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Alan Ferguson obituary

My brother, Alan Ferguson, who has died aged 79, was a Scotsman who began his working life as a geography lecturer at Nairobi University in Kenya, before working with aid agencies in that country. Alan joined the university in 1972, but left after a couple of years to teach in Britain at Cambridge University, and then in the US at NorthEastern University in Chicago. However, Kenya had got a hold on him, and he returned to work there, first for Amref, a Dutch organisation, and then GTZ, a German body, mainly in family planning and public health. Eventually he went freelance, helping various aid agencies with their work in Kenya, until a serious accident incapacitated him, forcing him to retire to Scotland. Born in Glasgow, Alan was the son of Bill, an analytical chemist, and Jessie (nee Moncrieff), a shorthand typist. At the local Angus Oval primary school his hair was permanently unruly and his mum decided one day to plaster it with Brylcreem into a cow’s lick. Alan came back from school in a huff; clearly comments had been made. “But Prince Charles has a cow’s lick,” mum pointed out. “Prince Charles doesnae go to Angus Oval,” was the terse reply. After Queen’s Park senior secondary, Glasgow – where he and some friends formed a band, the V5, which played gigs around the west of Scotland – he moved on to Strathclyde University to study geography (1965-69) before completing a PhD at Bristol University. Alan went straight on to Nairobi University but eventually left after a disagreement over student grading, and decided to go back to the UK. Once he returned to Kenya, his work with aid agencies took him to remote rural parts of the country where he was often the first white man many of the locals had seen in the flesh, and where his hairy legs were a great novelty. He was different from many other foreign workers in that he spoke Swahili, integrated with the people and was curious about their lives. His attachment to Kenya was strengthened when he met a local registered nurse, Florence Miyawa, whom he married in 1982. They settled happily in Nairobi, where they had three daughters, Janice, Lynne and Iona. Sundays were an important day for Alan in Kenya, as the airmail edition of the Observer would be delivered to him. He would quickly settle down to tackle the cryptic crossword and would then wing his completed answers back to the UK, often winning the weekly prize. Having turned freelance, he was about to embark on a new project with the global health management consultancy Constella Futures in 2009 when he was knocked down by a bus while he was out jogging, sustaining serious head injuries that meant he was unable to drive or continue working. In 2014, fed up at having to renew his visa every few months as he did not have a job, he returned home to Glasgow with Florence. He is survived by Florence, their daughters, granddaughter Rowena, and by me.

Brazil attorney general says meddling ‘cannot be tolerated’ after Trump funding plans revealed

Brazil’s attorney general has said foreign meddling in his country’s institutions and democracy “cannot be tolerated” after a Guardian report revealed how the Trump administration was pushing to direct funds to a campaign against the Brazilian supreme court. Writing on X, Jorge Messias called the report “an important alert for Brazilian sovereignty”. “The information is especially serious in light of Brazil’s electoral process and the recent episodes of external pressure on our institutions,” Messias added. Brazil is three days away from its presidential election – the outcome of which Washington has been accused of trying to influence – where the leftwing incumbent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, will face off against his far-right rival, the Trump ally Flávio Bolsonaro. The pair are neck and neck in the polls. According to the Brazilian television network GloboNews, the attorney general’s office on Thursday filed a criminal complaint to investigate potential wrongdoing, in response to the Guardian story. Last year, the Trump administration used a campaign of sanctions and tariffs in a failed attempt to pressure Lula’s government and the supreme court over the coup trial of Bolsonaro’s father, the ex-president Jair Bolsonaro. Trump called Bolsonaro’s prosecution a “witch-hunt”, but he was convicted and handed a 27-year sentence for trying to seize power after losing the 2022 election to Lula. In recent months, the Trump administration has again been accused of meddling in Brazilian affairs by using tariffs and the designation of two Brazilian organised crime groups as foreign terrorist organisations to boost Flávio Bolsonaro’s campaign and weaken Lula. Writing on Thursday, Messias said: “Disagreements between governments are inherent to international relations. What cannot be tolerated is for foreign political interests to seek to interfere in the functioning of Brazilian institutions or to influence, directly or indirectly, choices that belong exclusively to the Brazilian people.” Messias added: “It is the right of each generation of Brazilians to freely decide their destiny, protect their institutions, and hand over to their children a country that does not accept decisions about Brazil being made outside of Brazil. Our democracy belongs to Brazilians. And so it must remain.” The attorney general’s comments came in response to a report that the Trump administration was pushing to direct more than $175m of the state department’s flagship human rights fund to a slate of awards that includes a $40m grant for an anti-communism fund, support for a group advancing white Afrikaner rights in South Africa and the campaign against Brazil’s supreme court. A $1m award titled “Countering lawfare and censorship in Brazil” would fund civil society groups opposing what it calls judicial overreach and censorship by Brazil’s supreme court. Bolsonaro’s far-right movement considers the supreme court – and in particular justice Alexandre de Moraes, who oversaw Jair Bolsonaro’s trial – its greatest foe. Moraes is widely seen to have played a key role in thwarting Jair Bolsonaro’s authoritarian plot, which culminated in the 8 January 2023 riots in Brasília, despite concerns about the judge overstepping his constitutional authority in his crusade to protect democracy. During the rightwing riots, hardcore Bolsonaro supporters trashed the presidential palace, congress and supreme court. The court sustained the most severe damage. Bolsonaro supporters continue to claim their leader’s imprisonment is unjust and that he is the victim of a politically motivated sham driven by a corrupt “judicial dictatorship”. Their criticism of Moraes and the supreme court has been bolstered by a recent scandal linking several judges, including him, to Daniel Vorcaro, the playboy banker at the centre of Brazil’s biggest banking scandal. Vorcaro has also been linked to the Bolsonaro family. The banker reportedly gave the family more than £9m, supposedly to produce a biopic about Jair Bolsonaro starring Jim Caviezel, who played Jesus in Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ. On the eve of Vorcaro’s arrest last November, Flávio Bolsonaro messaged him to say: “Brother, I’ll always be with you.” Vorcaro is being held in federal police custody in Brasília. His legal team has consistently denied wrongdoing. On Wednesday, his lawyers said he was not involved in “any kind of illicit activity or criminal practice”.

