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‘Life requires cash’: Gaza’s jobs crisis leaves people struggling to afford basics

Every morning, Mansour Mohammad Bakr sets out from the small rented room in Gaza City he shares with his pregnant wife and two very young daughters. The 23-year-old walks past the port and the breaking waves of the Mediterranean where he once earned his living. Before the two-year war that devastated Gaza, Bakr was a fisher, sharing tackle and a boat with his father and brothers. Now his brothers are dead, his father is too old, and his equipment was destroyed during the conflict. Like hundreds of thousands of others across Gaza, Bakr needs a job. “Money is the main means of survival in Gaza … without it, a person cannot do anything,” he says. “The limited aid that reaches us doesn’t replace our need for money in any way and doesn’t cover even the most basic living requirements.” Humanitarian organisations have ramped up distribution since October, when a ceasefire agreement came into effect, leading Israel to lift some of the heavy restrictions it had imposed on aid and easing its delivery within Gaza. In January, United Nations agencies and their partners reached approximately 1.6 million people with household-level general food assistance. World Central Kitchen, an NGO, is now serving 1 million hot meals a day. But such assistance remains vastly insufficient and still covers only basic necessities. For everything else, brought in by the private sector, Palestinians in Gaza need cash. Aid workers in Gaza say more fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, clothes and household items are now available, but at exorbitant prices. “There has been a huge increase in commercial supplies … but it is all very expensive,” says Kate Charlton, a Médecins Sans Frontières medical coordinator in Gaza City. Mohammed al-Far, a 55-year-old former trader who lives with his family in al-Mawasi, a coastal area crowded with tent encampments for the displaced, says they receive only one meal a day from aid organisations. “It’s either rice, lentils or beans, and once or twice a week, some meat. Life requires cash to go on. We can get enough to eat … but transportation, haircuts, charging mobile phones and buying vegetables and fruit all require money,” he says. Al-Far has tried to launch falafel and sweets businesses, but without success, and has run up substantial debts. His age now makes it harder to find work. “My health is still good, and I’m ready to do anything, but employers are looking for younger workers. I have been searching for months and months … I walk around the market looking for work, but without success,” he says. The problem for al-Far and Bakr, as for all the others seeking work in Gaza, is that there is virtually none. The official unemployment rate, estimated by the UN, is 80% and the economy has shrunk to 13% of its former size. In November, Pedro Manuel Moreno, the deputy secretary general of the UN’s trade and development agency, said the war had “wiped out decades of progress”. “Gaza is going through the fastest and most damaging economic collapse ever recorded,” he said. The UN agency’s data shows that in 2024, GDP per capita in Gaza fell to just $161 (£118) a year – among the lowest in the world. The Israeli offensive shattered sanitation, transport, power and health systems, ruined fields and greenhouses and decimated Gaza’s fishing industry, which once employed thousands. Bakr says: “I dream of returning to the sea and to the profession of fishing, and of being able one day to buy a fishing boat like the one I used to own, so I can provide my family with food, drink, clothing and medicine.” The October ceasefire agreement was supposed to lead swiftly to reconstruction but progress has largely stalled. Some elements of the agreement have advanced, including the return of all hostages and limited reopening of the Rafah border crossing. Plans for an international stabilisation force are also emerging, with Indonesia saying it is preparing thousands of troops for humanitarian and reconstruction roles. But Hamas, which controls most of the coastal area where almost all of the 2.3 million-strong population of Gaza now live, is reluctant to fully disarm and Israel appears unwilling to relinquish its control over more than half of the territory. Israel has blocked the new technocratic administration that was to govern Gaza under Donald Trump’s “peace plan” from entering, while key crossing points remain shut or subject to restrictions. Even if Bakr could somehow find and equip a new boat, limits imposed by Israel at sea would prevent him from practising his trade. “My work as a fisher in the sea of Gaza was passed down to us from our grandfathers. I left school young and fishing is all I’ve ever done. I have been searching for work … everywhere I can,” he says. Even those with advanced qualifications struggle amid the ruins and rubble. Bisan Mohammad graduated with a degree in medical laboratory sciences just months before the war in Gaza was triggered by a Hamas raid into Israel that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and led to 250 being taken hostage by the militant Islamist organisation. Her husband, a security guard, was killed in the early days of the war, leaving her alone to provide for their daughter. She now lives in a tent with her parents in Nuseirat, in central Gaza. “I began looking for any available job but without success … everything needs money; even water, food and bedding all require cash. Sometimes I feel that even breathing needs money,” says Mohammad, 23. Violence has continued since the ceasefire and Israel launched more attacks in Gaza in January than in any month since October, according to Acled, an independent US-based conflict monitor. Gaza health authorities say 586 Palestinians have been killed since the truce took effect, bringing the war’s overall death toll to more than 72,000, mostly civilians. “What is being called a ‘ceasefire’ hasn’t changed our reality; in fact, it has made it worse,” says Mohammad. “The media has stopped talking about the ongoing killing … while the bombardment continues … prices keep rising, and even basic necessities, when available, such as water and food, are barely sufficient. “I don’t think about the future and I don’t try to; thinking about it is exhausting and frightening, and the future is unclear. I don’t know what will happen to me or my daughter if this situation continues without work or income.”

