The Guardian 2024-11-25 12:15:41


China unnerved by Russia’s growing ties with North Korea, claims US official

Comments part of debate over whether Beijing backs Kim Jong-un’s decision to send troops to fight in Ukraine

China is increasingly uncomfortable about North Korea’s engagement with Russia and finds the growing cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow unnerving, Kurt Campbell, the US deputy secretary of state has said.

He was leaning into a growing debate among the US’s security partners in Asia on whether China supports the decision of North Korea’s Kim Jong-un to send 10,000 troops to fight for Russia against Ukraine. It is said the North Korean troops are now inside Russia.

There are also doubts in the Japanese foreign ministry that China supports North Korea’s dispatch of troops. Officials say China has largely been silent over the issue, and may be worried that the military collusion in Ukraine will help an American drive to form a network of alliances with South Korea and Japan in east Asia that Beijing already views as aimed at curbing its power.

In a rare olive branch China has told Japan it intends to remove a buoy it installed inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone near the Japanese-administered Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. Although the step is small, the islands are a flashpoint between Japan and China, and it is seen as symbolic of an effort to encourage those inside Japan that do not want to be drawn into a US-led conflict with China.

In a recent seminar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington thinktank, Campbell said: “The topic that is becoming increasingly uncomfortable for Chinese interlocutors is the DPRK [North Korea] engagement with Russia.

“In some of the discussions we have had it seems we are informing them of things that they were unaware of with regard to DPRK pursuits, and they are concerned that Russian encouragement might lead the DPRK to contemplate either actions or military actions that might not be in China’s interests.”

He added: “China has not weighed in directly to criticise Russia but we do believe that the increasing coordination between Pyongyang and Moscow is unnerving them.”

But analysts differ on whether there is a substantial fissure between China and Russia.

Dennis Wilder, a former CIA assistant director for east Asia and Pacific, said: “The radio silence in Beijing on this subject is staggering. There is not a word in the Chinese press either about the strategic agreement made between Russia and North Korea in the summer, or about sending troops.

“How does China explain what is going on and how do they ignore internationally the fact that their client state is now fighting in Ukraine? The Europeans are going to be upset and they are not going to be upset at the North Koreans, but with China.

“If Russia goes down the road of nuclear assistance to North Korea this will bolster the Americans’ alliances in east Asia and maybe create a true Nato so President Xi Jinping is in a very very difficult spot.”

Adm Samuel Paparo, the commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, said at the Halifax security forum on Saturday that the relationship between Russia, China and North Korea was having a “certain transactional symbiosis”.

He claimed: “North Korea is fulfilling artillery and missile needs to Russia and Russia in return will probably provide missile and submarine technology for North Korea.” He added he thought China had provided Russia with 90% of its semiconductors and 70% of its machine tools to rebuild its war machine.

Andrew Shearer, the director general of Australia’s Office of National Intelligence, was also sceptical about the extent of China’s unease.

“The idea of driving wedges between Putin and Xi is pretty fanciful and if we do not face up to the reality that Putin is only still in the war in Ukraine today due to China’s military, diplomatic and dual use support we are not going to fashion effective strategies.”

The doubts about China’s attitude are mirrored among observers in Japan too. Prof Emi Mifune, of the faculty of law at Komazawa University, said: “There is no way that China did not know what Russia was planning. China cannot afford to see Russia lose against the west, and if Russia wins it helps set up a propaganda advantage and precedent for China in seeking to control Taiwain.”

She pointed to the May 2024 China-Russia summit as a significant moment when China extracted concessions from Russia, including over Chinese access from the Tumen River to the Sea of Japan.

Prof Hideya Kurata, of the National Defense Academy of Japan, believes Beijing’s position is one of neither approval or disapproval, but one of discomfort. He has been highlighting how the conflict has to be seen in the context of North Korea’s decision to abandon efforts to reunify the Korean peninsula.

He said North Korea was trying to build an escalation ladder that starts with tactical nuclear weapons, extends to intermediate-range ballistic missiles targeting Japan, intermediate- to long-range missiles targeting Guam, and intercontinental ballistic missiles that could target the US mainland. He said he did not believe the US had medium-range nuclear weapons on land or at sea in the region that would act as a deterrence to North Korea.

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Zelenskyy fears Ukraine is ‘testing ground’ for Russian weapons amid rise in Shahed strikes

Kremlin has fired 500 drones over the border in the past week and set up two factories to make ‘hundreds a week’

Ukraine’s president said the country had been targeted by nearly 500 drones in the past week as well as more than 20 missiles and complained that Russia was using the country as “a testing ground” for its munitions.

Though Russia’s first ever use of the Oreshnik intermediate range ballistic missile on Dnipro on Thursday captured global attention, on Sunday Volodymyr Zelenskyy highlighted the increased level of Shahed drone attacks.

Fifty drones were shot down on Saturday night, out of 73, the Ukrainian president said. Over the previous week a total of 460 of the Iranian-designed drones were launched by Russia into Ukraine’s airspace, he added.

“Ukraine is not a testing ground for weapons. Ukraine is a sovereign and independent state. But Russia still continues its efforts to kill our people, spread fear and panic, and weaken us,” Zelenskyy said in a statement on Sunday morning.

Ukraine says Russia has set up two factories to make the distinctive delta-winged Shahed 136 drones, called Geran-2 by Moscow, in Tatarstan, about 800 – miles from the border in Ukraine. Production amounts to “hundreds per week” said a government source in Kyiv.

The drones are often fired into Ukraine as soon as they are ready, and while they remain easier to shoot down or neutralise compared to high-speed missiles, they tie up the country’s air defence and can cause serious damage with a 50kg warhead when they reach their targets.

In October, 2,023 Shahed drones were launched into Ukraine, a record according to Kyiv’s military. Last week’s figures suggest the rate of attacks continues to be similar with attacks on Kyiv and major cities a near nightly feature, tiring out civilian populations woken up by air raid alerts.

Russia is continually modifying the drones to try to make them more deadly. Earlier this month, Ukraine’s military posted a video of a thermobaric warhead, which creates a fire cloud of about 2,000C when detonated, and is considered particularly lethal if it explodes inside buildings.

Efforts are also under way, Ukrainian military sources said, to implement artificial intelligence to try to create “drone swarms” whereby Shaheds communicate and coordinate attacks in such a way as to overwhelm air defences. However, it is unclear how effective this technology may be.

Zelenskyy said “Ukraine needs more air defence systems” to help counter the aerial threats. “We are working with our partners to do so. It is crucial to strengthen the defence of our skies,” he added.

Because Shahed 136 drones are relatively inexpensive, costing a few tens of thousands of dollars a time, it is not practical to use Patriot missiles to shoot them down as they cost about $4m (£3.2m) each. Instead, specialist Ukrainian forces often use truck mounted machine guns to knock them out with small arms fire.

Ukrainian specialists are also trying to develop cheap first person view (FPV) drones, costing less than $1,000, that are capable of knocking out Shaheds, although the task is made difficult because the turbulent airflow caused by Shahed in flight significantly affects the piloting of a smaller FPV drone.

The most serious attack this month took place a week ago, when 120 missiles and 90 drones were unleashed against Ukraine’s energy grid. Nationwide electricity rationing was introduced the next day, as Ukrainian officials tried to repair a grid that Greenpeace warned was at risk of catastrophic failure if the attacks continued.

Hostilities escalated last week when first the US, followed by the UK and France, agreed to allow Atacms and Storm Shadow missiles to be used against targets inside Russia for the first time. That prompted Russia to respond by launching the Oreshnik missile at Ukraine, a nuclear-capable weapon, able to strike anywhere in Europe.

The Oreshnik is not thought to have caused much damage, but its intention was demonstrative. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said on Friday that his country would use the missile again in “combat conditions” – while a day before he had said Moscow “had the right” to use it against countries who have supplied Ukraine with weapons.

France’s foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, told the BBC on Sunday that Ukraine could fire French long-range missiles into Russia “in the logics of self-defence” and indicated that France was open to extending an invitation to Ukraine to join Nato. That, however, has been resisted by the outgoing president Joe Biden and is not thought likely to be supported by the incoming Donald Trump.

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Explainer

Ukraine war briefing: Ukraine targeted by nearly 500 Iran-designed drones in a week, Zelenskyy says

Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he fears his country is becoming a ‘testing ground’ for Russian weapons. What we know on day 1,006

  • See all our Russia-Ukraine war coverage

  • Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he fears that Ukraine will become “a testing ground” for Russian munitions, with the country being targeted by nearly 500 drones in the past week, as well as more than 20 missiles. Though Russia’s first ever use of the Oreshnik intermediate range ballistic missile on Dnipro on Thursday captured global attention, on Sunday Zelenskyy highlighted the increased level of Shahed drone attacks. Ukraine says Russia has set up two factories to make the distinctive Iran-designed, delta-winged Shahed 136 drones, called Geran-2 by Moscow, about 800 miles from the border in Ukraine.

