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I live in the ‘coolest neighbourhood’ in the world. It’s not as great as you’d think

In 2021, I was asked by Time Out to nominate a Seoul neighbourhood for its annual list of the world’s coolest. I didn’t think much of it and put forward the one I live in, Jongno 3-ga, in the old centre of the city. Somehow, it got ranked third. This week, the same area was named the coolest neighbourhood in the world. I should be pleased, but instead, I’m devastated. All these lists seem to celebrate the same idea of “cool”: expensive conceptual art galleries, high-end restaurants, and the sort of places that cater to a narrow demographic of people who read lifestyle magazines. Most cities have these places. But when I moved to Jongno 3-ga, I chose somewhere that was the opposite: humble, raw and completely unpretentious. I was first drawn to the neighbourhood 20 years ago, fresh out of school. I recollect with sweet nostalgia being one of the few tourists at a time when South Korea was not “cool”, and people often advised me against travelling there, confusing South Korea with North Korea. There were no English menus, but restaurants were welcoming. Shopfronts were rusty but full of artisanry, while alleys that went nowhere and were slightly dilapidated felt cosy. There were men getting drunk over bottles of soju who occasionally got into a brawl, but nothing that ever felt particularly threatening. I felt at home and eventually made it my home. It was a refuge for society’s rejects: people with nowhere to go, some of the poorest in Seoul, residents of the city’s tiny-room settlements and people with disabilities. In Tapgol Park, elderly women sold sexual services to older men in plain sight. Outside the park, pensioners played janggi, Korean chess, on the pavement. Around them lived musicians and artists. In Jongno 3-ga, everyone was welcome. For years, the pojangmacha, the street-food tents that serve everything from fried squid to kimchi pancake, catered to older people drinking through to the early evening. Then at some point – around 9pm – there was an unofficial handover to the gay scene. South Korea is socially conservative and the LGBTQ+ community is still very much frowned upon. But come the weekend, hundreds of excited men of all ages came to let off steam out in the open, as well as in one of the area’s more than 100 gay bars and karaoke rooms. Jongno 3-ga was a place where people could be themselves, without fear of being outed, harassed or judged. None of that was cool. But that was the entire point: people could mind their own business in a safe haven amid a culture addicted to consumerism and keeping up appearances. That all changed after Covid. The street barbecues and pojangmacha are still there, but now they have queues, some up to an hour long. People line up for a seat, take their Instagram shots, and the neighbourhood that used to hide people has become a place to be seen. With the crowds came the displacement. Gay patrons no longer take over the streets at night. The older drinkers have largely gone. The sex workers have been pushed out. The chess boards outside Tapgol Park were cleared away. Rents have risen sharply. The area is now littered with kitschy tourist shops, claw-machine arcades and unmanned photo-booths, and, in the streets nearby, bakery after bakery, coffee shop after coffee shop. One by one, the small merchants have left, to be replaced with another dessert shop. It’s now hard to find the humble rice-and-soup places that fed this neighbourhood for decades. The once shabby and unremarkable place is now heavily curated, and doesn’t feel very “Korean” any more. Locals complain about lost identity and gentrification but put on a brave face for the hordes of tourists, both local and international, who come to gorge on this area. None of this is the fault of the visitors either. They were told the place was worth seeing, and they are buying exactly what they were sold. K-culture has never been more popular. From the likes of BTS to Squid Game, the whole world is looking to South Korea and keeps coming – and things are changing to accommodate for these tourist dollars. But in a way, I feel part of the problem. I highlighted a place I loved for being overlooked, and feel I helped create a monster. Now, as the neighbourhood becomes almost unrecognisable, I wonder what effect these rankings have on the people who live in the listed destinations. Jongno 3-ga becoming the “world’s coolest neighbourhood” is nothing to celebrate. I feel guilty for calling it cool. I’d take the word back if I could.

Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy reaches out to eastern Europe for new trade and security partnership

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy launched on Friday a ⁠new trade and security scheme with a group of eight countries from the Carpathian region of central and eastern Europe. In a comment summing up the outcome of the meeting, Zelenskyy said on ⁠Telegram that 50 agreements had been signed for a total value of more than €1bn ($1.15bn). ‌He gave few details, but ‌said more than half the accords dealt with energy, particularly solar and ‌wind power, with the aim of energy independence from Russia. The group includes Romania, Serbia, Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary, and the European Union. At the meeting in western Ukraine, Zelenskyy thanked regional allies for keeping trade and transport ⁠links open following Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. Polish ‌prime minister Donald Tusk, Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic and Romania’s President Nicusor Dan attended the inaugural event, which is expected to last until Sunday. “This marks the start of a movement that should bring our countries even closer together and create another strong framework for cooperation at the EU level,” Zelenskyy said. Donald Trump on Friday signed legislation enabling sweeping sanctions on Russia aimed at pressing it to end its war with Ukraine, and also giving him the power to impose additional tariffs on countries breaking the embargo. The Lindsey O Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act, named after the hawkish Republican senator, Lindsey Graham, who died in July, aims to deplete Russia’s ability to continue funding the war by targeting its natural gas and oil revenues, as well as countries that continue to buy Russian energy. The legislation imposes new sanctions on Russian political and military officials and foreign networks helping to supply Russia’s war machine and evade existing sanctions. Russians are going to the polls to elect a new State Duma against a backdrop of intensifying conflict between Russia and Ukraine. There is little doubt that Vladimir Putin’s United Russia will extend its grip on parliament thanks to a tightly controlled vote. The three-day vote began Friday, with results expected after polls close on Sunday. It is the first Duma election since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Swarms of Ukrainian drones have struck oil refineries, factories and logistics hubs across Russia over the summer, while polling has pointed to growing anxiety about the course of the fighting and what may still lie ahead. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Ukraine was deliberately hindering talks aimed at ending the war and accused Kyiv ⁠of interfering in Russia’s parliamentary ⁠election. Putin, in comments to Russia’s Military-Industrial commission, also reasserted Moscow’s main defence aim of relying on its “nuclear triad” of weapons and said Moscow needed to improve its anti-missile defences. In comments reported by Russian news agencies, Putin said Ukraine had “long degenerated into a dictatorship,” referring to the country not holding a new presidential election ⁠despite the expiry of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s mandate. Latvia’s president has warned that Europe is not keeping up with developments of drone and aerial warfare in Ukraine and that most countries in Nato could not repulse an attack by Russian missiles if the conflict expands. The remarks came during a Guardian interview in Washington DC in which Edgars Rinkēvičs said that the technological developments in drone warfare in Ukraine were moving at “lightning speed”. “What we see is that air defence, drone defence, anti-ballistic defence has serious problems,” he said. “Because if Russia decides to use a couple of missiles in that territory, I think that would be a serious challenge today for many countries to cope with that,” he added. A Russian ⁠glide bomb hit an apartment building in the northern Ukrainian city of Sumy on Friday, killing two people and injuring ⁠seven, leaving three of them ⁠in a serious condition. Writing on the Telegram messaging app, President Zelenskyy said ⁠emergency crews had rescued four people after the attack and said others could still be trapped under rubble. The head of Sumy city council said the two dead were city employees. Regional Governor Oleh Hryhorov said three of the seven injured were in a serious condition. Among the injured was a 13-year-old girl.