Monday briefing: How did the government get it so wrong on Palestine Action?

Good morning. Thousands of people across the UK have been arrested for holding a placard with a simple statement: ‘I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.’ Those arrests, as well as the charges against more than 500 demonstrators under terrorism legislation, may now be unlawful In a landmark judgment, the high court ruled on Friday that Labour’s decision to proscribe the direct action protest group Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation last year was not legal. The proscription of Palestine Action, which placed it alongside groups such as Islamic State, was the first time a direct action protest group had been banned under terrorism legislation. The move sparked a record-breaking civil disobedience campaign, during which more than 2,700 people were arrested. Palestine Action is now the first group in British history to successfully challenge its proscription. It is worth noting that although the high court has ruled the ban unlawful, Palestine Action remains a proscribed organisation for now. The ban stays in place pending appeal. To understand how we got here, and what happens next, I speak to Haroon Siddique, the Guardian’s legal correspondent. That’s after the headlines. Five big stories Defence policy | Britain and Germany’s highest ranking military leaders have made an unprecedented joint appeal to the public to accept the “moral” case for rearmament and prepare for the threat of war with Russia. UK politics | Keir Starmer is facing calls by MPs for an inquiry into the commissioning of a report that made “baseless claims” about journalists who were investigating a thinktank linked to the prime minister. Health | The number of women who are driven to suicide by domestic abusers is being under-reported, and their cases overlooked by police, in what has been described by experts as a “national scandal”. Gaza | At least 12 Palestinians were killed across the Gaza Strip on Sunday as the Israeli military said it carried out airstrikes in response to ceasefire violations by Hamas. Epstein files | The UK’s top prosecutor has said “nobody is above the law” amid growing pressure on police to fully investigate Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s links with Jeffrey Epstein. In depth: ‘The fate of those arrested and charged remains in limbo’ Palestine Action was founded in 2020 by Huda Ammori and Richard Barnard. The group predominantly targeted Elbit Systems UK, a subsidiary of the Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems, which supplies weapons and drones to the Israeli Defence Forces. Haroon Siddique tells me that the group also targeted other companies it believed to be complicit in Israel’s war in Gaza, which the UN committee said amounted to a genocide in September 2025. “They did this by breaking into arms factories or other organisations they saw as complicit and smashing up equipment, and graffitiing the walls,” Haroon says. “They said it was in the aim of stopping the oppression of Palestinians.” From 5 July 2025, it became illegal to be a member of, or to show support for, the group. The offence carries a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison. The proscription triggered one of the largest civil disobedience campaigns in modern British history. “For nearly a year, we’ve seen pensioners, members of the clergy, war veterans, being carried away by police officers,” Haroon says, adding that these protesters were not “what the government always likes to call the usual suspects”. *** Why were they banned? The government announced it would move to ban Palestine Action shortly after activists broke into RAF Brize Norton and defaced two military aircraft. Though anger had been building, the decision to use terrorism legislation surprised many in the legal community. “The average person associates terrorism with extreme violence against the person, such as the likes of Islamic State, Boko Haram, and al-Qaida,” Haroon says. But, he adds, under the Terrorism Act 2000, one of the criteria you can ban someone for is serious property damage. “The serious property damage has to be linked to some kind of ideology, but I think it’s still surprising to a lot of people that serious property damage is sufficient,” he says. During the court case, the government suggested Palestine Action was a violent group. But internal assessments disclosed in proceedings acknowledged this was a novel use of the law, Haroon says, because it was a group being banned primarily for damaging property. *** How was the ban challenged? The challenge played out both in court and on the streets. In court, Ammori brought a judicial review in the high court in London. Part of the hearing was held in closed session. Haroon explains that Palestine Action challenged the proscription on four grounds and succeeded on two. “One was that it was a very significant interference with the right to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly,” he says. “That’s been the main argument on the street and by human rights groups and environmental groups who criticised the ban; that it impinges on the right to protest in particular.” The second was that the then home secretary, Yvette Cooper’s, decision was not consistent with her own policy. “It’s not enough to say that we think it’s a terrorist group,” Haroon says. “The act which enables proscription requires the home secretary to take into account factors such as the nature and scale of the organisation’s activities and the specific threat that it poses to the UK and other factors like that. It was deemed that the home secretary had not done that.” In the streets, the challenge was led by Defend Our Juries. Thousands held placards reading: “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action.” According to the group, more than 2,700 people were arrested. Of those, more than 500 are awaiting trial. *** What next? On Friday, three judges, led by the president of the king’s bench division, Dame Victoria Sharp, ruled the decision to proscribe the group was unlawful but the ban on the group