North Macedonia has declared a seven-day period of mourning after a fire in a nightclub that left at least 59 dead and scores injured, as authorities detained 15 people for questioning and the interior minister said a preliminary inspection revealed the club was operating without a proper licence.

At the end of a day in which the small Balkan country grappled with a disaster not seen in decades, its interior minister Panche Toshkovski said the venue in the eastern town of Kočani where the pre-dawn blaze occurred appeared to be operating illegally.

“This company does not have a legal licence for work,” Toshkovski told reporters. “This licence, as many other things in Macedonia in the past, is connected with bribery and corruption,” he added without elaborating.

More than 20 people were under investigation, 15 of whom were in police custody, while others suspected of involvement were in hospital, he said.

Most of those killed by the blaze, which ripped through the Pulse nightclub during a hip-hop concert, were teenagers and young adults. Over 155 were injured, many critically.

The premises had previously served as a carpet warehouse in Kočani, a town about 60 miles (97km) east of the capital, Skopje. Press reports described it as an “improvised nightclub”.

The prime minister, Hristijan Mickoski, said the loss of so many young lives was “irreparable”. “All competent forces will do whatever is necessary to address the consequences and determine the causes of this tragedy,” he promised earlier on Sunday.

The fire, thought to have been triggered by the use of special-effects pyrotechnic devices, erupted at about 2.35am local time (1.35am GMT). Some of those taken to medical facilities were as young as 14. Pictures showed the club’s corrugated iron roof burnt through and collapsed in places, its interior wooden beams exposed and blackened.

Marija Taseva, 22, told Reuters: “When the fire broke out, everyone started screaming and shouting: ‘Get out, get out.’” As she tried to escape, Taseva fell to the ground and people trod on her, injuring her face. In the crush, she lost contact with her sister, who did not make it out. “My sister died,” Taseva said, breaking into tears.

“It’s hard to believe how this happened,” the country’s president, Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova, told distraught parents gathered outside a hospital in the capital. “We must give these young people courage to continue.” Dressed in black and fighting tears, she said authorities were ready to do everything to help all those affected.

Medical officials said many people had suffered severe burns and carbon monoxide poisoning and that plans were under way to transport the critically wounded to specialised hospitals across Europe. Dr Kristina Serafimova, the head of Kočani general hospital, told reporters that at least 10 were on respirators and fighting for their lives. It was the biggest loss of life in the country of 1.8 million people since the early 1990s.

The rightwing nationalist-led government, which was returned to power last year, moved quickly to detain suspects.

Initial reports suggested about 1,500 clubgoers were crammed into the discotheque to watch the popular hip-hop band DNK – a number far exceeding the venue’s capacity. The club had only one exit and a lack of fire extinguishers, according to local media outlets.

One young person who was attending the concert told local media: “The fire started around 2.30am. The sparklers that were on stage ignited the styrofoam on the ceiling. I heard an explosion and the roof collapsed. We all rushed to get out – we all ran towards one door that was for both entry and exit.”

Visiting the site early on Sunday, Toshkovski said the blaze was probably caused by pyrotechnic devices “used for lighting effects at the concert”. As they were set off, “the sparks caught the ceiling, which was made of easily flammable material, after which the fire rapidly spread across the whole discotheque, creating thick smoke”, he told reporters.

The government said it would immediately step up inspections of nightclubs and similar venues to ensure they complied with international safety regulations. “The most important thing is to find out all the facts and evidence necessary for the follow-up measures,” Toshkovski said. “We must remain calm while taking all these steps so that something like this doesn’t happen again.”

Images on social media showed chaotic scenes as the fire broke out and the band’s singer urged the audience to vacate the premises as quickly as possible. Serafimova attributed the deaths to the panic-stricken crush that ensued, as well as smoke inhalation and burns. Among the injured were musicians in the eight-member band, DNK’s manager said.

Branko Gerovski, a veteran journalist in Skopje, said: “In a country as small as ours, and with the death toll likely to rise, the impact has been huge. We haven’t seen anything like this since the devastating air crashes in Macedonia in 1993. Everyone feels very emotional. They can relate to this because everyone’s kids go to nightclubs.”

Neighbouring countries including Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Albania were quick to offer assistance. Senior European Union officials also expressed their condolences, while the Vatican said Pope Francis sent prayers to the victims and survivors of the fire.

Mark Carney, the new Canadian prime minister, is headed to Paris and London seeking alliances as he deals with Donald Trump’s attacks on Canada’s sovereignty and economy.

Carney is deliberately making his first foreign trip to the capital cities of the two countries that shaped Canada’s early existence. At his swearing-in ceremony on Friday, Carney noted the country was built on the bedrock of three peoples: French, English and Indigenous. He said Canada was fundamentally different from the US and will “never, ever, in any way shape or form, be part of the United States”.

A senior government official briefed reporters on the plane before picking up Carney in Montreal and said the purpose of the trip was to double down on partnerships with Canada’s two founding countries. The official said Canada was a “good friend of the United States but we all know what is going on”.

Nelson Wiseman, professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, said: “The Trump factor is the reason for the trip. The Trump factor towers over everything else Carney must deal with.”

Carney, a former central banker who turned 60 on Sunday, will meet with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, in Paris on Monday then travel to London to sit down with the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, in an effort to diversify trade and perhaps coordinate a response to Trump’s tariffs.

He will also meet with King Charles III, Canada’s head of state. The trip to England is a bit of a homecoming, as Carney is a former governor of the Bank of England, the first noncitizen to be named to the role in its more than 300 years.

Carney then travels to the edge of Canada’s Arctic to “reaffirm Canada’s Arctic security and sovereignty” before returning to Ottawa where he is expected to call an election within days.