  • A British national has reportedly been captured by Russian forces in the Kursk region while fighting for Ukraine. A video posted on pro-war Russian Telegram channels on Sunday, shows a man wearing combat fatigues who identifies himself as 22-year-old James Scott Rhys Anderson from the UK. Speaking with an English accent, the man says that he served as a signalman in the British army until 2023 before joining the International Legion in Ukraine to fight against Russia. The footage, which has not been verified, shows the captured man with his hands tied. It is unclear when the clip was recorded. Thousands of people from around the world have travelled to Ukraine, many joining the International Legion, after a call from Zelenskyy to join the fight.

  • The geopolitical implications of the Ukraine war are rippling through Asia, with claims in the US that China is growing “increasingly uncomfortable” about North Korea’s engagement with Russia. China is unnerved by the growing cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow, Kurt Campbell, the US deputy secretary of state has said, with Beijing fearing the issue may help America form alliances with South Korea and Japan in east Asia. Campbell was weighing in on a growing debate among the US’s security partners in Asia on whether China supports the decision of North Korea’s Kim Jong-un to send 10,000 troops to fight for Russia against Ukraine. It has been reported that the North Korean troops are now inside Russia.

  • Falling debris from destroyed Ukrainian drones sparked a fire at an industrial facility in Russia’s Kaluga, officials said early on Monday. Vladislav Shapsha, the regional governor, said that there were no injuries and that three drones were destroyed. He did not say which facility was on fire.

  • Britain and its Nato allies must stay ahead in “the new AI arms race”, British Cabinet Office minister Pat McFadden is expected to say on Monday, warning that Russian cyber criminals are increasingly targeting countries that support Ukraine. Addressing the Nato Cyber Defence Conference in London, McFadden is expected to unveil Britain’s plans to set up a new Laboratory for AI security to help create better cyber defence tools and organise intelligence on attacks, according to Reuters. In the latest warning about Moscow stepping up cyber-attacks on nations backing Ukraine, McFadden will call on the US-led military alliance, businesses and institutions to do “everything they can to lock their own digital doors” to protect themselves from what he called an increasingly aggressive Russia.

  • In the US, Republican lawmakers are pushing back against criticism that Donald Trump’s pick to lead the intelligence services is “compromised” by her comments supportive of Russia, the Associated Press reports. The accusation came from Illinois Democrat and senator Tammy Duckworth who said she is concerned about the pro-Russian views expressed by Tulsi Gabbard, who was tapped for the post of director of national intelligence. Markwayne Mullin, a Republican from Oklahoma, told CNN the criticism was “outright dangerous”, while Republican senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri said he thought it was “totally ridiculous” that Gabbard was being cast as a Russian asset for having different political views. “It’s insulting. It’s a slur, quite frankly. There’s no evidence that she’s a asset of another country,” he said on NBC.

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Briton reportedly captured by Russian forces while fighting for Ukraine

Man in video identifies himself as James Scott Rhys Anderson, 22, and says he joined the International Legion

A British national has reportedly been captured by Russia’s forces in the Kursk region while fighting for Ukraine.

In a video posted on pro-war Russian Telegram channels on Sunday, a man wearing combat fatigues identifies himself as 22-year-old James Scott Rhys Anderson from the UK.

The man, speaking with an English accent, says that he served as a signalman in the British army until 2023 before joining the International Legion in Ukraine to fight against Russia.

In the footage, which has not been verified, the captured man appears with his hands tied. It is unclear when the clip was recorded.

Since the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, issued a call in February 2022 for foreigners to join the fight, thousands of people from around the world have travelled to Ukraine. Many have joined units such as the International Legion, known as the most selective of the foreign groups and operating as part of a military unit within the Ukrainian ground forces.

Yuri Podolyaka, a popular pro-Kremlin military blogger, wrote on Telegram that Anderson was captured near the village of Plekhovo in Russia’s Kursk region.

Russia usually claims that the foreign fighters it has captured are mercenaries and are not entitled to protection as prisoners of war under international law.

The UK Foreign Office said it was “supporting the family of a British man following reports of his detention”.

The Ministry of Defence has declined to comment at this stage.

Russian forces have been battling Ukrainian troops in the Kursk region since 6 August, when Kyiv surprised Moscow with the biggest foreign attack on Russian soil since the second world war and subsequently seized 100 villages over an area of more than 1,300 sq km.

On Sunday, Reuters reported that Ukraine had lost more than 40% of the territory it initially captured in the Kursk region after Russian forces, bolstered by 11,000 North Korean troops, launched a wave of counter-offensives.

In the summer of 2022, two Britons captured while fighting in Mariupol as members of Ukraine’s marines were sentenced to death following a show trial in a court in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine.

The men were later released as part of a prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine that was brokered by Saudi Arabia.

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Shock in Romania as hard-right Nato critic Calin Georgescu takes lead in presidential election

Georgescu, who has called Nato’s ballistic missile defence shield a ‘shame of diplomacy’, will likely head into a run-off with leftist prime minister Marcel Ciolacu

A little-known, far-right populist took the lead in Romania’s presidential election on Sunday, electoral data showed, and will probably face leftist prime minister Marcel Ciolacu in a runoff in two weeks, an outcome that has rocked the country’s political landscape.

Calin Georgescu, who ran independently, led the polls with about 22% of the vote after nearly 93% of votes were counted, while Ciolacu of the Social Democratic party, or PSD, trailed at 21%. Elena Lasconi of the Save Romania Union party, or USR, stood at about 18%, and George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians, or AUR, took about 14%.

After polls closed, 9.4 million people – about 52.4% of eligible voters – had cast ballots, according to the Central Election Bureau. The second round of the vote will be held on 8 December.

The president serves a five-year term and has significant decision-making powers in areas such as national security, foreign policy and judicial appointments in the European Union and Nato member country.

Georgescu, 62, ran independently and was not widely known. He outperformed most local surveys, sending shock waves through Romania’s political establishment as he ascended to pole position.

After casting his ballot on Sunday, Georgescu said in a post on Facebook that he voted “For the unjust, for the humiliated, for those who feel they do not matter and actually matter the most … the vote is a prayer for the nation.”

Cristian Andrei, a political consultant based in Bucharest, told The Associated Press that Georgescu’s unexpected poll performance appears to be a “large protest or revolt against the establishment.”

“The mainstream political parties have lost the connection with regular Romanians,” he said. “You don’t have strong candidates or strong leaders … there are weak candidates, weak leaders, and the parties in general are pretty much disconnected.

Georgescu lacks an agenda, Andrei said, and has a vague and populist manifesto with positions that are “beyond the normal discourse.” His stances include supporting Romanian farmers, reducing dependency on imports, and ramping up energy and food production.

Georgescu has called Nato’s ballistic missile defense shield in the Romanian town of Deveselu a “shame of diplomacy”. He has said the North Atlantic alliance will not protect any of its members should they be attacked by Russia.

According to his website, Georgescu holds a doctorate in pedology, a branch of soil science, and held different positions in Romania‘s environment ministry in the 1990s. Between 1999 and 2012, he was a representative for Romania on the national committee of the United Nations Environment Program.

Videos posted to his popular TikTok account, where he has amassed 1.6 million likes, depict him attending church, doing judo, running around an oval track, and speaking on podcasts.

Romania shares a 650-km (400-mile) border with Ukraine and since Russia attacked Kyiv in 2022, it has enabled the export of millions of tons of grain through its Black Sea port of Constanta and provided military aid, including the donation of a Patriot air defence battery.

Villages on the border with Ukraine have seen a barrage of drones breaching national airspace although no casualties have been reported.

One political commentator said Russian meddling to give Georgescu an edge could not be ruled out in the election.

“Based on Georgescu’s stance towards Ukraine and the discrepancy between opinion surveys and the actual result, we cannot rule (that) out,” said Sergiu Miscoiu, a political science professor at Babes-Bolyai University.

Ecaterina Nawadia, a 20-year-old architecture student, said she voted for the first time in a national election on Sunday and hoped young people turn out in high numbers.

“Since the (1989) revolution, we didn’t have a really good president,” she said. “I hope most of the people my age went to vote … because the leading candidate is not the best option.”

Romania will also hold parliamentary elections on 1 December that will determine the country’s next government and prime minister.

Andrei, the political consultant, said Romania’s large budget deficit, high inflation, and an economic slowdown could push more mainstream candidates to shift toward populist stances amid widespread dissatisfaction.

Ciolacu told the AP before the first-round vote that one of his biggest goals was “to convince Romanians that it is worth staying at home or returning” to Romania, which has a massive diaspora spread throughout EU countries.

With Associated Press and Reuters

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Hundreds flee north Gaza as IDF orders more evacuations amid intense airstrikes

Senior Israeli minister says the war is far from over and Israel will stay ‘for years’ in the territory

The Israeli military has ordered the evacuation of new areas of northern Gaza, setting off a fresh wave of civilian displacements on Sunday as intense airstrikes continued across much of the territory.