would remain to give the government time to appeal. Simply put, it is still an offence to be a member of, or to support, Palestine Action. “It means the fate of those 2,700 people arrested, and the more than 500 charged, remains very much in limbo,” Haroon says. Ammori described the ruling as a “monumental victory”, saying the group had been banned not for national security reasons, but because the success of its disruption of Elbit Systems had cost the company millions of pounds and jeopardised contracts. She said the ban has “massively backfired” and called for proscription to be suspended pending any appeal. After the ruling, the Metropolitan police said it would stop arresting people for showing support for Palestine Action while the legal position is clarified, though it may gather evidence for potential future prosecutions. The force acknowledged the “unusual circumstances” could cause confusion. The current home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has said she will appeal, stating she was “disappointed by the court’s decision”. The judgment, though historic, is therefore not the end of the story. Yesterday, Cooper said that she “followed the clear advice and recommendations, going through a serious process … involving different agencies and police advice as well, which was very clear about the recommendation for proscription of this group”. Supporting the decision to appeal, she said: “the court has also concluded that this is not a normal protest group, that it has found that this group has committed acts of terrorism, that this group is not simply in line with democratic values, and has promoted violence.” However, an appeal is not guaranteed to go forward. “You still have to get permission to appeal,” Haroon says. “It’s possible permission could be denied, but if permission is granted then it could be many months before we get a resolution to what’s already been going on for a long time.” For Keir Starmer, the ruling lands as yet another blow in a time marked by jeopardy for the prime minister and his party. Already facing criticism over his leadership, this judgment hands opponents another example of a high-stakes decision made by a Labour government now unravelling in real time. Palestine Action was a relatively unknown group before proscription, Haroon says, but now, it has been splashed on the front pages as serving the government with a humiliating defeat. What else we’ve been reading I couldn’t stop smiling at the story of Rich Pelley gamely going about his day wearing oversized Lego-shaped Crocs. Katy Vans, newsletters team I was shocked to learn the UK lost its measles-free status last month. This is a depressing and frightening read of the abrupt return of this deadly virus. Aamna In preparation for the new Netflix series Reality Check about America’s Next Top Model, read Benjamin Lee’s piece on how many of us failed to spot just how toxic the show was on first watch. Katy Keir Starmer is in a hole he can’t climb out of. How did things get so bad? Nesrine Malik offers her characteristically incisive take. Aamna The forthcoming Labour education white paper will outline their plans for reform of the Send system. For parents of disabled children, and the rest of us, this will showcase how this government views disability and difference. Katy Sport Winter Olympics | Team GB had their greatest day at a Winter Olympics. Matt Weston and Tabby Stoecker won gold in the mixed team skeleton, and Charlotte Bankes and Huw Nightingale picked up their gold medal in the mixed team snowboard cross just a few hours earlier. Rugby union | Wales took a humiliating beating from France at home at the Principality Stadium, losing 12-54 in the Six Nations, their 13th consecutive defeat. Football | In the fourth round of the FA Cup a disappointed Birmingham got knocked out at home to Leeds after running to penalties, Sunderland beat Oxford United at home, and Wolves had an expected victory against league two side Grimsby. No surprises at the Emirates where Arsenal had an emphatic 4-0 win against Wigan. The front pages “Revealed: the truth toll of suicides with domestic abuse at their core” is top story at the Guardian. The i paper leads on “UK to cut Russia defence fund as Kremlin poison threat revealed” and the FT has “Kremlin enlists former Wagner group agents for Europe sabotage campaign”. The Telegraph splashes on “Trump to give Koran burner US refuge” and the Times says “Under-16s social media ban may happen this year”. The Mirror leads on “The Great British water shame”, in a story about sewage spills, and the Mail headlines on “So what are the police waiting for?”, in relation to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and the Epstein files. The Sun says “£500k phone compo for migrants”. Today in Focus How an undercover cop foiled an IS plot to massacre Britain’s Jews The Guardian’s community affairs correspondent, Chris Osuh, reports on the plot by two IS terrorists to massacre Jews in Manchester, and how it was thwarted by an undercover sting. Cartoon of the day | Tom Gauld The Upside A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad Britain’s climate defence on the Lancashire coast looks surprisingly festive: tens of thousands of discarded Christmas trees are buried along beaches south of Blackpool to rebuild sand dunes lost to rising seas. Volunteers have done this for over 30 years, but the effort has intensified as sea levels rise and storms erode the coastline. Lancashire has lost about 80% of its dunes since the 1800s, leaving communities exposed. The buried trees quickly trap sand, forming dunes that protect homes and create vital wildlife habitat. Sand lizards, absent for 60 years, were reintroduced in 2020 and are now breeding. Holly Moeller, an artist who has painted a watercolour of the dunes, finds solace in this space. “When I’ve struggled with mental health, there’s something about the coast and the dunes that is big enough to hold that.” Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday Bored at work? And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow. Quick crossword Cryptic crossword Wordiply

