Police in Germany have said a man suspected of killing at least five people and injuring hundreds more after a car was driven at speed through a crowded Christmas market faces charges of murder and attempted murder.

The suspect, named by German media as Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, a 50-year-old psychiatrist from Saudi Arabia who arrived in Germany in 2006, was remanded in custody late on Saturday after the attack in the central town of Magdeburg on Friday night.

Police said on Sunday that prosecutors had pressed charges of murder and attempted murder against Abdulmohsen, an anti-Islam activist who has made death threats online against German citizens and has a history of disputes with state authorities.

While thousands mourned the victims, identified as four women aged 52, 45, 75 and 67 and a nine-year-old boy, about 2,100 people attended a far-right rally billed as a “demonstration against terror”, local media reported.

Protesters at the rally wore black balaclavas and were filmed holding a large banner with the word “remigration”, a term popular with anti-immigration extremists seeking the mass deportation of migrants and people deemed not ethnically German.

The government is facing growing questions about whether more could have been done to prevent the attack, which injured 205 people, 40 of whom were in a critical condition.

Teams of surgeons have been working around the clock since the first survivors of the attack arrived, with one health worker telling local media of “blood on the floor everywhere, people screaming, lots of painkillers being administered”.

Abdulmohsen has described himself as a former Muslim and was an active user of the social media platform X, sharing dozens of posts daily focusing mainly on anti-Islam themes, criticising the religion and congratulating Muslims who had left it.

He had helped women flee Gulf countries, complained that Germany was not doing enough to help them, and also accused German authorities of failing to do enough to combat what he referred to as the “Islamification of Europe”.

As recently as August, Abdulmohsen also wrote on social media: “Is there a path to justice in Germany without blowing up a German embassy or randomly slaughtering German citizens? … If anyone knows it, please let me know.”

He also posted on X that he wished Germany’s former chancellor Angela Merkel could be jailed for life or executed, and in 2013 he was fined by a court in the city of Rostock for “disturbing the public peace by threatening to commit crimes”.

This year he was investigated in Berlin for the “misuse of emergency calls” after arguing with officers at a police station, local media reported. He had been on sick leave from his workplace, an addiction clinic near Magdeburg, since late October.

Mina Ahadi, the chair of an association of former Muslims in Germany, said Abdulmohsen was “no stranger to us, because he has been terrorising us for years”. She labelled him “a psychopath who adheres to ultra-right conspiracy ideologies”.

Der Spiegel magazine cited security sources as saying the Saudi secret service had alerted Germany’s spy agency BND last year to a post in which Abdulmohsen threatened Germany would pay a price for its treatment of Saudi refugees.

Die Welt newspaper, citing security sources, reported that German state and federal police had carried out a risk assessment of Abdulmohsen which concluded that he posed “no specific danger”.

The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, on Saturday condemned the “terrible, insane” attack and issued a call for national unity amid mounting political tension in the country as it heads towards federal elections on 23 February.

Opposition parties on the far right and far left were swift to criticise his government. The far-right AfD’s parliamentary leader, Bernd Baumann, demanded Scholz call a special session of the Bundestag on the “desolate” security situation.

The head of the far-left BSW party, Sahra Wagenknecht, said the interior minister, Nancy Faeser, must formally explain “why so many tips and warnings were ignored beforehand”.

The mass-circulation daily Bild demanded to know: “Why did our police and intelligence services do nothing, even though they had the Saudi on their radar? … And why were the tips from Saudi Arabia apparently ignored?”

Calling for sweeping reforms after the election and a complete “turnaround in internal security”, the paper claimed: “German authorities usually only find out about attack plans in time when foreign services warn them.”

Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, said on Saturday there was “no doubt that there is a link between the changed world in western Europe, the migration that flows there, especially illegal migration, and terrorist acts”.

Orbán vowed to “fight back” against European migration policies “because Brussels wants Magdeburg to happen to Hungary, too”.

Reuters and Agence-France Presse contributed to this report

A Saudi national alleged to have carried out a deadly attack on a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, which killed five and injured more than 200, had warned on social media that “something big will happen”.

The 50-year-old doctor is in police custody after a black BMW SUV ploughed 400 metres through a crowded market at speed, driving over some people and flinging others up into the air. A nine-year-old girl is among the dead.

There are 41 people in a critical condition with life-threatening injuries and the injured are being treated at 15 clinics around the country.

Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, who came to Germany in 2006 and applied for asylum a decade later, was apprehended by armed police in a dramatic altercation as shocked bystanders looked on just minutes after the attack. He was repeatedly told to “lie on the ground” adjacent to the battered BMW that moments before had mown scores of people to the ground.

Forensic scientists are investigating the possibility that Abdulmohsen had deliberately turned off the emergency braking mechanism on the BMW X3, which he had hired before the attack, in order to maximise its impact.

At a press conference held by police and prosecutors on Saturday evening, officials said initial questioning of Abdulmohsen, who has been charged with five murders and 200 attempted murders, had taken place, but declined to reveal anything the suspect had said. However, when asked about his motivation, the chief state prosecutor Horst Walter Nopens said: “It could be he was dissatisfied with the way in which Saudi Arabian refugees were dealt with in Magdeburg.”

Nopens said the attacker had bypassed security bollards and made use of a corridor for emergency service vehicles to be able to enter the market, which should have been blocked for anything other than ambulances and police vehicles.

Amid questions as to whether the attacker could have been stopped, Nopens added: “We didn’t have the perpetrator in our focus.”

Among the many threats of violence reportedly made on social media by Abdulmohsen, a self-declared critic of Islam and defender of Saudi women, was the wish to kill former chancellor Angela Merkel for her attempts to “Islamise Europe” by allowing refugees into the country in large numbers in 2015.

