Russia and Ukraine have agreed to “eliminate the use of force” in the Black Sea after parallel talks with US negotiators in Saudi Arabia, though the Kremlin said a maritime ceasefire would start only if it received sanctions relief on agricultural exports.

Donald Trump said that the US was reviewing the Russian conditions after the Kremlin insisted it had negotiated concessions with the White House that would mark the first major recision of sanctions since the full-scale invasion of 2022.

The warring parties also agreed to implement a previously announced 30-day halt on attacks against energy networks and to expand its scope, but resolving fundamental issues, including any division of territory, remains far off.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, welcomed the developments but said Kyiv did not support weakening sanctions on Russia and voiced concern over talks the US appeared to be having with the Kremlin about a partition of Ukraine.

“We are worried when they talk about us without us,” Zelenskyy said in a media briefing, responding to comments by Donald Trump on Monday, when the US president said: “We’re talking about territory right now.”

Ukrainian negotiators in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, had had no discussions of their own about the future division of territory, Zelenskyy added, saying it appeared that the US had talked to the Kremlin team about dividing Ukraine.

According to reports, Russia has told the US it wants full control of three of the Ukrainian regions it partially occupies: Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.

The claims have been consistently rejected by Kyiv, which has only indicated it is prepared to acknowledge the existing de facto Russian occupation along the prevailing lines of control.

The White House published two statements, each containing five main points, four of which were identical. Both “agreed to ensure safe navigation, eliminate the use of force” in the Black Sea – a reference to a ceasefire though the word itself was not used.

The key difference was that the Russian statement said the US would “help restore Russia’s access to the world market for agricultural and fertiliser exports” by lowering insurance costs and improving access to payment systems and ports.

Trump stopped short of confirming that the US was granting sanctions relief, however, and said that the Kremlin conditions were still under review.

“They will be looking at them, and we’re thinking about all of them right now,” Trump said. “There are about five or six conditions. We’re looking at all of them.”

Zelenskyy was unhappy with this, saying it was “a weakening of our position on sanctions” because it appeared to suggest the US would help Russia improve its economic position while the land and air war continued.

Russia said the maritime ceasefire would come into force only after the “lifting of sanctions restrictions” on the Russian Agricultural Bank and other “financial institutions involved in international trade of food”, and only after they were reconnected to the Swift international payment system.

“The United States will assist in restoring Russian agricultural and fertiliser exports to the global market, reducing the cost of maritime insurance, and expanding access to ports and payment systems to conduct such transaction,” the Kremlin said.

Russia also said it wanted port service restrictions and sanctions on Russian-flagged vessels involved in the trade of food products, including seafood and fertilisers, to be lifted.

A further round of negotiations to extend the ceasefire would “take place soon,” Zelenskyy said, although he was not any more specific on timing. Russia and Ukraine agreed to continue working “toward achieving a durable and lasting peace”, the White House statements said.

Zelenskyy criticised Trump’s personal envoy to Putin, Steve Witkoff, who had said in the run-up to the talks that Russia’s staged referendums in the four Ukrainian regions it partially or completely occupies were legitimate and had demonstrated that “the overwhelming majority” wanted to be “under Russian rule”.

The Ukrainian president said Witkoff’s comments “are very much in line with the messages of the Kremlin”, but he added that he hoped that over time the US negotiator and others in the White House would gradually come to see that the Russian leadership was insincere.

Zelenskyy said there had been no agreement on an unconditional ceasefire because “the Russians didn’t want it” and he believed as the negotiations continued “people will not believe the Russians more and more with every day”.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov told Russian state media in a discussion about the Black Sea deal that Moscow wanted the grain and fertiliser market to be “predictable” in order to make a profit “but also because we are concerned about the food security situation in Africa and other countries of the Global South.”

Lavrov on Tuesday night said Zelenskyy did not want to “give in” and he accused Kyiv’s European allies of seeking to “hang like a stone around the neck” of Zelenskyy. Lavrov added that Witkoff’s view about a wider truce was overly optimistic because it did not take into account the “elites of European countries”.

Ukraine said it expected Russia to stop bombing port facilities in Odesa and elsewhere as part of a maritime truce. However, a separate statement, released by its defence ministry, said Ukraine would consider “the movement of Russian military vessels beyond the eastern Black Sea” to be a violation of the deal.

Over the course of the three-year war, Ukraine has gradually forced the Russian fleet east after a series of sea drone raids, and managed to reopen a commercial shipping lane close to the western coast.

Russian exports have also been growing, but the Kremlin complained in the past about the impact of sanctions on its agricultural products, and pulled out of a previous Black Sea grain deal in July 2023 that was designed to facilitate food exports even while the war was ongoing.

The ceasefire would begin immediately after the White House released the statements, Zelenskyy said, although the Russian demand for sanctions relief in the Black Sea means the conditions for a halt in fighting at sea have not been accepted by Moscow.

It would initially be self-policed, Ukraine said, although both sides agreed that other countries could become involved in monitoring and safeguarding it. Zelenskyy acknowledged that “we have no faith in the Russians” but said that despite this Kyiv intended to be constructive in its efforts to end the war.

The lack of enforcement mechanisms reflected the fact that “the American side really wanted all of this not to fail, so they did not want to go into many details” – but he said Ukraine would press for further clarity in ongoing discussions.

Ukraine believes Turkey or a Middle Eastern country such as Saudi Arabia could become involved in protecting security in the Black Sea, while European countries could help with energy and maritime monitoring, Zelenskyy added.

On Monday, Trump had also said the US had been talking to the Kremlin about “power plant ownership” – a reference to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is under Russian occupation.

The US president has expressed an interest in taking control of the plant, the largest in Europe, even though it is located directly on the frontline. Zelenskyy, however, said on Tuesday this had not been part of this round of negotiations between Ukraine and the US.

Later on Tuesday, Russian news agency Tass reported that Moscow’s foreign ministry had said the nuclear power plant, which has been shut down since autumn 2022, could not be transferred to Ukraine “or any other country”. Its comments followed “media speculation”, Tass added.

The Kremlin is pressing its advantage with a White House that is impatient to show that Donald Trump is the only leader who can deliver peace in the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine.

At first blush, the deal agreed by US negotiators in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday offers concession on concession to the Kremlin, leaving observers to question whether Russia had given anything to secure its first offer of sanctions relief since the beginning of the war.

Russia and Ukraine have agreed to a moratorium on attacking each other’s ships in the Black Sea – a theatre of the war where Ukraine’s use of seaborne drones and special operations units had put the Russians on the defensive, largely penning the Russian fleet close to the shore.

But the White House account of the agreement did not even include the fine print. In its readout, the Kremlin said that it would only implement the Black Sea ceasefire once the US delivers sanctions relief on Russian agricultural products and fertilisers, as well as delisting a major state-owned bank called Rosselkhozbank that services the Russian agricultural industry.

That would be the first significant rollback of sanctions on Russia since the war began, and indicates that Moscow will seek a dual price to halt its war against Ukraine: political and military concessions from Ukraine as well as an escape from the international isolation that began after its full-scale invasion in 2022.

And, so far, it looks like that is a deal that the Trump administration is willing to make.

“The ‘Russian art of the deal’ is selling Russian demands as Russian concessions to the Americans, and then demand sanctions relief on top,” wrote Dr Janis Kluge, a researcher who focuses on the Russian economy at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, a thinktank. “The demand here is that Ukraine is not allowed to attack Russian warships any more and Russia gets to inspect Ukrainian ships.”

Any sanctions relief on Russia will be limited by the readiness of Europe to take similar steps – but Tuesday’s deal still reflects a serious reorientation of the diplomacy around Ukraine and leaves Europe more isolated in restraining Russia.

