Chinese state-sponsored hackers breached the US treasury department earlier this month, accessing several employee workstations and unclassified documents, according to an agency spokesperson.

The breach was orchestrated via a third-party cybersecurity service provider, BeyondTrust. Hackers were able to gain access to a key used by the vendor to override certain parts of the system, according to a letter the treasury department sent to lawmakers on Monday that was reviewed by the Guardian.

“The compromised BeyondTrust service has been taken offline and there is no evidence indicating the threat actor has continued access to treasury systems or information,” the treasury department spokesperson said.

The hack comes amid reports that Chinese state-sponsored actors also breached three of the largest US telecommunications companies earlier this month. During that breach, called Salt Typhoon, cybercriminals were able to gain access to lawmakers’ phone calls and text messages. Lawmakers across the political spectrum condemned the hack.

After the alert from BeyondTrust, the treasury department contacted the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (Cisa), the Federal Bureau of Investigation and third-party forensic investigators to determine the impact of the incident. The treasury department said more details will be made available in a 30-day supplemental report.

“Treasury takes very seriously all threats against our systems and the data it holds,” the spokesperson said. “Over the last four years, treasury has significantly bolstered its cyber defense and we will continue to work with both private and public sector partners to protect our financial system from threat actors.”

BeyondTrust said on its website that it had recently identified a security incident that involved a limited number of customers of its remote support software. The statement said a digital key had been compromised in the incident and that an investigation was under way.

A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington rejected any responsibility for the hack in a response to Reuters, saying that Beijing “firmly opposes the US’s smear attacks against China without any factual basis”.

A South Korean court has approved an arrest warrant for President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was impeached and suspended from power over his decision to impose martial law on 3 December, investigating authorities said.

The Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) confirmed a Seoul court approved the warrant requested by investigators examining Yoon’s short-lived imposition of martial law.

“The arrest warrant and search warrant for President Yoon Suk Yeol, requested by the Joint Investigation Headquarters, were issued this morning,” the Joint Investigation Headquarters said in a statement.

Yoon Kab-keun, a lawyer for impeached president Yoon described the move as “illegal and invalid”.

“The arrest warrant and search and seizure warrant issued at the request of an agency without investigative authority are illegal and invalid,” the lawyer said in a statement.

South Korean law enforcement officials sought the warrant to question Yoon over allegations of abuse of authority and orchestrating a rebellion.

This is the first arrest warrant issued for an incumbent president in South Korea, according to local media.

The CIO did not comment on the court’s reasoning for granting the request . The court declined to comment.

It was unclear when or how the arrest warrant for Yoon will be carried out. South Korea’s presidential security service said in a statement on Tuesday that it will treat the arrest warrant according to due process.

The current arrest warrant is valid until 6 January, and once it is exercised, Yoon is expected to be held at the Seoul Detention Centre, Yonhap news agency said citing CIO.

But, under South Korean law locations potentially linked to military secrets cannot be seized or searched without the consent of the person in charge, and it’s unlikely that Yoon will voluntarily leave his residence if he faces arrest.

Police were deployed early on Tuesday outside Yoon’s residence in central Seoul, in a likely bid to head off scuffles. Yoon’s supporters and protesters calling for his removal have both staked out his residence, with local media running images of altercations between the two camps overnight.

Previously, police have tried but failed to successfully raid the presidential office as part of the investigation, due to the presidential security service blocking access.

“Unless Yoon voluntarily lets them detain him, there is no way to detain him,” said Choi Jin, director of the Seoul-based Institute of Presidential Leadership. “Should investigators have hand-to-hand fights with the security service?”

Choi said that investigators were still likely to visit Yoon’s residence to show they are strictly and fairly carrying out their work.

Park Sung-min, president of Seoul-based political consulting firm MIN Consulting, said the push for an arrest warrant was probably an attempt to pressure Yoon to cooperate with investigations.

Yoon is facing a criminal investigation into claims of insurrection, one of the few charges for which a South Korean president does not have immunity.

The acting leader of South Korea’s ruling People Power Party, Kweon Seong-dong, said on Tuesday that attempting to detain a sitting president is inappropriate, according to Yonhap news agency.

Yoon’s presidential powers were suspended after the National Assembly voted to impeach him on 14 December over his imposition of martial law that lasted only hours but has triggered weeks of political turmoil, halted high-level diplomacy and rattled financial markets. A constitutional court ruling is pending on whether to confirm the impeachment.

With Reuters, Associated Press and Agence France-Presse

Tony Blair’s advisers privately questioned if the US had “proper political control” of military operations in Iraq after a senior US official confided that George W Bush believed he was on a “mission from God” against Iraqi insurgents, newly released documents reveal.

Blair needed to “deliver some difficult messages” to the then US president for a “more measured approach” in April 2004, following a US military operation to suppress a major uprising in the city of Falluja, according to papers released to the National Archives in Kew, west London.

In a surprisingly candid conversation, recorded in a document marked “please protect very carefully”, Richard “Rich” Armitage, then US deputy secretary of state, told Sir David Manning, then UK ambassador, that Bush had needed a “dose of reality” after demanding US forces “kick ass” in Falluja, where US troops were engaged in a bloody battle with Iraqi militants after four private military contractors were ambushed and killed.

Armitage appealed to Blair to use his influence in a forthcoming visit to Washington on 16 April to urge Bush to deal with Falluja “as part of a carefully judged political process”.

The US had launched Operation Vigilant Resolve in Falluja after the mutilated bodies of the US contractors were hung from a bridge over the Euphrates River less than one year after the May 2003 overthrow of the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Bush had initially been influenced by his military generals and “wanted to kick ass” with US marines occupying the city. But politicians on the coalition provisional authority, set up after Saddam’s fall, feared the US military response could damage hopes of establishing an independent Iraqi administration.

Bush backed off after being “faced with this ‘dose of reality’”, Manning reported back to No 10.

