Keir Starmer has warned that Vladimir Putin cannot be allowed to “play games” with the possibility of a ceasefire in Ukraine, as he prepared to present proposals for a peace deal to a coalition of about 25 world leaders.

The UK prime minister will host a meeting on Saturday of the “coalition of the willing”, a group of nations that have agreed to help keep the peace in Ukraine. He will seek to pile pressure on the Russian president to “finally come to the table” and “stop the barbaric attacks on Ukraine” after Kyiv agreed this week to an immediate 30-day ceasefire.

European nations, the EU Commission, Nato, Canada, Ukraine, Australia and New Zealand are expected to take part in the virtual meeting and provide updates on the aid they could provide towards enforcing a peace deal.

It came as Putin praised Donald Trump for “doing everything” to improve relations between Moscow and Washington, after Trump said the US has had “very good and productive discussions” with Putin in recent days.

Putin told a meeting of his security heads that improved relations with the US were now on the agenda. “We know that the new administration headed by President Trump is doing everything to restore at least something of what was basically destroyed by the previous US administration,” he said.

Putin also responded to an appeal by Trump to save the lives of “thousands” of surrounded Ukrainian soldiers, and said he would heed it as long as the soldiers surrendered. However, no evidence has emerged to back up Putin and Trump’s claims that there is a large-scale encirclement of Ukrainian troops, a claim explicitly denied by military officials in Kyiv.

The exchange of warm words between Trump and Putin is likely to cause further alarm in Kyiv and European capitals, already spooked by signs of the new US administration cosying up to Moscow while exerting pressure on Ukraine.

The remarks came after Steve Witkoff, Trump’s close ally and special envoy to the Middle East, held late-night talks with Putin on Thursday to discuss the US proposal for an immediate 30-day ceasefire in war on Ukraine.

Kyiv has already accepted the proposal, while Putin on Thursday set out a series of sweeping conditions that would need to be met before Russia would agree to the truce, which includes the condition that Ukraine should neither rearm nor mobilise during the 30-day truce.

On Friday night, in speech at the Department of Justice, Trump said the US had had “good calls” with Ukraine and Russia during the day. “I think we’ve had some very good results,” he said. “Just before I came here I got some pretty good news.”

He did not provide any details, but he later told reporters that he felt that “Russia is going to make a deal with us”.

Downing Street refused to set out precisely what goals the prime minister hoped to get from Saturday morning’s meeting, saying it was “a fast-moving situation” with a large number of countries involved.

UK officials had expected to be able to release the full list of attenders in advance, but were seemingly prevented from doing so by the complexity of organising such a large event at speed. There were reports that the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, might not attend the meeting due to worries about the Anglo-French plans to try to guarantee a long-term peace deal.

Starmer will be expected to set out to the assembled leaders details of a plan, spearheaded by him and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, in the wake of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s disastrous White House meeting with Trump two weeks ago. Starmer and Macron spoke one-to-one on Friday evening in advance of the summit, Downing Street said.

In comments released by Downing Street before the summit, Starmer lambasted Putin over what he called “empty words and pointless conditions”.

“We can’t allow President Putin to play games with President Trump’s deal,” Starmer said. “The Kremlin’s complete disregard for President Trump’s ceasefire proposal only serves to demonstrate that Putin is not serious about peace.

“If Russia finally comes to the table, then we must be ready to monitor a ceasefire to ensure it is a serious, and enduring peace, if they don’t, then we need to strain every sinew to ramp up economic pressure on Russia to secure an end to this war.

“Putin is trying to delay, saying there must be a painstaking study before a ceasefire can take place, but the world needs to see action, not a study or empty words and pointless conditions.”

Downing Street said the offers of help to enforce any peace deal had come from the 25 countries and covered “a spectrum of support”, ranging from troops on the ground to much more limited help, but was otherwise vague about Saturday’s agenda.

“It’s a fast-moving situation, and clearly many countries are involved, but we are very much welcoming tomorrow’s call as another sign of the progress being made and the unity between these countries to achieve a lasting peace,” a spokesperson said.

In a series of X posts on Friday night, Zelenskyy said Putin would “drag” everyone into “endless discussions … wasting days, weeks, and months on meaningless talks while his guns continue to kill people”.

“Putin cannot exit this war because that would leave him with nothing,” he said. “That is why he is now doing everything he can to sabotage diplomacy by setting extremely difficult and unacceptable conditions right from the start even before a ceasefire.”

Earlier on Friday, Trump said he had appealed to Putin to save the lives of “thousands of Ukrainian troops” supposedly surrounded by the Russian army. Putin first made the claim earlier in the week when he said Ukrainian troops had been surrounded during a retreat from Russia’s Kursk region, and had the choice to “surrender or die”.

Trump repeated Putin’s claim, writing that thousands of troops had been “completely surrounded” during the retreat. “I have strongly requested to President Putin that their lives be spared. This would be a horrible massacre, one not seen since World War II. God bless them all!!!” he wrote.

Putin told his security council that he had heard Trump’s appeal, and said the lives of Ukrainian troops would be spared if they surrendered. The Ukrainian military and independent analysts, however, denied there was an encirclement of troops.

“Reports of the alleged ‘encirclement’ of Ukrainian units by the enemy in the Kursk region are false and fabricated by the Russians for political manipulation and to exert pressure on Ukraine and its partners,” the general staff wrote in a statement published on its media channels. “There is no threat of encirclement of our units.”

Ukrainian security sources, independent military analysts and even pro-Russian Telegram channels disputed the encirclement claims by Putin and Trump.

Despite apparent optimism from the White House, US intelligence services have reportedly assessed that Putin remains committed to achieving “his maximalist goal of dominating Ukraine”.

The Washington Post reported on Friday the contents of an intelligence report circulated among Trump administration policymakers on 6 March, which stated that Putin remained determined to maintain control over Kyiv.

Vladimir Putin has praised Donald Trump for “doing everything” to improve relations between Moscow and Washington, after Trump said the US has had “very good and productive discussions” with Putin in recent days.

Putin told a meeting of his security officials that improved relations with the US were now on the agenda. “We know that the new administration headed by President Trump is doing everything to restore at least something of what was basically destroyed by the previous US administration,” he said.

Putin also responded to an appeal by Trump to save the lives of “thousands” of surrounded Ukrainian soldiers, and said he would heed it as long as the soldiers surrendered. But no evidence has emerged to back up Putin and Trump’s claims that there is a large-scale encirclement of Ukrainian troops, a claim explicitly denied by military heads in Kyiv.

The exchange of warm words between Trump and Putin is likely to cause further alarm in Kyiv and European capitals, already spooked by signs of the new US administration cosying up to Moscow while exerting pressure on Ukraine.

The remarks came after Steve Witkoff, Trump’s close ally and special envoy to the Middle East, held late-night talks with Putin on Thursday to discuss the US proposal for an immediate 30-day ceasefire in the war on Ukraine.

Kyiv has already accepted the proposal, while Putin on Thursday set out a series of sweeping conditions that would need to be met before Russia would agree to the truce, which includes the condition that Ukraine should neither rearm nor mobilise during the 30-day truce.

In a post on Truth Social on Friday, however, Trump said there was a “very good chance” the war between Russia and Ukraine could “finally come to an end”.

Trump also said he had appealed to Putin to save the lives of “thousands of Ukrainian troops” supposedly surrounded by the Russian army. Putin first made the claim earlier in the week when he said Ukrainian troops had been surrounded during a retreat from Russia’s Kursk region, and had the choice to “surrender or die”.

Trump repeated Putin’s claim, writing that thousands of troops had been “completely surrounded” during the retreat. He wrote: “I have strongly requested to President Putin that their lives be spared. This would be a horrible massacre, one not seen since World War II. God bless them all.”

Later, in a speech at the justice department in Washington on Friday, Trump appeared to chide Ukraine for seizing Kursk. “First of all you don’t want to pick on somebody that’s a lot larger than you, even with the money,” he said. “There’s a lot of money that we gave them and a lot of equipment. We make the best military equipment in the world.

“But even with all of that, it’s unbelievable. Right now you have a lot of Ukrainian soldiers that are encircled and in grave danger, and I’ve asked them not to kill those soldiers please, not to kill those soldiers. We don’t want them killed.”

Putin told his security council he had heard Trump’s appeal, and said the lives of Ukrainian troops would be spared if they surrendered. Ukrainian military and independent analysts, however, denied there was an encirclement of troops.

Ukrainian general staff wrote in a statement published on their media channels: “Reports of the alleged ‘encirclement’ of Ukrainian units by the enemy in the Kursk region are false and fabricated by the Russians for political manipulation and to exert pressure on Ukraine and its partners. There is no threat of encirclement of our units.”