US and Denmark reach security deal after Trump’s threats to take over Greenland

Donald Trump announced on Friday that the US had struck an Arctic security pact with the leaders of Denmark and Greenland, after threatening for much of his second term to annex the semi-autonomous Danish territory by force. The full scope of the deal Trump described as “very important, historic, and special” was not immediately clear. But soon after his announcement in a post on Truth Social, the leaders of Denmark and Greenland issued statements indicating the deal would be signed by the three governments on the sidelines of the United Nations general assembly in New York City next week. In his social media post, Trump cast the deal as a personal triumph, claiming that the agreement “gives the United States permanent control over security, and all other needs, in Greenland, completely addressing ALL of our many U.S. concerns”. “We will immediately begin the process of developing a large Military presence in the appropriate part of Greenland,” Trump added. The US already has a presence on the island, and the right to expand bases, through Nato. The announcement comes just weeks before November’s midterms, giving the president a foreign policy accomplishment he can tout to voters as the deeply unpopular war with Iran becomes an increasing political liability for Republicans vying to hang on to their narrow majorities in the House and Senate. The US has long had a military presence in Greenland – a self-governing territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, a fellow Nato member – and has had a military base at Pituffik since the cold war. In his post, Trump said that the agreement means “no US adversary can EVER have a base in Greenland, have a military presence in Greenland, or make sensitive investments in Greenland, without our express written approval”. Statements from Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, and the leader of Greenland’s government, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, posted online late on Friday, emphasized that the agreement would fall far short of Trump’s previously stated desire for “the acquisition of Greenland by the United States”. Frederiksen said that what she called “a great agreement” for all three parties “recognizes the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom and the Greenlandic people’s right to self-determination”. Nielsen said it was “joyous” that the agreement “ensures and strengthens the security of Greenland, the Kingdom of Denmark, the United States and the Western Alliance”, suggesting that the deal might possibly just reiterate the existing US rights through Nato to use the island as a security base. Once agreed to, the pact would need to go through parliamentary procedures to be enacted, the Danish and Greenlandic statements said. Earlier in his term, Trump argued that the US needed control of Greenland for “economic security”, and has described ownership and control of the territory as an “absolute necessity”. The island had long been on the president’s radar as a target for purchase, and during his first term, in 2019, Trump confirmed reports he had been urging aides to find out how the US could buy Greenland, describing any sale as “essentially a large real estate deal”. Trump’s claims deepened divisions among the western alliance, with the Danish government repeatedly stating that Greenland was “not for sale”. When concerns over Trump’s annexation threats reached a fever pitch last year, the Guardian reported that the Danish government set up a “night watch” in the foreign ministry to monitor the US president’s pronouncements while Copenhagen sleeps. At a Nato summit in Ankara earlier this year, Trump renewed his bid for the US to acquire Greenland. He threatened to pull all American armed forces out of Europe after the continent repeatedly pushed back. Strategically positioned between the US and Russia, Greenland is viewed as increasingly important for defense and is emerging as a geopolitical battleground as Arctic ice melts. The US vice-president, JD Vance, and his wife Usha, received a frosty reception when they visited US troops stationed at Pituffik space base last year, amid the White House’s aggressive campaign to take the mineral-rich island with roughly 56,000 inhabitants. Polling has found Greenlanders strongly oppose any effort to make Greenland a part of the US. Even so, a Trump administration insider dropped a hint online that the US side intends to present whatever the deal actually is as an American triumph. Katie Miller, a former White House aide whose husband is Trump’s closest adviser, posted a map of Greenland covered in the American flag, with the caption: “ITS [sic] HAPPENING”. Miranda Bryant contributed reporting

Latvia’s president warns that Europe is not up to date with drone and aerial warfare in Ukraine

