Read the daily news to learn English

Europe is the world’s fastest warming continent. What is to blame?

The whole world is getting hotter as carbon pollution from fossil fuel burning traps ever more heat, but Europe is heating up twice as fast as other continents. The consequences are increasingly deadly, with tens of thousands of heatwave deaths so far this summer. Why is Europe most affected by global heating? Land requires less heat than the vast and deep oceans to warm up, so all continents are warming more quickly than the seas. But Europe is particularly vulnerable for four reasons: changed weather patterns, its closeness to the Arctic, less snow and less air pollution. As a result, Europe is now 2.5C hotter than before the mass burning of fossil fuels, almost double the global average 1.4C rise. Temperatures in Europe have risen by 0.56C a decade since the mid-1990s, compared with 0.42C in North America, 0.36C in Africa and 0.27C in South America. How have Europe’s weather patterns changed? Shifts in how the atmosphere circulates over Europe have led to more frequent and more intense summer heatwaves. This includes the worst ever heatwave, in June 2026, in which a vast area of hot air was trapped under a stationary “heat dome”. Scientists are still investigating the role of global heating in causing changes in atmospheric circulation, but a link seems increasingly likely. Dr Samantha Burgess, from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, said: “We see statistically significant changes in surface pressure patterns and other measures of circulation when we look at trends over the last 40 or more years, and on this timescale they are more likely associated with climate change than natural variability.” The association may be the result of a changing jet stream, a fast high-level wind that has a powerful influence on Europe’s weather and is itself affected by rising temperatures. Why is the Arctic important? The Arctic is the fastest warming region on the planet, despite having no land. This is because the white polar ice cap, which normally reflects the vast majority of sunlight back into space, is melting away fast. As a result, the darker ocean exposed by the melting absorbs much more heat, which then melts more ice, forming a vicious circle. With a significant proportion of Europe relatively close to the Arctic, temperatures are therefore rising faster. What about snow cover? Most of Europe had snowfall in winter in the past. Like the Arctic sea ice, this snow reflected sunlight and kept the continent cooler. But the climate crisis is shrinking snow-covered areas. In March 2025, Europe’s blanket of snow was about 1.3m km2, 31% below the 1991-2020 average. That lost area is roughly the area of France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Austria combined. It was the third lowest snow cover since records began in 1983. Why does reduced air pollution affect temperatures? Air pollution kills millions of people globally every year and so Europe’s record of cutting toxic air levels in recent decades is unequivocally a good thing. However, cleaner air is also unmasking the impact of the rise in carbon dioxide pollution in the atmosphere. Air pollution particles can reflect the sun’s rays, directly or by seeding the formation of clouds, meaning the heat does not reach the ground. Fewer particles means less reflection and more heat that is trapped by greenhouse gases. Lower pollution might even be connected to the increase in blocking weather patterns. How important is each of the four factors above? The short answer is that scientists don’t yet know, but they aim to have an estimate next year. Burgess said: “What we can say is that the importance of each factor must vary with season, with proximity to the Arctic important in autumn and winter, and circulation changes since the late 1970s of greater statistical significance in summer.” The drop in air pollution is most marked in winter because of declining coal heating in homes, and snow cover is a winter issue. Winter warming in Europe in recent decades has been strongest in the north, while summer warming has been strongest in the south-east. What are the consequences? The rapid heating is leading to ever more deaths and more intense wildfires and droughts. Storms, intense rainfall and floods are also being supercharged by the extra heat in the climate system. All deeply affect lives and livelihoods across the continent and will continue to worsen until emissions reach net zero. Rapid cuts in CO2 pollution and the rollout of measures to protect citizens are urgently needed. The UN climate chief, Simon Stiell, said in late July: “The awful costs of this climate crisis – both human and economic – are now reaching national emergency levels. What needs to be done is clear: leave coal, oil and gas behind faster, scale up renewables, and protect people.” The Guardian’s climate forum 2026: On Tuesday 20 October, join Damian Carrington and our panel of experts, including Professor Andy Haines, Katie White MP, Asad Rehman, Shruti Suresh Gareth Thomas and Amy Fairman, for a hopeful and solutions-focused evening. Book tickets here or at guardian.live

Wednesday briefing: Why the prison crisis is about much more than early release