Ukrainian security sources, independent military analysts and even pro-Russian Telegram channels disputed the encirclement claims by Putin and Trump.

Soldiers fighting in the region say a staged withdrawal has been under way for two weeks, and while many soldiers have faced a dangerous and challenging route to withdraw, they do not believe there is a mass encirclement of troops. “After seven months, we simply withdrew. There was no encirclement,” one senior security official said on Thursday.

Michael Kofman, a military analyst at Carnegie Endowment, described the claims of a mass encirclement as “fiction”.

Some influential Russian pro-war military bloggers have cast doubt in recent days of the encirclement claims by Russian officials, saying none of the signs of such an action have been visible.

Earlier on Friday, the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said Putin had sent Trump a message via Witkoff about his proposal for a ceasefire, adding that it saw grounds for “cautious optimism” that a deal could be reached.

Peskov’s statement was echoed by the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who said there were “reasons to be cautiously optimistic”.

“We’ll examine the Russian position more closely and the president will then determine what the next steps are. Suffice it to say, I think there is reason to be cautiously optimistic,” Rubio said. “Obviously, we will see what Russia and others are willing to do. It’s not just Russia, obviously, it has to be acceptable to Ukraine.”

Despite apparent optimism from the White House, US intelligence services have reportedly assessed that Putin remains committed to achieving “his maximalist goal of dominating Ukraine”.

On Friday, the Washington Post cited an intelligence report circulated among Trump administration policymakers on 6 March, which stated that Putin remains determined to maintain control over Kyiv.

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, reiterated on Friday that Russian attempts to set up conditions for the 30-day ceasefire only “complicate and drag out the process”.

“Russia is the only party that wants the war to continue and diplomacy to break down,” Zelenskyy said on X after a call with the secretary of state of the Holy See, Cardinal Pietro Parolin. “Putin will not end the war on his own. But the strength of America is enough to make it happen.”

Zelenskyy emphasised Ukraine’s commitment to upholding the ceasefire, describing it as an opportunity to establish a lasting peace. “During the period of silence, we could prepare a reliable peace plan, put it on the table, discuss the details, and implement it. We are ready,” the Ukrainian president said.

For once, the US president and European leaders were on the same page.

Grasping for a familiar metaphor, a chorus of western heads of state declared this week that “the ball was in Russia’s court” after Ukraine agreed in talks with the US on Tuesday to an immediate 30-day ceasefire.

Rather than making a play, Vladimir Putin on Thursday picked up the ball, scrawled a fresh set of conditions across it, and lobbed it back – insisting the game could not move forward until the other side played by his rules.

“The idea itself is the right one, and we definitely support it,” Putin said, sitting alongside his longtime ally Alexander Lukashenko at a press conference in the Kremlin.

It was the “but” that followed that did all the heavy lifting.

“There are questions that we need to discuss, and I think we need to talk them through with our American colleagues and partner,” he added, suggesting that Ukraine should neither rearm nor mobilise and that western military aid to Kyiv be halted during the ceasefire.

Meanwhile, the message was clear: Russia had no intention of halting its own rearmament. Ukraine fears that Putin is preparing to do exactly what he accuses Kyiv of: exploiting the ceasefire to rearm and intensify his offensive if talks fall apart, as Russian forces press their advantage on the ground.

Over the past month, the geopolitical landscape has shifted dramatically in favour of the Russian leader, as Donald Trump reshaped US foreign policy to Moscow’s advantage while straining relations with American allies.

But the introduction of a joint ceasefire proposal from the US and Ukraine turned the tables on Putin, forcing him to navigate the growing tension between his ambitions for a decisive victory in Ukraine and his efforts to maintain a close relationship with Trump.

By steering clear of an outright rejection of Trump’s proposal, Putin appeared to be buying time – walking a fine line between avoiding an open rebuff of Trump’s peace initiative and imposing his own stringent conditions, effectively prolonging the negotiations.

To his admirers, it was a masterclass in Putin’s diplomatic manoeuvring, flanked by the seasoned foreign policy veterans Sergei Lavrov and Yuri Ushakov – both with decades of experience.

“Putin used one of his favourite phrases … A firm ‘Yes, but … ’” quipped Andrei Kolesnikov, the chief political reporter for Russia’s Kommersant newspaper and one of the few journalists with direct access to the president.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, predictably viewed Putin’s ambivalent response as yet another cynical trick, dismissing it as “manipulative”. Putin, he said, was “afraid to say directly to President Trump that he wants to continue this war”, accusing the Russian leader of “framing the idea of a ceasefire with such preconditions that nothing will work out at all, or for as long as possible”.

For longtime observers, it was a familiar Russian tactic. Moscow has long excelled at delaying negotiations, offering just enough hope of progress to keep talks alive while avoiding major concessions.

Putin’s remarks and Zelenskyy’s response have drawn a clear dividing line between the two sides’ positions.

Ukraine envisions a two-step approach: an immediate ceasefire followed by negotiations for a long-term settlement backed by western security guarantees.

Russia, on the other hand, insists that both issues must be settled within a single, comprehensive agreement, one that extends far beyond a simple ceasefire.

The contours of Russia’s demands were discussed behind closed doors on Thursday, as Putin held late-night talks with Steven Witkoff, the billionaire friend of Trump and chief Ukraine negotiator.

Moscow is expected to push for sweeping concessions, including the demilitarisation of Ukraine, an end to western military aid and guarantees that Kyiv will remain outside Nato.

Foreign troop deployments in Ukraine remain a non-starter for Moscow, which is also seeking international recognition of its claims to Crimea and the four Ukrainian regions annexed in 2022. Putin may further revive broader security demands from 2021, including limits on Nato’s military presence in countries that joined the alliance after 1997, when its expansion into former communist states began.

The Washington Post reported on Friday, citing classified US intelligence assessments, including one from earlier this month, that the Russian president had not “veered from his maximalist goal of dominating Ukraine”.

Trump, in his push for a deal to halt the war in Ukraine, started with the low-hanging fruit – pressuring Zelenskyy, whose military relies on American support.

But Trump had “few options to counter either a Russian rejection or prolonged feigned compliance”, said Alexander Baunov, a political analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

While Trump had pledged to intensify sanctions against Russia, the reality was that the US had little room left to escalate pressure – aside from increasing military support, which he had said he was reluctant to do.

Instead, Baunov argued, the most effective way to influence Russia would be the carrot rather than the stick – offering the prospect of sanctions relief and reintegration into western economies.

From the outset, Trump had dangled financial investment and a return to normal relations as incentives for Russia, or as his transactional administration put it, “the incredible opportunities that exist to partner with the Russians” – both geopolitically and economically.

But there was also a far darker possibility for Ukraine. “Faced with the reality that he has no real leverage over Putin for a quick deal, Trump could once again align himself with the Russian leader – turning Putin’s demands into a joint agenda,” Baunov said.

Early signs will be worrying for Kyiv. On Friday, Trump echoed Putin’s claims that thousands of Ukrainian troops were encircled by the Russian army in the Kursk region – a claim refuted by Ukrainian sources and independent analysts.

Trump wrote on his Truth Social app that he had asked Putin to spare the lives of Ukrainian soldiers – a favour Putin may gladly grant, given that, according to reports, no Ukrainian troops appear to be actually trapped.

By allowing Putin to play the role of the merciful leader, Trump subtly slips yet another card into Russia’s ever-growing deck.

Ending a war is seldom straightforward. Even agreeing to a ceasefire comes with complications. Though Ukraine signed up to a 30-day ceasefire proposal after discussions with the US in Jeddah this week, the joint statement between the two does not begin to explain how a halt in fighting might be enforced.

“Monitoring has to begin immediately,” says John Foreman, a former British defence attache to Moscow and Kyiv. “If there’s meant to be a 30-day ceasefire, the big question is whether it is adhered to.” Given Russia has a record of violating ceasefires and peace agreements, a robust process is critical.

Recent history in Ukraine underlines the challenge. A dedicated Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) mission of as many as 1,000 people running dozens of unarmed vehicle patrols a day was responsible for monitoring the end of hostilities in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas on both sides of the frontline as part of the Minsk agreements of 2014 and 2015.

The OSCE, which represents 57 states in Europe, North America and central Asia, was chosen because Russia and Ukraine are both members. But it struggled to keep a lid on tensions, counting 486 civilian casualties and 400,000 ceasefire violations in 2017. Though that dropped to 91 casualties and 93,902 violations in 2021, it was less than two months later that Russia launched its full scale invasion.