In Jerusalem, a senior minister said the war in Gaza was far from over and that Israel would stay “for years” in the territory.

“Gaza will never be a threat to the state of Israel, no matter how long it is going to take … I think that we are going to stay in Gaza for a long time … I think most people understand that that will be years, “said Avi Dichter, a member of Israel’s security cabinet.

The Israel Defense Forces said the evacuation orders for the Shujaiya neighbourhood were issued after Palestinian militants fired rockets at Israel on Saturday from a location within the densely populated district. Hamas’s armed wing said it had targeted an army base over the border.

The IDF routinely circulates warnings by social media, pamphlets and phone calls, telling people to leave areas that will be attacked. “For your safety, you must evacuate immediately to the south,” an IDF post on X said.

Families living in the targeted areas began fleeing their homes after nightfall on Saturday and into Sunday’s early hours, witnesses and Palestinian media said. Images on social media showed hundreds leaving Shujaiya on donkey carts and rickshaws, with others, including children carrying backpacks, walking.

The humanitarian situation in northern Gaza has been described as apocalyptic by humanitarian officials, with tens of thousands suffering acute lack of water, sanitation, food and medical supplies.

The IDF has blockaded three north Gaza towns – Jabaliya, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun – since launching a major offensive early last month which it says is aimed at preventing Hamas from regrouping there.

“We still have a lot of work to do … They [Hamas] have new people … They still have infrastructure because we haven’t reached every single place in all Gaza,” Dichter told reporters.

Israeli leaders have repeatedly said that one major aim of the military offensive in Gaza is to free hostages seized during the Hamas attacks into Israel in October last year. About 100 hostages are believed to remain in the territory, though half are thought to be dead.

On Saturday, a spokesperson for the armed wing of Hamas said a female Israeli hostage in the group’s custody had been killed in an unspecified northern area where the Israeli army had been operating.

Abu Obeida, a spokesperson for Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, said contact had been restored with the woman’s captors after a break of several weeks and it was established that the hostage was dead, but did not identify the hostage or say how or when she was killed.

The IDF said it was investigating the Hamas report. “Hamas continues to engage in psychological terrorism and act in a cruel manner,” a spokesperson said.

During their attack into Israel last year, Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took more than 250 hostages back to Gaza. About half of those abducted were released in a short-lived ceasefire in November.

Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 44,000 people, mostly civilians. Nearly all the enclave’s 2.3 million population have been displaced at least once, and swathes of the narrow coastal territory have been reduced to rubble.

People in northern Gaza say they fear the goal is to permanently depopulate a strip of territory as a buffer zone, which Israel denies, and say Israeli forces have blown up hundreds of houses since beginning the new offensive.

Dichter, a security veteran recently appointed to the food security portfolio, said that once there was “an agreement or end of the war” displaced people would be able to return home.

In central Gaza, health officials said at least 10 Palestinians had been killed in Israeli airstrikes on the urban refugee camps of al-Maghazi and al-Bureij since Saturday night.

The new strikes come after a bloody few days, with Palestinian medics saying Israeli military strikes across Gaza killed at least 120 Palestinians on Friday and Saturday.

Other attacks were reported to have targeted the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza, injuring its director.

Hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel also intensified against the background of continuing negotiations. Analysts say both sides are seeking to better their negotiating position.

Hezbollah claimed in a statement on Sunday that it attacked the Ashdod naval base in south Israel with a squadron of drones. The Israeli military said it was unaware of the incident, which would be the first time a base so deep in Israel was targeted by Hezbollah in 13 months of fighting.

The Lebanon-based Islamist militant organisation, which is supported by Iran, also launched successive waves of rockets into northern and central Israel. Almost all were intercepted by Israel’s air defence systems though seven injuries were reported.

Israeli soldiers continued to advance on the ground in south Lebanon over the weekend, with clashes reported between Israeli soldiers and Hezbollah fighters in the coastal town of al-Bayada.

Hezbollah-affiliated media claimed its fighters were engaged in close-quarters fighting with Israeli forces who were cutting off roads to key villages in south Lebanon. Residents of Deir Mimas, a Christian village in the south, said Israeli soldiers installed a checkpoint on the road outside the village and instructed the 30 or so residents who remained in the town to stay in their homes until further notice.

An Israeli strike on an army centre killed a Lebanese soldier and wounded 18 others in the south-west between Tyre and Naqoura, Lebanon’s military said. The Israeli military expressed regret, saying the strike occurred in an area of combat against Hezbollah and that the military’s operations were directed solely against the militants.

Israeli strikes have killed more than 40 Lebanese troops since the start of the war between Israel and Hezbollah, even as Lebanon’s military has largely kept to the sidelines.

Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, condemned the latest strike as an assault on the US-led ceasefire efforts, calling it a “direct, bloody message rejecting all efforts and ongoing contacts” to end the war.

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Rabbi in UAE killed in ‘antisemitic terror incident’, says Israel

UAE says it has arrested three people over the killing of Zvi Kogan, who worked for an Orthodox Jewish group

Israel has said that an Israeli-Moldovan rabbi who went missing in the United Arab Emirates was killed in what it described as a “heinous antisemitic terror incident”.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s office issued a statement about the death of Zvi Kogan, who worked in the UAE for an Orthodox Jewish group called Chabad and had not been seen since Thursday.

“The state of Israel will use all means at its disposal to bring the criminals responsible for his death to justice,” the Israeli prime minister’s statement said.

Late on Sunday, UAE authorities said they had arrested three people over the attack. The Emirati interior ministry did not give further details on the suspects but said the ministry would use “all legal powers to respond decisively and without leniency to any actions or attempts that threaten societal stability”.

Earlier in the day, the UAE’s state-run news agency acknowledged Kogan’s disappearance but did not mention his reported Israeli citizenship, referring to him only as Moldovan. It is unclear exactly when and where the 28-year-old’s body was found.

Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, condemned the killing, and thanked Emirati authorities for “their swift action” on Sunday morning.

The White House said on Sunday it was working in close coordination with Israel and the UAE. White House National Security Council spokesperson Sean Savett said: “We condemn in the strongest terms the murder of Rabbi Zvi Kogan in the UAE and our prayers are with his family.”

The Iranian embassy in the UAE responded to accusations of Tehran’s involvement, saying it “categorically rejects the allegations of Iran’s involvement in the murder of this individual”.

Israeli authorities repeated their warning against all non-essential travel by Israelis to the UAE and said visitors currently there should minimise movement and remain in secure areas.

The UAE normalised relations with Israel in 2020, alongside other countries including Bahrain and Morocco. The agreement has held through more than a year of acute regional tensions since Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel. Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza and its invasion of Lebanon, after months of tit-for-tat exchanges with the Hezbollah militant group, have stoked anger among Emiratis, Arab nationals and others living in the UAE.

Tensions have risen elsewhere in the region. In Jordan, a man was killed on Sunday after opening fire on and wounding three members of the security forces near the Israeli embassy in the capital, Amman, state media said, in an incident described by the government spokesperson as a “terrorist attack”.

The Chabad-Lubavitch movement, a prominent branch of ultra-Orthodox Judaism based in the US, said on Saturday that Kogan was last seen in Dubai. The UAE has a burgeoning Jewish community, with synagogues and businesses catering for kosher diners.

“With great pain we share that Rabbi Zvi Kogan, Chabad-Lubavitch emissary to Abu Dhabi, UAE, was murdered by terrorists after being abducted on Thursday. His body was recovered early Sunday morning, and his family has been notified,” a statement from the movement said.

The Rimon Market, a small kosher supermarket that Kogan managed on Dubai’s busy Al Wasl Road, was shut on Sunday. The store has been the target of online protests by supporters of Palestinians over the last year. Mezuzahs – small parchment scrolls in containers placed on doorposts by observant Jews – on the front and the back doors of the market appeared to have been ripped off when an Associated Press reporter visited on Sunday.

Ynet, an Israeli news website, reported that Kogan’s car was found abandoned in Al Ain, a town 80 miles (130km) from Dubai, and that investigators believed he was followed by “three Uzbek operatives”.

Other Israeli media suggested a cell indirectly operated by Iran was responsible for the abduction and killing of Kogan. The Haaretz newspaper reported that Israeli security sources had said members of the cell responsible for Kogan’s killing were citizens of Uzbekistan, who fled to Turkey to divert attention from Iran.

Tehran’s intelligence services have carried out kidnappings in the UAE and western officials believe Iran runs intelligence operations there, monitoring hundreds of thousands of Iranians living across the country.

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Israeli government orders officials to boycott left-leaning paper Haaretz

Ministers also ban government advertising from critical newspaper that is widely respected internationally

Israel’s government is set to punish the country’s leading left-leaning newspaper, Haaretz, by ordering a boycott of the publication by government officials or anyone working for a government-funded body and halting all government advertising in its pages or website.

In a statement on Sunday, the office of Shlomo Karhi, the communications minister, said that his proposal against Haaretz had been unanimously approved by other ministers.

