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US concerned Russian campaign against Baltics could ‘spark into something bigger’, says Rubio – Europe live

Rubio also gets asked about Russia’s repeated allegations against the Baltics with Moscow suggesting – despite repeated strong denials – that they are preparing to work with Ukraine to launch drone attacks against Russia. He said it was “concerning” as “you always worry about escalation.” “We understand these countries feel threatened by it, obviously, for obvious reasons. So, it’s a concerning thing, because you always worry that something like that can spark into something bigger, and that’s always a possibility.” He says the US is “watching it carefully” and “engaged” with Nato on this point. “We’re concerned about it, because we don’t want it to lead to some broader conflict that can really lead to something far worse.” And that ends the briefing.

‘We will not survive’: jailing of Daria Egereva highlights plight of Russia’s Indigenous people

The operation began at 9am Moscow time, but took place across all of Russia’s 11 time zones. Almost simultaneously, agents of the federal security service (FSB) raided the homes and workplaces of 17 Indigenous rights activists. Officers carried out searches, confiscated laptops and phones, and arrested and interrogated activists about participation in international forums. Most were let go; many have since left the country. Others remain in Russia, but will no longer speak up. Six months later, one remains in jail. Daria Egereva, one of Russia’s foremost Indigenous rights activists, is accused of membership of a terror group. No trial date has been set. Her supporters say the charges are fabricated and she has been targeted for speaking out. Egereva was not just any activist. A member of the Selkup indigenous group, from western Siberia, she was a “bright star” of Russia’s indigenous rights movement. As a member of the UN’s Indigenous Peoples’ Coordinating Body, she had international status. Weeks before her arrest, she had played a key role at Cop30 in Brazil as co-chair of the Indigenous People’s Forum on Climate Change. Her jailing has shone a spotlight on the plight of Russia’s Indigenous people, threatened by authoritarianism, extractivism and climate breakdown. “They are really seeing the worst effects of climate change,” said Alicia Moncada, director of global advocacy at Cultural Survival, which campaigns for Indigenous rights. “They are on the frontline of the frontline – that’s why [Egereva’s] advocacy was super important.” The polar north is heating faster than any other part of the planet. In recent decades, temperatures in Arctic regions have risen three to four times faster than the global average. Communities based on permafrost are seeing their world collapse around them. “The elders are saying that nature has stopped trusting us,” said one exiled Indigenous leader, who requested that his name be withheld. “The traditional ways of predicting nature are not working any more.” Many settlements sit next to the banks of rivers and lakes. Due to the melting permafrost, those banks are beginning to crumble. “There is a real threat of destruction for a lot of those villages,” said the leader, who spoke through an interpreter. And the melting ice has brought a new source of tension: newly accessible critical mineral resources. “All these resources of the Russian Federation, a majority of them are located under the lands of Indigenous people: gold, diamonds, oil, gas, coal,” the leader said. “For some people it is a treasure, but for us it is a curse. “Because the companies are coming to our land for those resources and they are pushing us out. Even if they don’t push us out, the environmental situation in those places will become so bad that we are unable to hunt or fish. “One of the elders said that we can adapt to anything, but we will not be able to survive without our land.” Although Indigenous groups maintained their identities, by the end of the Soviet era they lacked independent organisation and relied on the state. Egereva had been part of a new generation of leaders who had encouraged community self-empowerment. But this assertiveness brought them into conflict with the authorities. Even before the war in Ukraine, the Russian state claimed that its enemies were exploiting environmental and indigenous issues. Now, with the war a pretext for a crackdown on civil society, Indigenous people are among those at the sharp end. To date, 830 organisations and 20,813 individuals have been put on the “list of terrorists and extremists”, according to the UN. Among them was Aborigen Forum, a network of Indigenous defenders designated an “extremist organisation” in July 2024. Russian authorities have based their charges against Egereva and her co-defendant, Natalia Leongardt, a civil rights activist, on their involvement with Aborigen. Authorities claim it is part of an anti-state “post-Russia free nations forum”. In a bail hearing on 29 April, Egereva and Leongardt denied being part of any anti-state conspiracy. “I am not familiar with and do not know this organisation,” Egereva told the court. “What we are being accused of is completely untrue … I ask to be allowed to return home and embrace my children.” The court refused to grant them bail, remanding them in custody until at least mid-June. The following day, Russia celebrated a new federal holiday: the “Day of Indigenous Small-Numbered Peoples”. The Russian embassy told the Guardian: “The investigation concerning Daria Egereva is an internal Russian legal matter, conducted in full accordance with Russian law. As proceedings are ongoing, we are not in a position to comment on the specifics of the case. “Russia firmly rejects any allegations of violations of Indigenous people’s rights. Unlike a number of western states – including Britain in its former colonies – Russia has no history of forced assimilation of Indigenous communities. Russian law affords Indigenous peoples special legal protections, guaranteeing their collective and individual rights, cultural identity, and linguistic heritage under the constitution and in line with international norms. “Russia is actively engaged in the international climate agenda, taking account of both the challenges and the economic opportunities emerging in its northern regions – including expanded access to the northern sea route and mineral resources in permafrost zones. All such projects are carried out with the aim of supporting regional development, creating jobs and attracting investment, including for the benefit of Indigenous communities in these areas.”

