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Anti-AfD protests sweep Germany as far right closes in on two more states

Thousands of Germans have staged protests against the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) after the party’s watershed victory in a state election, warning it posed a danger in two more polls this month. Demonstrators at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate held a peaceful pro-democracy rally denouncing the anti-immigrant, pro-Russian AfD, which has called for mass deportations of asylum seekers and a rollback of state support for renewable energy and public broadcasting. The party captured its best-ever state result in the former communist eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt on Sunday, with clear momentum heading into regional elections in the capital and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, on the Baltic coast, on 20 September. Police reported 5,000 protesters, while organisers said they drew more than 14,000 people in a campaign to mobilise voters against the AfD. Posters in the crowd read “Fascism is no alternative”, “Stop the Nazi AfD: end racism and cuts to social services” and “History has its eyes on us”. With less than two weeks to election day, demonstrators at the Berlin rally cautioned against resignation and cynicism after Sunday’s shock result. The AfD’s nearly 44% vote in Saxony-Anhalt, the best for a nativist party since the Nazi period, is a “disgrace that makes you furious and stunned”, Jens-Christian Wagner, the director of the memorial at the former Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald, said from the stage. Wagner sounded the alarm that the AfD, although it fell just short of an absolute majority, was on the brink of taking power in Saxony-Anhalt, a first for the far right since the second world war. That “should not be accepted in silence”, he said. Max Schneller, 17, a member of the far-left Linke, from Saxony-Anhalt, said activists in the state would fight any attempts by an AfD government to target minorities. “We will not start categorising our neighbours according to their origin, religion or skin colour – we are too humane to hate,” he said to loud applause. The AfD is three votes short of the support necessary to form a government under its candidate, the media-savvy firebrand Ulrich Siegmund, who hopes to peel off dissenters from the remaining parties willing to play kingmaker. Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has since 2023 listed the state chapter of the party as right-wing extremist, saying it poses a threat to democratic norms. Hundreds of anti-AfD protesters also gathered in Potsdam, near Berlin, with rallies also organised in Münster, Göttingen, Dresden, Aachen, Bamberg, Darmstadt, and Halberstadt, in Saxony-Anhalt, where the AfD captured nearly half the votes, local media reported. In Halle, the region’s second largest city, leftist groups and civil society organisations have been staging a protest camp since election day. The AfD is leading in voter intent polls in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, with about 35%. However, the centre-left Social Democratic party (SPD) of the state premier, Manuela Schwesig, mounted a remarkable comeback over the summer and is now scoring above 30%. In Berlin, one of Germany’s 16 federal states, the picture is more mixed, with several parties jockeying for first place. It is governed by a coalition of conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and the SPD. The CDU, the party of chancellor Friedrich Merz, whose record unpopularity is reported to have weighed heavily with voters in Saxony-Anhalt, holds a wafer-thin lead in the capital, with about 20%. Hot on its heels is the Linke, which has focused on soaring housing costs in its campaign, and the AfD, followed by the SPD and the ecologist Greens, both polling in the mid-teens. Merz has vowed to stay in office and fight for a signature package of painful reforms, arguing the only way to defeat the AfD is to get Europe’s top economy moving again and repair its creaking social welfare system. However the SPD, his junior coalition partner, has indicated its willingness to backtrack on some of the most unpopular measures to shore up support for the embattled government. Analysts say the dispute could further destabilise the shaky coalition.

Russia says it will give a ‘harsh and painful’ response after Hungary expels 10 diplomats - Europe live

The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, has said that Ukraine will ⁠be able to buy crucial ⁠parts for ⁠Patriot air defense systems through the ⁠next €3.2bn (£2.7bn; $3.7bn) disbursement ⁠from the EU’s support loan. “Together with Nato secretary general Rutte, I welcome the agreement ‌by Member States on the derogation for Ukraine to purchase crucial products for Patriot ⁠air defence systems,” she said in a statement. Ukraine heavily relies on advanced air defence systems, mainly US Patriot interceptors, to protect its skies from Russian ballistic missile attacks. But this year, supplies of Patriot missiles have run out, leaving Ukraine vulnerable to strikes. After a brutal summer of deadly Russian missile and drone attacks, Ukraine last week requested an exemption from Buy European procurement rules to acquire US-made Patriot interceptors using the EU’s €90bn support loan.

