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‘Politicians have always been schemers’: upheld conviction fails to dent Le Pen’s popularity

In the small French town of Montargis, Jean-Antoine, a retired decorator, was pleased Marine Le Pen had again shaken up French politics by launching a bid for the presidency, despite her legal woes. “Even the judges said she didn’t personally profit from the money, it was for her party,” he said of Le Pen’s newly upheld conviction for embezzlement. “All politicians in France have always been schemers, it’s just a fact of life.” Jean-Antoine, 76, who once painted luxury fashion stores, felt voters for the figurehead of France’s far-right, anti-immigration party National Rally (RN) wouldn’t care about this week’s appeal court decision over Le Pen’s misuse of European parliament funds. Jean-Antoine’s late father fled to France from Spain during its civil war in the 1930s and became part of the French resistance standing up to occupation by Hitler’s Germany. “But now immigration has to stop,” he said. Le Pen’s conviction last year had meant she was barred from running for office until the 2030s, but that restriction was shortened by appeal judges this week. This allowed her to declare a phoenix-like return to the presidential race, which will be voted on next year. The court’s decision came despite its ruling that she was guilty of playing a key part in siphoning off of more than €2.8m through a fake-jobs scam of unprecedented scale and duration, and funnelling it to her cash-strapped party between 2004 and 2016. Judges ordered her to wear an electronic ankle tag for one year with a curfew at her home, but she has vowed to lodge an appeal with France’s highest court, which will effectively put her conviction and sentence on hold while she campaigns ahead of the presidential vote. Snap polling this week showed her popularity is high and she is in a strong position for the two-round vote next April and May. She previously lost to Emmanuel Macron in 2017 and 2022. Montargis, 75 miles south of Paris, is known for its scenic canals and its pralines. It is one of many towns that elected rightwing mayors in local elections earlier this year, when RN and its allies more than tripled the number of town halls under their control. “When they won here, I went to the town hall and I said: ‘I don’t know if you can do any better than the last lot but you can’t do any worse,’” said Jean-Antoine. “And that’s what I’d say to Marine Le Pen. People want change.” Another local person, an antiques dealer in his 60s who did not want to be named, said: “People will still vote for Le Pen because there’s massive pressure for change. Immigration, benefits, the healthcare system – none of that is working properly and people have had enough. Le Pen’s legal case feels unfair – a leftwing politician wouldn’t have been treated the way Le Pen was by the justice system.” Montargis played its part in the gilets jaunes anti-government protests of 2018 and 2019, with its new RN mayor, Côme Dunis, now 36, as an active participant. In 2023, there was unrest in the town and damage to shops and businesses when rioting spread across France after Paris police shot and killed Nahel Merzouk, a 17-year-old boy of Algerian and Moroccan descent, when he failed to comply with an order to stop his car. RN’s election gain in Montargis, where it took votes from the traditional right, was viewed as a reflection of Marine Le Pen’s 15-year attempt to detoxify the party’s image – changing its name while keeping its hardline anti-immigration policy. Co-founded in 1972 as the Front National by Marine Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, it has long been seen by its critics as a danger to democracy and as a promoter of racist, antisemitic and anti-Muslim views. Gisèle, 84, a recently retired girls’ gymnastics coach and competition judge from the area, said the fear of crime and drug-dealing was increasing. She was glad Le Pen was running, but felt the embezzlement conviction could hinder her. “I think this could put a brake on her,” she said. Le Pen’s decision to stand for president means that her party’s president, Jordan Bardella, will not now run in her place. The 30-year-old had been broadening RN’s voter base by appealing to more bourgeois, higher-income voters from the traditional right. “I’m disappointed Jordan Bardella isn’t running for president,” said Christiane, a chiropodist. “Bardella is young, he’s close to the people, he had a chance. I like Marine Le Pen, but is France really going to elect a president with a conviction?” Céline, a pharmacist and centrist voter, said: “I don’t think it’s right to run for French president if you have been convicted.” Selma, 48, a mother-of-three whose Tunisian grandfather was decorated for fighting for France in second world war, said she feared Le Pen’s growing presence in the campaign was polarising people. “I’m worried about deep divisions in society,” she said. “Racism is becoming more brazen. The other day I was verbally assaulted in a car park. A woman who wanted my parking spot humiliated me in a racist way, saying she was more French than I was. We’re all human and we don’t choose our skin colour or our origins.”