Good morning. On his family holiday last week, the prime minister, Andy Burnham, was reported to be taking daily calls from Ministry of Justice officials about his government’s early release scheme. A furious public outcry has gathered pace since it emerged that the plan – brought in by his predecessor, Keir Starmer, to alleviate overcrowding in prisons across England and Wales – might include two of the killers of PC Andrew Harper and other serious sexual offenders, including grooming gang perpetrators. After several weeks of “system says no” briefings, which Harper’s mother Debbie Adlam has described as “a rollercoaster … really draining”, yesterday Burnham endeavoured to put a pin in it until September. Announcing that he had tasked the justice secretary, Alex Norris, with fast-tracking measures to free up prison space, the prime minister insisted he was “increasingly confident” that the early release scheme can be adapted to exclude the constable’s killers. He had previously intervened to exempt grooming gang members, rapists and those convicted of “serious” child sexual offences. Norris will report to parliament early next month, and Burnham is no doubt keen that this week’s nationwide listening tour is not derailed by constant questions about early release. But the scrutiny is unlikely to recede with opposition parties calling for a U-turn and probation officers yesterday voting decisively in favour of strike action over excessive workloads – a problem they expect to get worse when the scheme starts in the autumn. For today’s newsletter, I spoke to criminal justice consultant and former repeat offender Gethin Jones, and former prison governor John Podmore, about the story missing from the early release row, and what a radical solution to the ongoing prison capacity crisis might look like. First, this morning’s headlines. Five big stories UK news | Repeated debilitating heatwaves this summer are likely to have cost the UK economy more than £4bn in lost economic output by the end of July, new analysis shows. Meta | Courts in England and Wales have joined a number of restaurants, theatres and pubs in banning the controversial Meta glasses, which can record video footage while being worn. Middle East | Firefighters and residents of south Lebanon have accused the Israeli military of lighting wildfires in the region, as forested areas burned down in blazes sparked by Israeli bombing. UK politics | Reform’s deputy leader Richard Tice has been accused of using “nasty tactics” in an attempt to intimidate journalists and deflect attention from his own financial affairs after issuing a legal threat to the Guardian. US news | Democrats called on Tuesday for a congressional briefing over a stunning charade in which Donald Trump was secretly spirited to a different plane than the one the public and press believed he was travelling on. In depth: ‘We should be locking up people we’re afraid of, not people we’re mad at’ Gethin Jones recalls watching a documentary about HMP Strangeways, the crumbling Victorian prison in Manchester that became synonymous with over-crowding and brutal conditions. The Strangeways riot of 1990 was a watershed moment in British penal history, leading to long-awaited public scrutiny and reform. While the echoes of those days are all too apparent, what he recalls most clearly was the then-governor describing prison as “society’s dustbin”. At that point, Jones was already set in his own 20-year cycle of drug misuse and offending: after a childhood in care, he received his first custodial sentence at the age of 14, and was introduced to heroin and crack cocaine in prison. He’s now a passionate advocate for the type of “human to human” intervention that eventually unlocked his own offending cycle – working with men in secure environments. “Politicians keep saying we lock people up to keep communities safe,” he says. “But the reality is that when you lock somebody up, if you do nothing with them while they’re in prison, and nothing to support them when they get out, they’re even more disadvantaged and more likely to reoffend, which is now making our communities unsafe.” The current row over early release is focused on a small percentage of offenders, he argues, while most of those in prison are low risk, high need. “They are people with poor mental health, substance misuse, no opportunities: all of these areas that our society doesn’t know how to manage, then they fall into the justice system and then they go into the dustbin, which is prison.” *** Why are our prisons at capacity? According to the most recent Ministry of Justice data, there are 86,536 men and women in prison custody in England and Wales, one of the highest per capita prison populations in western Europe. It’s a population that has doubled in recent decades – from about 44,000 in 1993 – for a number of interlocking reasons. The hefty courts backlog and wider system gridlock brought about by the pandemic has seen the remand population balloon to more than 15,000, almost 18% of the total in custody. Recalls – the term for people returned to prison after breaching the conditions of their release – have likewise increased by a staggering amount. There were 51,419 licence recalls in England and Wales in year ending March 2026, compared with 40,259 the previous year. Many experts see this as a direct consequence of previous early release schemes: without proper planning, the policy creates a revolving door. Others blame the risk aversion of an over-burdened probation service. Jones is working with a young man who is about to be released from prison for the second time, having been recalled a mere six days after a drug relapse meant he failed to report to his probation hostel in time. “He’s just about to get out now, and there’s still not the support in place. It will be an absolute miracle if he doesn’t get recalled again.” Added to this mix is the fact that judges are imposing ever-longer prison sentences – from an average of 16 months for an indictable offence to 1993 to 22.2 months in 2024. When he was asked to review sentencing by Keir Starmer, former Conservative