UK accuses Israeli ‘terrorists’ of ethnic cleansing in West Bank with government backing

Israeli “terrorists” are conducting ethnic cleansing in the West Bank with the tacit backing of the government, the UK foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, has said as he announced sweeping sanctions, alongside France and Canada, on trade with Israeli settlements. In the strongest condemnation ever issued by the UK government, Miliband said the government would now take the official position that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank was unlawful in its entirety, saying such acknowledgment was “the least the people who face such suffering deserve. And it should be the prelude to justice.” Miliband said that the government would now enact: An import ban on goods from illegal settlements in the occupied territories. A comprehensive sanctions regime against providing services such as construction or financing for Israeli settlements. A ban on the advertising in the UK of illegal settlement properties. Personal sanctions against key individuals accused of promoting settler violence. A new ban for arms licences and other exports that “materially contribute to the occupation”. Miliband said the action would show that “Britain is not silent in the face of deep injustice and nor is it powerless”. In an emotional statement, he described the agony he had heard from Palestinians in the West Bank whose homes had been destroyed and from doctors in Gaza who had seen children dying waiting for medical treatment. The UK’s actions have been made increasingly urgent by Israel’s plans to expand the E1 settlement project east of Jerusalem, which could in effect cut off the north from the south of the West Bank, threatening the viability of any future Palestinian state. Miliband said those who financed or facilitated illegal settlements would “face the full force of UK sanctions” and that he expected the legislation to enforce the trade ban and sanctions to be in place within nine months. He stopped short of describing Israel’s actions in Gaza as a genocide, saying the UK would wait for the determination of the international courts. Speaking in the Commons on Tuesday, he said: “The British government agrees that there is ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank, perpetrated by settler terrorists. “All too often the Israeli government has turned a blind eye to this and worse, members of it have made statements and taken actions to support the forced displacement of Palestinians. I recognise the gravity of saying this, but the truth is the least the people who face such suffering deserve. And it should be the prelude to justice.” He said the British government had previously described settlements as illegal but had not described the occupation itself as unlawful, and that would now change. France and Canada were also announcing bans on settlement goods on Tuesday, joining the Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium, Spain and Norway, which have either banned goods or were in the process of doing so. Miliband said he was taking the action as foreign secretary but also as a “proud British Jew” with relatives who had found safety in Israel after the Holocaust. “I am proud of my Jewishness and unwavering in my support for the state of Israel,” he said. “And there is absolutely no contradiction between this and my support for the state of Palestine. Indeed, quite the opposite. The two-state solution is based on an explicit belief that the only route to security for both peoples is to live side by side in peaceful coexistence with freedom, security and self-determination.” He said to respond to threats against Jews around the world, the UK would also impose sanctions on Lebanese Hezbollah’s financing arm, Al-Qard al-Hassan, and reimpose major economic sanctions on Iran in line with the EU and US. Miliband said he felt a “deep sense of shame about what has unfolded in Palestine under the eyes of the international community” and said there had been “the most unimaginable trauma and suffering in the last three years – death, destruction and dehumanisation on an appalling scale”. The foreign secretary said the action marked the beginning of a new approach towards Israel and Palestine; one that not only condemned but took action. “Our argument is not with the people of Israel, with whom the UK has unshakeable bonds. Our argument is with the conduct of its government.” Miliband said the actions of the Israeli government in the West Bank meant more settlements had been approved in the last four years than in the last 20 years combined. He said he believed the majority of the British people would support the ban on trade with illegal settlements. “Settlements are illegal. They should not be promoted in our country,” he said. The UK government knew there were also concerns about arm sales to Israel, he said. The UK had already suspended more than 30 arms licences used by the IDF in Gaza, but would now go further. “We will now also refuse all licence applications for arms and other exports that materially contribute to the occupation, in effect a double lock against arms sales. This means the ban on such exports will now remain as long as the occupation persists.” He said the UK would support “full, robust and fair judicial processes” to determine if Israel had committed genocide and said the government would not pre-judge that process. “This has been the case for all of the genocides since the 1948 genocide convention: Rwanda, Srebrenica, Cambodia, and acts against the Yazidi people. This will remain our policy. It is right that this issue has been brought before the ICJ [international court of justice] and I want to make it clear that we support the court in coming to its determination.” However, he said that the most recent reports by international bodies found there was “increasing evidence that war crimes appear to have been committed and we support legal processes to determine this”. The UK would use the UN general assembly next week to “shine the clearest and harshest spotlight on what is happening and what must change”. The steps set out by Miliband fall short of the full demands made by Palestinian advocacy groups, but are a sign the UK is moving beyond traditional rhetorical support for a two-state solution towards active steps to forestall the expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank. The prime minister, Andy Burnham, spoke to Donald Trump and key Gulf allies, such as Qatar, on Monday to brief them on the government’s plans in the region. Both the US and Israel have threatened retaliation against Britain for the sanctions. The US ambassador to Israel, Mick Huckabee, said the US was considering what action to take, warning it may prohibit the UK from trade with several US states that have anti-BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) laws. Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, said it was “a gross interference in the democratic elections of a sovereign nation” before the country’s elections in October. Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Saar, said: “If Britain acts against Israel, Israel will act against Britain,” and Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister, called for the expulsion of the British ambassador.