He had accused German authorities of trying to censor him. He said he had been isolated by friends and family after officially announcing he had renounced his Muslim faith. Patients – often asylum seekers – at the clinic 15km south of Magdeburg, where he worked as a consultant psychiatrist and psychotherapist, had accused him of being a “bad person” for doing so, he said.

Saudi authorities have told German media they warned German authorities more than once that he posed a threat. It is unclear if the warnings were acted upon.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who visited the scene of the attack on Saturday accompanied by members of his government and the leader of the state of Saxony-Anhalt, Reiner Haseloff, described the attack as “terrible and insane”.

After laying a white rose at the market, on the lane between wooden stalls down which the BMW had barrelled, Scholz said the choice of a Christmas market for an attack was particularly shocking, as was the timing.

It was almost eight years to the day since an Islamist terrorist had slammed a stolen lorry at speed into a Christmas market on Berlin’s Breitscheidplatz, killing 12 and injuring many more.

“There is no place more peaceful and joyful than a Christmas market,” Scholz said. “People come together for a few days before Christmas … to be together in contemplation but also to celebrate. To drink a glühwein, to eat a bratwurst. What a terrible act it is to injure and kill so many people there with such brutality.”

He cited the “almost 40” victims who had been injured “so seriously that we have to be very worried about them”.

Eyewitnesses described watching in horror as the car careered into the market at high speed about 7pm local time on Friday night, despite the hefty bollards erected around the square, which were disguised as giant colourful lego bricks. These have become customary across Germany following the Breitscheidplatz attack.

One woman said it appeared that the driver of the car, which headed towards the town hall, seemed to have specifically aimed at a fairytale-themed section of the market, where a large number of families with young children were gathered.

Terrorist experts expressed their astonishment at the nature of the attack, which lasted two to three minutes.Peter Neumann from King’s College London, a veteran terrorist expert, wrote on X: “After 25 years in this business, you think nothing could surprise you any more.

“But a 50-year-old Saudi ex-Muslim who lives in East Germany, loves the AfD and wants to punish Germany for its tolerance towards Islamists – that really wasn’t on my radar.”

Abdulmohsen had created a website to assist opponents of the regime in Saudi Arabia, in particular women, to escape the country and apply for asylum in Europe.

He had made considerable efforts to be taken seriously as a militant critic of Islam, describing himself in a 2019 interview in the august Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as “the most aggressive critic of Islam in history”.

He also demonstrated considerable support for the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), the anti-Islam, anti-immigrant party that is currently second in the polls.

His attention in recent months appeared to have turned to criticism of German authorities and a bias he thought they had against Saudis such as himself and female asylum seekers in particular who had renounced Islam.

In August, in one post, he reportedly wrote: “If Germany wants to kill us, we’ll massacre them, die, or go with pride to prison.”

The attack, one of the worst terrorist offences in the country’s history, comes at a critical moment for Germany. The country is in the thick of an election campaign after the collapse of Scholz’s three-way coalition last month over differences in how to deal with myriad challenges including a deep economic downturn, and profound differences over how to tackle immigration.

Across Germany, security was yet again tightened at many of the thousands of Christmas markets that are a feature of most towns and cities from the end of November until the end of December. Some markets closed amid safety concerns.

Magdeburg’s market will remain closed. Most of the lights in the city’s centre had been turned off, and a funfair close to the market was shut. But the chimes of a church clock continued to ring out with the melody of a favourite German Christmas carol, Fröhliche Weihnacht Überall (Merry Christmas Everywhere), a plaintive reminder of the celebrations that Magdeburgers had been preparing for just hours before, which were now shattered.

One city official said: “Christmas is over in Magdeburg.”

Interior minister Nancy Faeser had warned before the opening of the Christmas market season at the end of November of the potential danger of them becoming the focus of terrorist attacks, as has been the case for several years, but said there was no concrete evidence of attacks being planned. She warned visitors to the markets to remain alert to danger.

A Saudi national alleged to have carried out a deadly attack on a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, which killed five and injured more than 200, had warned on social media that “something big will happen”.

The 50-year-old doctor is in police custody after a black BMW SUV ploughed 400 metres through a crowded market at speed, driving over some people and flinging others up into the air. A nine-year-old girl is among the dead.

There are 41 people in a critical condition with life-threatening injuries and the injured are being treated at 15 clinics around the country.

Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, who came to Germany in 2006 and applied for asylum a decade later, was apprehended by armed police in a dramatic altercation as shocked bystanders looked on just minutes after the attack. He was repeatedly told to “lie on the ground” adjacent to the battered BMW that moments before had mown scores of people to the ground.

Forensic scientists are investigating the possibility that Abdulmohsen had deliberately turned off the emergency braking mechanism on the BMW X3, which he had hired before the attack, in order to maximise its impact.

At a press conference held by police and prosecutors on Saturday evening, officials said initial questioning of Abdulmohsen, who has been charged with five murders and 200 attempted murders, had taken place, but declined to reveal anything the suspect had said. However, when asked about his motivation, the chief state prosecutor Horst Walter Nopens said: “It could be he was dissatisfied with the way in which Saudi Arabian refugees were dealt with in Magdeburg.”

Nopens said the attacker had bypassed security bollards and made use of a corridor for emergency service vehicles to be able to enter the market, which should have been blocked for anything other than ambulances and police vehicles.

Amid questions as to whether the attacker could have been stopped, Nopens added: “We didn’t have the perpetrator in our focus.”

Among the many threats of violence reportedly made on social media by Abdulmohsen, a self-declared critic of Islam and defender of Saudi women, was the wish to kill former chancellor Angela Merkel for her attempts to “Islamise Europe” by allowing refugees into the country in large numbers in 2015.

He had accused German authorities of trying to censor him. He said he had been isolated by friends and family after officially announcing he had renounced his Muslim faith. Patients – often asylum seekers – at the clinic 15km south of Magdeburg, where he worked as a consultant psychiatrist and psychotherapist, had accused him of being a “bad person” for doing so, he said.