“Rich summed it all up by saying Bush still thought he was on some sort of mission from God. But that recent events had made him ‘rather more sober’.”

Bush had famously declared “mission accomplished” after the overthrow of Hussein by US and UK coalition forces. But the White House has previously dismissed as “absurd” reports that Bush privately told a Palestinian delegation in 2003 that God spoke to him and said: “George, go fight these terrorists in Afghanistan” and “George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq.”

Armitage dismissed claims by the overall US commander in Iraq, Gen John Abizaid, that he could put down the Falluja uprising within days as “bullshit” and “politically crass”. Armitage believed the US was “gradually losing on the battlefield” and that it was “inevitable” the administration would have to send more troops, which would be “politically ugly” for Bush, Manning reported.

No 10 was nervous about the US military response. A briefing document, ahead of Blair’s Washington visit in April 2004, said events in Falluja had “used up a great deal of the coalition’s political capital”.

“Publicly we will want to underline our continued commitment to seeing the task through, but privately we will need to deliver some difficult messages to Bush about the need for a more measured approach by the US military, under proper political oversight, and the need for a clear end to the occupation on July 1,” it said.

It added: “The prime minister might question Bush on whether there is proper political control of military operations,” and concluded: “In short, too many military officers talking tough to a US audience, with little attention to the effect on an Iraqi or regional audience.”

Blair’s foreign policy adviser, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, described the UK’s main concerns in a memo to the prime minister as “clumsy US handling”, “disproportionate US military tactics – what they did in Falluja looked on Iraqi TV screens to be a form of collective punishment” and “apocalyptic media treatment”.

The US lost 27 troops, while about 200 insurgents and 600 Iraqi civilians were thought to have been killed in Falluja at that time. Coalition forces took the city in a second offensive launched in November 2004. US troops remained in Iraq until 2011.

The Live Aid campaigner Bob Geldof urged Tony Blair not to appoint an African co-chair to the UK-led organisation working to overhaul international aid to the continent because he thought African leadership was “very weak” on the issue, newly released government documents suggest.

The singer was “scathing about the ability and worthiness of virtually all African leaders” before the establishment in 2004 of Blair’s Commission for Africa, which would produce a report, Our Common Interest, and prompt a landmark pledge by rich nations to boost aid and write off debt.

Geldof was instrumental in persuading the then prime minister to set up a “Brandt II” report, similar to the 1980 Brandt report on international economic development, which would lead to a “Marshall plan” for Africa, a reference to the US plan to rebuild Europe after the second world war. It would coincide with the UK’s presidency of the G8 nations group and the 20th anniversary of Live Aid.

But behind the scenes, Geldof and the government had different ideas on how it should be set up, official papers released to the National Archives show.

Geldof stressed in one letter to the prime minister that Blair’s personal leadership was vital if it was to succeed. “I do think this needs to be a direct commission from you personally – your vision, your authority, your weight,” he wrote.

He also called for speed so it could report back in time for the G8 summit that Blair was hosting at Gleneagles in July 2005. “I know I’m pushy, and I know you’re up to your neck, but something short of the normal seven-week delay response would be welcome (do you use Royal Mail?). Seriously though, this must be implemented almost immediately,” Geldof wrote.

A No 10 letter from October 2003, reporting on a telephone conversation between Blair and Geldof, said: “The PM spoke with Bob Geldof today. Geldof argued that unless we found a way to allow Africans to make livelihoods at home they would come to our shores, resulting in massive social upheaval. African leadership had been very weak.”

Other Downing Street officials urged caution. One said they could face “opprobrium” from Geldof and his fellow Live Aid campaigner Bono if they were unable to deliver on the plan.

Liz Lloyd, a senior adviser on international development, expressed concern over Geldof’s desire that the commission, while being chaired by Blair, should also be independent, and she stressed the government must have oversight.

“If this document is going to have your name and be sold by you, [Geldof] must accept that we have the final editing role,” she wrote to Blair.

The fact Geldof was opposed to a chair from Africa was particularly “tricky”, she added. “He is scathing about the ability and worthiness of virtually all African leaders and sees the audience as primarily the US,” she noted.

“He therefore does not want an African co-chair, content to ride with your name to give it credibility.”

She continued that they would need “prominent African involvement” and suggested Blair “talk carefully” to the then South African president, Thabo Mbeki, to secure his support.

The ensuing pledge at Gleneagles to double aid and extend debt relief was hailed by Geldof as “mission accomplished”, although some anti-poverty campaigners complained that he had got too close to the government and that it did not go far enough.

Tony Blair’s government discussed diverting £2m earmarked to prevent conflict in Africa in order to fund a controversial pilot scheme to process and house asylum-seekers in Tanzania, newly released government files show.

Under the scheme, Britain would have offered Tanzania an extra £4m in aid if it opened an asylum camp to house people claiming to be Somalian refugees while their applications to live in Britain were assessed.

Hilary Benn, the then international development secretary, wrote to the then home secretary, David Blunkett, in 2004 saying the migration partnership with Tanzania was “off the ground”, files released to the National Archives in Kew, west London, show.

“As the quickest way forward, therefore, I would propose a PES transfer of £2 million from the Africa Conflict Prevention Pool to the Home Office budget, on the understanding that you – with help, I hope, from Jack Straw – will find the resources needed to fill the remaining shortfall,” Benn wrote in January 2004.

Straw, the then foreign secretary, responded, writing to Blunkett in February 2004 that he had “some reservations” about using ACPP funding in this way, but was willing to agree a one-off transfer.

The then armed forces minister, Adam Ingram, however, wrote to Benn to say that while he agreed that the removal of refused asylum seekers should be addressed, he did not “consider it appropriate” to draw on the ACPP fund.

Ingram wrote: “In the medium and longer terms improving stability in Africa is likely to be one of the more sustainable means of reducing the flow of economic and other migrants; that is what the ACPP exists to achieve. Perhaps there are other more appropriate funding sources we should look at in this case.”

