Most powerful storm of 2025 makes landfall in China after two million evacuated

At least 17 people have been killed and 17 remain missing in Taiwan after a barrier lake burst its banks amid downpours from the outer bands of Typhoon Ragasa.

The storm, the world’s strongest this year so far, made landfall close to Yangjiang in southern China at around 5pm local time (9am GMT) with sustained winds of 144kmph.

The storm brought several Asian megacities to a standstill on Wednesday. Streets were empty in Hong Kong as the storm brought waves taller than lampposts to its promenades.

Hundreds of flights were cancelled at Hong Kong’s international airport, schools were shut and shelves in supermarkets emptied across several cities in China.

Nearly two million people were relocated across Guangdong province, the southern Chinese economic powerhouse.

The typhoon weakened to a severe typhoon, the equivalent of a category 3 hurricane, as it made landfall, after days as a super typhoon. It is forecast to continue weakening as it moves inland.

Earlier, the storm lashed the Philippines, killing at least three people as its bands triggered widespread flooding and landslides.

Britain needs ‘change’, Burnham says in challenge to Starmer

Andy Burnham has said Britain needs “wholesale change” in his biggest challenge yet to Sir Keir Starmer, warning the prime minister that he risks handing the keys to No 10 to Nigel Farage without a major change of course.

The Greater Manchester mayor and former cabinet minister approaches this weekend’s crucial Labour conference with supporters talking up his prospects as a leader and potential prime minister for the party.

And his message, in an interview with The New Statesman, comes as Sir Keir continues to falter in the polls, with Labour MPs openly questioning whether he can continue if the party returns another poor set of elections next May.

But with anger over attempts to cut benefits for the disabled and a push to end the two-child benefit cap, Mr Burnham’s message looks set to resonate at the conference.

In what appeared to be a challenge to the party leadership, he said: “I’m going to put the question back to people at Labour conference: are we up for that wholesale change? Because I think that’s what the country needs.”

He also noted that a reshuffle was not enough, suggesting that “it can’t be just a changing of the guard: you have got to change the whole culture and… are people up for that?”

He warned against opening the door to the prospect of “a government of the like we’ve never seen before in the shape of Reform”, with Mr Farage’s party consistently beating Labour in the polls.

Mr Burnham’s friend and ally Lucy Powell also appears to be on course to win the deputy leadership after she was sacked from the cabinet in Sir Keir’s recent reshuffle.

Ms Powell has become the focal point of the anti-Starmer vote, with education secretary Bridget Phillipson seen as the leadership’s favoured candidate.

Rebels have also made it clear that they are willing to work with Mr Burnham, including former shadow chancellor John McDonnell, who is currently suspended from the parliamentary party for rebelling against the government, to call for an end to the two-child benefit cap.

And Mr Burnham’s words appeared to fire up his supporters, including York Central MP Rachael Maskell, who was recently suspended from the parliamentary party after leading the welfare cuts rebellion.

She told The Independent: “I have long known Andy, and he is someone who really engages and is in step with the community. If you look at his record in government, and of course as mayor of Manchester, you can see the impact that his creative style of leadership has delivered, on really reforming services, bringing economic growth and embracing political and wider diversity.

“Having supported Andy in 2015, I think he would make an outstanding leader for our country.”

However, others warned against simple solutions.

Bassetlaw MP Jo White, chair of the influential red wall group, said: “Anyone who thinks there is a simple solution that just changing the leader to take on the rise of Reform is dangerously deluded.”

She also noted that there are no by-elections planned that would allow for Mr Burnham to make a return to parliament.

MPs are looking for someone who can bring an authentic voice to socialism in taking on Mr Farage and Reform UK, who were eight points ahead of Labour in a YouGov poll this week.

Sir Keir did have a boost on Wednesday when a More in Common poll suggested the gap had closed to 3 points, with Labour up 3 and Reform down.

But new pressures were mounting on his Downing Street operation, with education secretary and deputy leadership candidate Bridget Phillipson claiming she had been the victim of misogynistic briefings. Meanwhile, the Tories were threatening to make new accusations about donations linked to the chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney.

Mr Burnham is set to take part in a major event at the conference on a panel with other rebels, including MPs Clive Lewis, Nadia Whittome, and Ms Maskell, under the title “Winning a Decade of National Renewal”.