Latvia’s president has warned that Europe is not keeping up with developments of drone and aerial warfare in Ukraine and that most countries in Nato could not repulse an attack by Russian missiles if the conflict expands. The remarks came during a Guardian interview in Washington DC in which Edgars Rinkēvičs said that the technological developments in drone warfare in Ukraine are moving at “lightning speed” and that current efforts to prepare for an aerial war could be obsolete by the middle of next year. “What we see is that air defence, drone defence, anti-ballistic defence has serious problems,” he said. “And let’s be frank. Ukraine has it. The whole of Europe and Nato has it. “Because if Russia decides to use a couple of missiles in that territory, I think that would be a serious challenge today for many countries to cope with that,” he added. Ukraine and European allies are now facing a delay in supplies of crucial Patriot and other air-defence missiles. The US has expended nearly two-thirds of its stocks of critical interceptors in the war in Iran, according to analysis of a Congressional Budget Office assessment, and it could take at least five years to replenish stocks. The US has considered outsourcing Patriot production to Ukraine and Europe but so far an agreement has not been made. “It’s up to the United States government, it’s up to the company,” Rinkēvičs said, noting that discussions were continuing and acknowledging the difficulties of some technical issues with licensing. “We have some capacities in Europe, but let’s face it: Patriots are still one of the best, if not the best, to tackle this.” At next week’s United Nations general assembly in New York City, Donald Trump is expected to hold meetings with senior European leaders, and as Nato allies have stepped up their warnings about the risk of Russia escalating the war in Ukraine. Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, warned in a speech on Thursday that Russia could launch drone or missile strikes against Nato countries supporting Ukraine in the coming months in an effort to test the alliance’s commitment to collective defence under article 5 of its charter. Tusk said that Russia would seek to “weaken Nato’s integrity” and show that “article 5 is more theoretical than practical”, adding that Russia would seek to play off the incidents as accidents. Asked about Tusk’s concerns about Russia attacking Ukrainian allies in Europe, Trump said: “I think they already have attacked Ukrainian allies. They’ve been attacking Ukrainian allies for approximately five years.” He then pivoted to throw his support behind the Polish president, Karol Nawrocki, who is supported by the conservative Law and Justice party, saying: “You have a great president, he was a big Trump fan … he’s doing a fantastic job, and he’s got it under control.” The Baltic nations, which are also on Russia’s eastern flank, have tempered their warnings, saying that there was no indication that Moscow sought to launch a conventional war to retake territory that it once held under the Soviet Union. But Russia would increase mobilisation in the coming months after local elections, Rinkēvičs said, then use the winter to “push” in Ukraine, and also to “do whatever it takes to dissuade nations that are supportive of Ukraine to continue”. Acts of sabotage, cyber-attacks and drone and missile incidents all indicated Russia testing European resolve to support Ukraine, he said. “I would rule out a conventional military incursion but we should be very vigilant when it comes to all kinds of other possibilities,” he said. A Nato jet shot down a Russian drone over Lithuania on Tuesday. Poland scrambled fighter jets and closed Lublin and Rzeszów-Jasionka airports on Thursday due to a Russian strike on western Ukraine. Rinkēvičs also expressed concern about whether European allies were on track to hit a goal of spending 5% of GDP on defence that has become a White House benchmark for the Trump administration’s continued support for Nato. He also said that discussions over Europe bearing a great burden for its own defence were growing “more constructive”, but added that when it comes to “real capabilities … you need time”. “Our message is also to do that, we need time,” he said. “It cannot happen in a month, or in a year.”

Survivors recount panic and struggle to breathe in Nigerian prison cell where 37 died