France school protests escalate into ‘urban violence’ as PM calls crisis cabinet meeting

A fast-growing protest by high-school students over long hours, teacher shortages and decaying facilities has escalated into “urban violence”, the French government has warned, as it said many schools would switch to online classes to protect teachers and pupils. The prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, called a crisis cabinet meeting on Thursday and told ministers to cancel travel plans to deal with the demonstrations, which erupted in the Paris region last week but have snowballed across the country. Lecornu’s office said: “This upsurge in violence makes it virtually impossible to maintain the continuity of public education and is exposing staff and students to danger.” The education minister, Édouard Geffray, is to meet pupil representatives on Friday. About 900 demonstrations, blockades and related incidents were under way outside high schools around the country, police said, with more than 160 shut down as a result. Access was also blocked to about 30 university campuses on Thursday, including in Paris and Marseille. Nearly 3,000 lycée students – aged between 15 and 18 – have been detained since the start of the protests, including 1,949 on Thursday alone, the interior ministry said. More than 300 police and dozens of firefighters, teachers and pupils have been injured. The pupils’ grievances range from overloaded timetables and overcrowded classes to insufficient teachers and unbearable temperatures during heatwaves earlier this year. Riot police have been deployed to confront the increasingly violent protests. Injuries have mainly been from hurled objects but also from police-fired riot-control projectiles, with the interior ministry announcing an internal police investigation after accusations of excessive force and brutality by officers against three pupils. Rubbish bins have been set on fire outside many schools and more serious arson attempts have been reported inside some buildings. Fire damage in one school in Nantes in the north-west was so extensive that it will stay closed for a month, authorities said. In the northern city of Caen, 16-year-old Maelle said she wished those setting bins on fire would protest “with words”. Students were protesting “against this government that doesn’t invest in heating, air conditioning, or teachers’ salaries”, she told AFP. In Strasbourg in the north-east, tram services were temporarily suspended to “restrict the movements of rioters and demonstrators”, the regional prefect said, after protesting students obstructed the tracks with crowd control barriers. “There are 35 of us per classroom,” one 17-year-old Strasbourg student said. “There aren’t enough toilets, and there are water leaks in some rooms. The building is falling apart, the cafeteria is too small. There’s zero budget, zero resources.” Several bin fires were also reported in the southern city of Toulouse; while in Lille, young people wearing black hoodies destroyed a bus stop. In Marseille, there were attempts to light fires inside two schools. In one, a teacher was splashed with petrol. While many teachers and several headteachers have reported being physically threatened and sometimes attacked, some support their pupils. Juliette Estiville, a high-school Spanish teacher in Paris, said that the police response had disgusted her. “I’m actually here just to provide protection, to form a barrier between the police and the students,” she said. “Today went well, it’s going well, but I think that the teachers who come to the blockades are really there to protect our young people.” The government has accused the radical left La France Insoumise (LFI) party of encouraging the protests, with several LFI MPs and mayors, including Bally Bagayoko, the LFI mayor of the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, cheered at demonstrations. The party’s candidate for the 2027 presidential election, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, insisted on Thursday that LFI backed “non-violent methods of struggle” and added that his “greatest worry is an unbearable level of police violence against these young people”.