justice secretary David Gauke attributed it to a “bidding war” between political parties since the 1990s over which can show themselves tougher on crime. And overseeing all of this is another revolving door: that of the entrance to the Ministry of Justice. In the past 10 years, there have been 10 justice secretaries and 13 prison ministers. *** What is the cost of early release? Regardless of sentence inflation, and unhappily for politicians, the public believe prisons are failing to punish prisoners for their offences and not preparing them adequately for a life beyond crime. What is unclear is how aware they are of the administrative sleight of hand whereby successive governments have driven up sentence lengths through legislation, then sought to undo the effect through early release schemes. Richard Garside, director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, has written powerfully about the impact on individual victims: “What should not survive indefinitely is the current arrangement, in which parliament promises punishment that cannot be delivered, and the gap is closed administratively, out of sight, until a letter lands on a victim’s doormat.” In a Facebook post on Tuesday, the prime minister acknowledged “the anguish of [PC Andrew Harper’s] family and, more broadly, of all those victims and their families who may see those who caused them such harm not serve their full sentence”. But the operational impact is significant. Prison Service leaders are described as “terrified of another exemption” to early release as they cope with severe over-crowding, and must now navigate the haphazard system of sentence discounts and days added in order to determine who is eligible. Previous schemes resulted in some prisoners being released in error, while probation managers found their caseloads distended overnight. *** What could Andy Burnham do differently? In the same Facebook post, Burnham said these exemptions could be mitigated by expanding prison places in three ways: removing foreign offenders more quickly; tackling “the long-running injustice of IPP sentences”, which have kept many minor offenders locked up for decades; and re-purposing some women’s prisons for male offenders. Our home affairs editor Rajeev Syal assesses their viability here. John Podmore, former governor of Belmarsh, Brixton and Swaleside prisons, has argued consistently that prisons not only fail to rehabilitate, but in too many cases actively institutionalise despair. The longer-term solution to the present crisis is not, he tells me, to build more prison places – despite Burnham’s colleagues pushing this line yesterday. Podmore has always made a clear distinction between those who threaten the public – probably fewer than 30,000 of the current population, by his informed estimate – and the rest: “We should be locking up people we’re afraid of, not people who we’re mad at.” The government is pressing ahead with its aim to build 14,000 more prison places by 2031, mainly secure category B and C facilities – but a good proportion of the prisoner population is within 12 months of release. “We don’t need those levels of security,” Podmore says. “We need more open prisons in urban areas, more approved premises, more bail hostels.” Female prisoners – the vast majority of whom are nonviolent offenders – are in particular need of more creative facilities like Hope Street in Southampton, which offers a community alternative to prison for women so their children can remain with them. For Podmore, Burnham’s devolution agenda offers a gateway to radical prison reform: a centrally run federal estate for those who require long-term high security; and oversight of prisons for lesser offenders – who have been thoroughly risk assessed – passed to local mayors. After all, as Gethin Jones has already explained, lack of resettlement support is one of the biggest hurdles facing newly released prisoners. Aren’t local authorities better placed to bring them into existing housing, education and mental health networks? Might a truly local prison have a board of governors, like a school, making its management answerable to that community? When Podmore took over HMP Brixton in 2003, it was languishing at the bottom of performance league tables, with angry headlines demanding its closure. He opened the doors, inviting in local community charities and religious groups. “And the response was, ‘What can we do?’ That’s where you change the public perception.” What else we’ve been enjoying I spent half my holiday sharing a cottage with a wasp nest, and was glad to read in the latest instalment of Invertebrate of the Year that my policy of non-engagement was the correct one, definitively settling an argument with my other half. Libby Josh Halliday’s piece about Matilda Davis, a mother who took her own life after she was “pushed to breaking point” by a care system that fails the parents of so many disabled children, was a moving profile of a remarkable woman. Hettie The forecast cloud cover over Glasgow suggests that solar eclipse viewing won’t be that fruitful, but I was still happy to watch our snappy public service video about how to watch it safely. Libby Anthony Bourdain was the world’s first real food influencer who taught us all to avoid brunch like the plague. Zoe Williams spoke to chefs about whether they still admire his hedonistic vibe. Hettie ICYMI, you must make time to read this brilliant and disturbing essay from Katherine Rundell about how AI stands between children and their potential for thinking. I finished it feeling angry – but also, hopeful. Hettie Sport European Athletics Championships | Britain’s Romell Glave won a stunning gold in the men’s 100m