Saudi authorities have told German media they warned German authorities more than once that he posed a threat. It is unclear if the warnings were acted upon.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who visited the scene of the attack on Saturday accompanied by members of his government and the leader of the state of Saxony-Anhalt, Reiner Haseloff, described the attack as “terrible and insane”.

After laying a white rose at the market, on the lane between wooden stalls down which the BMW had barrelled, Scholz said the choice of a Christmas market for an attack was particularly shocking, as was the timing.

It was almost eight years to the day since an Islamist terrorist had slammed a stolen lorry at speed into a Christmas market on Berlin’s Breitscheidplatz, killing 12 and injuring many more.

“There is no place more peaceful and joyful than a Christmas market,” Scholz said. “People come together for a few days before Christmas … to be together in contemplation but also to celebrate. To drink a glühwein, to eat a bratwurst. What a terrible act it is to injure and kill so many people there with such brutality.”

He cited the “almost 40” victims who had been injured “so seriously that we have to be very worried about them”.

Eyewitnesses described watching in horror as the car careered into the market at high speed about 7pm local time on Friday night, despite the hefty bollards erected around the square, which were disguised as giant colourful lego bricks. These have become customary across Germany following the Breitscheidplatz attack.

One woman said it appeared that the driver of the car, which headed towards the town hall, seemed to have specifically aimed at a fairytale-themed section of the market, where a large number of families with young children were gathered.

Terrorist experts expressed their astonishment at the nature of the attack, which lasted two to three minutes.Peter Neumann from King’s College London, a veteran terrorist expert, wrote on X: “After 25 years in this business, you think nothing could surprise you any more.

“But a 50-year-old Saudi ex-Muslim who lives in East Germany, loves the AfD and wants to punish Germany for its tolerance towards Islamists – that really wasn’t on my radar.”

Abdulmohsen had created a website to assist opponents of the regime in Saudi Arabia, in particular women, to escape the country and apply for asylum in Europe.

He had made considerable efforts to be taken seriously as a militant critic of Islam, describing himself in a 2019 interview in the august Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as “the most aggressive critic of Islam in history”.

He also demonstrated considerable support for the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), the anti-Islam, anti-immigrant party that is currently second in the polls.

His attention in recent months appeared to have turned to criticism of German authorities and a bias he thought they had against Saudis such as himself and female asylum seekers in particular who had renounced Islam.

In August, in one post, he reportedly wrote: “If Germany wants to kill us, we’ll massacre them, die, or go with pride to prison.”

The attack, one of the worst terrorist offences in the country’s history, comes at a critical moment for Germany. The country is in the thick of an election campaign after the collapse of Scholz’s three-way coalition last month over differences in how to deal with myriad challenges including a deep economic downturn, and profound differences over how to tackle immigration.

Across Germany, security was yet again tightened at many of the thousands of Christmas markets that are a feature of most towns and cities from the end of November until the end of December. Some markets closed amid safety concerns.

Magdeburg’s market will remain closed. Most of the lights in the city’s centre had been turned off, and a funfair close to the market was shut. But the chimes of a church clock continued to ring out with the melody of a favourite German Christmas carol, Fröhliche Weihnacht Überall (Merry Christmas Everywhere), a plaintive reminder of the celebrations that Magdeburgers had been preparing for just hours before, which were now shattered.

One city official said: “Christmas is over in Magdeburg.”

Interior minister Nancy Faeser had warned before the opening of the Christmas market season at the end of November of the potential danger of them becoming the focus of terrorist attacks, as has been the case for several years, but said there was no concrete evidence of attacks being planned. She warned visitors to the markets to remain alert to danger.

Donald Trump has demanded that the Panama Canal be given back to the US if Panama did not manage the waterway in a fashion that was acceptable to him – and he accused the central American country of charging excessive rates for use of the ocean-connecting ship passage.

“The fees being charged by Panama are ridiculous, especially knowing the extraordinary generosity that has been bestowed to Panama by the US,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform late Saturday, a little more than a month before the start of his second US presidency. “This complete ‘rip-off’ of our Country will immediately stop….”

In the evening post, Trump also warned he would not let the canal fall into the “wrong hands”. And he seemed to warn of potential Chinese influence on the passage, writing the canal should not be managed by China.

Trump said the Panama Canal was a “vital national asset” for the US, calling it “crucial” for commerce and national security.

The warning comes days after Trump mused in an early-morning thought blast that Canadians might want Canada to become America’s 51st state, taunting prime minister Justin Trudeau as “Governor Trudeau”.

Trump’s Panama thinking underscores an expected shift in US diplomacy after he takes office in January, particularly in regard to China and European security. On Friday, the Financial Times reported that Trump’s team had told European officials that he will demand Nato member states increase defence spending to 5% of their GDP.

Trump’s rhetorical threat to Panama, however, comes 25 years after the US handed full control of the canal to Panama following a period of joint administration.

In 1977, president Jimmy Carter negotiated the Torrijos-Carter Treaties that gave Panama control of the canal and the Neutrality Treaty, which allowed the US to defend the canal’s neutrality. The canal is currently administered by the Panama Canal Authority.

The US completed the 51-mile canal through the Central American isthmus in 1914 and is still the canal’s biggest customer, responsible for about three quarters of the cargo transiting through each year.

China is the canal’s second-biggest customer, and a Chinese company based in Hong Kong controls two of the five ports adjacent to the canal, one on each side.

But a prolonged drought has hampered the canal’s ability to move ships between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. National economic council director Lael Brainard said last week that shipping disruptions contributed to the supply-chain pressures.

The Panama Canal has experienced a 29% decrease in ship transits over the past fiscal year due to severe drought conditions, according to the canal authority. From October 2023 to September 2024, only 9,944 vessels passed through the canal, compared to 14,080 the previous year.

In his post, Trump suggested that the canal was in danger of falling into the wrong hands, saying the canal isn’t China’s to manage.

