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Zelenskyy chief of staff resigns after property raid by Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies – Europe live

Ahead of peace talks earlier this year, my colleague Pjotr Sauer offered this helpful snap profile of Yermak, describing his unprecedented position at the heart of the Ukrainian government: Andriy Yermak is Ukraine’s presidential chief of staff and widely regarded as the country’s second most powerful figure after the country’s president. A former entertainment lawyer and film producer, Yermak became a close confidant of Zelenskyy during his media career and joined his political team in 2019. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, Yermak has emerged as a central figure in Ukraine’s wartime leadership. He oversees foreign policy, intelligence coordination, and high-level diplomacy, including prisoner exchanges and peace negotiations. His influence is so extensive that he has been dubbed Ukraine’s “Green Cardinal” and “de facto vice-president”. Yermak’s prominence has drawn praise and controversy, with critics accusing him of centralising power. He’s now gone from the administration.

Talks for UK to join EU defence fund collapse in blow to Starmer’s bid to reset relations

Keir Starmer’s bid to reset relations with the EU suffered a major blow on Friday, after negotiations for the UK to join the EU’s flagship €150bn (£131bn) defence fund collapsed. The UK had been pushing to join the EU’s Security Action for Europe (Safe) fund, a low-interest loan scheme that is part of the EU’s drive to boost defence spending by €800bn and rearm the continent, in response to the growing threat from Russia and cooling relations between Donald Trump’s US and the EU. Entrance to the scheme would have enabled the British government to secure a bigger role for its defence firms. In September, France proposed a ceiling on the value of UK-produced military components in the fund. The UK and EU had been expected to sign a technical agreement on Safe after establishing an administrative fee from London. But after months of wrangling, and just days ahead of the 30 November deadline for an agreement, sources said the two sides remained “far apart” on the financial contribution Britain would make, Bloomberg reported. EU officials have suggested an entry fee of up to €6bn, far higher than the administrative fee the government had envisaged paying. Peter Ricketts, the veteran former diplomat who chairs the European affairs committee in the House of Lords, described a rumoured €6.5bn fee as “so off the scale that it suggests some EU members don’t want the UK in the scheme”. The minister for EU relations, Nick Thomas-Symonds, said it was “disappointing” that talks had fallen through but insisted that the UK defence industry will still be able to participate in projects through Safe on third-country terms. “While it is disappointing that we have not been able to conclude discussions on UK participation in the first round of Safe, the UK defence industry will still be able to participate in projects through Safe on third-country terms. “Negotiations were carried out in good faith, but our position was always clear: we will only sign agreements that are in the national interest and provide value for money.” The door to greater UK participation appeared to have been pushed open in May when Keir Starmer and the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen signed an EU-UK security and defence partnership. Without this pact, the UK could never supply more than 35% of the value of components of any Safe-funded project. As recently as last week, the prime minister had expressed a belief that quiet diplomacy would result in agreement, telling reporters travelling with him to the G20 summit in South Africa: “Negotiations are going on in the usual way and they will continue.” He added: “I hope we can find an acceptable solution, but my strong view is that these things are better done quietly through diplomacy than exchanging views through the media.” But soon after, the talks appeared to be on rocky ground after the defence secretary, John Healey, said the UK was willing to quit, telling the i newspaper the UK was not willing to sign up for “any price”. Thomas-Symonds sought to downplay the significance of the collapse of negotiations on Friday, stating: “From leading the Coalition of the Willing for Ukraine to strengthening our relationships with allies, the UK is stepping up on European security in the face of rising threats and remains committed to collaborating with our allies and partners. In the last year alone, we have struck defence agreements across Europe and we will continue this close cooperation.” He added that the UK and EU were continuing to “make strong progress on the historic UK-EU May agreement that supports jobs, bills and borders”.

