The French government appears likely to fall later this week after leftwing and far-right parties lodged motions of no confidence in the government.

If passed by MPs, the motions, which will be put to a vote in the national assembly on Wednesday, will bring down the government and force the resignation of the prime minister, Michel Barnier, after only two and a half months.

The New Popular Front (NFP), a leftwing coalition that includes the Socialists, Greens, hard left and Communist party, had already warned it would put forward a motion to censure the government if it forced through a belt-tightening social security budget without a vote.

But after Barnier used the controversial “49.3” constitutional clause to push through the legislation, Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Rally (RN) increased the pressure on his government by announcing that her party was lodging a second no-confidence motion.

Together, the NFP and the RN have enough MPs to topple the government – the first time a French government has been dispatched in such a way since 1962.

In an attempt to head off a crisis, Barnier had made last-minute concessions to the RN. After speaking to Le Pen, Barnier said on Monday that there would be no change to medication reimbursements in 2025, contrary to original plans.

Addressing the lower house, Barnier said he had consulted all parliamentary groups but numerous constraints on the country required a reduction in the public deficit.

“I respect the culture of compromise. There have been numerous hours of work to enrich this text … it has had multiple evolutions,” he said.

He told MPs they faced “a moment of truth”. “It means everyone facing up to their responsibilities. The French will not forgive you if you support particular (political) interests above the future of the nation,” he said.

“Everyone must take responsibility for their actions and I take mine.”

Le Pen, head of the RN parliamentary group, accused Barnier, who was appointed prime minister by President Emmanuel Macron in September, of not keeping his promise to listen to political groups opposed to the budget bill.

“He turned to the RN a week ago and we repeated our red lines. We haven’t pulled these red lines out of a hat for our pleasure. It is unfair for the French people to pay the consequences of the incompetence of Emmanuel Macron over the last seven years. To punish the French for what they are not responsible but their leaders are is not possible,” she said.

Le Pen added: “There are other ways of addressing the already high deficit. We have made proposals. The government did not want to budge. Michel Barnier said he was facing up to his responsibility. We are facing up to ours.”

Mathilde Panot, an MP for the hard-left Unbowed France (LFI) said of the no-confidence motion: “We can bring down Mr Barnier and this budget.” She described the government’s last-minute discussions with the far right as “haggling” and said “it’s all a trick”. She blamed Macron for plunging the country into chaos.

If the no-confidence motion is carried on Wednesday, Barnier will be forced to offer his resignation, but he and his ministers could remain in a caretaker administration until Macron announces a new government.

Macron could ask parties to seek a new coalition majority or appoint a strictly technocratic government, bringing in people from outside political circles to administer the country until new legislative elections can be held in the summer. No general election can take place within 12 months of the previous vote.

Last week, Barnier, the EU’s former Brexit negotiator, said a no-confidence vote would spark a “big storm and very serious turbulence on the financial markets”.

France has been heading towards this political crisis since Macron called a snap election in June that left parliament divided into three roughly equal political factions – left, centre and far right – but none of which has an absolute majority.

The standoff was caused by the government seeking to tackle France’s growing public deficit through €60bn (£50bn) in tax increases and spending cuts in its 2025 budget.

If the censure motion is successful, it would be only the second time a French government has been brought down since 1958, when the fifth republic was formed. Georges Pompidou’s government was the last to be torpedoed in such a manner in 1962, when Charles de Gaulle was president.

At least 56 people have died and dozens of others were injured in a crowd crush at a football stadium in southern Guinea, authorities in the west African state said.

The Stade du 3 Avril in Nzérékoré, the country’s second largest city, was hosting the final of a football tournament in honour of the leader of the country’s junta, Mamady Doumbouya, on Sunday afternoon. Local reports said thousands of spectators were present at the stadium and children were among the victims but did not give a definitive figure in either case.

Witnesses said a disputed red card was awarded by the referee to the home team of Nzérékoré in the 82nd minute of the match, leading to a penalty. Fans of the visiting Labé team invaded the pitch and threw stones, while security personnel reportedly responded by releasing teargas that enveloped the crowd, with many people running over each other in an attempt to escape.

A witness told Reuters by phone: “In the rush and scramble that followed [the teargas], I saw people fall to the ground, girls and children trampled underfoot. It was horrible.”

Guinea’s prime minister, Bah Oury, condemned the violence and urged calm in a post on X on Sunday. He said the government would release a statement once it had gathered all the information.

The former Guinean president Alpha Condé issued a criticism in a statement: “In a context where the country is already marked by tensions and restrictions, this tragedy highlights the dangers of irresponsible organisation.”

Stadium tragedies are not uncommon in Guinea. In 2009, more than 150 people were killed and dozens of women were raped by soldiers at a stadium in the country’s capital, Conakry, where more than 50,000 people were protesting against the then dictator Dadis Camara’s plan to run for president in democratic elections.

The National Alliance for Alternation and Democracy opposition coalition called for an investigation into Sunday’s incident. It said the tournament was organised to drum up support for Doumbouya’s “illegal and inappropriate” political ambitions.