“It was not given for the benefit of others, but merely as a token of cooperation with us and Panama,” Trump said.

“If the principles, both moral and legal, of this magnanimous gesture of giving are not followed, then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us, in full, and without question. To the Officials of Panama, please be guided accordingly!”

An official for Panama’s government told Bloomberg late Saturday that he was aware of Trump’s statement and there would be a formal response in the coming days.

Last month, the Nicaraguan president, Daniel Ortega, unveiled plans for a 276.5 mile (445-km) interoceanic waterway that would provide an alternative to neighboring Panama’s waterway.

In a proposal to Chinese investors at a regional business summit, Ortega said “every day it becomes more complicated to pass through Panama” and said Nicaragua’s canal project could attract Chinese and American investment, noting that the US had considered building a Nicaraguan canal as far back as 1854.

• Reuters contributed reporting

Two US navy pilots were shot down over the Red Sea on Sunday in an “apparent case of friendly fire”, the US military said, marking the most serious incident to threaten troops in more than a year of the country targeting Yemen’s Houthis.

Both pilots were rescued alive after ejecting from their stricken aircraft, with one suffering minor injuries. But the incident underlines just how dangerous the Red Sea corridor has become amid the ongoing attacks on shipping by the Iranian-backed Houthis despite US and European military coalitions patrolling the area.

The US military had conducted airstrikes targeting Yemen’s Houthi at the time, though the military’s Central Command (Centcom) did not elaborate on what their mission was.

The F/A-18 shot down had just flown off the deck of the USS Harry S Truman aircraft carrier, Centcom said. On 15 December Centcom acknowledged the Truman had entered the Middle East, but hadn’t specified that the carrier and its battle group was in the Red Sea.

“The guided missile cruiser USS Gettysburg, which is part of the USS Harry S Truman Carrier Strike Group, mistakenly fired on and hit the F/A-18,” Centcom said in a statement. The incident was being investigated.

From the military’s description, the aircraft shot down was a two-seat F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet assigned to the “Red Rippers” of strike fighter quadron 11 out of Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia.

It wasn’t immediately clear how the Gettysburg could mistake an F/A-18 for an enemy aircraft or missile, particularly as ships in a battle group remain linked by both radar and radio communication.

However, Centcom said that warships and aircraft earlier shot down multiple Houthi drones and an anti-ship cruise missile launched by the rebels. Incoming hostile fire from the Houthis has given sailors just seconds to make decisions in the past.

Since the Truman’s arrival, the US has stepped up its airstrikes targeting the Houthis and their missile fire into the Red Sea and the surrounding area. However, the presence of an American warship group may spark renewed attacks from the rebels, like what the USS Dwight D Eisenhower saw earlier this year. That deployment marked what the navy described as its most intense combat since the second world war.

On Saturday night and early Sunday, US warplanes conducted airstrikes that shook Sana’a, the capital of Yemen, which the Houthis have held since 2014. Centcom described the strikes as targeting a “missile storage facility” and a “command-and-control facility”.

Houthi-controlled media reported strikes in both Sana’a and around the port city of Hodeida, without providing any casualty or damage information. In Sana’a, strikes appeared particularly targeted at a mountainside known to be home to military installations. The Houthis later acknowledged the aircraft being shot down in the Red Sea.

The Houthis have targeted about 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones since the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip started in October 2023.

The Houthis have seized one vessel and sunk two in a campaign that has also killed four sailors. Other missiles and drones have either been intercepted by separate US- and European-led coalitions in the Red Sea or failed to reach their targets, which have also included western military vessels.

The rebels maintain that they target ships linked to Israel, the US or the UK to force an end to Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza. However, many of the ships attacked have little or no connection to the conflict, including some bound for Iran.

The Houthis also have increasingly targeted Israel itself with drones and missiles, resulting in retaliatory Israeli airstrikes.

The US military said it conducted precision airstrikes on Saturday against a missile storage facility and a command-and-control facility operated by Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen’s capital, Sana’a.

In a statement, the US military’s Central Command said the strikes aimed to “disrupt and degrade Houthi operations, such as attacks against US navy warships and merchant vessels in the southern Red Sea, Bab al-Mandeb and Gulf of Aden”.

The US military also said it struck multiple Houthi one-way drones and an anti-ship cruise missile over the Red Sea and the strike reflected its “ongoing commitment to protect US and coalition personnel, regional partners and international shipping”.

Saturday’s strike followed a similar attack last week by US aircraft against a command and control facility operated by the Houthis, who control much of Yemen.

On Thursday, Israel launched strikes against ports and energy infrastructure in Houthi-held parts of Yemen and threatened more attacks against the group, which has launched hundreds of missiles at Israel over the past year.

The Iran-backed group in Yemen has been attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea for more than a year to try to enforce a naval blockade on Israel, saying they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Israel’s year-long war in Gaza.

The strikes on shipping by the Houthis, who have also launched missiles at Israel, have prompted retaliatory strikes by the US and Britain.

The US attack on Sana’a came the same day that a Houthi missile struck Israel’s commercial hub Tel Aviv, wounding 16 people in the second such strike in days.

The US is seeking global support to give the UN clearer powers to interdict ships in the Red Sea heading for Houthi-controlled Yemen ports, as part of a concerted attempt to weaken the Iranian-backed group, according to the US special envoy.

It is also considering re-designating the Houthis as a terrorist group, a move that would make it more difficult for humanitarian organisations to operate inside Houthi-controlled parts of Yemen.

Remarkable images taken by automatic cameras in the Brazilian rainforest reveal an isolated community that appears to be thriving despite pressure from ranchers and illegal encroachment into the Amazon.

The pictures, of a group of men, offer the outside world its first glimpse of the community – and give further evidence the population is growing. The group is known as the Massaco after the river that runs through their lands, but no one knows what they call themselves, while their language, social fabric and beliefs remain a mystery.