Jacob Zuma’s daughter resigns amid claims South Africans tricked to fight for Russia

A daughter of the former South African president Jacob Zuma has resigned as an MP, after being accused of tricking 17 South African men into fighting for Russia in Ukraine by telling them they were travelling to Russia to train as bodyguards for the Zumas’ uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party. Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, 43, the most visible and active in politics of her siblings, volunteered to resign and step back from public roles while cooperating with a police investigation and working to bring the men home, the MK chair, Nkosinathi Nhleko, said at a press conference in Durban. Magasela Mzobe, another MK official, told reporters: “As far as we know, the resignation has got nothing to do with admission of guilt or the organisation finding her guilty,” adding that MK party had not been involved with the group of men who ended up trapped on the frontline of the war in Ukraine. On 22 November another of Zuma’s daughters, Nkosazana Zuma-Mncube, filed a police report alleging that her sister Zuma-Sambudla and two others, Siphokazi Xuma and Blessing Khoza, had recruited the men, including eight of their family members. Zuma-Mncube did not suggest a motive for her sister’s alleged recruiting in the statement she made to police. Zuma-Sambudla then filed an affidavit of her own, claiming she was “a victim of deception, misrepresentation and manipulation” by Khoza after the men were recruited for what she had believed was a legitimate paramilitary training course. Zuma-Sambudla said she went to Russia herself for a month of the training, in excerpts from her statement to police published by local media: “I experienced only non-combat, controlled activities. I was never exposed to combat, never deployed.” She claimed that she had “shared information innocently” with others, who then volunteered to go to Russia themselves. She added: “I would not, under any circumstances, knowingly expose my own family or any other person to harm.” The South African outlet News24 said it had received videos from three of the men trapped in Ukraine, in which they alleged Zuma-Sambudla persuaded them to sign contracts in Russian that they did not understand and said she would spend a year in Russia training alongside them. Zuma, MK party’s president, was at the press conference but did not speak. The 83-year-old has been married six times and currently has four wives and more than 20 children. Polygamy is recognised in South Africa via a law governing “customary” marriages. Zuma was ousted as South Africa’s president in 2018, after being accused of directing a period of huge corruption known as “state capture”, allegations he has always denied. He founded MK party in December 2023, winning 14.6% of the vote in the 2024 national elections. On Tuesday, police confirmed they were investigating, after receiving both affidavits. Zuma-Sambudla did not return calls and messages seeking comment. Khoza and Xuma could not be reached for comment. On 6 November the office of South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, said it was investigating how the men became trapped in eastern Ukraine and was working to bring them home, after receiving “distress calls for assistance”. The men “were lured to join mercenary forces involved in the Ukraine-Russia war under the pretext of lucrative employment contracts”, it said, noting that South Africans were not permitted to assist or fight for foreign militaries without government authorisation. Zuma-Sambudla has consistently posted her support for Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, online. “We Love You Both LOUDLY And UNAPOLOGETICALLY So … I’ll Drink To That” she posted on X, then Twitter, with a photo of her father and Putin making a toast, on 22 February 2022, the day Russia invaded Ukraine. In May, she posted on X: “I Stand With Russia,” alongside photos of the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, although it was not clear if she had taken the photos herself or when they were taken. South Africa’s African National Congress party, which forced Zuma to stand down as president in 2018, has long been close to Russia after the Soviet Union supported its struggle against apartheid. South Africa’s government, whose foreign policy is still controlled by the ANC although it is now in a coalition, has refrained from criticising Russia for invading Ukraine. It has tried to present itself as a neutral arbiter in the search for a peace deal. Zuma-Sambudla is on trial on charges of inciting violence in posts on X, during deadly riots that erupted in 2021 when her father was sent to jail for contempt of court. She has denied the allegations.