How poor public transport policy is putting the brake on cities | Letters

Your analysis of slowing buses in global cities sets out the mechanism exactly, and the remedy follows from it (London buses in decline? Why public transport in global cities is slowing to a crawl – visualised, 23 September). Transport for London’s own calculation that a 10% fall in speed costs 6% of demand and Imperial College London’s finding of the same decline across 15 cities show what happens to buses as the traffic thickens around them. Retiming the lights will not reverse it, and London is already trying. The phrase to notice in the article is one used by TfL: signals will give more buses priority “where possible”. There lies the difficulty. On a route running a bus every two minutes, the signals are asked to intervene 30 times an hour in each direction, and the junction cannot recover between calls before the next bus arrives. Bristol city council’s engineers found precisely this when they reviewed their bus priority: in the most congested parts of the city, priority delivered no journey-time saving at all. This is a bigger brake on the economy than it looks. What holds a city back is the plain difficulty of getting across it to work, to customers, to the shops. A firm can recruit from a smaller area, a worker can reach fewer jobs, and a high street can be reached by fewer people. Much of the decline of the high street is a decline in how easily people can get to it. The cure is to carry the same people in fewer vehicles. One tram carries as many people as three or four buses, so it can be given priority junction after junction, and the crossing traffic still gets its turn. About 30 French cities have put trams through their centres since Nantes started in 1985, and they rebuilt those centres around them. Their central streets are visibly busier for it. Sheffield’s trams share a shopping street with cars and vans, and run to the same timetable in the peak as at midday. David Andrews Chair, Light Rail Transit Association; lead author, Bristol Area Bus and Tram Business Case • Your article on London buses in decline highlights poor transport policy in London, which is guided by publicity rather than practicality. Buses have slowed down as dedicated bus lanes have been largely replaced by a poor choice of cycle lanes. London is an old city with narrow lanes and, with individual cycle transport given priority over mass public transport, it’s no wonder that buses have slowed and become erratic in service. One only needs to observe the utilisation of cycle lanes that are empty except during the peak hours of 7.30am-9am and 4pm-5pm on weekdays. That is a gross waste of valuable road space that could be used by buses. Having a dedicated bus lane instead of a cycle lane would speed up buses and make them more reliable. The bus lane could be shared by cycles and during peak times be dedicated to them, while being free for buses rest of the day. Sadly, politicians rarely look beyond elections, and fail to prioritise buses over bicycles. The authorities have wasted millions on cycle lanes while failing spectacularly to improve mass public transportation. V Narayanan London • Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.

Putin says ‘all weapons at disposal’ if there’s an attack on Russia – as it happened

And, on that note, we will be closing the blog for today. Russian president Vladimir Putin repeated his threat of using “all weapons at disposal” against any perceived aggression against Russia, as he falsely insisted that Russia was “forced” to attack Ukraine and faces further provocation from Nato (18:05, 18:25). Nato’s secretary general Mark Rutte has warned that “Europe is not at peace today,” as it faces a “full-blown war” in Ukraine and “growing” list of Russian malign hybrid attacks on the continent (17:44). German chancellor Friedrich Merz has said Germany is “preparing for major hybrid attacks, including severe ones,” and would respond “swiftly and very clearly,” as he repeated his warning that “the coming months will be momentous for the fate of Ukraine and for the security of Europe.” (17:35). Separately, Finnish authorities are investigating a slew of suspected break-ins at the homes of members of parliament, which the prime minister said could “very likely” be linked to a foreign power (14:45). Elsewhere, France’s prime minister convened a crisis meeting on Thursday and cancelled ministers’ trips to focus on the nationwide spread of protests, some violent, by high school students venting against under-resourced schools (16:20, 16:32, 16:47). If you have any tips, comments or suggestions, email me at jakub.krupa@theguardian.com. I am also on Bluesky at @jakubkrupa.bsky.social and on X at @jakubkrupa.