Samir Puri, an analyst with the Chatham House thinktank and a former OSCE monitor with the Ukraine mission, says the task is much greater now: “In 2015, the OSCE was largely monitoring a shorter frontline in the Donbas, where the Ukrainian army was mostly facing separatist militias. Now the frontline is far longer, with two full militaries each with significant weapon systems at their disposal.”

Modern technology – drones, airborne and satellite reconnaissance – makes ceasefire monitoring easier in 2025. Puri recalls that a decade ago, the OSCE mission had only four drones, which Russia-backed separatists “would use for target practice now and again”. But while that may reduce the number of observers needed, it does not help with enforcement if a ceasefire is breached.

A similar point was even made by the Russian president on Thursday. Who will control the ceasefire, Vladimir Putin asked rhetorically at a press conference in Moscow, when the front is 2,000km (1,243 miles) long? It could require several thousand monitors, able to communicate and deconflict across both sides of the contact line

Though European countries, led by the UK and France, have talked about creating a “reassurance force” to guarantee Ukraine’s security in the event of a lasting peace, its organisers are emphatic that they are not troops who will enforce quiet at the front. “They are not peacekeepers,” one said, describing instead a force that will secure Ukraine’s airspace, sea lanes and critical infrastructure.

Yet monitoring, Foreman argues, is essential for restraining and building confidence between once warring parties. “You have to trust – and verify,” he says, adding: “The problem is that, for Ukraine, ceasefire monitoring has very bad associations because of what happened after the Minsk agreements”. A poorly enforced ceasefire could easily lead to an outbreak of renewed fighting, he says.

Given the history, it is probably unlikely that the OSCE will host a repeat monitoring initiative. The 2014 mission ended as a result of Russia’s February 2022 invasion and its withdrawal of cooperation shortly after. An alternative might be for monitoring to take place under UN auspices, but that would require Russia to agree to a security council resolution to set it up.

Puri wonders if there is another practical possibility, where a demilitarised zone is established on both sides of the current frontline (in Korea, where there has never been a peace agreement after the 1950 to 1953 war, it is 4km wide) and where Russia has its own parallel reassurance force composed of troops from “broadly friendly countries” such as China, able to communicate with counterparts in Ukraine.

Ultimately a lasting peace will only be possible if neither side tries to undermine it with acts of provocation and aggression. Some ceasefires, such as in Korea or Cyprus, have endured because neither side ultimately wanted to restart fullscale fighting. But Russia’s hostility to Ukraine has been so great, and many believe Putin’s long-term goal of dominating his country’s neighbour remains unchanged.

Despite that backdrop, it is not yet clear how the ceasefire proposed by the US would even be monitored to prevent or restrain violations. As Foreman concludes: “There are so many obstacles that need to be dealt with before we can get to peace.”

The replacements for two Nasa astronauts who have been stuck at the International Space Station for nine months launched on Friday evening, paving the way for the pair’s long-awaited return.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at 7.03pm ET (11.03pm GMT) in Florida carrying the four astronauts who will take over from Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who have been stuck on the orbital lab since June.

Nasa wants overlap between the two crews so Wilmore and Williams can fill in the newcomers on happenings onboard the ISS. That would put them on course for an undocking next week and a splashdown off the Florida coast, weather permitting.

The duo will be escorted back by astronauts who flew up on a rescue mission on SpaceX last September alongside two empty seats reserved for Wilmore and Williams on the return leg.

Rocketing toward orbit from Nasa’s Kennedy Space Center, the newest crew includes Nasa’s Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, both military pilots; and Japan’s Takuya Onishi and Russia’s Kirill Peskov, both former airline pilots. They will spend the next six months at the space station, considered the normal stint, after springing Wilmore and Williams free.

As test pilots for Boeing’s new Starliner capsule, Wilmore and Williams expected to be gone just a week or so when they launched from Cape Canaveral on 5 June. A series of helium leaks and thruster failures marred their trip to the space station, setting off months of investigation by Nasa and Boeing on how best to proceed.

Eventually ruling it unsafe, Nasa ordered Starliner to fly back empty last September and moved Wilmore and Williams to a SpaceX flight due back in February.

Their return was further delayed when SpaceX’s brand new capsule needed extensive battery repairs before launching their replacements. To save a few weeks, SpaceX switched to a used capsule, moving up Wilmore and Williams’ homecoming to mid-March.

Already capturing the world’s attention, their unexpectedly long mission took a political twist when Donald Trump and SpaceX’s Elon Musk vowed earlier this year to accelerate the astronauts’ return and blamed the former administration for stalling it.

Retired Navy captains who have lived at the space station before, Wilmore and Williams have repeatedly stressed that they support the decisions made by their Nasa bosses since last summer.

“We came prepared to stay long, even though we planned to stay short,” Wilmore said, adding that he did not believe Nasa’s decision to keep them on the ISS had been affected by politics.

“That’s what your nation’s human spaceflight program’s all about,” he said, “planning for unknown, unexpected contingencies. And we did that.”

The two helped keep the station running – fixing a broken toilet, watering plants and conducting experiments – and even went out on a spacewalk together. With nine spacewalks, Williams set a new record for women: the most time spent spacewalking over a career.

A last-minute hydraulics issue delayed Wednesday’s initial launch attempt. Concern arose over one of the two clamp arms on the Falcon rocket’s support structure that needs to tilt away right before liftoff. SpaceX later flushed out the arm’s hydraulics system, removing trapped air.

The duo’s extended stay has been hardest, they said, on their families – Wilmore’s wife and two daughters, and Williams’ husband and mother. Besides reuniting with them, Wilmore, a church elder, is looking forward to getting back to face-to-face ministering and Williams can’t wait to walk her two Labrador retrievers.

“We appreciate all the love and support from everybody,” Williams said in an interview earlier this week. “This mission has brought a little attention. There’s goods and bads to that. But I think the good part is more and more people have been interested in what we’re doing” with space exploration.

The US Senate averted a government shutdown just hours before a Friday night deadline after 10 Senate Democrats joined nearly all Republicans to clear a key hurdle that advanced the six-month stopgap bill.

The vote deeply dismayed Democratic activists and House Democrats who had urged their Senate counterparts to block the bill, which they fear would embolden Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s overhaul of the US government.

Meanwhile, the US president used a speech at the Department of Justice – billed as a policy address for the administration to tout its focus on combating illegal immigration and drug trafficking – to focus on his personal grievances with that department.

Here’s more on the key US politics news of the day:

Catching up? Here’s the roundup from 13 March.

The Senate on Friday approved a Republican bill to fund federal agencies through September, averting a government shutdown hours before the midnight deadline after Democrats relented.

The bill passed the Senate in a 54-46 vote, overcoming steep Democratic opposition. It next goes to Donald Trump to be signed into law.

The result infuriated Democratic activists, who accused the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, of squandering the little leverage they have to defy Trump and his billionaire ally, Elon Musk, as they seek to dismantle large swaths of the federal government. But Schumer said a funding lapse presented an even worse outcome that would have allowed Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) “to exploit the crisis for maximum destruction”.

Speaking to reporters before departing Washington on Friday, Trump again praised Schumer’s decision. “I think he did the right thing,” he said.

To break the filibuster, which requires 60 votes, 10 Senate Democrats joined nearly all Republicans to advance the House-passed funding bill. As part of a deal to secure the necessary Democratic votes, the parties agreed to allow a series of amendments on the measure.

In a statement, Senator John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania, said his vote should not be mistaken for an endorsement of what he called a “deeply flawed” spending bill.

“My YES vote on cloture IS 100% about refusing to shut our government down,” he said, referring to the procedural vote. “I refuse to punish working families and plunge millions of Americans into chaos or risk a recession.”

Schumer and Fetterman were joined by Senators Dick Durbin of Illinois, Catherine Cortez-Masto of Nevada, Gary Peters of Michigan, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, both senators from New Hampshire, Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen, and Angus King, an independent of Maine who caucuses with Democrats.

Only King and Shaheen supported the bill on final passage, which requires a simple majority to pass. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky was the lone Republican to vote against it.

“You don’t stop a bully by giving him your lunch money, and you don’t stop tyrant Trump by giving him more power,” said Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, whose amendment to restore the roughly $20bn in funding cuts to IRS enforcement failed along party lines.

“The Republican spending bill is a blank check for Trump, giving him enormous flexibility to spend your tax dollars only on the programs he likes, and only in the states he wants to.”

The vote exposed a public rift with Democrats in the House, where all but one Democrat voted against the government funding bill. Up until the time of the vote on Friday evening, House Democrats were urging their Senate counterparts to block the bill they fear would embolden Trump and Musk’s overhaul of the US government.