“We will not allow a reality in which the publisher of an official newspaper in the state of Israel will call for the imposition of sanctions against it and will support the enemies of the state in the midst of a war and will be financed by it,” the statement said.

“We advocate a free press and freedom of expression, but also the freedom of the government to decide not to fund incitement against the state of Israel.”

Haaretz, which is Israel’s oldest newspaper and widely respected internationally for its reporting and analysis, has been a fierce critic of the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his current coalition government, the most rightwing in the history of the country.

The newspaper has published a series of investigations of wrongdoing or abuses by senior officials and the armed forces, and has long been in the crosshairs of the current government. It has also been a vocal supporter of the campaign for a ceasefire to free hostages seized by Hamas in October last year and still held in Gaza.

In a statement on Sunday, Haaretz accused Netanyahu of seeking to “dismantle Israeli democracy” and said the resolution to boycott the newspaper was “opportunist” and had been passed by ministers without any legal review.

“Like his friends Putin, Erdoğan, and Orbán, Netanyahu is trying to silence a critical, independent newspaper. Haaretz will not balk and will not morph into a government pamphlet that publishes messages approved by the government and its leader,” the statement said.

To justify the boycott of Haaretz, Karhi’s office has highlighted comments made by Amos Schocken, its publisher, at a recent conference organised by the newspaper in London.

Schocken accused the Israeli government of “imposing a cruel apartheid regime on the Palestinian population” and said it was “fighting the Palestinian freedom fighters, that Israel calls terrorists”. He later clarified his remarks, saying that he had not meant to refer to Hamas.

Haaretz also published an editorial saying that “deliberately harming civilians is illegitimate. Using violence against civilians and sowing terror among them to achieve political or ideological goals is terrorism. Any organisation that advocates the murder of women, children and the elderly is a terrorist organisation, and its members are terrorists. They certainly aren’t “freedom fighters”.

Mairav Zonszein, senior Israel analyst for the International Crisis Group, said the boycott showed that Israel was led by an increasingly authoritarian government dedicated to crushing all kinds of dissent.

“The space for criticism has narrowed significantly, not just by Palestinians but by Jewish Israelis,” she said.

Karhi first proposed a government resolution to halt any state advertisement, subscriptions or other commercial connection with Haaretz last year, citing “defeatist and false propaganda during wartime”.

The move prompted the International Federation of Journalists to express its concern that the Israeli government was set on restricting press freedom and the public’s right to know.

In May, Israeli authorities shut down the local offices of Al Jazeera, hours after a government vote to use new laws to close the satellite news network’s operations in the country.

Officials said the move was justified because Al Jazeera was a threat to national security. “The incitement channel Al Jazeera will be closed in Israel,” Netanyahu posted on social media. Critics called the move a “dark day for the media”.

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Trump’s eldest son emerges as key voice influencing cabinet picks – report

President-elect has become particularly reliant on Donald Jr for advice, sources tell Reuters

Donald Trump Jr has emerged as the family’s most influential adviser of the moment as his father builds the most controversial cabinet in modern US history, sources close to Donald Trump’s eldest son say.

Trump Jr has in some cases promoted inexperienced loyalists over more qualified candidates for top positions in president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration.

During Trump’s first administration, as the 45th president, his elder daughter, Ivanka Trump, and her husband, Jared Kushner, were top level political advisers, while his sons Don Jr and Eric were assigned mainly to run the family business.

Ivanka and her husband took a big step back from politics after Trump lost to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election and during Trump’s subsequent descent into a tangle of civil and criminal cases against him, though have been more present since his victory in the election earlier this month.

Now sources have told Reuters that Don Jr is currently the leading offspring voice in his father’s ear and the president-elect has become particularly reliant on his son for advice on White House strategy.

But at least two of the more controversial choices championed by Don Jr face tough Senate confirmation challenges – vaccine skeptic and conspiracy theorist Robert F Kennedy Jr, of the chiefly-Democratic Kennedy political dynasty, for health secretary and former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, who faces bipartisan concern over her Russian interests and lack of experience in the intelligence community.

Appointments planning continued on Sunday, the Washington Post reported, with the likely elevation of Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford-trained physician and economist, as the next director of the National Institutes of Health.

Reuters spoke to half a dozen sources, including donors, political allies and friends, who confirmed Don Jr’s influence in pitching names for appointments, including inexperienced loyalists. Don Jr was credited with making JD Vance his father’s vice-presidential pick, helping cabinet contenders sink or rise to the fore and blocking former secretary of state Mike Pompeo from joining the cabinet.

“The reality this time is we actually know what we’re doing,” Don Jr told Fox News earlier this month. “And it’s about surrounding my father with people who are both competent and loyal.”

Kushner, formerly Trump’s senior adviser who focused on the Middle East, told Reuters that he is briefing real estate investor Steve Witkoff on his new job as special envoy to the region.

“I have been working with Witkoff to get him up to speed on Trump’s past efforts,” Kushner said through a spokesperson.

One source close to the transition said Trump does not appear to need his family for advice as much as in the past because of aides like Susie Wiles, who helped to run the most disciplined of his election campaigns to date and will be his chief of staff.

“Stuff is really buttoned down,” the source said of Trump’s current team. “He may not need the family this time like he used to.”

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Trump’s eldest son emerges as key voice influencing cabinet picks – report

President-elect has become particularly reliant on Donald Jr for advice, sources tell Reuters

Donald Trump Jr has emerged as the family’s most influential adviser of the moment as his father builds the most controversial cabinet in modern US history, sources close to Donald Trump’s eldest son say.

Trump Jr has in some cases promoted inexperienced loyalists over more qualified candidates for top positions in president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration.

During Trump’s first administration, as the 45th president, his elder daughter, Ivanka Trump, and her husband, Jared Kushner, were top level political advisers, while his sons Don Jr and Eric were assigned mainly to run the family business.

Ivanka and her husband took a big step back from politics after Trump lost to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election and during Trump’s subsequent descent into a tangle of civil and criminal cases against him, though have been more present since his victory in the election earlier this month.

Now sources have told Reuters that Don Jr is currently the leading offspring voice in his father’s ear and the president-elect has become particularly reliant on his son for advice on White House strategy.

But at least two of the more controversial choices championed by Don Jr face tough Senate confirmation challenges – vaccine skeptic and conspiracy theorist Robert F Kennedy Jr, of the chiefly-Democratic Kennedy political dynasty, for health secretary and former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, who faces bipartisan concern over her Russian interests and lack of experience in the intelligence community.

Appointments planning continued on Sunday, the Washington Post reported, with the likely elevation of Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford-trained physician and economist, as the next director of the National Institutes of Health.

Reuters spoke to half a dozen sources, including donors, political allies and friends, who confirmed Don Jr’s influence in pitching names for appointments, including inexperienced loyalists. Don Jr was credited with making JD Vance his father’s vice-presidential pick, helping cabinet contenders sink or rise to the fore and blocking former secretary of state Mike Pompeo from joining the cabinet.

“The reality this time is we actually know what we’re doing,” Don Jr told Fox News earlier this month. “And it’s about surrounding my father with people who are both competent and loyal.”

Kushner, formerly Trump’s senior adviser who focused on the Middle East, told Reuters that he is briefing real estate investor Steve Witkoff on his new job as special envoy to the region.

“I have been working with Witkoff to get him up to speed on Trump’s past efforts,” Kushner said through a spokesperson.

One source close to the transition said Trump does not appear to need his family for advice as much as in the past because of aides like Susie Wiles, who helped to run the most disciplined of his election campaigns to date and will be his chief of staff.

“Stuff is really buttoned down,” the source said of Trump’s current team. “He may not need the family this time like he used to.”

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Trump voters hail controversial cabinet picks as the government they want

Trump voters in the American heartland are excited, even as senior Republicans are less than enthusiastic about some of the president-elect’s choices

In the American heartland, they’re excited. Finally, say voters who put Donald Trump into the White House for a second time, they are about to get the president they wanted all along.

Even as leading Democrats decry Trump’s cabinet nominations as “agents of his contempt, rage and vengeance”, the former and future president’s supporters are interpreting the selections as evidence that he has finally broken free of the Washington establishment.

Democrats are fuming that Trump wants to put a vaccine denier in charge of health, former Fox News presenters at the helm of the Pentagon and transportation department, and at the prospect of Elon Musk slashing and burning his way through the sprawling federal bureaucracy.

Even senior Republicans have been less than enthusiastic about some of Trump’s choices. The tapping of the former Florida congressman Matt Gaetz to be the US attorney general ran into the sand after just a few days over allegations of sex with a minor.

But many of those who voted for Trump are weighing other priorities.

Neil Shaffer, chair of the Republican party in Howard county, Iowa, which twice voted for Barack Obama but has swung ever more to Trump with each passing election, has never been an enthusiast for the former president even if he voted for him three times.