Co-pilot in flight stabbing had ‘Islamic radical indoctrination’, says Netanyahu

The Omani co-pilot who stabbed his captain in an apparent attempt to crash an Israel-bound flight from Dubai had previously undergone radical Islamist indoctrination and was suicidal, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has claimed. Israeli passengers intervened to stop the attack on Wednesday, restraining the co-pilot, while a reserve crew in the plane was able to stabilise the plummeting plane and ultimately land it safely in Saudi Arabia. The plane had more than 170 people onboard and Israeli officials praised the bravery of those who intervened, announcing that four of the Israeli passengers would receive a “heroism” award for preventing a potential disaster. Netanyahu told Fox News: “We know that he underwent Islamic radical indoctrination. That appears to be something we are gathering from his personal information.” The co-pilot, whose identity is still not known, was being interrogated by Saudi security services, which arrested him on the plane’s arrival in Tabuk, in the north-west of the country. Saudi investigators were cooperating with the United Arab Emirates, the US, Oman and Israel to try to determine the attacker’s motive, a regional official familiar with the investigation said. “All possible scenarios, from terrorism to mental disorders, are being looked into. Nothing is ruled out for now,” they told the Associated Press. Two Israeli security officials said that Israel’s initial assessment was that the co-pilot was probably acting alone, Reuters reported. Netanyahu said that the co-pilot was probably suicidal, citing preliminary “indications”. “It looks very likely that he was going to down the plane … The Islamist tendencies, that radicalisation that are found in his background, I think that’s a pretty good clue,” he said, emphasising that final conclusions had yet to be made. Netanyahu had previously said it was “too early to say” if there was any state backing – namely Iranian – of the attack. Two Israeli security sources told Reuters that they had not yet found Iranian involvement. The attack came just days after Netanyahu warned of an unspecified security threat to Israel that could come during its October election. The Israeli military had said before the incident it had no specific intelligence of an imminent threat and the opposition leader Yair Lapid said that a security briefing on Tuesday night included no mention of a related threat. Other Israeli officials, including the defence minister, Israel Katz, and the ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, suggested the incident was a “terror attack”, with the Israeli foreign ministry briefing its diplomats that the attack was against Israel and its relationship with the UAE. Donald Trump suggested the co-pilot was “perhaps a terrorist or perhaps a whack job”, and told reporters at the White House that he and Netanyahu had spoken at length. Netanyahu also spoke to the president of the UAE, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who agreed to Israel’s involvement in the investigation. Flydubai said its flights to and from Israel would be suspended while the investigation took place and urged all parties “to refrain from premature speculation while authorities gather the facts”. The UAE announced on Thursday that it would conduct its own investigation into the incident, which started about two and a half hours after takeoff from Dubai. It said its investigators had begun to look into the attacker’s motive and if he had any links to any “terrorist purpose”. Passengers said they saw a knife-wielding man – apparently the Omani co-pilot – putting the captain of the plane on the floor, after which the plane began to plummet. The wounded pilot, Smit Machchhar, an Indian national, managed to send out an emergency signal and open the cockpit door, allowing passengers to enter and stop the plane’s descent. A video shared by the prime minister’s office showed one passenger, Yaniv Hayoun, a plumber, speaking to Netanyahu at length about how the events onboard had played out. Hayoun told the prime minister he and other passengers heard screaming and felt the air pressure change as the plane dived before they forced their way into the cockpit and found the attacker at the instrument panel. “I grabbed the attacker, put him in a chokehold, and dragged him out first,” Hayoun said during the meeting with Netanyahu after the plane had landed safely and the passengers were flown to Israel. Machchhar was widely praised for his bravery, with Netanyahu and the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, hailing him as a hero. India’s ambassador to the UAE met the wounded captain’s family and briefed them on his recovery, the Indian consulate in the UAE said. Machchhar was being treated in a hospital in Tabuk, but was in good health and recovering well, according to the Indian embassy in the UAE, which said the ambassador had visited the pilot. “Captain Smit Machchhar is a HERO,” Modi said, in a post on social media. “In the face of the gravest danger and despite being seriously injured, he showed immense courage and an unwavering resolve to protect the lives of others.”