Before the procedural vote on Friday, the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi called the bill a “devastating assault on the wellbeing of working-class families”.

“Democratic senators should listen to the women,” she said in a statement. “Appropriations leaders Rosa DeLauro and Patty Murray have eloquently presented the case that we must have a better choice: a four-week funding extension to keep government open and negotiate a bipartisan agreement. America has experienced a Trump shutdown before – but this damaging legislation only makes matters worse.”

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also condemned Schumer for caving to Republican demands on a government funding bill, saying the move had created a “deep sense of outrage and betrayal” among Democrats.

Minority leader Hakeem Jeffries also lambasted the spending bill, calling it “an attack on veterans, families, seniors and everyday Americans” in a statement released on Friday evening.

“Our party is not a cult, we are a coalition. On occasion, we may strongly disagree about a particular course of action,” the statement continued. “At all times, Democrats throughout the nation remain determined to make life better for everyday Americans and stop the damage being done by Donald Trump, Elon Musk and House Republicans.”

Speaking to reporters in Leesburg, Virginia, where House Democrats were gathered for their annual policy retreat, Ocasio-Cortez said she had mobilized Democratic supporters to push Schumer to oppose what she characterized as an “acquiesce” to the GOP bill.

“There are members of Congress who have won Trump-held districts in some of the most difficult territory in the United States who walked the plank and took innumerable risks in order to defend the American people,” she said. “Just to see Senate Democrats even consider acquiescing to Elon Musk, I think, is a huge slap in the face.”

Friday’s vote reportedly sparked such anger among House Democrats that some encouraged the New York congresswoman to challenge Schumer for his Senate seat, according to CNN. When asked about these suggestions, Ocasio-Cortez declined to comment.

From the Senate floor, Schumer reiterated his support for the spending bill, warning that a government shutdown would mean that Trump, Musk and Doge would be free to make even more disruptive cuts to federal agencies.

“A shutdown will allow Doge to shift into overdrive,” Schumer said. “It would give Donald Trump and Doge the keys to the city, state and country. Donald Trump and Elon Musk would be free to destroy vital government services at a much faster rate than they can right now and over a much broader field of destruction that they would render.”

But the Federal Unionists Network, a group of federal employees that opposes the administration’s campaign to dramatically downsize government, disagreed, saying the funding bill under consideration would make the situation worse.

“Once again, Congress is failing in its responsibility to the American people,” spokesperson Chris Dols said in a statement. “If passed, this CR will give Trump and Musk the power to complete their assault on federal workers.”

Earlier this week, Schumer threatened to withhold the Democratic votes and demanded Republicans instead consider a 30-day funding stopgap that would allow more time for bipartisan negotiations.

But House Speaker Mike Johnson sent his members home to their districts after Republicans advanced the spending bill on Tuesday, effectively forcing Senate Democrats to accept the measure as passed or risk a shutdown. In a statement on Friday, Johnson applauded his caucus for sticking together and accused Democrats of nearly triggering a shutdown “simply because they seem to hate President Trump more than they love America”.

Democrats will now have to contend with a furious base.

“Clearing the way for Donald Trump and Elon Musk to gut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is unacceptable,” Joel Payne, a spokesperson for MoveOn, a progressive organization that claims nearly 10 million members nationwide, said in a statement.

“It’s past time for Democrats to fight and stop acting like it’s business as usual.”

Taking over the justice department headquarters for what amounted to a political event, Donald Trump railed against the criminal cases he defeated by virtue of returning to the presidency in an extraordinary victory lap the department has perhaps never before seen.

The event was billed as a policy address for the administration to tout its focus on combating illegal immigration and drug trafficking, but the majority of the president’s freewheeling remarks focused instead on his personal grievances with the department.

Trump spoke from a specially constructed stage in the great hall of the main justice building, backed with blue velvet curtains that underscored the theatrics and symbolism of Trump cementing his control over the justice department, which had tried and failed to hold him to account.

The choice of venue carried additional resonance about how Trump has fully implemented his agenda at the justice department, doing away with the longstanding tradition of independence from partisan politics and instead turning it into an extension of the White House.

The great hall has historically been used for major law enforcement announcements by the justice department and its senior leaders, and when presidents have delivered speeches at the building, the remarks have been of a national security or non-political stripe.

In Trump’s hourlong speech, he repeatedly strayed from his prepared remarks to assail the criminal cases against him, various lawyers and former prosecutors by name and accused the Biden administration of trying to destroy him, declaring Joe Biden the head of a crime family.

“The case against me was bullshit,” Trump said with fury, in the building where the charges were approved.

But he heaped praise on his defense lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, whom he elevated to in effect run the justice department as the deputy attorney general and the principal associate deputy attorney general respectively, as well as the department’s chief of staff, Chad Mizelle.

The approval Trump expressed for Bove reflected his genuine appreciation. Trump has privately hailed Bove for bringing the department to heel in recent weeks, including by forcing through the dismissal of the corruption case against the New York mayor, Eric Adams.

Trump offered notable praise for the US district judge Aileen Cannon, who dismissed his criminal case on charges of mishandling classified documents, over decades of legal precedent. Trump claimed criticism of her made her angry, although he also said he had never spoken to her.

“She was brilliant,” Trump said of Cannon, “the absolute model of what a judge should be.”

He then suggested it should be a crime to criticize judges because they could be influenced by what he described as bad publicity. The remark appeared to be a new idea from Trump, who has previously castigated judges who did not rule in his favor and sought to defend legal cases in public.

“It has to stop, it has to be illegal, influencing judges,” Trump said as his administration now attempts to defend his policies and cost-cutting efforts against a wave of lawsuits.

When he returned to his prepared remarks, he followed up on a campaign promise to stop illegal immigration and hailed the decline in illegal border crossings since the start of his presidency.

Trump then announced an ad campaign to combat illegal fentanyl, which often kills people because it is mixed into other drugs, recounting how Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, told him about their campaign informing the public about its consequences.

“They show the skin falling off and the teeth falling out and going blind and losing hair and everything these things do,” Trump said, “you look like you just came out of a horrible concentration camp.”

An unhoused woman living out of her van in San Diego was towed away by authorities, who did not realize she was inside the car until she was discovered dead in the vehicle a month later, according to a legal claim and autopsy records made public this week.

Monica Cameroni De Adams, 65, was inside her parked Honda minivan at about 1am on 5 November 2023 when a driver crashed into her vehicle and another parked car, lawyers for her children outlined in a wrongful death claim against the southern California city.

The driver was later arrested for driving under the influence, and Cameroni De Adams’s vehicle was damaged, with its rear door crushed and windows broken, according to an autopsy report.

San Diego police officers responding to the collision called for a private tow truck company to impound the van, police records show. In a report filed that day, an officer said attempts to identify the owners of the damaged cars were unsuccessful and he had them towed “as they were filled with property, and I wanted to avoid further vandalism or thefts”.

On 6 December, a month later, a yard worker at the tow lot noticed a “pungent smell” in the van and alerted authorities. Police and fire department officials found Cameroni De Adams “wedged under miscellaneous items in the vehicle’s middle row”, the medical examiner’s office said in its autopsy. Her body was decomposed, and authorities said her cause of death was multiple blunt force injuries.

The family’s claim asserts that she had “sustained severe but survivable blunt force injuries from the collision that required medical attention”, and that police left her “trapped inside of her vehicle without necessary care” and she could have been saved if officers had hospitalized her.

“For my clients to have to live with the knowledge that their mom was towed away alive from the scene of a wreck only to die in a tow yard alone is incredibly difficult,” said John C Carpenter, the family’s attorney. “It would not have been difficult to see if there was somebody inside. It’s just basic common decency that you would check to see what’s inside a vehicle before you tow it away … They buried her alive in her car.”

The case shines a harsh light on the dangers facing unhoused people sleeping in rough conditions in California, which in recent years has been home to roughly half of all unsheltered people in the US living on the streets. More than 6,000 people in the San Diego region were counted living in tents and vehicles and other makeshift structures last year.

The news of Cameroni De Adams’s death comes the same week as a report in Vallejo, a Bay Area city, revealed how James Edward Oakley, a 58-year-old unhoused man, was crushed to death during a municipal trash cleanup last year.

The claim filed by Cameroni De Adams’s children, the first step in litigation, calls for $50m in damages and accuses the city and its police officers of wrongful death, negligence, infliction of emotional distress and “tortious interference with human remains”.

Cameroni De Adams’s family had sent her birthday wishes on 13 November, a week after the crash, and became alarmed when she didn’t respond and they couldn’t find her van, prompting them to file a missing person’s report the next day, according to the claim and autopsy report. Roughly a week later, authorities told the family her car had been located, but she was still missing, Carpenter said.