The policy issues on welfare are also set to rear their heads again, with one leftwing Labour MP, who may support Mr Burnham, announcing he is prepared to be suspended again if the government does not back down on ending the two-child benefit cap.

Asked about it by Times Radio, Ian Byrne said: “Absolutely. Yeah, it’s a pernicious piece of legislation which has caused so much harm, certainly in West Derby, Liverpool and across the country. So, you know, it’s something we should be looking to repeal. And hopefully, the mood music coming from the Labour Party at the moment, certainly the two deputy leaders is matching my aims.”

Isle of Wight West MP Richard Quigley told The Independent that Mr Burnham was right.

He said: “He’s not wrong. After the previous 14 years of running the country into the ground, we need to do things differently. We need to leverage our majority to make a real difference, but also to do it differently.

“We are in danger of just tinkering around the edges, like a new management team, because we seem incapable, or scared of the machinery of Whitehall. We need to undo the bad thinking (not civil servants’ fault) that has crept into Whitehall, due to the Tory mismanagement of the country.

“We are doing some great things, but if you ask anyone in the street to describe our vision, they can’t. We need a vision to unite around, and in that Andy is right. Let’s change the Bank of England remit, let’s have a department solely focused on the cost of living and inflation. Let’s make ending poverty as politically engaging as it needs to be. We can change, but we need to want to.”

Is Starmer about to lose his secret weapon over an ‘admin error’?

Morgan McSweeney, the prime minister’s chief of staff, is becoming more of a story. He has been built up to semi-mythic status by journalists eager to believe in an organising genius behind Labour’s stunning election victory last year.

So much so that the portrait of “the Irishman” in Get In, Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund’s book, has become the received wisdom: of McSweeney as the brains behind the operation to take the Labour Party back from the Corbynites, who settled on Keir Starmer as the frontman.

In this telling, Starmer was a mere passenger – in the book, “one of McSweeney’s acolytes” is quoted as saying, “we’ve sat him at the front of the DLR”, London’s driverless Dockland Light Railway train, and allowed him to think that he was in charge.

The cycle is now turning, and the media have moved on from building McSweeney up to tearing him down – although some of the research is being done on their behalf by the Conservative Party. Kevin Hollinrake, the party chair, yesterday published something he grandly called “The McSweeney Files”. This consists of two documents: a leaked three-page email from Gerald Shamash, the lawyer, to McSweeney in 2021, and a letter from Hollinrake to the Electoral Commission about it.

The leaked email suggests that McSweeney should explain his failure to declare £739,000 of donations to Labour Together, his think tank, which acted as a kind of shadow Labour Party in the Corbyn years, as an “admin error”.

Hollinrake has secured headlines for this scoop and hopes to follow up on his success in helping to bring Angela Rayner down. It seems to have been Hollinrake who established that the nature of the trust set up to provide for her son meant that she retained a stake in her constituency house, and was therefore liable for the higher rate of stamp duty on the purchase of her flat in Hove.

It is a minor irony, of course, that the more successful Hollinrake’s attack unit is, the more Reform and the Lib Dems benefit, as the recent Tory record on ethical issues is so poor.

There is no doubt that the undeclared donations are a damaging story for McSweeney, although the story is not new. It was reported by Pogrund in The Sunday Times in November 2023, when Starmer was riding high. Even then, the story was old, because the Electoral Commission had already investigated, told Labour Together off, and fined it £14,000 in 2021.

Pat McFadden, the new work and pensions secretary who drew the short straw for media interviews today, was spikily dismissive. He praised McSweeney, stressed how closely he had worked with him and said: “I’m not surprised the Tories are targeting someone like that.”

He said that the Electoral Commission had dealt with the issue at the time. And it is true that unless there is new information, McSweeney will probably survive. But he is a target. The Tories and the press know that Starmer cannot afford to lose him – even if the offensive DLR metaphor was a colourful exaggeration.

Labour may be in deep trouble, but one way to make it worse would be for Starmer to lose the person who has become his political brain.

The attack on McSweeney is also aiming in the right direction, in that it is going after Starmer on the issue of money and openness in the handling thereof. For a party that made so much of the murky financing of Boris Johnson’s redecoration of the Downing Street flat, Labour people seem surprisingly careless when allegations of sleaze are made about them.

Starmer, Rachel Reeves and Bridget Phillipson were lucky to get away with accepting free tickets or clothes, possibly because those stories broke so soon after the election and before Labour started to plumb its current depths of unpopularity.