The military leader came to power in 2021 after a coup deposed Condé, Guinea’s first democratically elected president, in the wake of a controversial third-term victory. Guinea is one of a number of countries in west and central Africa where military takeovers have caused political upheaval since 2020.

Doumbouya, who is believed to be considering a presidential run in next year’s election, dissolved 53 political parties in October.

Joe Biden has been criticised by some of his own supporters for issuing a pardon to his son Hunter that he had previously sworn not to give.

The president’s volte face drew predictable fire from Republicans, led by president-elect Donald Trump, who called it a “miscarriage of justice” and used it to raise the case of the jailed ringleaders of the January 6, 2021 assault on the US Capitol, who he has suggested he will pardon when he returns to the White House.

“Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years?” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Yet it was condemnation from fellow Democrats – some of whom said he had handed Trump justification for his own use of the presidential pardon power – that seemed likely to carry greater sting.

Jared Polis, the Democratic governor of Colorado, said Biden had risked his own reputation and legacy.

“While as a father I certainly understand President @JoeBiden’s natural desire to help his son by pardoning him, I am disappointed that he put his family ahead of the country,” Polis posted on X.

“This is a bad precedent that could be abused by later Presidents and will sadly tarnish his reputation.

“When you become President, your role is Pater familias of the nation. Hunter brought the legal trouble he faced on himself, and one can sympathize with his struggles while also acknowledging that no one is above the law, not a President and not a President’s son.”

Hunter Biden was convicted by a court in Delaware last June of lying on a gun licence application at a time when he was addicted to cocaine. He was later convicted of separate tax evasion charges in a court in California.

He was scheduled to be sentenced for both convictions in hearings this month.

Biden justified his pardon by insisting that Hunter’s prosecutions had been driven by “raw politics” and would not have been pressed had his father not been president.

That interpretation was rejected by Greg Stanton, a Democrat House member for Arizona.

“I respect President Biden, but I think he got this one wrong,” he posted on social media.

“This wasn’t a politically-motivated prosecution. Hunter committed felonies, and was convicted by a jury of his peers.”

Joe Walsh, an anti-Trump former Republican congressman who endorsed Biden for president, called the pardon deflating because it enabled Trump to validate his own much-criticised pardons of friends and supporters.

“This just furthers the cynicism that people have about politics,” he told MSNBC. “That cynicism strengthens Trump because Trump can just say: ‘I’m not a unique threat. Everybody does this. If I do something for my kid, my son-in-law, look, Joe Biden does the same thing.’ I get it, but this was a selfish move by Biden which politically only strengthens Trump.”

In the Atlantic magazine, Jonathan Chait argued that the president had undermined the democratic values that he had previously championed.

“Principles become much harder to defend when their most famous defenders have compromised them flagrantly,” he wrote.

“With the pardon decision, like his stubborn insistence on running for a second term he couldn’t win, Biden chose to prioritize his own feelings over the defense of his country.”

Some Democrats leaped to Biden’s defence.

“Hunter. Here’s the reality. No US [attorney] would have charged this case given the underlying facts,” Eric Holder, an attorney general under Barack Obama, wrote on X.

“Had his name been Joe Smith the resolution would have been – fundamentally and more fairly – a declination. Pardon warranted.”

Jasmine Crocket, a Texas member of the House of Representatives, went further, saying: “Let me be the first to congratulate the president.”

“At the end of the day, we know that we have a 34-count convicted felon that is about to walk into the White House,” she told MSNBC, referring to Trump’s conviction by a New York court on document falsification charges relating to hush money paid to a porn actor.

Alluding to allegations against several of Trump’s cabinet nominees, she added: “For anyone that wants to clutch their pearls now because [Biden] decided that he was going to pardon his son, I would say take a look in the mirror because we also know that … this cabinet has more people accused of sexual assault than any incoming cabinet probably in the history of America.”

Sarah Longwell, another anti-Trump Republican strategist who endorsed Kamala Harris’s presidential bid, wrote: “‘Trump is worse’ is never a good argument to justify bad behavior.

“Biden knows it’s wrong. That’s why he committed over and over to not doing it. It doesn’t make him the same as Trump. It doesn’t erase how singularly corrupt Trump’s current appointments are. It’s simply wrong and we should say so, lest we forget that right and wrong still exist and awareness of it matters in our President.

A loving act of mercy by a father who has already known much sorrow? Or a hypocritical political manoeuvre reminiscent of his great foe? Maybe both can be true.

Joe Biden’s announcement on Sunday that he had pardoned his son Hunter, who is facing sentencing in two criminal cases, is likely to have been the product of a Shakespearean struggle between head and heart.

On the one hand, Biden is one of the last great institutionalists in Washington. “From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making,” he said in an unusually direct and personal statement on Sunday. To undermine the separation of powers goes against every fibre of his political being.

On the other hand, Biden is nothing without family. His speeches are peppered with references to his parents. As a senator, he once took a train from Washington to Wilmington, Delaware, so he could blow out the candles on a birthday cake for his eight-year-old daughter, Ashley, at the station, then cross the platform and take the next train back to work.