Houthis strike Saudi Arabian cities in significant expansion of Middle East war

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis have attacked four cities in Saudi Arabia, wounding more than 70 people and setting oil installations ablaze in what appeared to be a significant expansion of the Middle East war. Saudi Arabia said it would retaliate after the overnight strikes – reportedly involving dozens of drones and missiles – that targeted several oil facilities in the country’s south. The country would “take all necessary measures to defend its sovereignty”, a foreign ministry statement said, demanding a halt to the Houthi strikes on Saudi territory and oil tankers in the Red Sea. Maj Gen Turki al-Malki, a spokesperson for the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen, said pro-government forces “will take all necessary operational measures to deter the terrorist Houthi militia with utmost resolve”. The Houthis, who control most ⁠of Yemen’s populated areas including the capital, said ⁠they had launched a broad operation deep into Saudi territory using drones and missiles to strike an airbase in the southern city of Khamis Mushait, and targets belonging to Saudi Arabia’s state oil company in nearby Abha, Najran on the Yemeni border, and the Aramco facility at Jizan. Jizan, which is home to one of Saudi Arabia’s biggest refineries, is close to the border with Yemen and was damaged in an attack weeks ago. Saudi authorities said women and children were among the 73 people hurt. The large numbers of people reportedly wounded suggested the attacks were among the biggest carried out against Saudi Arabia since the US and Israel began their war against Iran in February. While the Houthis and Saudi Arabia have been entangled in a long running conflict in Yemen, the US-Israel war against Iran has added a dangerous new regional dimension. After a month of relative calm in August, Iran and the US have resumed exchanges of fire, sending ‌global oil prices back up to levels last seen in July. Brent crude prices were up more than 2% on Tuesday, above $99 a barrel. Houthi attacks on south-western Saudi Arabia have the potential to worsen the ‌war’s global economic impact by disrupting Middle East energy supplies beyond the blockaded strait of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia has led an Arab coalition battling against the Houthis in Yemen for more than a decade. That war had calmed in recent years, but a ceasefire has broken down, with the Houthis threatening shipping at the mouth of the Red Sea. The Houthi spokesperson Yahya Saree accused Riyadh of having escalated the war by launching airstrikes on Yemen, and said the Houthis would respond. Washington is trying to increase the flow of oil to world markets by guiding ships through the strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf, while cutting off Iran’s exports with a blockade just beyond it. Tehran has announced new measures to seal off the strait, saying it will soon reveal details of a “maritime exclusion zone” that will extend from the perimeter of the US blockade through the strait and into the Gulf itself. Washington fired at Iranian tankers over the weekend in retaliation for Iranian fire at US warships. Iran said it had used new, more capable ballistic missiles to attack American ships. Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council wrote on X: “In recent days, Washington has received a clear warning from Iran’s new missiles. Economic warfare will be met by a maritime exclusion zone across the Persian Gulf to ⁠the blockade perimeter. The operational posture toward US warships and bases has been fundamentally recalibrated.” Andreas Krieg, a Gulf expert at King’s College London, said the Houthi attacks create an “extremely uncomfortable dilemma” for Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto Saudi ruler. After four years of trying to withdraw from the Yemen conflict, “restraint now carries the risk of allowing the Houthis to dictate the spiral of escalation”, Krieg said. AFP and Reuters contributed to this report