They are now in the danger zone where new revelations, or new facts about old ones, could easily force resignations. McSweeney must be more vulnerable than most of the prime minister’s inner circle, because Labour’s opponents know how important he is. Time to reinforce the bunker.

Farage falsely accuses eastern Europeans of eating swans from royal parks

Nigel Farage has been condemned for peddling false information and “wild conspiracy theories” after he falsely accused Romanians in Britain of eating swans in parks in his latest attack on migrants living in the UK.

The Reform UK leader claimed “swans are being eaten in royal parks” and said carp were being taken out of ponds “by people who come from different cultures”.

Asked who he believes are eating Britain’s swans, which are a protected species in the UK, Mr Farage said: “People who come from countries where that’s quite acceptable.”

Pressed by LBC’s Nick Ferrari whether eastern Europeans, Romanians and “people like that” were responsible, Mr Farage said: “So I believe.”

The Royal Parks charity quickly rejected Mr Farage’s claim, saying: “We’ve not had any incidents reported to us of people killing or eating swans in London’s eight Royal Parks.

“Our wildlife officers work closely with the Swan Sanctuary to ensure the welfare of the swans across the parks.”

Mr Farage’s comments echo US President Donald Trump’s earlier unfounded claim that Haitian migrants are eating Americans’ pets, with Labour MPs saying the Reform leader’s latest remarks are another example of why he shouldn’t be trusted.

Labour MP Clive Lewis told The Independent: “When a public figure begins to peddle wild conspiracy and grotesque exaggeration, from migrants eating swans to hinting at unknown harms from paracetamol, it reveals a troubling approach: deliberately feeding fear, confusion, and distrust.

“Some will fall for those lies, but others will see through the smokescreen. If this man cannot be trusted on the simplest matters of health or truth, then how can he be trusted to run a country? We must ask: if he’ll lie today, what will he lie about tomorrow?”

Meanwhile, Andy McDonald, Labour MP for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East, said his comments are a “direct lift from the Trump song book and a deliberate attempt to inflame tensions in our communities”.

“He offers absolutely nothing about how to truly transform our economy for the benefit of the working class, but just scapegoats immigrants, votes down improved rights and protections of workers and the thousands of net zero jobs providing good secure employment, but vigorously defends extreme wealth and treats voters like idiots hoping he’ll get away with it once again”, he added.

Fizza Qureshi, chief executive of the Migrants’ Rights Network, hit out at Mr Farage for “regurgitating debunked stories” and said his comments were “not only absurd but is utterly dangerous”.

She said: “He is regurgitating debunked stories that have resurfaced again and again, including way back in 2007, where migrants were accused of stealing swans.

“What Nigel Farage’s comments do show is his willingness to peddle disinformation from unverified social media and far-right organisations to deliberately whip up more hatred against migrants.”

In a presidential debate last year, Mr Trump said: “In Springfield, they are eating the dogs. The people that came in, they are eating the cats. They’re eating – they are eating the pets of the people that live there.”

City authorities stressed that there was no evidence for the claim, with the US National Security Council spokesperson at the time dubbing it a “dangerous conspiracy theory”.

Mr Farage launched into his own allegation about swans being eaten in royal parks after being challenged over whether any evidence had been forthcoming for Mr Trump’s claims.

After the exchange, interviewer Mr Ferrari said: “So it’s a similar story? They’re eating our carp, they’re eating our swans?”

Mr Farage said: “I’m not saying that, I’m just putting it back as an argument.”

His comments came as the Reform leader also opened the door to a Donald Trump-style re-evaluation of the safety of paracetamol in the UK.

Asked about the US president linking the drug to autism – claims UK experts have refuted and condemned as “fear mongering” – Mr Farage said “that is an opinion he has… it’s not one that I necessarily share”.

But Mr Farage added that “the science is never settled”. He said: “When it comes to science, I don’t side with anybody, because the science is never settled and we should remember that.”

Critics seized on Mr Farage’s answers during the interview on drug safety, with Wes Streeting saying he has “no idea and no backbone”.

The health secretary said: “This is a man whose health adviser claimed at Reform’s conference that the Covid vaccine gave the royal family cancer.

“Anti-science, anti-reason, anti-NHS. Farage is the snake oil salesman of British politics and it’s time to stop buying his rubbish.”