German president honours victims of Nazi bombing atrocity on Guernica visit

Eighty-eight years after Luftwaffe pilots took part in the most infamous atrocity of the Spanish civil war, Germany’s president has visited the Basque town of Guernica to honour the victims of the Nazi bombing and to urge that the “terrible crimes” committed there are never forgotten. Hundreds of civilians were killed and hundreds more injured on 26 April 1937 when planes from the German Condor Legion, operating alongside aircraft from fascist Italy, spent hours bombing Guernica on market day. Adolf Hitler had loaned the Luftwaffe unit to Gen Francisco Franco’s nationalist forces to help them in their coup against the republican government, and to allow Nazi Germany’s pilots to practise the blitzkrieg tactics they would later use in the second world war. The destruction of Guernica, which would become a template for the aerial bombardment of civilians, was immortalised by Pablo Picasso in the huge monochrome canvas that bears the town’s name. On Friday, Frank-Walter Steinmeier became the first German head of state to travel to Guernica, where he joined King Felipe VI of Spain in a remembrance ceremony held in a cemetery in the town and laid a wreath for the victims. The pair then visited Guernica’s Museum of Peace, where they met two survivors of the attack, Crucita Etxabe and María del Carmen Aguirre. Steinmeier, who is on a state visit to Spain, used a speech earlier this week to address the bombing and its legacy. “Germans committed terrible crimes in Guernica,” the president told guests at a banquet in Madrid on Wednesday. “On 26 April 1937, the feared Condor Legion bombed the city, razing it to the ground. Hundreds of defenceless children, women and men lost their lives in appalling, agonising ways. The terror, pain and grief is felt to this day by many Basque families.” Steinmeier, who visited the Reina Sofía museum in Madrid to see Picasso’s Guernica for himself, said the artist’s warning against remaining indifferent in the face of conflict and suffering “has lost none of its urgency”. He added: “It is very important to me, and I am consciously addressing this sentence to my compatriots in Germany, that we do not forget what happened back then. This crime was committed by Germans. Guernica serves as a warning – a call to stand up for peace, freedom and the preservation of human rights. We want to live up to that, now and in the future.” His words came three decades after Germany’s then president, Roman Herzog, said he wished “to confront the past and … explicitly admit to the culpable involvement of German pilots”. Guernica’s mayor, José María Gorroño, who had hailed the visit as “a day that will go down in the town’s history”, used the occasion to repeat calls for Picasso’s masterpiece to be moved from the Reina Sofía to the place that inspired it. In an interview with Cadena Ser radio on Thursday, Gorroño said the Spanish state owed a “moral debt to the victims of the bombing”, adding: “Picasso’s Guernica should come to Guernica. It’s a worldwide peace icon. The victims need this tribute.” Meanwhile, the Basque regional president, Imanol Pradales, has called for the Spanish state to follow Germany’s lead in confronting its role in the bombing of Guernica. “No one has any doubts that the current Spanish state is very different from that one,” he told the Basque parliament last week. “It’s just about affirming truth and justice, and its actions should spring from a commitment to freedom and democracy. We’re asking nothing more, and nothing less, from the Spanish state than what the German president is doing.”

Rebel nuns who busted out of Austrian care home win reprieve – for now

Three octogenarian nuns who gained a global following after breaking out of their care home and moving back to their abandoned convent near Salzburg have been given leave to stay in the nunnery “until further notice”, church officials have said. The rebel sisters – Bernadette, 88, Regina, 86, and Rita, 82, all former teachers at the school adjacent to their convent – broke back into their old home of Goldenstein Castle in Elsbethen in September in defiance of their spiritual superiors. The story prompted headlines around the world. It also fostered a huge affection for the trio, who have built up a loyal following on social media where they post regular reports about their tumultuous experience and joy at their return. They have been helped by local supporters and former pupils, who have provided them with food, clothing, medical care, security and installed a chairlift to enable the three to reach their third-floor cells. The nuns’ religious superior, Provost Markus Grasl from Reichersberg Abbey, had argued that the sisters had to be placed in a Catholic care home as they were unable to safely live in the old stone convent. He repeatedly accused them of breaking their vows of obedience, a claim the nuns denied. On Friday however, church officials said the women could stay at Goldenstein “until further notice” after a proposal put forward by Grasl aimed at resolving the dispute. The nuns are yet to agree to the deal. Church officials have reportedly said the nuns will be provided with adequate medical care and nursing help, and a priest would be at their disposal to serve regular mass. Over the past months, priests have had to be more or less smuggled into the convent’s chapel to say mass, against the will of church authorities. The nuns have yet to agree to the proposed solution, reportedly hammered out after a meeting with representative parties on Wednesday. Negotiations were continuing, according to a person close to the nuns, and a response from their lawyer is expected soon. Among the conditions for them to remain include the cessation of all social media activity, a ban on outside visitors to the convent, and the settling of a legal dispute. Should the health conditions of the women deteriorate, they would be registered at the Elsbethen nursing home and placed on the waiting list there. “Now it’s up to the sisters,” Harald Schiffl, a spokesman for Grasl told the Austrian news agency APA. Grasl was recently ordered to pay back to the state about €64,000 (£56,000) in social welfare benefits he had received for the nuns’ care.