The 2004 asylum camp scheme – put forward at a time when Blair sought to persuade voters that his government still controlled Britain’s borders – was dropped in the face of opposition in Tanzania and criticism from the EU, with some German officials likening the proposals to concentration camps.

Jimmy Carter, the former US president who died aged 100 on Sunday, will be honored with a state funeral before being laid to rest in his home town of Plains, Georgia, next to his wife, Rosalynn.

The proceedings to honor the 29th president of the United States will start on Saturday, when a motorcade accompanying Carter will travel through Plains to his boyhood home. The procession will briefly pause in front of his family’s farm.

From there, Carter’s remains will be taken to Atlanta, where the motorcade will stop at at Georgia’s state capitol for a moment of silence led by Georgia political leaders. Carter’s remains will then be transported to the Carter Presidential Center, where he will lie in repose until the early morning of next Tuesday, 7 January.

From there, the remains of the late president will be brought to Washington, where he will lie in state at the US Capitol.

Next Thursday, Carter will be honored at a state funeral in Washington national cathedral, with many world leaders and other former presidents expected in attendance. Joe Biden will deliver a eulogy.

The date, 9 January, has also been declared a national day of mourning in the United States.

After the state funeral, Carter’s casket will return to Georgia, where a service will be held at Maranatha Baptist church in Plains, followed by a private funeral service and an internment later in the afternoon.

Carter, the longest-lived president, died on Sunday, two years after entering hospice care. Most of the nation saw the former president for the last time at Rosalynn Carter’s funeral last year.

The Carter family said on Monday it had accepted the invitation from Congress for Carter to lie in state at the US Capitol.

Congressional lawmakers extended the invitation to the late former president’s family “in recognition of his long and distinguished service to the nation”, the Carter Center said in a statement posted on X.

The invitation was “respectfully and gratefully accepted”, the statement said.

Flags were flying at half-staff on federal buildings and grounds across the US in tribute to Carter on Monday, and they will continue to do so for the next 30 days.

It is tradition after deaths of acting presidents or former presidents for the US government to order American flags to fly at half-staff, or half-mast, on all federal buildings, grounds and naval vessels, across the US and its territories worldwide.

The tradition is carried out for 30 days, which means flags will be at half-staff when Donald Trump is inaugurated in Washington on 20 January.

Joe Biden gave a short public address paying tribute to Carter, in which he delivered official praise and personal anecdotes.

“It’s a sad day but it brings back an incredible amount of good memories,” Biden said.

“Today, America – and the world, in my view – lost a remarkable leader. He was a statesman and a humanitarian and Jill [first lady Jill Biden] and I have lost a dear friend.”

Biden said Carter had told him in the past that he was the first official figure to endorse Carter for the presidency in 1976. Biden was a Democratic US senator for Delaware at the time.

Biden said it “dawned on him” that he and Carter “have been hanging out for 50 years”, and he recalled that Carter used to tease him affectionately.

Biden has issued an executive order directing the closure of US government agencies and executive departments on 9 January. US stock exchanges will be closed as well.

Jimmy Carter, the former US president who died aged 100 on Sunday, will be honored with a state funeral before being laid to rest in his home town of Plains, Georgia, next to his wife, Rosalynn.

The proceedings to honor the 29th president of the United States will start on Saturday, when a motorcade accompanying Carter will travel through Plains to his boyhood home. The procession will briefly pause in front of his family’s farm.

From there, Carter’s remains will be taken to Atlanta, where the motorcade will stop at at Georgia’s state capitol for a moment of silence led by Georgia political leaders. Carter’s remains will then be transported to the Carter Presidential Center, where he will lie in repose until the early morning of next Tuesday, 7 January.

From there, the remains of the late president will be brought to Washington, where he will lie in state at the US Capitol.

Next Thursday, Carter will be honored at a state funeral in Washington national cathedral, with many world leaders and other former presidents expected in attendance. Joe Biden will deliver a eulogy.

The date, 9 January, has also been declared a national day of mourning in the United States.

After the state funeral, Carter’s casket will return to Georgia, where a service will be held at Maranatha Baptist church in Plains, followed by a private funeral service and an internment later in the afternoon.

Carter, the longest-lived president, died on Sunday, two years after entering hospice care. Most of the nation saw the former president for the last time at Rosalynn Carter’s funeral last year.

The Carter family said on Monday it had accepted the invitation from Congress for Carter to lie in state at the US Capitol.

Congressional lawmakers extended the invitation to the late former president’s family “in recognition of his long and distinguished service to the nation”, the Carter Center said in a statement posted on X.

The invitation was “respectfully and gratefully accepted”, the statement said.

Flags were flying at half-staff on federal buildings and grounds across the US in tribute to Carter on Monday, and they will continue to do so for the next 30 days.

It is tradition after deaths of acting presidents or former presidents for the US government to order American flags to fly at half-staff, or half-mast, on all federal buildings, grounds and naval vessels, across the US and its territories worldwide.

The tradition is carried out for 30 days, which means flags will be at half-staff when Donald Trump is inaugurated in Washington on 20 January.

Joe Biden gave a short public address paying tribute to Carter, in which he delivered official praise and personal anecdotes.

“It’s a sad day but it brings back an incredible amount of good memories,” Biden said.

“Today, America – and the world, in my view – lost a remarkable leader. He was a statesman and a humanitarian and Jill [first lady Jill Biden] and I have lost a dear friend.”

Biden said Carter had told him in the past that he was the first official figure to endorse Carter for the presidency in 1976. Biden was a Democratic US senator for Delaware at the time.

Biden said it “dawned on him” that he and Carter “have been hanging out for 50 years”, and he recalled that Carter used to tease him affectionately.

Biden has issued an executive order directing the closure of US government agencies and executive departments on 9 January. US stock exchanges will be closed as well.

In May 1989, the former US president Jimmy Carter walked into the lobby of a hotel in Panama and made it known he was determined to be heard in spite of attempts by the country’s military ruler, Gen Manuel Noriega, to shut him up.

