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German chancellor clinging to power after another loss to far-right AfD

Germany’s beleaguered leader, Friedrich Merz, has sought to shore up support for his flagging chancellorship among senior members of his conservative party after its drubbing at the polls in two state elections. Merz, who has vowed his fractious coalition government will plough ahead with an unpopular reform agenda, held an early meeting in Berlin with the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leadership on Monday. He dismissed speculation over his position, saying it was vital for the country’s “democratic future” that he and his coalition government remained in place. Germany faces political uncertainty as Merz, 70, clings to power in the aftermath of three hefty defeats this month, with the CDU ousted from a state parliament for the first time, and the far right and far left making strong gains at its expense. Merz vowed to keep on fighting on Sunday, election day in Berlin and the coastal northern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. But after the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) emerged victorious in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania for the third time in a German state, securing 38%, his position looked increasingly fragile. The anti-immigration, pro-Russia AfD’s leaders on Monday predicted Merz would be out of office in months, as they set their sights on securing victory at the next federal election in 2029. “The chancellor certainly won’t make it to the end of the year,” Leif-Erik Holm, the AfD’s top candidate in Mecklenburg, said. “I think the twilight of the chancellor’s era has begun.” On Monday, Merz made clear he had no intention of standing down, saying his government was “determined to live up to the historic responsibilities our country is facing”. He added: “It is about nothing less, and nothing more, than the democratic future of our country.” Merz described the results as a “disaster”, in particular the CDU’s ejection from the state parliament of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania where it failed to reach the 5% barrier needed, after losing more than half of its voters to the far-right AfD and centre-left Social Democrats. The result was all the more shocking as Mecklenburg was once a CDU stronghold. In Berlin, the CDU fell to second place behind the far-left Linke party, which is on track to lead the next government in the city-state and could give Berlin its first Turkish-born mayor in its lead candidate, Elif Eralp. In Mecklenburg, the SPD under its existing state leader, Manuela Schwesig, is expected to lead a three-party coalition government. Her campaign had focused almost wholly on presenting herself as a buttress against the AfD, as well as distancing herself from the federal government’s reform agenda. The SPD is Merz’s coalition partner in the federal government. Although the CDU’s poor performance had been predicted, Sunday’s outcomes only added to the extreme pressure on Merz already after the CDU’s crushing defeat to the AfD in the state of Saxony-Anhalt two weeks ago, which triggered the first serious speculation over his future as leader. Last week, the CDU’s powerful regional leaders governing in eight states gave their backing to Merz, but questions remain as to how sustained their support will be. At the same time there appear to be few candidates willing to step up to the post, which is increasingly being viewed as a poisoned chalice. On Monday, Merz dismissed the idea that the election results were a personal rebuke. “The reasons for these election results go far beyond my own person,” he said. “We are witnessing a profound transformation of the political party system in Germany as well as in many other countries around the world.” Karin Prien, the education minister and deputy CDU leader, accepted accusations that the government was failing to take voters’ fears seriously enough. But she said the government had no choice other than to continue trying to reform Germany from within, at a time of chronic economic weakness and global instability. “Without support and steadfastness we will not be able to achieve the necessary reforms, which are by no means a given. Nevertheless, not everything can remain as it is,” she told the broadcaster Deutschlandfunk. “The chancellor knows he will have to change, at least in how he addresses the people … We are a strong country, we have every chance of mastering this challenge together, but I believe that cooperating with each other will be crucial for this, and for the party it means we must broaden our appeal.” Doubts over the efficacy and fairness of the government’s reform agenda – which includes an overhaul of the pension system, a reduction in overbearing bureaucracy and cuts to income tax for the less well-off – played heavily into both election campaigns. On Monday, SPD leaders said they remained confident in their coalition with the CDU, but said that changes to the agenda were necessary. Lars Klingbeil, the deputy chancellor and finance minister, said: “Saying we will ignore what the voters said to us in three state polls won’t work.” While the country needed reforms, he said, they ”must be fair and they need support in the population.” Labour minister Bärbel Bas, also of the SPD, said the plans needed a “reality check”, but said “nothing would be more lethal than letting this coalition break apart over some technicality”. Rubbing salt into Merz’s wounds, the Kremlin on Monday waded into the election analysis, calling the AfD’s win in Mecklenburg a response to Berlin’s refusal to buy cheap Russian gas, which has jolted the economy and caused prices to soar, contributing to voter dissatisfaction. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said: “Naturally, Germans, or at least some of them, are looking for an alternative to the current authorities in order to improve their situation. That is a natural process.”

