We are getting more lines from Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chat with reporters this morning (10:57). The Ukrainian president said that US peace negotiators had presented several “decent ideas” to be discussed during talks on how to end the war. He also suggested the next trilateral meeting could be hosted by Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Switzerland or some other countries.
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”.
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.
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.”
Good morning. Across Germany – and Europe more widely – there has been a palpable sense of shock and disbelief after the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) swept to a historic state election victory in the early hours of Monday. It was, according to France’s European affairs minister, Benjamin Haddad, “a very grave moment for Europe”. The resonance was stark in the UK too: as the results came in, hundreds of black-clad activists intent on blocking migrant arrivals were battling with police for a second night along England’s south coast. While seasoned observers stress the context that Saxony-Anhalt, a small state in the former communist east of the country, has traditionally voted further to the right, a red line has been crossed. A far-right party has been propelled to the brink of power at regional level in Germany for the first time since the Nazis – despite 13 years of increasingly desperate efforts by mainstream parties to shut them out of government. For today’s newsletter, I spoke to the Guardian’s Berlin correspondent Kate Connolly from the state capital Magdeburg, and our Europe correspondent, Jon Henley, about why Germany’s famous firewall against the far right has failed, and what happens next. First, this morning’s headlines. Five big stories UK news | Batons and synthetic pepper spray were used to repel hundreds of masked, black-clad vigilantes in Portsmouth on Sunday, it has emerged, as the policing minister said officers had been injured as they repelled organised “aggression”. Israel | Ed Miliband will announce what he has described as a broad reset of the UK’s relations with Israel on Tuesday, promising the government will take a more active approach in supporting the Palestinian cause. US | The Trump administration has raised “serious concerns” over Downing Street’s plan to force digital platforms to hand more prominence to established broadcasters, warning the move risks “facilitating censorship”. Climate crisis | Nepal is demanding $20m in climate compensation for the recent devastating floods, as a senior minister called on the world’s most polluting countries to “wake up” and accept shared responsibility. UK politics | There is little appetite for cuts to disability benefits even among Conservative and Reform voters, and proposals to reduce spending could prove politically risky, according to an authoritative national survey. In depth: ‘A palpable sense of disbelief’ The first person Kate spoke to when she arrived in Magdeburg on Monday afternoon was a paramedic named Eric, who was fundraising for a local hospice. He explained how his father had spent years working to obtain a German passport after migrating from Guinea. “Already that day he felt the mood on the street had become more hostile,” Kate told me. I know from experience how difficult it can be to persuade strangers to elaborate on their private voting decisions – especially when you have copy to file in a hurry – but yesterday was different, she said: “Everybody had very profound thoughts to share.” She described conversations with a “heartbroken” older couple, who had grown up under communism; a 16-year-old who arrived from Syria under Angela Merkel’s open borders policy in 2015 and was frightened she would be first on the list to send back; another woman who’d voted for the AfD and said she didn’t appreciate being “tarred with the same brush” as supporters of Hitler in the 1930s. Kate interviewed her as they stood by a Stolperstein, a memorial plaque to a victim of Nazi persecution. As we spoke, thousands were gathering at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate to express their opposition to the AfD, and where there was a palpable sense of disbelief and dread as news of the results filtered. *** Why is the AfD on the rise? The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, was elected leader of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in 2022 on a pledge to halve the AfD’s vote. Instead it has doubled, and support for his centrist coalition that has tumbled. A “deeply shocked” Merz vowed to stay in office yesterday after the nativist party triumphed with 44% of the vote, just short of an absolute majority The turnout in Saxony-Anhalt was breathtaking. At 77.8%, compared with 60.3% in 2021, it suggests the AfD – classified as extremist by Germany’s security services – has succeeded in energising many who didn’t vote at all five years ago. Detailed polling analysis suggests that, while one in three AfD supporters align with the party’s extremist ideology, its growing popularity is driven by a diversity of voters who feel alienated from mainstream politics. Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD’s lead candidate in Saxony-Anhalt, is a charismatic former perfume salesman who has weaponised voter discontent around the faltering economy and migration – even though irregular immigration has reduced since Merz came into office. Research from 2023 found a direct link between rent increases – particularly amonglower income voters – and likelihood of supporting the AfD. Last month, Der Spiegel put Siegmund on its front cover, with the tagline “Germany’s most dangerous man”. He responded by filming himself signing copies for his 800,000 TikTok followers. Siegmund has capitalised on a mood of ostalgie – nostalgia for communist East Germany – and bubbling resentment among poorer east Germans who view themselves as second-class citizens compared to people from the west. Strikingly, it appears one of the highest shares of the AfD’s vote came from the 35- to 44 age group, who were children or infants when the Berlin Wall came down. *** What does the result mean for Germany? There’s now debate about whether the previous consensus over how mainstream parties should deal with the far right – the so-called “Brandmauer”, or firewall – has horribly backfired. Sceptics believe this non-cooperation with AfD at any level from local councils up to federal government has allowed the party to escape the scrutiny that comes with holding office. Another criticism is that it has neutered the political mainstream. “The argument runs that in order to keep the far right out, it forces mainstream parties into unnatural coalitions,” Jon says. The compromises that they have to strike have resulted in ineffective government and in turn feeds the extremes further.” Now, there are complex coalition talks ahead for the parties in Saxony-Anhalt. While Siegmund has rejected leading a minority administration, initial indications are that the AfD could govern with the hard-left, pro-Russian Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht party, which received 5.3% of the vote. If he succeeds in becoming the state’s first far-right governor, Siegmund will have control over significant policy areas including education, policing and public broadcasting. AfD has already proposed revisions to the school curriculum, in what one party member described as “more Bismarck, less Hitler”, as well as defunding anti-racism initiatives and removing pride flags. Jon also suggests the AfD might make changes to civil service recruitment “to create a more supportive environment”. But securing the Saxony-Anhalt government would also give the AfD seats in the Bundesrat upper house: while they wouldn’t have enough seats to block legislation they could still act as a disruptive force. And with the AfD leading the polls nationally, there’s a likely ripple effect across the country. There are more state elections later this month – including in traditionally liberal Berlin, where the AfD is now polling at 18%, with the CDU maintaining a slim lead in the early 20s. If their vote share rises across states, options for coalition building without the AfD become increasingly convoluted, further flattening the mainstream’s ability to govern confidently. *** … And for Europe? Not all of Europe’s far-right leaders have welcomed this development. Jon, who is based in Paris, has been listening to France’s National Rally – which under Marine Le Pen has spent years successfully detoxifying its image – on the airwaves insisting that, in his words, “these guys are way too extreme for us”. To give you one example, two years ago the National Rally expelled the AfD from its European parliamentary group, which includes Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, following revelations that the party backed mass deportations and downplayed the crimes of the Nazi SS. But any domestic shock waves in Europe’s largest economy will inevitably affect the bloc. “A weakened German government in complete upheaval would obviously be bad news for Europe,” says Jon. “It could affect things like the bloc’s policy towards migration; the environment, because the AfD is famously climate-sceptic; and Ukraine, because it’s also pretty much pro-Kremlin.” In a press conference yesterday, an ashen-faced Merz drew a fairly explicit link between the AfD and Russia, noting that “2,500 km in the east, the election results were being celebrated.” This may reflect growing calls within the CDU and their coalition partner, the Social Democrats, for Merz to toughen his stance on Russia. After a drone attack on Leipzig airport in August, the German government took a month before publicly blaming Moscow, though the language could not have been more direct when foreign minister Johann Wadephul stated: “We are not at war, but we are a daily target of hybrid warfare.” With a series of federal or presidential elections taking place in Spain, France, Italy, Poland, and Germany over the next two years, the AfD’s landslide can be viewed as an indication of coming peril and a challenge on how to meet it. “The far right’s ideas have been steadily normalised by the media and the political centre,” says Jon. “They have completely framed the immigration debate, and everybody else is just scrambling to react to them”. As Keir Starmer’s government discovered with Reform in the UK, repurposing populist rhetoric doesn’t convince disaffected voters. “Political scientists across Europe would say this result is down to that, and the failure by mainstream parties to come up with inspiring policies that will actually make a real difference to people’s lives and address some of the reasons why they choose to vote for the far right,” he said. • For more on the far right in Europe, sign up to This Is Europe, our free weekly with selection of the most pressing stories and debates. What else we’ve been enjoying I thought David Smith’s re-telling of 9/11, through the eyes of two strangers who met in the middle of the smoke and became some of the only people who survived the incident, was brilliant. Poppy Noor, newsletters team Nesrine Malik is the best voice in Britain writing about Israel and Gaza. Her column on the horrific plans of Israeli ministers is well worth your time. Hettie One of the most interesting things about working at the Guardian is the letters we get from our readers. This recent series of responses about how to solve the prisons crisis made many good suggestions. Hettie I enjoyed Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor’s recent piece in the Financial Times (£) about “end times fascism” and the Nazi warships revealed as rivers in eastern Europe dried up this summer. Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor will be speaking at a Guardian event later this month (tickets here). Hettie The Guardian Australia has just launched a new politics newsletter to bring you up to speed on the stories that really matter, and what they mean for you. Sign up here. Sport US Open | Zheng Qinwen recovered from 5-0 down in the opening set to stun Iga Świątek and reach the last eight of the US Open, while Elena Rybakina beat Naomi Osaka 6-1 6-4. Cricket | Pakistan have launched an investigation into the “discipline and conduct” during their tour of England, with two players understood to have had their mobile phones confiscated as part of the probe. F1 | Bernie Ecclestone was detained in Portugal on Monday after customs authorities found him in possession of an undocumented shotgun. The front pages “UK hardens stance on Israel with ban on illegal settlements trade”, is the Guardian’s front page today, while the Times has “PM to declare trade ban on settlements in West Bank”. The FT leads on “Pressure builds on Germany’s Merz as far-right AfD toasts ‘dream result’”, the i Paper says “New ISA to help Britain’s older first-time buyers”. On small boats protests Metro has “Port in a storm”, the Mirror says “Now they try to stop the lifeboats”, while the Express’s take is “Don’t ignore public anger over illegal migrants”. The Telegraph splash with “King tells Harry: No return to the firm”, Mail writes “King puts Harry and Meghan in their place”, and the Sun writes “Megxit means Megxit”. Today in Focus: The Latest Far-right protesters descend on Dover and Portsmouth The government has condemned the ‘thuggish and intimating behaviour’ of far-right activists clad in black and balaclavas who caused disruption and unrest in Dover and Portsmouth over the weekend in an attempt to obstruct asylum seekers arriving on small boats. The action was seemingly organised by Daniel Thomas, an agitator better known as Danny Tommo, who has close ties with the far-right extremist Tommy Robinson. Thomas was recorded on the ground saying Portsmouth was now ‘ground zero’ for small boat crossings, and has threatened further action. Lucy Hough speaks to political correspondent Ben Quinn. Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings The Upside A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad For the first time in a century, glow-worms are shining again in North Yorkshire. In recent decades, the bioluminescent female invertebrates had vanished from the British countryside. But after a budget reintroduction programme led by volunteer “glow-getters”, they’ve been spotted over multiple weeks this summer at Nosterfield nature reserve near Ripon. 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
Canada’s retaliatory tariffs on billions of dollars’ worth of American imports have come into effect, escalating a trade fight that has been marked by intensifying tensions between US president Donald Trump and Canadian prime minister Mark Carney. The tariffs took effect at 12.01am on Tuesday, and range from 15% to 50% and apply to products covering $20bn in imports from the US. The measures target sectors including steel, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper, and electronics – industries that have been most affected by US tariffs. The retaliatory tariffs come “as a result of the United States’ decision to impose a 50% tariff on $20bn of Canadian goods effective August 22”, the Canadian government said. “Canada’s counter-measures do not apply to US goods that are in transit to Canada on the day on which they come into force,” it added. Last month, Trump announced a new 50% tariff on cars and raw materials from Canada. He accused the country of “ripping off” the US “for years”. The US tariffs hit items such as hockey sticks and cement, affecting about 5.5% of Canadian exports to the US. Since then, tensions between Canada and the US have intensified, with Carney last week urging the Trump administration to “start being serious” as the trade dispute has increasingly spilled into broader diplomatic tensions. Trump and senior US officials have repeatedly criticized Canada and its leadership, while Trump has taken a series of symbolic digs at Canada including signing an executive order renaming Lake Ontario “Lake America” – which Canadians have rejected. On Monday, Trump threatened to block sales of Canada’s Bombardier Aviation in the US, unless the Quebec-based plane maker moves manufacturing to the US. “No more selling Bombardier in the United States!” Trump posted in all caps on his Truth Social platform, though he did not specify how he would achieve a sales halt. Thousands of Bombardier aircraft currently operate in US airlines’ domestic fleets. In a statement on Monday, the aerospace company touted its creation of “tens of thousands of jobs across the United States”, with “direct employment” in more than 20 states including Kansas, Texas, Arizona and California. The company also noted that it spent more than $2.5bn annually with suppliers, and said its supply chain was “made up of approximately 2,800 American companies across 47 states”. Negotiations between both sides broke down on 21 August after days of meetings in Washington, with Carney saying at the time that the Trump administration’s terms were ultimately unacceptable and that US negotiators had introduced restrictions on Canadian trade deals with other countries at the 11th hour. US officials also made unacceptable “threats” to the French language and “Quebec culture”, he added, referencing the French-speaking province in eastern Canada, with Carney saying American negotiators viewed the measures as an “irritant”, while “in Quebec, these are rights”. But Trump’s top trade official Jamieson Greer later noted the US government was aware that French language protections were sensitive and important. “This is not something where we push hard, or condition, or red-line,” he told Canadian public broadcaster CBC last month. Polls show Carney has broad support from Canadians, but it could disappear within months as the consequences of the trade war sink in, according to political analysts. Just 20% of Americans approved of Trump’s tariffs on Canadian goods, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found. Carney said last week his government was ready to sign a trade deal that benefited both countries, but US media reports say there are currently no ongoing negotiations between the two sides. With Agence France-Presse and Reuters