Biden was profoundly shaped by the death of his first wife, Neilia Hunter Biden, and 13-month-old daughter Naomi in a car accident and, much later, the death of his son Beau from brain cancer. In that context, Hunter’s status as the first child of a sitting president to face criminal charges will have pained his father in what Ernest Hemingway called “the broken places”.

Hunter was convicted this summer of lying about his drug use when he bought a gun. Joe Biden categorically ruled out a pardon or commutation for his son, telling reporters: “I abide by the jury decision. I will do that and I will not pardon him.” Hunter also pleaded guilty in a separate tax evasion trial and was due to be sentenced in both cases later this month.

Biden reportedly spent months agonising over what to do. The scales were almost certainly tilted by Donald Trump’s victory in last month’s presidential election. The prospect of leaving Hunter to the tender mercies of Trump’s sure-to-be politicised, retribution-driven justice department was too much to bear. Biden typically takes advice from close family and is likely to have reached the decision after talking it over during what was an intimate Thanksgiving weekend.

“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son – and that is wrong,” the president said in a statement, calling it “a miscarriage of justice”.

He added: “There has been an effort to break Hunter – who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution. In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me – and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”

Joe Biden’s defenders will certainly contend that, if Hunter had been an ordinary citizen, the gun case would not have come this far, and his father was simply righting that wrong. Republicans spent years hyping investigations into Hunter that failed to produce a shred of evidence linking his father to corruption.

Eric Holder, a former attorney general, wrote on social media that no US attorney “would have charged this case given the underlying facts. After a five-year investigation the facts as discovered only made that clear. Had his name been Joe Smith the resolution would have been – fundamentally and more fairly – a declination. Pardon warranted.”

It was also noted that this is hardly the first time pardons have smacked of nepotism. Bill Clinton as president pardoned his half-brother for old cocaine charges, and Trump pardoned the father of Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, for tax evasion and retaliating against a cooperating witness, though in both cases those men had already served their prison terms. Trump also used the dog days of his first presidency to pardon the rogues’ gallery of Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort and Roger Stone.

And yet for many Americans there will be something jarring about the double standard of a president pardoning a member of his own family ahead of numerous other worthy cases. Republicans in the House of Representatives naturally pounced with more hyperbole about the “Biden crime family”.

But there were also more thoughtful objections. Jared Polis, the Democratic governor of Colorado, wrote on social media: “While as a father I certainly understand President Joe Biden’s natural desire to help his son by pardoning him, I am disappointed that he put his family ahead of the country. This is a bad precedent that could be abused by later Presidents and will sadly tarnish his reputation.”

Joe Walsh, a former Republican congressman turned Trump critic, said on the MSNBC network: “Joe Biden repeatedly said he wouldn’t do this so he repeatedly lied. This just furthers cynicism that people have about politics and that cynicism strengthens Trump because Trump can say, ‘I’m not a unique threat. Everybody does this. If I do something for my kid, my son-in-law, whatever, look, Joe Biden does the same thing.’ I get it but this was a selfish move by Biden, which politically only strengthens Trump. It’s just deflating.”

The Trump context is impossible to ignore in this moral maze. Next month he will become the first convicted criminal sworn in as president, though three cases against him have all but perished. He is already moving to appoint loyalists to the FBI and justice department.

Michelle Obama once advised, when they go low, we go high. On Sunday Joe Biden, 82 and heading for the exit with little to lose, decided to go low. Perhaps it was what any parent would have done.

Iranian-backed Iraqi militias crossed into eastern Syria overnight in an attempt to shore up struggling forces loyal to Damascus, battling an insurgency that has swept much of the country’s north-west as Islamist militants seized control of Aleppo.

An officer with the Syrian army told Reuters that the Iraqi militia forces crossing the border were “fresh reinforcements being sent to aid our comrades on the frontlines in the north”.

The Iraqi militants, which include fighters from Kataib Hezbollah and Fatemiyoun groups, arrived near the eastern Syrian town of Bukamal overnight to join units already deployed within Syria in support of Damascus, according to the Associated Press.

Forces loyal to the president, Bashar al-Assad, were unexpectedly swept from Syria’s second city over the weekend after an offensive spearheaded by Islamist militants from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), who claimed swaths of new territory across northern Syria alongside rebel groups backed by Turkey.

The rout of Syrian army forces from Aleppo, amid reports their defensive lines crumbled in the face of the advance, undermined Assad’s already fractured control of the country, which has relied heavily on support from Moscow and Tehran. As battles flared across north-western Syria with insurgents attempting to move south, Assad’s allies attempted to shore up support for Damascus, fuelling an already years-long proxy war.

The Syrian president moved to crush a popular uprising against him in 2011, which quickly spiralled into a bloody civil war. Damascus employed air support from Russia during a prolonged battle to retake Aleppo that ended in 2016, while Assad also deployed chemical weapons and siege tactics against his own people.