Despite unrelenting pressure from agribusiness, loggers, miners and drug traffickers, the Massaco have at least doubled since the early 1990s – to an estimated 200 to 250 people – according to the Brazilian National Indigenous Peoples Foundation (Funai), which has been working for decades to protect the territory. Funai placed the cameras at a spot where it periodically leaves metal implements as gifts, a practice used to dissuade uncontacted people from venturing into farms or logging camps to get tools – as has happened in the past with tragic consequences. Photos of Massaco settlements have been captured previously during Funai expeditions into areas that satellite imagery confirmed had been abandoned.

Years of such indirect observation meant the Massaco were known to hunt with bows that are three metres long, and to move their villages around from season to season within the forest. They discourage outsiders by planting thousands of foot and tyre-piercing spikes in the ground.

“Now, with the detailed photographs, it’s possible to see the resemblance to the Sirionó people, who live on the opposite bank of the Guaporé River, in Bolivia,” says Altair Algayer, a government agent with Funai who has spent more than three decades protecting the Massaco’s territory. “But still, we can’t say who they are. There’s a lot that’s still a mystery.”

Despite the demographic catastrophe of Indigenous populations caused by centuries of non-Indigenous occupation and worsening environmental devastation, population growth among isolated peoples is a trend across the Amazon. In 2023, the science journal Nature revealed growing populations along Brazil’s borders with Peru and Venezuela. Satellite images showed larger cultivated plots and expanded longhouses.

Specialists have also seen evidence in the forest of similar growth among nomadic communities that do not plant crops or build large structures visible from space. One such group is the Pardo River Kawahiva, overseen for Funai by Jair Candor, in Mato Grosso state. “Today, we estimate there are 35-40 people. When we started working here, in 1999, there were about 20,” Candor said.

This bucking of a global trend of cultural loss and disappearing languages has been accomplished by the innovative public policy of not initiating contact – which was pioneered by Brazil in 1987 after decades of government-led contact killed more than 90% of those contacted, mostly from disease. Since then, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, and Bolivia have adopted versions of the approach.

There are 61 confirmed groups living in the Amazon and Gran Chaco region, with a reported 128 not yet verified by authorities, according to a draft report by the International Working Group of Indigenous Peoples in Isolation and Initial Contact. The report’s author, Antenor Vaz, was one of the first to implement no-contact in Massaco in 1988. He said Brazil has excelled in developing best practices in the field but has no law specifically protecting isolated peoples.

“Peru and Colombia have robust legislation,” said Vaz. “In Brazil and other parts of the continent, the steamroller of agribusiness and other predatory forces are prevailing over laws and Indigenous rights.”

Neighbouring Indigenous communities are playing a role in protecting their more isolated peers. Examples include the Manchineri along the Peru-Brazil border in Acre state, the Amondawa in Rondônia and the Guajarara at the basin’s other extreme in the eastern state of Maranhão.

In the Javari valley – which has 10 confirmed uncontacted communities, the most of any Amazonian Indigenous territory – Beto Marubo, a representative of the Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Javari valley, and local leaders set up a patrol team in 2021, which won the UN Equator Prize. While Indigenous-led legal action has also helped the cause.

However, to honour the land rights of isolated peoples, as required by Brazil’s constitution, and to put logging, gold, fish, soya bean and coca planting off limits, means proving the people are there. Marubo said that the first argument for those interested in grabbing forest areas is to negate the existence of inhabitants. “The principle strategy for invaders and anyone with an interest in the lands where isolated peoples live is to deny they exist.”

Funai operates with chronically insufficient funds and a small group of unarmed field staff. They face risk including all-too-genuine death threats, like those directed at Bruno Pereira, murdered in 2022, along with journalist Dom Phillips. And while some isolated peoples are thriving, others are dwindling in territories overrun by outsiders.

“These peoples have a right to live, to their land, and chosen lifestyles, but respecting the rights of isolated Indigenous peoples is also fundamental to preserving tropical forests,” said Paulo Moutinho, co-founder of the Institute for Environmental Research in the Amazon.

A Republican congresswoman from Texas has not cast a vote in the US House since July while she has been living at a memory care facility – something she did not disclose to the public, according to a Dallas media outlet that figured out the reason for her prolonged absence.

Kay Granger, 81, has represented Texas’s 12th congressional district, which includes part of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, since 1997. And beginning in January 2023 she spent more than a year as the chairperson of the powerful House appropriations committee.

But months after announcing her plans to retire when her term ended in early 2025, Granger largely disappeared from the public eye. Her congressional website shows her last vote was on 24 July, opposing a measure to reduce the salary of the deputy assistant administrator for pesticide programs to $1 just days after Joe Biden canceled his presidential re-election campaign over questions about his age and mental fitness.

That fact prompted a reporter with the Dallas Express to dig into where Granger was. Calls to her offices were going directly to voicemail, and there were no signs of ongoing business at her constituency office.

The reporter, Carlos Turcios, eventually received a tip from a local resident that Granger had moved into an assisted living center specializing in memory care. After going to the facility in question to determine whether Granger indeed lived there, the assistant executive director confirmed, “This is her home,” according to a story that Turcios published on Friday in the Dallas Express.

Neither Granger nor her staff could immediately be reached for comment on Sunday. But local and state Republican leaders were among those who said they were troubled over the reporting about Granger.

Bo French, the chairperson of the Tarrant county, Texas, Republican party, told the Dallas Express that the “lack of representation for [Granger’s district] is troubling to say the least”.

“Extraordinarily important votes” involving disaster relief, the debt ceiling and US-Mexico border have occurred since Granger’s last vote, French said. “And Kay Granger [was] nowhere to be found. … We deserve better.”

In a social media post, the Texas state Republican committee member Rolando Garcia added that Granger’s need to live in a memory care facility suggests she may have already been “in visible decline” when she successfully ran for re-election in 2022.