The autopsy said the woman had been living in her van in the San Diego area for seven years, and Carpenter said he was not able to share more details about her life.

“She was loved. She was an important part of their family. She mattered,” said the lawyer, adding that it seemed the officers at the collision scene assumed the vehicle belonged to an unhoused person and treated the car and its owner as “worthless”: “I can’t imagine a situation where an officer doesn’t look for a person inside a vehicle that’s involved in a wreck. The only thing I can think of is that our unhealthy prejudices against unhoused people made the police officer just not care about this vehicle as much as he should have. That’s a sad and dangerous thing.”

Spokespeople for the police department and city attorney’s office declined to comment on pending litigation.

Nearly 500 unsheltered people died in San Diego county last year, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune, including from overdoses, the most common cause, as well as from hypothermia and impacts from floods. Thirty unhoused people died when they were struck by vehicles and seven were killed by trains, the paper found.

Older and elderly adults increasingly forced to live on the streets in California are particularly vulnerable to health problems and violence. In May 2023, Annette Pershal, a 68-year-old unhoused San Diego woman was killed when a teenager shot her with a pellet gun at her camping spot. She was known to locals as “Granny Annie”, her daughter telling the Guardian: “She was a person, not just a thing to be used for target practice. Her life mattered.”

An unhoused woman living out of her van in San Diego was towed away by authorities, who did not realize she was inside the car until she was discovered dead in the vehicle a month later, according to a legal claim and autopsy records made public this week.

Monica Cameroni De Adams, 65, was inside her parked Honda minivan at about 1am on 5 November 2023 when a driver crashed into her vehicle and another parked car, lawyers for her children outlined in a wrongful death claim against the southern California city.

The driver was later arrested for driving under the influence, and Cameroni De Adams’s vehicle was damaged, with its rear door crushed and windows broken, according to an autopsy report.

San Diego police officers responding to the collision called for a private tow truck company to impound the van, police records show. In a report filed that day, an officer said attempts to identify the owners of the damaged cars were unsuccessful and he had them towed “as they were filled with property, and I wanted to avoid further vandalism or thefts”.

On 6 December, a month later, a yard worker at the tow lot noticed a “pungent smell” in the van and alerted authorities. Police and fire department officials found Cameroni De Adams “wedged under miscellaneous items in the vehicle’s middle row”, the medical examiner’s office said in its autopsy. Her body was decomposed, and authorities said her cause of death was multiple blunt force injuries.

The family’s claim asserts that she had “sustained severe but survivable blunt force injuries from the collision that required medical attention”, and that police left her “trapped inside of her vehicle without necessary care” and she could have been saved if officers had hospitalized her.

“For my clients to have to live with the knowledge that their mom was towed away alive from the scene of a wreck only to die in a tow yard alone is incredibly difficult,” said John C Carpenter, the family’s attorney. “It would not have been difficult to see if there was somebody inside. It’s just basic common decency that you would check to see what’s inside a vehicle before you tow it away … They buried her alive in her car.”

The case shines a harsh light on the dangers facing unhoused people sleeping in rough conditions in California, which in recent years has been home to roughly half of all unsheltered people in the US living on the streets. More than 6,000 people in the San Diego region were counted living in tents and vehicles and other makeshift structures last year.

The news of Cameroni De Adams’s death comes the same week as a report in Vallejo, a Bay Area city, revealed how James Edward Oakley, a 58-year-old unhoused man, was crushed to death during a municipal trash cleanup last year.

The claim filed by Cameroni De Adams’s children, the first step in litigation, calls for $50m in damages and accuses the city and its police officers of wrongful death, negligence, infliction of emotional distress and “tortious interference with human remains”.

Cameroni De Adams’s family had sent her birthday wishes on 13 November, a week after the crash, and became alarmed when she didn’t respond and they couldn’t find her van, prompting them to file a missing person’s report the next day, according to the claim and autopsy report. Roughly a week later, authorities told the family her car had been located, but she was still missing, Carpenter said.

The autopsy said the woman had been living in her van in the San Diego area for seven years, and Carpenter said he was not able to share more details about her life.

“She was loved. She was an important part of their family. She mattered,” said the lawyer, adding that it seemed the officers at the collision scene assumed the vehicle belonged to an unhoused person and treated the car and its owner as “worthless”: “I can’t imagine a situation where an officer doesn’t look for a person inside a vehicle that’s involved in a wreck. The only thing I can think of is that our unhealthy prejudices against unhoused people made the police officer just not care about this vehicle as much as he should have. That’s a sad and dangerous thing.”

Spokespeople for the police department and city attorney’s office declined to comment on pending litigation.

Nearly 500 unsheltered people died in San Diego county last year, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune, including from overdoses, the most common cause, as well as from hypothermia and impacts from floods. Thirty unhoused people died when they were struck by vehicles and seven were killed by trains, the paper found.

Older and elderly adults increasingly forced to live on the streets in California are particularly vulnerable to health problems and violence. In May 2023, Annette Pershal, a 68-year-old unhoused San Diego woman was killed when a teenager shot her with a pellet gun at her camping spot. She was known to locals as “Granny Annie”, her daughter telling the Guardian: “She was a person, not just a thing to be used for target practice. Her life mattered.”

Mark Carney has said Canada will never be part of the US, after being sworn in as the country’s 24th prime minister in a sudden rise to power.

“We will never, in any shape or form, be part of the US,” the former governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England told a crowd outside Rideau Hall in Ottawa, rejecting Donald Trump’s annexation threats. “We are very fundamentally a different country.”

Canada “expects respect” from the US, he added, while also voicing hope his government could find ways “to work together” with the Trump administration.

Less than a week ago, Carney beat the former finance minister Chrystia Freeland, the former government house leader Karina Gould and the former member of parliament Frank Baylis with a dominant 85.9% of the vote, in a closely watched leadership race. He has no prior elected experience and does not have a seat in the House of Commons, making him a rarity in Canadian history.

Carney is expected to announce an election in the coming days, reflecting both the urgency of Canada’s trade war with the US, and the awkward reality that as prime minister without a seat in parliament, he is unable to attend sessions of the House of Commons.

The effects of Donald Trump’s economic attack on Canada are so wide-ranging and so damaging that they are likely to overshadow all other issues in the coming months. US trade tariffs, if held in place for an extended period of time, could push Canada’s fragile economy into a recession and unleash a cascading chain of knock-on upheavals.

Asked about the comments by the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, on Friday morning that “economically speaking Canada would be better as the 51st state of the United States”, Carney replied: “It’s crazy. That’s all you can say.”

On Friday, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy congratulated Carney and called for the two countries to deepen their ties. “I am grateful to Canada for its unwavering support in deterring Russia’s military aggression. I look forward to deepening cooperation between our states,” Zelensky wrote on social media.

An election would also put limits on spending for political parties, which disproportionately affect the cash-flush Conservative party. The Conservatives lead the polls, but the lead is narrowing.

Earlier on Friday morning, Justin Trudeau formally resigned as prime minister, capping a nearly decade-long tenure that saw a rise in favourability in his final weeks as he stared down threats to Canadian sovereignty pushed by Trump. “Thank you, Canada – for trusting in me, for challenging me, and for granting me the privilege to serve the best country, and the best people, on Earth,” Trudeau said on social media.

In announcing his new, smaller cabinet, Carney left key ministers in cabinet. The finance minister, Dominic LeBlanc, was shifted to minister of international trade, the foreign affairs minister, Mélanie Joly, kept her role, and the industry minister, François-Philippe Champagne, took on the role as finance minister. Bill Blair remained as minister of national defence.

Notably, Carney brought his former leadership rival Freeland back into cabinet, as she assumed the role of transport minister. Freeland has previously served as foreign minister, finance minister and deputy prime minister.

Carney removed some key ministers who served in Trudeau’s cabinet and were seen as close allies of the former prime minister, including the health minister, Mark Holland, who endorsed Freeland in the leadership race and the immigration minister, Marc Miller, a longtime friend of Trudeau.

Also absent was the former government house leader Gould, who placed third in the Liberal leadership race.

“I am committed to supporting our government as we defend Canada from Donald Trump and his ill-conceived and unjustified trade war,” Gould wrote on social media. “I will continue to stand up for my constituents … and fight for a fairer, more inclusive, more prosperous Canada in Ottawa.”

In recent weeks, the Liberals have reversed a political freefall, sharply rebounding to such a degree that a previously expected Conservative majority in the next general election looks increasingly unlikely. The shift in the polls has been so dramatic that pollsters have struggled to find any historical precedent.