Germany’s Merz ‘grateful’ centre-left SPD wants to stay in coalition after CDU’s heavy losses – Europe live

Merz said the election losses marked a “profound turning point” for the mainstream conservative party. It’s the first time the CDU has crashed out of a local parliament since the end of WW2 – a “uniquely dramatic result… that will have repercussions for us for a long time to come”, said Merz. September’s three elections losses are a wake-up call to a CDU who haemorrhaged their support base to the far-right AfD in Meckenburg-Western Pomerania and Saxony-Anhalt two weeks earlier. AfD now nationally have the biggest share of support of voters, with their vote greatest in the former East Germany states, but the other established parties will be vying to keep them out of government. Merz said his government needed to push ahead with reforms to tax, welfare and pensions, to give people “answers” but SPD leader Lars Klingbeil, junior partner to Merz’s CDU-led federal coalition, said the signal from voters in all three elections showed “we don’t agree with what you’re doing in Berlin”.

Latest German election humiliation puts Merz on borrowed time as CDU unrest grows

Friedrich Merz called it a “disaster”, and that was even before the full scale of the catastrophe for himself and his conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) came into view after Sunday’s state elections. In what one outlet called a “power move”, the German chancellor made a highly unusual televised speech just minutes after polls closed in the states of Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, attempting to get ahead of the narrative with a pledge to stay on and fight for his economic recovery programme. But as the results trickled in, it became apparent that the CDU had not only scored its worst-ever result in a state election, in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, it had crashed out of a regional parliament altogether for the first time in postwar history with just 4.9% of the vote in the region on the Baltic coast. The far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) came out on top for the third time in a German state, drawing 38% against 35.5% for the centre-left Social Democrats, Merz’s federal coalition partner. Although the AfD has little chance of taking power because of a “firewall” of non-cooperation agreed by the other main parties, the anti-immigration, Kremlin-friendly party could celebrate a further success in destabilising the German political establishment. In Berlin, the CDU will almost certainly have to vacate city hall once the coalition negotiations wrap up after a stinging defeat to the leftwing Linke party, which is calling for the expropriation of corporate landlords to address a housing crisis. Polls had been predicting the humiliating result for Merz’s conservatives, which came after a historic rout two weeks ago in the former communist state of Saxony-Anhalt, where the CDU scored just 17% to the AfD’s nearly 44%. But the cumulative effect of these losses, coupled with Merz’s dire approval ratings and a far right with clear momentum, can hardly be exaggerated. Despite his vow to stay the course, many regard the German leader to be on borrowed time. “Friedrich Merz is fighting for his political survival,” said the Berenberg bank’s chief economist, Holger Schmieding. “Although Merz has vowed to stay on as chancellor to spearhead the much needed pro-growth reforms, it will not be easy for him to contain the unrest within his party.” Speculation was already rife after the Saxony-Anhalt race about a Kanzlertausch, or chancellor swap. But as long as none of the potential successors appears ready to wield the dagger, and Merz remains unwilling to step aside, a volatile deadlock will reign. Merz, 70, gathered the CDU leadership at the party headquarters in Berlin to watch the exit polls together late on Sunday. Local media reported that some of those assembled loudly objected to the defiant, full-steam-ahead speech he planned to deliver regarding his programme, saying that it amounted to ignoring what voters were shouting from the rooftops with their choices. Merz cancelled a planned trip to New York this week to speak before the UN general assembly, already anticipating he would need to be in Berlin to grapple with the state elections’ aftermath. Now, more than ever, he will have his work cut out for him after just 16 months in office.