And Liberal Democrat health spokesperson Helen Morgan said: “Nigel Farage wants to impose Trump’s dangerous anti-science agenda here in the UK. Peddling this kind of nonsense is irresponsible and wrong.”

The latest row comes just days after Mr Farage was accused of using “dodgy maths” to back up his plan to scrap the main route towards British citizenship and deport tens of thousands of people who have legally settled in Britain.

The Reform leader said the current option of indefinite leave to remain – open to those who have lived and worked in Britain for five years – has “betrayed democracy” and vowed to abolish it.

But doubt was soon cast over Mr Farage’s claim that savings from the policy would be “considerably larger” than the £230bn once suggested by the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS), despite the think tank having since said its figure should no longer be used.

Meanwhile, Ben Brindle, a researcher at the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, questioned Mr Farage’s statement that half of those who have migrated to the UK are not working.

The Reform leader also claimed those from Hong Kong and Ukraine would not be exempt from the measures – before rowing back on that statement on Wednesday, telling LBC a special exemption would be made for people who come from those countries.

And last month Mr Farage said children would be deported as part of Reform UK’s strategy to tackle illegal migration, only to insist the next day that he had been “very, very clear” that the party was focused on “illegal males” and “not even discussing women and children at this stage”.

Greta Thunberg’s Gaza-bound flotilla ‘hit by drone attack’

Multiple drones have targeted a flotilla of Gaza-bound humanitarian aid ships carrying over 500 volunteers including Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, activists have said.

The Global Sumud Flotilla said it was in the waters south of Crete on Wednesday when several of its boats were targeted by heavy swarms of drones circling overhead.

Their vessel was also sprayed with unidentified chemicals, sound bombs and explosive flares and had their communications jammed, according to the crew.

The team reported hearing 15 to 16 drones and 13 explosions on or around several boats.

UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese said the convoy had been attacked several times and called for international protection for the humanitarian mission, writing on X (Twitter): “Boats hit with sound bombs, explosive flares, and sprayed with suspected chemicals.

“Radios jammed, calls for help blocked. Immediate international attention and protection required. Hands off the Flotilla!”

Saif Abukeshek, an activist on board the vessel, told The Independent: “In these final days before reaching Gaza, Israel is escalating to some of its most dangerous tactics yet – explosions, drones dropping objects on our boats, and communications jamming – all aimed at intimidating us and stopping this humanitarian mission from reaching Palestinians in Gaza.”

He said: “These types of tactics are not new; they have been used against Palestinians for decades. We will not be deterred.”

Thiago Avila, an activist on board the ship, said the crew had experienced escalating attacks since they set sail last month, which had rapidly become “severe and more dangerous” as the group neared Gaza.

Activists posted a brief video on the flotilla’s social media account showing what appeared to be an explosion on or near one of the vessels. Greece’s coast guard did not report any distress calls.

“We are protected by international law. We are part of conscience of the world that knows we cannot allow starving children to stay without food, without aid.”

“Multiple drones, unidentified objects dropped, communications jammed and explosions heard from a number of boats,” the Global Sumud Flotilla said in a statement.

“We are witnessing these psychological operations firsthand, right now, but we will not be intimidated.”

German human rights activist Yasemin Acar said in a video shared on Instagram: “We have no weapons. We pose no threat to anyone.”

The flotilla also said that unidentified objects had been dropped on several ships and that “the extent of the damage will be fully assessed in daylight”.

The Independent has contacted the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) for comment.

The Global Sumud Flotilla describes itself as a “multinational civilian effort to break Israel’s illegal siege of Gaza”. It is made up of more than 500 volunteers, including doctors, lawyers, politicians and activists.

It aims to deliver medical supplies and food to the population of Gaza, who are experiencing widespread hunger due to an Israeli naval blockade.

The Israeli foreign ministry has proposed that the activists unload their aid in the Israeli port of Ashkelon for it to be transported into Gaza.

“Israel will not allow vessels to enter an active combat zone and will not allow the breach of a lawful naval blockade,” the ministry said on Monday. “Israel urges the participants not to break the law and to accept Israel’s proposal for a peaceful transfer of any aid they might have.”

The flotilla has reported several attacks since it set sail from Spain on 1 September, including two while some of its boats were in Tunisian waters.

Earlier this month, Italy’s foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, called on Israel to respect the rights of citizens after a vessel was reportedly attacked by an incendiary device in Tunisian waters.