at the European championships, with his teammate Jeremiah Azu picking up silver. Football | England defender Djed Spence nears Tottenham Hotspurs exit, with the club allowing him to join Inter in a move expected to cost around £25.6m. Fifa | Gianni Infantino’s opponents are working together to produce a new framework for running world football to replace what they regard as a system of patronage that Fifa has adopted since he replaced Sepp Blatter as president 10 years ago. The front pages “Burnham plan to keep PC’s killers in jail could backfire, warn unions”, is the Guardian’s front page today. The Telegraph says “Police unite to fight early release”, the Express has “Andy U-turns on early release plan”, and the Times writes “Extra safeguards needed for early release, say police”. The FT has “European car industry wary as China tightens grip on component suppliers”, the i Paper has “Summer 2026 will be UK’s hottest since records began”, and the Mail writes “Burnham” Middle-class areas must take more migrants”. Lastly, Metro leads on “The Black Wednesday shopping scramble!”. Today in Focus Could Clacton bin off Nigel Farage? Nigel Farage has taken a high risk gamble by resigning and forcing a byelection in his constituency. Nosheen Iqbal heads to Clacton to find out how voters feel. Cartoon of the day | Nicola Jennings The Upside A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad Caspian tigers were last sighted in Kazakhstan more than 70 years ago. Earlier this month, a female Amur tiger, a breed whose DNA is virtually identical to Caspians, was released into a nature reserve in Kazakhstan as part of a pioneering repopulation programme. “Umit,” which translates to “hope” in Kazakh, was transported to the reserve from the far east of Russia, and soon, she will be joined by more big cats. “There is a lot of work ahead on monitoring tigers and forming a stable population, but today the first and very important step has been taken,” said Kazakhstan’s environment minister. 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

Israel deliberately starting wildfires in southern Lebanon, firefighters say

Firefighters and residents of south Lebanon have accused the Israeli military of lighting wildfires in the region, as forested areas burned down in blazes sparked by Israeli bombing. Environmental groups said the fires in recent weeks were part of a longstanding Israeli practice of targeting Lebanon’s natural environment. On Tuesday, the Israeli military dropped flares in a wooded area outside Khiam, in south Lebanon, sparking blazes. When firefighters attempted to extinguish the flames, a drone struck close by, forcing them to withdraw, the head of the civil defence in the Nabatieh region, Hussein Fakih, said. “Most of our missions are now related to fires. There are enormous areas of woodland that have burned, I don’t have the exact figures, but in the areas close to the [frontline], around 30-40% of the land has been affected by fires,” he said. The Israeli military has caused fires across south Lebanon, in particular in olive groves and agricultural land, in the nearly two-months since the 17 June ceasefire that mostly ended fighting between Hezbollah and Israel, according to videos and testimony from first responders. The military was asked for comment on each of the wildfire incidents, but did not respond. “They started doing this right after the ceasefire, and there have been incendiary bombs every day,” said Fakih. “Small drones come out and drop incendiary materials, [white] phosphorus shells are fired at the woodlands, in addition to illumination flares that they drop during the daytime so the vegetation catches fire.” Firefighters and residents of other areas in south Lebanon describe similar blazes being started by Israeli munitions and drones in dry scrub and woodlands. On Friday, Israeli munitions created large wildfires in two heavily forested areas: in Kfarchouba, close to the border, and between Jezzine and the western Bekaa valley. The civil defence station chief in the area, Samir Hardan, said a fire was started near Kfarchouba on Friday afternoon after a drone dropped a munition in woodlands. After battling blazes overnight and extinguishing them on Saturday, a second drone started another fire on Sunday, Hardan said. Firefighters, who are required to coordinate their movements with the Lebanese army, which relays their request to a “deconfliction” group that includes the Israeli military, were given permission to fight the fires at only two spots, and not other areas where fires were raging. According to environmental groups, the fires are part of a pattern of Israeli attacks against Lebanon’s environment, which threaten the country’s woodlands and the biodiversity they support, experts said. “These are long-established woodlands, dominated by productive stone pine alongside oak. They perform critical functions. The wider area is also an important passage and resting ground for migratory birds,” said Hisham Younes, the founder of the Lebanese conservation organisation Green Southerners. Younes called the Israeli attacks an “ecocide”, saying they were part of the military’s pattern of assaults on south Lebanon’s environment to degrade its ecosystem with munitions, fire and chemicals. Younes said: “It is not about any single fire or attack, but a pattern of destruction that progressively erodes the ability of ecosystems to function, regenerate and sustain life. When those cascading effects also undermine livelihoods and people’s ability to return to and remain on their land, environmental destruction becomes inseparable from the wider transformation of the territory itself.” Since fighting started