Damascus has remained dependent on Iranian ground troops as well as backing from Iranian-allied Iraqi militias to support flagging Syrian army forces in his attempt to keep control of the country.

The sudden loss of Aleppo left Assad and his regional partners, as well as their opponents, scrambling to adjust. After a meeting with Assad in Damascus on Sunday evening, the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, labelled their talks a “useful, frank and friendly” discussion, adding that the Syrian president had “admirable … courage and spirit”.

The Iraqi prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, also discussed the sudden changes in Syria with Jordan’s King Abdullah II, telling him that “Syria’s security and stability are closely linked to Iraq’s national security and play a crucial role in regional security”, according to his office.

Araghchi arrived in Ankara for talks with the Turkish foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, early on Monday morning. Ankara had previously made public overtures towards Damascus in a move to try to normalise relations, while backing rebel groups along Syria’s northern border.

“We do not want to see an escalation of the civil war in Syria,” said Fidan after their meeting, advocating for the Syrian regime in Damascus to “reconcile with its own people and legitimate opposition”.

He added that Ankara did not want to see the further displacement of civilians and that “the flow of refugees should stop, and reverse”.

As Moscow emphasised the need for cooperation with Ankara, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and his Iranian counterpart, Masoud Pezeshkian, pledged “unconditional support” for Assad’s control of Syria during a phone conversation.

The defence ministry in Damascus said it had deployed military reinforcements to Hama and other flashpoints as they attempted to mount a counterattack, amid reports of further Syrian and Russian airstrikes on Idlib, the centre of HTS control.

The Syrian civil defence, known as the White Helmets, said Damascus conducted several strikes on neighbourhoods in Idlib, killing five civilians and injuring 30. Ismail Alabdullah, of the White Helmets, speaking after he returned from Aleppo to Idlib, said 15 people were killed in total after a second strike targeted a camp for the internally displaced there and a third hit a nearby village.

“Just now there was an attack on the city hospital in Idlib, two people died as it caused the oxygen supply to the hospital to break down,” he said.

With Islamist opposition militants in control of Aleppo, the White Helmets said they had expanded their rescue efforts there after Syrian and Russian strikes on the city. An airstrike targeted a central neighbourhood of Aleppo for the second day in a row, causing material damage and sparking fears about further reprisals by Damascus.

“No one was prepared for bombardments on this scale over such a large area,” said Alabdullah. He added that Damascus and Russian air forces were deploying weaponry familiar from the previous strikes on Aleppo almost a decade ago, and sporadically employed in the years since to target areas in Idlib.

“We have a team in Aleppo and we’re doing everything we can to respond, but the regime is still bombing so we know we are going to face more difficulties. The situation is very difficult,” he said.

Despite airstrikes pummelling areas of Aleppo and Idlib, the White Helmets said they had also broadened their operations to try to assist tens of thousands of displaced people to return to their homes across north-western Syria, while cautioning people not to return to areas under bombardment.

“Supporting the return of forcibly displaced Syrians to their homes is one of our top priorities,” they said in a statement.

Oubadah Alwan, a spokesperson for the White Helmets, said they had advocated caution in their returns because of unexploded ordnance.

“Our teams are working to clear and secure areas after attacks, but of course with so many attacks happening they are spread thin,” he said.

Fuad, a university lecturer living in western Aleppo who requested a pseudonym for his own safety, said Aleppo’s new rulers had asked people to remain at home “for their safety, and to protect their property … people were allowed to go out to get food and necessities”.

“I heard they gave reassurances to residents that they will be safe, which is really important at this stage as people are scared,” he said.

The Belgian state has been found guilty of crimes against humanity for the forced removal of five mixed-race children from their mothers in colonial Congo.

In a long-awaited landmark ruling issued on Monday, Belgium’s court of appeal said that five women, born in the Belgian Congo and now in their 70s, had been victims of “systematic kidnapping” by the state when they were removed from their mothers as small children and sent to Catholic institutions because of their mixed-race origins.

“This is a victory and a historic judgment,” Michèle Hirsch, one of the lawyers for the women, told local media. “It is the first time in Belgium and probably in Europe that a court has condemned the Belgian colonial state for crimes against humanity.”

Monique Bitu Bingi, who was removed from her mother aged three, told the Guardian that justice had been done. “I am relieved,” she said. “The judges have recognised that this was a crime against humanity.”

She received news of the judgment alongside the four other women who brought the case in their lawyer’s office. “We jumped for joy,” she said.

Noëlle Verbeken, who was removed from her mother and placed 500km away, told Belgium’s Francophone public broadcaster RTBF: “This decision says that we have a certain value in the world. We are recognised.”

Bringing the case with Bitu-Bingi and Verbeken were Léa Tavares Mujinga, Simone Ngalula and Marie-José Loshi. All five were born to Congolese mothers and European fathers, putting them in the crosshairs of the Belgian colonial state that deemed mixed-race children a threat to the white supremacist order.

They were forcibly removed from their Congolese mothers between 1948 and 1953, as small children, and sent to a Catholic mission in the central southern Kasaï province in the Belgian Congo, many miles from their home villages.

