Concentration, removal, occupation: Inside Netanyahu’s plan for Gaza

Gaza was one of the most densely populated places in the world before the war. Today, the roughly two million Palestinians who still call it home have been forced into an area just a fifth of its original size by a year and a half of bombing, displacement orders and militarized zones.

Under a bleak vision for the future pitched by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Donald Trump in Washington D.C. this week, they could be forced into an even smaller area still, or out of Gaza entirely, unable to return to what is left of their homes.

Netanyahu may have left Washington without a deal signed and sealed, but his proposals for Gaza continue apace.

The plan would see those two million people concentrated into a so-called “humanitarian city” in southern Gaza, where anyone who wants to leave would be helped to emigrate, and those who remain would live under the tight control of the Israeli army who would hold on to specific territories, sources familiar with the plan have told The Independent.

One idea being floated is that Israeli troops retain control of three connected strategic corridors in Gaza: the Philadelphi corridor, a nine-mile strip which covers the border region between Gaza and Egypt, the Netzarim corridor, a band that dissects Gaza in half, and a third strip in the middle , which is now being called the “Morag Corridor”.

Some details of the plan emerged in a briefing given by Israel’s Defense Minister, Israel Katz, this week. In it, he said he had instructed the Israeli army to prepare for a “humanitarian city” on the ruins of Rafah, which would eventually house the entire population of the Gaza Strip. Once inside the city, Katz said residents would not be allowed to leave, according to sources briefed on that meeting.

Another proposal seen by the Independent – bearing the name of the controversial US-backed and Israeli run aid group – describes the building of sprawling camps in the coastal south region of Gaza called “Humanitarian Transition Areas”. Each compound could hold over 2000 people complete with homes, dining facilities, private bathrooms and even schools “to temporarily reside, de-radicalize, re-integrate etc and prepare to relocate if they wish to do so”. The document proposes that some of these “Humanitarian Transition Areas” could also be located in Egypt and even Cyprus.

This so-called “emigration plan” was also mentioned by Katz in his briefing. The Independent has been told he has already earmarked a division to carry out that plan, which would see Palestinians move from Gaza to other Arab countries. During a meeting with Trump on Monday, Netanyahu said Israel was “working with the United States very closely” to find countries that would take Palestinians from Gaza. Destination nations that have been floated include Somalia.

The Israeli defense ministry was approached for comment on the reports and details of the plan. The Independent understands that the idea is backed by Netanyahu, who has sought to float it publicly and discuss it with Trump.

While Israel insists the emigrations would be voluntary and denies violating international law, human rights experts said they would likely constitute war crimes, and coupled with the forcible transfer of the population south into the “humanitarian city,” would amount to “really grave atrocity crimes.”

“The plans that are being discussed by Katz and by the Israeli government, not just in recent days but going back months, would amount to an abhorrent escalation in these war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing,” said Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine Director at Human Rights Watch.

“There’s no voluntary emigration when you’ve deliberately made large parts of Gaza unliveable […] when you’ve deliberately attacked water infrastructure, when you’ve starved the population, when you’ve demolished civilian infrastructure, hospitals and schools.”

Josh Paul, a former director of congressional and public affairs at the State Department, said it appeared that Israel had been working to make the plan a reality on the ground for some time.

“Israel’s plan for Gaza has been clear for over a year: make the region unliveable, remove as many Palestinians from their land as possible, and concentrate the rest in densely packed enclaves where they can be surveilled, monitored, and controlled,” said Paul, who resigned from the Biden administration over its support for the war in Gaza.

The war, sparked by a brutal attack on southern Israel by Hamas militants that killed more than 1,100 people, including more than 700 civilians, has transformed the territory and its people beyond all recognition.

What was a troubled but vibrant land of packed cities, extensive farmlands and busy beaches is now a mostly destroyed wasteland, with more than 57,000 people killed, according to local officials and many more thousands buried beneath the rubble. Nearly one in three people are not eating for several days due to severe Israeli restrictions on aid entering Gaza, according to the World Food Programme.

The Israeli government’s plans to move masses of people to the south were met with suspicion and dismay by Palestinians in Gaza, many of whom have been forcibly displaced numerous times by bombing.