A newly released poll from Abacus Data showed the Conservative support had shrunk to 38%, with 34% going to the incumbent Liberals.

In a result likely to concern Conservatives, Abacus asked respondents who was best qualified to handle tasks as future prime minister, including finding common ground, standing up to a bully and helping people manage household expenses. Carney was seen as more skilled at six of the eight.

Heading into the event, the former prime minister Jean Chrétien said Carney “will do very well”, adding: “He is respected internationally.”

A US hunting influencer who caused outrage in Australia after grabbing a baby wombat from its mother says she is sorry for the incident but was only trying to ensure its safety by removing it from a road.

Sam Jones left the country on Friday morning after the home affairs minister, Tony Burke, said immigration authorities were checking if she had breached the conditions of her visa.

Early on Saturday morning, she posted a 900-word statement on her Instagram account, claiming she had been subject to thousands of death threats, and questioning the outrage in a country whose government “allows and permits the slaughter of wombats”.

It is an offence to harm a wombat in Australia unless a permit is obtained from the government.

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She also railed against the killing of kangaroos and brumbies.

Jones said she was “extremely concerned” when she found the wombats on the road, and stopped to ensure they were not hit by a car.

When she walked up to the baby and it did not move, she thought it may have been sick or injured, so decided to pick up the wombat to check.

“I ran, not to rip the joey away from its mother, but from fear she might attack me. The snap judgement I made in these moments was never from a place of harm or stealing a joey.

“While I was unbelievably excited to see such an amazing animal, I looked it over quickly and immediately returned it to its mother. I ensured that the mother and joey did reunite, went off together, and that they got off the road.

“I have done a great deal of reflection on this situation and have realized that I did not handle this situation as best as I should have … I have learned from this situation, and am truly sorry for the distress I have caused.”

She insisted that the incident had not simply been confected for content.

“I want to make it absolutely clear that this was never about social media or getting likes.

“This was not staged, nor was it done for entertainment. In my excitement and concern, I acted too quickly and then failed to provide necessary context to viewers online.”

Burke, who is also the immigration minister, said on Thursday that he couldn’t “wait to see the back of this individual” and authorities were “working through the conditions” on Jones’s visa to determine “whether immigration law has been breached”.

The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said Jones’s actions were “an outrage” and suggested she should try to “take a baby crocodile from its mother and see how you go there”.

RSCPA Australia said the footage showed a “blatant disregard” for native wildlife and the distress to the joey and the mother caused by the “callous act” was clear.

Rodrigo Duterte has become the first Asian former leader to appear before the international criminal court, where he stands accused of committing crimes against humanity during his notorious “war on drugs” which is estimated to have killed as many as 30,000 people.

The ex-president of the Philippines, who was in office from 2016 to 2022, was arrested in Manila on an ICC warrant early on Tuesday, put on a government-chartered jet hours later, and arrived in The Hague the following day.

The 79-year-old politician was allowed to follow Friday’s proceedings via video link from a detention centre after the presiding judge, Iulia Motoc, noted that he had endured “a long journey with considerable time difference”.

Appearing before the court shortly before 3pm local time, Duterte was informed of the crimes he is alleged to have committed, as well as his rights as a defendant. Sounding frail and wearing a blue suit and tie, he spoke briefly to confirm his name and date of birth.

Duterte’s lawyer, Salvador Medialdea, told the court that his client had been “abducted from his country”, adding: “He was summarily transported to The Hague. To lawyers it’s extrajudicial rendition. For less legal minds it’s pure and simple kidnapping.”

Medialdea said Duterte would be unable to contribute to the proceedings because of what he termed his client’s “debilitating medical issues”. But Motoc said the court doctor who had examined Duterte was of the opinion that he was “fully mentally aware and fit”.

The judge set a pre-trial hearing date of 23 September to establish whether the prosecution’s evidence is strong enough to send the case to trial. If a trial does go ahead, it could take years, and if Duterte is convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

Duterte was arrested amid dramatic scenes three days ago. Despite threatening a police general with lawsuits, refusing to be fingerprinted and telling officers “you have to kill me to bring me to The Hague”, he eventually boarded the plane that arrived in the Netherlands on Wednesday.

As he landed in The Hague, the former leader was calm and appeared to accept responsibility for his actions, saying in a Facebook video: “I have been telling the police, the military, that it was my job and I am responsible.”

His arrest came amid a spectacular breakdown in relations between his family and the Marcos family, who had previously joined forces to run the Philippines.

The current president, Ferdinand Marcos, and the vice-president, Sara Duterte – who is Rodrigo’s daughter – are at loggerheads, with the latter facing an impeachment trial over charges including an alleged assassination plot against Marcos.

Sara Duterte travelled to the Netherlands to support her father, whose arrest she has described as “oppression and persecution”. The Duterte family had sought an emergency injunction from the supreme court to stop his transfer.

Speaking to supporters and reporters outside the court on Friday morning, she said she was hoping to visit her father and to have the hearing moved. “We are praying and hoping that the court will grant our request to move the initial appearance just so that we can properly sit down with the former president and discuss the legal strategies since we haven’t talked to him yet,” she told Agence France-Presse.

Duterte became president nine years ago after promising a merciless, bloody crackdown that would rid the country of drugs. On the campaign trail he once said there would be so many bodies dumped in Manila Bay that fish would grow fat from feeding on them. After taking office, he publicly stated he would kill suspected drug dealers, and urged the public to kill addicts.

Estimates of the death toll under his administration rule vary: the national police put the number at 6,000 people, while human rights groups claim the true figure is five times higher. Most of the victims were men in poor, urban areas who were gunned down in the streets.

Even as his tactics provoked international horror, he remained highly popular at home throughout his presidency. While his arrest has been celebrated by rights groups and the families of the victims of the “war on drugs”, it has also prompted some protests in his strongholds of Mindanao and the Visayas.

Duterte, who appeared before a senate inquiry into the drugs war killings last year, said he offered “no apologies, no excuses” for his policies, saying: “I did what I had to do, and whether you believe it or not, I did it for my country.”

Campaigners and victims of his crackdowns hope that Duterte’s arrest will finally result in him facing justice for his alleged crimes.

Rachel Chhoa-Howard, Amnesty International’s south-east Asia researcher, said Friday’s hearing proved that no one was above the law.

“The very institution that former President Duterte mocked will now try him for murder as a crime against humanity,” she said. “This is a symbolic moment and a day of hope for families of victims and human rights defenders who have for years fought tirelessly for justice despite grave risks to their lives and safety.”

The ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, has hailed Duterte’s arrest as a key moment for victims and international justice as a whole.

“Many say that international law is not as strong as we want, and I agree with that. But as I also repeatedly emphasise, international law is not as weak as some may think,” Khan said. “When we come together … when we build partnerships, the rule of law can prevail.”

With Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse

Rodrigo Duterte has become the first Asian former leader to appear before the international criminal court, where he stands accused of committing crimes against humanity during his notorious “war on drugs” which is estimated to have killed as many as 30,000 people.

The ex-president of the Philippines, who was in office from 2016 to 2022, was arrested in Manila on an ICC warrant early on Tuesday, put on a government-chartered jet hours later, and arrived in The Hague the following day.

The 79-year-old politician was allowed to follow Friday’s proceedings via video link from a detention centre after the presiding judge, Iulia Motoc, noted that he had endured “a long journey with considerable time difference”.

Appearing before the court shortly before 3pm local time, Duterte was informed of the crimes he is alleged to have committed, as well as his rights as a defendant. Sounding frail and wearing a blue suit and tie, he spoke briefly to confirm his name and date of birth.

Duterte’s lawyer, Salvador Medialdea, told the court that his client had been “abducted from his country”, adding: “He was summarily transported to The Hague. To lawyers it’s extrajudicial rendition. For less legal minds it’s pure and simple kidnapping.”

Medialdea said Duterte would be unable to contribute to the proceedings because of what he termed his client’s “debilitating medical issues”. But Motoc said the court doctor who had examined Duterte was of the opinion that he was “fully mentally aware and fit”.

The judge set a pre-trial hearing date of 23 September to establish whether the prosecution’s evidence is strong enough to send the case to trial. If a trial does go ahead, it could take years, and if Duterte is convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

Duterte was arrested amid dramatic scenes three days ago. Despite threatening a police general with lawsuits, refusing to be fingerprinted and telling officers “you have to kill me to bring me to The Hague”, he eventually boarded the plane that arrived in the Netherlands on Wednesday.

As he landed in The Hague, the former leader was calm and appeared to accept responsibility for his actions, saying in a Facebook video: “I have been telling the police, the military, that it was my job and I am responsible.”