Panino police: packed lunch bans enrage Italians at pricey beach clubs

As lunchtime approaches at Il Tirreno, a private beach club in Montalto di Castro on the Lazio coast, Beatrice Bordo, sitting in the shade of a blue umbrella, unwraps a slice of pizza. A pranzo al sacco, or packed lunch, has become the latest skirmish in Italy’s long-running beach disputes after a woman was confronted over the clandestine consumption of a homemade sandwich at a private establishment in Puglia. But Bordo, who has rented her two loungers and umbrella for the entire season and intends to make the most of her patch of sand every day, is unfazed. “I’ve paid €850 [£725] for the season and I spend money in the bar – on coffee, ice-cream, granita,” she said matter-of-factly. “So they can’t expect me to spend up to €50 a day to eat at their restaurant. It is not an obligation. They can do what they want in their resort, but I’ll do what I want beneath my umbrella.” Bordo is far from alone in bristling at the sandwich debacle that unfolded in Vieste, a town on Puglia’s Gargano peninsula, last weekend, reigniting debate over the resorts that dominate much of Italy’s coastline. The woman at the centre of the dispute, who like Bordo had paid for her loungers and umbrella, had smuggled in homemade sandwiches for herself and her two children. While there is no national rule prohibiting customers at private clubs from bringing in food and drink, concession holders sometimes set their own policies, as was the case in Vieste. Luca Pernice, a journalist with Corriere della Sera, who happened to be at the same beach, explained that the woman, named Rosaria, had concealed the sandwiches at the bottom of her bag. When lunchtime arrived, she advised her hungry son to eat his close to the sea, away from the prying eyes of the resort’s staff. But alas, he got caught and Rosaria was reminded that the resort forbids packed lunches. “It’s a common occurrence on the beaches here,” said Pernice. “People don’t want to be forced to spend at the restaurant every day, they can’t afford it, and so this is what they do, they strategise.” His subsequent story about the transgression led to an immediate row. Nicola Ragno, the president of the local unit of Assoturismo, the association for beach concession holders, said packed lunches “damaged the image” of beach clubs, alleging that many beachgoers didn’t just limit their lunch to the humble sandwich. “In most cases, we see full-blown meals – pasta, main courses, fruit, desserts, drinks – all manner of food,” Ragno told Corriere della Sera. “This creates issues with hygiene, waste management and general orderliness, while complicating the services that business owners provide through significant investment and dedicated staff.” Antonio Decaro, the president of the Puglia region, also waded in to the debate. “No one can stop you from eating food on the beach that you’ve brought from home,” he said in a post on Facebook, reminding his viewers of the actual rules. “The cost of loungers and umbrellas is already exorbitant. The sea is a common good and must not become a luxury.” The share of coastline taken up by private beach concessions varies according to the region, from roughly 20% in Sardinia to 70% in Emilia-Romagna and Liguria, with the majority offering bar and restaurant services. But in recent years, Italians have started to turn away owing to often hefty prices. The average cost of renting two loungers and an umbrella is up 6% on 2025, in some places by as much as 16%, according to the consumers’ association, Altroconsumo. Prices at Il Tirreno, where the daily cost is €20, rising by a few euros at the weekend, are fairly affordable for the Lazio region. “But it becomes too much if you then have to spend on the restaurant,” said Moira Maccharini, who was at the beach with her toddler son and mother, Elisabetta. They had prepared a packed lunch containing breaded cutlets, salad, fruit and yoghurt. “It’s also more of a pleasure to bring food made at home.” Elisabetta, originally from Sicily, embraces the Italian beach culture but points out that people are coming less often and are taking shorter holidays. “This beach used to be packed,” she said. “People are really struggling with the cost of living.” Rachele Giambi, who together with her brother Alessio and husband, Marco Campione, holds the concession at Il Tirreno, said that while she can sympathise with her customers, managing the resort is a costly endeavour. “We don’t forbid packed lunches,” she added. “But the problem is those who are ill-mannered – for example, some bring takeout pizza and then leave it to us to get rid of the cardboard boxes.” She said people have “the wrong impression” that concession holders are raking it in. “It’s a big investment. We’re only authorised to be open for three months a year, but it’s not as if we stop paying taxes for the rest of the year.” Il Gabbiano, along the coast from Il Tirreno, has solved the issue by providing packed lunches for its customers, which can either be consumed in the bar area or beneath their umbrella. “It’s really convenient,” said Benedetta as she ate a seafood risotto. “With a bottle of water, it was only €9.” For years, Mare Libero, a grassroots movement, has fought to reclaim beaches from private concessions, and for public beaches to then be properly maintained by local authorities. “This is the issue,” said Bordo, pointing to the patch of free beach next to Il Tirreno. “It’s not well-maintained and there are no services. So until things change in that respect, I am staying here.”