Fourteen men go on trial in Paris over deadliest small-boat Channel crossing

Fourteen men will go on trial in Paris on Tuesday over the deaths of at least 31 people in the worst mass drowning from a small-boat crossing in the Channel on record. The accused men, alleged to be linked to people-smuggling networks, face charges including manslaughter and facilitating illegal immigration as part of an organised criminal group. Twenty-seven people were confirmed dead when their inflatable dinghy sank in the early hours of 24 November 2021. Four people remain unaccounted for. The victims were mostly Iraqi Kurds, but also included people who were Afghan, Ethiopian, Iranian, Somali, Vietnamese and Egyptian. The youngest known victim was a seven-year-old girl. The confirmed dead also included 15 men, seven women and two teenagers. A team on a French fishing boat near British waters off Calais had raised the alarm when they saw several lifeless bodies floating in the water. According to testimony from the two survivors, the flimsy boat which had attempted to cross one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes – between the northern French coast and Kent in southern England – began to deflate and take on water after several hours at sea. Passengers fell overboard and drowned one after another, despite making about a dozen desperate calls for help to French and British rescue services. Only two men survived the tragedy. Investigators allege that Afghan and Iraqi-Kurdish smuggling networks ⁠organised the migrants’ passage to Britain from camps near Grande-Synthe and Calais in northern France. The defendants face charges including involuntary manslaughter, facilitating illegal immigration as part of ⁠an organised gang and criminal conspiracy. Two of them, including an Afghan man, are the subject of arrest warrants and will be tried in absentia. Among the defendants are alleged organisers, transporters and logistics coordinators connected to the smuggling groups. Prosecutors argue their actions helped create the conditions that led to the disaster, even if some were not physically present when the boat launched. Prosecutors have accused the defendants of helping launch a “substandard small boat, uncertified, unfit for navigation on the open sea, overcrowded and lacking appropriate lifejackets”. Liability has also been extended to those accused of transporting, housing or accompanying the victims, actions that formed part of a “chain of successive events” leading to the tragedy, according to investigators. The defendants have denied being smugglers and disputed their responsibility, or have presented themselves as people who were seeking to make the journey themselves. However, phone records and location tracking placed several of them near the departure site and linked them to organising crossings to Britain. For the people onboard the sinking boat, despite several distress calls, it was nearly 12 hours after the first pleas for help before the dinghy was finally found by the French fishing vessel. A separate investigation is ongoing in France into seven French military personnel – five members at a maritime rescue coordination centre, and two sailors onboard a patrol vessel – who have been under investigation since 2023 for failing to help a person in danger. They deny the allegations. The UK’s Cranston inquiry, in its report released in February, found that systemic failings, missed opportunities and inadequate resourcing undermined the UK’s maritime search and rescue response on the night of the disaster. HM Coastguard was placed in an “intolerable position”, it said, with chronic staff shortages and limited operational capacity contributing directly to the failure to rescue people in the water. It found the deaths would have been “avoidable” if British and French authorities had acted sooner to rescue those onboard. Families of some of the victims will travel from Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan to attend part of the trial, their lawyers said. “Justice must hold accountable everyone who played a role in this tragedy,” the lawyers, Matthieu Chirez, Thomas Ricard and Camille Renouard, said in a statement. Agence France-Presse and Reuters contributed to this report