Survivors from a prison cell in Nigeria where 37 suspected illegal goldminers died while in the custody of a paramilitary group this week have recounted their panic and struggle for breath, as police on Friday fired teargas at people protesting against the deaths and imposed an overnight curfew in the city of Minna. The victims – many of whom were children – were found dead on Thursday in the cells of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), which had raided suspected illegal goldmines and ⁠locked up dozens of miners in the city, the state capital of the mineral-rich state of Niger. NSCDC – a paramilitary group that works with police – initially blamed the deaths on a disease outbreak. However, an intelligence report seen by Agence France-Presse (AFP) said preliminary information suggested that overcrowding and inadequate ventilation were responsible. The state governor, Umar Bago, said many of the dead were children, aged 14 to 18, who had been working in the mines instead of going to school. “There are issues of illegal mining and it is taking a toll on our children,” he said. Dauda Shehu, a survivor from the cell, told journalists at a hospital on Friday: “We were jam-packed in the cell, no ventilation for us to breathe well. All of a sudden we realised that we could not breathe and we were all scampering for where to get fresh air, we even appealed to them several times, banged the cell door, but they refused to answer us.” A video shared online showed the bodies of dozens of young men clad only in shorts, most of whom appeared to be teenagers, sprawled on the ground out in the open. Volunteers wearing gloves can be seen standing over the dead, while veiled women try to identify the bodies of their relatives. Voices shouting curses on those responsible can be heard in the background. AFP reported that another survivor, who asked not to be named, said he had made it out alive because he was near the cell’s entrance, where he could breathe better. “We were screaming for help,” he said, with detainees telling the guards that “people are dying one after the other. They did not believe us.” President Bola Ahmed Tinubu ordered an investigation into the deaths after his government earlier suspended some senior officials. But protests over the deaths broke out on Thursday evening in Minna. On Friday dozens of young people, including miners and their relatives, gathered near the NSCDC’s office in the city. Police cordoned off the area and attempted to disperse the protesters by firing teargas. A Reuters witness saw security forces fire live rounds as protesters – some armed with sticks, machetes and traditional hunting rifles – called ‌for justice. Some protesters tried ‌to set fire to government buildings in the Tunga neighbourhood. “We are not thieves – we are simply seeking a way to make ‌a living by mining,” Yusuf Auwal, a miner who joined the protesters, told Reuters. At least one body lay on the streets. Soldiers and police officers patrolled Minna to try to restore order. As ⁠curfew began at 6pm local time on Friday, security forces appeared to have at least temporarily restored order to the streets of the city. The NSCDC said the detainees had been held in raids on suspected illegal mines on 15 and 16 September in the Wushishi-Lukoto area west of Minna. Nigeria’s interior minister, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, ordered the immediate suspension of Niger state’s NSCDC commandant, Suberu Siyaka Aniviye, pending the outcome of an investigation. Niger state, which is Nigeria’s largest and is more than twice the size of Belgium, is rich in minerals and attracts thousands of artisanal miners, most lured by gold. Police and the NSCDC did not initially provide a precise number of deaths but the state governor, Mohammed Umaru Bago, later confirmed 37 people had died. “It’s so sad, it’s so tragic,” he said, adding an inquiry into the deaths had already started work. He declared three days of mourning and postponed the start of campaigning for elections due in January. The men were buried on Thursday, according to Islamic tradition, without any forensic investigations. The scramble for gold reserves dug up in illegal mines in Niger state is fuelling violence by criminal gangs, according to officials and experts. The gangs tax the miners and demand a cut from the extracted ore as a levy to allow them access to the pits. Most of the illegally mined gold is smuggled to the United Arab Emirates, where it is laundered into the global supply chain in Europe, the US, Asia and South Africa, according to a 2024 Swissaid report. Apart from gold, the state of Niger sits on deposits of other minerals including tantalite, copper and lithium, which are in strong demand for use in electric vehicles and clean energy technology. Agence France-Presse and Reuters contributed to this report

Brazil’s Lula announces higher welfare payments and free weight-loss jabs ahead of election

Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has announced a 15% increase in the country’s main cash-transfer programme for poor families, as well as free weight-loss jabs, prompting criticism from opponents who say the moves are electorally motivated just two weeks before the presidential election. On 4 October, the leftwing incumbent will face the far-right senator Flávio Bolsonaro, son of the former president Jair Bolsonaro, who has been gaining ground in recent weeks. The rise in the monthly payment, from about £98 to £113, that he announced on Thursday is due to take effect on 19 October, just before the likely runoff vote on 25 October. The increase is expected to benefit between 15% and 20% of voters in what promises to be one of the closest ever presidential races in Latin America’s largest country. Lula said it was not really an increase, but an adjustment in line with inflation to “protect the purchasing power of the most vulnerable families”, but his opponents have criticised its timing so close to the election. Flávio Bolsonaro called it an “act of desperation” after polls showed him gaining ground – although the most recent survey, released on Thursday night, still showed Lula numerically ahead despite the technical tie. The senator added that Lula was trying to “buy the votes of the poor”. Created in 2003 during his first term as president, the programme, called Bolsa Família, was a flagship cash-transfer policy that helped lift millions of families out of poverty during his first two terms. Currently, families with an income of up to £32 per person are eligible, covering about 50 million people, or roughly 27 million of voting age. The programme has long been fiercely criticised by rightwing politicians, including by Jair Bolsonaro, although he kept it in place during his presidency. On the eve of the 2022 election, Bolsonaro announced a 50% increase in the monthly payment, prompting Lula’s campaign to file a case with the electoral court alleging abuse of political power and electoral use of the state machinery. The similarities have sparked a debate between those who say Lula is doing the same thing Bolsonaro did four years ago, and others who argue that the two cases are different. The journalist Miriam Leitão wrote for O Globo that although both Bolsonaro and Lula made the adjustments “out of electoral interest”, the current incumbent’s increase is in fact limited to inflation over the past four years, during which there had been no adjustment. She also noted that Bolsonaro’s increase had an expiry date – precisely at the end of the electoral period – while Lula’s is permanent. Victor Escobar, a researcher at the Laboratory of Parties, Elections and Comparative Politics, agreed. He said that although Lula, like his predecessor, is also being criticised for unveiling a package of benefits on the eve of the election – including a promise to distribute weight-loss jabs free of charge through the public health system – Bolsonaro’s measures were “even more irresponsible from a budgetary point of view”. In addition to increasing benefits for poor families, Bolsonaro introduced temporary monthly payments of up to £727 for two groups that broadly formed part of his support base, taxi drivers and truck drivers, along with a series of other social benefits whose projected impact on the budget was so large that critics dubbed them the “kamikaze” package. Escobar acknowledged that Lula’s intention was also electoral, but said that, as long as the measures comply with the law, “it’s something entirely expected when we’re talking about an incumbent running for re-election, who will try to use the legal mechanisms available to improve their voting numbers”. Some electoral law experts have said that an inflation adjustment is not, in principle, prohibited, but another far-right candidate, the influencer Renan Santos, filed a case with the electoral court seeking to suspend the increase until the president-elect takes office. Although critical of the measure, Flávio Bolsonaro has not done the same, reportedly because of concern about the impact such a move could have among voters who benefit from the programme.