“I feel that what is happening is a plan for forced displacement,” said Ahmed Al-Brim, a 38-year-old father of five, currently in a so-called humanitarian zone along the coast which has repeatedly been bombed.

Youssef Al-Sheikh, a 44-year-old father of six who has also been displaced many times, added: “The greatest fear is that gathering us in one area crowded with people is an attempt to completely and permanently displace us from the Gaza Strip. Why are they planning to herd us into a cage like animals?”

Israel has been working to move Palestinians into southern Gaza for some time through a combination of military offensives, military exclusion zones and, some experts believe, through the takeover of lifesaving humanitarian aid.

Almost all aid going into Gaza now runs through an American aid group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which started operations in May following a months-long Israeli blockade of nearly all food and aid. Food is handed out at overcrowded and deadly sites overseen by American private security contractors and the Israeli army.

Gaza’s health ministry said that Israeli forces opening fire on crowds trying to reach the GHF food distribution points have killed hundreds of Palestinians and wounded thousands since aid deliveries were reinstated in late May.

A document shared with The Independent bearing the name of GHF shows a $2 billion plan to expand their work to corral Palestinians into specially made transition camps.

GHF has denied any involvement in this document and has previously rejected claims it is complicit in the weaponisation of aid, calling the allegation “false, dangerous and deeply irresponsible”. In a statement to The Independent, they said the “only actor weaponizing aid in Gaza is Hamas”.

Experts from the United Nations, along with former USAID and State Department officials, have described the new system as “grotesque”, “dangerous” and part of a larger plan to use aid to control the movement of Palestinians.

“What we’re seeing now is the culmination of forced displacement seeking to confine up to 2 million people — the entirety of the population — into a closed-off, a fenced-off area where people are vetted on the ruins of Rafah,” Tamara Alrifai, of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, referring to Israel’s plan for a “humanitarian city.”

“There has been an engineering of forced displacement using access to food.”

Jeremy Konyndyk, who oversaw famine relief at USAID for three years during the Obama administration and is now president of Refugees International, said it was “not a coincidence” that most of the distribution sites were in the south of Gaza.

“A basic principle of humanitarian response is you move the aid as close to you can to where the people are. They’re doing the opposite of that, the diametric opposite of that, which suggests that they want to draw people to the south.

“I think that is highly suggestive of the longer-term agenda here.”

Under the Israeli government’s current plan, some 600,000 Palestinians would be moved first to the detention camp in Rafah from the Muwasi area — a zone in the center of Gaza already earmarked as a “humanitarian area,” even though it has been bombed. An international force would manage the camp, while the Israeli army would secure the perimeter, Katz reportedly told reporters.

However, officials briefed on the plans say there are no real details.

“It’s not clear who is going to provide humanitarian aid, who is going to manage all these people coming from the north to the south – if they want all of them to be there,” said one source who asked not to be named as they are not authorised to brief the media.

The re-occupation of Gaza has been a long-held ambition of Israel’s far right, which now makes up a key part of Netanyahu’s governing coalition, for many years.

But the success of Netanyahu’s plan and the scale of Israel’s involvement in post-war Gaza will depend on the support of Trump.

Trump’s own plans for Gaza have vacillated from the absurd to the disinterested since he returned to office for a second term in January.

He first pitched his plan for the US to take over and rebuild Gaza as the “Riviera of the Middle East” in February, calling the territory a “demolition site” and suggesting that Palestinians would have no alternative but to leave.

He has since cooled on that plan, but has not backed off from the idea of helping Palestinians leave Gaza.

“President Trump has long advocated for creative solutions to improve the lives of Palestinians, including allowing them to resettle in a new, beautiful location while Gaza rebuilds,” White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly told The Independent.

Trump was said to be keen to use Netanyahu’s trip to press for a ceasefire in Gaza and a permanent end to the war, promising to be “very firm”. He was also keen to build on the Abraham Accords peace deal between Israel and several Arab states from his first term, specifically bringing Saudi Arabia on board.

Netanyahu, meanwhile, has been resistant to any deal that would end the war, preferring instead to negotiate temporary ceasefires in exchange for the release of hostages.

Hamas officials have already vehemently rejected any notion of moving the population south or corridors of control.

Netanyahu spent serval hours engaged in high-level meetings with Trump, and their teams were locked in talks for two days. But the Israeli prime minister left the U.S. without any formal announcement.