Reversing an earlier decision, the court of appeal said that their forced removal was “an inhuman act” and “persecution constituting a crime against humanity” in accordance with the Nuremberg tribunal statute, recognised by the UN general assembly in 1946.

The five women had launched an appeal after losing their case in a lower court in 2021. The tribunal of first instance sided with the Belgian government in finding their forced removal and segregation was not a crime during the colonial era.

But the court of appeal rejected these arguments, noting that Belgium had been a signatory of the Nuremberg tribunal statue set up to convict Nazi crimes, which introduced the concept of crimes against humanity. The court ordered the state to pay the women €50,000 in damages each for the suffering caused by breaking their ties to their mothers, home environments and loss of identity. It also said the government must pay “more than €1m” in legal costs.

The women had limited damages they sought to €50,000, because if they had lost they would be liable to pay the state compensation based on the original claim.

The Belgian ministry of foreign affairs, which represented the government, has been contacted for comment.

Although the precise numbers are unclear, thousands of children were affected by the policy of forced removals and segregation during Belgium’s decades-long rule over the territories of the modern-day Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi.

The system had its origins with Belgium’s King Léopold II, who ruled Congo as his personal fiefdom from 1885 until 1908, when the territory was ceded to the Belgian state. The removals policy was updated in 1952, even after the legal concept of crimes against humanity was established after the horrors of the second world war.

Arriving at the mission at Katende, the girls were enrolled on the register of “mulattoes”, an offensive term to describe a person of mixed parentage. The register stated that their fathers were unknown, a falsehood; the father’s name was even written in brackets in some cases. The women were given new surnames and some had their date of birth falsified.

At the Catholic mission, they were told they were “children of sin” and received meagre rations and little care from nuns, who resented having to look after them. When Congo became independent in 1960 the girls were abandoned by the departing colonial power. In the chaos of civil war that engulfed the newly independent state, two of the girls were raped by militia men.

Decades later, four of the women obtained Belgian citizenship, often after lengthy legal battles. Marie-José Loshi was never granted Belgian nationality and eventually settled in France, where she acquired citizenship. The other four women live in Belgium.

Offering slender relief for the Belgian government, the court decided that the women’s difficulties in obtaining Belgian nationality and official documents about their childhood could not be considered crimes against humanity.

In 2018 Belgium’s then prime minister, Charles Michel, apologised for the treatment of the children of mixed couples, known as métis, saying the state had breached their fundamental human rights. The government set up an official body to help people taken from their parents to trace their origins in the colonial archives. That organisation, Résolution-Métis, is also investigating how many people were affected by the policy, but has said sources were “deficient and fragmentary”.

The Belgian state has been found guilty of crimes against humanity for the forced removal of five mixed-race children from their mothers in colonial Congo.

In a long-awaited landmark ruling issued on Monday, Belgium’s court of appeal said that five women, born in the Belgian Congo and now in their 70s, had been victims of “systematic kidnapping” by the state when they were removed from their mothers as small children and sent to Catholic institutions because of their mixed-race origins.

“This is a victory and a historic judgment,” Michèle Hirsch, one of the lawyers for the women, told local media. “It is the first time in Belgium and probably in Europe that a court has condemned the Belgian colonial state for crimes against humanity.”

Monique Bitu Bingi, who was removed from her mother aged three, told the Guardian that justice had been done. “I am relieved,” she said. “The judges have recognised that this was a crime against humanity.”

She received news of the judgment alongside the four other women who brought the case in their lawyer’s office. “We jumped for joy,” she said.

Noëlle Verbeken, who was removed from her mother and placed 500km away, told Belgium’s Francophone public broadcaster RTBF: “This decision says that we have a certain value in the world. We are recognised.”

Bringing the case with Bitu-Bingi and Verbeken were Léa Tavares Mujinga, Simone Ngalula and Marie-José Loshi. All five were born to Congolese mothers and European fathers, putting them in the crosshairs of the Belgian colonial state that deemed mixed-race children a threat to the white supremacist order.

They were forcibly removed from their Congolese mothers between 1948 and 1953, as small children, and sent to a Catholic mission in the central southern Kasaï province in the Belgian Congo, many miles from their home villages.

Reversing an earlier decision, the court of appeal said that their forced removal was “an inhuman act” and “persecution constituting a crime against humanity” in accordance with the Nuremberg tribunal statute, recognised by the UN general assembly in 1946.

The five women had launched an appeal after losing their case in a lower court in 2021. The tribunal of first instance sided with the Belgian government in finding their forced removal and segregation was not a crime during the colonial era.

But the court of appeal rejected these arguments, noting that Belgium had been a signatory of the Nuremberg tribunal statue set up to convict Nazi crimes, which introduced the concept of crimes against humanity. The court ordered the state to pay the women €50,000 in damages each for the suffering caused by breaking their ties to their mothers, home environments and loss of identity. It also said the government must pay “more than €1m” in legal costs.