The scourge of Somali piracy targeting cargo ships and smaller dhows off the Horn of Africa has returned to levels not seen in a decade, driven by a convergence of factors including disruptions to the shipping industry caused by the US-Israeli war against Iran and a resurgence of political instability in Somalia. Since late April there have been eight hijackings by Somali pirates, including two within the space of a fortnight in August: one targeting an oil tanker with ties to Iran, the other a Cameroon-flagged vessel, the Lutuf, carrying military equipment for Turkey. Over a seven-year period from 2005 there were more than 1,000 attacks on vessels in the waters off Somalia, which has Africa’s longest coastline. Thousands of crew members were taken hostage, netting $400m (£296m) in ransom payments for the piracy network’s financiers, the low-level “foot-soldier” pirates and the communities who provided them with goods and services. The attacks only petered out after a multinational anti-piracy force was deployed. The hijacking of the Lutuf was the most high-profile of the recent incidents. Turkey has been expanding its influence in Somalia after an agreement signed in 2024 to build up its navy, and the Lutuf’s release two weeks after its capture involved a joint Turkish-Somali operation that resulted in the destruction of four pirate vessels. However, local officials including Mohamed Mubarak, the head of the Puntland security coordination office, have said that a $2.5m (£1.85m) ransom was also paid, prompting warnings that such payments risked encouraging similar incidents. In a comment for the Center for Maritime Security in July, Matthew Reisener, the thinktank’s national security adviser, warned that naval campaigns by Iran in the strait of Hormuz and Iran’s Houthi proxies in the Red Sea – launched in response to the US-Israel war on Iran – are allowing regional piracy “to once again thrive”. He wrote: “Not only have the global navies that once combatted piracy off the Horn of Africa diverted their resources to counter the threats against ships in these critical waterways, but these conflicts have also drawn maritime traffic closer to Somalia’s coastline, creating openings for opportunistic pirates to target commercial ships.” According to Reisener, about 70% of maritime traffic that passed through the Red Sea prior to the Houthis’ targeting of ships there is now being rerouted around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. A report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies in May reached a similar conclusion: “The recent deterioration of maritime security followed a prolonged period of relative calm in the waters off the Somali coast, which resulted in the redeployment of international anti-piracy fleets and the relaxation of commercial risk-management practices. These factors – alongside the distraction posed by Houthi attacks in the Red Sea – have converged to create an opening that Somali pirates have been quick to exploit.” Analysts also note that rising oil prices driven by the war have made oil cargoes a more valuable target. *** Among the least developed countries in the world, Somalia has endured conflict and clan battles with no strong central government since the autocratic ruler Mohamed Siad Barre fell in 1991. Insufficient patrol vessels and an inability to regularly pay salaries to those involved in coastal patrols are among the reasons why Somalia has long-struggled to secure its coastline. Piracy has historically thrived during periods of increasing instability and political, factional and regional competition. Observers say the recent rise in incidents has been exacerbated by a domestic and international focus on arms smuggling to Yemen by networks acting on behalf of Iran. Analysts suggest some of these networks have become increasingly associated with Somalia’s Islamist al-Shabaab group as it once again expands its territorial control in central and southern Somalia and seeks to build ties with the Houthis in Yemen. Local officials interviewed by the Guardian described how in the recent spate of incidents, pirate groups have been using vessels they had already seized to attack and capture other vessels. According to the officials, the Lutuf was approached as it sailed three nautical miles from Somali shores near the fishing town of Maraya by a previously hijacked cement carrier, the MV Sward, which had been repurposed as a pirate mothership. Eight gunmen from the Sward then boarded the Lutuf and were able to overpower the ship’s armed guards. Officials say the recent attacks have also been marked by increased technological sophistication on the part of pirate groups, including the use of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service to facilitate the tracking of potential targets and for high-speed communications between pirates. That reflects what Lloyd’s List has described as an increasingly “more capable and adaptive Somali piracy threat” that is already exposing vulnerabilities in carriers’ existing anti-piracy security measures. In