‘We can’t get any answers’: grief and anger in Hong Kong after deadly high-rise fire

For almost 48 hours, Mr Lau had been calling his cousin. On Wednesday afternoon Lau was at his home nearby, when he saw smoke from Mei Lan’s building. Mei Lan, her husband, and their children live in the Wang Fuk Court high-rise apartment complex in northern Hong Kong. Shortly after lunchtime on Wednesday, a fire started in one of its eight high-rise towers, and quickly spread to six others. It burned for more than two days, killing at least 128 people – a number certain to rise. The inferno has been compared to London’s Grenfell Tower disaster. Not just for the scale, but for the now rampant questions about negligent safety standards and corruption, amid revelations that the construction site had been inspected 16 times for safety concerns and allegedly had a history of violations. Late on Friday, Mei Lan still was not answering Lau’s calls. The phone just rang and rang. “I’m worried she might have fainted from the heat and can’t hear [the phone],” Lau told the Guardian. “People have died now; of course I hope she can make it out, but there is no contact. I’m worried, of course, I feel awful. The whole family, five or six people, is missing.” Officially, Mei Lan and her family were among the 200 or so people unaccounted for, including 89 bodies that could not be visually identified. Lau was accompanied by two friends, and the three elderly men were keeping each other upbeat and optimistic, fielding calls from other friends and relatives. It was hard to stay hopeful. The small children’s playground where Lau spoke to the Guardian is adjacent to a community centre through which families of victims walked to identify the dead. Once firefighters could finally access the upper floors, there was a steady stream of people leaving the building, often in floods of tears. Outside a local school, repurposed as an evacuation shelter, another man sobbed. His parents lived in the towers and were missing. “I can’t eat, I can’t sleep. I just need to know … I don’t expect them to still be alive, I only want you to tell me they’re gone so I can stop missing them. Let me know they’re in heaven,” he cried. “But I don’t know anything.” He asked: “What is John Lee, Hong Kong’s chief executive, doing? All he does is walk around and hold press conferences. What about us? We can’t get any answer to our questions.” Much of the city’s grief is racked with anger. Since the crackdown on Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, the government has made “national security” its overriding priority. There is a sense among some that while the government has been chasing down any whisper of potential dissent, a building of almost 5,000 people, which authorities knew was not safe, burned down. At the volunteer donation site in Tai Po, scores of young people ran various stalls, held cardboard information signs and offered support using collective action skills not seen at this scale since the 2019 protests. An online petition even listed “four demands”, echoing the protests’ “five demands” for democratic rights, but calling for guaranteed care of victims and accountability for officials in any corrupt activity. It appeared to be making the government nervous. After dark on Friday, a squad of armed police officers walked laps of the donation site, and government workers took over from volunteers at the shelters. Authorities were quick to act after the fire, arresting three employees of the construction company on Thursday, and launching an independent commission against corruption. On Friday, the anti-corruption watchdog said it had arrested eight people. But the ferocity of the fire, and how many people were unable to escape it, has raised significant questions and accusations of complacency, negligence, and corruption in the city’s construction sector. Hong Kong is famously a city of densely packed apartments that stretch into the sky, cramming millions into an area that can be crossed from end to end in just a couple of hours. The bamboo scaffolding and mesh that covered Wang Fuk Court is a ubiquitous sight in the city. Hong Kong’s security secretary said on Friday that preliminary investigations had identified the unauthorised and highly flammable styrofoam boards discovered in windows on every level of every tower as the primary cause of the fire’s intensity, and that the mesh was up to standard. A man who gave his name as Mr Au lost both his parents to the fire, which also put his brother in intensive care. He said the windows of their home were all sealed with flammable styrofoam-like material. “There are too many problems. Repairs are so expensive, and what kind of people did they hire?” said Au. “The biggest issue is the lack of fire safety awareness. The fire alarm didn’t ring, otherwise my parents could have evacuated.” This particular renovation was already controversial before the fire. Work began in July 2024, with a reported price tag of HK$330m (£33.5m). The contract, awarded to Prestige Construction & Engineering Co, drew accusations that decision makers had chosen the most expensive proposal, despite the costs being shared by residents, who include social housing recipients. Prestige Construction & Engineering Co could not be reached for comment. Local media reported the physical office was closed when they visited during business hours after the fire. In September, residents lodged concerns with authorities about the renovations, “including the scaffolding netting”, the Hong Kong labour department told the Guardian. The department said they had told residents the netting was to catch falling debris, and that current safety regulations “do not cover flame retardant standards” for such material. Given the construction did not involve open flames such as welders, the risk was low, they said. That response prompted further complaints, so they clarified that the netting had been inspected, and “met approval standards”. However, the department also said inspectors had visited the site 16 times after the complaints, and issued multiple written warnings about the need for better fire safety measures, including as recently as last week. “Whatever the government does is useless, says Au. “It’s already over. I just hope it won’t happen again. Arresting a few people to take responsibility can’t help us. Proper supervision should have been in place from the very beginning.” Additional reporting by Lillian Yang