Flotilla video: Ben-Gvir’s template of televised abuse was honed on Palestinians

Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has made abuse of detained Palestinians something of a macabre calling card, celebrating cruelty publicly and often on video. During his time in office, violence including rape, extreme hunger and humiliation have been normalised in Israeli jails. Rights groups say detention centres have become “torture camps” for Palestinians. Ben-Gvir boasts of presiding over a “prison revolution”, telling lawmakers in 2024: “I am proud that we have changed all of the conditions”. He has repeatedly shared footage of visits where he showcases or participates in abuse. These displays have become normalised in Israel and were largely ignored internationally until this week, when he extended the template of televised mistreatment to foreign activists. More than 400 men and women from 44 countries were intercepted by the Israeli military in international waters as they tried to sail to Gaza with aid supplies. The next day Ben-Gvir posted a video of security forces abusing detainees. It included footage of him waving an Israeli flag and taunting rows of activists who had been forced to kneel with their hands bound and foreheads to the ground. Captioned “Welcome to Israel”, it prompted an immediate and overwhelming flood of condemnation from around the world, including from the leaders of Italy and Canada, foreign ministers across Europe and – perhaps most unusually – the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee. The scale of global outrage pushed the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to issue a public rebuke. Ben-Gvir’s behaviour was “not in line with Israel’s values and norms”, Netanyahu said – although it fits the well-documented track record of his nearly four years in office. Yara Hawari, a co-director of Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network, said on social media: “Ben-Gvir’s video publicising the abuse of captured flotilla activists in Israeli detention should surprise no one – not if you’ve listened to Palestinians for even a fraction of a minute.” Israeli data shows at least 98 Palestinians have died in custody since the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023 and the ensuing war. They include a 17-year-old probably killed by starvation. Israel’s supreme court has repeatedly ordered the government to end food deprivation. Documented abuse of detainees includes an assault and rape filmed on security cameras and reported to police by Israeli medics. Netanyahu described the alleged perpetrators as “heroic” and a failed attempt to prosecute them as “criminal”. The “harrowing and unjustifiable” forms of abuse captured in Ben-Gvir’s video were routinely used against Palestinian prisoners in Israel, from the stress positions to the derogatory filming, said Tal Steiner, the executive director of the Jerusalem-based human rights group HaMoked. “We welcome the international attention to [the abuse of activists] and to Ben-Gvir’s punitive policies generally but must not forget that this is what happens to Palestinians, as well as much worse forms of torture and abuse.” Netanyahu has never criticised extreme abuse of Palestinian detainees and denounced a recent New York Times investigation into rape of Palestinians, including in prisons, as a “blood libel” and threatened to sue the newspaper. His attempt to distance himself from Ben-Gvir’s video appeared designed to deflect global outrage by framing the abuse as an extremist aberration, said Guy Shalev, the executive director of Physicians for Human Rights–Israel. “Crimes are framed as the actions of rogue settlers, abusive prison guards, or soldiers acting outside orders. Systematic violations are thus detached from policymakers and from the Israeli state itself,” Shalev said. “Israel’s legitimacy remains intact, while performative condemnations allow the ‘international community’ to preserve its moral self-image without confronting the structural nature of the violence.” Many countries responded to the mistreatment of their citizens by summoning Israeli ambassadors for a formal dressing down. That measure is unlikely to worry Ben-Gvir, given he is already embroiled in a public slanging match with the Israeli diplomats’ ultimate boss, Gideon Saar. The Israeli foreign minister described the video as a “disgraceful display” that harmed the country. Ben-Gvir hit back by accusing Saar of being soft on “supporters of terror”, adding that Israel had “stopped being a pushover”. There have also been international calls for sanctions against Ben-Gvir over the video. Several countries had already targeted him in this way last year, including the UK, Canada and Australia, citing incitement to violence against Palestinians. Since then, surging attacks in the occupied West Bank have prompted the former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert to call for the international criminal court to intervene “to save the Palestinians and us [Israelis]” from state-backed settler violence. As Israel prepares for elections this autumn, many see Ben-Gvir’s video as early campaign material, designed to appeal to the type of far-right voters who share grim jokes on social media about illegal starvation rations for prisoners, calling them the “Ben-Gvir weight-loss plan”. As polling day approaches, racist rhetoric and actions from Ben-Gvir and other extremist politicians are likely to escalate. Their more mainstream rivals rarely discuss Palestinian rights or the occupation of Palestine. Israel’s closest allies and trading partners have political and financial leverage that can exert real pressure for change inside the country. When Israeli soldiers vandalised a crucifix, and others desecrated a statue of the Virgin Mary in Lebanon, the international community mobilised. Four soldiers responsible for the incidents were jailed for several weeks, and Israel apologised. State-sanctioned abuse of Palestinians has not produced equivalent demands for action. The EU, Israel’s biggest trading partner, has spent more than a year considering proposals to suspend parts of its free trade agreement over violence in occupied Palestine, without progress. Suhad Bishara, the legal director of Adalah, the rights group which represented the flotilla activists, said: “It is deeply telling that strong international condemnations only came after Israeli officials publicly boasted about this abuse. “Statements are not enough: as long as Israel faces no concrete consequences for crossing one red line after another, abuses against Palestinians and international civilians alike will continue to escalate.”

