Japanese, has been discovered, US and Australian officials announced on Monday.

The warship was sunk on 1 March 1942, three months after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. The Edsall was traveling across the Indian Ocean south of Java when it was sunk by Japanese dive bombers.

The Edsall’s formidable display in evading attacks before its demise led the Japanese to dub the ship “the dancing mouse”.

“I am honored to acknowledge the role #AusNavy played in discovering the wreck of @usnavy USS Edsall, a warship that holds a special place in our shared naval histories,” wrote Caroline Kennedy, the US ambassador to Australia, in an Instagram post to commemorate Veterans Day.

“We will now be able to preserve this important memorial and hope that the families of the heroes who died there will know their loved ones rest in peace,” said Kennedy in an accompanying video.

The second world war ship, only about 300ft in length, was carrying 153 sailors and several dozen army air forces pilots and soldiers. It had sustained damage from an earlier attack and deemed unfit for combat but was deployed to aid another ship when it encountered Japanese naval forces at about 4pm.

Despite its damaged state, the Edsall successfully dodged attacks for over an hour, swerving to avoid the hundreds of fired shells. The Edsall counterattacked with a smokescreen and torpedoes before eventually being overcome by Japanese dive bombers.

Historians say that a few people on board survived the sinking ship but were immediately picked up by enemy forces and later beheaded in a prison camp.

According to the US navy, the wreck was first discovered late last year south of Australia’s remote Christmas Island submerged in 18,000ft of water. The US cooperated with Australian officials to confirm the wreck was in fact the Edsall.

Mark Hammond, chief of the Royal Australian Navy, said in the video that the wreck was found by the MV Stoker, an Australian naval support ship that is normally used for hydrographic surveying.

The wreckage was subsequently examined with underwater robots and sonar. The Australian navy has not disclosed what the Stoker was doing when the Edsall was found, citing “operational security sensitivities”, according to the Washington Post.

Campaigners against antisemitism have held protests outside universities in London against a visit by the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories.

Francesca Albanese, an international lawyer specialising in human rights and the Middle East, was taking part in an event at the London School of Economics and Political Science on Monday.

She recently published a report in which she alleged that Israel was not just committing war crimes or crimes against humanity in Gaza but a “genocide”, and suggested the UN should consider suspending Israel as a member state.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the UN, described her in a tweet as unfit for office, adding: “The United Nations should not tolerate antisemitism from a UN-affiliated official hired to promote human rights.”

Albanese said she was right to insist on the term “genocide”, adding: “Palestinians had experienced war crimes all their lives, but this was different. It is very important to understand why this is recognised as a genocide.

“In the same way as the international community has failed to protect the victims of genocide in the case of the Jewish people in Europe and then Bosnians in former Yugoslavia and the Tutsi in Rwanda, in the same way we are failing the Palestinians.”

She accepted that determining a genocide is complex due to the need to prove intent, but she claimed Israel’s intent was the destruction of Palestinian life.

Protesters from the Campaign Against Antisemitism gathered outside the LSE on Monday where Albanese took part in “a conversation about international law and Palestine” hosted by the student union’s Grimshaw Club for international relations.

Posts on social media showed dozens of protesters, armed with “Ban Fran” banners, gathered outside the university building in central London, with the message “Ms Albanese is not welcome at British universities”.

Further protests were planned outside Soas University of London where Albanese was speaking later on Monday. A protest outside Queen Mary University of London where Albanese is due to speak on Tuesday was cancelled, however.

A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “Due to threats in local residents’ groups to engage in ‘Amsterdam-style’ violence against our planned protest tomorrow, it will not be proceeding.

“The safety of our team and supporters is an overriding concern for us. We are pursuing legal action against identifiable individuals who made threats.” Dozens of people were arrested after violent attacks took place around a football match between Amsterdam’s Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv last week.

A Soas University of London spokesperson said: “Freedom of expression and academic freedom are fundamental to our existence. The increasing tendency of some political groups to demand that speakers they disagree with should be prevented from speaking is an approach we reject. We would only act to limit speech that breaks the laws, or advocates hate or violence.”

An LSE spokesperson said: “LSE is committed to providing an inclusive culture of equity, diversity and respect between individuals. Antisemitism and any other form of discrimination are completely unacceptable.

“Free speech and freedom of expression underpins everything we do at LSE. Students, staff and visitors are strongly encouraged to discuss and debate the most pressing issues around the world, but this must be in a mutually considerate manner.”