‘Not going to happen’: First Nations threaten to end Carney’s pipe dream

When the people of the Haida nation won a decades-long battle for recognition that an archipelago off the coast of British Columbia in Canada was rightfully theirs, it was a long overdue victory. The unprecedented deal with the provincial and the federal governments meant the Haida no longer had to prove that they had Aboriginal title to the land of Xhaaidlagha Gwaayaai, “the islands at the boundary of the world.” Now, both governments will have to face what that might mean. On Thursday, the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, and the Alberta premier, Danielle Smith, agreed an energy deal centred on plans for a new heavy oil pipeline reaching from the province’s oil sands to the Pacific coast. Heralded as a major political breakthrough between deadlocked parties, the deal lays the groundwork for an oil duct that could carry more than a million barrels each day from the oil sands to the Pacific. With new legislative powers, Carney’s government could also slash permitting and approval delays. But the response from politically powerful nations, such as the Haida – whose consent the government needs – was both quick and simple: “This project is not going to happen.” Gaagwiis, the president of the Haida nation, said the federal government had a duty to “uphold the honour of the crown” when working with his community. “Trying to ram through a project puts that ‘honour’ in jeopardy,” he said. “This is an opportunity for the government of Canada and the prime minister, to look in the mirror and see what kind of country he wants to lead and what kind of country he wants Canada to be.” Despite Carney’s pledge to obtain the full consent of First Nations – and to share any windfall – on any possible pipeline project, Gaagwiis said there was nothing federal or provincial leaders could say to move his nation. “Because there’s absolutely nothing that can fully guarantee the safety of our communities from an oil spill, there’s nothing that can be said to convince us otherwise.” Marilyn Slett, the president of the Coastal First Nations (CFN), which represents eight coastal First Nations including the Haida, said the group had no interest allowing tankers in coastal waters. “We have zero interest in co-ownership or economic benefits of a project that has the potential to destroy our way of life and everything we have built on the coast,” she said. Carney has been working to calm political strife among provincial leaders, and Thursday’s announcement was met with enthusiasm in Alberta. Speaking to the Calgary chamber of commerce, the prime minister received a standing ovation, a near-impossible feat for a Liberal leader in a conservative-leaning region. Business groups have come out in favour of the deal, which the Canadian chamber of commerce says moves the country towards “economic cooperation, greater regulatory certainty and reduced tension”. Recent polling shows that a majority of Canadians – including a slim majority in British Columbia – are open to the idea of a pipeline. The vague outlines of a major infrastructure project have also piqued the interest of some First Nations in Alberta who have been promised a possible equity stake in any project. The premise of Carney’s energy plan is that oil and gas exports can be increased while meeting the federal government’s climate targets. The federal government will exempt a possible pipeline project from the existing coastal oil tanker moratorium and emissions cap. In exchange, Alberta must raise its industrial carbon pricing and invest in a multibillion-dollar carbon capture project. In theory, the deal goes a long way in bringing together Alberta and Ottawa in the pursuit of a common, nation-building goal. But critically, no private company has expressed an interest in backing a pipeline project that would face stiff opposition. “No proponent, no route, no money, no First Nation support,” the British Columbia premier, David Eby, said after the announcement. Eby, a strong critic of the deal after his province was excluded in talks, said any pipeline proposal “cannot draw limited federal resources, limited Indigenous governance resources, limited provincial resources away from the real projects that will employ people, provide the country with money that we desperately need, and provide investment and access to global markets”. The agreement also cost Carney one of his most prominent cabinet ministers, Steven Guilbeault, who resigned hours after the signing of the agreement. In a post on social media announcing his resignation, Guilbeault said the decision came with “great sadness”, but was necessary given his values as a longtime environmental advocate. The decision to lay the groundwork for a possible heavy oil pipeline also reflects a political shift by Carney, who, before entering politics, developed credentials as a global economist focused on attaining a net zero future. Jessica Green, a political science professor at the University of Toronto, said: “Everything in this [agreement] says more fossil fuels, except the first line – where it says Canada and Alberta remain committed to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. “Call a spade a spade: if you want to double down on fossil fuels, at least have the guts to say it out loud.” Green said the pact was a “dumpster fire” of a climate agreement after signalling politically that Canada was “all in” on fossil fuels. But a protracted trade war with the US, Canada’s largest trading partner and closest political ally, has dramatically upended the country’s economic security. Much of Carney’s brief tenure as prime minister has focused on expanding potential markets outside of the US. “Without the trade war and the tariffs, I imagine the economy would not be hurting in the way that it is,” said Green. “Nobody’s got a crystal ball, but in a world where we’re not haemorrhaging from the trade war, I imagine we don’t see this level of aggressive pandering to fossil fuel interests and infrastructure.” For the remote coastal First Nations whose harvests and livelihood come from the Pacific Ocean, the threat of a pipeline is more than just a question of climate policy. Gaagwiis said: “When people talk about this project, they need to understand an entire ecosystem could collapse in the event of a spill. Losing a culture that developed relationships with the ocean over thousands of years would be devastating. There needs to be respect for that. “I see the reality setting in soon that there is no project, there’s no pipeline route, there’s no proponent – and there’s no support. Everyone here is against it. There are other ways for Alberta to find more business in moving oil. But it’s not going to be through the coast.”