“A sad and humiliating way to end her political career,” Garcia wrote. “Sad that nobody cared enough to ‘take away the keys’ before she reached this moment. And a sad commentary on the congressional gerontocracy.”

The US House speaker Mike Johnson and the chamber’s majority leader Steve Scalise – both Louisiana Republicans – hailed Granger at an event honoring her in Washington DC in November. Johnson exalted her as “a champion for Texas”, “a faithful public servant” and “a loyal friend” while Scalise complimented her as “a tough-as-nails conservative”.

Earlier, in February, Johnson and Scalise both signed a statement saying one of “the most disturbing parts” of a special counsel report over Biden’s handling of classified documents addressed “how the president’s memory had … ‘significant limitations’”.

After Biden performed poorly in June in a debate against Trump and invited questions about his mental acuity, Johnson urged the president’s cabinet to consider invoking a constitutional amendment allowing for his replacement if he were deemed incapable of performing his duties.

Biden, 82, dropped out of the 5 November election on 21 July, or three days before Granger’s last recorded vote in Congress. He endorsed Vice-President Kamala Harris, 60, to succeed him, though Donald Trump, 78, defeated her to secure a second presidency beginning in January.

Meanwhile, also in February, Granger’s fellow House Republicans demanded that US defense secretary Lloyd Austin testify before Congress for failing to immediately disclose to White the House a hospitalization due to complications resulting from a surgery to treat prostate cancer.

Granger was the first woman to serve as mayor of Fort Worth as well as to become a Republican member of Congress. She was instrumental in securing more military funding, in part because a Lockheed Martin plant builds F-35 fighter jets in her district.

On Friday, Granger’s Facebook page posted a picture of her with a group of aides described as “the best”.

The post was flooded with comments about the scandal broken by the Dallas Express, among them one that read: “Are these the people who have been hiding the fact that you are in a [memory] care facility? Frauds!”

• The Associated Press contributed reporting

A Republican congresswoman from Texas has not cast a vote in the US House since July while she has been living at a memory care facility – something she did not disclose to the public, according to a Dallas media outlet that figured out the reason for her prolonged absence.

Kay Granger, 81, has represented Texas’s 12th congressional district, which includes part of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, since 1997. And beginning in January 2023 she spent more than a year as the chairperson of the powerful House appropriations committee.

But months after announcing her plans to retire when her term ended in early 2025, Granger largely disappeared from the public eye. Her congressional website shows her last vote was on 24 July, opposing a measure to reduce the salary of the deputy assistant administrator for pesticide programs to $1 just days after Joe Biden canceled his presidential re-election campaign over questions about his age and mental fitness.

That fact prompted a reporter with the Dallas Express to dig into where Granger was. Calls to her offices were going directly to voicemail, and there were no signs of ongoing business at her constituency office.

The reporter, Carlos Turcios, eventually received a tip from a local resident that Granger had moved into an assisted living center specializing in memory care. After going to the facility in question to determine whether Granger indeed lived there, the assistant executive director confirmed, “This is her home,” according to a story that Turcios published on Friday in the Dallas Express.

Neither Granger nor her staff could immediately be reached for comment on Sunday. But local and state Republican leaders were among those who said they were troubled over the reporting about Granger.

Bo French, the chairperson of the Tarrant county, Texas, Republican party, told the Dallas Express that the “lack of representation for [Granger’s district] is troubling to say the least”.

“Extraordinarily important votes” involving disaster relief, the debt ceiling and US-Mexico border have occurred since Granger’s last vote, French said. “And Kay Granger [was] nowhere to be found. … We deserve better.”

In a social media post, the Texas state Republican committee member Rolando Garcia added that Granger’s need to live in a memory care facility suggests she may have already been “in visible decline” when she successfully ran for re-election in 2022.

“A sad and humiliating way to end her political career,” Garcia wrote. “Sad that nobody cared enough to ‘take away the keys’ before she reached this moment. And a sad commentary on the congressional gerontocracy.”

The US House speaker Mike Johnson and the chamber’s majority leader Steve Scalise – both Louisiana Republicans – hailed Granger at an event honoring her in Washington DC in November. Johnson exalted her as “a champion for Texas”, “a faithful public servant” and “a loyal friend” while Scalise complimented her as “a tough-as-nails conservative”.

Earlier, in February, Johnson and Scalise both signed a statement saying one of “the most disturbing parts” of a special counsel report over Biden’s handling of classified documents addressed “how the president’s memory had … ‘significant limitations’”.

After Biden performed poorly in June in a debate against Trump and invited questions about his mental acuity, Johnson urged the president’s cabinet to consider invoking a constitutional amendment allowing for his replacement if he were deemed incapable of performing his duties.

Biden, 82, dropped out of the 5 November election on 21 July, or three days before Granger’s last recorded vote in Congress. He endorsed Vice-President Kamala Harris, 60, to succeed him, though Donald Trump, 78, defeated her to secure a second presidency beginning in January.

Meanwhile, also in February, Granger’s fellow House Republicans demanded that US defense secretary Lloyd Austin testify before Congress for failing to immediately disclose to White the House a hospitalization due to complications resulting from a surgery to treat prostate cancer.

Granger was the first woman to serve as mayor of Fort Worth as well as to become a Republican member of Congress. She was instrumental in securing more military funding, in part because a Lockheed Martin plant builds F-35 fighter jets in her district.

On Friday, Granger’s Facebook page posted a picture of her with a group of aides described as “the best”.

The post was flooded with comments about the scandal broken by the Dallas Express, among them one that read: “Are these the people who have been hiding the fact that you are in a [memory] care facility? Frauds!”

• The Associated Press contributed reporting

Mozambique is on edge ahead of a ruling expected on Monday to determine the final results of October’s disputed elections, after allegations of rigging triggered weeks of protests in which security forces have killed dozens of people.