Babies ‘will face almost twice as much’ extreme fire weather in Europe than great-grandparents

European babies will face almost twice as much extreme fire weather as their great-grandparents if climate action does not ramp up quickly, a study has found. Global heating under current policies will expose a child born in Europe in 2025 to three more years of brutally fire-conducive weather over their lifetime than someone born in 1950, the researchers found. The number of days with the most severe conditions for fires to burn hotter and spread further will rise fastest in the Mediterranean, where generation Beta, the demographic cohort born from 2025, is to face five more years of lifetime exposure to extreme fire weather than boomers, born in the two decades after the second world war. The hot, dry and windy conditions that let small fires explode into raging infernos have been exacerbated by one-and-a-half centuries of fossil fuel pollution and the widespread destruction of nature, which has heated the planet by 1.4C. In Europe, which has warmed twice as fast as the global average, the worsening weather has increasingly fuelled monster infernos that overwhelm authorities. Rosa Pietroiusti, a climate researcher at Vrije Universiteit Brussel and lead author of the study, said severe fire weather was a “necessary but not sufficient condition” for the kind of extreme fires that ravaged parts of Europe this summer. “The meteorological conditions are an important element of fire risk – the possibility of that fire happening, being super-destructive and difficult to control, and spreading very fast.” The researchers combined demographic data with outputs from global climate models and tallied the number of days when fire weather was more severe than the worst 5% of days for that region in the reference period from 1985 to 2014. They considered 21 scenarios that resulted in 1.5C to 3.5C of global heating by the end of the century, a spectrum that roughly covers the best- and worst-case scenarios humanity is likely to face. They found that under current policies, which will result in 2.6C of warming, children born today can expect to experience 84% more exposure to extreme fire weather than those born in 1950. They attributed 86% of the increase to climate change and 14% to people living longer. If end-of-century warming is limited to 1.5C – a target likely to be crossed in just a few years – children born in 2025 would face 1.3 fewer years of extreme fire weather than under current policies, the study found. Raúl Cordero, a climate scientist at the University of Groningen, who was not involved in the research, said it highlighted the “inherently intergenerational injustice” of climate breakdown. “Just one month ago, inhabitants of central Europe experienced fire-weather conditions that their parents or grandparents had never encountered. Unfortunately, these conditions materialised in record-breaking fires in Belgium and western Germany,” said Cordero, whose relatives were among the thousands who fled their homes in Germany in August. “An unstoppable fire engulfing a town? This kind of emergency would have been unthinkable for Germans of older generations.” In southern Europe, the number of fires and the area burned have declined over decades as authorities have grown better at suppressing them, according to a study Cordero co-authored in July, but in recent years the trend has reversed. As well as hotter and drier weather, aggressive fire suppression – preventing even low-intensity fires – has led to buildups of flammable vegetation that has fuelled ferocious blazes in years when climatological conditions are ripe. Relentless heatwaves and widespread drought plagued Europe this summer and led to explosive wildfires across France, Spain, Italy and several other countries. Across the EU, the severity of fire weather this year broke records, while the area burned is shaping up to be the third-worst on record. The EU’s civil protection mechanism was activated nine times as countries scrambled firefighting planes and crews to assist overwhelmed neighbours. In her annual state of the union speech on Wednesday, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, paid tribute to a Danish firefighter pilot who died with a colleague in Greece last month, and announced plans for the creation of a European firefighting fleet. “I am so proud of Europe’s response, of our European assets flying across the continent,” said von der Leyen. “But clearly, we need to think bigger and learn faster.”

Monday briefing: Inside Trump’s deportation machine – ‘Your fate is out of your control’