on 8 October 2023, when Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel in solidarity with the Hamas-led attack a day earlier, Israel has repeatedly targeted Lebanon’s woodlands. The Israeli military has said in the past that Hezbollah used these forested areas as cover for its fighters and its tunnels. Ecologists and rights groups have said that fires and other forms of widespread environmental destruction would have wider effects on civilian populations. Israeli troops used trebuchets – medieval catapults – to fling flaming debris over its border wall with Lebanon in the summer of 2024, while the Lebanese army published photos of Israeli drones that carried hoses used to douse forests in flammable materials. Health and environmental experts raised the alarm in February when Israeli planes dropped herbicides linked to cancer on farms in south Lebanon. Besides the environmental and health consequences of these fires, residents of south Lebanon have mourned the loss of the green spaces in the villages where they grew up. On 1 August, displaced residents of the border village of Yaroun found their olive and fruit groves, as well as their homes, had been set ablaze by occupying Israeli troops. People living in the nearby Christian towns of Rmeich and Aïn Ebel, among the few villages near the border not emptied out by the Israeli military, sent pictures of the fires. “They had already bulldozed the whole village. Then they set fire to the trees. What remained in this particular area were the olive trees – large groves, with very old olive trees. They started there, then the fire spread along the outskirts of the village,” said Hafez Ghasham, the mayor of Yaroun. People in Yaroun had already watched in previous months as all but 20 of the 900 houses in the village were bulldozed by the Israeli military, pooling resources to buy expensive satellite imagery of the village during their displacement. “Many of these trees, most of them, in fact, were inherited from our grandparents and parents. They have enormous sentimental value. The trees were also an important source of income for the people of the village,” Ghasham said. “They are trying to make the land uninhabitable. They are erasing our entire history, our entire culture, all our memories. Maybe the idea is that after some time, it will look as though nobody had ever lived here.”

British man with dementia told to leave Sweden after losing migration case

A 74-year-old British man who has been living in Sweden for 25 years who needs round-the-clock care for dementia has been given 10 days to leave the country after he lost a post-Brexit migration court case. The deportation order comes after a Swedish court ruling in July that the government’s drive to reduce immigration trumped the needs of a man in full-time care. “The state’s interest in regulated immigration outweighs Horace Mason’s interest in continuing to reside” in Sweden, the migrations court of appeals ruled in July. The Masons’ family trauma echoes that of Joyce Thomas, a 78-year-old widow who the Guardian revealed on Monday was also facing deportation because of late Brexit paperwork despite living in Sweden for 21 years. The son of Horace Mason (known as George) was told by the British embassy on Friday the authorities had given him until 20 August. “It made me feel sick. We’ve been trying to keep as much information from him as possibly because with the illness he is confused and worried. “But I had to tell him on Friday what had happened and there was just a thousand questions: ‘What is going to happen? Are the police going to come and take me away. Are they going to kick the door down?’ “I had dinner with him again today [Monday] and it was the same: ‘What is going to happen now? Where am I going to go in England? Are they going to arrest me and put me in prison. “It’s inhumane,” his son Carl said. The UK government said it was aware of the case. “We are supporting Mr Mason and his family and are in contact with the Swedish authorities about his case.” Mason’s case comes two years after another Briton, Kathleen Poole, also suffering dementia was threatened with deportation before she died in a care home. Mason moved to Sweden from Hinckley in Leicestershire to be close to his son and grandchildren around the year 2000. “He is elderly and extremely vulnerable. He has advanced vascular dementia and vascular parkinsonism, together with other serious health problems. He is immobile, requires help with virtually every aspect of daily life and is in full-time residential dementia care in Sweden. He is not capable of simply travelling to Britain and starting a new life independently,” said Carl. When his father’s mental capacity deteriorated, a court appointed a trustee who would have power of attorney over his affairs. “That is when all the problems started,” said Carl. An application for a residence permit was made in December 2021 but was rejected last November by the Swedish migration agency on the grounds “he had not submitted documents demonstrating that he met the requirements for the right of residence” and would have to leave the country. An appeal against this decision was also rejected. The family then appealed to the migration court of appeals under the Aliens Act (Chapter 5, Section 6), which permits foreign nationals residence under “particularly distressing circumstances”. The family submitted new medical evidence including his “extensive need for continuous supervision and round-the-clock care” and also argued their father had rights under article 8 of the European convention on human rights. On 23 July, the court ruled that the deportation could stand. It assessed that dementia care