Sweden’s soul and worrying political shift | Letters

I am writing in response to Martin Gelin’s article (How Sweden lost its soul – and stopped being Sweden, 11 September). Gelin is right to lament how far Swedish politics has moved from the liberal internationalism of the Fredrik Reinfeldt era. Having grown up in Malmö, I have seen how border controls with Denmark affect an Öresund region whose everyday life has long depended on easy movement across the strait. Gelin is right to see this retreat from openness as consequential. But to say that Sweden has therefore “lost its soul” goes too far. Its political shift is neither uniquely Swedish nor evidence that the country has somehow ceased to be itself. Reinfeldt’s “open your hearts” Sweden faded in much the same European political moment as Angela Merkel’s “Wir schaffen das” Germany. Across the European mainland, mainstream parties have adopted more restrictive positions on migration. The cases involving British citizens that Gelin describes are troubling, but Britain’s departure from the EU is also part of the explanation for why Britons in Sweden now face immigration rules from which freedom of movement once spared them. Sweden has changed. So has Britain. Neither exists in a vacuum. There is nothing wrong with romanticising an open, internationalist Sweden. As a young Swede studying at Cambridge, I am susceptible to that image myself. But defining one particular political settlement as Sweden’s “soul” risks turning nostalgia into national essentialism. Perhaps Jantelagen – the Scandinavian suspicion of thinking oneself exceptional – offers a more Swedish conclusion. We should not imagine that our political upheavals make us uniquely fallen. Sweden has changed, considerably and sometimes regrettably. It has not stopped being Sweden. Alvin Engström Cambridge • Martin Gelin’s analysis of how Sweden is losing its soul rings true – unfortunately. After living in Sweden for 33 years, I have never felt more like a foreigner than I do now. I am British (of Scottish origin) and moved to Sweden in 1993, at the age of 37, to live with my Swedish husband and our two children. I remember being so impressed by the social benefits, the access to good and affordable childcare and the job opportunities for women – precisely the ideals Martin describes. Over the past 10. years, opposition to immigration has grown in the wake of the so-called refugee “flood” of 2015, when the door was wide open. Sadly, that door is now permanently closed, and locked. In recent years, I have repeatedly been asked whether I consider myself Swedish (I have dual nationality). At first, I didn’t think much of it, but over time, I began to find the question very irritating. On one occasion, an older Swedish woman said it didn’t matter if I didn’t feel Swedish, because “we see you as one of us anyway”. I am ashamed to admit that I snapped at her over the word “us”; I know she meant well, but it made me realise just how divisive the question was. The mere fact that it was being asked by nice, ordinary, polite people was playing right into the hands of the far right. I love my life in Sweden and have no plans to move, but the divisiveness has got under my skin and is hard to ignore. Jean Fridh Katrineholm, Sweden