Good morning. If you want to grasp the true cost of what it means to “secure our borders,” skip the panicked headlines about “mega-dinghies” arriving on British shores and the pictures of Patriot Platform’s black-clad enthusiasts, and look across the Atlantic. Since 2025, the Trump administration has deported about 5,000 people on flights to “third countries” where they have no family ties or history, sometimes as far as Ghana and Sierra Leone. A Guardian investigation published today exposes the staggering cruelty of this sinister policy. It seems deliberately designed to stoke fear, and shows how far-right ideas that once belonged on the fringes of politics have become so mainstream that they’re now barely opposed. These deportations often happen very quickly, with people given little notice of what is going to happen to them. That creates huge challenges for lawyers trying to defend people who are shackled on flights, and for journalists trying to tell their stories. For this morning’s newsletter, I spoke to the Guardian’s investigations correspondent Louisa Loveluck about the lives of the people caught up in this policy, and how the Trump administration has created a deportation machine. That’s after the headlines. Weekend roundup Russia | European intelligence officials have raised the possibility of an imminent Russian test of Nato, with one saying a potential attack could come in a matter of “months, not years”. Domestic violence | About 20,000 disclosures of domestic abuse are estimated to be made to maternity services in England every year, analysis has found. Ed Sheeran | Ed Sheeran has opened a solo concert in Philadelphia with comments about Gaza, saying what is happening is “catastrophic and unjustifiable”, in his first show since his tour was plunged into turmoil. Spycops scandal | Victims of intrusive police surveillance have accused the government of seeking to cut short the spycops public inquiry that has been examining widespread misconduct committed by undercover officers. Royal family | Earl Spencer has said the relationship between the press and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex “echoes” the way the media treated his sister Diana, Princess of Wales. In an interview with the BBC aired on Sunday evening, Spencer described media coverage of Harry and Meghan as having a “cancerous influence”. In depth: The people caught in Trump’s deportation machine The second Trump administration has struck 35 deals with nations such as Eswatini and Central African Republic, allowing it to deport migrants and asylum seekers to nations where they have no connections. Federal officers can deport immigrants with as little as six hours notice, even if they have no assurances that people will be safe from persecution or torture (a US court judgment recently challenged the short timeframe, and the government is expected to appeal it). In many cases, these countries then deport people onwards to the places they fled – something that is technically illegal under US law. Since 2025, more than 5,000 people have been put on planes to countries other than their own, including those in Latin America, Africa, central Asia and the Caribbean. Louisa has been investigating these deportations with journalists from 22 other newsrooms in conjunction with Forbidden Stories, a Paris-based network of investigative journalists. One of the people they interviewed was Rabbiatu Kuyateh, a 58-year-old nurse who had been living in the US for 30 years. During the pandemic, Kuyateh said she had spent much of the pandemic working in a US hospital caring for patients in a Covid isolation ward. Since then, she has worked as a carer for the disabled son of an American family. She was detained during a routine check-in with ICE in July 2025, spent four months in ICE custody, and was then flown to Ghana. Days later, a group of officials dragged her by her hair into a van, which transported her to Sierra Leone, the country she had originally fled with her parents. “The disabled man who Kuyateh was paid to care for was waiting for her on the day she was picked up by ICE,” Louisa says. “And when she could finally speak to her family after she was detained, one of the things she said was: please tell them I’m not coming to work tomorrow.” *** Who is behind this? The policy has been driven by Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, who is often described as Trump’s “shadow president”. During Trump’s first term, Miller was behind the administration’s most extreme positions, such as the Muslim travel ban. In November 2024, before returning to the White House, he said on a conservative radio show that the coming crackdown on immigrants would be so prolific, “you’ll set your alarm clock two hours earlier every morning just to get two more hours of daylight to watch the deportation flights happen.” Since then, he’s been in overdrive. Miller has demanded that ICE agents arrest 3,000 people per day on America’s streets, and has strategised with officials from the Department of Homeland Security about how the government can reach its goal of deporting one million people in a year. He hosts daily calls with a small circle of conservative diplomats to press them on third country deportation agreements, and has been trying to accelerate the removal of undocumented immigrant children from the US. His influence is part of a broader strategy to subordinate the federal government’s other priorities to the singular aim of deporting migrants. The Trump administration has disbanded USAID, and repurposed funding previously dedicated to humanitarian assistance towards deportations. It has purged immigration judges deemed insufficiently loyal to this agenda, and has gutted the oversight system that investigates civil rights abuses in immigration detention. “All of these institutions that on some level could have protected refugees, asylum seekers and migrants are being turned inside out to do the opposite,” Louisa says. *** Why the Trump administration doesn’t want you to know the details Trump has made no secret of his gigantic deportation programme (it will be a “bloody story,” he said in 2024). His government has transformed immigration raids into reality entertainment, staged photo ops at migrant detention jails with names such as Deportation Depot and Alligator Alcatraz, and in 2025 arrested two firefighters while they were putting out an active wildfire in Washington State, later deporting one of them to Mexico. But