existed in the UK, that Mason had a daughter in the UK, although the court heard private medical evidence that she was unable to look after her father as Carl does. “Upon balancing the state’s interest in regulated immigration against what has emerged regarding Horace Mason’s private life and his adaptation to Sweden, the migration court concludes, on balance, that his deportation appears proportionate in relation to article 8.” Carl, who is now running out of time to keep his father living in Sweden, said: “I just can’t see the reasoning behind why they think that deporting a vulnerable citizen is in anybody’s benefit. It’s just beyond me.” Carl is trying to mount a further challenge with the European court of human rights in Strasbourg and has launched a GoFundMe page Stötta George to cover his estimated costs of 50,000 kronor (£3,900). David Milstead, of the grassroots campaign group British in Sweden, has spent years drawing attention to the plight of some British nationals in Sweden before Brexit. He says the hardline approach of the Swedish migration agency is out of kilter with the rest of the EU. Of the 14,233 applications made by the end of 2024 to remain in Sweden, 27.5% (3,918) of applications have been refused, three times higher than any other member state and considerably higher than the EU average of between 3% and 4%. Milstead said: “The Swedish authorities resemble the proud parent at a military parade insisting that everyone except their own child is out of step. “For applications made both on time and after the deadline, Sweden’s approach to the withdrawal agreement ignores key protections in that treaty and is highly restrictive compared with other countries. As a consequence, lives are still being ruined.”

New Zealand PM Christopher Luxon wins confidence vote, surviving second challenge to leadership

New Zealand’s prime minister Christopher Luxon has survived a second leadership showdown in four months, just 87 days out from the country’s general election. Talking to media after a three-hour meeting of his MPs in Wellington on Wednesday, the embattled leader said he had the full support of his party. “There was a confidence vote in my leadership this morning at our caucus meeting, and I have the full support of our caucus,” Luxon said. “Our caucus is united, and it is determined to win this election.” As he spoke, Luxon was flanked by his deputy Nicola Willis, the National party president, Sylvia Wood, and, in what was likely a deliberate move to show unity, three senior politicians who had been tipped as top contenders to take his place: Chris Bishop, Erica Stanford and Mark Mitchell. Luxon said National’s plan for the country was positive and the choice for voters was “crystal clear”. After less than one minute speaking, Luxon thanked the media and said his team was “going back to work”. He took no questions from reporters. Luxon may have emerged triumphant for a second time in four months, but his victory is likely to leave scars. For the prime minister, whose popularity among the public has failed to reach the lofty heights of his predecessors, the perceived lack of confidence within his own caucus could further rattle his reputation. While the party, which positions itself as the best option for a “strong stable government”, has sparked doubt over its ability to deliver on that message, with its display of disunity. Rumours of a leadership coup against Luxon began swirling on Monday. By Tuesday speculation had reached fever pitch, compelling Luxon to call his MPs to Wellington for an urgent meeting, where a vote of confidence was expected to take place. Luxon, who survived a leadership confidence vote in April, has seen ⁠support for National remain weak in opinion polls due to sluggish economic growth, and his personal popularity has declined after a ⁠series of missteps. National’s support has weakened as the economy struggles, with unemployment at an 11-year high and inflation above the central bank target of 1% to 3%. While recent polling suggests the coalition would scrape back into power, Luxon’s personal popularity has remained consistently low throughout his term. A 1News / Verian poll released on Wednesday showed his popularity had dropped further, to 17%, though he still remained the more popular leader, above Labour’s Chris Hipkins on 15%. The leadership challenge comes off the back of a rocky week for Luxon, who came under fire for a series of gaffes, including having to apologise to small business leaders after telling them they held a “negative view” about operating in a tough economy and had a “parent-child mentality” with the government. He then made a surprise captain’s call on talkback radio pledging to put the country’s electoral system, MMP, to a referendum if voted back in. That announcement caught his party off guard and he again found himself apologising to his members. Luxon drew criticism from opposition politicians for using the New Zealand Defence Force aircraft to travel to Auckland after a National party fundraiser, and faced backlash for expressing confidence in the foreign minister, Winston Peters, who told a Chinese-born Green MP to “go back to your own country”. Posting to social media after the prime minister’s announcement, the Labour leader, Chris Hipkins, said National had spent the day fighting over jobs. “The National party is deeply divided. And the instability this week has shown exactly why nothing is getting better for hard working Kiwis,” he said. Green party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said as the party “tussle about who should be in the top job, they continue to show their focus is on anything other than what matters to the people of this country.” Ben Thomas, a political commentator, said removing a sitting prime minister requires a high threshold to be met, and in this case, it was “better the devil you know”. He added that polling for National and Luxon had marginally improved. “It’s not exactly a new dawn, but it is a glimpse of sunlight.” The political commentator and author Dr Claire Robinson said something had clearly gone wrong inside the party, to warrant an urgent confidence vote. “But they’ve clearly made a risk assessment: is it better to stick with what people know rather than pick an untested leader?” Luxon would now need to prove he is capable of avoiding further missteps, she said. “If he doesn’t actually do the work on himself, then there’s just going to be more and more moments like this.”