Ukraine had opposed any rollback on sanctions against the Kremlin. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that he considered it to be a “weakening of our position and the easing of sanctions” against Russia, a position that was not compatible with an “unconditional ceasefire” against energy infrastructure and at sea.

It also appears that either the White House hid the plans to ease sanctions – or US negotiators were themselves surprised by the Russian demand that limits on trade and finance be eased in order to achieve the main deliverable that the White House wants: the ability to declare even a partial ceasefire in Ukraine.

“This wasn’t in the agenda before the meeting,” Zelenskyy said on Tuesday. “The Russians, as far as we know, have raised the issue of the American assistance to transport their agricultural products … We didn’t agree to that so that it would be in our common [statement].”

Zelenskyy sought to sound upbeat during his remarks, and said that at least now Kyiv could appeal to the White House if Russia chose to violate the ceasefire against Ukraine in the coming month. Ukraine could also demand new sanctions against Russia if that happens, he said.

But there are considerable doubts that Trump would be ready to slap further sanctions on Russia. And Steve Witkoff, his envoy, has spent “really a lot of time in dialogue with Putin”, said Zelenskyy, explaining why the White House messaging on the war sounds so much like the Kremlin narrative.

In negotiations, a deal that does not work for both sides will collapse sooner or later. Tuesday’s agreement – and the separate statements that have emerged – will raise further questions of whether the US can mediate a conflict in which it appears to clearly sympathise with the Kremlin.

• A Black Sea maritime security deal aims to bring Moscow back to predictable grain and fertiliser markets that would allow for profit and ensure global food security, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said in remarks published late on Tuesday. “We want the grain and fertiliser market to be predictable, so that no one tries to ‘ward us off’ from it,” Lavrov told the Russian state Channel One television. “Not only because we want … to make a legitimate profit in fair competition, but also because we are concerned about the food security situation in Africa and other countries of the Global South.”

• Russia and Ukraine agreed to “eliminate the use of force” in the Black Sea after parallel talks with US negotiators in Saudi Arabia, though the Kremlin said a maritime ceasefire would start only if it received sanctions relief on agricultural exports. Donald Trump said that the US was reviewing the Russian conditions after the Kremlin insisted it had negotiated concessions with the White House that would mark the first major recision of sanctions since the full-scale invasion of 2022.

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the deals did not require sanctions relief to come into force – which he said would weaken Ukraine’s position – and would come into force immediately. If Russia violated them he would ask Trump to impose additional sanctions on Moscow and provide more weapons for Ukraine, he said. “We have no faith in the Russians, but we will be constructive,” he said.

• The Ukrainian president also said there had been no agreement on an unconditional ceasefire because “the Russians didn’t want it”. He said he believed as the negotiations continued “people will not believe the Russians more and more with every day”.

• Zelenskyy criticised Trump envoy Steve Witkoff, who had said in the run-up to the talks that Russia’s staged referendums in the four Ukrainian regions it partially or completely occupies were legitimate and had demonstrated that “the overwhelming majority” wanted to be “under Russian rule”. The Ukrainian president said Witkoff’s comments “are very much in line with the messages of the Kremlin”, but he added that he hoped that over time the US negotiator and others in the White House would gradually come to see that the Russian leadership was insincere.

• Russia’s foreign ministry said the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant was a Russian facility and transferring control of it to Ukraine or any other country was impossible. Russian forces seized the plant early in the invasion. Donald Trump, during a phone conversation this month with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, suggested the US could help run and possibly own Ukraine’s nuclear power plants, including Zaporizhzhia.

• Estonia’s top diplomat said Russia has gained an upper hand in the ceasefire talks and suggested the US consider a time limit if there is no progress, ahead of a meeting with secretary of state Marco Rubio. Estonian foreign minister Margus Tsahkna and his counterparts from Latvia and Lithuania met jointly on Tuesday in Washington with Rubio as the Baltic nations lead concerns over the new US push on Russia and Ukraine. “Putin has now an upper hand in some ways,” Tsahkna told AFP in an interview late Monday ahead of his talks with Rubio. “The question is now, how long is Trump actually going to give Putin to play the games?” he said.

• A Russian court sentenced on Tuesday a woman to two years’ jail for holding protest signs opposing President Vladimir Putin and the Ukraine conflict, the latest in a series of convictions targeting dissent. Elena Abramova, a translator from the north-western city of St Petersburg, publicly held up placards in 2023 that read “A world without war, a Russia without Putin!” and “Freedom for Navalny! Freedom for all political prisoners”, according to the city’s court service.

• Ukraine’s SBU security service said on Tuesday it had detained a serviceman in the Sumy region it accused of helping Moscow attack Ukrainian troops fighting in Russia’s Kursk region by giving away their location. “While at the front, the ‘mole’ was preparing coordinates for the aggressor’s missile and bomb attacks on the locations of Ukrainian troops,” the SBU alleged on Telegram.

The Kremlin is pressing its advantage with a White House that is impatient to show that Donald Trump is the only leader who can deliver peace in the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine.

At first blush, the deal agreed by US negotiators in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday offers concession on concession to the Kremlin, leaving observers to question whether Russia had given anything to secure its first offer of sanctions relief since the beginning of the war.

Russia and Ukraine have agreed to a moratorium on attacking each other’s ships in the Black Sea – a theatre of the war where Ukraine’s use of seaborne drones and special operations units had put the Russians on the defensive, largely penning the Russian fleet close to the shore.

But the White House account of the agreement did not even include the fine print. In its readout, the Kremlin said that it would only implement the Black Sea ceasefire once the US delivers sanctions relief on Russian agricultural products and fertilisers, as well as delisting a major state-owned bank called Rosselkhozbank that services the Russian agricultural industry.

That would be the first significant rollback of sanctions on Russia since the war began, and indicates that Moscow will seek a dual price to halt its war against Ukraine: political and military concessions from Ukraine as well as an escape from the international isolation that began after its full-scale invasion in 2022.

And, so far, it looks like that is a deal that the Trump administration is willing to make.

“The ‘Russian art of the deal’ is selling Russian demands as Russian concessions to the Americans, and then demand sanctions relief on top,” wrote Dr Janis Kluge, a researcher who focuses on the Russian economy at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, a thinktank. “The demand here is that Ukraine is not allowed to attack Russian warships any more and Russia gets to inspect Ukrainian ships.”

Any sanctions relief on Russia will be limited by the readiness of Europe to take similar steps – but Tuesday’s deal still reflects a serious reorientation of the diplomacy around Ukraine and leaves Europe more isolated in restraining Russia.

Ukraine had opposed any rollback on sanctions against the Kremlin. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that he considered it to be a “weakening of our position and the easing of sanctions” against Russia, a position that was not compatible with an “unconditional ceasefire” against energy infrastructure and at sea.

It also appears that either the White House hid the plans to ease sanctions – or US negotiators were themselves surprised by the Russian demand that limits on trade and finance be eased in order to achieve the main deliverable that the White House wants: the ability to declare even a partial ceasefire in Ukraine.

“This wasn’t in the agenda before the meeting,” Zelenskyy said on Tuesday. “The Russians, as far as we know, have raised the issue of the American assistance to transport their agricultural products … We didn’t agree to that so that it would be in our common [statement].”

Zelenskyy sought to sound upbeat during his remarks, and said that at least now Kyiv could appeal to the White House if Russia chose to violate the ceasefire against Ukraine in the coming month. Ukraine could also demand new sanctions against Russia if that happens, he said.

But there are considerable doubts that Trump would be ready to slap further sanctions on Russia. And Steve Witkoff, his envoy, has spent “really a lot of time in dialogue with Putin”, said Zelenskyy, explaining why the White House messaging on the war sounds so much like the Kremlin narrative.