Uranium and control of strait of Hormuz key as talks to end US-Iran war continue

Future control over the strait of Hormuz and a demand from Washington that Tehran export its stockpile of highly enriched uranium remain key stumbling blocks, as Pakistani mediators continued to seek a permanent ceasefire they believe is still within reach between the US and Iran. Meanwhile, Israel and Iran each fear the other is about to launch a surprise attack on its territory while the US president, Donald Trump, continues to insist a fresh assault on Iran is an option available to him. The Pakistani interior minister, Mohsen Naqvi, met the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, for the second time in two days in a bid to secure a breakthrough in talks, and it is still possible that a delayed visit to Tehran by Field Marshal Asim Munir, the commander of the Pakistani army, will signal progress is being made. Munir had been due in Tehran on Thursday, but a lack of progress in the talks postponed his arrival and it may be that Pakistan will try to bring in China as a mediator. Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, is due in Beijing on Saturday. Iran has emphasised it is seeking to postpone all talks on its nuclear program and focus instead on a permanent cessation of hostilities that it hopes will include a phased lifting of US sanctions, unfreezing of frozen Iranian assets, compensation for US-Israeli war damage, and commitments not to resort to force in future. The future management of the strategic strait of Hormuz is a key point of dispute, with Pakistan floating plans for joint control under UN auspices Tehran has also proposed that its recently created Persian Gulf Strait Authority take responsibility for the channel, in which fees would be charged and ships would have to follow instructions from over selected transit routes. The Iranian ambassador to France confirmed that Iran was seeking Oman’s cooperation with the plan. Five Gulf states have written a letter to the International Maritime Authority, a global shipping watchdog, urging merchant and commercial ships not to engage with the PGSA. The list of signatories are Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It does not include Oman, but Oman, which under the proposal would be the authority on the south side of the strait, is wary of Teheran’s proposal. In their letter, the five states warn: “Iran’s purported route should be seen for what it is, an attempt to control traffic through the strait by forcing vessels to use a route within its territorial waters, which can be exploited for monetary gain through the imposition of toll fees. Any understanding or recognition of Iran’s proposed route and PGSA as an alternative would set a dangerous precedent.” At a Nato foreign ministers meeting in Sweden the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio warned: “Iran is trying to create a tolling system. They’re trying to convince Oman… to join them in a tolling system in an international waterway. There is not a country in the world that should accept that.” He again expressed his disappointment at Europe’s refusal to do more to keep the strait open. Meanwhile, analysts argue that much of what US administration officials say about the status of the talks has to be filtered through Washington’s need to massage the global price of oil down. Esmail Baghaei, spokesperson for the Iranian ministry of foreign affairs, told state media: “At this stage, the focus of the negotiations is on ending the war on all fronts, including Lebanon, and the claims made in the media about nuclear issues, including the issue of enriched material or the enrichment debate, are merely media speculation and lack credibility.” Baghaei was referring to speculation that has arisen after Trump’s statements on Thursday when he spoke about Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium. He said: “We will get it. We don’t need it, we don’t want it. We will probably even destroy it after we get it, but we will not let them get it.” Russia has offered to receive the stockpile, but Iran says it will downblend the stockpile inside Iran itself.