Ukrainian civilian casualties surged by 26% in 2025, say researchers

Civilian casualties in Ukraine caused by bombing soared by 26% during 2025, reflecting increased Russian targeting of cities and infrastructure in the country, according a global conflict monitoring group. Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) said 2,248 civilians were reported killed and 12,493 injured by explosive violence in Ukraine according to English-language reports – with the number of casualties an incident rising significantly. An average of 4.8 civilians were reported killed or injured in each strike, 33% more than in 2024, with the worst attack taking place in Dnipro on 24 June. Russian missiles hit a passenger train, apartments and schools, killing 21 and injuring 314, including 38 children. Iain Overton, executive director of AOAV, said the figures showed “Ukraine fits a wider collapse of restraint that is now visible across multiple wars”, and respect for the distinction of proportionality in war “has broken”. Deliberately targeting civilians or civilian infrastructure in a way that is excessive to direct military advantage is a war crime, but experts have said the principle of proportionality is at breaking point across multiple conflicts, including Gaza, Sudan and Congo as well as Ukraine. “We have watched this erosion unfold over years, from Homs to Aleppo to Mariupol and on to Gaza. What seems different now is the sense that there is no longer a functioning international rules-based order capable of ever holding those responsible to account,” Overton argued. Missile and drone attacks took place almost nightly across Ukraine during 2025, and continued into 2026, leaving millions of people with limited or no access to electricity, heating and water. A total of 805 drones and 13 missiles targeted Ukraine on the night of 9 September, the largest air raid recorded in the war. AOAV monitors civilian casualty figures based on English-language reports of incidents of explosive violence globally. Though the measure is consistent, it undercounts of the true numbers of civilians killed and wounded, partly because media accounts in one language are inevitably incomplete. Globally, civilian casualties dropped 26% from a 10-year high recorded by the monitoring group in 2024, largely because of the October ceasefire in Gaza, previously the most deadly and dangerous conflict for civilians. Civilian casualties recorded by AOAV were 14,024 in Gaza in 2025, 40% lower than the year before. Israel’s military at the end of last month indicated it accepted that the death toll compiled by authorities in Gaza was broadly accurate. A security official acknowledged that 70,000 Palestinians had been killed since October 2023, in line with the latest Gaza health ministry total of 72,061 killed and 171,715 injured. During 2025, 25,718 Palestinians were recorded as killed by the health ministry and 62,854 injured, demonstrating that the English-language press reports monitored represent an undercount of the reality on the ground. According to AOAV, 45,358 civilian casualties were recorded worldwide during 2025, down from 61,353 the year before. Those figures comprised 17,589 civilians reported killed and 27,769 injured by explosive violence of all types. The country responsible for the most killed and wounded by explosive violence was Israel, marginally ahead of Russia. Israel’s involvement in multiple conflicts in 2025 meant that it was recorded as causing 35% of all reported casualties against 32% for Russia. Wars in Sudan and Myanmar were the next most deadly, where total recorded casualty numbers were 5,438 and 3,178 respectively. “Across Ukraine, Myanmar, Gaza and Sudan, the message is the same,” said Overton. “When impunity becomes normalised, war crimes stop being shocking exceptions and begin to resemble a method of warfare.”