it has been comparatively guarded about its third-party deportation deals. Details of the deals remain opaque, and the government doesn’t publicise most of the deportation flights. Secrecy makes it harder for lawyers to oppose deportations, since they often don’t know when flights are scheduled – or who is on them. It also contributes to a climate of fear and uncertainty for immigrants. “The message is: you are out of control of your own fate,” Louisa tells me. The countries that have struck these deals with the US may not want them to be public knowledge, and by keeping them out of the public eye, the Trump administration can also limit scrutiny of how much they cost. So far, it has pledged at least $410m (£307m) to secure these agreements. The cost of deporting a single person can run as high as $1m. “The administration seems willing to pay whatever it takes to get this done,” Louisa says. (When approached for comment, a state department spokesperson said the administration would use “all legal means” to remove those “with no right to remain in our country”.) *** From far-right conspiracy to government policy The policy is being run from the newly created Office of Remigration, which has borrowed a term used by the far-right to describe the forcible expulsion of immigrants, turning an idea once associated with the political fringes into official government policy. The idea that people who have been living in a country legally for years could be deported in the space of a few hours might sound like dystopian fiction. But as my colleague Jonathan Liew wrote in an opinion piece last year, the remigration discourse has already gone mainstream. In 2022, the UK’s then Conservative government attempted its own version of the third country deportation policy by pushing through plans to send migrants to Rwanda (the first flight was cancelled after a flurry of legal challenges). Reform has now proposed that, if it were to form a government, people who have already secured indefinite leave to remain could be suddenly deported if they don’t meet a new set of rules. And, as we reported yesterday, Nigel Farage has said he would like to “hijack” Trump’s key ICE adviser to secure the UK’s borders. “This is not just an American policy,” Louisa tells me. “This is the language of our political debate right now. And if America is doing this so flagrantly, it makes it easier for others to do the same.” We want to hear from you What do you want to know about the US midterms, and how the Guardian plans to report them? Libby will be putting your questions to our Washington bureau in the coming weeks, so send them in by hitting reply or emailing first.edition@theguardian.com. The week to come Monday | G7’s foreign ministers are set to meet in New York. Wednesday | The disgraced film tycoon Harvey Weinstein is set to face his fourth and possibly final sentencing in New York for sexually assaulting a former assistant. Thursday | US president Donald Trump is set to host Xi Jinping, China’s president, at the White House. What else we’ve been enjoying I loved this interview with Ms Rachel, the toddler whisperer extraordinaire, about being a campaigner on humanitarian issues, politics, and her new album “I’m So Happy”. Sundus Abdi, newsletters team I appreciated this analysis by David Smith on Trump’s battle to rename the Kennedy Centre after himself. On the US president’s motivations, lawyer Norm Eisen said: “You would need an authority in abnormal psychology to get the answer to that question.” Micha Frazer-Carroll, newsletters team What comforted Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe while she was imprisoned in an Iranian jail? Pizza dough, Zumba and sewing, she tells reporter Helena Horton. Sundus Sport Football | Matheus Cunha’s late equaliser gave Manchester United a 1-1 draw at Fulham, who had led through Lisandro Martínez’s farcical own goal. Cycling | Belgium’s Remco Evenepoel won the men’s time trial title for the fourth time in a row, while the Swiss rider Marlen Reusser defended her women’s crown. Darts | Luke Littler has threatened to boycott tournaments in the Netherlands after being booed and whistled at during the World Series of Darts Finals in Amsterdam. The front pages “European spy chiefs brace for Russia to test Nato pact”, is the Guardian’s front page today. The Telegraph has “Labour eyes £14bn tax raid to help the poorest”, the Times says “Half Labour MPs at risk of Pip cuts backlash”, and the Express writes “Stop your tax raid on nation’s high streets”. The Mail runs with “Kemi: I’ll ditch tourist tax to boost Britain” and the i Paper has “We women are all at risk from men, warns minister amid Piddington asylum camp row”. The FT says “BigTech banks of guarantees to keep $300bn AI exposure off balance sheet”. The Mirror’s splash is “Ed: I feel so alone” and Metro writes “I back Team Harry AND Wills” Today in Focus Being trans in Britain in 2026 Transgender people in Britain are navigating a new reality. In August, new guidance – in the form of a document nearly 350 pages long – was published to help institutions interpret last year’s supreme court ruling on trans rights. It means, as Amelia outlines to Helen Pidd, that every time she goes to a pub or restaurant, she is terrified about going to the bathroom. Helen heads to parliament to hear from those protesting over the new guidance, and from senior political correspondent Peter Walker on whether there is any appetite in government to change the law. Cartoon of the day | Tom Gauld The Upside A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad For decades, hopeful entrants to the Royal Horticultural Society’s Britain in Bloom competition have nurtured vibrant flowerbeds and beautiful hanging baskets across the UK’s towns. This year, the charity has launched a new award that has zhooshed up many of our train platforms. Five of the best were shortlisted for the RHS Railway Stations in Bloom competition – featuring boat-planters, pollination-friendly wildflowers and gravel gardens. The winner, the Cardross Community Organic Garden in Scotland, involved a wide range of local communities in gardening activities, from Brownies to volunteering groups. Jane Connolly, who heads the station’s gardening group, said: “Every time we are down there, somebody will come along and peruse it and say how grateful they are with what we have done … People come to our station just to see our gardens.” 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