Carney has said he is ready to meet with Trump if he shows respect for Canadian sovereignty. He said he did not plan to visit Washington at the moment but hoped to have a phone call with the president soon.

Sweeping tariffs of 25% and Trump’s talk of making Canada the 51st US state have infuriated Canadians, and many are avoiding buying American goods when they can.

Carney’s government is reviewing the purchase of US-made F-35 fighter jets in light of Trump’s trade war.

The governing Liberal party had appeared poised for a historic election defeat this year until Trump declared economic war and repeatedly said Canada should become the 51st state. Now the party and its new leader, Carney, could come out on top.

Robert Bothwell, a professor of Canadian history and international relations at the University of Toronto, said Carney was wise not to visit Trump. “There’s no point in going to Washington,” Bothwell said. “As [former prime minister Justin] Trudeau’s treatment shows, all that results in is a crude attempt by Trump to humiliate his guests.”

Bothwell said that Trump demands respect “but it’s often a one-way street, asking others to set aside their self-respect to bend to his will”.

Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal, said it was absolutely essential Canada diversify trade amid the trade war with the United States. More than 75% of Canada’s exports go to the US.

Béland said Arctic sovereignty was also a key issue for Canada. “President Trump’s aggressive talk about both Canada and Greenland and the apparent rapprochement between Russia, a strong Arctic power, and the United States under Trump have increased anxieties about our control over this remote yet highly strategic region.”

Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff said on Sunday that he expected the US president to speak with Vladimir Putin this week, saying that the Russian president “accepts the philosophy” of Trump’s ceasefire and peace terms.

Witkoff told CNN that discussions with Putin over several hours last week were “positive” and “solution-based”. He declined to confirm when asked whether Putin’s demands included the surrender of Ukrainian forces in Kursk; international recognition of Ukrainian territory seized by Russia as Russian; limits on Ukraine’s ability to mobilize; a halt to western military aid; and a ban on foreign peacekeepers.

Putin said on Thursday that he supported a truce but outlined numerous details that need to be negotiated before the deal can be completed. The Russian president said he was open to a 30-day ceasefire proposed by the US but offered vague terms for his support, raising questions about what the Kremlin wants.

Witkoff declined to describe Russian terms. He said US envoys “had narrowed the differences” between Ukraine and Russian negotiators, and he would meet Trump on Sunday to discuss “how to narrow the differences even further”.

The discussions, Witkoff added, included Ukraine, Russia and European stakeholder countries including France, Britain, Norway and Finland, as well as other elements “that would be encompassed in a ceasefire”.

Trump, he said, was being updated about the discussions as they happened. “He is involved with every important decision here and I expect that there will be a call between the [US and Russian] presidents this week.”

Witkoff also said the US was continuing to engage and have conversations with Ukraine, and “advising them on everything we’re thinking about”.

Ukraine agreed to a US proposal for a 30-day ceasefire at talks last week in Saudi Arabia, and since his disastrous meeting in the White House a fortnight ago, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has been trying hard to portray Kyiv as amenable to Trump’s plans, while suggesting Putin is merely playing for time and not serious about negotiating a deal.

Zelenskyy has agreed to put discussions of territorial questions and of possible security guarantees on hold until after a ceasefire takes effect and more detailed discussions are held. Previously, he had insisted that a ceasefire would only make sense if western partners would provide Ukraine with some kind of security guarantee.

Trump has made it clear that no US guarantees are on the table, while the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, has been attempting to rally a coalition of other western allies to put together a possible peacekeeping contingent that could be deployed to Ukraine after a deal. However, it is not clear that such a mission could function without US backing, and Russian officials have repeatedly ruled out accepting any deal involving western boots on the ground in Ukraine.

On Sunday, Zelenskyy said Russia had launched more than 1,000 drones and 1,300 guided air bombs on Ukrainian territory over the past week. “This is not what someone who wants a quick end to the war does, so we have to jointly pressure Russia to force it to stop its aggression,” Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram. Ukraine also launched a fresh wave of drone attacks against Russian territory over the weekend.

Witkoff said teams of US negotiators would meet with both Russian and Ukrainian officials this week. “As the president said, he really expects there to be some sort of deal in the coming weeks, and I believe that’s the case,” he said.

There have been concerns that the settlement being pushed for by the Trump administration would look a lot like an outright Russian victory, at the expense of Ukraine and its allies in Europe.

Trump and Putin last week set off further alarm bells in Kyiv by exchanging friendly words, as the new US administration cosies up to Moscow while attacking Ukraine with threatening language and the withdrawal of some military support.

Separately, Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, told ABC’s This Week that back-and-forth diplomacy was ongoing. Waltz said there would be “some type of territory for future security guarantees, the future status of Ukraine”, and he called permanent Nato membership for Ukraine “incredibly unlikely”.

Waltz asked if it was plausible to believe that “we are going to drive every Russian off of every inch of Ukrainian soil, including Crimea?”

He said: “We can talk about what’s right and wrong. And we also have to talk about the reality of the situation on the ground. And that’s what we are doing through diplomacy, through shuttle diplomacy, through proximity talks.”

Emmanuel Macron has said France, the UK, and other nations providing security guarantees for Ukraine after any eventual ceasefire would not be aiming to deploy a “mass” of soldiers, but instead could send contingents of several thousand troops to key locations in Ukraine without needing Russia’s permission.

The French president told regional French newspapers, including Le Parisien and La Dépêche de Midi, that “several European countries, and indeed non-European ones” had “expressed their willingness” to join a possible deployment to Ukraine to secure a future peace agreement with Russia.