However, officials with knowledge of their discussions from the Israeli side said they feel that progress has been made and a truce deal is “90 percent completed”. Israel has reportedly agreed to a compromise on aid, including that the GHF would not deliver aid to areas from which Israeli troops have withdrawn.

But there remain a few major sticking points, these sources said, including the planned so-called “humanitarian city”, as well as the details of the continued presence of Israeli troops in Gaza.

“The differences have to do with the idea of withdrawal [of the military] from the designated areas the U.S. wants them to withdraw from… where Israel is evacuating from and how is the sticking issue at the moment,” the official said.

Netanyahu will also likely face some opposition to his plan back home. The extreme-right members of his government, including finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, have thrown their support behind the idea, stating that victory would be Gaza “entirely destroyed” and civilians sent to the south of the strip and even abroad.

But sources have said the military is one of the main detractors “because it puts a lot of strain on them”.

Members of the military are already protesting the drawn-out, multi-front war and the soaring soldier death toll, with reports of people breaking their limbs to avoid being called up for reserve duty.

Amos Harel, an Israeli defense correspondent and leading expert on Israel’s military issues, agrees. Exhausted by 21 months of multi-front wars, he believes the military fears possible repercussions in international courts from this Gaza plan, that pursuing it will definitively scupper any hope of a ceasefire deal, and that it will ultimately fail.

“Most generals I speak to would rather have an end to the war and not prolong it under these circumstances,” he said. “It’s not only the hostages, it’s reservists. It’s the soldiers dying.”

Chris Brown denies further charges over alleged nightclub attack

R&B star Chris Brown has denied further charges over an alleged bottle attack at a Mayfair nightclub.

The 36-year-old American musician on Friday pleaded not guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm to Abraham Diaw at the Tape venue, a private members’ club in Hanover Square, Mayfair, on 19 February 2023.

He also denied having an offensive weapon – a bottle – in a public place during the short hearing at Southwark Crown Court.

The 36-year-old US musician had in June pleaded not guilty to attempting to cause grievous bodily harm with intent to Mr Diaw.

Around 20 fans sat in the public gallery behind the dock for the Friday hearing, with several gasping as the singer walked into the courtroom.

His co-defendant, US national Omololu Akinlolu, 39, has also pleaded not guilty to attempting to cause grievous bodily harm.

The two-time Grammy award winner, whose hits include “Run It!” and “Go Crazy”, has managed to press on with his scheduled international tour despite his legal battle. His trial is set for October.

He is on conditional bail and performed in Cardiff in June as part of a stadium tour which was billed as a celebration of the past 20 years of his career.

He had to pay a £5 million security fee to the court as part of the bail agreement, which is a financial guarantee to ensure a defendant returns to court and may be forfeited if they breach bail conditions.

At his last court appearance, his defence counsel Sallie Bennett-Jenkins KC told the hearing it had been difficult to discuss matters with her client while he is working.

Manchester Magistrates’ Court previously heard that Mr Diaw was standing at the bar of the Tape nightclub when he was struck several times with a bottle, and then pursued to a separate area of the nightclub where he was punched and kicked repeatedly.

Brown was arrested at Manchester’s Lowry Hotel at 2am on 15 May by detectives from the Metropolitan Police.

He is said to have flown into Manchester Airport on a private jet in preparation for the UK tour dates.

Brown was released from HMP Forest Bank in Salford, Greater Manchester, on 21 May.

Shortly after being released from prison, Brown posted an Instagram story referencing his upcoming tour which said “FROM THE CAGE TO THE STAGE!!! BREEZYBOWL.”

Has this case just blown Letby’s bid for freedom out of the water?

There was bad news recently for a nurse convicted of killing multiple patients when the Court of Appeal rejected the nurse’s claim of wrongful conviction. Colin Campbell (formerly Colin Norris) had been found guilty in 2008 of murdering four elderly women patients, and attempting to murder a fifth patient, all by insulin poisoning during his time at Leeds General Infirmary. Campbell was aged 32 at conviction and will turn 50 next year. He is 17 years into a life sentence with a minimum term of 30 years.