The opposition presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane has threatened “chaos” if the constitutional council confirms the initial election results, which gave the ruling party candidate, Daniel Chapo, 70.7% of the vote and Mondlane 20.3%.

The Podemos party, which is allied with Mondlane, said it should have 138 out of 250 seats in parliament, instead of the 31 that the election commission said it had won.

Mozambique’s Catholic bishops alleged that ballot-stuffing had taken place, while EU election observers noted “irregularities during counting and unjustified alteration of election results”.

Mondlane has repeatedly said he won and has urged his supporters to take to the streets. This has brought the economy to a near standstill, including shutting the border and disrupting trade with South Africa.

Security forces have cracked down in response, killing at least 130 people and injuring hundreds more, according to Human Rights Watch. Local media reported that security forces shot dead two mourners on 14 December at a funeral for a blogger known as Mano Shottas, who had been killed while livestreaming a protest two days earlier.

Recently, some protesters have become violent, with offices of the ruling party, Frelimo, set on fire and a statue of the former defence minister Alberto Chipande, who is credited with firing the first shot in Mozambique’s war of independence, pulled down.

“On Monday the whole country must stop,” Mondlane said on Friday in one of his regular broadcasts, which he has been streaming on Facebook from an undisclosed location abroad, where he claims he fled to avoid being assassinated.

Mondlane called for prayers in the south-east African country on Sunday. “We are giving the opportunity to pray for the judges of the constitutional council, to pray for [its chair] Dr Lúcia Ribeiro, so that on Monday, from her, justice comes out, the electoral truth does not come out as a lie,” he said.

Mozambique’s outgoing president, Filipe Nyusi, rebutted Mondlane’s claim that he was planning to cling to power, saying in a Thursday evening broadcast that he would leave office in January as planned.

He also implicitly criticised Mondlane, saying: “It worries us that the process of choosing our leaders was transformed into a pretext to induce and exacerbate social tensions and violent acts.”

Zenaida Machado, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, said the ruling administration had “decided to brand the entire protest movement as violent to justify their own use of excessive force”.

“The fact that some people within a protest have become violent does not label the entire protests violent,” she said.

While most analysts believe there was some level of rigging, some said it was unclear whether Mondlane had won.

“A 70% majority for Frelimo was a massive surprise to everybody,” said Alex Vines, who was part of a group of election observers from the Commonwealth. “But neither … can [you] say that Venâncio Mondlane won. We just don’t know.

“The [opposition party] Renamo vote collapsed in Renamo heartlands,” said Vines, the head of the Africa programme at the thinktank Chatham House. “Frelimo benefited from that. It was in the urban areas that Podemos and particularly Venâncio prospered, which is not enough, necessarily, to get a majority.”

Four of the constitutional council’s seven judges were appointed by Frelimo parliamentarians, while the chair was appointed by Nyusi.

Adriano Nuvunga, the director of the Centre for Democracy and Human Rights, a Mozambican non-profit organisation, said: “Everything will depend on what they say at the announcement – whether they will confirm the current results with minor changes or whether there will be a change, which is unrealistic. We are bracing for impact.”

A ferry overloaded with people returning home for Christmas capsized on the Busira River in north-eastern Congo, leaving 38 people confirmed dead and more than 100 others missing, officials and eyewitnesses said on Saturday.

Twenty people have been rescued so far.

The sinking of the ferry late on Friday came less than four days after another boat capsized in the country’s north-east, killing 25 people.

The ferry was travelling as part of a convoy of other vessels and the passengers were primarily merchants returning home for Christmas, said Joseph Joseph Kangolingoli, the mayor of Ingende, the last town on the river before the site of the accident.

According to Ingende resident Ndolo Kaddy, the ferry contained “more than 400 people because it made two ports, Ingende and Loolo, on the way to Boende, so there is reason to believe there were more deaths”.

Congolese officials have often warned against overloading boats and vowed to punish those violating safety measures on rivers. However, in remote areas many people cannot afford public transportation on the few available roads.

At least 78 people drowned in October when an overloaded boat sank in the country’s east while 80 lost their lives in a similar accident near Kinshasa in June.

The latest accident prompted anger at the government for not equipping the convoy with flotation devices.

Nesty Bonina, a member of the local government and a prominent figure in Mbandaka, the capital of the Equateur province where the ferry sank, condemned authorities for not properly handling the recent events.

“How can a ship navigate at night under the watchful eye of river service agents? And now we’re recording over a hundred deaths,” said Bonina.

The capsizing of overloaded boats is becoming increasingly frequent in this central African nation as more people are giving up the few available roads in favour of wooden vessels crumbling under the weight of passengers and their goods for security reasons.

The roads are often caught up in the deadly clashes between Congolese security forces and rebels that sometimes block major access routes.

Vanuatu has been hit by another earthquake after hundreds of Australians landed on home soil from the islands and the federal government announced a new round of financial assistance.

The latest magnitude 6.1 quake shook buildings on the country’s main island at 2.30am on Sunday after it struck 30km west of the capital, Port Vila.

No tsunami alerts were triggered by the quake, unlike the initial 7.3 magnitude event which hit on Tuesday.

It came hours before the federal government announced an additional $5m in humanitarian assistance to Vanuatu.

Dozens of Australians arrived home from the island nation on RAAF flights which touched down in Brisbane on Sunday carrying 144 passengers.

In total, 568 holidaymakers, workers and other returnees have arrived back in Australia via military airlifts delivering humanitarian aid since Wednesday.

The two latest flights followed Airports Vanuatu’s announcement it would reopen Port Vila international airport to commercial airline operations on Sunday, offering some hope for increased aid and recovery resources.

The Australian government is working with Qantas, Virgin and Jetstar to resume flights.

Qantas and Virgin are both operating Port Vila-Brisbane services on Sunday and Jetstar is running a flight on the same route on Monday.

Two more final ADF flights from Vanuatu are planned for Sunday.