Carter was still widely held in contempt in his own country, where his reputation as a one-term president was crucified in the late 70s by interminable gas lines, Iran’s taunting seizure of American hostages and a general perception that he lacked the mettle to lead the free world.

In time, he won renewed respect through the myriad works of his Carter Center and its considerable efforts to eradicate diseases, mediate conflicts and press brutal regimes to reform. Driven by a deep religious faith and missionary zeal, which others could find grating, he set about doing what he could not as president – changing the world. Part of that was to establish his centre as a credible judge of the fairness of elections as authoritarian regimes crumbled with the end of the cold war. Panama was his first.

Noriega was under indictment in the US for drug trafficking, even though he had long worked for the CIA, and was hoping to ease US pressure with an election that would see his handpicked candidate installed.

Carter, alone among former US presidents, had the standing and credibility with Latin Americans to endorse or reject the results. For a start, he signed the treaties to hand the Panama Canal Zone, sovereign American territory at the time, to Panama in 2000 over the vigorous denunciations of Ronald Reagan, who went on to defeat Carter in the 1980 presidential election, and Republicans in Congress. Donald Trump is now threatening to take the canal back.

Carter met Noriega the evening before the ballot at the dictator’s military headquarters. A Carter Center aide, Jennie Lincoln, was with the former president. “It was surreal. There was President Carter and Mrs Carter took notes. I did the translation of Noriega’s Spanish to English for the president,” she said. “President Carter asked Noriega if he would accept the result if it went against him. Noriega was very arrogant and very confident they would win.”

Noriega miscalculated. His candidate was soundly beaten. The electoral commission was in the dictator’s pocket and made a clumsy attempt to fix the result. Carter confronted its top officials.

“Are you honest people or are you thieves?” he asked them. The former president tried to see Noriega again but failed so he decided to go public. The electoral commission blocked a press conference at its media centre so Carter walked across the road and gave an impromptu address to reporters in the lobby of the Marriott hotel.

As Noriega’s soldiers swirled around outside, Carter’s Secret Service bodyguards set up two exit routes just in case. “The government is taking the election by fraud,’’ Carter said. “It’s robbing the people of Panama of their legitimate rights.” The election was annulled and by the end of the year the US had invaded and overthrown Noriega, although that is not what Carter had wanted.

It’s difficult to imagine another former US president having the credibility to carry out such a role in a Latin American country. Carter’s record as president in the region was far from unblemished but his administration initiated an annual report on human rights practices by foreign governments which led to the end of military aid to five rightwing Latin American dictatorships for the rest of his term.

He also pulled the plug on longstanding US support for the Somoza regime in Nicaragua, helping to bring about its downfall at the hands of the Sandinistas in 1979, although he did keep up aid to the government in El Salvador despite appalling human rights abuses.

Opinion divided on the impact of Carter’s policies, compromised as they were by cold war tensions and the long history of the US’s imperial behavior in Latin America. But ordinary Latin Americans noted that Carter offered an interlude from the usual US swagger in their region in sharp contrast with those elected before and after him.

Panama was just a beginning. The one-term president who left office widely ridiculed as weak and incompetent proved to be rather more steely and effective out of the White House.

His Carter Center played a major role in the near eradication of Guinea worm disease and in combating other diseases that blight so many lives among, as Carter put it, “some of the poorest and neglected people on earth”. Carter had a hand in resolving conflicts from Haiti and North Korea to Sudan. His organisation has monitored about 100 elections since the first in Panama.

He used the residual authority of being an ex-US president, who could get the White House on the phone, to confront authoritarian leaders of various stripes, from Ethiopia’s dictator, Mengistu Haile Mariam, to Liberia’s notorious warlord and former president Charles Taylor, now serving a 50-year prison sentence after being convicted by an international court of terrorism, murder, rape and war crimes. He pressed human rights issues in Haiti and Cuba. A Quinnipiac university poll in November 2015 revealed that American voters regarded Carter as having done the best work of any president since leaving office.

The Nobel committee recognised it a few years earlier in awarding the 2002 peace prize to this most unusual of ex-presidents who was to be found nailing together houses for the poor in Vietnam with Habitat for Humanity, in which he played a leading role, when he wasn’t denouncing torture at the US prison at Guantánamo Bay, Barack Obama’s drone strikes or Tony Blair’s support for the Iraq invasion as “abominable”.

The same moral code or self-righteousness, depending on who is doing the describing, that as president cost him support in Congress for his far-sighted policies on the environment and energy because he refused to sign off on pork barrel politics led him in more recent times to speak his mind more frankly than most former presidents.

Carter said that a large part of the intense animosity toward the first African American president was because of his race. He warned that big money was now so pervasive in American politics that the US was “no longer a functioning democracy” because of “unlimited political bribery”. He accused “weak-kneed politicians” of bowing to the pressure of the National Rifle Association on gun control and railed against the death penalty.

But nothing ran Carter into so much trouble as his willingness to call it as he saw it on Israel.

In 2006, he drew a torrent of criticism and abuse with a book critical of Israel’s failure to make peace and end the occupation. The title – Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid – lit the fuse by suggesting Israel pursues a racist policy against the Palestinians.

A rightwing pro-Israel pressure group took out full-page adverts in the New York Times to demand the publishers correct supposed errors which were not errors at all. Others denounced the president who engineered the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt, which has held for nearly four decades, as an antisemite and Israel hater.

Alan Dershowitz, the prominent constitutional lawyer who describes himself as liberal but has advocated the destruction of entire villages as collective punishment for Palestinian attacks, accused Carter of having “a long, long history of theological antisemitism coupled with virulent anti-Israelism”.

Carter infuriated his critics further by standing his ground and ramping up the criticism. He said that balanced debate about US policy on Israel is “practically non-existent” in Congress or in presidential races, and accused America’s political leadership of being “in the pocket” of the Jewish state.