Passenger jet billed as China’s answer to Boeing and Airbus prepares to make first international flight

China hopes to break into the world of commercial aviation with the first international flight of a Chinese-made passenger jet scheduled for Wednesday. The Comac C919 will take off from Beijing capital international airport at 3pm, landing in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, just over two hours later. It has been billed as China’s alternative to the Boeing-Airbus duopoly that dominates global aviation, particularly in Asia, but analysts say it could take generations before a Chinese aircraft could meaningfully challenge their global dominance. The C919 is made by the Chinese state-owned aircraft manufacturer Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac) and is similar in size to the Boeing 737. The C919 has been flying on domestic routes operated by Chinese airlines since 2023. But Wednesday’s Air China flight to Ulaanbaatar will be the first time that the narrow-body jet is used on a commercial international route. “This is essentially a public relations move,” said Scott Kennedy, a senior adviser at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. “Ulaanbaatar was likely chosen because of how close it is to Beijing. It doesn’t change the fact that the plane was years overdue, is composed of western components, and is less efficient than its Boeing and Airbus cousins.” China has long dreamed of building its own jet. When the C919 was unveiled in 2015, Li Jiaxiang, the head of China’s civil aviation authority, said: “A great nation must have its own large commercial aircraft.” But progress has been slow, even while China has whizzed ahead in other hi-tech fields, such as robotics and electric vehicles (EVs). That is because aviation requires the integration of many different types of advanced science and engineering, as well as parts sourced from overseas. An analysis by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in 2020 found that more than half of the C919’s suppliers were in the US. “Large passenger aircraft and jet engines are extremely complex and challenging to manufacture. They require precision components, complex electro-mechanical control systems, and the ability to coordinate a vast global supply chain,” said Kyle Chan, a fellow at Brookings focused on China’s industrial policy. “There’s a reason there are basically only two major commercial aircraft makers in the world. Building large passenger jets that are safe and reliable is an order of magnitude more difficult than making EVs,” Chan said. Last year Comac reportedly delivered only 15 units of the C919 to customers, well short of its target of 75. Comac did not respond to a request for comment. Comac primarily serves Chinese domestic airlines. In 2023, the Brunei-based airline GallopAir signed a $2bn deal to purchase 30 planes from Comac, including 15 of the C919, but the airline is not operating commercially yet. The C919 has not been approved by European or American regulators. Last year the US reportedly suspended the export of some products to Comac for use in the C919 jet amid the tit-for-tat restrictions that Beijing and Washington used against each other during the US-China trade war. The two countries later agreed a trade war truce that is set to expire in November. When US president Donald Trump visited Beijing in May for a state visit, one of the few takeaways from the trip was an agreement from China to buy 200 jets from Boeing. In return, the US provided supply guarantees for aircraft engine parts and components for its own manufacturing. China sees being able to build its own commercial aircraft as a national security priority. In a recent interview with Chinese state media, Zhang Yanzhong, an academic of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a leading aviation expert who worked on the C919, said reliance on other countries for large aircraft technology would “threaten national strategic security”. However, there was still “a long way to go before achieving commercial success”, Zhang said. Experts have pointed out that Comac’s dependence on foreign suppliers goes beyond the supply of individual components. International suppliers have also provided guidance about how to integrate complex components and software together into sky-worthy commercial aircraft. Kennedy argued it was misleading to describe the C919 as a Chinese plane because so many of its parts were imported. He said it was “very unlikely” for Comac to become a serious challenger to Boeing and Airbus, “even a generation from now”. Chan said Comac could still face “a long road to gaining trust among airlines and passengers”. Zhang called on China’s young engineers to contribute their talents to China’s aviation ambitions, saying: “Though the journey may be fraught with difficulties, a fledgling eagle can soar faster than its parent.”