Tokyo tourist hotspot bans short-term rentals amid surge in complaints

A neighbourhood in Tokyo popular with foreign tourists will ban visitors from using thousands of short-term rental accommodations after a slew of complaints about behaviour. In the latest sign that Japan’s patience with mass tourism is wearing thin, Shinjuku ward – home to the notorious Kabukicho nightlife district and the world’s busiest railway station – will prevent visitors from using private lodgings in residential areas and near schools and important cultural sites, Japanese media reported this week. The measure, to be introduced through a local ordinance, could encourage other local authorities to follow suit. Shinjuku, with a regular population of more than 350,000, is home to 3,775 private lodgings – or minpaku – the largest number anywhere in Japan. While tourism has boosted sectors of Japan’s economy and raised the country’s profile overseas, the surge in visitor numbers has created tensions with residents in popular destinations such as Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka. Shinjuku ward believes the measure will affect as many as 2,000 lodgings in residential areas – almost half the total, according to the Mainichi Shimbun. The number of minpaku residences in Shinjuku has almost tripled since 2022. Reports said officials had been forced to act after receiving more than 1,300 complaints from residents in the 12 months to March. Many cited disruption caused by visitors who did not dispose of their rubbish properly, made too much noise and smoked in areas where it is banned. There have also been reports of trespassing. Officials said temporarily revoking the licenses of renters whose tenants misbehaved would not address residents’ concerns. “Even if we crack down on badly behaved operators, the number of complaints remains the same,” a ward official told the Japan Times. “So we decided it’s better to change the ordinance.” Authorities did not single out particular operators for the ban. But it is likely to affect those using popular companies such as Airbnb. An Airbnb spokesperson told the Guardian: “Shinjuku has been an important partner to us, and we take residents’ concerns seriously. Home sharing works best when residents, hosts and guests can all live well alongside each other, and that is what we want to help the ward protect. “We would welcome the chance to work with the ward on measures that target the problem more precisely - a prohibition across residential zones would close thousands of registered homes affecting compliant and responsible hosts, while leaving untouched the unregistered operators behind much of the disruption residents describe. “We believe there is a version of this ordinance that protects residents’ quality of life without closing responsible, licensed hosts, and we want to help find it.” The ward will ask for members of the public to give their feedback on the proposal next month, with a view to submitting revisions to the ordinance in February. It also plans to reduce the number of days per year that minpaku in residential areas can be rented out from 180 to 120. Authorities in Kyoto – where tourists flock to view temples and shrines, rent kimono and photograph traditional geisha entertainers – limit minpaku operations in residential areas to just 60 days a year, during the off-peak season between January and March. “Residents are concerned that their communities could be falling apart,” Kyoto’s mayor, Koji Matsui, said earlier this year. “We have strengthened the oversight of operators, but that is not enough. We need to go further,” the Asahi Shimbun quoted him as saying. A record 42 million people visited Japan last year, spending a combined ¥9.5tn ($62bn) – also an all-time high. The government has set a target of 60 million visitors by 2030 – a goal critics say will exacerbate “tourism pollution”. Authorities near Mount Fuji have introduced climbing fees and imposed a daily visitor cap in an attempt to reduce overcrowding on Japan’s highest mountain. In February, the town of Fujiyoshida, a popular Fuji viewing spot, decided to cancel this spring’s cherry blossom festival, citing a rise in disruptive behaviour by tourists. The mayor, Shigeru Horiuchi, said the decision had been taken to “protect the dignity and living environment of our citizens”.