“We cannot be peacemakers if American government leaders are seen as knee-jerk supporters of every action or policy of whatever Israeli government happens to be in power at the moment. That is the essential fact that must be faced,” he wrote.

Carter even took on the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) lobby group, which few American politicians dare cross, accusing it of “domineering influence” over US policy. In August 2015, he created a fresh stir by telling the British magazine Prospect that Israel’s then and future prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, intended for his country to go on ruling the Palestinians without giving them equal rights.

Carter was proved right with Netanyahu, who has recently been indicted by the international criminal court for war crimes in Gaza, going on to openly oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state.

There’s no doubt that Carter’s views on Israel were rooted in his deep Christianity. Some accused him of antisemitic tropes. Whatever was driving him, he was not afraid to make his views known long before he became president. He first visited Israel in 1973 when he was governor of Georgia.

At a meeting with the legendary prime minister Golda Meir, he decided to give the firmly secular Israeli leader a religious scolding. “With some hesitation, I said that I had long taught lessons from the Hebrew Scriptures and that a common historical pattern was that Israel was punished whenever the leaders turned away from devout worship of God,” Carter recounted in his book. “I asked if she was concerned about the secular nature of her Labor government.” The chain-smoking Meir lit another cigarette and said she was not.

It seemed a natural fit then when Nelson Mandela asked Carter to become a founder member of the Elders in 2007.

The former South African president said the organisation of former leaders would use “almost 1,000 years of collective experience” and their political independence – they didn’t have to worry about the voters or their legislatures – to tackle problems that those in power and organisations such as the United Nations were unable to, from the climate crisis to HIV/Aids but particularly some of the world’s most enduring conflicts. Carter joined Elders delegations to Egypt to press then president Mohamed Morsi for “an inclusive, democratic transition”.

The former US leader travelled to Burma, Cyprus, the Korean peninsula and Sudan. But, notably, he was not part of an Elders delegation to Iran. He campaigned for equality for women and girls. Then he was back building houses, giving more interviews critical of Israel and, even after his diagnosis of cancer, promising that he would not stop until he was unable to continue any more. Carter was true to his word.

Israel has set out its case to the UN security council for a full assault on Houthi forces in Yemen, claiming the Iranian-backed group now represents a well-armed terrorist army that threatens not just the regional economy but the entire global order.

The Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, also called for the Houthis to be designated as a foreign terrorist organisation, a step that may make it more difficult for Iran to provide material support without facing further economic sanctions.

Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador to the UN – who had called for the UN security council meeting to discuss the recent escalation in Houthi attacks on Israel – said the Houthis “were nothing more than part of Iran’s war against peace”. The group, he said, had an annual budget of $1.2bn (£0.95bn) and came dangerously close to strangling the Suez canal by its attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen.

He added that “millions of Israelis are waking up every night to the sound of sirens across the country”, accusing the Houthis of launching 300 attacks on Israel this year.

He said: “Let me make one thing absolutely clear; we have had enough. Israel will not stand by and wait for the world to react. We will defend our citizens.” The Houthis were no longer a regional threat but a threat to the world order, he said.

While almost all security council members at Monday’s meeting condemned the Houthi attacks on Israel mounted a week ago, many also condemned the Israeli threat to Yemeni civilians represented by the air raids on key power stations, the air traffic control tower at the airport in the capital of Sana’a, and ports which are critical to the delivery of aid. Nine Yemeni civilians were killed in the attacks that Israel said were retaliation for what Danon described as “a relentless Houthi bombardment of Israeli population centres”.

Barbara Woodward, the UK envoy to the UN, reiterated Israel’s right to self-defence but warned: “Israel’s action must be consistent with their obligations under international law including protection of civilians.”

She said she was “concerned by the attack on Sana’a airport that endangered Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus”. The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) was at Sana’a airport when Israeli warplanes struck on Thursday. A crew member from Tedros’s plane was injured in the strike and Tedros said he and his colleagues “escaped death narrowly”.

“Humanitarian aid workers must be able to carry out their important work safely and securely,” said Woodward, adding the director general had been in Yemen to seek the release of a group of UN staff held hostage by the Houthis.

Israel’s latest remarks appear to be part of a strategic decision to launch further decisive attacks on the Houthis, a strategy it hopes will be endorsed by the incoming Trump administration. Danon portrayed the UN as morally compromised and unwilling to take the steps necessary to enforce an arms embargo on Yemen.

Israel wants the UN to interdict ships carrying Iranian weapons to the Houthis though ports such as Hodeidah. The US and the UK governments think the current weak mandate of the UN verification and inspection mechanism needs review.

Referring to the narrow escape of the WHO director general and his delegation, Danon said: “We have no control over who is where. We have no intention to bomb to harm NGO or the UN, on the contrary, but if they are in areas where Houthis are, they should be careful because we will not sit idly by.”

Vasily Nebenzya, the Russian ambassador to the UN, went further in criticising Israel, saying the attacks were not owing to self-defence, but “are part of military aggression against a sovereign state by the collective west”. He said it was irrelevant if the attack was regarded as retaliation since the scope of destruction was a deliberate escalation, and disproportionate. He accused the US and the UK of being involved in the attacks on civilian infrastructure.

The Houthi leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, and the group’s spokesperson, Yahya Qasim Sare’e, have made it clear that as long as the war in Gaza continues, the Houthis will continue to attack shipping and Israel. Some Houthi activists have said on social media that recent attacks on Jaffa are a prelude to an attack on Israeli nuclear sites.

As families in Taiwan prepare to gather for lunar new year celebrations in January, a game that will be released that month promises to offer some war-themed fun over the festive period.

The board game 2045, developed by the Taiwanese company Mizo Games, invites players to participate in an imaginary Chinese invasion 20 years in the future. Players are given roles that include Taiwanese army officers, Chinese sleeper agents and volunteer citizen fighters.