Losing our religion? Australia would no longer be majority religious if format of census question changed, survey finds

Australia would no longer be a majority religious country if the format of a question in the census was changed, according to a new survey. The Essential Media poll tested the existing census format, where people choose from a list that includes the most common religions, “no religion” and “other”. At the 2021 census, about 39% of people selected “no religion” from that list. In the new survey, released ahead of the 2026 Australian census on 11 August, 43% of people selected “no religion” when asked in the same format. But when given a “yes/no” option first (“do you have a religion?”), followed by a text box to fill in if “yes” was selected, 54% of respondents picked “no”. That translates to about 2 million adults. The poll was commissioned by the Census – Not Religious? Mark No Religion campaign, which says the format being used by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) is overstating the religiousness of Australia, and understating the numbers of those without any religion. Spokesperson Michael Dove, a self-confessed “demography nerd”, said the census was the “gold standard” of data needed to “inform debate, policy and ultimately funding decisions”. “We trust the ABS to deliver us high-quality data that we can rely on and be confident that the right decisions are being made on the basis of the right data,” he said. Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email The campaign website lists a range of surveys that have found the no religion cohort to be higher than the census’s 39%. The religion question has long been a source of contention, and in some cases humour. In 2001, more than 70,000 Australians declared themselves Jedi Knights, inspired to Jediism by the Star Wars franchise. Pastafarians, members of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster who use colanders as religious headwear, say they have checked the “no religion” box to avoid being counted as Christians. There has been a steady decline in Christianity over the past 50 years, according to the ABS, but it was still the most common religion at the last census. Of those surveyed, 43.9% listed Christianity as their religion, while 38.9% ticked “no religion”. The number of people from faiths other than Christianity and of no religion has been consistently rising. The poll surveyed more than 2,000 people using the existing census question, and another group of more than 2,000 people with the proposed alternative. In the first group, 43% selected “no religion”, 55% selected a religion and 2% chose not to answer. With the second option, that number flipped: 43% said they did have a religion and more than half (54%) said they did not (4% chose not to answer). Religious affiliation was lower among those aged 18-34 (34%), and higher among those with a university education (50%) in the second group. The poll surveyed adults, while the census includes children – an adult fills it out for younger children. After the 2021 census, the ABS considered changing the question, and said it had received feedback that the way the question is worded “assumes you have a religion”, but that any changes might mean “the data would not be comparable with data from previous censuses”. Dove said the campaign members were involved in two rounds of consultation with the ABS after the 2021 census and that the bureau was responsive. But in the end they rejected the change. “I think they have been compromised by the lobbying from the religious groups [who] have the strongest vested interests,” he said. “It needs to be fixed.” The ABS has said it consulted with religious and secular organisations and that it was “not possible to design a question(s) that will meet the range of needs identified” and that it was not able to adequately support those who needed to be able to compare the data with previous censuses. It has provided extra instructions and updated examples for the next census, reordered the categories to reflect the most common religious groups from the last census, and changed the way the data is processed so that “the most granular level of detail provided by respondents is recorded”. Dove said the “ship’s sailed” for the 2026 census. “We’ve already got our eyes on 2031,” he said.