Ukraine war briefing: North Korean missiles hit Zaporizhzhia in deadly attack

Russian forces used ballistic missiles supplied by North Korea, Ukraine’s president said, in an attack on the south-eastern city of Zaporizhzhia where the Metinvest steel company said seven civilian workers at its plant were killed and 21 injured. Three more civilians, including a 15-year-old boy, were killed by Russian drones and artillery in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, authorities said. Russia used missiles, drones and glide bombs to attack Ukrainian cities on Tuesday, said Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president. One strike hit the grounds of a children’s hospital, leaving two craters but not hurting anyone, the State Emergency Service said. Ukraine’s military general staff said its forces struck an oil refinery in the city of Orsk in Russia’s Orenburg region near the border with Kazakhstan, about 1,500km (930 miles) from Ukraine, causing a fire. The refinery can process about 44m barrels of crude oil a year to produce gasoline, diesel, aviation fuel and other products. The Russian online retailer Wildberries said its logistical facilities in the Voronezh region of Russia near the Ukrainian border came under attack and caught fire. Romania’s defence ministry said its navy destroyed two suspected Russian drones drifting in the Black Sea about 90 nautical miles (166km) from the port of Constanta. The Gerbera-type drones – a cut-price Russian version of the Shahed – were blown up by divers and some pieces were recovered, the ministry said, adding that Ukraine said the drones were not theirs. Russia is aiming to exploit Kyiv’s critical shortage of Patriot air defence interceptors that can stop ballistic missiles, Zelenskyy said, adding that Moscow is preparing to recruit more troops for a new push on the frontline. “Every step Russia takes – increasing ballistic missile production, bringing in North Korean equipment, preparing for mobilisation – all of this shows that Moscow is preparing not for peace, but for escalation,” Zelenskyy posted. He was warned in recent days that North Korea is preparing to send up to 50,000 more troops to Russia. Zelenskyy said Ukrainian intelligence suggested Russia would use its “pseudo-election” in September as a pretext to declare a new mobilisation. Mobilisation involves the use of reservists and conscripts, which in 2022 led to protests in Russia such as recruiting offices being set on fire. “They are preparing for mobilisation in the autumn, immediately after the imitation of parliamentary elections,” Zelenskyy said as part of a plan to “create the appearance that Russians supposedly support the war”. Russia’s supreme court on Monday barred the Yabloko party, the only officially registered party that opposes Moscow’s war in Ukraine, from competing ‌in the election. Zelenskyy continued: “Then, following the so-called election, he plans an additional rapid mobilisation of several hundred thousand Russians by the end of the year, plus another similar number next year.” Zelenskyy said Ukraine had ⁠handed proposals to US ⁠negotiators for a plan to end the war with Moscow. Zelenskyy offered no details on the proposals. US negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were last in Moscow in January and have not yet visited Kyiv. The Institute for the Study of War, a US thinktank, has said in an analysis that the Kremlin will not seriously negotiate as long as Putin believes he might still reach his full objectives. “Ukraine’s Patriot shortages offer Russia an opportunity to cause very serious damage to Ukraine over the coming winter and will therefore contribute to delaying meaningful negotiations and protracting the war.” The UN estimates that more than 16,000 civilians detained by Russia during the war are still being “deprived of their liberty”, with many held incommunicado and on grounds that don’t comply with international law. “Widespread and systematic torture and ill-treatment” of both Ukrainian civilian detainees and prisoners of war by Russia are continuing, including sexual violence, said Claudia Fuentes Julio, the UN assistant secretary general for human rights.