‘The physical toll is visceral’: How Indonesia’s fire haze affects millions - visual guide

For months, parts of Indonesia’s Borneo and Sumatra islands have been ablaze. The fires are sometimes lit illegally as a cheap way to clear land for plantations of oil palm, of which Indonesia is the world’s largest producer. So prevalent is the technique that it even has a special term: slash and burn. Many of the fires begin as small-scale blazes. But in hot, dry conditions, can easily spiral out of control, sending toxic smoke across borders and affecting the air quality of millions in Indonesia and beyond. This year a “super” El Niño could inflame the problem. David Gaveau, a landscape ecologist who runs Nusantara Atlas, which tracks fires and deforestation in Asia, says the worst fires occur on drained and dried out peatland. This type of fire is extremely difficult to extinguish, and can burn for weeks underground. “They go underground, they resurface somewhere else. And then the more water you give it, the more smoke there is,” he says, “These fires are really the legacy of 50 years of forest degradation, deforestation, and particularly on peatland.” If there was an “apex predator” among fires, tropical peatland fires would be a top contender, says Nasa. Fires occur annually in Indonesia, but data from this year indicates it is already looking like a bad year, with the worst hit areas in Sumatra, Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo, and Papua. Since January at least 895,657 hectares have been burned Indonesia-wide, 34% worse than 2019, according to data from Nusantara Atlas. “It’s trending far higher than 2019 or even 2023,” says Gaveau, “What that means is that this is a terrible year.” In recent weeks, photos from Kalimantan have shown a thick, sepia-toned haze shrouding streets and obscuring cities, schoolchildren wearing masks at their desks, and even rescuers giving oxygen to smoke-affected orangutans. “Ever since the haze hit, we haven’t opened our doors or windows in a long time. The wind carries smoke from the fires all the way to our porch. Ash and smoke seep directly into the house, and the conditions worsen at night,” Ely Marlina, a 46-year-old schoolteacher and volunteer firefighter told the Guardian. “While we sleep, the whole family is just breathing in the smoke,” she says. “The physical toll is visceral; eyes are left stinging and weeping daily … It feels like if we keep breathing in this smog, the dizziness will take over and our bodies will just give out.” As the fires rage, schools have closed, and emergency rooms have been inundated with patients. The numbers of people suffering wildfire-related respiratory illnesses in those provinces had more than doubled to 113,336 by 9 September, from 50,891 on 1 September. Fire emissions from Indonesia in the first week of September reached 19.7m metric tons, accounting for more than a third of the global total, according to Fire Emissions Watch, a portal developed by the European Union’s Copernicus climate monitoring service. The air quality index in Indonesia and its neighbours shows just how much the fires have become a public health issue. According to air quality index ratings, a healthy level of air, signified by green, is ranked between 0 and 50. Anything above 300 is considered hazardous. Every day this September, the air quality in Sampit, central Kalimantan, has been classified as hazardous, going beyond the red and into the worst rating of maroon, according to the Swiss air monitor IQAir. On 10 September, the rating hit 1142. In Kuching, the biggest city on Malaysian Borneo, this month, AQI levels have fluctuated between unhealthy and hazardous. One resident in Kalimantan recently told the Guardian that taking a breath feels like “smoking a cigarette”. When the smoke from these fires crosses borders, it’s called “transboundary haze”. This year, the haze has again plagued Indonesia’s neighbours, blanketting parts of Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, and even the Philippines. Carried by monsoonal winds the smoke travelled as far as Manila, with residents urged to stay indoors as much as possible, and to wear mask outdoors. Among the countries hardest-hit, Malaysia has urged the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to review an agreement on transboundary haze from 2003. Indonesia’s environment ministry is investigating 19 companies allegedly linked to the fires, while police have arrested 113 people on suspicion of lighting them. But enforcement has proven a challenge for the country. The government has vowed to crackdown on bad actors; it has also deployed planes, helicopters, drones and the military to fight the fires; and it has bolstered mitigation efforts. Malaysia has offered three helicopters, ⁠an aircraft and 52 personnel to assist, while Japan has also sent in helicopters and a fire-fighting force. Residents are also doing their bit. A team of female firefighters called the Power of Mama, conduct daily surveillance activities, fire monitoring and community outreach, including encouraging people not to burn and warning them of the risks. In West Kalimantan, volunteers are going door-to-door to hand out cylinders of oxygen to residents and firefighters ‌struggling to breathe, in a campaign called “Rumah Oksigen”, or Oxygen House. But the next few weeks will be crucial. With this year’s super El Niño, experts say the fires could peak this September, and continue until November, when the rainy season is expected to start, but the phenomenon is not the only factor. “El Niño is an enabler. Of course the more powerful it is, the longer and the more intense the drought, and that’s not good news,” says Gaveau, “But you need a match. And we know what that is; it’s people.” Indonesia’s forestry minister Raja Juli Antoni has also warned that the country is entering a critical phase. “We have not yet escaped the threat of El Niño,” he said. “We are not safe from forest and land fires during this El Niño period. September is our month of struggle, our field of struggle.” Additional reporting by Garry Lotulung