Carlo Petrini, Slow Food movement founder, dies aged 76

Carlo Petrini, the journalist who founded the Slow Food movement in protest against the arrival of the first McDonald’s in Italy, has died aged 76. Petrini, who had been diagnosed with prostate cancer in recent years, died in his home town of Bra in northern Italy’s Piedmont region. He had led Slow Food, which since 1986 has campaigned against fast-food culture by promoting sustainability and local cuisine, as president until 2022. A statement from the Slow Food press office said Petrini, who also set up the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, near Bra, was “a visionary leader and public intellectual with a profound commitment to the common good, human relationships and the natural world”. Through his initiatives, Petrini had “brought to life a global movement rooted in the values of good, clean and fair food for all, connecting communities, farmers, food artisans, cooks, activists, and young people across the world”, the statement added. Italy’s president, Sergio Mattarella, led the tributes on Friday. “The death of Carlo Petrini leaves a great void, not only in the world of food and wine science, but also in society as a whole, not just in Italy,” said Mattarella. “His insights and constant advocacy for sustainability, the need to preserve traditions, the enhancement of local cultures and respect for the environment have generated a new awareness of food culture and its production.” Francesco Lollobrigida, the Italian agriculture minister, said “not every person leaves a trace of their passage, but Carlo Petrini did”, while the deputy prime minister Antonio Tajani said Italy had lost “a great ambassador” of its traditions. Petrini and a group of friends established Slow Food in 1986 after widespread protests against the opening of Italy’s first McDonald’s close to the Spanish Steps in central Rome. Petrini and his fellow activists handed out plates of pasta to passersby while shouting: “We don’t want fast food. We want slow food.” The restaurant opened despite the protests, and McDonald’s outlets in Italy now number approximately 800. Still, Slow Food went on to have a huge international impact, and is now active in more than 160 countries. The movement has also had a significant influence in Britain, and Petrini was a friend of King Charles, himself a longstanding champion of organic farming. In February last year, Charles and Queen Camilla hosted an evening celebrating Italian slow food at Highgrove, with the Italian-American actor and foodie Stanley Tucci among the guests. Charles and Camilla also sampled produce from farmers associated with the movement during their state visit to Italy last year. In 2004, Petrini was named a “European hero” by Time magazine, and in January 2008 he was the only Italian included in the Guardian’s list of 50 people who could save the world.