EU’s deportations plan risks ICE-style enforcement, rights groups warn

More than 70 rights organisations have called on the EU to reject a proposal aimed at increasing the deportation of undocumented people, warning that it risks turning everyday spaces, public services and community interactions into tools of ICE-style immigration enforcement. Last March, the European Commission laid out its proposal to increase deportations of people with no legal right to stay in the EU, including potentially sending them to offshore centres in non-EU countries. The draft regulation on enforcement, which still needs to be agreed on by MEPs, comes after the far right made gains in the 2024 European parliament elections. In a joint statement published on Monday, 75 rights organisations from across Europe said that the plans, if approved, could expand and normalise immigration raids and surveillance measures across the continent while also intensifying racial profiling. The plans “would consolidate a punitive system, fuelled by far-right rhetoric and based on racialised suspicion, denunciation, detention and deportation,” the statement said. “Europe knows from its own history where systems of surveillance, scapegoating and control can lead.” In announcing the proposals last year, the European Commission described them as “effective and modern procedures” that would increase the deportations of people denied asylum or who had overstayed their visa. One in five people without the right to stay are returned to their country of origin, and the rate has changed little in recent years. Monday’s statement highlighted the sweeping nature of the proposed measures, with plans to allow police to search private homes for undocumented people without a judicial order, as well as “other relevant premises”. The result could be “ICE-like raids” in private homes as well as public spaces and workplaces, said Michele LeVoy of the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants. “We cannot be outraged by ICE in the United States while also supporting these practices in Europe.” The proposal could also require public services to report undocumented people, a move that would probably deter people from accessing essential healthcare, education and social services. Médecins du Monde, a humanitarian organisation, said the broader consequences of such a move were alreadyplaying out in Minnesota, where a public healthcare crisis was unfolding after the months-long immigration crackdown. “Pregnant women, children and people with chronic illnesses simply avoid seeking essential health services, even in emergencies and when their lives are at risk,” said Andrea Soler Eslava of the organisation. “This is unacceptable and can also cause serious public health issues.” At the end of January, 16 rights experts from the UN wrote to the EU about the proposed regulation. The 19-page missive lists more than a dozen concerns over how the plans could contravene international human rights obligations. The UN letter also questioned the EU’s motives. “We are concerned that the proposed regulation may, in part, have been motivated by stigmatising migrants for certain homegrown social problems, wrongly suggesting that removing migrants would solve these problems,” it said, citing the housing crisis as an example. On Monday, the signatories of the statement added to the UN’s concerns, citing draft measures that include the collection of personal data in bulk and easing the exchange of this data across police forces in the EU. Alamara Khwaja Bettum of Statewatch said: “Increasing surveillance, policing, and racial profiling will only fuel racism and a far-right agenda – not reduce migration. If accepted, these proposed measures will undermine the most basic of civil liberties to disastrous ends, which is the real threat we should be focused on addressing.” The draft returns regulation is due to be voted on by the European parliament’s civil liberties committee in early March. Last week the EU moved closer to creating offshore centres for migrants after centre-right and far-right MEPs united to back changes that will give authorities more options to deport asylum seekers, including sending people to countries they have never been to. Emmanuel Achiri of the European Network Against Racism said those who were most likely to be affected by the proposed returns regulations were racialised communities across Europe, potentially adding to the widely documented racial discrimination they already face. “Far from being a neutral migration measure, this proposal constitutes a direct and disproportionate attack on communities that are already marginalised and too often abandoned by policymakers,” he said. “Measures of this kind have no place in a European Union that claims to be serious about addressing structural racism.”