Finnish PM says suspected break-ins at MPs’ homes could be work of foreign power

The Finnish prime minister, Petteri Orpo, has said a foreign power could be responsible for a series of suspected break-ins at the homes of several members of parliament. Police said on Thursday they were investigating multiple reports of MPs’ homes being broken into in the Helsinki area in the last year in which nothing was stolen but subtle signs of breaking and entering were left. When asked by a reporter if a foreign power could be behind the alleged intrusions, Orpo said: “It is very possible. Quite possible in this day and age. “If someone tries to destabilise Finland, our sense of security, or our support for example for Ukraine, it has the opposite effect. It strengthens our unity.” He said the incidents would be investigated by police and within government and would be “taken very seriously”. With the Finnish parliamentary elections just six months away, Orpo said the risk of election interference must be taken seriously. “We see in several European countries that Russia has sought to influence elections,” he said. Finland shares a long border with Russia that has been closed for years amid a rapid deterioration of relations since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Finland joining Nato. The Finnish president, Alexander Stubb, said when asked about the suspected incidents: “An attack on a member of parliament is an attack on democracy. “It should not be allowed or accepted in any form … I stand in support of every member of parliament.” At a press conference in parliament, the speaker, Jussi Halla-aho, said he did not have an exact number of suspected cases but that it was “significant”. He said it was the kind of behaviour associated with state actors. “It is known that state actors sometimes engage in activities that resemble suspected cases, but we have no information to comment on at this time and there is no point in speculating,” Halla-aho said. Observations had been made “drop by drop”, he said. “It is possible that the marks were left visible on purpose.” According to the broadcaster Yle, suspected cases include doors being left open to homes and lights being left on. Helsinki police said they had received information from parliament about suspected intrusions at the homes of MPs and had begun a preliminary inquiry. The force said in a statement: “The Helsinki police department is working closely with the national bureau of investigation in clarifying the matter. The inquiry is at an early stage, and the police have nothing further to comment on at this time.”

British Sikh activist released from Delhi jail after nine-year detention

The British Sikh activist Jagtar Singh Johal has been released from a Delhi prison after the Indian high court warned the government it would be found in contempt of court if it continued to attempt to keep him in jail despite an 18 September court order releasing him on bail. Johal has been incarcerated for nine years without any full trial. The court order was issued after Johal’s lawyers issued a writ of habeas corpus alleging he was being detained against the express direction of the court. Johal’s nine-year detention on alleged terrorist offences, has been a cause of diplomatic tension between the UK and India, but campaigners have claimed the British government has not been active enough to secure his release or, alternatively, a full trial. The campaign group Reprieve says his case has never come to full trial largely because of the inability of the Indian government to assemble credible witnesses to back their claim that Johal transported £3,000 to France to fund a multinational extremist plot involving targeted killings in the Punjab in 2016-17. On Thursday morning, the high court in Delhi instructed the Indian government to release Johal by 2.30pm Indian time, giving government officials three hours to comply or find themselves risking contempt proceedings. In the end, he was released in the late afternoon wearing a red T-shirt to be greeted by friends, family and flowers. Documents shown to the court by Johal’s lawyers on behalf of his father-in-law as petitioner revealed that messages from the prison to the Ministry of Home Affairs seeking permission for his release had been left unanswered. His lawyers in their petition stated he had met all the bail conditions yet “the detainee has nevertheless not been released, and is being held in custody without the authority of any court, pending a ‘clarification’ sought by the jail from the Ministry of Home Affairs”. The petition added that no clarification from the ministry had been forthcoming, explaining: “Every day of such detention is a continuing violation of the detainee’s fundamental rights under article 21 of the constitution of India.” Johal has been detained by Indian authorities since 4 November 2017. He is facing eight charges of terrorism in the federal court, but had been cleared of largely similar charges by a Punjab court. He claims any initial confessions he gave were extracted under torture. The bail terms last week imposed 11 conditions, including surrender of passport, a personal bond of 500,000 Indian rupees (£3,930) with two sureties, fortnightly reporting to the investigating officer, prior intimation of any change of residence and a ban on travelling to the Punjab. He was also restricted from talking to media about the case directly or indirectly. The Indian government has alleged the Khalistan Liberation Force undertook the killings and Johal had “complete knowledge of the conspiracy” and was a KLF member. His Dumbarton-based brother Gurpreet Singh Johal said: “There have been so many setbacks and disappointments in the last nine years that I didn’t dare to believe it until I saw Jagtar walking out of the prison gates with my own eyes. The last two weeks have been torture – knowing that Jagtar had been granted bail, but the authorities were refusing to let him out. I’ll sleep well tonight, knowing that he’s not behind bars. “Tomorrow morning, the fight continues, because he’s still on trial and facing the death penalty for something he didn’t do, trapped in a sham legal process designed to punish him for standing up for human rights”. Reprieve’s deputy executive director, Dan Dolan, said: “While tonight is the first night in almost nine years that Jagtar Singh Johal is not caged in a prison cell, he still has the threat of a death sentence hanging over him. It should also be noted that, despite bail being ordered, the prison refused to release Jagtar until his family brought a habeas corpus petition and a judge warned the jail they’d be found in contempt of court”. The UK Foreign Office is understood to have been supporting recent calls for his release on bail after last week’s court order, as have two campaign groups in the UK Redress and Reprieve.