“We can’t predict the future, but if a conflict is unavoidable I hope this game gives people a chance to experience war on the tabletop before it reaches us,” KJ Chang, the founder of Mizo Games, told the Wall Street Journal.

The game is being released at a time when China has increased its military pressure around the self-governing island. Taiwan has never been ruled by the People’s Republic of China but Beijing regards it as part of its territory and has promised to “unify” it with China, using force if necessary.

Observers do not know when, if ever, China will launch a military operation against Taiwan. But some analysts have pointed to the years around 2050 as a possible risk period. Xi Jinping, China’s leader and military commander-in-chief, has pledged to build a “world-class army” by the middle of the century, and 2049, the centenary of the People’s Republic of China, is the date by which Beijing wants to achieve “national rejuvenation”.

Mizo Games launched a crowdfunding campaign for their new product in August. Within months, it had raised NTD$4.1m (£99,468), surpassing its original target by more than 4,000%.

2045 is the latest in a series of entertainment products in Taiwan that focus on the threat of an attempted Chinese annexation. This year also saw the release of Zero Day, a Taiwanese government-funded television series that depicts a Chinese invasion. It also received support from Robert Tsao, a Taiwanese tech billionaire and supporter of Taiwan’s civil defence efforts.

As well as receiving the first copies of the game, VIP backers of the crowdfunding campaign will receive extra Taiwan-themed products. They include a leather passport cover embossed with the words: “Let my fly as a Taiwanese”, a nod to Taiwan’s lack of international recognition.

Most countries in the world only have formal diplomatic relations with China. Beijing insists that countries should not recognise Taiwan as a separate country from China and puts pressure on governments to cut ties with Taipei.

A federal appeals court has upheld the $5m verdict against Donald Trump for sexually abusing and defaming the magazine writer E Jean Carroll, dealing a legal setback to the president-elect.

The three-judge panel at the second US circuit court of appeals in Manhattan rejected Trump’s arguments for a new trial, ruling that evidence including testimony from other accusers – as well as the infamous Access Hollywood tape that captured him boasting about how it was normal for him to “grab [women] by the pussy” – was properly admitted.

The May 2023 verdict found Trump liable for sexually assaulting Carroll in a New York department store dressing room in about 1996, 20 years before winning his first presidency, though the jury stopped short of calling the case a rape. The verdict included $2.02m for sexual assault and $2.98m for defaming Carroll in an October 2022 social media post where he called her allegations a “hoax”.

The appeals court said testimony from two other women who accused Trump of sexual misconduct – the businesswoman Jessica Leeds as well as the former People magazine writer Natasha Stoynoff – helped establish “a repeated, idiosyncratic pattern of conduct” that aligned with Carroll’s allegations.

“Mr Trump’s statements in the [Access Hollywood] tape, together with the testimony of Ms Leeds and Ms Stoynoff, establish a repeated, idiosyncratic pattern of conduct consistent with what Ms Carroll alleged,” the opinion stated.

In a statement to the Guardian, Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan said: “Both E Jean Carroll and I are gratified by today’s decision. We thank the second circuit for its careful consideration of the parties’ arguments.”

The ruling follows a separate $83.3m defamation verdict that Carroll won against Trump in January over his 2019 denials of her allegations. Trump is appealing that verdict.

Trump has consistently denied all allegations, claiming he never met Carroll and that she was “not my type”.

The case is expected to continue even after Trump takes office for his second presidency on 20 January 2025, as the US supreme court ruled unanimously in 1997 that sitting presidents have no immunity from civil litigation over actions predating their official duties.

A federal appeals court has upheld the $5m verdict against Donald Trump for sexually abusing and defaming the magazine writer E Jean Carroll, dealing a legal setback to the president-elect.

The three-judge panel at the second US circuit court of appeals in Manhattan rejected Trump’s arguments for a new trial, ruling that evidence including testimony from other accusers – as well as the infamous Access Hollywood tape that captured him boasting about how it was normal for him to “grab [women] by the pussy” – was properly admitted.

The May 2023 verdict found Trump liable for sexually assaulting Carroll in a New York department store dressing room in about 1996, 20 years before winning his first presidency, though the jury stopped short of calling the case a rape. The verdict included $2.02m for sexual assault and $2.98m for defaming Carroll in an October 2022 social media post where he called her allegations a “hoax”.

The appeals court said testimony from two other women who accused Trump of sexual misconduct – the businesswoman Jessica Leeds as well as the former People magazine writer Natasha Stoynoff – helped establish “a repeated, idiosyncratic pattern of conduct” that aligned with Carroll’s allegations.

“Mr Trump’s statements in the [Access Hollywood] tape, together with the testimony of Ms Leeds and Ms Stoynoff, establish a repeated, idiosyncratic pattern of conduct consistent with what Ms Carroll alleged,” the opinion stated.

In a statement to the Guardian, Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan said: “Both E Jean Carroll and I are gratified by today’s decision. We thank the second circuit for its careful consideration of the parties’ arguments.”

The ruling follows a separate $83.3m defamation verdict that Carroll won against Trump in January over his 2019 denials of her allegations. Trump is appealing that verdict.

Trump has consistently denied all allegations, claiming he never met Carroll and that she was “not my type”.

The case is expected to continue even after Trump takes office for his second presidency on 20 January 2025, as the US supreme court ruled unanimously in 1997 that sitting presidents have no immunity from civil litigation over actions predating their official duties.

Gareth Southgate has been rewarded for transforming the fortunes and culture of the England football team with a knighthood in the new year honours list.

The 54-year-old led England to consecutive European Championship runners-up finishes and the 2018 World Cup semi-finals during his eight years in charge, before stepping down after the 2-1 loss to Spain in the Euro 2024 final.

Sir Gareth becomes only the fourth former England manager to receive a knighthood, after Sir Alf Ramsey, Sir Walter Winterbottom and Sir Bobby Robson.

Elsewhere the list is dominated by Britain’s successful stars from Paris 2024, with 14 Olympians and 24 Paralympians receiving awards.