the weeks since the Lutuf ransom was paid, residents of Galkayo, a commercial hub in the north-central Mudug region, said money had started circulating through the local economy to a much greater degree than before. Consumption of the stimulant khat has reportedly increased, and greater numbers of expensive sports utility vehicles have been seen on the roads. During the previous piracy boom, increased flows of money through the economies of coastal communities and places like Galkayo had profound societal impacts, including an expansion of alcohol and drug use and prostitution. Perhaps foreshadowing the regime of tougher measures that may be required to counter the growing piracy threat, the Lutuf was only released after a series of drone attacks on the pirate groups involved in the seizure, both at sea and on land. The dead included nine armed men who were killed by a missile fired from a Turkish drone as they prepared boats to join the gunmen onboard the Lutuf. The question now is whether the growing threat can be countered. Writing in The Conversation in May, the UK-based academics Anja Shortland and Federico Varese, who studied Somalia’s piracy problem in 2014, were uncertain whether there was an international appetite or the capacity for the same sort of anti-piracy force deployed more than a decade ago. “What happens next will depend on how the current hijacks proceed. Pirates rely on ransoms for reinvestment and to attract young men into their no-win-no-fee contracts. Fast and generous payments … may free the captive ships. But they will lead to escalating risks for everyone else. “No state or alliance also currently has the will or capacity to run a naval mission on the scale seen in 2011 and 2012, when navies worldwide spent more than US$1bn annually on counter-piracy operations off Somalia. “Although piracy manifests as a sea-based problem, it can only be solved on land.”
There is little appetite for cuts to disability benefits even among Conservative and Reform voters, and proposals to reduce spending could prove politically risky, according to an authoritative national survey. The British Social Attitudes (BSA) report found that while support for welfare spending as a whole had dipped sharply in recent years, just 7% of respondents backed cuts to disability benefits – and 49% said they should be increased. Two government-commissioned reviews – of the personal independence payment (Pip) benefit, and support for jobless youngsters – are expected imminently, amid speculation they will seek to restrict spending on disability benefits. The BSA report notes that any ministerial proposals to axe disability benefits would carry little support among Labour voters, of whom just 5% favoured reduced spending and 57% backed more generous spending. Support for spending on disabled people remained high among Tory and Reform UK voters of whom 40% supported more spending on claimants who could not work, and just 10% supported less spending. The report’s co-author Robert de Vries, a senior lecturer at the University of Kent, said: “Despite growing political divisions on welfare, support for disability benefits remains remarkably strong. “Very few people favour cuts, disabled people are seen as among the most deserving recipients of support, and proposals to reduce disability benefits appear politically risky across the political spectrum.” However, the report acknowledges it was difficult to be precise about public support for disability benefits, some of which depends on respondents’ subjective ideas of whether claimants were “deserving” or “genuinely” unable to work. It was possible that there was support for cuts to specific groups of disabled people, with some conditions such as depression and anxiety ranking relatively low in an informal public hierarchy of “deserving cases” compared with, say, people who use a wheelchair. Equally, the report added that initial public support for proposed cuts can change when it becomes clearer precisely who will be affected, and what the consequences are in terms of numbers of claimants pushed into hardship. “We … cannot say in advance whether a particular cut to disability benefits will be supported or opposed by the public, but it is clear that this is very challenging terrain for a government to be confident of taking the public with them,” the report said. The survey interviewed 4,656 people across the UK between August and October 2025. It has tracked British public attitudes since 1983 on a range of issues from immigration and taxation, to marriage and sexuality. Last year the government was forced to U-turn on £5bn of disability benefit cuts in the face of public opposition and a Labour backbench rebellion over plans that would have pushed hundreds of thousands of disabled people into poverty. It subsequently launched a review of Pip headed by the former welfare minister Sir Stephen Timms. Its initial findings, published in July, found that Pip, which is claimed by nearly 4 million people in England and Wales, should be overhauled. However, it said changes would have to be financially sustainable. A separate review by the former Labour MP Alan Milburn into how to support nearly 1 million young people aged 16-24 who are not in education, employment or training (Neets) has led to concerns that benefit support for youngsters claiming Pip or the health element of universal credit may be cut. Both the Conservatives, who launched a review to save £23bn, and Reform UK, which claims drastic cuts to Pip could help save up to £50bn, are keen to bring down what they characterise as out of control disability benefits spending. The BSA report notes that while disability benefit spending has risen in recent years, overall levels of welfare spending have remained flat, suggesting that media and political claims of an unsustainable system are overstated.