He said this could involve “a few thousand troops” from each state, deployed at “key points” in Ukraine, to conduct training programmes and “show our long-term support”.

Macron added in the interview on Saturday that the proposed contingents from countries that were members of the Nato alliance would serve as “a guarantee of security” for Ukraine and that “several European nations, and also non-European, have expressed their willingness to join such an effort when it is confirmed”.

He added: “Under no circumstances can the Ukrainians make territorial concessions without having any security guarantees.”

Moscow has firmly opposed such a deployment, but Macron said Russia’s permission was not needed. He said Ukraine was sovereign. “If Ukraine requests allied forces to be on its territory, it is not up to Russia to accept or reject them.”

Macron will meet the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, on Monday and then travel to Berlin on Tuesday to meet the chancellor, Olaf Scholz, for talks on Ukraine before an EU summit.

The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, led a virtual meeting of 30 international leaders on Saturday including Macron and Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, as well as leaders from Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Afterwards, Starmer challenged the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to sign up to a ceasefire if he was serious about peace. He said allies would keep increasing the pressure on the Kremlin, including by moving planning for a peacekeeping force to an “operational phase”.

Macron said after the meeting on Saturday that Europe and the US had to put pressure on Russia to accept a proposed ceasefire. Russia “does not give the impression it sincerely wants peace”, Macron said in a statement to Agence France-Presse. On the contrary, the Russian president was “escalating the fighting” and “wants to get everything, then negotiate”, he said.

“Russia must respond clearly and the pressure must be clear, in conjunction with the US, to obtain this ceasefire,” Macron said.

Keir Starmer accused Vladimir Putin of dragging his feet over agreeing to a ceasefire with Ukraine on Saturday as international pressure grew on the Russian president to enter talks.

The prime minister said there was a limit to the length of time Putin could prevaricate, after he convened a virtual summit with 29 other international leaders who agreed to take plans for a peacekeeping force to an “operational phase”.

Starmer said military chiefs would meet in London on Thursday to “put strong and robust plans in place to swing in behind a peace deal and guarantee Ukraine’s future security”.

Those who took part in the virtual summit included the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Afterwards, Starmer said “new commitments” had been made on both peacekeeping and tightening sanctions on Russia.

“Sooner or later, he is going to have to come to the table and engage in serious discussions,” the prime minister said.

“So this is the moment: let the guns fall silent, let the barbaric attacks on Ukraine once and for all stop, and agree to a ceasefire now.”

As well as the European nations, the leaders of Australia, Canada and New Zealand also joined the call, as did Nato’s secretary general, Mark Rutte.

Saturday’s meeting followed an intense week of diplomacy in which American and Ukrainian officials agreed on a proposal for an unconditional 30-day ceasefire, which was put to Russia.

But the Kremlin has so far resisted the deal, saying it would only agree to a ceasefire if Ukraine also agreed to abandon its aim of joining Nato and gave up some of its territory to Russia.

In Kyiv, Zelenskyy said Russia was playing for time so it could get into a stronger military position before any ceasefire.

“I think the delaying of the process is exactly because of what I said. They want to improve their situation on the battlefield,” Zelenskyy told a group of journalists in a briefing at the presidential administration.

He said Ukraine had shown its willingness to agree to US proposals for a temporary ceasefire during which terms for a more lasting deal could be discussed, as agreed last week at talks in Saudi Arabia.

“Today, Putin is the one who doesn’t agree with what [Donald] Trump has proposed,” he said.

Zelenskyy said Russia’s attempts to impose conditions on a ceasefire should be rejected out of hand.

“This is a ceasefire for 30 days; it’s not for ever, it’s 30 days, during which all sides have the chance to demonstrate their willingness to end the war,” he said.

Although it is clear that any potential agreement would probably require Ukraine to accept de facto Russian control of some Ukrainian land, he ruled out formally ceding any territory to Russia.

“Our position is that we do not recognise the occupied Ukrainian territories as Russian in any case,” he said. Zelenskyy called the territorial issue complex and said it should be “resolved later, at the negotiating table”.

Writing in the Observer, the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, also taunted Putin, saying he had been put on the spot by Ukraine’s agreement to a ceasefire and the moves, led by the US president, Donald Trump, to end the conflict.

“The proposal for a ceasefire is therefore a test. He can’t simply say he is ready to end this war – he has to prove it.”

Lammy, who attended a meeting of G7 foreign ministers in Canada last week, said the group of nations known as the “coalition of the willing” was determined to create the conditions “that guarantee that Russia does not come back for more”.

Referring to the security guarantee that these nations plan to offer, Lammy added: “To be credible, it needs US support. But Britain and our allies recognise that the bulk of the contribution must come from Europeans.”

Asked about whether he discussed seizing Russian assets with his counterparts, Starmer said it had been on the agenda but added it was “a complicated question”.

Meanwhile, both Russia and Ukraine launched drone attacks overnight, each reporting more than 100 enemy drones entering their respective airspaces.

A pair of US astronauts stuck for more than nine months on the International Space Station will be returned to Earth on Tuesday evening, Nasa has said.

Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Suni Williams are to be transported home with another American astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon craft, which arrived at the ISS early on Sunday.

The stranded duo have been on the ISS since June, after the Boeing Starliner spacecraft they were testing on its maiden crewed voyage suffered propulsion issues and was deemed unfit to fly them back to Earth.

Nasa said in a statement on Sunday evening that it had moved the astronauts’ anticipated ocean splashdown off the Florida coast forward to approximately 5:57 pm Tuesday (21:57 GMT) due to the favourable conditions forecast. It was initially slated for no sooner than Wednesday.

“The updated return target continues to allow the space station crew members time to complete handover duties while providing operational flexibility ahead of less favorable weather conditions expected for later in the week,” the space agency said.