His arrest came amid a spectacular breakdown in relations between his family and the Marcos family, who had previously joined forces to run the Philippines.

The current president, Ferdinand Marcos, and the vice-president, Sara Duterte – who is Rodrigo’s daughter – are at loggerheads, with the latter facing an impeachment trial over charges including an alleged assassination plot against Marcos.

Sara Duterte travelled to the Netherlands to support her father, whose arrest she has described as “oppression and persecution”. The Duterte family had sought an emergency injunction from the supreme court to stop his transfer.

Speaking to supporters and reporters outside the court on Friday morning, she said she was hoping to visit her father and to have the hearing moved. “We are praying and hoping that the court will grant our request to move the initial appearance just so that we can properly sit down with the former president and discuss the legal strategies since we haven’t talked to him yet,” she told Agence France-Presse.

Duterte became president nine years ago after promising a merciless, bloody crackdown that would rid the country of drugs. On the campaign trail he once said there would be so many bodies dumped in Manila Bay that fish would grow fat from feeding on them. After taking office, he publicly stated he would kill suspected drug dealers, and urged the public to kill addicts.

Estimates of the death toll under his administration rule vary: the national police put the number at 6,000 people, while human rights groups claim the true figure is five times higher. Most of the victims were men in poor, urban areas who were gunned down in the streets.

Even as his tactics provoked international horror, he remained highly popular at home throughout his presidency. While his arrest has been celebrated by rights groups and the families of the victims of the “war on drugs”, it has also prompted some protests in his strongholds of Mindanao and the Visayas.

Duterte, who appeared before a senate inquiry into the drugs war killings last year, said he offered “no apologies, no excuses” for his policies, saying: “I did what I had to do, and whether you believe it or not, I did it for my country.”

Campaigners and victims of his crackdowns hope that Duterte’s arrest will finally result in him facing justice for his alleged crimes.

Rachel Chhoa-Howard, Amnesty International’s south-east Asia researcher, said Friday’s hearing proved that no one was above the law.

“The very institution that former President Duterte mocked will now try him for murder as a crime against humanity,” she said. “This is a symbolic moment and a day of hope for families of victims and human rights defenders who have for years fought tirelessly for justice despite grave risks to their lives and safety.”

The ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, has hailed Duterte’s arrest as a key moment for victims and international justice as a whole.

“Many say that international law is not as strong as we want, and I agree with that. But as I also repeatedly emphasise, international law is not as weak as some may think,” Khan said. “When we come together … when we build partnerships, the rule of law can prevail.”

With Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse

A far-right group that claimed credit for the arrest of a Palestinian activist and permanent US resident who the Trump administration is seeking to deport claims it has submitted “thousands of names” for similar treatment.

Betar US is one of a number of rightwing, pro-Israel groups that are supporting the administration’s efforts to deport international students involved in university pro-Palestinian protests, an effort that escalated this week with the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, an activist who recently completed his graduate studies at Columbia University.

This week, Donald Trump said Khalil’s arrest was just “the first of many to come”. Betar US quickly claimed credit on social media for providing Khalil’s name to the government.

Betar, which has been labelled an extremist group by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a Jewish advocacy group, said on Monday that it had “been working on deportations and will continue to do so”, and warned that the effort would extend beyond immigrants. “Expect naturalized citizens to start being picked up within the month,” the group’s post on X read. (It is very difficult to revoke US citizenship, though Trump has indicated an intention to try.)

The group has compiled a so-called “deportation list” naming individuals it believes are in the US on visas and have participated in pro-Palestinian protests, claiming these individuals “terrorize America”.

A Betar spokesperson, Daniel Levy, said in a statement to the Guardian that Betar submitted “thousands of names” of students and faculty they believe to be on visas from institutions like Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, UCLA, Syracuse University and others to representatives of the Trump administration.

The group claims to have “documentation, including tapes, social media and more” to support their actions. It claims to be sharing names with several high-ranking officials, including the secretary of state, Marco Rubio; the White House homeland security adviser, Stephen Miller; and the attorney general, Pam Bondi, among others.

The White House and state department did not respond to questions about whether they are working with Betar or other groups to identify students for deportation.

Ross Glick, who was the executive director of the US chapter of Betar until last month, told the Guardian that the list began forming last fall. He noted that when they started compiling names, it was unclear who the next president would be, but that the change in administrations had been beneficial to their initiative.

During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly vowed to deport foreign students involved in pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses and frequently framed demonstrations against Israel’s actions in Gaza as expressions of support for Hamas. Last week, it was reported that the US state department plans to use AI to identify foreign students for deportation.

The arrest of Khalil last week, who served as a lead negotiator for the Gaza solidarity encampment at Columbia University, aligned with Trump’s executive order aimed at combatting antisemitism. An accompanying fact sheet pledged the administration would cancel the student visas of those identified as “Hamas sympathizers” and deport those who participated in “pro-jihadist protests”.

After the election, Glick said he met with lawmakers on Capitol Hill, including the Democratic senator John Fetterman and aides to the Republican senators Ted Cruz and James Lankford, all of whom, he said, supported the efforts.

In a phone call this week, Glick said he discussed Khalil with Cruz in Washington DC just days before he was arrested.

Cruz’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the meeting with Glick.

Glick said that the individuals on Betar’s list were identified through tips from students, faculty and staff on these campuses, along with social media research. He also claimed he had received support from “collaborators” who use “facial recognition AI-based technology” to help identify protesters that can even identify people wearing face coverings. He declined to elaborate on the specific technology used.

Glick mentioned that in recent months he had been inundated with messages from students, professors and university administrators across the country, all providing him with information on protesters’ identities. He said that he vetted the legitimacy of those tips and that he believed Khalil and other pro-Palestinian protesters were “promoting the eradication, the destruction and the devolution of western civilization”.

Glick described Khalil as an “operative”. When asked who he was an operative for, he responded: “Well, that has to be determined.”

Khalil is being held in a Louisiana detention center after being moved from New York. His detention is being challenged in a Manhattan federal court.

The arrest has sparked outrage and alarm from free-speech advocates who see the move to deport Khalil as a flagrant violation of his free speech rights and on Wednesday, protests erupted outside the Manhattan courthouse, where hundreds gathered demanding his freedom.

Betar is not alone in its efforts to support Trump’s deportation campaign, an effort that has divided American Jews in whose name the administration is purporting to act.

In the days leading up to his arrest, videos featuring Khalil and others at a sit-in at Barnard against the expulsion of two students who disrupted a class on Israel began circulating on social media.

Pro-Israel social-media accounts, including that of Shai Davidai, a vocal assistant professor at Columbia’s business school who was temporarily barred from campus last year after the school said he repeatedly intimidated and harassed university employees, identified Khalil and tagged Rubio in posts urging him to revoke his visa and deport him.

The video of Khalil that was circulating was first posted by Canary Mission, an online database that publishes the names and personal information of people that it considers to be anti-Israel or antisemitic, focusing mainly on those at universities across the US.

When Khalil was arrested, Canary Mission said that it was “delighted that our exposure of Mahmoud Khalil’s hatred has led to such deserved consequences”, adding that it had “more Columbia news on its way”.

On Monday afternoon, Canary Mission released a video naming five other students and faculty it believes should be deported.

It was revealed this week by Zeteo that Khalil had emailed Columbia University the day before his arrest, appealing for protection and telling the university’s interim president that he was being subjected to a “dehumanizing doxxing campaign” that week led by Davidai and David Lederer, a Columbia student.

“Their attacks have incited a wave of hate, including calls for my deportation and death threats,” Khalil said.

He added: “I haven’t been able to sleep, fearing that Ice or a dangerous individual might come to my home. I urgently need legal support, and I urge you to intervene and provide the necessary protections to prevent further harm.”

In another email, Khalil reportedly cited a threatening post by Betar, in which the group claimed he said: “Zionists don’t deserve to live.” Khalil “unequivocally” denied ever saying that.

In that post, Betar wrote that Ice⁩ was “aware of his home address and whereabouts” and said it had “provided all his information to multiple contacts”.

After the arrest, Karoline Leavitt, the spokesperson for the White House, said that Columbia University had been given the “names of other individuals who have engaged in pro-Hamas activity” but said that the school was “refusing to help DHS identify those individuals on campus”.

‘A moment of reckoning’

Khalil’s arrest has divided American Jews, many of whom have harshly condemned the activist’s arrest.

The ADL, a group that describes its focus as fighting antisemitism and all forms of hate and that is also known to view campus protests as antisemitic, welcomed the escalation and said it appreciated “the Trump administration’s broad, bold set of efforts to counter campus antisemitism.