Those honoured include the 800m gold medallist Keely Hodgkinson, who becomes a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE), along with the sprinter Dina Asher-Smith and the heptathlete Katarina Johnson-Thompson, who both won silver in Paris.

“I am deeply honoured to be recognised in the king’s new years honours list for services to athletics,” Johnson-Thompson said. “My small contribution has only been possible due to the huge contributions made by so many others in helping me to chase and achieve my dreams over the last 20 years.”

The cyclist Tom Pidcock and the swimmer Duncan Scott are both upgraded to become Officers of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), along with Helen Glover, who came out of retirement to win a rowing silver medal in the women’s four.

The 38-year-old Glover, who was a gold medallist in London and Rio before having three children, said she was honoured with her award.

“I was determined that this Olympic journey would lead to winning a medal in front of three children and I felt supported by the parenting community,” she said. “It makes me very proud to be recognised for trying to make a difference within this space.”

The rowing gold medallists Lola Anderson, Georgie Brayshaw, Emily Craig, Imogen Grant, Lauren Henry and Hannah Scott are also awarded MBEs, along with the cyclists Sophie Capewell, Emma Finucane and Katy Marchant, the trampoline gold medallist Bryony Page and the kite-surfing champion Ellie Aldridge.

Aldridge said: “It really has been an amazing year and this feels like the cherry on the cake. I didn’t go to university and I never thought I’d ever have any letters after my name, let alone MBE.”

The nine-time Paralympic champion Hannah Cockroft, who is awarded an OBE, described it as “the perfect ending to an incredible year”. And there was also a CBE for services to sport for Penny Briscoe, the director of sport at the British Paralympic Association who led the team in Paris.

Several sporting legends are also honoured in the list, including the former Wales and British & Irish Lions wing Gerald Davies, who has been knighted for services to sport and his charity work.

Davies, who won three grand slams for Wales during an international career that spanned 12 years, said: “I feel very emotional about it. I am surprised by it. Words are really quite inadequate to describe it. It comes out of the blue.”

There are also OBEs for the former Formula One driver Martin Brundle, for services to motor racing and sports broadcasting, and the former West Ham manager David Moyes.

Alan Hansen, the former Liverpool defender and longtime BBC pundit, has been made an MBE for services to football and broadcasting.

Dawn Astle, who set up the Jeff Astle Foundation to campaign for more research into head injuries in football on behalf of her father, who died of dementia in 2002, has been made an MBE.

The World Health Organization on Monday implored China to share data and access to help understand the origins of Covid-19, five years on from the start of the pandemic that upended the planet.

“We continue to call on China to share data and access so we can understand the origins of Covid-19. This is a moral and scientific imperative,” the WHO said in a statement.

Covid-19 killed more than seven million people, shredded economies and crippled health systems.

“Without transparency, sharing, and cooperation among countries, the world cannot adequately prevent and prepare for future epidemics and pandemics,” the WHO said.

The WHO recounted how on 31 December 2019, its country office in China picked up a media statement from health authorities in Wuhan concerning cases of “viral pneumonia” in the city.

“In the weeks, months and years that unfolded after that, Covid-19 came to shape our lives and our world,” the UN health agency said.

“As we mark this milestone, let’s take a moment to honour the lives changed and lost, recognise those who are suffering from Covid-19 and Long Covid, express gratitude to the health workers who sacrificed so much to care for us, and commit to learning from Covid-19 to build a healthier tomorrow.”

Earlier this month, the WHO’s director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus addressed the issue of whether the world was better prepared for the next pandemic than it was for Covid-19.

“The answer is yes, and no,” he told a press conference.

“If the next pandemic arrived today, the world would still face some of the same weaknesses and vulnerabilities that gave Covid-19 a foothold five years ago.

“But the world has also learned many of the painful lessons the pandemic taught us, and has taken significant steps to strengthen its defences against future epidemics and pandemics.”

In December 2021, spooked by the devastation caused by Covid, countries decided to start drafting an accord on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.

The WHO’s 194 member states negotiating the treaty have agreed on most of what it should include, but are stuck on the practicalities.

A key fault-line lies between western nations with major pharmaceutical industry sectors and poorer countries wary of being sidelined when the next pandemic strikes.

While the outstanding issues are few, they include the heart of the agreement: the obligation to quickly share emerging pathogens, and then the pandemic-fighting benefits derived from them such as vaccines. The deadline for the negotiations is May 2025.

The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has urged voters not to let the “owners of social media channels” decide next year’s snap election, after Elon Musk repeatedly endorsed the far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).

In a New Year’s Eve address recorded for television and made available before its broadcast on Tuesday, Scholz said German citizens alone had the power to decide “where Germany goes from here” after the general election on 23 February.

“It will not be decided by the owners of social media channels,” Scholz said of the country’s future.

“In our debates, one can be forgiven for sometimes thinking the more extreme an opinion is, the more attention it will garner.” Rather, Scholz said, the fate of German society “will be up to the vast majority of reasonable and decent people”.

Without mentioning Musk or his platform, X, explicitly, Scholz urged Germans to resist manipulation and to stand up for their democracy.

“After all, it’s customary to make wishes on New Year’s Eve. What I wish for is that we will not let ourselves be played off each other,” he said.

Scholz noted there had been a surge of disinformation on social media after the Christmas market attack in Magdeburg on 20 December in which five people were killed and more than 200 injured. The car ramming was allegedly committed by a Saudi-born assailant with far-right sympathies.

“No small number of these rumours and conjectures, though, have meanwhile been debunked. These things divide and weaken us,” he said. “This is not good for our country.”

On Monday, a spokesperson for Scholz, Christiane Hoffmann, accused Musk of trying to meddle in the country’s election campaign with a series of declarations backing the anti-Muslim, anti-migration AfD party.

“It is indeed the case that Elon Musk is trying to influence the federal election,” Hoffmann said at a regular media briefing. Musk had the right to free speech, she said, adding: “After all, freedom of opinion also covers the greatest nonsense.”