In negotiations, a deal that does not work for both sides will collapse sooner or later. Tuesday’s agreement – and the separate statements that have emerged – will raise further questions of whether the US can mediate a conflict in which it appears to clearly sympathise with the Kremlin.

• A Black Sea maritime security deal aims to bring Moscow back to predictable grain and fertiliser markets that would allow for profit and ensure global food security, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said in remarks published late on Tuesday. “We want the grain and fertiliser market to be predictable, so that no one tries to ‘ward us off’ from it,” Lavrov told the Russian state Channel One television. “Not only because we want … to make a legitimate profit in fair competition, but also because we are concerned about the food security situation in Africa and other countries of the Global South.”

• Russia and Ukraine agreed to “eliminate the use of force” in the Black Sea after parallel talks with US negotiators in Saudi Arabia, though the Kremlin said a maritime ceasefire would start only if it received sanctions relief on agricultural exports. Donald Trump said that the US was reviewing the Russian conditions after the Kremlin insisted it had negotiated concessions with the White House that would mark the first major recision of sanctions since the full-scale invasion of 2022.

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the deals did not require sanctions relief to come into force – which he said would weaken Ukraine’s position – and would come into force immediately. If Russia violated them he would ask Trump to impose additional sanctions on Moscow and provide more weapons for Ukraine, he said. “We have no faith in the Russians, but we will be constructive,” he said.

• The Ukrainian president also said there had been no agreement on an unconditional ceasefire because “the Russians didn’t want it”. He said he believed as the negotiations continued “people will not believe the Russians more and more with every day”.

• Zelenskyy criticised Trump envoy Steve Witkoff, who had said in the run-up to the talks that Russia’s staged referendums in the four Ukrainian regions it partially or completely occupies were legitimate and had demonstrated that “the overwhelming majority” wanted to be “under Russian rule”. The Ukrainian president said Witkoff’s comments “are very much in line with the messages of the Kremlin”, but he added that he hoped that over time the US negotiator and others in the White House would gradually come to see that the Russian leadership was insincere.

• Russia’s foreign ministry said the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant was a Russian facility and transferring control of it to Ukraine or any other country was impossible. Russian forces seized the plant early in the invasion. Donald Trump, during a phone conversation this month with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, suggested the US could help run and possibly own Ukraine’s nuclear power plants, including Zaporizhzhia.

• Estonia’s top diplomat said Russia has gained an upper hand in the ceasefire talks and suggested the US consider a time limit if there is no progress, ahead of a meeting with secretary of state Marco Rubio. Estonian foreign minister Margus Tsahkna and his counterparts from Latvia and Lithuania met jointly on Tuesday in Washington with Rubio as the Baltic nations lead concerns over the new US push on Russia and Ukraine. “Putin has now an upper hand in some ways,” Tsahkna told AFP in an interview late Monday ahead of his talks with Rubio. “The question is now, how long is Trump actually going to give Putin to play the games?” he said.

• A Russian court sentenced on Tuesday a woman to two years’ jail for holding protest signs opposing President Vladimir Putin and the Ukraine conflict, the latest in a series of convictions targeting dissent. Elena Abramova, a translator from the north-western city of St Petersburg, publicly held up placards in 2023 that read “A world without war, a Russia without Putin!” and “Freedom for Navalny! Freedom for all political prisoners”, according to the city’s court service.

• Ukraine’s SBU security service said on Tuesday it had detained a serviceman in the Sumy region it accused of helping Moscow attack Ukrainian troops fighting in Russia’s Kursk region by giving away their location. “While at the front, the ‘mole’ was preparing coordinates for the aggressor’s missile and bomb attacks on the locations of Ukrainian troops,” the SBU alleged on Telegram.

At least 18 people have died and another 19 injured as wildfires ravaged South Korea’s southern regions amid dry weather and strong winds, according to government officials.

Han Duck-soo, South Korea’s prime minister and acting president, said five days of fires had caused “unprecedented damage” and asked agencies tackling the disaster to “assume the worst-case scenario and respond accordingly”, according to Yonhap news agency.

Officials in Andong city and other south-eastern cities and towns ordered residents to evacuate on Tuesday as firefighters struggled to contain multiple blazes fuelled by dry winds, which burned more than 17,400 hectares (43,000 acres) of land and destroyed hundreds of structures, including a 1,300-year-old Buddhist temple.

More than 5,500 people were forced to evacuate from their homes in Andong, the neighbouring counties of Uiseong and Sancheong, and the city of Ulsan, where the fires were the largest, according to South Korea’s ministry of the interior and safety.

South Korean officials earlier on Tuesday had said firefighters had extinguished most of the flames from the largest wildfires in those areas, but the ongoing dry and windy weather caused setbacks and allowed the blazes to spread again.

The Uiseong fire, only 68% contained and exacerbated by strong winds, shows “unimaginable” scale and speed, said Lee Byung-doo, a forest disaster expert at the National Institute of Forest Science.

Climate change is projected to make wildfires more frequent, Lee said. “We have to admit large-scale wildfires are going to increase and prepare more resources and manpower,” he told a local television station.

Nearly 9,000 firefighters, along with more than 130 helicopters and hundreds of vehicles, were deployed to battle the fires, but efforts were partially suspended overnight as the winds strengthened.

Officials in Andong and Uiseong county ordered residents in several villages and those near Andong University to evacuate to safe locations or temporary shelters – including schools and indoor gyms – as a fire that started in Uiseong continued to spread.

The blaze in Uiseong destroyed Gounsa, a Buddhist temple built in the seventh century, according to officials from the Korea Heritage Service. There were no immediate reports of injuries, and some of the temple’s national treasures, including a stone Buddha statue, were evacuated before the fire reached the wooden buildings.

The fire also spread to the nearby coastal town of Yeongdeok, where officials shut down roads and ordered residents of at least four villages to evacuate. The justice ministry did not immediately confirm local reports that it had begun relocating 2,600 inmates from a prison in Cheongsong county, also near Uiseong.

Human-caused climate breakdown is responsible for a higher likelihood of fire and bigger burned areas in southern Europe, northern Eurasia, the US and Australia, with some scientific evidence of increases in southern China.

Climate breakdown has increased the wildfire season by about two weeks on average across the globe.

With Reuters and Associated Press

Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Waltz, said on Tuesday he takes “full responsibility” for the group chat of senior administration officials that inadvertently included a journalist and leaked highly sensitive information about planned airstrikes in Yemen.

Waltz’s comments came one day after Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of the Atlantic, revealed that he was added to a group on Signal, a private messaging app, that included vice-president JD Vance, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, secretary of state Marco Rubio and other high-profile figures discussing “operational details” of planned attacks on the Houthis in Yemen.

Goldberg’s account in the Atlantic suggested Waltz had mistakenly invited him to the chat. The prominent journalist remained in the group undetected as the president’s cabinet members discussed policy and coordinated a wave of bombings, an extraordinary breach that critics said put national security at risk.

When pressed by Fox News’s Laura Ingraham, Waltz accepted responsibility for making the Signal group, though he continued to deflect blame, insulted Goldberg and said he couldn’t explain how the mistake had occurred.

“It’s embarrassing, yes. We’re going to get to the bottom of it,” Waltz said, adding that he was consulting with Elon Musk: “We’ve got the best technical minds looking at how this happened.” When Ingraham asked “what staffer is responsible” for adding Goldberg to the Signal group, Waltz responded: “A staffer wasn’t responsible. I take full responsibility. I built the group. My job is to make sure everything is coordinated.”

When the Fox host asked how Goldberg’s number ended up in the group, Waltz responded: “Have you ever had somebody’s contact that shows their name and then you have somebody else’s number there? … Of course I didn’t see this loser in the group. It looked like someone else. Whether he did it deliberately or it happened in some other technical mean is something we’re trying to figure out.”