The women had limited damages they sought to €50,000, because if they had lost they would be liable to pay the state compensation based on the original claim.

The Belgian ministry of foreign affairs, which represented the government, has been contacted for comment.

Although the precise numbers are unclear, thousands of children were affected by the policy of forced removals and segregation during Belgium’s decades-long rule over the territories of the modern-day Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi.

The system had its origins with Belgium’s King Léopold II, who ruled Congo as his personal fiefdom from 1885 until 1908, when the territory was ceded to the Belgian state. The removals policy was updated in 1952, even after the legal concept of crimes against humanity was established after the horrors of the second world war.

Arriving at the mission at Katende, the girls were enrolled on the register of “mulattoes”, an offensive term to describe a person of mixed parentage. The register stated that their fathers were unknown, a falsehood; the father’s name was even written in brackets in some cases. The women were given new surnames and some had their date of birth falsified.

At the Catholic mission, they were told they were “children of sin” and received meagre rations and little care from nuns, who resented having to look after them. When Congo became independent in 1960 the girls were abandoned by the departing colonial power. In the chaos of civil war that engulfed the newly independent state, two of the girls were raped by militia men.

Decades later, four of the women obtained Belgian citizenship, often after lengthy legal battles. Marie-José Loshi was never granted Belgian nationality and eventually settled in France, where she acquired citizenship. The other four women live in Belgium.

Offering slender relief for the Belgian government, the court decided that the women’s difficulties in obtaining Belgian nationality and official documents about their childhood could not be considered crimes against humanity.

In 2018 Belgium’s then prime minister, Charles Michel, apologised for the treatment of the children of mixed couples, known as métis, saying the state had breached their fundamental human rights. The government set up an official body to help people taken from their parents to trace their origins in the colonial archives. That organisation, Résolution-Métis, is also investigating how many people were affected by the policy, but has said sources were “deficient and fragmentary”.

The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has arrived in Kyiv for an unannounced visit that marks his first trip to Ukraine since the early months of full-scale war in the summer of 2022.

Scholz, who is due to announce a package of military aid to Ukraine worth €650m (£540m), arrived at Kyiv’s central station early on Monday morning, smiling and clutching a large metal briefcase as he disembarked the train.

“For more than 1,000 days, Ukraine has defended itself heroically against the merciless Russian war of aggression,” he said in the Ukrainian capital, adding that Germany would “remain the strongest supporter of Ukraine in Europe”, as he promised speedy arms deliveries.

He said the latest armaments package would be delivered this month, adding that Ukraine could rely on Germany. “We say what we do. And we do what we say,” he said.

The visit appeared designed to reassure Ukraine of German support, after Scholz faced criticism for a recent phone call he initiated with Vladimir Putin, and with much of Europe braced for the uncertainty of a Donald Trump presidency and what it may mean for the war in Ukraine.

Scholz also has one eye on his domestic political situation, where he faces a confidence vote in two weeks’ time and is hoping for re-election in a February ballot called after his coalition government collapsed last month. He has been criticised both by politicians who want Germany to stop sending weapons to Ukraine, and by those who want him to do more, including sending long-range Taurus missiles to Kyiv, which he has so far refused to do.

The war is high on the agenda in Germany, and is expected to play a big role in the upcoming elections. It is also prominent in German people’s minds, not least as they have been urged to think about their war-readiness, by building shelters or bunkers and storing provisions, amid advice from German intelligence that Russia could be capable of attacking the country within the next five years.

Scholz has attempted to present himself as a “chancellor of peace” and denied at the weekend that he was “instrumentalising” the Ukraine conflict for his own political gain. “It’s a topic whether I talk about it or not,” he told a meeting of his Social Democrats, and accused the opposition leader Friedrich Merz, who could be Germany’s next chancellor, of in effect giving Russia an ultimatum that he warned could quickly lead to escalation.

The German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, was meanwhile in Beijing on Monday where she told her Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, that Beijing’s support for Moscow was contributing to an intensification of the war against its interests.

“The Russian president is not only destroying our European peace order through his war against Ukraine, but is now dragging Asia into it via North Korea,” she said at a press conference, in reference to the recent deployment of North Korean troops and the use of Chinese-made drones.

Scholz angered Ukraine when he called Putin last month, a conversation the German chancellor said was aimed at informing the Russian president that western support for Ukraine would not falter, and to sound out whether there was any softening of Moscow’s conditions for negotiations. It was the first time the leader of a major western country had called Putin since the end of 2022.

“Mr Putin, do not expect us to reduce our support. You have to find a way out of this war. You must stop your attacks and withdraw your troops,” said Scholz after the call, summarising his message.

The call was roundly criticised, including by Zelenskyy, who said at the time that Scholz could open a “Pandora’s box” by speaking to Putin. “Now there may be other conversations, other calls. Just a lot of words … And this is exactly what Putin has long wanted: it is crucial for him to weaken his isolation, Russia’s isolation,” Zelenskyy said.

Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, Oleksiy Makeyev, also expressed anger over Scholz’s refusal to send Taurus missiles to Ukraine, arguing that this encouraged Moscow to carry out further attacks. “It is wrong to disclose what you will not do,” he said. “This is a blank cheque for the Russians.”