Who are the Australians missing in the Nepal floods? What we know so far

The number of Australians missing in the Nepal-Tibet flash flooding disaster has fallen from 36 to 35, after another person was confirmed safe on Tuesday. The Australian citizen, who was in Nepal and uncontactable in the wake of the flash flooding on 26 August, confirmed they were safe and well and did not require consular assistance. It comes after seven previously unaccounted for Australians were confirmed safe in recent days, with one found in Nepal, one in Tibet and three outside the crisis-hit area. A Sydney woman, Cara Severino, 25, was also safely located in Nepal more than two days after the floods. The names of the Australians confirmed safe have not yet been released. Pilgrims trekking to a holy site in Tibet make up the majority of Australians who have been reported missing after the deadly flash floods and landslides tore through valleys on the Nepal-Tibet border. Most were travelling with Himalayan Glacier Adventures, Kailash Journeys and the Isha Foundation. Across Nepal and Tibet, more than 5,000 people have been reported missing and Nepali and Chinese authorities have confirmed that more than 1,000 have died. Here’s what we know about the Australians who remain missing. This article will be updated as more information becomes available. Venkatraman Balakrishnan and Chitra Venkatraman New South Wales couple Venkatraman Balakrishnan, 52, and Chitra Venkatraman, 46, were among 15 Australians travelling to Mount Kailash on a spiritual trip with the Himalayan Glacier Adventures tour group. Their son, Akash Venkatraman, said his parents had planned to leave their riverside accommodation in Syabrubesi before it was devastated by flood waters. Muralitharan family Shylaja Muralitharan, 42, Chandresekaran Muralitharan, 47 and their children Ashwin, 14, and Aarush, 11, were also taking part in the Himalayan Glacier Adventures spiritual tour to Mount Kailash when the flood hit. The parents and two children had been training together for the long walk, Shylaja’s younger sister Vaishnavi said. She lost contact with the family shortly after their breakfast on the morning of the flood. Iyer family Sreedharan Iyer, 52, and Lakshmi Iyer, 50, and their adult sons Rishab Iyer, 23, and Rudhra Iyer, 20, were taking part in the spiritual pilgrimage to Mount Kailash with Himalayan Glacier Adventures. The Iyer brothers are medical students at the University of Newcastle and members of the West Pennant Hills Cherrybrook cricket club in Sydney’s north-west. Karan Bhardwaj, Arpan Mithalal Kothari and Bhavin Raval Karan Bhardwaj, Arpan Mithalal Kothari and Bhavin Raval were travelling together on a Kailash Journey tour of the region. Bhardwaj’s family says the three men have known each other since 2009, when they met at university. Raval’s wife, Bhavinkumar Raval, has told the ABC she believes her husband is still alive and is making plans to travel to Nepal. Bhardwaj is a 40-year-old Brisbane-based member of the Royal Australian Air Force. Bhardwaj’s family member Jen said: “Karan is a dad to my beautiful seven-year-old nephew, as well as a brother, uncle and brother in law. He is so desperately loved by his family and right now we are desperately praying, hoping and believing that Karan is safe, alive and somehow making his way back to us.” Narayan Panthi Narayan Panthi, from Brisbane, has been listed by Nepali police as travelling with operator Kathmandu Holiday Tours and Travel. It is understood Panthi had been carrying out independent volunteer charity work in Kathmandu earlier in the week before travelling towards the border region. Panthi’s cousin, Amrit Bhusal, told Guardian Australia his family were devastated but “holding on to hope and praying for positive news”. “We are still hoping,” Bhusal said. “We are still searching. We are still praying for Narayan to come home safely.” Bhusal said Panthi had been “helping disadvantaged children in Nepal reach their full potential through education”. Bharat Mangwani Bharat Mangwani, 42, was travelling with the Isha Foundation as part of a pilgrimage to Lake Manasarovar when his family lost contact with him on Wednesday morning. He was last seen at Gyirong before the group was set to depart for Kathmandu. “All of us are praying for him and hopefully he comes back to us soon,” said a close friend, Kushagra Tiwari. Mangwani’s family, including his nine-year-old son and three-year-old daughter, have travelled to India with a family friend, while his wife has flown to Nepal to look for him. Renee Spry A Sunshine Coast disability support worker, Renee Spry has been described as a “deeply spiritual” person who