“This time around I was still a little lukewarm on the whole thing but I’m very impressed with the people he’s surrounded himself with, especially Tulsi Gabbard and Bobby Kennedy and Elon Musk. With each one of these people there’s a big, big part of their appointment that is reforming and streamlining,” said Shaffer, who works in water conservation for the state.

“I like the idea of bringing people from outside government to look at this with eyes from the real world not Washington DC. Washington DC is not the real world. It’s a made-up puppet regime of dark shadows. You’ve got the military-industrial complex, big pharma, big agriculture pulling all the levers. They want all that money. It’s why we got the way we are with our food. I’m actually mystified that he’s this well organised, that all these names are coming out so quickly.”

Shaffer offers a frequently heard view among Trump supporters that the former president was ill-prepared for his unexpected victory in 2016, and was then captured by big business and the Republican establishment in making cabinet appointments. That, he said, held back Trump’s promise to “drain the swamp”.

“He was inundated with all these lobbyists and corporate interests and individuals who really were there more to perpetuate the system instead of reform the system,” he said.

This time, said Shaffer, Trump has the experience to put in place officials who will represent his ambitions.

Among the most contentious nominations, and popular with the next president’s supporters, is the choice of Robert F Kennedy, scion of the US’s most famous Democratic political family, as secretary of health and human services. His liberal critics see a crank who rejected Covid vaccinations and promoted false claims over links between immunisation and autism.

But more than a few Trump supporters are focused on Kennedy’s longstanding criticisms of the power of the food and agricultural industry over what Americans farm and eat, and the prescription drug makers’ influence on healthcare.

Corporate lobbyists helped ensure that the US government spent more than $100bn subsidising the growing of corn over the past 30 years. Some of that ends up as high-fructose corn syrup now found in most processed foods in the US, from breakfast cereals to salad dressings and soft drinks, and is a major contributor to some of the highest rates of obesity and diabetes in the world.

A meme about the unhealthy ingredients in Heinz tomato ketchup made in the US, including corn syrup, compared with the UK version is doing the rounds among Trump supporters enthusiastic about Kennedy’s appointment. As Shafer sees it, corporations are getting taxpayers to subsidise an industry that is killing them.

“It’s like I heard Bobby Kennedy say the other day, when you go back to the 1960s and what our health was then to where it is now, our DNA didn’t change, our diet changed. And what spurred our diet to change?” said Shaffer.

“The food thing is huge. I’m so happy that he’s going to have a cabinet position.”

Bo Copley, a former miner in West Virginia who now works as a salesman, said he was disappointed that Trump did not behave with more dignity during his first term. He’s not confident that will change but thinks the former president has learned from other mistakes, principally in who he appoints to positions of power.

“Opponents would consider them radical but for the people who support him, he’s putting people in place who will help him get the job done. There are people that would shake up the establishment in Washington DC. We’re not looking for lobbyists to be in these positions. We’re not looking at people from big pharma to be in these positions,” he said.

Copley named Kennedy and Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman who switched to the Republicans earlier this year and is nominated as director of national intelligence, as among the choices he most liked.

Nikki Haley, the former UN ambassador who challenged Trump in the Republican primaries, on Thursday criticised Gabbard as “a Russian, Iranian, Syrian, Chinese sympathiser”. But Copley is not alone in welcoming Gabbard’s scepticism about Washington’s escalating military support for Ukraine, including the Biden administration’s decision this week to supply landmines and permit the firing of US-made missiles into Russia.

“One of the biggest talking points the first time Donald Trump went into office was he’s going to start world war three and he actually de-escalated conflicts. Now we’ve sent Ukraine billions and billions of dollars when we have people in North Carolina who went through humongous disaster, the hurricane, and we offer them $750 apiece when their entire lives have been wiped out. It’s completely asinine to me,” he said

Then there is Elon Musk. Even before he was nominated to head the new “Department of Government Efficiency”, some were questioning how long the egotistical billionaire would remain in Trump’s favour. But Shaffer is particularly keen on Musk carrying through his promise of deep cuts to government spending after the national debt rose by more than $2tn over the past year.

“I was in DC this summer. I walked past this ginormous education department building every time I left my hotel. I thought there’s no reason for this to be here. If that money was spent in our local communities, the quality of education would skyrocket,” he said.

Copley, too, is enthused at the prospect of Musk “cutting down the wasteful spending that happens in Washington”. He acknowledges that West Virginia, one of the poorest states in the US, is heavily reliant on federal aid to fund education, transport and social services. A relatively high proportion of people on low incomes in the state receive welfare payments and healthcare coverage.

“I know that a lot of West Virginians receive money and receive those kind of payments, but I’m all for revamping those so that people don’t game the system and use them as lifelong crutches,” he said.

For Ed Bisch the desire to tear down parts of the system is deeply personal. He lost his 18-year-old son Eddie to a prescription opioid overdose in 2001, an early victim of an epidemic that has claimed close to 900,000 lives. Bisch voted solidly Democratic all the way up to supporting Hillary Clinton in 2016 in the belief that the party would take on the big pharma interests that caused the opioid epidemic. But little changed.

Then Bisch saw Trump in office and decided he was the president most likely to challenge the drug industry and what he sees as its corruption of American medicine and health regulation.

Bisch is enthusiastic about Kennedy, who is a former heroin addict, and JD Vance as vice-president after he wrote a bestseller, Hillbilly Elegy, about growing up in a region blighted by drugs.

He is also pleased by the nomination of Pam Bondi to be the US attorney general after Gaetz dropped out. As Florida’s attorney general, Bondi shut down the “pill mills” churning out opioid prescriptions at a time when more oxycodone pills were sold in Florida than all other US states combined.

Bisch wants to see Bondi prosecute the Sackler family which owned the company that kicked off the opioid epidemic with the powerful narcotic OxyContin. He’s also counting on Kennedy to follow through on a pledge to “close the revolving door” between the drug industry and its regulators at the Food and Drug Administration which has been accused of allowing the epidemic to take off because of lax oversight and too close a relationship with the drug makers.

Kennedy has repeatedly criticised the FDA for conflicts of interest, accusing it of putting the interests of the pharmaceutical industry ahead of the nation’s health.

Then there is Trump’s promise to finish building the wall on the border with Mexico. That is primarily about immigration but Bisch said it would also help stem the flow of fentanyl, the synthetic opioid that is responsible for most overdose deaths these days.

“I’m excited. Let’s finish the border wall. I agree when people say most of the fentanyl gets in through ports of entry not the open border but once we get the wall built and secure the border, then you can put more resources at the ports of entry. The bottom line is, you’ll never be able to stop it but reducing the supply is a proven way to reduce deaths,” he said.

How the desire to see Trump take on a system that has increasingly come to resemble a corporate oligarchy will square with Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s authoritarian plan to impose rightwing control across the entire US government that would also enlarge the power of big business, remains to be seen. Trump has distanced himself from the plan even though members of his first administration were influential in its creation.

Shaffer is no fan of Project 2025. He takes Trump assurances at face value and believes the next president will see that his supporters want to see the corporate grip on government broken.

“The Democrats have leftwing crazies. We’ve got some wackos out there on the far right and they concocted this list of their priorities. There’s probably some good things in there but there’s a lot of screwball things. I don’t see those people coming to the table,” he said.

“I think Trump is going to have enough free-thinkers and people that have already explicitly criticised a lot of the stuff that’s been going on out there. That will be his guiding force.”

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Cop29 climate finance deal criticised as ‘travesty of justice’ and ‘stage-managed’

Some countries say deal should not have been done and is ‘abysmally poor’ compared with what is needed

The climate finance deal agreed at Cop29 is a “travesty of justice” that should not have been adopted, some countries’ negotiators have said.

The climate conference came to a dramatic close early on Sunday morning when negotiators struck an agreement to triple the flow of climate finance to poorer countries.

Developing nations had called on rich countries to provide them with $1.3tn (£1.08tn) a year to help them decarbonise their economies and cope with the effects of the climate crisis. But the final deal sets a pledge of just $300bn annually, with $1.3tn only a target.

The number is an increase from a previous $100bn promise, but Chandni Raina, a negotiator for India, said it was “abysmally poor” compared with what was needed.

“This, in our opinion, will not address the enormity of the challenge we all face,” she said on the negotiation floor moments after the deal was gavelled through.

For Raina, who is an adviser to India’s department of economic affairs, it was not only the goal itself that caused anger but also the process by which it was finalised.

Hours before the conclusion of Cop29, when a deal seemed elusive, delegates from the US, Colombia and several African nations were seen poring over documents in a huddle. Drafts were circulated before they were shared with the public, and throughout the conference centre rumours circulated about last-minute backroom deals being made.

Raina said the UN’s framework convention on climate change, which convenes the annual Cop summits, was meant to make decisions by consensus. India had been planning to make a dissenting statement before the decision was adopted but was not given the opportunity to do so, she said.

Rain said the $300bn pledge was “stage-managed”. “This document is little more than an optical illusion,” she said.