‘People had naive expectations’: How MeToo has changed in China

When Jasmine, a once active member of China’s MeToo movement, organises feminist activities in Beijing, she often does so under the guise of an art or cultural event. She avoids publicising them on social media, instead sharing details privately in her personal circle. It’s very difficult to imagine what happened during the MeToo period, she says, “when one survivor could speak publicly about her experience and trigger a broader discussion about sexual harassment.” On Friday Sophia Huang Xueqin the imprisoned journalist who helped to ignite China’s MeToo movement, was released from prison, five years after her arrest. She will return to see a feminist movement that has dramatically changed in the years she has been detained. In China feminism has become an increasingly private affair. Activists speak of a generational rupture. A movement once inspired by the global hashtag campaign against sexual abuse and harassment has retreated to a less public space. Across Chinese social media survivors post about sexual harassment and successful court cases online. But activists say hashtag campaigns like MeToo and its Chinese language equivalents have largely been scrubbed from the Chinese internet. “A lot of younger, digital-native feminists today don’t know much about those earlier feminist struggles not too long ago, thanks to the state’s intentional annihilation of them,” says Eva Liu, a researcher on Chinese feminism and digital media at Ohio University. Today, Chinese feminists employ creative ways to avoid censorship. They use new expressions to avoid posts being blocked. “It’s really a cat-and-mouse game,” says Liu. She describes an “encyclopaedia” of feminist words banned by Chinese censors. “There are staff specifically tasked with tracking new terms coined by feminists online and adding them to the keyword lists used for automated censorship,” she says. “Even some terms that are not yet popular among feminist users are already part of this automatic censorship list.” Li Sipan, a Chinese investigative journalist and feminist scholar, says: “The Chinese Communist party regards all mobilisation of the public and movements demanding changes from the government as threats. The feminist movement clearly has these characteristics.” Jasmine in Beijing says: “If you want to organise a public event, anything explicitly related to feminism or LGBT issues is basically not possible, at least in Beijing. If you advertise it that way, there’s a risk the event will be shut down. “So usually we frame the event in a more neutral way, without directly presenting it as being about gender or social issues. But once the event is taking place, we may still discuss those topics.” ‘The online environment now is very different’ Huang’s reporting of survivors’ stories helped to propel the MeToo movement into public consciousness in China. She was arrested in 2021 in the city of Guangzhou a day before she was set to leave China to study a masters degree at Sussex University on a UK government-funded scholarship. In 2024 she was convicted alongside labour activist Wang Jianbing of “inciting subversion of state power”. Huang’s friends say they received little information about her from the authorities while she was in detention, amid reports of dramatic weight loss and intense interrogation, resulting in little sleep. Information travelled slowly out of the prison. They sometimes waited months for updates, relying on messages from other inmates who had been released. At the time of her conviction, Huang was also sentenced to four years “deprivation of political rights”. Human right groups say it could prevent her from continuing to work as a journalist or travelling abroad. In a statement released on Saturday, activists pushing for Huang’s release said “though she is released from prison, none of us [her friends] were able to reach her or receive any information from her. “Her whereabouts is also unknown. We are nervous and worried about her current conditions due to the potential severe surveillance she faces.” The Chinese government says the country has made “historic” progress in women’s rights. In a speech last year, president Xi Jinping listed improvements in health, employment and economic participation. China says it will further strengthen gender equality and protect against sexual harassment and sexual violence. Despite the shrinking space for debate, activists say the movement has had a lasting impact on Chinese society. Metoo made sexual harassment a mainstream topic. It led to policy change in universities, although activists say progress stopped at the courts. “I believe the achievements of China’s MeToo are things that many other authoritarian or even democratic countries failed to achieve,” says Lu Pin, a Chinese feminist activist, based in New York. “Under very harsh conditions, MeToo greatly raised women’s awareness of their rights, especially among young women.” In Beijing, Jasmine hopes to meet Huang one day but is unsure if it will be possible. She says she is still in contact with survivors of sexual harassment and believes it’s possible to support them with publicity and legal support. She believes there are other individuals and groups offering similar help, but they must choose carefully how to effect change. “The online environment now is very different from when MeToo first emerged,” she says. Lu Pin agrees. “People used to have naive imaginations and expectations about the internet, but later realised it wasn’t like that, especially for women and feminism.”