“Obviously, any deportation action or revocation of a Green Card or visa must be undertaken in alignment with required due process protections,” the group said. It added: “We also hope that this action serves as a deterrent to others who might consider breaking the law on college campuses or anywhere.”

But many mainstream, progressive and leftwing Jewish groups have condemned the administration’s actions as a dangerous violation of free speech.

“It is both possible and necessary to directly confront and address the crisis of antisemitism, on campus and across our communities, without abandoning the fundamental democratic values that have allowed Jews, and so many others, to thrive here,” said Amy Spitalnick, head of the liberal Jewish Council for Public Affairs.

In a letter on Thursday to the US Department of Homeland Security, several groups including the New York Jewish Agenda, Aleph: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, Habonim Dror North America and others, said that they were “deeply disturbed by the circumstances surrounding the apprehension and detention of Mahmoud Khalil”.

“Irrespective of the content of Mr Khalil’s speech, we firmly believe that his arrest does nothing to make Jews safer,” the groups said. “In the past, laws and policies that limit the right to free speech have often been wielded against the Jewish community, and we are worried that we are seeing signs that they are being wielded against Muslim, Arab, and other minority communities now.”

David Myers, a distinguished professor and the Sady and Ludwig Kahn chair in Jewish history at the University of California Los Angeles, told the Guardian he believed the Trump administration was instrumentalizing and weaponizing “antisemitism for political gain”.

“I think ultimately, [the administration] is interested in something larger than defending Jewish students, it’s really interested in bringing the university to its knees as a way of removing a key liberal, progressive actor from the American political game,” he said.

Myers described Betar’s decision to compile a list of people to be deported as “horrifying” but “not a total surprise”, he said, given what Betar has historically represented, which he called an “embrace of Jewish fascism”.

“I find it distasteful, un-Jewish and collaborationist to forge together lists of people who fail to meet a political litmus test,” Myers said.

He believes universities should resist pressure from the government and uphold the principles of fairness and democracy.

“It’s a moment of reckoning about where one’s values really lie,” he said.

“If universities submit, that’s removing an extraordinarily important site of free and open thinking from the American political conversation. I think that would be very ominous for this country, a further step in the move towards a fully authoritarian regime.”

Pakistan’s military has accused neighbouring India of sponsoring militant groups in the south-west of the country as survivors recounted their ordeal from an unprecedented attack that killed 26 passengers on a hijacked train.

The scope of the attack in Balochistan province underscores the struggles that Pakistan faces to rein in militant groups.

In the attack on Tuesday, members of the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) ambushed a train in a remote area, took about 400 people onboard hostage and exchanged gunfire with security forces. The standoff lasted until late on Wednesday, when the army said 33 hijackers had been killed.

Oil- and mineral-rich Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest and least populated province. Baloch residents have long accused the central government of discrimination – a charge Islamabad denies.

The attack on the train has drawn international condemnation, including from the US, China, Turkey, Iran and the UK. On Friday, the members of the UN security council said it “condemned in the strongest terms the heinous and cowardly terrorist attack”.

The council said in a statement: “The members of the security council underlined the need to hold perpetrators, organisers, financiers and sponsors of these reprehensible acts of terrorism accountable and bring them to justice.”

At a news conference in Islamabad on Friday, army spokesperson Lt Gen Ahmad Sharif said “in this terrorist incident in Balochistan, and others before, the main sponsor is your eastern neighbour,” referring to India.

He offered no proof to support the accusation, which has been rejected by India. It was the first time the BLA – which has been fighting for independence and a greater share of the province’s resources – had hijacked a train, although it had attacked trains before.

Some attackers had escaped and a search operation was under way to find them, Sharif said. He also said most of the fatalities were security forces protecting the passengers and troops travelling to their home cities.

Sarfraz Bugti, the chief minister of Balochistan, told reporters that Pakistan has “solid evidence” of India’s involvement in attacks. He did not share any specific information.

Sharif added that an Indian naval officer arrested in 2016 and convicted of espionage in Pakistan had worked for Indian intelligence to assist the Baloch separatists and other militant groups. The officer, identified as Kulbhushan Jadhav, has been sentenced to death. Sharif, however, did not link him directly to the latest train attack.

Pakistan and India are nuclear-armed rivals with a history of bitter relations. They have fought four wars since they gained independence in 1947 from Britain.

“We strongly reject the baseless allegations made by Pakistan,” India’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Randhir Jaiswal, said.

Earlier, Pakistan’s foreign ministry had claimed the train attack was orchestrated from Afghanistan, where the attackers had been in contact with handlers. Kabul denied the accusation and said the BLA had no presence there.

Pakistan has suspended all train services to and from Balochistan since Tuesday’s attack. Sharif Ullah, a railway official, said repairs to the tracks, which were blown up to stop the train, had not started.

Survivors have recounted their harrowing ordeal during the 36-hour hijacking.

Muhammad Farooq, from Quetta, the largest city in Balochistan, described how the BLA stopped the train and ordered passengers to disembark.

“They checked identity cards and started killing people who worked for the armed forces,” he said. Many passengers, he said, fled successfully while the hijackers were exchanging fire with Pakistani troops.

Mohammad Tanveer, who was travelling from Quetta to the eastern city of Lahore, said he was wounded but managed to escape. He said the attackers had been looking for members of the military and security forces, and started killing them in small groups, one after another.

Nair Husnain, a student, said he saw the militants go through the train, asking people to stand up and tying their hands before shooting them several times. They first killed soldiers, then minority Shias and Punjabis. Balochs were spared, he said.

He also recounted how a woman travelling with her three sons – all soldiers – had to watch as they were shot and killed.

“Those scenes are still before my eyes,” he said.

The Greek prime minister has appointed a former far-right student activist to the helm of the migration ministry as part of a broad reshuffle aimed at “resetting” his government amid public outrage over its handling of a deadly 2023 train crash.

In an attempt to stem declining approval ratings, Kyriakos Mitsotakis placed the self-described nationalist, Makis Voridis, in the sensitive post while selecting a number of younger officials to key portfolios including the transport ministry.

Officials called the shake-up “a significant renewal” of forces at a time when the centre-right administration has faced unprecedented protests over the rail disaster.

The new transport minister, Christos Dimas, who taught in the UK before going into politics, will supervise the overhaul of a rail network whose safety gaps have been blamed for the crash that left 57 dead and dozens injured when an intercity passenger train collided head-on with a freight train on 28 February 2023. The appointment to the finance ministry of the popular US-educated computer scientist Kyriakos Pierrakakis is also seen as injecting an air of regeneration into a government in its sixth year in office. Pierrakakis, 42, who moves from the education ministry, is from the centre-left.

But commentators said with Mitsotakis confronting growing criticism from supporters of his own centre-right New Democracy party, the reshuffle was also aimed at solidifying his traditional conservative base.

“It’s as much about reinforcing his control over his own parliamentary group and sending the message that from now on there’ll be a more conservative, hardline stance on migration,” said the European affairs analyst Yannis Koutsomitis. “It’s also a clear signal to Europe and Washington that ‘we’re on the same wavelength’.”

Once caught on camera wielding an axe as he chased leftist fellow students, Voridis, 60, emerged on the political scene as the head of the youth wing of Epen, the far-right party founded by the former dictator Georgios Papadopoulos. With a seat in the European parliament, the group enjoyed close ties with France’s late National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, openly espousing many of his extremist views.

Voridis has long depicted Muslim immigrants as a threat to Europe and the social cohesion of Greece, a frontline EU member state that has seen successive waves of incoming asylum seekers over the past decade.

On Friday the leftwing opposition Syriza party described the reshuffle as “an insult to Greek society”.

The prominent anti-racist group Keerfa said the appointment of Voridis signalled a far-right turn, and predicted mass deportations at a time when New Democracy’s appeal had dwindled amid persistent claims that the government had “covered up” the train disaster. “[His] appointment shows that it will try to use racism and an opening to the far right to deal with the anger,” it said, arguing that with Donald Trump back in power the ruling party “saw opportunities” in adopting policies that would help pick up votes lost to parties on the far right.

The changes were announced a day after a veteran conservative, Konstantinos Tasoulas, was sworn in as the country’s president, replacing the liberal former judge and first female head of state Katerina Sakellaropoulou.

Once seen as unassailable, Mitsotakis’s popularity has dropped dramatically although his government survived a parliamentary vote of no confidence last week over the crash. With general elections not due until 2027, political analysts say there is still time to win back public confidence but few believe Friday’s changes will be enough to stem popular anger. “It is uncertain whether such changes would alter people’s perception of the government or make it more effective,” said the political analyst Costas Panagopoulos.