Campbell’s failed appeal – the 49-page judgment was published just two weeks ago – has implications for the appeal prospects of Lucy Letby, who has multiple hurdles ahead of her as she seeks to prove she has been the victim of a gross miscarriage of justice. Not least are her convictions: Letby is serving 15 concurrent whole life sentences – seven for the murders of babies in her care, and eight more for the babies she was found to have attempted to murder, all at the Countess of Chester Hospital, a decade ago, during 2015 and 2016.

Letby was aged 33 at conviction on 14 counts in mid-2023. The 15th conviction came after a retrial a year later.

As things stand, she will never be freed, but events in the case since have moved at a pace that has sometimes seemed dizzying. Following two failed attempts at appeal, Letby has become a celebrated cause, promoted at press conferences and in interviews by her post-trial counsel, Mark McDonald.

Concerns about her case have been raised by a variety of public figures, from Lord Sumption, a former Supreme Court judge, to past and present politicians such as MP Sir David Davis, Reform leader Nigel Farage, the former MP Nadine Dorries and the former health secretary Sir Jeremy Hunt, who recently said the case required “urgent re-examination”.

Commentators and social media posters have struggled to keep up, not always grasping the significance of developments.

When, a few days ago, Cheshire Police arrested and questioned three unnamed former executives at the Countess of Chester Hospital on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter, many people appeared to think that this was in Letby’s favour – the truth at last!

The circumstances of the arrests have not been made public, but I cannot help wondering if they are related to a reluctance of hospital managers to accept the claims of doctors that Letby could be responsible for the cluster of deaths. It was hard to think the unthinkable then, as now. Meanwhile, babies died or were harmed.

Cheshire Police then announced they had sent a file of potential further cases against Letby to the Crown Prosecution Service, who must now decide if it is in the public interest to prosecute.

This was no news to me, as I had heard months ago that the CPS was already sitting on at least three files of further murder charges which were considered “good to go”, although she has still not been charged yet.

Meanwhile, in another theatrical moment, some weeks ago, McDonald went to Birmingham and held a press conference on the steps of the headquarters of the Criminal Cases Review Commission. He had invited the media to observe the delivery of his client’s case that she had been wrongly convicted and that the CCRC should exercise its powers to refer the case back to the Court of Appeal, forthwith. He said the application “blows the case out of the water” and demonstrates that “no crime was committed”.

I think there has since been at least one meeting between Letby’s legal team and the commissioner leading the case – the “nominated decision maker” as we used to call them during my own term of office as a CCRC commissioner, from 2013-2018.

Ultimately, according to the Criminal Appeal Act 1995, three commissioners will sit in judgment on Letby’s application, forming a case committee to decide whether the case can be referred, on the legal test that there is a real possibility the convictions would be overturned.

There does not have to be a committee – the application can be rejected by a single commissioner. But given the current agonies the CCRC has suffered, over its failings in the Andrew Malkinson case and the resignations of its chair and chief executive, it would be a brave commissioner who made that decision alone.

But how long will any decision take in a case of such legal and medical complexity? While her appeal’s starting point is that “no crime was committed”, Letby was, lest we forget, convicted (of the first 14 counts) after a trial that lasted 10 months, in which a jury watched Letby herself give evidence and heard both the prosecution and defence cases in great detail.

Although I was never involved in the Colin Campbell case, it was being dealt with by colleagues before, after and during my term in office. Campbell’s application – in itself complex, though not as complex as Letby’s first – came to the commission in 2011 after his own failed appeal.

The CCRC does not deal with just one case at a time. It has hundreds of them, thousands even, and they are divided out among caseworkers – case review managers – who work on multiple cases at the same time, trying to manage the expectations of applicants, and keep moving applications forward; updating records, chasing inquiries and keeping abreast of what is happening.

Campbell’s case turned on the strength of the evidence that the elderly patients had died or been harmed due to the exogenous administration of a massive dose of insulin. Two of the Letby murders were also attributed to insulin injection and Letby herself had agreed in evidence that such a poisoning must have occurred, while denying she was responsible.

It took the CCRC six years to reach a provisional decision to reject Campbell’s case. But it changed its mind following further submissions and agreed to refer the case to the Court of Appeal in 2021 (10 years after the initial application), based on fresh medical expert opinion but noting that the case against Campbell (like the case against Letby) had been “wholly circumstantial”.