The Union of Jewish Students did not respond to requests for comment but previously told the Jewish Chronicle that Albanese’s presence at London universities underscores the “increasingly belligerent environment” on British campuses.

“We urge universities to consider the impact of hosting Ms Albanese and the message it sends to Jewish students and allies who are deeply affected by these statements. UJS’s welfare hotline continues to be open 24/7 for any Jewish students worried or affected.”

• North Korea has ratified a landmark mutual defence pact with Russia, state media reported on Tuesday, weeks after sending thousands of troops to help Moscow in its war against Ukraine and sealing a deepening security cooperation between the two nations. The deal “was ratified as a decree” of Kim Jong-un, the Korean Central news agency (KCNA) said. The notice comes after Russian lawmakers voted unanimously last week to ratify the deal, which President Vladimir Putin later signed.

• Ukraine said on Monday its hard-pressed military was battling 50,000 troops in Russia’s Kursk region to its north, while also scrambling to reinforce two besieged fronts in the east and bracing to meet an infantry assault in the south. The escalating fighting along a more than 1,000km (620 miles) of frontline is stretching Ukraine’s already outnumbered troops at a critical moment after Donald Trump won the US election.

• Ukraine’s armed forces commander Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi said he had travelled to the front in Russia’s Kursk region. “[Russian forces] are trying to dislodge our troops and advance deep into the territory we control,” he said on Telegram.

• President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine would strengthen positions on the Pokrovsk and Kurakhove fronts where Moscow has directed its offensive pressure for months. Russia has been closing in on Pokrovsk, a strategic road and rail hub that has a coalmine. The small industrial town of Kurakhove is home to a major coal-powered thermal power plant.

• A Ukrainian military spokesperson told Reuters that Russia was also moving trained assault groups to forward positions in the southern Zaporizhzhia region and that they were preparing to attack. The southern front has seen far less fighting since 2023 when Ukraine launched a major counteroffensive that failed to break through heavily defended and mined lands held by Russia. “[The assaults] could begin in the near future, we’re not even talking about weeks, we’re expecting it to happen any day,” said Vladyslav Voloshyn, spokesperson for the southern military sector.

• Although it was not clear if they would involve a single offensive push or separate assaults, intelligence assessed that Moscow’s troops planned to use armoured vehicles and a considerable number of drones, Voloshyn said. “They are preparing both armoured groups and light vehicles – buggies, motorcycles – to conduct these assault operations,” he added.

• The Kremlin has denied reports that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, spoke to the US president-elect, Donald Trump, last week calling the media reports “pure fiction”. The Washington Post first reported that a call had taken place, citing unidentified sources, and said Trump had told Putin he should not escalate the Ukraine war. “It is completely untrue. It is pure fiction; it is simply false information,” the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said when asked about the call. “There was no conversation.”

• Russian human rights group Memorial told AFP that Moscow’s crackdown on dissent since invading Ukraine is vastly underestimated, with thousands of Russian and Ukrainians jailed for political reasons. Sergei Davidis, the head of Memorial’s department for supporting political prisoners, said there were about 7,000 Ukrainian civilians detained by Russian authorities, repeating a count by the Ukrainian NGO Centre for Civil Liberties. Davidis said Memorial also discovered several hundred Russians being held for “high treason” or “sabotage” cases since the Ukraine invasion, and “thousands” of criminal cases for refusing to fight in Ukraine. There are also dozens of Ukrainian soldiers held in Russia who are facing prosecution instead of being treated as prisoners of war.

• Russian strikes on Monday damaged a dam near the frontline in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, Ukrainian authorities said, warning nearby villages could be threatened by rising water levels. “The Russians damaged the dam of the reservoir of Kurakhove. This strike potentially threatens residents of settlements on the Vovcha River, both in Donetsk and Dnipro regions,” the region’s Governor Vadym Filashkin said.

• Russian attacks on Monday killed two in Ukraine’s central-east Dnipropetrovsk region and injured at least 19, with more people likely trapped under the rubble, officials said. Shelling by artillery killed two people in Nikopol and injured five more, regional governor Serhiy Lysak said on the Telegram messenger platform. A medical facility, a cafe and shops were damaged, he added.

A Spirit Airlines flight coming into the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince from the US state of Florida was struck by what appeared to be gang-related gunfire on Monday, forcing the airplane to be diverted to the Dominican Republic.

One person – a flight attendant – was grazed by a bullet, and no other passenger injuries have been reported.

The shooting forced authorities at Toussaint Louverture international airport to ground all commercial flights. Flight tracking showed both JetBlue Airways and Amerijet cargo planes turning away from Haiti in the wake of the gunfire.