Waltz did not offer any evidence for how Goldberg could have “deliberately” ended up in the group.

Earlier in the interview, he said he didn’t know Goldberg or text with him, calling him the “bottom scum of journalists” while criticizing the media for focusing on the controversy.

Although Waltz claimed a staffer was not responsible, Trump appeared to make contradictory remarks in a Newsmax interview, saying: “We believe … somebody that was on the line, with permission, somebody that … worked with Mike Waltz at a lower level, had Goldberg’s number or call through the app, and somehow this guy ended up on the call.” It’s unclear what exactly the president was suggesting, since Goldberg was added to a text chat, not a phone call.

Trump previously defended Waltz, saying he was a “good man” who “learned a lesson”, and also downplayed the incident, saying the leak was “the only glitch in two months, and it turned out not to be a serious one”.

The episode has sparked widespread backlash and ridicule. Mark Warner, vice-chair of the Senate intelligence committee, said on Tuesday the incident was “one more example of the kind of sloppy, careless, incompetent behavior, particularly towards classified information”.

On Monday, the minority leader, Chuck Schumer, called it “one of the most stunning breaches of military intelligence I have read about in a very, very long time”, and Delaware senator Chris Coons said every official in the group had “committed a crime – even if accidentally”.

Goldberg’s story suggested Waltz’s coordination of a “national-security-related action over Signal, may have violated several provisions of the Espionage Act”, noting that Signal was not approved by the US for sharing classified information.

Democratic senators demanded answers from leaders of the US intelligence community on Tuesday on how the top editor of the Atlantic was added to a group chat discussing airstrikes in Yemen, arguing that the “sloppy, careless” leak put national security at risk.

The unusual story broke on Monday, when the Atlantic published a piece by its editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, who said he had been added to the group on the messaging app Signal, and watched as accounts that appeared to match top Trump administration officials, including Vice-President JD Vance and the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, debated and then coordinated a wave of bombings targeting the Houthis in Yemen.

Donald Trump has defended his national security adviser Michael Waltz, who Goldberg said invited him into the group.

Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, and John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, both of whom were also in the group, appeared on Tuesday before the Senate intelligence committee for an annual hearing on threats facing the United States, which Democrats used to accuse them of failing to protect sensitive details of US military operations.

“I think this is one more example of the kind of sloppy, careless, incompetent behavior, particularly towards classified information,” the committee’s vice-chair, Mark Warner, said.

Gabbard, a former congresswoman who has been accused of sympathizing with Russia and other American adversaries, declined to answer many questions about the chat group, initially saying “this is currently under review by the national security council”.

“The discussion that took place in that Signal chat group was a conversation reflecting national security leaders and the vice-president around the president’s objectives,” she later said, while declining to answer if she would have approved details of such a conversation to be revealed publicly, or if she was using a personal or work phone to participate in the group.

Under questioning from Warner, Ratcliffe acknowledged that he was in the group but said the app was approved for use by government officials under the Biden administration and it was loaded on his devices when he became CIA director.

“It is permissible to use to communicate and coordinate for work purposes, provided … that any decisions that are made are also recorded through formal channels,” Ratcliffe said.

“My communications, to be clear, in a Signal message group were entirely permissible and lawful and did not include classified information.”

However, National Public Radio reported on Tuesday that the defense department warned last week not to use Signal because of security issues, even for unclassified information. The warning explained that Russian hacking groups were targeting a feature of the app to gain access to its users’ encrypted conversations.

Another key question was the physical location of Gabbard and of Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, during their participation in the chat – as well as what devices they used, including in Russia.

Flight records and Russian media reports suggest Witkoff, who is also involved in mediating talks between Ukraine and Russia, appears to have been in Moscow during the period of the Signal chat.

For her part, Gabbard admitted during the session that she had also been abroad while the chat group was active. She declined to answer whether she had used a personal or government device to participate, citing a White House review she said was ongoing.

The DNI’s webpage and reports show that Gabbard was on a week-long visit to Japan, Thailand and India during the period in question.

The Democratic senator Michael Bennet took Ratcliffe to task for what he described as his careless approach to cybersecurity. “You’re the CIA director. Why didn’t you call out that [Goldberg] was present on the Signal thread?” Bennet asked.

“This is just a normal day at the CIA, where we chat about this kind of stuff over Signal. In fact, it’s so normal that the last administration left it here for us,” the Colorado senator said.

“This swampiness, this incompetence, this disrespect for our intelligence agencies and the personnel who work for him is entirely unacceptable. It’s an embarrassment. You need to do better.”

The FBI director, Kash Patel, said he had become aware of the leak only the previous evening, and could not say if his agency would investigate.

Republicans generally avoided discussing the Signal chat, or said they would address it in a closed session of the committee. After retaking the majority in the Senate last November, the GOP has quickly confirmed Trump’s cabinet nominees and shown little interest in defying the president.

Near the hearing’s conclusion, the Democratic senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia asked the CIA director if he would agree the leak was a “huge mistake” – to which Ratcliffe replied “no”.

“This is utterly unprofessional. There’s been no apology. There has been no recognition of the gravity of this error,” Ossoff said. “And by the way, we will get the full transcript of this chain and your testimony will be measured carefully against its content.”

Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, has said the inadvertent leak of classified military plans by senior US officials means that allied nations must increasingly “look out for ourselves” as trust frays with a once-close ally.

Speaking a day after it was revealed that a journalist was accidentally included in a group chat discussing airstrikes against Yemeni rebels, Carney said the intelligence blunder was a “serious, serious issue and all lessons must be taken”. He said it would be critical to see “how people react to those mistakes and how they tighten them up”.

Canada is one of the members of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing network, alongside Australia, New Zealand and the UK and the leak of classified information is likely to put further strain on the group as it weighs how seriously the current American administration takes the handling of top secret information.

The revelations came as Canada grapples with a rapidly deteriorating relationship with the United States, its largest trading partner and closest military ally.

“My responsibility is to plan for the worst, is to think about the most difficult evolution of the new threat environment, what it means for Canada and how do we best protect Canada,” Carney said during a campaign stop on Tuesday. The prime minister called a snap election on Sunday.

“Part of that response is to be more and more Canadian in our defence capabilities, more and more Canadian in our decisions … We have to look out for ourselves.”

Asked about the incident on Tuesday, the UK’s armed forces minister, Luke Pollard, told the Commons Defence Committee that no British service personnel had been put at risk as a result.

He added: “All UK service personnel are covered by our normal approach to operational security, and the committee will understand that I won’t go into the details of how we keep our involvement in any support for military operations in the Red Sea or anywhere else [secure].

“But we’ve got high confidence that the measures that we have got with our allies, including the United States, remain intact.”

A spokesperson for Prime Minister Keir Starmer spoke at length at a briefing about the contribution the UK makes to joint military operations with the Americans. However, the spokesperson refused to directly criticise the two figures who were most critical of Europe’s record on defence, JD Vance, the vice-president, and Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary. The spokesperson also insisted that the UK remains happy to share intelligence with the US despite the leak.

The government of New Zealand declined to comment on the matter. When asked by the Guardian if the security breach had raised concerns about the sharing of sensitive intel with Trump’s administration, the offices for New Zealand’s prime minister, Christopher Luxon, and the minister for defence, Judith Collins, said the situation was “a matter for the US administration”.

Behind closed doors, senior government officials would likely be discussing the risks of sharing intelligence with the US, amid what could be viewed as a lowering of protocol standards, but the breach would not be a dealbreaker, said Andrew Little, whose ministerial roles covered security, intelligence and defence under New Zealand’s last Labour government.