Trump has promised to make a swift peace in Ukraine a diplomatic priority when he takes office, previously saying he could solve the conflict “in 24 hours”, but has given few details of how he would do so. The US president-elect recently appointed the retired army general Keith Kellogg as his Ukraine and Russia envoy.

According to a Kremlin readout of last month’s conversation between Putin and Scholz, the Russian president demanded that any potential agreement on Ukraine should be based on the “new territorial realities and address the root causes of the conflict”. Putin has previously said he wants four territories claimed by Russia in 2022, as well as Crimea, and a guarantee that Ukraine would not join Nato.

Zelenskyy said on Sunday he was ready to discuss freezing the conflict along current lines as long as Ukraine received an invitation to Nato or equivalent security guarantees.

The US Coast Guard said Sunday it’s searching for five people after a fishing boat reportedly capsized in rough weather and seas near Alaska’s capital of Juneau.

The crew of the approximately 50ft (15-meter) boat, the Wind Walker, sent a mayday call that the vessel was overturning at about 12.10am, but the Coast Guard’s attempts to get more information from the crew went unanswered, according to a press release from the military branch. The Wind Walker capsized on waters off Point Couverden, south-west of Juneau.

The crew of a ferry named the AMHS Hubbard overheard the broadcast and went to the scene first, with the coast guard launching an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter and a response boat, according to the press release. Seven cold-water immersion suits and two strobe lights were found in the water in the search area.

Responders faced heavy snow, winds up to 60mph (96km/h) and 6ft seas, with part of the region, which is located in the Gulf of Alaska, under a winter storm warning.

The coast guard said that people who know the crew of the Wind Walker, which originated just south of Point Couverden in Icy Strait, said there were five people aboard, but officials were not immediately able to confirm that number.

The Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi, who was sentenced to death in April for his support of anti-regime protests, has been released from prison by the Iranian authorities.

Salehi was sentenced by a revolutionary court in April for backing the Woman, Life, Freedom protests in September 2022 after the death of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman who died in police custody.

He was arrested in October 2022 for making public statements in support of public protests. The popular rapper’s songs also condemned oppression and executions in Iran.

During his detention, Salehi claimed he had been subjected to torture, which included beatings that caused fractures to his hands and leg, and prolonged periods of solitary confinement.

In June 2024, Iran’s supreme court overturned his death sentence after sustained pressure for him to be freed, yet refused to release him.

Negin Niknaam, a spokesperson for the rapper, told the Guardian that neither Salehi nor his family had been told that he was to be freed.

“Toomaj himself didn’t know he was going to be released. They told him at 23.30 that he is to be released right away. His father was asleep and they took him home discreetly at 12am because they feared due to his popularity people would gather outside the prison.”

According to Arezou Eghbali Babadi, Salehi’s cousin, who is based in Belgium, news of his release had been greeted with cautious optimism by his family and supporters. “While we celebrate his freedom, we will never forget that he should have never spent even a moment in prison for simply demanding freedom and humanity,” she said.

“We will not forget the brutal torture he endured or the immense pressure the regime placed on all of us. We must absolutely remain vigilant to ensure Toomaj stays safe. And we will not forget the countless other freedom seekers still unjustly imprisoned, waiting for us to be their voice and to continue the fight for a free Iran.”

The anti-whaling activist Paul Watson will learn within 14 days whether he will be extradited to Japan, a court has been told, as his four-month imprisonment in Greenland was extended.

At a hearing in Nuuk, the capital of the autonomous territory of Denmark, the judge Lars-Christian Sinkbæk said that Watson, who turned 74 on Monday, would continue to be detained in a high security prison pending a decision from the Danish government. Watson’s legal team immediately submitted an appeal to Greenland’s high court.

Addressing the hearing, Watson, one of the early pioneers behind the environmental campaign group Greenpeace, said: “In July, I had no idea that I would be sitting here in court in Greenland on my birthday today. It is a political case being run against me. It is a minimal case that has been run up. Denmark is known as a very trustworthy legal society, but look what it has become.”

Watson has been in Greenland’s prison, known as the Anstalten, since his arrest on 21 July by a dozen police officers while refuelling his ship, MV John Paul DeJoria. The police were acting on an Interpol red notice issued by Japan.

Tokyo is seeking his extradition on charges of stopping a lawful business, trespass, damage to property and assault relating to the alleged boarding of the Japanese whaling ship Shonan Maru 2 in the Southern Ocean in February 2010. The charges carry a sentence of up to 15 years in jail.

It is accepted by the prosecution that Watson, who has been involved in thwarting whalers for five decades, was not present at the time of the alleged crime. It is instead claimed that he was party to the decision by the activist Peter Bethune to board the vessel and throw a stink bomb on to its deck.

The bomb’s chemical components allegedly lightly injured a member of crew. Watson’s defence disputes that this would be possible.