Kim Jong-un unveils housing for families of North Koreans killed in Ukraine war

North Korea has said it completed a new housing district in Pyongyang for families of North Korean soldiers killed while fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine, the latest effort by leader Kim Jong-un to honour the war dead. State media photos showed Kim walking through the new street – called Saeppyol Street – and visiting the homes of some of the families with his increasingly prominent daughter, believed to be named Kim Ju-ae, as he pledged to repay the “young martyrs” who “sacrificed all to their motherland”. Kim said the new district in the capital’s Hawasong area symbolised the “spirit and sacrifice” of the dead troops, adding that the homes were meant to allow bereaved families to “take pride in their sons and husbands and live happily”. Kim said he had pushed to finish the project “even one day earlier” in the hope it might bring “some small comfort” to the troops’ families. In recent months, North Korea has intensified propaganda glorifying troops deployed to fight in Russia’s war against Ukraine, including the unveiling of a new memorial complex in Pyongyang adorned with sculptures of troops. Analysts see it as an effort to bolster internal unity and curb potential public discontent. Kim has sent thousands of troops and large quantities of military equipment, including artillery and missiles, in recent months to fuel Russian president Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine, as the leaders align in the face of their separate confrontations with Washington. Kim last week pledged to “unconditionally support” all of Putin’s policies and decisions. Under a mutual defence pact with Russia, in 2024 North Korea sent about 14,000 soldiers to fight alongside Russian troops in Ukraine, where more than 6,000 of them were killed, according to South Korean, Ukrainian and western sources. South Korea’s National Intelligence Service believes North Korean forces are benefiting from the war by gaining modern combat experience and Russian technical support that could improve the performance of their weapons systems, according to lawmakers who attended last week’s closed-door briefing. The construction of the new street comes as North Korea prepares to open a major ruling party congress later this month, where Kim is expected to announce his major goals in domestic and foreign policy over the next five years and take further steps to tighten his control. The timing of the street inauguration is a “highly calculated political move to justify its soldier deployment” ahead of the party congress, said Hong Min, an analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification. “It visualises the state providing concrete compensation to the families of fallen soldiers ... as a symbolic showcase,” he said. With Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters

Ukraine war briefing: Drone attack on Russian port sparks fires ahead of fresh peace talks

A Ukrainian drone strike ignited fires at one of Russia’s Black Sea ports, officials said on Sunday, ahead of fresh talks aimed at ending the war. Two people were wounded in the attack on the port of Taman in the Krasnodar region, which damaged an oil storage tank, warehouse and terminals, according to regional governor Veniamin Kondratyev. Falling debris from Russian drones, meanwhile, damaged civilian and transport infrastructure in Ukraine’s Odesa region, officials said, disrupting power and water supplies. The attacks came ahead of another round of US-brokered talks between envoys from Russia and Ukraine on Tuesday and Wednesday in Geneva, days before the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February. Ukraine has agreed with European allies on “specific packages” of new energy and military support for Kyiv by 24 February, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday. He had said earlier after a meeting of the so-called Berlin Format of about a dozen European leaders in Munich that he had hoped for new support, including air-defence missiles. “I am grateful to our partners for their readiness to help, and we count on all deliveries arriving promptly,” Zelenskyy said, adding that Russia had launched about 1,300 attack drones, 1,200 guided aerial bombs and dozens of ballistic missiles at Ukraine over the past week alone. European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Russia was hoping to win diplomatically what it had failed to achieve on the battlefield, and was banking on the US to deliver concessions at the negotiating table. But Kallas told the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Sunday that key Russian demands – including the lifting of sanctions and unfreezing of assets – were decisions for Europe. “If we want a sustainable peace then we need concessions also from the Russian side.” Zelenskyy suggested at the Munich conference earlier that there were still questions remaining over future security guarantees for his country. He also questioned how the concept of a free trade zone – proposed by the US – would work in the Donbas region, which Russia insists Kyiv must give up for peace. He told the conference the Americans wanted peace as quickly as possible and that the US team wanted to sign all the agreements on Ukraine at the same time, whereas Ukraine wanted guarantees for the country’s future security signed first. Russia will not end the militarisation of its economy after fighting in Ukraine ends, the head of Latvia’s intelligence agency said. “The potential aggressiveness of Russia when the Ukraine war stops will depend of many factors: how the war ends, if it’s frozen or not, and if the sanctions remain,” Egils Zviedris, director of the Latvian intelligence service SAB, told Agence France-Presse on the sidelines of the Munich conference, which ended on Sunday. He said lifting current sanctions “would allow Russia to develop its military capacities” more quickly. Slovak prime minister Robert Fico accused Ukraine of delaying the restart of a pipeline carrying Russian oil to eastern Europe via Ukraine in order to pressure Hungary to drop its opposition to Ukraine’s future membership of the European Union. “We have information that [the pipeline] should have been fixed,” he said after meeting US secretary of state Marco Rubio in Bratislava on Sunday. Russian army chief Valery Gerasimov visited Moscow’s troops in Ukraine and said the Kremlin’s forces seized a dozen eastern villages in February, the defence ministry said. The claims could not be independently verified.