Europe considering proposals to allow navigational fees in strait of Hormuz

Europe is studying proposals that may allow the charging of navigational fees in the strait of Hormuz so long as the tolls are not compulsory and have the support of the UN agency that regulates maritime transport. Britain’s deputy prime minister, David Lammy, said the imposition of compulsory tolls would be disastrous. But some of his cabinet colleagues said they recognised that systems of payments for specific navigational services were permissible in many natural waterways, including the strait of Malacca and the Channel. It comes as US officials demanded Iran make a public statement saying the strait of Hormuz is open and that ships using the vital corridor won’t be attacked any more. The US officials blamed power struggles inside Tehran for the difficulty in reaching and adhering to a deal. Donald Trump reiterated on social media on Friday that he viewed the interim ceasefire deal as “over” but that the US would continue talks aimed at reaching a permanent end to the war. Hours later, the US president later made fresh threats against Iran should it seek to assassinate him, saying “1000 missiles are locked and loaded and aimed at the Islamic Republic of Iran”. A proposal for the strait that adapts the principles from the strait of Malacca has already been developed by Oman in conjunction with British lawyers. Muscat has now offered to send its legal experts to Tehran to explain the plan in detail. Iranian state media reported on Friday that foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi would travel to Oman on Saturday for talks about the strait. The visit “will be focused on the strait of Hormuz and shipping safety” and is “a continuation of the consultations that we started with Oman over the past one or two months,” Iran’s official IRNA news agency quoted foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei as saying. Oman controls most of the navigable waters in the strait and opposes a compulsory toll. Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Majed al-Ansari, said: “Giving the Iranians sovereignty over the strait in a way that contradicts international maritime law will be basically agreeing to be hostages to whatever radical element that wants to take over the strait at any time.” But the scale of Oman’s alternative scheme may not match the ambitions of the Iranians, especially the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. One diplomat said: “There are sections of the IRGC that say the US launched an unlawful attack on them in February, so why should they bother with the international law of the sea? Others want to cooperate. There is a division in Tehran.” Iran is also under pressure from regional states to clarify its proposals, and whether the fees would in effect be compulsory. The Iranian embassy in London said it was interested in proposals prepared independently by the Energy Policy Research Group. The paper argued that a transparent service fee embedded within an inclusive regional order would incentivise all sides to cooperate, adding that the plan was not a crude toll imposed on ships just for passing through the strait. Speaking at a meeting of the International Maritime Organization council on Thursday in London, the Oman delegate Khamis bin Mohammed Al Shamakhi said: “The right of transit passage through straits used for international navigation is guaranteed under international law and does not support the imposition of transit fees on vessels passing through the strait of Hormuz.” However, he added that Oman saw value in exploring voluntary arrangements “relating to navigational support services that could further enhance maritime safety and security, protect the marine environment, reduce the risk of pollution and strengthen preparedness for maritime emergencies, including collisions and fires on board of ships and tankers”. Behind these remarks is detailed work by Oman on the governorship of the strait of Malacca that links the Indian and Pacific oceans. A report to the IMO council on the cooperative mechanism for the straits of Malacca and Singapore said more than 120,000 vessels transit the strait annually. The mechanism “has evolved into a structured and inclusive platform through which emerging risks, technological developments and environmental priorities in the straits may be collectively addressed”, the report added. Voluntary contributions, notably by Japan, keep the mechanism working. At the London meeting, an alliance of some Gulf and European states pressed for a resolution condemning Iran for seeking to control the strait of Hormuz by attacking ships. The motion was not supported by Russia or China. Russia said the confrontational motion completely ignored the root causes of the crisis, while China described the text as one-sided, and going beyond the IMO mandate. The motion came after the US hit more than 150 targets mainly in the south of Iran this week, in an attempt to destroy the Iranians’ ability to harass shipping with drones, missiles and small boats. Iran has responded by hitting US bases in Kuwait and Bahrain. One diplomat said there were two reasons for the renewed fighting. One concerned the disputed control of the strait during its reopening and the other was the long-term management of the waterway, including whether Malacca provided a model that would be acceptable to Iran. Clause 5 of the memorandum of understanding (MoU), the ceasefire negotiation roadmap signed by Washington and Tehran last month, committed Iran to make its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial efforts through the strait with no charge for 60 days only. Once technical and military obstacles had been removed, traffic of commercial vessels would be “instated” within 30 days. The US has claimed the MoU did not mean ships could pass the strait only with Iran’s permission and only on routes specified by Tehran. Separately, the memorandum committed Iran to hold talks on a long-term plan for the strait with Oman. In a statement on Thursday, the IRGC navy claimed it had in fact met the MoU commitments, as it interpreted them. The IMO secretary general, Arsenio Dominquez, believed he had won Iran’s agreement to the southern route that would allow thousands of stranded sailors to evacuate the strait, but, if there was an agreement, Tehran rescinded its approval, forcing the UN agency to suspend its plan. The US nevertheless continued to encourage commercial traffic ships to use the southern route. US Central Command claims that since early May US forces “have helped facilitate the successful transit of more than 800 commercial vessels and 380m barrels of crude oil through the vital international trade corridor”. The IRGC navy said: “We reiterate that foreigners have no role in this land or the strait of Hormuz.” Diplomats are now examining whether Tehran is insisting all ships use the northern route close to Iran to clear the backlog of vessels or is simply requiring that all ships seek permission of the country and its Persian Gulf Strait Authority to use the southern route.

Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy creates ‘long-range impact’ command to strike Russian energy sector

Ukraine is creating a “long-range impact” command within its armed forces, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a Friday night address to the nation, as Kyiv’s campaign against Russian energy and logistics has ⁠forced Moscow to ban diesel ⁠exports and restrict shipping near the Sea of Azov. For months, Ukrainian attack drones have been targeting key energy infrastructure thousands of kilometres across Russia in what Kyiv casts as long-range sanctions against the primary contributor to Russia’s ⁠state budget. “Today, I signed a decree ⁠establishing a special command within the armed forces – a command aimed at a long-range and, in effect, global impact on Russia in response to this war,” Zelenskyy said. “This command must focus ‌100% of available resources on further reducing Russia’s ‌capacity to wage war.” Zelenskyy’s address came on a day Ukraine struck the Ilsky oil refinery in the Krasnodar region, one of the largest in Russia’s south, and the Ust-Luga oil refining complex in the Leningrad region, Ukraine’s general staff said. An oil terminal and an oil depot in the Rostov region were also hit, according to the statement. Ukraine’s attacks have also damaged Moscow’s “shadow fleet”, according to Ukraine drone forces commander and one of the masterminds of the long-range campaign, Robert Brovdi. The smaller country has attacked 10 tankers in the Sea of Azov, among almost 50 fuel vessels damaged in ⁠the last five days, Brovdi said. Russian missile strikes on Kyiv wounded six people on Saturday, Ukraine said, as Moscow escalates attacks on the Ukrainian capital. “The number of injured in the capital has risen to six,” Tymur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, wrote on Telegram. Tkachenko confirmed earlier that Russia was “attacking the capital with missiles” and urged residents to seek shelter. Three people were treated in hospital and three at the scene, he said. Russia has temporarily stopped shipping through the Don-Azov ⁠Channel, a navigable waterway linking the Don River with the Sea of Azov, three grain export industry sources told Reuters on Friday. The move ⁠came after Ukraine attacked Russian vessels in the Sea of Azov. ‌Up ‌to one-quarter of Russia’s wheat exports are estimated to pass through the inland sea. Russia’s border guards reportedly notified shipping companies that all requests for passage through the Kerch Strait, which links the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea, would not be accepted from 6:10pm local time on Friday. The notification did not say when the halt would be lifted. China could play a decisive role in pressuring Russia to begin peace talks to end ⁠its war in Ukraine, US ⁠Senator Lindsey Graham said on Friday, adding that the next several months would present a window for a diplomatic solution. Graham met President Zelenskyy in Kyiv where they discussed Ukraine’s urgent air defence needs and the Russian sanctions bill, Zelenskyy said. Graham said that bolstering Ukraine’s military capabilities and aligning sanctions with a diplomatic push ⁠could force Moscow into talks. “The road to ending this war, the road to peace, passes through Beijing more than it does [through] Washington, Kyiv, or Moscow. China has an ‌oversized influence. I’d like them ‌to use their influence for the good of the world,” Graham told reporters at Mykhailivska Square in the heart ‌of Kyiv. Lindsey Graham was one of four US senators who on Friday said they had reached agreement with the Trump administration to push ahead with updated legislation on Russia sanctions. “We are very pleased with this significant progress and expect to roll out the legislation very soon,” Senators Richard Blumenthal, Graham, Jeanne Shaheen and Roger Wicker said in a statement. Finishing his 