Nasa astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov will also return on the Dragon capsule, with the journey to be broadcast live from Monday evening when hatch closure preparations begin.

For Wilmore and Williams, it will mark the end of an ordeal that has seen them stuck for nine months after what was meant to have been a days-long roundtrip.

Their prolonged stay was significantly longer than the standard ISS rotation for astronauts of roughly six months.

But it is much shorter than the US space record of 371 days set by Nasa astronaut Frank Rubio aboard the ISS in 2023, or the world record held by Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov, who spent 437 continuous days aboard the Mir space station.

Still, the unexpected nature of their prolonged stay away from their families – they had to receive additional clothing and personal care items because they hadn’t packed enough – has garnered interest and sympathy.

A pair of US astronauts stuck for more than nine months on the International Space Station will be returned to Earth on Tuesday evening, Nasa has said.

Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Suni Williams are to be transported home with another American astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon craft, which arrived at the ISS early on Sunday.

The stranded duo have been on the ISS since June, after the Boeing Starliner spacecraft they were testing on its maiden crewed voyage suffered propulsion issues and was deemed unfit to fly them back to Earth.

Nasa said in a statement on Sunday evening that it had moved the astronauts’ anticipated ocean splashdown off the Florida coast forward to approximately 5:57 pm Tuesday (21:57 GMT) due to the favourable conditions forecast. It was initially slated for no sooner than Wednesday.

“The updated return target continues to allow the space station crew members time to complete handover duties while providing operational flexibility ahead of less favorable weather conditions expected for later in the week,” the space agency said.

Nasa astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov will also return on the Dragon capsule, with the journey to be broadcast live from Monday evening when hatch closure preparations begin.

For Wilmore and Williams, it will mark the end of an ordeal that has seen them stuck for nine months after what was meant to have been a days-long roundtrip.

Their prolonged stay was significantly longer than the standard ISS rotation for astronauts of roughly six months.

But it is much shorter than the US space record of 371 days set by Nasa astronaut Frank Rubio aboard the ISS in 2023, or the world record held by Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov, who spent 437 continuous days aboard the Mir space station.

Still, the unexpected nature of their prolonged stay away from their families – they had to receive additional clothing and personal care items because they hadn’t packed enough – has garnered interest and sympathy.

A 45-year-old man was set on fire in the middle of Times Square overnight on Sunday, according to police, three months after a woman was killed on a subway car in an arson attack.

Footage from the scene captured the moments the man, shirtless and severely burned, was rushed by authorities into an ambulance after the flames were extinguished.

Police say the 45-year-old was found on fire around 4am and was taken to a nearby hospital in stable condition. His assailant allegedly fled the scene and is being sought by authorities. They were unable to say if the attack was random or targeted.

It was later reported that the man had been doused with accelerant from a Patron tequila bottle and lit on fire, according to crime scene investigators. The victim then ran 100ft west while on fire before someone jumped out of a car and doused him with a powder fire extinguisher, fire marshals told the New York Post.

A Brooklyn woman told the outlet that Times Square gets “pretty scary” early in the morning. “Yeah it’s pretty scary before 8 or 9am,” said the woman, Anne Lee, 26. “There are no cops on these blocks at all. These side streets. They’re really only on the avenues and they only give directions to tourists.”

Street violence is likely to be a dominant issue of New York’s mayoral elections this year, with one contender, the former state governor Andrew Cuomo, calling the city “out of control” and vowing to add 5,000 additional officers.

The incumbent mayor, Eric Adams, has said the issue is not a shortage of police, but bail reforms signed into law by the former governor.

Statistics show crime in the city is trending lower.

“Stop saying our city is in ‘chaos and crisis’! It is not,” Adams said last week.

But Sunday’s arson attack comes three months after a woman was fatally set on fire in a subway car, horrifying New Yorkers and renewing a debate over city safety. The victim was later identified as 57-year-old Debrina Kawam.

The man accused of lighting her on fire, the Guatemalan migrant worker Sebastian Zapeta, was taken into custody hours after the incident and charged with murder and arson.

Police said the suspect had not left the scene as Kawam burned to death and was found with a lighter in his pocket. “Lighting another human being on fire and watching them burn alive reflects a level of evil that cannot be tolerated,” the mayor’s office said in a statement.

Italy’s government has profoundly undermined the rule of law with changes to the judiciary and showed “heavy intolerance to media criticism”, in an emblematic example of Europe’s deepening “democratic recession”, a coalition of civil liberties groups has said.

A report by the Civil Liberties Union for Europe (Liberties) said Italy was one of five “dismantlers” – along with Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania and Slovakia – that “intentionally undermine the rule of law in nearly all aspects”.

In Hungary, long classified as an “electoral autocracy”, researchers detected “significant regression” in the rule of law in 2024. Pressure on non-governmental groups and media intensified after the launch of Hungary’s sovereignty protection office, which has broad powers to investigate Hungarians active in public life.

“Europe’s democratic recession has deepened in 2024,” Liberties said in a statement. The report, shared with the Guardian before publication, highlighted judicial systems subject to political manipulation, weak law enforcement against corruption, overuse of fast-track legislative procedures, harassment of journalists and growing restrictions on peaceful protests. “Without decisive action, the EU risks further democratic erosion,” the report – compiled by 43 human rights organisations in 21 EU member states – concluded.

Liberties began the annual exercise in 2019 to shadow the European Commission’s rule of law reports, which are meant to serve as a democratic health check on EU member states. The NGO’s six reports showed “the alarming persistence of rule of law violations throughout the European Union,” said Viktor Kazai, senior rule of law expert at Liberties. “All fundamental aspects of the rule of law have faced increasingly severe problems in the past few years,” he added, while the EU’s attempts to reverse the decline had been “disappointingly limited”.