What next for Greenland and Ukraine? Questions after the Munich security conference

The Munich Security Conference has been a news-making forum for decades – a place where world leaders meet other politicians, as well as journalists and civil society groups, to discuss the biggest issues facing the planet. In recent years, it has been the site of seismic speeches that redefine the shape of global politics. From a public spat between Nato allies over Iraq in 2003, to Vladimir Putin’s 2007 address that signalled the start of a new cold war, to JD Vance’s blistering attack on European nations in 2025, each moment had an impact that echoed long after the weekend came to a close. As the dust settles on this year’s event, here are some questions emerging from the conference: Will Europe ‘wake up’ to a changing world? After European leaders were left stunned by the US vice-president’s assault on their values in 2025, many came into this year’s conference with a sense of urgency. In the days before the meeting, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said “this must be the moment of awakening. It is time for Europe to wake up.” Macron and the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, gave speeches at the conference that sought to map a new, independent path for European powers, while striving to maintain the alliance with Washington. Both leaders announced that they had begun talks on a European nuclear deterrent. On Saturday, the UK’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, made the case for a closer defence relationship with Europe, saying his country was “not the Britain of the Brexit years”. After calling Europe a “sleeping giant”, Starmer went on to stress that a closer UK-EU defence relationship did not imply any weakening of the UK-US relationship, or of Nato. Can the US and Europe remain united? The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, struck a more conciliatory tone than that of Vance in 2025 when he took the stage on Saturday. “[The US is] deeply tied to Europe, and our futures have always been linked and will continue to be,” he said. Outlining how the US under Trump was intent on building a new world order, Rubio said: “We are prepared, if necessary, to do this alone, [but] it is our preference and it is our hope to do this together with you, our friends here in Europe”. He made the speech a day after a YouGov poll showed that among the six largest European countries favourability towards the US was at its lowest point since tracking began a decade ago. “A rift has opened up between Europe and the United States,” Merz said in his speech on Friday. “The culture war of the Maga movement is not ours. Freedom of speech ends here with us when that speech goes against human dignity and the constitution. We do not believe in tariffs and protectionism, but in free trade,” the German chancellor said, drawing applause. The EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, condemned “fashionable euro-bashing” by the US, saying: “When I travel around the world, I see countries that look up to us because we represent values that are still highly regarded.” Does Trump still want Greenland? The Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, and her counterpart in Greenland, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, held a 15-minute meeting with Rubio on the sidelines of the conference on Friday, which Frederiksen described as “constructive”. A day later though, she told a panel discussion on Arctic security that she believed Trump still desires to own Greenland, despite dialling back his recent threats to seize it by force. “Everybody asks us, do we think it’s over? I mean, no, we don’t think it’s over,” Frederiksen said. A US-Denmark-Greenland working group has been established to discuss Washington’s security concerns in the Arctic, but Frederiksen and Nielsen used their appearance on Saturday to say the pressure on the island’s people had been “unacceptable”. Is peace in Ukraine any closer? Rubio skipped a Ukraine-focused meeting with European leaders on Friday, and said little in his speech about the conflict with Russia. However, he found time to meet Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the conference. The US is set to host a trilateral meeting between the two warring sides on Tuesday, but in his speech at the conference Zelenskyy said that Ukraine was doing “everything” to end the war, insisting that viable security guarantees were the only way to get to a deal. “The Americans often return to the topic of concessions, and too often those concessions are discussed in the context only of Ukraine,” he said. He said that Kyiv needed security guarantees for a minimum of 20 years from the US before it could sign a peace deal with dignity, and also called for a clear date for Ukraine to be allowed to join the EU. Which future Democratic hopefuls were there? Throughout the years, the Munich Security Conference has become a staging ground for future presidential nominees and a chance for them to burnish their foreign policy credentials. This year, prominent Democrats rolled into Munich with the message that European leaders must stand up to Trump. The governor of California, Gavin Newsom; the Arizona senator Ruben Gallego, and the governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, were all in attendance, but it was the New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that received the most attention, with speculation that her presence might indicate a possible run for the White House in 2028. Outlining what she called an “alternative vision” for a leftwing US foreign policy, Ocasio-Cortez accused Trump of tearing apart the transatlantic alliance and of seeking to introduce an “age of authoritarianism”. When asked whether the Democratic party’s next presidential nominee should reconsider the country’s military aid to Israel, Ocasio-Cortez said that “the idea of completely unconditional aid no matter what one does, does not make sense”.