“Our relationship transcends individual administrations and individual political leaders. There will be things that – like everybody – members of this government, will be looking askance at. But I think it’s about managing the relationship in the long run,” Little said.

So far, New Zealand has been managing its US relationship responsibly, Little said, but it was now “a relationship that requires constant vigilance”.

Robert Patman, a professor at the University of Otago in Dunedin who specialises in international relations, called the security breach “extraordinary” and “cavalier”. “It does confirm what many of us felt, that Mr Trump has picked people according to loyalty, rather than competence, and this was almost a perfect storm waiting to happen,” Patman said.

But the wider issue for New Zealand and other Five Eyes countries was knowing how to respond to the Trump administration’s “radical departure” from the rules-based order, which included making territorial claims against liberal democracies and siding with Russian president Vladimir Putin over negotiations in Ukraine.

“We should be friendly towards the Trump administration where our interests converge, but this administration is doing things which are fundamentally a challenge to [New Zealand’s] national interests.”

In Australia, the department of foreign affairs and trade said: “This incident is a matter for the United States. Australia and the United States engage regularly on implementation of mutually recognised standards for the protection of classified material.”

Ben Doherty contributed additional reporting

The Duke of Sussex has resigned from an African charity he set up 20 years ago after infighting in the organisation, saying he is “in shock” and “truly heartbroken”.

Prince Harry and the co-founder Prince Seeiso of Lesotho both stepped down as patrons on Tuesday until further notice after trustees quit over a dispute with the chair, Dr Sophie Chandauka, a lawyer who was appointed in 2023.

The Duke established Sentebale in Lesotho in 2006 in honour of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, after visiting the southern African country during his gap year. The dispute arose around a decision to focus fundraising in Africa, according to the Times.

Harry and Seeiso said in a statement: “These trustees acted in the best interest of the charity in asking the chair to step down, while keeping the wellbeing of staff in mind. In turn, she sued the charity to remain in this voluntary position, further underscoring the broken relationship.

“We thank all the trustees for their service over the years and are truly heartbroken they’ve had to follow through with this act.

“What’s transpired is unthinkable. We are in shock that we have to do this, but we have a continued responsibility to Sentebale’s beneficiaries, so we will be sharing all of our concerns with the Charity Commission as to how this came about.”

Sentebale, which means “Forget me not”, was created to help people in Lesotho and Botswana living in poverty and those suffering from HIV and Aids. Former trustees Timothy Boucher, Mark Dyer, Audrey Kgosidintsi, Kelello Lerotholi and Damian West released a statement announcing their decision to unanimously resign as board members.

“Today’s decision is nothing short of devastating for all of us, but we see no other path forward as the result of our loss in trust and confidence in the chair of the board.”

A spokesperson for the charity said it has not received resignations from either royal patron, adding: “We are pleased to confirm the restructuring of our board on 25 March 2025 to introduce experts with the capabilities and networks to accelerate Sentebale’s transformation agenda as announced last year.”

In response, Chandauka said: “Everything I do at Sentebale is in pursuit of the integrity of the organisation, its mission, and the young people we serve. My actions are guided by the principles of fairness and equitable treatment for all, regardless of social status or financial means.

“There are people in this world who behave as though they are above the law and mistreat people, and then play the victim card and use the very press they disdain to harm people who have the courage to challenge their conduct.

“Discerning readers will ask themselves: why would the chair of the board report her own trustees to the Charity Commission? Why would the high court of England and Wales hear her case and issue an emergency injunction to prevent the same trustees from removing her as the chair of the board?

“Well, because beneath all the victim narrative and fiction that has been syndicated to press is the story of a woman who dared to blow the whistle about issues of poor governance, weak executive management, abuse of power, bullying, harassment, misogyny, misogynoir – and the cover-up that ensued.”

The Duke of Sussex has resigned from an African charity he set up 20 years ago after infighting in the organisation, saying he is “in shock” and “truly heartbroken”.

Prince Harry and the co-founder Prince Seeiso of Lesotho both stepped down as patrons on Tuesday until further notice after trustees quit over a dispute with the chair, Dr Sophie Chandauka, a lawyer who was appointed in 2023.

The Duke established Sentebale in Lesotho in 2006 in honour of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, after visiting the southern African country during his gap year. The dispute arose around a decision to focus fundraising in Africa, according to the Times.

Harry and Seeiso said in a statement: “These trustees acted in the best interest of the charity in asking the chair to step down, while keeping the wellbeing of staff in mind. In turn, she sued the charity to remain in this voluntary position, further underscoring the broken relationship.

“We thank all the trustees for their service over the years and are truly heartbroken they’ve had to follow through with this act.

“What’s transpired is unthinkable. We are in shock that we have to do this, but we have a continued responsibility to Sentebale’s beneficiaries, so we will be sharing all of our concerns with the Charity Commission as to how this came about.”

Sentebale, which means “Forget me not”, was created to help people in Lesotho and Botswana living in poverty and those suffering from HIV and Aids. Former trustees Timothy Boucher, Mark Dyer, Audrey Kgosidintsi, Kelello Lerotholi and Damian West released a statement announcing their decision to unanimously resign as board members.

“Today’s decision is nothing short of devastating for all of us, but we see no other path forward as the result of our loss in trust and confidence in the chair of the board.”

A spokesperson for the charity said it has not received resignations from either royal patron, adding: “We are pleased to confirm the restructuring of our board on 25 March 2025 to introduce experts with the capabilities and networks to accelerate Sentebale’s transformation agenda as announced last year.”

In response, Chandauka said: “Everything I do at Sentebale is in pursuit of the integrity of the organisation, its mission, and the young people we serve. My actions are guided by the principles of fairness and equitable treatment for all, regardless of social status or financial means.

“There are people in this world who behave as though they are above the law and mistreat people, and then play the victim card and use the very press they disdain to harm people who have the courage to challenge their conduct.

“Discerning readers will ask themselves: why would the chair of the board report her own trustees to the Charity Commission? Why would the high court of England and Wales hear her case and issue an emergency injunction to prevent the same trustees from removing her as the chair of the board?

“Well, because beneath all the victim narrative and fiction that has been syndicated to press is the story of a woman who dared to blow the whistle about issues of poor governance, weak executive management, abuse of power, bullying, harassment, misogyny, misogynoir – and the cover-up that ensued.”

An Oscar-winning Palestinian director who was attacked by Jewish settlers and detained by Israeli forces has been released from detention.

Hamdan Ballal and two other Palestinians left a police station in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba, where they were being held on Tuesday. Ballal had bruises on his face and blood on his clothes.

The three had spent the night on the floor of a military base while suffering from serious injuries sustained in the attack, according to Ballal’s lawyer, Lea Tsemel.

Ballal told reporters that the settlers beat him in front of his home and filmed the assault. He said he was held at an army base, blindfolded, for 24 hours and forced to sleep under a freezing air conditioner.

“All my body is pain,” he told the Associated Press. “I heard the voices of the soldiers, they were laughing about me … I heard ‘Oscar’ but I didn’t speak Hebrew.”

Tsemel, representing the three men, said they received only minimal care for their injuries from the attack and said she had no access to them for several hours after their arrest.

Earlier this month Ballal and the other directors of No Other Land, which looks at the struggles of living under Israeli occupation, appeared on stage at the 97th Academy Awards in Los Angeles to accept the award for best documentary film.

Tsemel said Ballal and the other detained people had been accused of throwing stones at a young settler. They deny the allegations.

All three Palestinians were driven to a hospital in the city of Hebron.

The film’s co-director Yuval Abraham posted on X: ‘‘After the assault, Hamdan was handcuffed and blindfolded all night in an army base while two soldiers beat him up on the floor, his lawyer Leah Tsemel said after speaking with him just now.’’