It took a further four years for the case to be heard, due to various technical, legal and medical issues that affected the progress of the appeal.

The court was emphatic in its rejection of the new evidence. It also rejected any attempt to base the appeal on statistics. As it said, the prosecution was not permitted to make claims based on the rarity of such events to support its case for guilt – and the appellants could not claim that there were other deaths in which Campbell was not involved to support its own argument that he was innocent.

This all has ramifications for Letby. Her supporters often invoke the tragic case of Sally Clark, who was first convicted and then acquitted of murdering her two newborn babies. Central to Clark’s conviction had been the claim of a prosecution expert Roy Meadow that the likelihood of two sudden infant deaths in the same family was 1 in 73 million. When that claim was discredited, together with some new medical evidence, the case against Clark fell apart.

No such claims were made during the Letby trial, and, contrary to the claims of many, her case does not appear to hinge on statistics.

Her appeal will be determined instead by the strength of the new medical evidence – from the so-called international expert panel and others – and the extent to which it undermines the case that was put at trial, when, it should be noted, many alternate explanations for the baby deaths were canvassed.

You must have new evidence for an appeal. It must be capable of belief, it must be significant enough to have made a difference to the outcome and there must be a good reason why it was not called at the original trial. If Letby can cross those hurdles, she might be in with a chance.

But the Campbell case – although not entirely similar to Letby – is a warning to those with high expectations that Letby’s acquittal is a “slam dunk”.

The Court agreed that the case for insulin poisoning at Campbell’s original trial had been overwhelming. It disagreed with claims that the new evidence at appeal completely “changed the landscape”. The Court of Appeal had no doubt it said about the safety of Campbell’s five convictions. His appeal was dismissed.

Although the three Campbell appeal judges did not directly refer to Letby, they made it clear they were aware of the wider interest in the outcome of Campbell’s case and seemed keen to emphasise the care they had taken, collectively in weighing the merit of the “intricate debate between eminent scientists”.

That was no doubt a marker for Letby– if her case ever gets past the CCRC and back to the Court.

Macron is right – Brexit is to blame for Britain’s immigration crisis

If there was one thing that symbolised what many still see as the fraudulent approach of Brexiteers during the EU referendum in 2016, it was the infamous bus promising £350 million extra a week for the NHS.

But maybe Brexit critics should consider another image.

In the words of Emmanuel Macron at a joint press conference with Sir Keir Starmer yesterday to unveil a one in, one out migration exchange deal, the real whopper was told by Brexiteers when Nigel Farage unveiled his controversial poster of thousands of migrants at the EU border with the words “breaking point”.

It came with a claim that if the UK did not leave the EU, it would be forced to accept all those preparing to stampede across Europe.

In an epic rant at yesterday’s press conference on the subject of Brexit, the French president, who refused to meet Farage during his three-day state visit, was clear that he considered this to be the biggest lie of all.

To the obvious embarrassment of Sir Keir Starmer standing next to him, Macron did not hold back on how the promise of controlling immigration, both legal and illegal and putting an end to out-of-control numbers had been falsely used by those who wanted to leave the EU.

He said: “The British people were sold a lie that the problem was Europe. For the first time in nine years, Britain is being pragmatic.”

But it is worth looking at the detail of what he said in terms of how leaving the EU not only failed to solve a problem but has made it worse.

“We need to understand that since Brexit, and I’ll say this honestly, because it’s not your case, prime minister, but many people in your country said that Brexit would help better fight illegal immigration.

“However, it is since Brexit that the UK no longer has any migration agreement with EU. So, for people wanting to cross, there is no legal admission way in, nor a way of sending people back after a crossing. This is a pull factor to attempt the crossing, exactly the inverse effect of what Brexit promised.”

The French president was not wrong.

The fact is that leaving the EU and simultaneously the Dublin Agreement neutered Britain’s chances to simply return people to safe countries in the EU that illegal migrants travel through to get to the UK.

The Dublin Agreement specifically allowed countries to send back migrants to the first safe country they arrived in, which was a bit more of a problem for countries such as Italy, Spain and some in Eastern Europe.

It was also interesting to note Macron’s claim that a third of all the illegal migrants in the Schengen free travel area of the EU were aiming for Britain because of its pull factors, including language, welfare benefits and the ease of working undetected in the black economy.