travelled to Nepal on a pilgrimage. “She had two degrees, and she chose to do something that was … a completely selfless vocation,” her sister Clair Spry said. “Her priority was always other people.” “Every person she touched, they knew her love and kindness. She would be so uncomfortable with all this.” Clair Spry has set up a GoFundMe so her family can travel to Nepal to look for signs of Renee. Suhasini Kandimalla A mother of two from Springfield, near Brisbane, Suhasini Kandimalla was hiking with another Springfield local, according to her sister, Supreethini Kandimalla. While she was a New Zealand citizen, Suhasini had been approved for Australian citizenship, her sister said. She had planned to attend a citizenship ceremony for it to be granted soon after she returned. “I don’t know if it was a religious calling for her to do it,” Supreethini said of the Nepal trip. “But she certainly loved the treks in New Zealand too, and would go on lots of long hikes.” Reshma Patel A Newcastle woman, Reshma Patel, 46, was in the Isha Foundation group. She didn’t know Sumi Adhikari beforehand but the pair had become friends on the pilgrimage, said Patel’s family friend Chin Valsan. “They were talking to each other, and they were supposed to come back on the same flight on Thursday,” he says. He describes Patel, who has two children aged 10 and 14 and works casually for Canterbury-Bankstown council, as “full of life” and a “kind soul” who loves her family and friends. Kanagamah Sundrasan The mother of two from Springfield, near Brisbane, was part of the Kailash Journey trek to Mount Kailash. Her daughter, Swaatika Kanniah, said her mother had been excited about the hike. “It was a pilgrimage, she really wanted to go and have that experience.” A photograph of her on the trip shows her smiling with five other members of the tour; all are now missing. “I feel like everyone is trying their best but yes we don’t know much about what’s going on,” Kanniah said of the recovery efforts. Michael Keats The family of 37-year-old Michael Keats, from Mollymook in NSW, said on social media that he had died. Keats’s partner, Emily Boyd, said on Instagram on Sunday that he had been on a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash, which had been his “dream for many years”. “Mike went on a pilgrimage to Mt Kailash seeking enlightenment,” Boyd said. “There’s a bittersweetness knowing that there was nothing more that Mike wanted [than] to know God, and to merge with the divine. “He was a mystic, a medicine man, a teacher, leader, partner, father, brother, son, uncle and dearly beloved friend. He showed up for so many people in so many ways. A heart of pure gold. We love you forever and always.” On Tuesday, the foreign affair minister, Penny Wong, said the Australian government “has not yet received official confirmation of Mr Keats’ passing. He does remain unaccounted for in terms of the information we have. But … we respect the rights of the families to make the statements they have. “Our thoughts go out to his family and to every Australian family who is hoping that the many who are missing can be located.” Luke Costanzo Luke Costanzo, 30, from Perth remains missing, his family has confirmed. He was on a pilgrimage trek with the Isha foundation, and the group was last in contact at the Gyirong border crossing as they were making their way back to Kathmandu on the final day of their journey, the family said. “Luke is an extremely strong, compassionate, disciplined and spiritual person,” they said. “Once he makes a decision he commits to it fully and he was so excited to be visiting Mount Kailash on a pilgrimage trek with the Isha Foundation.” “We truly appreciate all the love and support from friends and family that we’ve received and ask everyone to keep Luke, and all those affected, in your thoughts and prayers.” The family has asked people who wish to help to donate “to aid the wonderful people on the ground who continue with rescue efforts”. Sandeep Mohapatra and Sidharthi Kumari Sahu Sandeep Mohapatra and Sidharthi Kumari Sahu are members of Melbourne’s Odia community. The couple had taken part in a pilgrimage and were last believed to have been making their way towards the immigration office. Hara Patro, a member of the Melbourne Odia community, travelled to India to speak with their families and has urged Australians to keep the couple in their hearts. “Their families are living through unimaginable uncertainty,” he said. “Every day without news makes the situation harder, but we continue to hope and pray that Sandeep and Sidharthi will be found safe.” The couple’s son is staying with family in India as they wait for news.