Palestinian residents said about two dozen settlers – some masked, some carrying guns and some in military uniforms – attacked the West Bank village of Susya on Monday evening as residents were breaking their Ramadan fast.

Soldiers who arrived pointed their guns at the Palestinians, while settlers continued throwing stones, they said.

The Israeli military said on Monday it had detained three Palestinians suspected of hurling rocks at forces and one Israeli civilian involved in “a violent confrontation”. On Tuesday, it referred further queries to police, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Lamia Ballal, the director’s wife, said she heard her husband being beaten outside their home as she huddled inside with their three children. She heard him screaming, “I’m dying!” and calling for an ambulance. When she looked out the window, she saw three men in uniform beating Ballal with the butts of their rifles and another person in civilian clothes who appeared to be filming the violence.

“Of course, after the Oscar, they have come to attack us more,” Lamia said. “I felt afraid.”

West Bank settlers are often armed and sometimes wear military-style clothing that makes it difficult to distinguish them from soldiers.

On Tuesday, a small bloodstain could be seen outside their home, and the car’s windshield and windows were shattered. Neighbours pointed to a nearby water tank with a hole in the side that they said had been damaged by the settlers.

Witnesses and residents in Susya said one of the settlers who took part in the attack, from the outpost “Ancient Susya”, has participated ‘‘since 7 October in dozens of events in which Palestinians were attacked, expelled from their land, or had their property damaged. In many of these events, he was also documented wearing military uniform or accompanied by others in uniform”.

Abraham posted a video on X showing one of the masked settlers throwing a stone at what appeared to be a CCTV camera. He wrote: ‘‘The group of armed KKK-like masked settlers that lynched No Other Land director Hamdan Ballal caught here on camera.’’

He added: ‘‘Hamdan Ballal is now free and is about to go home to his family.”

No Other Land, which won the Oscar this year for best documentary, chronicles the struggle by residents of the Masafer Yatta area to stop the Israeli military from demolishing their villages.

The joint Israeli-Palestinian production has won a string of international awards, starting at the Berlin International film festival in 2024. It has also drawn ire in Israel and abroad. Miami Beach in Florida proposed ending the lease of a movie theatre that screened it.

Basel Adra, another of the film’s co-directors who is a prominent Palestinian activist in the area, said there had been a massive increase in attacks by settlers and Israeli forces since the Oscar win.

“Nobody can do anything to stop the pogroms, and soldiers are only there to facilitate and help the attacks,” he said. “We’re living in dark days here, in Gaza, and all of the West Bank … Nobody’s stopping this.”

Masked settlers with sticks also attacked Jewish activists in the area on Monday, smashing their car windows and slashing tyres, according to Josh Kimelman, an activist with the Center for Jewish Nonviolence. Video provided by the group showed a masked settler shoving and swinging his fists at two activists in a dusty field at night.

Israel captured the West Bank in the six-day war in 1967 , along with the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. The Palestinians want all three for their future state and view settlement growth as a major obstacle to a two-state solution. Most of the international community considers the settlements illegal.

Israel has built well over 100 settlements, home to more than 500,000 settlers who have Israeli citizenship. The 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the western-backed Palestinian Authority administering population centres.

The Israeli military designated Masafer Yatta in the southern West Bank as a live-fire training zone in the 1980s and ordered residents, mostly Arab Bedouin, to be expelled. About 1,000 residents have largely remained in place, but soldiers regularly move in to demolish homes, tents, water tanks and olive groves – and Palestinians fear outright expulsion could come at any time.

The Palestinians also face threats from settlers at nearby outposts. Palestinians and rights groups say Israeli forces usually turn a blind eye to settler attacks or intervene on behalf of the settlers.

The war in Gaza has brought a surge of violence in the West Bank, with the Israeli military carrying out widespread military operations that have killed hundreds of Palestinians and displaced tens of thousands. There has been a rise in settler violence as well as Palestinian attacks on Israelis.

A prosecutor in Istanbul has remanded eight journalists in custody, reversing a decision to release them after they were arrested for covering Turkey’s largest anti-government protests in years.

The journalists were among 10 arrested in dawn raids on their homes earlier this week. An Istanbul court initially ruled the journalists should be released before reversing the decision and issuing an official arrest order, according to their lawyers and representatives.

Among the detained are Yasin Akgül of Agence France-Presse and the former AFP photojournalist Bülent Kılıç, who was named Guardian agency photographer of the year in 2014 for his coverage of Ukraine, events on the Turkish border with Syria and the deadly crash of flight MH17.

They were held after photographing mass anti-government demonstrations that have swept Turkey for the first time in years, prompted by the arrest of Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu last week. More than 1,400 people have been arrested in connection with the protests.

The journalists were all charged with “taking part in illegal rallies and marches and failing to disperse despite warnings”, court documents showed.

Akgül’s arrest drew a sharp rebuke by AFP chairman Fabrice Fries, who said his detention was “unacceptable”.

“This is why I am asking you to intervene as quickly as possible to obtain the rapid release of our journalist,” Fries said in a letter addressed to the Turkish presidency.

“Yasin Akgül was not part of the protest,” he wrote. “It is the job of a photographer to be where the events are occurring, including getting between protesters and the forces of order.”

The court decision was also slammed as “scandalous” by Reporters Without Borders, with the Turkish Photojournalists Union denouncing it as “unlawful, unconscionable and unacceptable”.

İmamoğlu is a longstanding rival of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and the lone candidate seen as capable of challenging him at the ballot box in an upcoming election. On the same day that İmamoğlu was sent to a high-security facility on the edge of Istanbul, he was also nominated as a presidential candidate by his opposition Republican People’s party.

Demonstrations that began outside Istanbul city hall have quickly grown, with tens of thousands gathering each night to vent their frustration at decades of rule by Erdoğan and his Justice and Development party (AKP).

The protests have drawn an increasingly fierce response by the Turkish authorities. Turkish interior minister Ali Yerlikaya said 1,418 people have been arrested in connection with demonstrations in the past week.

“While there are currently 979 suspects in custody, 478 people will be brought to court today,” he said. “No concessions will be made to those who attempt to terrorise the streets, to attack our national and moral values, and our police officers.”

Meanwhile, Erol Önderoğlu, of Reporters Without Borders, told AFP: “This is the first time that a clearly identified journalist has, in the exercise of his duties, been formally arrested on the basis of this law against gatherings and demonstrations.”

Turkish media expert Emre Kızılkaya, of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, said that while journalists are frequently detained in Turkey, an official request from prosecutors to arrest journalists and therefore keep them detained is extremely rare.

“I think one of the reasons is that these are photojournalists with an international profile,” he said. “Six of these journalists were detained in Istanbul for violating a law on public demonstrations.”

He added that the arrests showed journalists were not protected from covering demonstrations, despite attending the protests in a professional capacity.

“The authorities ignore that this is a constitutionally protected right, saying that the Istanbul governorate banned demonstrations and the journalists were present. Being there is enough,” said Kızılkaya.

Block, Jack Dorsey’s financial technology company, plans to let go almost 1,000 current employees, while making other changes to its operations in its second such move in just over a year.

Dorsey, who co-founded and previously ran Twitter before co-founding Block in 2009, informed employees of the impending cuts on Tuesday in an email, viewed by the Guardian, titled “smaller block”. The layoffs will impact more than 930 employees, with another nearly 200 managers being moved into non-management roles, and another nearly 800 open jobs will be closed, according to the email.

Block now operates payment platforms Square and Afterpay, the money transfer app CashApp, and the music streaming service Tidal.