Fatos Nano obituary

Whether he was in government or in jail, Fatos Nano was one of the two figures, along with his arch-rival, Sali Berisha, who dominated Albania’s political scene in the turbulent 15 years that began with the disintegration of Communist party rule in 1990. It was characteristic of the political turmoil of this period that, although he was appointed prime minister on four separate occasions, Nano served for only a total of four years in that post. Nano, who has died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease aged 73, owed his political influence to his unchallenged position as the leader of the Socialist party of Albania (SPA) until 2005. As prime minister in 1991, Nano was instrumental in steering – when that was possible – Albania’s chaotic, but largely peaceful, transition from a hardline Stalinist regime with a collapsed command economy to a pluralist society and a fledgling market economy. The initial political beneficiary of that transformation was the opposition, led by Berisha’s Democratic Party of Albania (DPA), which won a landslide victory in the first genuinely free elections in March 1992. Berisha was elected president by the new parliament. Nano, who in 1991 had already started to turn the communist-era Party of Labour of Albania (PLA) into the social democratic SPA, soon found himself in prison, following his conviction on charges of corruption. Nano’s second opportunity to change the course of Albanian politics for the better came in March 1997, when the nationwide collapse of fraudulent pyramid investment schemes led to an uprising against Berisha’s increasingly authoritarian rule. This time the unrest turned much more violent than in 1991-92 as rebel groups and criminal gangs seized hundreds of thousands of weapons from army stores. In the snap elections of June 1997, the Socialists inflicted a crushing defeat on the Democrats, leading to Berisha’s resignation. Nano returned as prime minister and shifted the balance of power away from Berisha’s de facto presidential rule to a parliamentary system of government. During eight years of SPA rule that began in 1997, the economy was gradually stabilised, political life became calmer and social conflicts eased. However, the electorate became increasingly disenchanted with the self-serving rule, arrogance and unchecked corruption of the SPA governments. This resulted in the Democrats’ unexpected victory in the elections of July 2005, making it possible for Berisha to return to power from political oblivion. Nano’s last major contribution was to enable the smooth transfer of power to the DPA, and to resign from the SPA’s leadership. His successor, Edi Rama – the current prime minister – was to build the SPA into a formidable election-winning machine. Nano was born in Tirana, the Albanian capital. His father, Thanos, would later serve as the head of the state broadcaster, Albanian Radio and Television; his mother, Maria (nee Shuteriqi) was a government official. Fatos was educated at the elite Sami Frasheri high school, and graduated in political economy from the University of Tirana in 1974. After working as an economist at the Elbasan steel works, Nano joined the Institute of Marxist-Leninist Studies, the PLA’s ideological thinktank. He became a protege of the director, Nexhmije Hoxha, the widow of the communist dictator, Enver Hoxha, who had ruled Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985. Hoxha’s increasingly isolationist policies had led to Albania’s pauperisation in the 1980s. Economic hardship and the success of