10th visit to Kyiv, Graham told reporters: “We’ve reached an agreement with the White House on a version of the Russian sanctions bill that they will support. It means it’s going to become law.” The legislation, which Graham has been working on with fellow Republicans and Democrats for months, would impose sanctions on countries doing business with Russia, including buyers of ‌its energy exports, over Moscow’s failure to negotiate a peace deal with Ukraine. Russian forces dropped ⁠seven aerial bombs on Ukraine’s eastern frontline ⁠town of Kramatorsk on ‌Friday, killing ‌four people including ‌a teenager, the regional governor said. At least nine more people were ‌injured, Vadym Filashkin said on the Telegram app, accusing Russia of deliberately targeting civilians. A ⁠residential block, a shop and private houses were damaged, he added, ‌publishing photos of flats on fire. A former official at Ukraine’s state nuclear company ⁠Energoatom has been formally designated as a suspect on Friday as Kyiv’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) presses ahead ⁠with the biggest ⁠wartime corruption case in the energy sector. NABU said on Telegram that the as yet unnamed official, who was responsible for the ⁠physical protection and security of Energoatom facilities, is suspected of laundering more than 30m hryvnias ($674,000) from ⁠2023 to 2025. The ‌so-called Midas case, which authorities say involved a $100m kickback scheme at Energoatom, has engulfed figures close to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and cast a shadow over Ukraine’s government at a time when Kyiv is seeking to demonstrate to western allies that it can tackle high-level corruption.

Venezuela quake death toll passes 4,000 as scale of recovery effort looms large

The death toll in Venezuela’s devastating twin earthquakes has topped 4,000, the government said on Friday. At least 4,118 people were killed and 16,740 injured in the back-to-back quakes on 24 June that flattened entire districts in the coastal state of La Guaira, Venezuelan parliament chief Jorge Rodriguez wrote on Telegram. Thousands more are listed as missing. A 7.5-magnitude quake – the biggest in Venezuela in over a century – struck 39 seconds after a 7.2-magnitude shock, flattening entire high-rise apartment blocks. Although rescue teams have halted searches for survivors, family members continue to scour the ruins for their loved ones, in the hope of giving them a dignified burial. On Friday, a 3.0-magnitude quake in central Caracas caused momentary panic and led to buildings being evacuated. The scale of the recovery effort facing Venezuela, where state services have been severely degraded by a prolonged economic crisis, is huge. The United Nations on Wednesday issued an urgent appeal for nearly $300m towards earthquake relief operations to assist 1.3 million people in urgent need of aid in the South American country where non-governmental organisations until recently were targets of government repression. Mobile kitchens and clinics as well as field hospitals now dot public spaces in the northern state of La Guaira, where most of the devastation occurred. The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction has estimated direct physical damage to housing and infrastructure around $37bn. Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, has called for the release of frozen assets held abroad to be used towards the recovery. On Wednesday she said she asked King Charles III to release about 30 tons of Venezuelan gold frozen under UK sanctions. Delcy Rodríguez has defended her country’s emergency response to the twin earthquakes, vowing the country would not descend into social unrest. Many Venezuelans have expressed anger at what they see as the US-backed government’s inadequate response to the disaster before international teams arrived. With Agence France-Presse and Associated Press