Dorsey wrote in the email that the layoffs and other changes to staffing and organization are not being implemented with the intention of hitting “a specific financial target, replacing folks with AI, or changing our headcount cap”. As part of an earlier reorganization that began in early 2024 and also saw roughly 1,000 Block employees lose their jobs, Dorsey implemented a headcount maximum of 12,000 employees.

Instead, Dorsey wrote that this additional reorganization is about “raising the bar and acting faster on performance, and flattening our org so we can move fast and with less abstraction”, according to the email. Last year Dorsey struck a similar tone in notifying staffers of layoffs, saying the company needed to “build like a startup again”.

In Tuesday’s email, Dorsey added that he was enacting cuts to staff and management levels and closing open jobs all at once, instead of over time, because “we’re behind in our actions, and that’s not fair to the individual or the company.”

Block’s stock is down 29% this year so far. Its revenue and profits have grown less over the last year, creating shareholder concern, even as Dorsey has taken back more operating control during that time. Dorsey noted in his email that part of his job is to increase the company’s stock value and that this reorganization “will help us focus and execute better to do just that”.

“When we know, we should move, and there hasn’t been enough movement,” the CEO wrote. “And we need to move faster to stay ahead of the transformational moment our industry is in, so we’re able to continue increasing access, openness and automation.”

A spokesperson for Block did not respond to calls and email seeking comment.

Block, Jack Dorsey’s financial technology company, plans to let go almost 1,000 current employees, while making other changes to its operations in its second such move in just over a year.

Dorsey, who co-founded and previously ran Twitter before co-founding Block in 2009, informed employees of the impending cuts on Tuesday in an email, viewed by the Guardian, titled “smaller block”. The layoffs will impact more than 930 employees, with another nearly 200 managers being moved into non-management roles, and another nearly 800 open jobs will be closed, according to the email.

Block now operates payment platforms Square and Afterpay, the money transfer app CashApp, and the music streaming service Tidal.

Dorsey wrote in the email that the layoffs and other changes to staffing and organization are not being implemented with the intention of hitting “a specific financial target, replacing folks with AI, or changing our headcount cap”. As part of an earlier reorganization that began in early 2024 and also saw roughly 1,000 Block employees lose their jobs, Dorsey implemented a headcount maximum of 12,000 employees.

Instead, Dorsey wrote that this additional reorganization is about “raising the bar and acting faster on performance, and flattening our org so we can move fast and with less abstraction”, according to the email. Last year Dorsey struck a similar tone in notifying staffers of layoffs, saying the company needed to “build like a startup again”.

In Tuesday’s email, Dorsey added that he was enacting cuts to staff and management levels and closing open jobs all at once, instead of over time, because “we’re behind in our actions, and that’s not fair to the individual or the company.”

Block’s stock is down 29% this year so far. Its revenue and profits have grown less over the last year, creating shareholder concern, even as Dorsey has taken back more operating control during that time. Dorsey noted in his email that part of his job is to increase the company’s stock value and that this reorganization “will help us focus and execute better to do just that”.

“When we know, we should move, and there hasn’t been enough movement,” the CEO wrote. “And we need to move faster to stay ahead of the transformational moment our industry is in, so we’re able to continue increasing access, openness and automation.”

A spokesperson for Block did not respond to calls and email seeking comment.

Hundreds of Palestinians have joined protests in northern Gaza, shouting anti-Hamas slogans and calling for an end to the war with Israel, in what has been described as the largest protest against the militant group inside the territory since the 7 October attacks.

Videos and photos shared on social media late on Tuesday showed hundreds of people, mostly men, chanting “Hamas out” and “Hamas terrorists” in Beit Lahia, where the crowd had gathered a week after the Israeli army resumed its intense bombing of Gaza after nearly two months of a truce.

The protests took place in front of the Indonesian hospital in the northern part of the Gaza Strip.

Some protesters were seen carrying banners emblazoned with slogans including “Stop the war” and “We want to live in peace”.

At least one appeal to join the protest was circulating on the social media network Telegram.

“I don’t know who organised the protest,” one man told Agence France-Press. “I took part to send a message on behalf of the people: Enough with the war,” he said, adding that he had seen “members of the Hamas security forces in civilian clothing breaking up the protest”.

Majdi, another protester who did not wish to give his full name, said the “people are tired”.

“If Hamas leaving power in Gaza is the solution, why doesn’t Hamas give up power to protect the people?” he told AFP.

Separate clips showed dozens of people in Jabalia refugee camps, in the western part of Gaza City, burning tyres and calling for the war to end.

“We want to eat,” they chanted.

Some Gaza residents said the protests could spread to other parts of the war-torn territory, whose inhabitants are exhausted and traumatised after a year and a half of conflict.

Since Hamas launched its attacks on southern Israel on 7 October, modest protests have occasionally broken out in Gaza, with demonstrators demanding an end to the war.

Many of the slogans chanted on Tuesday evoked the Bidna N’eesh (‘We Want to Live’) movement, which emerged during the 2019 Gaza economic protests. Those protests were violently suppressed by Hamas, which said they were orchestrated by its rival, Fatah.

Israel regularly calls for people in Gaza to mobilise against Hamas, which has been in power in the territory since 2007.

The Gaza Strip has been devastated by more than 17 months of war between Israel and Hamas, with the humanitarian situation again deteriorating after Israel blocked the passage of aid into the territory on 2 March in an attempt to force the militants to release Israeli hostages.

Since Israel resumed its military operations in Gaza, at least 792 Palestinians have been killed, according to the health ministry.

The war was sparked by the militant group’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 50,021 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry.

AFP contributed to this report

Heavy users of ChatGPT tend to be lonelier, more emotionally dependent on the AI tool and have fewer offline social relationships, new research suggests.

Only a small number of users engage emotionally with ChatGPT, but those who do are among the heaviest users, according to a pair of studies from OpenAI and the MIT Media Lab.

The researchers wrote that the users who engaged in the most emotionally expressive personal conversations with the chatbots tended to experience higher loneliness – though it isn’t clear if this is caused by the chatbot or because lonely people are seeking emotional bonds.

While the researchers have stressed that the studies are preliminary, they ask pressing questions about how AI chatbot tools, which according to OpenAI is used by more than 400 million people a week, are influencing people’s offline lives.

The researchers, who plan to submit both studies to peer-reviewed journals, found that participants who “bonded” with ChatGPT – typically in the top 10% for time spent with the tool – were more likely than others to be lonely, and to rely on it more.

The researchers established a complex picture in terms of the impact. Voice-based chatbots initially appeared to help mitigate loneliness compared with text-based chatbots, but this advantage started to slip the more someone used them.

After using the chatbot for four weeks, female study participants were slightly less likely to socialise with people than their male counterparts. Participants who interacted with ChatGPT’s voice mode in a gender that was not their own for their interactions reported significantly higher levels of loneliness and more emotional dependency on the chatbot at the end of the experiment.

In the first study, the researchers analysed real-world data from close to 40m interactions with ChatGPT, and then asked the 4,076 users who had those interactions how they felt.

For the second study, the Media Lab recruited almost 1,000 people to take part in a four-week trial examining how participants interacted with ChatGPT for a minimum of five minutes each day. Participants then completed a questionnaire to measure their feelings of loneliness, levels of social engagement, and emotional dependence on the bot.

The findings echo earlier research, for example in 2023 MIT Media Lab researchers found that chatbots tended to mirror the emotional sentiment of a user’s messages – happier messages led to happier responses.

Dr Andrew Rogoyski, a director at the Surrey Institute for People-Centred Artificial Intelligence, said that because peoplewere hard-wired to to think of a machine behaving in human-like ways as a human, AI chatbots could be “dangerous”, and far more research was needed to understand their social and emotional impacts.