pro-democracy movements elsewhere in central and eastern Europe triggered student protests in Albania at the end of 1990. Nano was plucked from obscurity to be appointed the government’s secretary-general in December 1990. Thereafter his rise was meteoric: deputy prime minister by January 1991; and, following the toppling of Hoxha’s giant statue in central Tirana on 20 February, he was appointed prime minister by Hoxha’s successor, President Ramiz Alia. Nano was only 38 years old at the time of his appointment. His promotion was intended to project the image of a generational change and policy transformation by the regime. The tactics worked and he was appointed prime minister for a second time after the PLA won a landslide victory in the first multi-party elections that March. However, the PLA had enjoyed an overwhelming advantage in terms of resources and publicity over the fledgling opposition. The unfair elections prompted street protests and a general strike, and these led to Nano’s resignation in June. Within days, the congress of the PLA voted to rebrand the party as the SPA and elected Nano as its chairman. Following the DPA’s election victory in 1992, Nano was arrested in 1993, and in 1994 was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment for the misappropriation of state funds while prime minister. He denied all the charges, and he became a martyr for the Socialists. He continued to lead the SPA from prison: his then wife, Rexhina, acted as a conduit between him and his three deputies. During the uprising against Berisha’s rule in 1997 Nano was set free, and he subsequently led the Socialists to their election victory. Unlike Berisha, he was not vengeful, and there was no attempt to use the courts to punish the Democrats’ leaders. His third appointment as prime minister was cut short after a year by anti-government riots following the assassination of Azem Hajdari, a DPA politician, in 1998. The Democrats blamed the government, but a subsequent trial indicated that Hajdari’s killing had more to do with rivalry between gangs involved in arms smuggling. Nano escaped briefly from Tirana, and to defuse tensions he handed the premiership first to one young protege, Pandeli Majko, and then to another, Ilir Meta, while remaining in overall control of the government. However, as Meta began to assert himself, Nano returned to the post of prime minister in July 2002 to serve his last stint in that post. Attachment to power mattered less to Nano than enjoying the material benefits that came with being in government and the patronage it offered. He had a relaxed style: journalists (including me) were on occasion treated to a convivial chat and offered a glass or two of malt whisky. Nano’s comfortable lifestyle, the government’s complacency and the rift with Meta, who had set up a rival Socialist party, led to the SPA’s defeat in the 2005 elections. Nano’s resignation from the party leadership ended his political career. An attempt to get elected as head of state by parliament in 2007 failed in the face of opposition not only from Berisha’s Democrats but also many of Rama’s SPA legislators, who feared that Nano might emerge as a potential rival to their new leader. Thereafter, Nano and his second wife, Xhoana, whom he had married in 2002, led a quiet life, dividing their time between homes in Vienna and Tirana. He is survived by Xhoana and two children, Sokol and Edlira, from his first marriage, which ended in divorce, and a stepson, Klajdi. • Fatos Thanos Nano, politician, born 16 September 1952; died 31 October 2025