Bethune was seized by the whalers at the time and given a two-year sentence, suspended for five years. As part of that sentence, he named Watson as a co-conspirator.

On his release, Bethune signed an affidavit in which he claimed to have named Watson in order to get a reduced sentence. Watson’s legal team argue that their client was not involved in the crime and that the charges are insufficiently serious for him to be extradited.

In response, the prosecution told the court on Monday that the charges would probably lead to a one-year prison sentence under Danish law.

The court was informed by Greenland’s chief prosecutor, Mariam Khalil, that “the ministry of justice is gathering the final information from Japan to be able to make a decision” on extradition.

She added: “The Ministry of Justice has confirmed by email on 30 November 2024 that a final decision is expected within 14 days.”

The prosecution sought an extra 28 days of detention but the court gave leave for Watson to be detained until 18 December.

Should the Danish government grant Japan’s extradition request within the next two weeks, Watson would be able to appeal against that decision, opening up the potential for a lengthy legal tussle and further time in jail.

The defence had also claimed that Watson’s regular travels without disturbance since 2012 when the Interpol red notice was issued, including a visit to Monaco to see Prince Albert, illustrated that the decision to request 14 years after the alleged crime was politically motivated.

Khalil said that the Japanese arrest warrant, on which the Interpol red notice was based, had been renewed 28 times since it was first issued in 2010.

At the time of his arrest in Greenland, Watson had been on his way with a 32-strong crew to practise his decades-long policy of “non-violent aggression” by intercepting a new Japanese whaling “mothership”, the ¥7.5bn (£39.4m) Kangei Maru.

In an interview with the Guardian from a prison cell, Watson, who has two sons, aged three and eight, as well as a 44-year-old daughter, said he did not believe he would survive a spell in a Japanese prison should he be extradited.

He said: “I know that if I get sent to Japan, I’m not coming home.”

The Japanese embassy in the UK and the Danish ministry of justice did not respond to a request for comment.

Disgraced music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs had the opportunity to settle singer Cassie Ventura’s accusations of rape and other physical abuse before she went public – but he refused, leading to his professional downfall and likely setting the stage for federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges against him, according to a new podcast.

That fateful decision from Combs is explored in the opener of Law & Crime’s The Rise and Fall of Diddy, a three-episode series that is scheduled to debut Wednesday.

As the series recounts, Ventura and Combs ended a decade-long, on-and-off relationship in October 2018. She later married and had a child with a personal trainer whom Combs had initially hired for her, Alex Fine, while largely avoiding speaking about her ex.

But then New York’s passage of a law that temporarily suspended filing deadlines for lawsuits seeking civil damages over years-old sexual assault cases prompted Ventura to contact Combs again.

“She came to him before she filed [any] lawsuit and said, ‘I believed I was wronged by you,’” attorney and legal commentator Donte Mills says on the show, a preview of which was provided to the Guardian. “And she gave him an opportunity to settle the case before she brought [a] lawsuit.”

Mills, presented on the Rise and Fall of Diddy as a legal insider with intimate knowledge of the case, added: “And I know that both Sean Combs’ attorneys and Cassie’s attorneys were in conversation, in talks, to see if they can resolve the lawsuit, but they were not able to and those settlement negotiations fell through.”

The fallout from those unsuccessful talks was volcanic. Hours before the expiration of New York’s Adult Survivors Act in late November 2023, Ventura filed a lawsuit asserting that Combs raped her as well as otherwise abused her physically, mentally and emotionally, as the Rise and Fall of Diddy notes.

She also maintained that Combs forced her to engage in intercourse with male sex workers, encounters that were recorded on video.

It took about a day for the three-time Grammy winner to agree to pay an undisclosed sum to settle Ventura’s claims out of court. But that response from Combs failed to defuse a wave of lawsuits that followed from other people with similar allegations.

Federal authorities building a sex-trafficking case against Combs raided his properties in Los Angeles and Miami in March. In May, CNN had obtained and published a hotel security camera video showing Combs battering Ventura in 2016, exposing his denials that he had done anything wrong as lies.

Ultimately, in September, authorities arrested Combs on charges that he would force sex-trafficking victims to participate in group sex acts with his associates while he recorded video and masturbated. The charging documents labeled those encounters “freak offs”. And the documents said the “freak offs” were so physically exhausting for Combs and his victims – who, among other abuses, were coerced into ingesting drugs – that all typically required intravenous fluids to rehydrate afterwards.

“I truly believe the downfall of Sean Combs … began [with] the Cassie Ventura lawsuit,” Mills says on the Rise and Fall of Diddy, whose host is Law & Crime anchor Jesse Weber and which is being released to subscribers of the Wondery+ platform.

The Guardian has sought comment from publicists for Combs. Combs, who turned 55 in November, has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.

He is awaiting the outcome of the case against him in federal custody. On 27 November, Combs was denied bail a third time, with federal judge Arun Subramanian describing him as a “serious risk” for witness tampering.

Prosecutors had previously alleged that Combs tried to reach out to prospective witnesses and influence public opinion while in jail waiting for his case to be resolved.