“In my opinion, we are doing open-brain surgery on humans, poking around with our basic emotional wiring with no idea of the long-term consequences. We’ve seen some of the downsides of social media – this is potentially much more far-reaching,” he said.

Dr Theodore Cosco, a researcher at the University of Oxford, said the research raised “valid concerns about heavy chatbot usage”, though he noted it “opens the door to exciting and encouraging possibilities”.

“The idea that AI systems can offer meaningful support — particularly for those who may otherwise feel isolated — is worth exploring. However, we must be thoughtful and intentional in how we integrate these tools into everyday life.”

Dr Doris Dippold, who researches intercultural communication at the University of Surrey, said it would be important to establish what caused emotional dependence on chatbots. “Are they caused by the fact that chatting to a bot ties users to a laptop or a phone and therefore removes them from authentic social interaction? Or is it the social interaction, courtesy of ChatGPT or another digital companion, which makes people crave more?”

The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, has described another threatening letter sent to an exiled Hong Kong dissident in Australia as “reprehensible”, a “threat to our national sovereignty” and “the safety and security of Australians”.

The anonymous letter, mailed from Hong Kong and sent to Ted Hui’s Adelaide office, offered his colleagues $203,000 for information on his whereabouts and his family. It arrived just days after China’s foreign ministry accused the Albanese government of interfering with its internal affairs.

The letter, which contained a picture of Hui and personal details, claimed he was a “wanted person” for a “range of national security related offences including incitement to secession” and “collusion with a foreign country”. It is now being investigated by Australian federal police.

The letter also accuses Hui, who fled to Australia via Europe in 2019, of leaving Hong Kong with $3m in proceeds of crime. Hui, who was a pro-democracy legislator in Hong Kong, denies that claim and says it is “fictitious”.

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Last week, Guardian Australia revealed a fake pamphlet pretending to be from Hui’s law firm was sent to mosques, falsely claiming he was a pro-Israel lawyer willing to “wage war” against Islamic terrorism. The letter was mailed from Macau. The Coalition criticised the letter as “a crude attempt to weaponise antisemitism for the purposes of foreign interference”.

An anonymous letter very similar to the one delivered to Hui’s workplace was sent to some Melbourne residents earlier this month, offering a bounty if they informed on Australian citizen and pro-democracy activist Kevin Yam.

A spokesperson for Wong escalated the Albanese government’s condemnation of the letters on Wednesday and said the matter would be directly raised with Chinese officials.

“Continued attempts to target individuals in Australia are reprehensible and threaten our national sovereignty, as well as the safety and security of Australians,” the spokesperson said.

“Australia will not tolerate the targeting, surveillance, harassment or intimidation of any person in Australia by a foreign government.

“The Australian government and our security agencies are acting to keep Australians safe, protect their democratic rights, and support affected individuals and communities.”

When Wong first raised concerns about the letters earlier this month, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Mao Ning, accused the Australian government of unacceptable interference in its domestic affairs.

“Australia blatantly interfered in Hong Kong’s rule of law,” Ning said. “China strongly deplores and firmly opposes it.

“We urge Australia to respect China’s sovereignty and rule of law in Hong Kong to foster good conditions and atmosphere for sustainable development of China-Australia relations.”

Hui said the letter sent to his workplace “listed my personal information, the address of the law firm, and a residential address in Adelaide that is not connected to me”.

He said he was sharing the letter “to tell the Hong Kong Communist party that I am not afraid”.

“The more you press, the higher my profile,’ Hui said. “I will continue to speak out for freedom in Hong Kong. Of course, I will also be careful to protect my family.

“I have informed the Australian foreign minister’s office and the federal police are in close contact with the Australian government.

“The federal police have informed me they will meet with me to take statements, conduct evidence searches, trace the source of the letters and try their best to keep me and my family safe.”

When the letters were first revealed, a Hong Kong government spokesperson said it would “not issue any anonymous letters” but said it would “take every measure” to pursue wanted people, including “cutting off their funding sources”.

It is not known who sent the letters but its language matches a public appeals notice published on the Hong Kong police force’s official website. A UK phone number included at the bottom of both letters has also been linked to the Hong Kong police force, which was contacted for comment last week.

Hui and Yam are wanted by Hong Kong authorities for allegedly breaching a controversial national security law that grants authorities sweeping extraterritorial powers to prosecute acts or comments made anywhere in the world that it deems criminal.

In 2022, Hui was convicted in absentia for his role in pro-democracy protests during 2019 and sentenced to three-and-a-half years in jail. Hong Kong authorities have accused him of “foreign collusion” in social media posts seeking international support for Hong Kong under its national security law.

A miniature dachshund that went missing 16 months ago on Kangaroo Island in South Australia has been spotted alive and well – but continues to evade a team of volunteer searchers and wildlife experts who say they are “amazed” the dog survived for so long in the wild.

Valerie weighed less than 4kg, had a pink collar and “would never leave [the] side” of her owner, Georgia Gardner, before she went missing in November 2023.

Gardner said that she and her partner, Josh Fishlock, from Albury in New South Wales, were holidaying on the island, famous for its native wildlife, when Valerie escaped from her pen at their campsite at Stokes Bay before running into the scrub.

Despite initial sightings and the couple searching for a week with the help of Kangaroo Island locals, Valerie was not seen again – until recent months.

About a year after she first went missing, the couple heard via social media that Valerie had been spotted on the island. Kangala Wildlife Rescue then volunteered its services towards Valerie’s search.

“Based on first-hand accounts and video evidence we now know that Valerie is alive,” Kangala Wildlife Rescue wrote on its Facebook page last week. “She runs at the first sign of humans or vehicles and despite the best efforts of dedicated Island locals, Valerie has been impossible to catch.”

The dog was last seen 15km from where she went missing, according to the organisation.

It has now set up and is monitoring a series of traps set with cameras in an attempt to coax the tiny dog out of a very large search area, Gardner told Guardian Australia.

She said she and Fishlock were in disbelief when they were given the news that Valerie had been spotted alive.

“It’s been so crazy. Even with the really recent sightings, we were both just like, ‘No, don’t get your hopes up’.” she said.

“But, especially with the photograph that we got sent and with the confidence in Kangala Wildlife Rescue, now we’re just starting to edge to more like, ‘OK, how are we going to get to the island if we have to pick her up?’”

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Valerie’s apparent survival skills were “incredible” – and unexpected – she said.

“We thought, instead of her surviving out in the wild, maybe someone had kind of adopted her or she was hanging out with some other dogs and getting their food, because she was an absolute little princess.

“She never left my side. She was not a very outside, rough-and-tough dog. To think that she even went one night outside in the rain, oh my gosh. To think that she’s gone a year and a half is incredible.”

A director of Kangala, Jared Karran, told the Adelaide Advertiser he was “amazed” that Valerie had survived the wilderness and suspected she had lived on a diet of roadkill and dam water.

Some experts suggested Valerie may have received help from people on the island, but Paul McGreevy of the University of Sydney’s veterinary school said dachshunds, like all dogs, were “extremely resourceful”.

“Dogs are the greatest opportunists in the animal kingdom: that’s one of their core skills,” he said.

To survive, Valerie needed water, shelter in the winter and food, he said.

While not adapted to the Australian bush, mini dachshunds were well disposed to finding food on the ground, McGreevy said.

“Hypothetically, she could eat birds, frogs and mice but it’s more likely she was eating carrion. And, unfortunately, the reality is that dogs are opportunists and they will eat faecal material.

“If a human had been keeping Valerie alive, why hadn’t they spotted she was wearing a pink collar and so probably was being missed by someone?”

In Australia, the vast majority of “wild dogs” are in fact native dingos or dingo hybrids. Wild dog control is estimated to cost the economy $302m annually.