In an interview with the Guardian shortly after her statement, Raina called the goal’s adoption “outrageous”. “This was completely a travesty of justice,” she said.

The Cop29 presidency did not adopt another key negotiating item, known as the UAE dialogue, Raina said. The document – a follow-on from a commitment to “transitioning away from fossil fuels” made last year at Cop28 – was rejected when countries said it was too weak.

Raina said the climate finance item should have been treated the same way. “It’s unclear what the legalities here are,” she said.

Catherine Pettengell, an advocate with the NGO Climate Action Network UK, said the procedural choices could erode trust in UN climate processes.

“Developing countries have been forced to accept half-measures, Cop after Cop, but at Cop29 these half-measures push the costs of climate change on to the people least responsible but suffering the worst consequences,” she said.

The goal left a bitter taste in other negotiators’ mouths. “That the developed countries are saying that they are taking the lead with $300bn by 2035 is a joke,” a delegate from Nigeria said after the document’s adoption. “We do not accept this.”

She said developing countries such as Nigeria, which is a major oil producer, would need far more assistance to cut their emissions.

Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez, Panama’s special representative for climate change, also questioned the process of the goal’s adoption.

“The gavel was hit way too fast and our heart goes out to all those nations that feel like they were walked over,” he said. “Developed nations always throw text at us at the last minute, shove it down our throat, and then, for the sake of multilateralism, we always have to accept it, otherwise the climate mechanisms will go into a horrible downward spiral, and no one needs that.”

Hours before the text was adopted, delegations from small island states and the least developed nations walked out of one meeting, saying their climate finance interests were being ignored.

The least developed countries (LDC) negotiating bloc, which represents 45 nations and 1.1 billion people, said Sunday’s deal destroyed three years of negotiations on the climate finance goal.

“This has been casually dismissed,” an LDC statement said. “Despite exhaustive efforts to collaborate with key players, our pleas were met with indifference. This outright dismissal erodes the fragile trust that underpins these negotiations and mocks the spirit of global solidarity.”

Sunday’s deal does not allocate specific sums to “particularly vulnerable” LDCs or low-lying islands. But the groups did win a mention in the text.

Avinash Persaud, an expert on climate finance at the Inter-American Development Bank, who has served as an adviser to Barbados prime minister, Mia Mottley, said: “It was hard fought over, but at $300bn per year led by developed to developing countries, we have arrived at the boundary between what is politically achievable today in developed countries and what would make a difference in developing countries.

Raina said the text did not include adequate protections for other developing nations. “All developing countries need finance,” she said, adding that India’s per-capita emissions were far lower than those of developed nations.

Prof Ottmar Edenhofer, a climate economist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, said the most important part of the Cop29 finance deal was that it existed at all. The multilateral system of international cooperation had not collapsed as had seemed possible at times, he said.

“The climate summit in Baku was not a success but at best the avoidance of a diplomatic disaster,” he said. But different ways to tackle the climate crisis were now needed, he added, such as cooperation between smaller groups of nations.

Others took a less rosy view. Tracy Carty, of Greenpeace International, said fossil fuel companies – which have made $1tn a year in profit annually for half a century – should have been forced to pay into the finance pool.

Nafkote Dabi, the climate policy lead at Oxfam International, called the agreement a “global Ponzi scheme”. “The destruction of our planet is avoidable, but not with this shabby and dishonourable deal,” she said.

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Beijing orders investigations into local disputes after spate of deadly attacks

Mass stabbings and car rammings have prompted soul-searching about the state of society

Beijing is ramping up scrutiny of “common” disputes such as those involving marriages and property, the justice ministry said, as the public reels from a recent string of deadly attacks.

China has witnessed a spate of violent incidents in recent months – from mass stabbings to car rammings – a rare development for a country with a proud reputation for public security.

The issue has prompted soul-searching about the state of society, with some despairing about why an increasing number of people seem willing to “take revenge” on random civilians.

The justice ministry has urged local mediators to carry out “in-depth investigations” into disputes involving family, neighbours, land and wages.

Such close attention is necessary to resolve disputes at the early stage, the ministry said on Saturday.

Officials also stressed the importance of maintaining “safety and stability” in prisons.

“It is necessary to increase efforts to resettle and assist released prisoners … to effectively prevent and reduce re-offending,” the ministry statement said.

Earlier this month, a 62-year-old man killed 35 people and wounded more than 40 more when he rammed his car into a crowd in the southern city of Zhuhai – the country’s deadliest attack in a decade.

Preliminary investigations suggested the attack had been “triggered by (his) dissatisfaction with the division of property following his divorce”, according to local police.

Days later, eight people were killed and 17 others wounded in a knife attack at a vocational school in eastern China.

Police said the suspect was a 21-year-old former student at the school, who was meant to graduate this year but had failed his exams.

Officials from China’s Supreme People’s Court also met Saturday and said they would “severely punish major vicious crimes in accordance with the law and maintain social stability”.

And Beijing’s top public prosecutor vowed “zero tolerance for crimes that infringe students’ rights and interests and endanger campus safety” at a meeting on Tuesday.

It also pledged to “make every effort to safeguard the safety of campuses and students”, according to a post on its official WeChat account.

On Tuesday, a car crashed near a primary school in central China and injured multiple children.

Many initial videos from that incident appeared to have been removed from China’s tightly controlled social media platforms, echoing other mass casualty events.

In the Zhuhai attack, it took police almost 24 hours to release the death toll, and videos of the attack later appeared to be scrubbed from social media.

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Angela Merkel ‘tormented’ by Brexit vote and saw it as ‘humiliation’ for EU

Former German chancellor’s book tells how she tried to help David Cameron win over Britain’s Eurosceptics

Angela Merkel has said she was “tormented” over the result of the Brexit referendum and viewed it as a “humiliation, a disgrace” for the EU that Britain was leaving.

In her autobiography, Freedom, due to be published on Tuesday, the former German chancellor says she was dismayed by the notion that she might have done more to help the then British prime minister, David Cameron, who was keen for the UK to stay in the EU, but that ultimately, she concluded, he only had himself to blame.

In extracts from the book, Merkel, who left office three years ago, said looking back she recognised that Brexit was on the cards once Cameron proposed in 2005 that Conservative party MEPs should leave the European People’s party, which they subsequently did, over the parliamentary alliance’s backing of the Lisbon treaty in 2009.

The treaty introduced significant changes to the EU that anti-European critics considered undemocratic.

In her 700-page memoir, about five pages are dedicated to Brexit and to her role in the pre-referendum negotiations with Cameron in an attempt to help him keep Britain inside the bloc. She also writes about the subsequent exit deal drawn out over several years once Britain had decided to leave, and refers to how deflated she felt over the result.

“To me, the result felt like a humiliation, a disgrace for us, the other members of the European Union – the United Kingdom was leaving us in the lurch. This changed the European Union in the view of the world; we were weakened.”

Merkel writes about how she had reached out to Cameron as he struggled to try to secure changes over freedom of movement and trade that might have won over Eurosceptics and allowed him to keep the UK in a reformed EU.

She says she “tried wherever possible to help David Cameron”, despite risking the ire of other EU leaders who had distanced themselves from him.

Referring to various stages in her attempts to help him and ensure he was not isolated, most crucially at a summit of EU leaders in February 2016 during which an agreement was expected to be reached over Britain’s renegotiation demands to stay in the EU, she says: “My support of him rendered me an outsider with my other colleagues … The impact of the euro crisis was still lingering, and I was also being repeatedly accused of stinginess.

“And yet, during the summit, I steadfastly remained by David Cameron’s side for an entire evening. In this way I was able to prevent his complete isolation in the council and eventually move the others to back down. I did this because I knew from various discussions with Cameron that where domestic policy was concerned, he had no room for manoeuvre whatsoever.”

But she writes that there came a point when she could no longer help him.

The UK, she says, had not helped itself by making the mistake of not introducing restrictions on eastern European workers once 10 new countries joined the bloc in May 2004, the then Labour government having grossly underestimated the number of people who would arrive. This gave Eurosceptics the chance to put freedom of movement in a negative light.

By contrast, France and Germany introduced a gradual phase-in of eastern Europeans’ rights to work, not giving them full access to their labour markets until 2011.

Merkel says she thought Cameron’s pledge in 2005 for the Conservatives to leave the EPP was the initial nail in the coffin of any attempts to keep Britain in the EU. “He therefore, from the very beginning, put himself in the hands of those who were sceptical about the European Union, and was never able to escape this dependency,” she writes.

Brexit, she concludes, “demonstrated in textbook fashion the consequences that can arise when there’s a miscalculation from the very start”.

Subsequently she was pained by the idea that she might have been able to have done more to keep the UK in the fold, she says.

“After the referendum, I was tormented by whether I should have made even more concessions toward the UK to make it possible for them to remain in the community. I came to the conclusion that, in the face of the political developments taking place at the time within the country, there wouldn’t have been any reasonable way of my preventing the UK’s path out of the European Union as an outsider. Even with the best political will, mistakes of the past could not be undone.”