In a security alert issued on Monday, the US embassy said it was aware of the airport’s pause in operations and of “gang-led efforts to block travel to and from Port-au-Prince which may include armed violence, and disruptions to roads, ports, and airports”.

In a statement, the airline said: “Flight 951 from Fort Lauderdale (FLL) to Port-au-Prince (PAP) diverted and landed safely in Santiago, Dominican Republic (STI). Following the flight’s arrival at STI, an inspection revealed evidence of damage to the aircraft consistent with gunfire.”

Spirit said the plane that was shot had been taken out of service and a different aircraft would be used to return guests and crew to Fort Lauderdale today.

“The safety of our Guests and Team Members is our top priority, and we have suspended our service at Port-au-Prince (PAP) and Cap-Haitien (CAP) pending further evaluation,” the statement said.

The US warns its residents that “the security situation in Haiti is unpredictable and dangerous. Travel within Haiti is conducted at your own risk.

“The US government cannot guarantee your safety traveling to airports, borders, or during any onward travel. You should consider your personal security situation before traveling anywhere in Haiti.”

Monday marked at least the second time in recent weeks that gunfire from armed gangs struck an aircraft traveling over Port-au-Prince. In October, gang gunfire struck a United Nations helicopter, forcing it to return to the airport. No one was injured.

Politically connected gangs in March mounted an alarming insurrection that toppled Haiti’s prime minister, freed more than 4,600 prisoners from jail, closed the airport in Port-au-Prince and cut the city off from the world. Residents have not seen any sign as to when authorities may seize control of the capital from the gangs.

On Monday, Haiti’s transitional presidential council appointed the entrepreneur and former senate candidate Alix Didier Fils-Aimé as the new prime minister, according to the country’s official gazette.

Didier Fils-Aimé replaces Garry Conille, who was named prime minister in May, who was fired after a stint plagued with political infighting.

• Reuters contributed to reporting

If a hard day in the office leaves you crabby and uncooperative, you may have an excuse: scientists say exercising self-restraint can exhaust parts of the brain related to decision-making and impulse control, leaving you less able to manage your behaviour towards others.

The researchers say their results tie into the theory of “ego depletion” – a controversial idea in psychology that willpower is a limited resource that gets used up by effort.

The results, they add, suggest it might be best to take a break after a day of mental exertion before engaging in other tasks.

“If you want to have a discussion with your partner and feel that you are mentally exhausted, don’t,” said Erica Ordali, first author of the study from the IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, in Italy. “Take your time. Do it in another day.”

While the idea of ego depletion has been around for decades, it has garnered criticism, with some studies failing to replicate results. Ordali, however, noted an important factor may be that the tasks used in these studies to sap self-control often only last 10 minutes.

Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Ordali and her colleagues reported how they explored the impact of a longer duration, by asking 44 participants to undertake various computer-based activities for 45 minutes, including watching emotive video clips.

While half the participants were asked to use self-control during the activities, for example not showing their emotions in response to the videos, the other group did not have to exert self-control.

Each participant was also fitted with an electroencephalogram (EEG) headset, allowing the researchers to measure their brain activity.

Among other results, the team found participants in the self-control group showed increases in delta brain wave activity in the areas of the prefrontal cortex related to decision-making and impulse control, compared with their brain activity at the start of the activities. No such change was seen for the other group.

Crucially, said Ordali, delta waves are typically seen during sleep rather than wake – suggesting parts of the brain had “dozed off” in participants who had exerted self-control.

The team then asked both groups to take part in a variety of games, including one known as “hawks and doves”, where individuals had to decide whether to cooperate to share resources, or behave in a hostile manner to secure them.

The results reveal 86% of participants who were not asked to exert self-control at the start of the study behaved like doves, engaging in peaceful cooperation. In contrast, the figure was just 41% among participants initially given self-control tasks, suggesting they tended to behave like hawks.

The team found no differences when it came to games that examined participants’ general social preferences, such as how altruistic they were.

The team then split another 403 participants into two groups and repeated the study, but without recording participants’ brain activity. Again, participants who were asked to show self-control subsequently behaved more aggressively.

Michael Inzlicht, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto who was not involved in the study, urged caution noting most of the behavioural results did not show significant effects, while the connection between brain and behaviour was not strong.

“These are interesting results and are consistent with a commonsense view of fatigue,” he said. “But given all the past controversy and the weakness of this data, I would want to see if they were replicated independently before calling the press about it.”