‘It’s good to do nothing’: why hundreds gathered to sit still on one Bangkok weekend

Bangkok is a city thrumming with an energy you can feel from its skyscrapers to the street, but an invitation last week to change the pace and do nothing drew hundreds to the lush green oasis in its centre. On beanbags, fold up chairs and picnic mats in Lumphini Park on 4 July, people laid back looking at the sky, while others sat upright facing the lake. One examined a twig, a few dozed off and only a handful checked their phones. There was no talk, only the squawk of the birds and the rustle as ancient monitor lizards slithered along the banks. Drawn in by a Facebook even that invited people to “sit still and do fucking nothing”, about 300 turned out with the promise to “escape your screen” and “protest capitalism”, or simply “spend an hour being completely useless to the country’s GDP” Events like this are happening all over the world – South Korea’s Space Out competition pushes back against urban societies’ obsession with productivity and has been held in other cities around the world, while Spain’s Siesta Championship attempted to revive the nation’s napping tradition threatened by the fast-pace of modern life. Technology has meant that in modern society there is always something to occupy us and “a lot of us are all too aware of the extra things we feel we ought to be doing,” author and overthinking coach, Gabrielle Treanor, told the Guardian earlier this year. Yet research has shown there is often an aversion to sitting alone with one’s thoughts. The Bangkok organisers promised it would run for an hour and on the day, there would be no instructions or countdowns and “no facilitators, no icebreakers, no networking, no worksheets, no learning outcomes.” Mint, who works in HR and, who like most people the Guardian spoke to at the event asked that just her nickname be used, was intrigued by the novelty of the idea: “I haven’t heard of an event like this before.” She and friend Maple work as a psychologists, and were both keen for a chance to do nothing as a break from their first year of working life after graduating university. She’s found the pace of life in Bangkok much more fast-paced than her home town of Khon Kaen in north-eastern Thailand so, “having a reason to do nothing was nice.” Tourists passing by, who had come to the park to see the famed lizards, were unsure what was happening; one commented on the unusualness of seeing no one talking. Aya and Junior thought it might be difficult to pass the hour, but said it actually felt so “free” – though they admit coming together as friends they couldn’t help talking at times. The organiser, Gun, hadn’t expected it to be so popular. He said that while the mobile phone has become a “boredom blaster”, he wanted people to remember what it feels like to sit quietly and feel bored – which experts say is the bedrock of creativity. Long working hours remain common in the corporate culture of Thailand’s urban centres, with Bangkok often cited as among the worst cities for work-life balance. So its perhaps no surprise many seemed to enjoy the experience; some went deep into a meditative state while others said they were happy just to be free from the chores they would normally do on a Saturday afternoon. Pookpick Chayanee said its “good for just being with yourself” and found the hour passed easily. “I love to do nothing,” she said. Others didn’t find the experience such a breeze. Pompam said she wanted to set herself the challenge because being a 22-year-old with ADHD, doing nothing was always going to be difficult. “I’m trying to force myself not to touch my phone, but it’s hard in this generation”. She and a friend bought a paint by numbers set to help pass the time. Tyler came with friends who are all completing masters degrees, they appreciated the opportunity to use an hour to “chill” and not stress about studying. He’s not sure his busy schedule will allow him to make a habit of sitting around aimlessly, but admits “it’s good to do nothing.”