China hopes for a bumper lunar new year as world’s biggest migration begins

Chinese officials are hoping that this year’s extra long lunar new year holiday will provide a boost to the country’s economy, where increasing domestic spending has been identified as a key priority for the year ahead. The government expects a record 9.5 billion passenger trips to be made across China during the 40-day spring festival period, up from 9 billion trips last year. Hundreds of millions of people will be crisscrossing the country to make what is often their only trip home to see their families for the Chinese new year celebrations. Although China is no longer the world’s most populous country, losing that title to India in 2023, China’s annual chunyun, or “spring transportation” is still the world’s largest mass migration of people. The official lunar new year holiday will be nine days this year, rather than the typical eight, giving people a longer break to spend their holiday hongbao, red packets of cash given to relatives during the festive period. The holiday period runs from 15-23 February, with New Year’s Day falling on 17 February. China will be ushering in the year of the horse, said to represent optimism and opportunity, following the year of the snake, a period that represents transformation akin to the reptile’s habit of shedding skins. An article recently published by Jiangsu province’s propaganda department made the government’s hopes for the festive period clear: “Driven by holiday consumption, the spring festival cultural and tourism consumption month is leading the way in activating domestic demand”. The holiday would help to “unleash the surging vitality that propels China’s economy forward”, the department wrote, using an idiom that literally means “ten thousand horses galloping forwards”. To help translate this astrological power into reality, the central government said it would issue more than 360m yuan ($52m) in consumer vouchers in February. “There is no question that [lunar new year] provides a huge lift for retailers and providers of consumer services who might otherwise have had a pretty boring February,” said George Magnus, research associate at Oxford University’s China Centre. But on a macro level, China’s economy still suffers from Chinese households saving an unusually large share of their income – around a third – while GDP growth is propped up by exports to other countries. Last year, national retail sales, a metric for consumer spending, grew 3.7%, below the 5% overall GDP growth rate. Boosting demand at home will be a priority of China’s next five-year plan, the economic planning document that will be approved by the country’s parliament in March. The Communist party has already said that it will be focused on “vigorously boosting consumption”. In January, the national development and reform commission said it would be formulating an action plan to expand domestic demand over the next five years. One area of opportunity is the service sector, such as elderly care, entertainment and healthcare, which grew by 5.5% last year. Those sectors are relatively undeveloped compared with consumer goods, meaning there is more room for growth. The cinema is a particularly popular new year’s activity. Last year, Ne Zha 2, an animation about a demon child, was a runaway hit, earning 4.8bn yuan in its first week at the Chinese box office after a lunar new year release. It went on to earn more than 14bn yuan, becoming the best-performing film in Chinese cinema history. It remains to be seen whether this year’s releases – the comedy-action film Pegasus 3 and Scare Out, a national security themed blockbuster – will replicate Ne Zha 2’s success. One service that had a brief moment of popularity was offered by a delivery platform, UU Paotui. The courier services company recently launched a product called “proxy Chinese new year visits”. For 999 yuan ($145), a user could book someone to visit elderly relatives and perform the traditional kowtowing rituals that children do for their parents, while livestreaming the encounter to the customer. But after an outcry about the degradation of traditional rituals, the company withdrew the service. Additional research by Lillian Yang