‘It breaks my heart’: far-right’s big election victory sparks dismay in German state capital

Maryam and her best friend were ambling through Magdeburg toward the railway station, talking over the dramatic events of the previous evening and the surge by the far-right Alternative für Deutschland to a historically high vote in the Saxony-Anhalt elections. “Don’t laugh at me,” she said, “but I wish we could go back to the days of Angela Merkel, when things were OK in Germany”. The teenagers, from nearby Wolmirstedt, said they were shocked by the AfD’s landslide win. But they felt powerless to do much about it and felt afraid about where it might take their home state. “We talk about it all the time,” said Maryam, whose name has been changed. “It’s on my mind constantly. My dad came to Germany from Syria in 2015. My mum and I joined him two years later.” The first clause of the anti-immigrant AfD’s 100-day programme says that – “from the first moment” of being in power – the party will deport people it deems “irregular migrants”. Maryam believes her family could well face deportation. “We have to renew our residency permits every three years as it is. We’ve always lived in a state of uncertainty. Now after these election results we face going back to Syria which we don’t think is safe, and I can’t even read or write Arabic.” The AfD won almost 44% of the vote in Sunday’s election, more than even it had hoped for. Doreen, 54, did not immediately admit to having supported the party, but said later in an interview she had put her faith in what she termed “the blues” “out of a sense of desperation”. When challenged about the human impact the party’s policies could have, for example on immigrant families, she shrugged: “It is what it is.” “If they [refugees] hadn’t turned up here in such large numbers in the first place, they wouldn’t have to go through such heart-breaking situations now,” she said. Doreen, a cleaner, said she hoped the pro-Russia AfD would be able to take power and act on promises to end refugee status for Ukrainians (as well as aid to Kyiv). “The winners will hopefully straighten up a few things right away,” she said. “They [Ukrainians] come here in their fancy cars, pretending they’re escaping devastation, but most of them have far more resources and designer clothes than I do.” Doreen is speaking close to a stolperstein, or stumbling stone – a brass plaque embedded in the concrete – commemorating Ernst Fliess, a Jewish lawyer. Born in 1877, he lived on the spot where a glass-fronted fitness club now stands until he was “humiliated, disenfranchised … (and) took flight in death” (a euphemism for suicide). But she angrily rejected any parallel between the AfD’s rise in popularity and the Weimar era rise of the Nazis. “Don’t tar me with that brush,” she said. “We are in a different age, with different problems.” Returning from their daily stroll to the Elbe river, 88-year-olds Ernst and Judith, a retired boiler maker and a design engineer who have been married for 64 years, said they did not want to talk about the election result. But it soon became clear that they were shattered by the news. Voting data has shown a stark drop-off in support for the far-right party among the over-70s. “It’s not like we didn’t see it coming,” said Judith. “But we don’t quite know what to do with the information. The reality of it hasn’t quite kicked in.” The couple said they had voted for the far-left Die Linke. Judith said she was “devastated that a party that has so little regard for refugees” had won, and by such a large margin. Her own life story – she was forced to flee her home in Silesia in 1945 and spent years in temporary accommodation before settling in Magdeburg – has greatly sensitised her to the plight of refugees, she said. “I see the look in their eyes, it doesn’t matter where they come from, who they are, and I am so empathetic to their situation,” she said. “It breaks my heart to think that almost half of the population has voted for a party that is so anti-immigrant, particularly after all Germany has gone through as a nation in the last century.” Sitting on a heart-shaped rainbow-coloured bench in front of Magdeburg’s gothic cathedral, Christiane and Franz Josef Jäker, 67 and 71, on holiday from North Rhine-Westphalia, were also digesting the news. “The populists are ruining everything,” said Franz Josef. “Everything that Germany has built up again after world war two. They promise a lot that they can’t deliver, and they also suppress a lot – such as what is going on in Ukraine – so that they can argue for the resumption of Russian gas imports to Germany.” Eric, a paramedic cheerily drumming up funds for a hospice, said he was kicking himself for not having voted. The 21-year-old son of a German mother and a Guinean father who spent 10 years applying for a German passport, said: “I try not to think about what the installation of the AfD in government might mean for me as a dark-skinned man.” Most of all he is worried about “the constitutional changes they might make, and the domino effect that might have across Germany”. Luisa, a bank teller who says she voted for Die Linke, fears for the image of her state. “It’s really bad for the reputation of Saxony-Anhalt. A lot of people have said that foreigners here will now choose to leave, but I know enough low-paid foreign workers who won’t be able to afford to do so, and will just have to put up with being badly treated. “I saw some interviews with Holocaust survivors and they drew parallels with the mood around what’s happening now and the rise of the Nazis. We have to pay attention to this similar sense they say they have – they’re not making it up.”