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Angela Merkel ‘tormented’ by Brexit vote and saw it as ‘humiliation’ for EU

Former German chancellor’s book tells how she tried to help David Cameron win over Britain’s Eurosceptics

Angela Merkel has said she was “tormented” over the result of the Brexit referendum and viewed it as a “humiliation, a disgrace” for the EU that Britain was leaving.

In her autobiography, Freedom, due to be published on Tuesday, the former German chancellor says she was dismayed by the notion that she might have done more to help the then British prime minister, David Cameron, who was keen for the UK to stay in the EU, but that ultimately, she concluded, he only had himself to blame.

In extracts from the book, Merkel, who left office three years ago, said looking back she recognised that Brexit was on the cards once Cameron proposed in 2005 that Conservative party MEPs should leave the European People’s party, which they subsequently did, over the parliamentary alliance’s backing of the Lisbon treaty in 2009.

The treaty introduced significant changes to the EU that anti-European critics considered undemocratic.

In her 700-page memoir, about five pages are dedicated to Brexit and to her role in the pre-referendum negotiations with Cameron in an attempt to help him keep Britain inside the bloc. She also writes about the subsequent exit deal drawn out over several years once Britain had decided to leave, and refers to how deflated she felt over the result.

“To me, the result felt like a humiliation, a disgrace for us, the other members of the European Union – the United Kingdom was leaving us in the lurch. This changed the European Union in the view of the world; we were weakened.”

Merkel writes about how she had reached out to Cameron as he struggled to try to secure changes over freedom of movement and trade that might have won over Eurosceptics and allowed him to keep the UK in a reformed EU.

She says she “tried wherever possible to help David Cameron”, despite risking the ire of other EU leaders who had distanced themselves from him.

Referring to various stages in her attempts to help him and ensure he was not isolated, most crucially at a summit of EU leaders in February 2016 during which an agreement was expected to be reached over Britain’s renegotiation demands to stay in the EU, she says: “My support of him rendered me an outsider with my other colleagues … The impact of the euro crisis was still lingering, and I was also being repeatedly accused of stinginess.

“And yet, during the summit, I steadfastly remained by David Cameron’s side for an entire evening. In this way I was able to prevent his complete isolation in the council and eventually move the others to back down. I did this because I knew from various discussions with Cameron that where domestic policy was concerned, he had no room for manoeuvre whatsoever.”

But she writes that there came a point when she could no longer help him.

The UK, she says, had not helped itself by making the mistake of not introducing restrictions on eastern European workers once 10 new countries joined the bloc in May 2004, the then Labour government having grossly underestimated the number of people who would arrive. This gave Eurosceptics the chance to put freedom of movement in a negative light.

By contrast, France and Germany introduced a gradual phase-in of eastern Europeans’ rights to work, not giving them full access to their labour markets until 2011.

Merkel says she thought Cameron’s pledge in 2005 for the Conservatives to leave the EPP was the initial nail in the coffin of any attempts to keep Britain in the EU. “He therefore, from the very beginning, put himself in the hands of those who were sceptical about the European Union, and was never able to escape this dependency,” she writes.

Brexit, she concludes, “demonstrated in textbook fashion the consequences that can arise when there’s a miscalculation from the very start”.

Subsequently she was pained by the idea that she might have been able to have done more to keep the UK in the fold, she says.

“After the referendum, I was tormented by whether I should have made even more concessions toward the UK to make it possible for them to remain in the community. I came to the conclusion that, in the face of the political developments taking place at the time within the country, there wouldn’t have been any reasonable way of my preventing the UK’s path out of the European Union as an outsider. Even with the best political will, mistakes of the past could not be undone.”

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Blackout risk warning as scorching temperatures forecast for parts of NSW

Power supplies will become tight in New South Wales and Queensland this week, with parts of western Sydney tipped to approach 40C

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Power supplies will become “tight” in New South Wales and Queensland later this week as the season’s first major heatwave coincides with outages at big coal-fired power stations.

Parts of western Sydney are forecast to approach 40C on Tuesday and Wednesday during a pre-summer hot spell spanning a week of 30C-plus days. Heatwave conditions in eastern parts of NSW will be in the low- to severe-intensity range, the Bureau of Meteorology said.

The Australian Energy Market Operator on Monday issued multiple so-called lack of reserve alerts for the two states, including the highest level-3 forecast for NSW on Wednesday afternoon.

As of Monday morning, NSW faced the possibility of an “interrupted supply”, or blackouts, reaching as much as 227 megawatts at 4.30pm (Aedt). The period when supply may not meet demand – without further market responses – was from 4.30pm to 8.30pm Aedt. Earlier, the shortfall had been more than 1700MW over an eight-hour period.

“High temperatures and strong electricity demand, combined with some generation outages, are causing tight electricity supply forecasts in NSW tomorrow and Wednesday afternoon,” Aemo said in a statement.

“Aemo has alerted the energy industry and is working with power station operators and transmission businesses to boost electricity availability,” it said. Should the market’s response be inadequate, Aemo would take “actions” to ensure supply.

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For Queensland, the present gaps involve inadequate reserves – a buffer in case a plant drops out – for periods stretching from 3pm to 10.30pm local time.

Indications that south-eastern Australia is facing its most extensive belt of heat have been clear for days. As of this morning, almost 6 gigawatts of coal-fired power stations were unavailable because of planned and unplanned maintenance, according to Dylan McConnell, an energy specialist at the University of NSW.

McConnell said about half of the unavailable coal capacity was because of scheduled maintenance, noting that such outages were typical in the lead-up to summer.

“The period [for] maintenance windows might be getting shorter because these hot days are stretching later into March and earlier in November, and you need availability over winter as well,” he said.

Even without any blackouts, both NSW and Queensland could expect pretty volatile pricing” in the wholesale power market later this week, McConnell said.

The NSW energy minister, Penny Sharpe, said the state government was holding off any official call to reduce power to conserve supplies at this point, although “we’re obviously keeping a close eye on it”.

She said the “first thing”, though, was for people to take care of themselves in the coming heat.

“You should drink water, you should check in on neighbours and you should think about whether you need to walk out in the middle of the day in the beating hot sun.”

The public should consider whether “every single light needed to be on” in the house or whether air-conditioners needed to be set at 19C, Sharpe added.

Separately, fire danger risks in NSW were likely to remain in the “medium” to “high” category in coming days. The likelihood of light winds and the fact the landscape hasn’t dried out – yet – will spare the state more severe fire conditions for now, according to the Rural Fire Service.

Similar moderate fire danger risks also apply for Queensland.

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Uruguay election: opposition centre-left figure Yamandu Orsi wins presidential runoff

Former history teacher says the ‘horizon is brightening’ as all political rivals pledged to work together to move the country forward

Centre-left opposition candidate Yamandu Orsi secured victory in Uruguay’s presidential election, official results showed on Sunday, with 97% of votes tallied, ousting the conservative governing coalition and making the South American nation the latest to rebuke the incumbent party in a year of landmark elections.

Yamandu Orsi, the pre-election favourite by a few points, secured 49.77% of the vote to conservative Alvaro Delgado’s 45.94%, official results showed.

“The horizon is brightening,” said Orsi, a working-class former history teacher and two-time mayor, as he addressed thousands of his Broad Front party supporters in Montevideo, who had gathered by a stage overlooking the capital city’s waterfront to await the results.

“The country of freedom, equality and also fraternity triumphs once again,” he said. “Let’s continue on that path.”

Both Delgado and Uruguay’s president, fellow National party member Luis Lacalle Pou, conceded the election, swiftly congratulating Orsi and offering to help with the transition after results signalled a victory for the centre-left.

“With sadness, but without guilt, we can congratulate the winner,” Delgado told supporters at his campaign headquarters in the capital, Montevideo.

The election between two moderates in the small nation of 3.4 million people, known for its beaches, legalised marijuana and stability, marks the closing of a bumper year for global elections – many that suffered from bitter political divides.

Orsi, Delgado and Lacalle Pou all expressed goodwill for their political opposition and pledged to work together to move the country forward. Unlike sharp right-left divides in recent elections in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, Uruguay’s political arena is relatively tension-free, with significant overlap between the conservative and liberal coalitions vying for office.

High living costs, inequality and violent crime are among Uruguayans’ biggest worries, but inflation had been easing in the run-up to the election, and both employment and real salaries are on the rise. Orsi, who has pledged a “modern left” policy approach, won 43.9% of the first-round October vote for the Broad Front and faced Delgado, who secured 26.8% but also had the backing of the conservative Colorado party that together with his National party made up almost 42% of votes.

Orsi had sought to reassure Uruguayans that he does not plan a sharp policy shift in the traditionally moderate and relatively wealthy nation. Construction worker Ruben Parada, 44, a resident of Montevideo, said he was voting for Orsi because his Broad Front party “thought less about the rich” and would do more to help working people. Conservative Delgado had asked voters to “re-elect a good government”, seeking to capitalise on the popularity of Lacalle Pou.