“The most worrying category of countries” were the “dismantlers”, Kazai said, governments that were taking steps to undermine the rule of law.

In Italy, researchers highlighted how Giorgia Meloni’s government had drafted proposals to give “open-ended powers” to the justice ministry over prosecutors, which would increase political control over the judiciary. The Italian contributors also flagged “unprecedented levels of interference in public service media”, such as the cancellation of the author Antonio Scurati’s “anti-fascist manifesto” and the disciplinary case opened against the host of the talkshow in which the speech was to have been performed.

In Bulgaria, the report looked at how anti-corruption investigations were launched against prominent political opponents of the government, while long-running schemes – such as the dumping of construction waste in the Sofia municipality – continued. In Slovakia, red flags have been raised about numerous changes introduced by the government of the nationalist populist Robert Fico, including the abolition of the office of the central prosecutor and a “Russia-style” foreign agents bill that would require NGOs to bear the stigmatising label of “foreign-supported organisation” if they receive more than €5,000 (£4,200) from outside the country.

In Croatia, the integrity of the justice system was seen as damaged, after the elevation to the position of state attorney general of Ivan Turudić, a judge with close links to the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HSZ) party. The European public prosecutor’s office has complained of “Croatia’s systemic challenges in upholding the rule of law”, after Turudić’s office appeared to challenge EPPO’s right to investigate a suspected case of fraud against the EU budget.

In Romania, recent presidential elections revealed how TikTok could allow a little-known ultranationalist to surge to victory, while a bill to secure the independence of public service TV and radio has been languishing in parliament since 2021.

The report authors also warned that “role-model democracies”, including France and Germany, in north-western Europe were not immune to problems.

In France, researchers warned about the growing use of the article 49.3 procedure to push through decisions without a vote, as well as increasing restrictions on freedom of expression, introduced before the Olympics or to counter foreign interference.

In Germany, researchers praised stronger rules designed to combat “revolving doors”, where senior officials take up jobs in sectors they recently regulated. But they raised concerns about “excessive and disproportionate” responses to pro-Palestinian events, including censoring pro-Palestinian voices or denying entry to the country to the Greek former finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, who had been invited to speak at such an event. Last April police shut down what would have been a three-day Palestinian conference in Berlin, fearing it would give a platform to antisemitic views.

Poland, which is attempting to roll back the assault on independent institutions, was described as a cautionary tale. The coalition government led by Donald Tusk has sought to restore judicial independence and media pluralism, but has run into conflict with the president, Andrzej Duda, who is aligned with the previous ruling party, as well as the complexities of unpicking compromised institutions. Poland “illustrates that addressing the compromised independence of institutions is an extremely challenging and fragile endeavour”, Liberties said.

The NGO is calling on the European Commission to toughen up the EU monitoring exercise by linking it to the release of EU funds, as well as accelerated legal action for violations of the rule of law.

US officials have said airstrikes launched against Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis will continue indefinitely, after a first round on Saturday killed at least 53 people and injured almost 100 more.

The strikes, which aim to punish the Houthis for their attacks against Red Sea shipping, are Donald Trump’s first such use of US military might in the region since he took power in January.

Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, told Fox News: “The minute the Houthis say ‘we’ll stop shooting at your ships, we’ll stop shooting at your drones’, this campaign will end, but until then it will be unrelenting.”

Hegseth was among several senior officials underlining that the strikes were designed to signal a new assertive approach to Iran, and more generally in the Middle East.

Michael Waltz, the US national security adviser, said in separate interviews that the strikes “targeted multiple Houthi leaders and took them out” and had involved “overwhelming force [that] put Iran on notice that enough is enough”.

Earlier, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform: “To all Houthi terrorists, YOUR TIME IS UP, AND YOUR ATTACKS MUST STOP, STARTING TODAY. IF THEY DON’T, HELL WILL RAIN DOWN UPON YOU LIKE NOTHING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN BEFORE!”

He added: “To Iran: Support for the Houthi terrorists must end IMMEDIATELY!”

Official White House photos showed the president, wearing a Trump-branded golf shirt, watching the airstrikes on a display screen identified as being in Florida; video posted by social media users suggested Trump had earlier in the day been at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach and at the nearby Trump International golf club.

On Sunday Anees Alsbahi, spokesperson for the Houthi-run health ministry, said five children and two women were among the 53 people killed in the US strikes. Another 98 people were injured, the ministry said.

The Houthis, an armed movement who have taken control of most of Yemen over the past decade, say they have targeted international shipping in solidarity with Palestinians and Hamas, which is also backed by Iran.

The Yemeni group has also launched missiles, drones and rockets at Israel since the beginning of the war in Gaza. Israeli officials said on Sunday they were investigating a missile launched from Yemen that landed in Egypt close to the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to check if it had been aimed at Israel.

Fighter aircraft shot down a combined 11 drones on Sunday fired by ​the Houthis, a US​ official told Reuters, following Houthi claims of an attempt to attack a US aircraft carrier off Yemen’s coast.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the drones did not come close to the Harry S Truman aircraft carrier, which has played a key role in Trump’s strikes on Yemen.

The top commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards responded to the US threats by saying the Houthis were independent and took their own strategic and operational decisions.

“We warn our enemies that Iran will respond decisively and destructively if they take their threats into action,” Maj Gen Hossein Salami told state media.

In a statement shared by state media, Iran’s foreign ministry condemned the strikes on Yemen as a “gross violation of the principles of the United Nations charter and the fundamental rules of international law”.

The Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said the US government had “no authority, or business, dictating Iranian foreign policy”. “End support for Israeli genocide and terrorism. Stop killing of Yemeni people,” he said in a post on X early on Sunday.

Washington has already increased sanctions pressure on Iran while trying to bring it to the negotiating table over its nuclear programme. A key question for regional observers is whether Trump may use military means against Tehran, possibly after pressure from Israel.

The US military’s central command, which oversees troops in the Middle East, described Saturday’s strikes as the start of a large-scale operation across Yemen. The strikes on Saturday were carried out in part by fighter aircraft from the Harry S Truman aircraft carrier, which is in the Red Sea. They could continue for weeks, one Pentagon official said.

The Houthis are seen as key actors in the “axis of resistance”, a loose regional coalition of militant groups built up by Iran over recent years to project force and put pressure on Israel.

The group is considered the only member of the coalition not to have been significantly weakened by Israel during the war in Gaza since October 2023 and the short conflict in Lebanon last year. Both Hamas and Hezbollah, once the most powerful member, have suffered significant losses.

The Houthis’ political bureau described the attacks as a “war crime”. “Our Yemeni armed forces are fully prepared to respond to escalation with escalation,” it said in a statement.

Residents in Sana’a said the strikes hit a neighbourhood known to host several members of the Houthi leadership.

“The explosions were violent and shook the neighbourhood like an earthquake. They terrified our women and children,” said one resident, who gave his name as Abdullah Yahia.

A crane and bulldozer were used to remove debris at one site in the city and people used their bare hands to pick through the rubble. At a hospital, medics treated the injured, including children, and the bodies of several casualties were placed in a yard, wrapped in plastic sheets, Reuters footage showed.

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, on Sunday called for “utmost restraint and a cessation of all military activities” in Yemen. A new escalation could “fuel cycles of retaliation that may further destabilise Yemen and the region, and pose grave risks to the already dire humanitarian situation in the country”, his spokesperson said in a statement.

The previous administration in Washington, under Joe Biden, had sought to degrade the Houthis’ ability to attack vessels off Yemen’s coast but had limited US actions.

On Tuesday, the Houthis said they would resume attacks on Israeli ships passing through the Red Sea and Arabian Sea, the Bab al-Mandab strait and the Gulf of Aden, ending a period of relative calm starting in January with the Gaza ceasefire.

A Pentagon spokesperson said the Houthis had attacked US warships 174 times and commercial vessels 145 times since 2023.

Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed reporting

US officials have said airstrikes launched against Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis will continue indefinitely, after a first round on Saturday killed at least 53 people and injured almost 100 more.

The strikes, which aim to punish the Houthis for their attacks against Red Sea shipping, are Donald Trump’s first such use of US military might in the region since he took power in January.

Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, told Fox News: “The minute the Houthis say ‘we’ll stop shooting at your ships, we’ll stop shooting at your drones’, this campaign will end, but until then it will be unrelenting.”

Hegseth was among several senior officials underlining that the strikes were designed to signal a new assertive approach to Iran, and more generally in the Middle East.

Michael Waltz, the US national security adviser, said in separate interviews that the strikes “targeted multiple Houthi leaders and took them out” and had involved “overwhelming force [that] put Iran on notice that enough is enough”.

Earlier, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform: “To all Houthi terrorists, YOUR TIME IS UP, AND YOUR ATTACKS MUST STOP, STARTING TODAY. IF THEY DON’T, HELL WILL RAIN DOWN UPON YOU LIKE NOTHING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN BEFORE!”

He added: “To Iran: Support for the Houthi terrorists must end IMMEDIATELY!”

Official White House photos showed the president, wearing a Trump-branded golf shirt, watching the airstrikes on a display screen identified as being in Florida; video posted by social media users suggested Trump had earlier in the day been at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach and at the nearby Trump International golf club.

On Sunday Anees Alsbahi, spokesperson for the Houthi-run health ministry, said five children and two women were among the 53 people killed in the US strikes. Another 98 people were injured, the ministry said.

The Houthis, an armed movement who have taken control of most of Yemen over the past decade, say they have targeted international shipping in solidarity with Palestinians and Hamas, which is also backed by Iran.

The Yemeni group has also launched missiles, drones and rockets at Israel since the beginning of the war in Gaza. Israeli officials said on Sunday they were investigating a missile launched from Yemen that landed in Egypt close to the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to check if it had been aimed at Israel.

Fighter aircraft shot down a combined 11 drones on Sunday fired by ​the Houthis, a US​ official told Reuters, following Houthi claims of an attempt to attack a US aircraft carrier off Yemen’s coast.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the drones did not come close to the Harry S Truman aircraft carrier, which has played a key role in Trump’s strikes on Yemen.

The top commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards responded to the US threats by saying the Houthis were independent and took their own strategic and operational decisions.

“We warn our enemies that Iran will respond decisively and destructively if they take their threats into action,” Maj Gen Hossein Salami told state media.

In a statement shared by state media, Iran’s foreign ministry condemned the strikes on Yemen as a “gross violation of the principles of the United Nations charter and the fundamental rules of international law”.

The Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said the US government had “no authority, or business, dictating Iranian foreign policy”. “End support for Israeli genocide and terrorism. Stop killing of Yemeni people,” he said in a post on X early on Sunday.

Washington has already increased sanctions pressure on Iran while trying to bring it to the negotiating table over its nuclear programme. A key question for regional observers is whether Trump may use military means against Tehran, possibly after pressure from Israel.

The US military’s central command, which oversees troops in the Middle East, described Saturday’s strikes as the start of a large-scale operation across Yemen. The strikes on Saturday were carried out in part by fighter aircraft from the Harry S Truman aircraft carrier, which is in the Red Sea. They could continue for weeks, one Pentagon official said.