Even on legal migration, we saw a huge increase after Brexit from what were already high levels, despite the “take back control” message of the referendum campaign.

Sir Keir pointedly noted that while he and the French president were discussing their “groundbreaking” returns agreement, Mr Farage was out on the Channel taking pictures of boats packed with migrants coming over.

He has been doing that since 2020, when, not coincidentally, the UK had left the EU and the small boats crisis quickly began.

The Reform UK leader and others on the right will argue that the real problem is other aspects of international law, including membership of the European Convention of Human Rights or the Refugee Convention, which gives migrants the right to apply to stay in the UK because of family ties or for other compelling reasons.

They want Brexit to continue as a process to withdraw Britain from this framework of international agreements drawn up in large part by the UK itself to help establish international order.

It was the “easy answers of populism” complained about by Starmer and Macron yesterday, and would lead to the UK being isolated just as Donald Trump, Farage’s ally in the White House, is doing to the US.

The legal framework had a safety valve in it while Britain was still part of the EU, but the lesson of 2016 is that once one part of an intricate network of deals unravels, then much else follows.

Not surprisingly, Farage complained that Starmer’s pilot “one in, one out” deal was a betrayal of Brexit, taking Britain back to the EU.

But as an exasperated French president noted, it was actually Britain “being pragmatic for the first time in nine years”.

It would be a great irony, given the nature of the 2016 debate, if migration, more than anything else, ends up being the reason the UK eventually unpicks the effects of Brexit and maybe even rejoins in the long term.

The UK government is too embarrassed to address Macron’s points at the moment, but the French president has shone a spotlight once again on the strong possibility that the biggest decision by this country in the 21st century was made based on a fabric of lies.

German backpacker found days after disappearing in remote Australia

A German backpacker who disappeared in remote Western Australia nearly two weeks ago has been found alive.

Western Australia police confirmed to local media that Carolina Wilga was “safe and well”, and she was seen getting onto a small plane accompanied by rescuers. A police spokesperson said she was being taken to receive medical treatment.

Ms Wilga was picked up by a member of the public near Beacon, a small town about 200 miles northeast of the city of Perth, on Friday afternoon, WA Today reports. She had last been seen at a general store in the town on June 29.

Police inspector Martin Glynn told Nine News Ms Wilga was “in a fragile position at the moment”, but he expects her story of survival will be “remarkable” once she shares it.

“As you can imagine from the trauma she’s suffered over the last few days, she’s obviously been through a great deal,” Insp Gynn said.

“She has a number of significant minor injuries … she’s been ravaged by mosquitoes.”

The 26-year-old had been missing for nearly a fortnight, and police found her van abandoned on the edge of a remote nature reserve.

Before she was found on Friday, police expressed concerns about the remote bushland in which her vehicle was found.

Insp Glynn said it appears her van had become bogged in an off-road part of a nature reserve.

“She’s used the [recovery boards] that came with the vehicle … as it looks like she’s gone into a soft pile of mud,” he said, WA Today reported.

“She seems to have dragged some pieces of wood over to try and create a solid base to get the vehicle out but there was no luck.”

He said tourists rarely enter the “inhospitable” Karroun Hill Nature Reserve, a vast area filled with dense bushland.

According to WA Police Acting Inspector Jessica Securo, it “would be easy to become lost or disorientated in that area if you didn’t know it well.”

The German national has been backpacking through Australia for the last two years, according to police, alternately working in mining sites in regional WA and staying in backpacker hostels in Perth.

Police had deployed helicopters and planes in the ongoing search, according to local media reports, and Detective Senior Sgt Katharine Venn said on Thursday that they were growing increasingly concerned for her welfare.

The detective said it was possible that Wilga had been visiting picturesque but “very remote” tourist spots. Her vehicle was found in the Karroun Hill area, which boasts a 3097 sq km nature reserve.

Ms Wilga’s mother, Katja, had pleaded for information about her daughter on social media.

The German backpacker is the second person to have gone missing in the area in the last 12 months.

Barry Podmore, 73, has been missing since December after going gold prospecting at Karroun Hill, according to the ABC.

His vehicle was found abandoned about 40 km north of Beacon by police in May, but no trace of the man has been found.