Flight chaos for hundreds of thousands was caused in ‘millisecond’ by software error

A software defect in part of the UK’s air traffic control system corrupted flight data “in the space of a millisecond”, leading to a six-hour outage and mass airline cancellations and delays across the UK last week, National Air Traffic Services has said. But ministers said the Nats report into the incident still left questions unanswered, saying they needed “to urgently understand why this issue was not discovered and fixed before it caused chaos”. According to the report, the error first occurred at 10am and was notified to engineers who investigated – but the system appeared to be working again, until 12.30pm when a repeat occurred and a major incident was declared. The transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, said the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) industry regulator would now “check their findings” and investigate Nats more widely. Hundreds of thousands of passengers had their travel disrupted after the Nats failure on Tuesday 8 September, which ended up delaying and cancelling flights across the UK and beyond late into the next day. Airlines have called for compensation and a “credible plan”, with Ryanair demanding the dismissal of the Nats chief executive officer, Martin Rolfe, after the third major air traffic control failure in the UK since summer 2023. A government source said the CAA review would be “a chance to fundamentally investigate” if Nats was fit for purpose. Rolfe said the incident was unrelated to the previous failures. He said he could “confirm that it was a software issue and not caused by any incorrect actions by either military or civil operators”. The preliminary report said the failure was a “legacy and previously unknown software defect and a combination of very specific events occurring simultaneously” in part of the National Airspace System (NAS), which allocates codes to individual aircraft to identify flights on radar. Nats said the software error occurred at 10am, with engineers first notified at 10.02am that the link between the NAS and London area control system had dropped. The engineers reported at 10.06am that the system had apparently recovered with no operational impact, but continued to investigate. The report said the fault presented when a manual request for an aircraft code was being processed but paused for another, unspecified “higher priority activity” request. It said: “When processing of the aircraft code request resumed, the software defect meant it did not resume correctly and the resulting output was corrupted, and affected some subsequent flight data updates. This happened in the space of a millisecond.” At 12.32pm the link between the national and London airspace management dropped again and a major incident was declared, with controllers having to conduct some tasks manually. By 12.45pm, Nats was restricting flights as the system continued to glitch, before failing completely at 1.32pm. At 1.40pm airlines were advised of restrictions, and between 2.50pm and 4.09pm Nats rebooted the system, eventually resuming full operations at 7.30pm – but leaving mass congestion, displaced aircraft and hundreds of thousands of delayed passengers in its wake. It took more than two days for the backlog of passenger disruption to be cleared, with more than 2,000 flights cancelled in total and hundreds of thousands of people’s travel plans disrupted. Rolfe said: “The issue has been identified and mitigation is in place while a permanent fix is safety tested and deployed.” He added: “I would like to apologise again, very sincerely, to everyone who was affected last week. It’s our job to get people where they want to go, quickly and without delay and we are devastated when that goes wrong. However, our primary role is to keep our skies safe, and everyone who flies through them. At no point last week was safety in question.” The transport secretary said: “The disruption we saw last week was completely unacceptable and I know how frustrating it was for passengers, airlines and airports.” Alexander said she had received Nats’ report, adding: “It’s clear we need to urgently understand why this issue was not discovered and fixed before it caused chaos. “I have therefore tasked the CAA with conducting an independent review to check Nats’ findings and investigate their investment plans to enhance resilience in the future, along with regulatory accountability.” The CAA’s review will be published within six months. Tim Alderslade, the chief executive of Airlines UK, a lobby group representing the industry, said: “The CAA’s review must mandate real investment in Nats’ resilience so a single fault can never again descend into nationwide disruption.” He said his members were writing to Nats to “demand immediate compensation for the costs incurred and a credible plan to improve resilience”. The EasyJet chief executive, Kenton Jarvis, said: “Passengers deserve more than just another promise that lessons will be learned. Firm actions must be taken … and there must be a fair solution to ensure that airlines are not left to pick up the bill.” The Ryanair chief operations officer, Neil McMahon, said: “‘The software ate my homework’ is not an acceptable explanation … How many times must the UK ATC system collapse before Martin Rolfe accepts responsibility and resigns.”