The Houthis are seen as key actors in the “axis of resistance”, a loose regional coalition of militant groups built up by Iran over recent years to project force and put pressure on Israel.

The group is considered the only member of the coalition not to have been significantly weakened by Israel during the war in Gaza since October 2023 and the short conflict in Lebanon last year. Both Hamas and Hezbollah, once the most powerful member, have suffered significant losses.

The Houthis’ political bureau described the attacks as a “war crime”. “Our Yemeni armed forces are fully prepared to respond to escalation with escalation,” it said in a statement.

Residents in Sana’a said the strikes hit a neighbourhood known to host several members of the Houthi leadership.

“The explosions were violent and shook the neighbourhood like an earthquake. They terrified our women and children,” said one resident, who gave his name as Abdullah Yahia.

A crane and bulldozer were used to remove debris at one site in the city and people used their bare hands to pick through the rubble. At a hospital, medics treated the injured, including children, and the bodies of several casualties were placed in a yard, wrapped in plastic sheets, Reuters footage showed.

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, on Sunday called for “utmost restraint and a cessation of all military activities” in Yemen. A new escalation could “fuel cycles of retaliation that may further destabilise Yemen and the region, and pose grave risks to the already dire humanitarian situation in the country”, his spokesperson said in a statement.

The previous administration in Washington, under Joe Biden, had sought to degrade the Houthis’ ability to attack vessels off Yemen’s coast but had limited US actions.

On Tuesday, the Houthis said they would resume attacks on Israeli ships passing through the Red Sea and Arabian Sea, the Bab al-Mandab strait and the Gulf of Aden, ending a period of relative calm starting in January with the Gaza ceasefire.

A Pentagon spokesperson said the Houthis had attacked US warships 174 times and commercial vessels 145 times since 2023.

Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed reporting

The Vatican has released the first photograph of Pope Francis since the 88-year-old was admitted to hospital more than a month ago with pneumonia in both lungs.

The photo shows the pope, bare-headed, seated in a wheelchair and wearing a white robe and purple shawl, in front of a simple altar with a crucifix on the wall.

Taken from behind Francis’s right side, his face is not fully visible but his eyes are open as he looks in a downward direction.

The Vatican press office wrote in the photograph’s caption: “This morning, Pope Francis concelebrated the holy mass in the chapel of the apartment on the 10th floor of the Gemelli polyclinic.”

Concelebration is the joint celebration of mass by senior clerics.

The release of the photo by the Vatican was significant, as the Argentinian pontiff has not been seen in public since being admitted to Gemelli hospital in Rome on 14 February, and for weeks was in critical condition according to doctors.

He has improved steadily in the past week, however. In a medical bulletin on Saturday, the Vatican said his condition continued to be stable, although he still required therapy to be administered from the hospital.

Earlier on Sunday in an Angelus message to the faithful published by the Vatican, the pope addressed his health, sharing that he was “fragile” and “facing a period of trial”.

A British tourist is missing in Thailand after the tour boat she was travelling on caught fire off the island of Koh Tao.

Alexandra Clarke, 26, from Lambeth, south London, was onboard the Davy Jones Locker for a diving excursion.

She was reportedly in the bathroom when the blaze broke out, just before a distress signal was sent at 9.25am local time.

There were 21 other people onboard, including 15 tourists, two crew members and four diving instructors and assistants.

They were safely evacuated by private vessels and volunteers while a second team of volunteers worked to put out the blaze. Thai authorities then discovered Clarke was missing.

Capt Natthaphon Sinpoonphon, the deputy director of the Thai Maritime Enforcement Command Centre of Surat Thani, said the boat was between five and six nautical miles away from the island when a fire started in the engine room and “spread through the boat rapidly”.

He said: “Preliminary reports indicate that the engine room, captain’s cabin and rear restroom were damaged. The exact cause of the fire remains under investigation.”

It is understood rescue teams were initially unable to get close to the boat because of the flames, as there were fears of further explosions from fuel onboard the vessel.

Sinpoonphon said: “The search is continuing for one missing tourist, a female, Alexandra Clarke, from the United Kingdom.

“The conditions at sea are dangerous with the wind and currents. All boats in the area have been notified. Search and rescue teams were immediately mobilised.”

A spokesperson for the Foreign Office said: “We are supporting the family of a British woman who is missing in Thailand and are in contact with local authorities.”

A video shared on social media showed the boat engulfed in flames.

The Davy Jones Locker was reportedly transporting tourists from Koh Tao, a small island that forms part of the Chumphon Archipelago, to a nearby diving site at South-west Pinnacle.

The US defense department webpage celebrating an army general who served in the Vietnam war and was awarded the country’s highest military decoration has been removed and the letters “DEI” added to the site’s address.

On Saturday, US army Maj Gen Charles Calvin Rogers’s Medal of Honor webpage led to a “404” error message. The URL was also changed, with the word “medal” changed to “deimedal”.

Rogers, who was awarded the Medal of Honor by then president Richard Nixon in 1970, served in the Vietnam war, where he was wounded three times while leading the defense of a base.

According to the West Virginia military hall of fame, Rogers was the highest-ranking African American to receive the medal. After his death in 1990, Rogers’s remains were buried at the Arlington national cemetery in Washington DC, and in 1999 a bridge in Fayette county, where Rogers was born, was renamed the Charles C Rogers Bridge.

As of Sunday afternoon, a “404 – Page Not Found” message appeared on the defense department’s webpage for Rogers, along with the message: “The page you are looking for might have been moved, renamed, or may be temporarily unavailable.”