The magnitude 7.3 earthquake which struck Port Vila on Tuesday, killed at least 16 people, injuring at least 200 and causing massive damage to the city and surrounding areas.

The number of deaths and injuries is expected to rise as search and rescue operations continue.

A potential health crisis also looms as aid workers believe about 20,000 people on the island cannot access clean water.

Vanuatu-based Unicef water, sanitation and hygiene specialist Brecht Mommen warned illness would probably spread.

The extent of damage to Port Vila’s water infrastructure remains unclear, with repair timelines uncertain.

The latest RAAF flights delivered 9.5 tonnes of emergency relief supplies on behalf of Red Cross, UN World Food Program, CARE, Save the Children and World Vision.

About 1,000 people are estimated to have been displaced, according to the United Nations.

Schools across Serbia will close for the winter holidays a week earlier than planned this year as the government of the nationalist president, Aleksandar Vučić, seeks to stop anti-corruption protests that have gripped universities from spreading to the secondary education sector.

The education minister, Slavica Đukić Dejanović, announced on Friday that primary and secondary schools across the country would close from Tuesday, rather than Monday 30 December, citing concerns over the safety and quality of children’s education amid the “stop, Serbia” protests.

The majority of Serbia’s population are members of the Orthodox church, which follows the Julian calendar, and Christmas is officially celebrated on 7 January rather than on 24 or 25 December.

Earlier on Friday, teachers from four education unions announced they would go on strike in solidarity with students who had taken to the streets after a deadly canopy collapse last month.

On 1 November, 14 people aged between six and 74 were killed when the concrete canopy of the main railway station in Novi Sad, northern Serbia, collapsed on to a busy pavement, just months before the completion of a major renovation of the station. A 15th person later died in hospital.

The government was quick to claim that the canopy had not been part of the renovation, but photos that emerged after the accident appeared to show tonnes of glass and iron had been added to the canopy as part of the project. The apparent lack of structural engineers involved in the renovation, overseen by Infrastructure Railways of Serbia and the Chinese consortium CRIC-CCCC, raised further questions.

At demonstrations in Novi Sad and Belgrade, protesters called on the government to take responsibility, alleging that the accident was a result of a system that rewarded loyalty to Vučić’s Serbian Progressive party over competence.

“If you do something wrong, you should be punished for it,” Vanja Šević, a 22-year-old student at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, told the Guardian. “Yet no one has been properly held accountable. We want the blockades to continue until justice has been served.”

On Fridays throughout November and December, students across Serbia have organised 15-minute faculty blockades at 11.52 am, in reference to the number of victims and the time of the canopy collapse. A red handprint became the protest movement’s unofficial symbol, painted on banners and on the Varadin Bridge in Novi Sad.

Heavy-handed policing triggered further anger among the student protesters. On 22 November, some students and teaching staff at a road blockade outside the Faculty of Dramatic Arts were verbally and physically assaulted by people who appeared to be angry drivers, some of whom have since been identified as holding official functions for municipal authorities.

Ilija Kostić, 74, required surgical treatment and the amputation of one of his testicles after allegedly being beaten up at a police station after a blockade of Novi Sad’s court and prosecutor’s office. Full transparency and accountability over these incidents has been subsumed into the protesters’ demands.

Vučić’s government has claimed the growing protests are funded by foreign powers while also trying to appease the protesters. The government has announced the release of documents pertaining to the Novi Sad renovation and offered a scheme for affordable housing loans for young people.

Yet the student protest movement has been surprisingly broad, with even the University of Belgrade’s Orthodox theology faculty temporarily joining in the road blockades. Over the last week, high school students in several Serbian cities have joined in the 11.52 protests, some with the support of their teachers, to demand the dismissal of Dejanović.

An unlikely alliance of agricultural workers and actors was expected to join students in a large protest on Sunday afternoon at Serbia’s busiest roundabout, on Slavija Square.

The president of the Education Union of Serbia, Valentina Ilić, questioned whether the early school closures would have the effect desired by the government. “Maybe they will be removed from the schools but they have created an even bigger problem, because the children will remain on the streets,” she told the Serbian broadcaster N1.

Players with winning tickets in Spain’s huge Christmas lottery draw celebrated with sparkling wine, cheers and hugs on Sunday in a 200-year-old tradition that marks the beginning of the festive season.

The total prize pot in the state-run national lottery event reached €2.71bn (£2.25bn) this year, slightly more than last year’s €2.59bn

The top prize, known as El Gordo or the Fat One, was won by ticket holders in the northern city of Logroño, the capital of La Rioja region.

In the nationally televised draw at Madrid’s Theatre Royal, young pupils from San Ildefonso school picked the winning numbers from two revolving globes and sang them out.

Audience members, who had queued for hours to enter, wore Santa hats, regional costumes and their personal lucky charms.

“I’d like the lottery to go to Valencia. Honestly, I think it should go to the affected areas,” said Vicent Jacinto, 25, who was dressed in a traditional Valencian outfit and was referring to the deadly floods that struck the region in October. “We’d like that very much.”

Lottery mania hits Spain in the weeks leading up to the Christmas draw. Relatives, co-workers, groups of friends and club members frequently buy tickets or fractions of them together, often favouring particular “lucky” vendors or numbers.

The most common ticket costs €20 and offers the opportunity to win as much as €400,000 in prize money before tax.

More than half of Sunday’s top prize, even if bought in Logroño, travelled back to Madrid because many winning tickets were held by a basketball club in the working-class neighbourhood of San Blas-Canillejas. Young club members and their families gathered to chant and dance to drums as they do on court.

“I woke up late today and my mother came into my room with the tickets in her hands screaming like crazy,” said Diego Gala, 28, the club’s physical trainer.

The lottery tradition dates back to 1812, when Spain was under French occupation during the Napoleonic wars and the draw was established to raise funds to fight for independence.

These days, proceeds after operating costs and payouts go to social causes.