How Macmillan Cancer Support built a movement that reaches everyone

Trump plans major statement on Russia after growing frustration with Putin

Donald Trump has said he will make a “major statement” about Russia on Monday after he confirmed the United States would supply weapons to Ukraine via Nato, with the alliance covering the full cost.

“I think I’ll have a major statement to make on Russia on Monday,” the president told NBC News. “We’re sending weapons to Nato, and Nato is paying for those weapons, 100 per cent.”

While Mr Trump refused to elaborate on his “major statement” any further, it comes as he’s grown more frustrated with Russian president Vladimir Putin over the lack of progress towards ending the war sparked by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

It comes after the president’s colourful statement in a cabinet meeting on Tuesday where he said: “We get a lot of bulls*** thrown at us by Putin,” adding: “He’s very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.”

US secretary of state Marco Rubio met Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov where he conveyed Trump’s frustration that “there’s not been more flexibility on the Russian side to bring about an end to this conflict.”

The Kremlin has since said it awaits Trump’s statement.

Justin Bieber’s Swag is a god-fearing, hyper-sexual slog

The surprise album drop, popularised by Beyoncé’s globe-shaking self-titled record in 2013 and now a vital part of the album-release ecosystem, has come to represent the ultimate creative flex: an artist so brimming with ideas, productivity and industry power that they can forgo the typical announcement-slash-promotional rigmarole. It’s a further kick in the shins by Kendrick after he’d already destroyed Drake. It’s Eminem reminding us of his magnitude. It’s actually a double album, winks Taylor.

For Justin Bieber, though, his surprise drop is oddly exposing – just further confirmation of the artistic lethargy that has plagued his most recent work, and an unfortunate insight into a man who seems awkwardly caught between sex, God, and self-pity.

Swag, Bieber’s seventh album, pads about in the sounds of Eighties sex jams, the singer cooing over a repetitive series of plush synths that call to mind (if we’re being generous) mid-career Michael Jackson, or (if we’re not) early Zayn Malik. Opener “All I Can Take” is the best thing here, Bieber’s occasionally strained warble of a voice swaddled in prettying reverb, twinkly piano surrounding him. It suggests an album of upbeat pop, but Swag’s tone shifts within seconds. “Daisies” sports a crunchy, country twang; “Yukon” is a jittery slice of SZA-style melancholy, Bieber’s voice pitched so high that you could swear a guest vocalist has been left unbilled on the tracklist.

From there, repetition sets in. Bieber oscillates between plodding love songs (“That’s my baby, she’s iconic,” he boasts on “Go Baby”) and spoken interludes both mystifying and mortifying. They more or less find Bieber nodding politely as internet comic Druski tells him exactly what he wants to hear. “‘Oh my God, he’s f***ing losing his mind’ – nah, I think he’s just being a human being,” Druski cracks at one point, in a blunt discussion of the speculation that’s erupted around Bieber’s mental health of late. “You kinda sound Black on this [album], man,” Druski says in another. “Your skin white, but your soul Black, Justin.” Lord, spare us.

Later on, a collaboration with rapper Sexyy Red is a raunchless calamity. “I like it sticky in the sheets, I’ll make your sheets hot,” Bieber monotones, with all the eroticism of a tax audit. “Keep on stroking my ego/ Are you stroking my…” he teases on the slinky, New Edition soundalike “Too Long”. “Just keep your mouth there.” These ghoulish single-entendre numbers collide awkwardly with the God-fearing elsewhere. A voice demo finds Bieber singing “Glory to the most high”, while the album is capped by a call to the Lord by gospel singer Marvin Winans.

Where does Bieber sit in between all of this? It’s unclear. We get a sense that he’s regretful, but only just. (And for what, who knows?) We get a sense that his marriage to model and entrepreneur Hailey Bieber can be rocky, maybe, but is fundamentally solid (“Gave you a ring … I told you I’d change/ It’s just human nature, these growing pains,” he insists over soft 808s on “Walking Away”). We get a sense that Bieber is incredibly randy… but most of all, randy for Jesus.

Perhaps none of this matters – if you’re a longstanding Belieber by this point, you’re probably used to the tonal shifts of his adult material. But, outside of his hardcore devotees, Bieber remains more of a curiosity than a consistent, coherent creative force – Swag won’t do much to change the conversation.