Musk has often weighed in on German politics, even calling Scholz a “fool” on X last month. However, his more recent open calls for German voters to support the AfD, which federal authorities classify as a suspected extremist party, have sparked outrage and accusations of troubling interference in Europe’s top economy.

The South African-born entrepreneur, a close adviser to Donald Trump who has been named by the incoming president to co-lead a commission aimed at reducing the size of the US federal government, wrote on X earlier this month: “Only the AfD can save Germany.”

In the post, Musk shared a video by a German rightwing influencer, Naomi Seibt, who criticised Friedrich Merz, the conservative frontrunner in the German election, and praised Javier Milei, Argentina’s self-styled “anarcho-capitalist” president.

He followed up at the weekend with a guest editorial in the broadsheet Welt am Sonntag arguing that Germany was teetering on the brink of economic and cultural collapse, defending the AfD against accusations of radicalism and praising the party’s approach to the economy, including regulation and tax policy.

The editor of the centre-right newspaper’s opinion section, Eva Marie Kogel, posted on X that she had submitted her resignation in protest at the decision to run the article.

Politicians from across the political spectrum criticised Musk’s attempts to put his thumb on the scales of German democracy, with the health minister, Karl Lauterbach, of Scholz’s Social Democratic party (SPD), calling his intervention “undignified and highly problematic” and Merz saying it was “intrusive and presumptuous”.

Merz told the Funke media group: “I cannot recall in the history of western democracies a comparable case of interference in the election campaign of a friendly country.”

Scholz’s centre-left-led coalition collapsed last month, prompting him to call a confidence vote in order to trigger a general election in February, seven months ahead of schedule. His SPD is widely expected to lose to Merz’s CDU/CSU bloc amid voter anger over the cost of living and meagre economic growth.

AfD members have been working for months to make inroads with the Trump camp, seeking to harness his electoral momentum for the German campaign. Alice Weidel, the party’s co-leader, was one of the first foreign politicians to welcome Trump’s victory.

A small group of AfD activists posed for pictures with Trump at his private club Mar-a-Lago on US election day last month, chanting “Fight! Fight! Fight!” in English and German.

Musk’s endorsement in Die Welt cited Weidel’s “same-sex partner from Sri Lanka” as evidence that the portrayal of the AfD “as rightwing extremist is clearly false”. “Does that sound like Hitler to you? Please!” he wrote.

The AfD is polling second on about 19%, behind the CDU/CSU on 31%. A strong showing for the party could complicate coalition building, requiring the election winner to seek up to two partners to build a ruling majority. All mainstream parties have ruled out collaborating with the AfD at state or federal level.

Detectives are hunting a “lone wolf” burglar who stole bespoke jewellery and designer items worth more than £10m in a 19-minute heist at a billionaire’s row mansion in London.

The man broke in through a second-floor window and cracked a safe to carry out what is believed to be one of the biggest ever thefts from a British home.

He struck at the 13-bed house in Avenue Road, St John’s Wood, on Saturday 7 December, while people were inside.

The Guardian understands the man broke in at 5.11pm and spent five minutes rummaging through rooms before clambering down stairs to the first floor, where he found high-value items. He escaped through the same second-floor window at 5.30pm.

While inside, he managed to break into a safe where some of the jewels were kept, with others swiped from a dressing island.

The suspect, who was armed with a weapon, was captured breaking in by security cameras, which also recorded him scouring rooms in the 22,000 sq ft (2,045 sq metre) mansion. His face was covered and police and private investigators are trying to identify him.

The targeted family are offering rewards running into hundreds of thousands of pounds for the man’s capture and the return of the jewellery.

About eight people, including staff and some family members, were in the five-storey mansion at the time. The family are originally from Hong Kong.

Police said the burglar escaped with £150,000 worth of Hermès Crocodile Kelly handbags, £15,000 in cash, and bespoke jewellery worth £10.4m.

Among the jewels was a Graff 10.73-carat diamond ring, two butterfly diamond rings by De Beers, a Hermès 3.03-carat ring, aquamarine ring and “Niloticus Lumière” necklace, as well as numerous other items including pink sapphire earrings from Katherine Wang shaped like butterflies, police said.

CCTV shows the suspect is a white man in his late 20s to 30s, of medium build. He was wearing a dark hoodie, cargo pants and a grey baseball cap.

One source with knowledge of the investigation said the suspect’s weapon had appeared to be a small flamethrower or canister of noxious spray meant to incapacitate anyone he came across.

CCTV showed the burglar reaching for the weapon each time he heard a noise from those inside, the source said. At one point he came close to bumping into a maid.

Police warned those trying to sell the stolen items that they were easily identifiable, and would not say if they believed the valuables could already be out of the country and for sale on the international hidden market.

DC Paulo Roberts, who is investigating the burglary, said: “This is a brazen offence, where the suspect has entered the property while armed with an unknown weapon and violated the sanctuary of the victims’ home.

“The suspect has stolen £10.4m worth of jewellery, much of which is sentimental and unique in its design, and therefore easily identifiable.

“We urge anyone who was in the area of Avenue Road, NW8, and saw anything suspicious to please come forward. Also, if you have seen this jewellery since, someone has offered to sell you it, or you have any further information, then please also contact the police or Crimestoppers anonymously.”

Csaba Virag, the chief of staff to the family and who was in the mansion at the time, said the video footage showed the jewel thief “had definitely done it before”.

Virag said that while the actual break-in looked like it was by a “lone wolf”, turning the stolen haul into money could involve a wider network.

The family whose home was ransacked have offered a reward of up to £500,000 for information leading to the capture and conviction of the suspect. A second reward is on offer of 10% of the value of any items recovered.

Avenue Road is one of Britain’s wealthiest addresses and home to scores of largely international billionaires and millionaires.

Earlier this year, the insurers Aviva warned of a rise of over 40% in claims for high-end jewel thefts.