‘Full-on summer heat’: western Europe braces for unusually high temperatures

A large swathe of western Europe is bracing for the first significant heat event of the summer, with temperatures forecast to rise to more than 10C above the norm and new monthly records for May expected to be set in possibly hundreds of places. Temperatures across Portugal, Spain, France and the UK were expected to exceed 30C (86F) on Friday and into next week, reaching 32C in Paris and London and 35C in south-west France, with highs of up to 38C in the Guadiana and Guadalquivir regions of Spain. “Both maximum and minimum temperatures are likely to reach unprecedented levels for the season in multiple regions, particularly the south-west, during a premature heat event that will be intense and last several days,” said Météo-France. The French national weather forecaster said records were almost certain to be set for the highest May temperature recorded in France (30.5C in 2025), and the highest average temperature across the country on a day in May (22.8C in 2017). It said the exceptional temperatures, likely to exceed previous records by three or four degrees in some cities such as Nantes and Brest, were caused by a heat dome, with hot air from Morocco trapped under the high pressure of a powerful anticyclone. Météo-France said the temperatures expected in Brittany in particular were “quite remarkable so early in the pre-summer season”, and likely to exceed existing records by as many as three or more degrees. It said climate breakdown meant that Europe, the world’s fastest-warming continent, could expect such exceptional heat events “more and more often and more and more prematurely, and to be more and more intense”. The Met Office said temperatures in the UK, where “extraordinary” heat health alerts have been issued for the weekend, could reach 33C locally on Monday, exceeding the current highest temperature recorded in May of 32.8C, set in 1944. Parts of the UK could also enter a heatwave, with temperatures exceeding 26C to 28C – depending on the location – for three days. That is unlikely in France, where night-time temperatures must also stay above a certain level for an official heatwave to be declared, or Spain, where temperatures would have to reach high summer levels. In Spain, where temperatures already reached 38C on Thursday, a two-year-old girl died in the north-west region of Galicia after accidentally being left in her father’s car for hours. The state meteorological office, Aemet, said the hot spell was expected to stretch well into next week and could bring record May temperatures. “Full-on summer heat is the phrase that best describes the weather we’ll see across most of Spain over the coming days,” said Aemet spokesperson Rubén del Campo. “Temperatures will be between 5C and 10C above the seasonal average – and 10C above average for the time of year in northern regions. These are the kind of temperatures we normally see in July and August.”

US arms sales to Taiwan on ‘pause’ due to Iran war, says acting navy chief

US arms sales to Taiwan have been “paused” to ensure the US military has enough munitions for its Iran operations, according to Washington’s acting navy secretary, in the latest blow to Taipei after a series of comments by Donald Trump. When asked at a congressional hearing on Thursday about a $14bn (£10.4bn) weapons package awaiting Trump’s signoff for months, Hung Cao said: “Right now we’re doing a pause in order to make sure we have the munitions we need for Epic Fury [the Iran war] – which we have plenty.” Cao added: “We’re just making sure we have everything, then the foreign military sales will continue when the administration deems necessary.” When the US senator Mitch McConnell asked whether he expected the arms sales to Taiwan to be approved eventually, Cao said the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and Pete Hegseth, the Pentagon chief, would make that decision. “Yeah, that’s what’s really distressing,” McConnell said. Concerns are growing over reports that the US has significantly depleted its missile stockpiles since launching its increasingly intractable war against Iran on 28 February, which has since settled into a fragile ceasefire. Responding to Cao’s remarks, Taiwan’s presidential office spokesperson, Karen Kuo, said on Friday that Taipei had received “no information indicating that the US intends to make any adjustments to this arms sale”. But the announcement will be unwelcome news for Taipei, coming a week after Trump met his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in Beijing for a summit in which Washington’s multibillion-dollar weapons packages to Taiwan were high on the agenda. Beijing has repeatedly said it “resolutely opposes” Washington’s arms sales to the island democracy, which it regards as a breakaway province, despite never having ruled it, and has not renounced the use of force to take. During Trump’s visit, Xi issued a stark statement asserting that the US and China “will collide or even conflict” if the Taiwan issue “is not handled well”. Washington maintains an ambiguous stance on whether it would defend Taiwan in an invasion scenario. But under the decades-old Taiwan Relations Act, it is required to provide Taipei with sufficient military equipment to defend itself. While Trump said he made no commitments about Taiwan during his meeting with Xi, he has made several statements in the week since that have cast doubt over the future of Washington’s enduring support for Taipei. In an interview with Fox News while still in Beijing, the US leader described the weapons packages as a “very good negotiating chip”, suggesting he was prepared to break with Washington’s policy that it would not consult China on the matter. Trump also told reporters onboard Air Force One when returning from the Chinese capital that he discussed Taiwan in “great detail” with Xi and would soon “make a determination” on pending weapons packages. The US leader, however, has also said he plans to speak with Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te – a bold move that Taipei has said it is open to, but which would surely provoke a robust response from Beijing. No sitting US president has spoken to Taiwan’s leader since 1979, when Washington shifted diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing. Trump did, however, speak to the then Taiwan president, Tsai Ing-wen, when he was US president-elect in late 2016. Additional reporting by Yu-chen Li