While the ruling coalition is struggling to defend its record on tackling crime and is fighting several corruption scandals, it had hoped economic successes might be enough to convince voters to choose continuity over change.

“They did more in five years than the Broad Front did in 15 years,” said 38-year-old Jaqueline Fleitas, who cast her second-round ballot for Delgado, mentioning the construction of a hospital near her home in Montevideo.

Neither coalition has an absolute majority in the lower house following October’s elections. But Orsi’s Broad Front won 16 of 30 Senate seats. He says his Senate majority puts him in a better position to lead the next government.

Sunday’s results confirmed that Uruguay had followed a global trend of incumbent parties losing vote share compared with the previous election, as the biggest year for elections in history comes to an end.

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Iranian minister to meet European counterparts after nuclear offer rejected

Meeting comes amid fears Middle East tensions will lead Iran to redouble its efforts to acquire a nuclear weapon

Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Majid Takht-Ravanchi, will meet his European counterparts in Geneva on Friday after the collapse of a deal last week under which Iran would have limited its uranium enrichment to 60% purity, just below the threshold to make nuclear weapons.

The offer was regarded by Iran as a first step to rebuilding confidence between it and the west over what it insists is its civilian nuclear programme. There are growing fears that wider tensions in the Middle East could result in Tehran redoubling efforts to acquire a nuclear weapon and trying to declare it necessary for its national self-defence.

The talks on Friday, for which the European side has low expectations, will end a two-year hiatus in which there have been no direct detailed talks on the lapsed nuclear deal.

Representatives from the EU, France, Germany and the UK will attend, butChina, Russia and the US – the other original signatories to the 2015 nuclear deal – will not. It appears Iran is placing a greater store by the meeting than the European side.

Late last week the EU, UK and US rejected an Iranian offer to cap enrichment at 60% purity, instead forcing through a motion at a regular meeting of the board of the UN nuclear inspectorate, the IAEA, that again censured Iran for failing to cooperate with the inspectorate in line with its obligations under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

The motion required IAEA officials to prepare a comprehensive report within three months on Tehran’s compliance with its obligations under the nuclear deal over the past five years. This report is regarded as the first step to a motion at the UN requiring the retention of all UN sanctions on Iran when the 2015 nuclear deal expires next October. The IAEA backed the censure motion by 19 votes to three, with 12 abstentions.

Iran admits it has been steadily withdrawing its cooperation from the IAEA inspectorate since the 2018 decision by Donald Trump to pull the US out of the agreement. Iran had signed up to the original deal in 2015 monitoring its nuclear programme in return for the west lifting economic sanctions.

On Saturday Iran responded to the IAEA censure motion by saying it was pressing ahead with its nuclear programme at a faster pace. The speaker of its parliament, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, confirmed on Sunday that Iran had activated new and advanced centrifuges in response to the IAEA vote. Iran said it would fire up about 5,000 new generation centrifuges and increase the enrichment capacity.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, accused European powers of trying to politicise the IAEA and its director general, Rafael Grossi, who had travelled to Iran before the board meeting.

Araghchi suggested the diplomatic path with Europe had not reached a dead end, saying talks towards a revival of the nuclear deal could resume. He said a complete restoration of the 2015 deal was not on the cards, and instead he provided an outline pointing to a future agreement.

Iran has previously voiced disappointment that Europe has not broken with the US and pressed ahead with lifting economic sanctions. It seems unlikely that even an outline deal could be reached before Trump’s inauguration, even though substantial progress was made in talks between Europe and Iran in Vienna in 2022.

Iranian cooperation with Russia in Ukraine, and its support for the so-called axis of resistance across the Middle East, also damages the efforts of any European diplomat that argues the nuclear file can be kept separate from Iran’s wider destabilising behaviour.

In a joint statement on Saturday, the UK France, Germany and the US welcomed the passage of the IAEA motion, adding that it noted with serious concern Iran’s announcement that instead of responding to the resolution with cooperation, it planned further expansion of its nuclear programme “in ways that have no credible peaceful rationale”.

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Wicked slays Gladiator II in ticket sales duel as new films boost box office

Combined $270m of worldwide ticket sales for Ridley Scott and Jon Chu movies leads to one of 2024’s busiest weekends

With a combined $270m in worldwide ticket sales, Wicked and Gladiator II breathed fresh life into a box office that has struggled lately, leading to one of the busiest moviegoing weekends of the year.

Jon M Chu’s lavish big-budget musical Wicked, starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, debuted with $114m domestically and $164.2m globally for Universal Pictures, according to studio estimates on Sunday. That made it the third-biggest opening weekend of the year, behind only Deadpool & Wolverine and Inside Out 2. It’s also a record for a Broadway musical adaptation.

Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II, a sequel to his 2000 best picture-winning original, launched with $55.5m in ticket sales. With a price tag of about $250m to produce it, Gladiator II was a big bet by Paramount Pictures to return to the Colosseumwith a largely new cast, led by Denzel Washington and Paul Mescal. While it opened with a touch less than the $60m predicted in domestic ticket sales, Gladiator II has performed well overseas. It added $50.5m internationally.

The collision of the two movies led to some echoes of the Barbenheimer effect of last year, when Barbie and Oppenheimer launched simultaneously. The nickname this time, Glicked, wasn’t quite as catchy and the cultural imprint was also notably less. Few people sought out a double feature this time. The domestic grosses in 2023 – $162m for Barbie and $82m for Oppenheimer – were also higher.

For Universal, which distributed Oppenheimer last year, the weekend was more a triumph of Wicked than it was of Glicked.

“We saw an opportunity to dominate a weekend and get a very large running start into the Thanksgiving holiday,” said Jim Orr, distribution chief for Universal. “We’re very confident that it will play ridiculously well through the Christmas corridor and into the new year.”

But the counter-programming effect was still potent for Wicked and Gladiator II, which likewise split broadly along gender lines. And it was again the female-leaning release – Wicked, like Barbie before it – that easily won the weekend. About 72% of ticket buyers for Wicked were female, while 61% of those seeing Gladiator II were male.

“Standing on their own, each of these movies may have done pretty much what they did, but it’s hard to know,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for Comscore. “Raising awareness can indeed lead to an increase in box office. Let’s put it this way: They didn’t hurt each other at all.”

While Barbenheimer benefitted enormously from meme-spread word-of-mouth, both Wicked and Gladiator II leaned on all-out marketing blitzes.

The Gladiator IIcampaign featured everything from a much-debated Airbnb cross-promotion with the actual Colosseum in Rome to simultaneously running a one-minute trailer on more than 4,000 TV networks, radio station and digital platforms.

The Wicked onslaught went even further, with pink-and-green themed “Wickedly Delicious” Starbucks drinks, Stanley mugs and Mattel dolls (some of which led to an awkward recall). Its stars made appearances at the Met Gala and the Olympics.

“We had roughly 400 global brand partners on Wicked, so the campaign was inescapable,” said Orr. “And our cast, led by Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, worked so hard on this. They were everywhere. They did everything we asked them to do.”

Going into the weekend, box office was down about 11% from last year and some 25% from pre-pandemic times. That meant this week’s two headline films led a much-needed resurgence for theaters. With Moana 2 releasing Wednesday, Hollywood might be looking at historic sales over the Thanksgiving holiday.

“This weekend’s two strong openers are invigorating a box office that fell apart after a good summer,” said David A Gross, a film consultant who publishes a newsletter for Franchise Entertainment.

Though Wicked will face some direct competition from Moana 2, it would seem better set up for a long and lucrative run in theaters than Gladiator II. Though some have dinged Wicked for running long, at 2 hours and 40 minutes, the film has had mostly stellar reviews. Audiences gave it an “A” on CinemaScore. The reception for Wicked has been strong enough that Oscar prognosticators expect it to be a contender for best picture at the Academy Awards, among other categories.

Producers, perhaps sensing a hit, also took the step of splitting Wicked in two. Part two, already filmed, is due out next November. Each Wicked installation cost approximately $150m to make.

Gladiator II has also enjoyed good reviews, particularly for Washington’s charismatic performance. Audience scores, though, were weaker, with ticket buyers giving it a “B” on CinemaScore. The film will make up for some of that, however, with robust international sales. It launched in many overseas markets a week ago, and has already accrued $165.5m internationally.

Coming in a distant third place for the weekend was Red One, the Dwayne Johnson, Chris Evans holiday movie turned action film. In its second week of release, the Amazon MGM Studios release grossed $13.3m to bring its two-week global haul to $117m. At a cost of $250m to make, Red One is the season’s biggest flop, though it could recoup some value for Amazon if it’s more popular once it begins streaming.

Final domestic figures will be released Monday. Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at US and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore:

  1. Wicked, $114m.

  2. Gladiator II, $55.5m.

  3. Red One, $13.3m.

  4. Bonhoeffer: Pastor Spy Assassin, $5.1m.

  5. Venom: The Last Dance, $4m.

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