A screenshot posted by the writer Brandon Friedman on Bluesky on Saturday evening showed the Google preview of an entry of Rogers’s profile on the defense department’s website.

Dated 1 November 2021, the entry’s Google preview reads: “Medal of Honor Monday: Army Maj Gen. Charles Calvin Rogers.” Below it are the words: “Army Maj Gen Charles Calvin Rogers served through all of it. As a Black man, he worked for gender and race equality while in the service.”

“Google his name and the entry below comes up. When you click, you’ll see the page has been deleted and the URL changed to include ‘DEI medal,’” Friedman wrote.

The Guardian has asked the defense department for comment.

Since taking office in January, Donald Trump has moved his administration to roll back DEI – diversity, equity and inclusion – efforts across the federal government.

One executive order sought to terminate all “mandates, policies, programs, preferences and activities in the federal government”, which the Trump administration deems “illegal DEI and ‘diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility’ (DEIA) programs”.

In a win for the Trump administration on Friday, an appeals court lifted a block on executive orders that seek to end the federal government’s support for DEI programs.

The US deported more than 250 mainly Venezuelan alleged gang members to El Salvador despite a US judge’s ruling to halt the flights on Saturday after Donald Trump controversially invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law meant only to be used in wartime.

El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, said 238 members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and 23 members of the Salvadoran gang MS-13 had arrived and were in custody as part of a deal under which the US will pay the Central American country to hold them in its 40,000-person capacity “terrorism confinement centre”.

The confirmation came hours after a US federal judge expanded his ruling temporarily blocking the Trump administration from invoking the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime authority that allows the president broad leeway on policy and executive action to speed up mass deportations.

The White House said the judge had no authority to block the deportation.

“A single judge in a single city cannot direct the movements of an aircraft … full of foreign alien terrorists who were physically expelled from US soil,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

She said the court had “no lawful basis”.

The US district judge James Boasberg had attempted to halt the deportations for all individuals deemed eligible for removal under Trump’s proclamation, which was issued on Friday. Boasberg also ordered deportation flights already in the air to return to the US.

“Oopsie … Too late,” Bukele posted online, followed by a laughing emoji.

Soon after Bukele’s statement, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, thanked El Salvador’s leader.

“Thank you for your assistance and friendship, President Bukele,” he wrote on the social media site X, following up on an earlier post in which he said the US had sent “2 dangerous top MS-13 leaders plus 21 of its most wanted back to face justice in El Salvador”.

Rubio added that “over 250 alien enemy members of Tren de Aragua which El Salvador has agreed to hold in their very good jails at a fair price that will also save our taxpayer dollars”.

On Friday, Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act to order the deportations of suspected members of the Venezuelan gang he has accused of “unlawfully infiltrating” the US. The US formally designated Tren de Aragua a “foreign terrorist organization” last month.

He claimed the gang members were “conducting irregular warfare and undertaking hostile actions” against the US.

The Alien Enemies Act has only ever been used three times before, most recently during the second world war, when it was used to incarcerate Germans and Italians as well as for the mass internment of Japanese-American civilians.

It was originally passed by Congress in preparation for what the US believed would be an impending war with France. It was also used during the war of 1812 and during the first world war.

The US attorney general, Pam Bondi, slammed Judge Boasberg’s stay on deportations. “This order disregards well-established authority regarding President Trump’s power, and it puts the public and law enforcement at risk,” Bondi said in a statement on Saturday night.

But lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union contend that the Trump does not have the authority to use the law against a criminal gang, rather than a recognized state.

Patrick Eddington, a homeland security and civil liberties legal expert at the libertarian Cato Institute, said that whatever it might say, the White House was in “open defiance” of the judge.

“This is beyond the pale and certainly unprecedented,” Eddington said, calling it the most radical test of America’s system of checks and balances since the civil war.

On Sunday, the Republican senator Mike Rounds questioned whether the deportation flights had ignored Judge Boasberg’s order to turn around. “We’ll find out whether or not that actually occurred or not,” Rounds told CNN. “I don’t know about the timing on it. I do know that we will follow the law.”

El Salvador’s multimillion-dollar “terrorism confinement centre” – which is known by its Spanish acronym Cecot – is the centerpiece of Bukele’s highly controversial anti-gang crackdown which has seen tens of thousands of people jailed since it was launched in March 2022.

The 40,000-capacity “mega-prison” was opened at the start of 2023 and has since become an essential destination for rightwing Latin American populists keen to burnish their crime-fighting credentials with voters. “This is the way. Tough on crime,” Argentina’s hardline security minister, Patricia Bullrich, enthused last year after posing outside Cecot’s packed cells.

A succession of social media influencers and foreign journalists have also been invited to tour the prison to document its harsh conditions and help Bukele promote his clampdown, which has helped dramatically reduce El Salvador’s once sky-high murder rate.

“The conditions in there are like something you’ve never seen … Depending on which side of the argument you fall on, it’s either the ultimate deterrent or it’s an abuse of human rights,” the Australian TV journalist Liam Bartlett reported after visiting El Salvador’s “hellhole” prison recently.

“There’s no sheets [and] no mattresses. [Prisoners] sleep on cold steel frames and they eat the same meal every single day. Utensils are banned so they use their hands [to eat]. There’s just two open toilets in each of these massive cells and the lights stay on 24/7,” Bartlett added. “Imagine how long you would last in these conditions.”

Human rights activists have decried how the mass imprisonments have taken place largely without legal process. More than 100 prisoners have died behind bars since Bukele’s clampdown began.

Neither the US nor El Salvador offered any immediate evidence that the scores of Venezuelan prisoners sent to Cecot this weekend were in fact gang members or had been convicted of any offense.