Huntington’s treatment slows disease for first time in breakthrough

Scientists have slowed the progression of Huntington’s disease for the first time with a “groundbreaking” new treatment.

Experts from University College London (UCL) said the finding could “change everything” for patients with the condition, which gets worse over time and has no cure.

The disease affects movement, thinking and mood.

The study tested a new gene therapy, AMT-130, which is delivered by brain surgery.

Early-stage clinical trials involving 29 patients showed that those who were given a high dose of the treatment experienced 75 per cent less disease progression after 36 months, according to uniQure, a gene therapy company based in the Netherlands and the US.

A single dose is expected to last for a patient’s lifetime.

“This result changes everything,” said principal investigator Professor Ed Wild, from UCL’s Huntington’s Disease Centre. “On the basis of these results, it seems likely that AMT-130 will be the first licensed treatment to slow Huntington’s disease, which is truly world-changing stuff.

“If that happens, we need to work hard to make it available to everyone who needs it, while working no less diligently to add more effective treatments to the list.

“Trial results come through in numbers and graphs, but behind each data point is an incredible patient who volunteered to undergo major neurosurgery to be treated with the first gene therapy we’ve ever tested in Huntington’s disease. That is an extraordinary act of bravery for the benefit of humanity.

“My patients in the trial are stable over time in a way I’m not used to seeing in Huntington’s disease – and one of them is my only medically retired Huntington’s disease patient who has been able to go back to work.”

The lead scientific adviser on the trial, Professor Sarah Tabrizi, also of UCL’s Huntington’s Disease Centre, said: “I am thrilled that this study of AMT-130 showed statistically significant effects on disease progression at 36 months. These groundbreaking data are the most convincing evidence in the field to date, and underscore the disease-modifying effect in Huntington’s disease, where an urgent need persists.

“For patients, AMT-130 has the potential to preserve daily function, keep them in work longer, and meaningfully slow disease progression.”

Corbyn admits Your Party row hasn’t ‘covered ourselves in glory’

Jeremy Corbyn has admitted “we haven’t covered ourselves in glory” after a string of embarrassing setbacks and weeks of bitter infighting at the top of Your Party.

Relaunching its paid-up membership service, the former Labour leader apologised for “the confusion in getting to this point” as he urged backers of the new left-wing outfit to “move on” and sign up as founding members ahead of its first conference in November.

It comes after Mr Corbyn last week said he was seeking legal advice after his party’s co-leader, Zarah Sultana, sent an “unauthorised email” from Your Party’s account, inviting its supporters to become paid members, apparently without his backing.

That promoted a furious row between the pair, which saw Ms Sultana claim she had been on the receiving end of “baseless attacks” and announce she had consulted defamation lawyers.

But in a video posted on X (Twitter), Mr Corbyn appeared to be trying to move on, saying: “We’ve had some drought days in the last week, as you will no doubt be very aware, and to be honest, we haven’t covered ourselves in glory.

“But what is most important is this: we all agree about the plans for the conference and the road map to get to it.”

Ms Sultana, who has clashed with Mr Corbyn over leadership roles and their visions for the party, was featured in pictures throughout the video as the supposed co-leaders seek to rebuild ties. But she did not issue a statement alongside Mr Corbyn, and did not speak in the video.

In it, Mr Corbyn said: “To all our supporters, I am sorry for the confusion in getting to this point.

“Together, all of us, let’s move on to the next stage.”

Relations between Mr Corbyn and Ms Sultana had been rocky since she quit the Labour Party in July and announced she would co-lead a party with the veteran left-winger.

Mr Corbyn appeared to have been caught off guard by the announcement and did not respond until the next day.

She then accused him of having “capitulated” over antisemitism in a stinging critique of Mr Corbyn’s time as Labour leader. He said it was “not really necessary for her to bring all that up”.

But relations hit rock bottom when Ms Sultana threatened legal action in a spat with the other pro-Gaza independent MPs who make up Your Party’s parliamentary ranks. She described a “sexist boys’ club” attitude behind the party amid a row over the party’s membership system.

And she lashed out at “a number of false and defamatory statements” made around the party’s launch after she unilaterally invited supporters to sign up for paid memberships.

Supporters of Ms Sultana and Mr Corbyn have been seeking to rebuild ties between the pair behind the scenes, and Ms Sultana on Sunday said she would drop any legal proceedings.

“The stakes are too high for failure to be an option,” she said, promising to reconcile with Mr Corbyn.