Ukraine war briefing: Russia to ‘intensify’ attacks on Kyiv after Moscow hit with mass drone strikes

Russia has vowed to “intensify” its strikes on Kyiv while accusing Ukraine of attempting to “disrupt” Russian elections after Ukraine fired waves of drones at the Moscow region on the final day of voting, killing at least two people. “In response to the Kyiv regime’s attacks on civilian targets within Russia, the Russian army will continue and intensify its high-accuracy strikes against military targets in Kyiv,” the Russian defence ministry said. The attack was the largest on Moscow since the Kremlin launched its Ukraine offensive in 2022 and involved about 1,600 drones, 450 of which were aimed directly at the capital, Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said. Images showed a gaping hole in a multi-storey apartment building on the outskirts of Moscow. Another showed black smoke pouring from what appeared to be an oil refinery. Volodymyr Zelenskyy praised Ukraine’s attacks, saying: “Our long-range responses had a very significant impact in the Moscow region last night.” The Ukrainian presidient said that among the weapons used in the attack was the Pelican, initially thought to be a short-range ballistic missile, but which sources said later was a winged drone. Zelenskyy said also Ukraine had used its domestically produced Flamingo cruise missiles to strike Moscow. The long-range weapon has previously been used against targets deep inside Russia. Preliminary results from Russia’s election, released by the country’s election commission early Monday, showed the main Kremlin party dominating the vote. The tightly controlled balloting was virtually devoid of opposition to President Vladimir Putin’s policies and all but certain to cement the Kremlin’s dominance. With about 58% of the precincts counted, United Russia had nearly 58% of the vote for the 225 deputies apportioned by party lists, according to the Central Election Commission. The balloting included residents of four Ukrainian regions that Moscow illegally annexed after the war began, but still doesn’t fully control, as well as those in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014, in what Kyiv denounced as illegal and the European Union described as a “blatant violation of international law”. Zelenskyy ⁠said on Sunday he had spoken with US President Donald Trump and ⁠the two ⁠agreed to meet in New York for talks that “could change a lot” ⁠in terms of finding a resolution to the war with Russia. The two ⁠leaders will be in New York this week ‌for the UN ‌General Assembly. “There are ideas for de-escalation steps and for addressing fundamental security issues – energy security, food security, and the protection of human ⁠life,” Zelenskyy posted on X. European intelligence officials have raised the possibility of an imminent Russian test of Nato, Sean Walker writes, with one saying a potential attack could come in a matter of “months, not years”. The warnings come after Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, told parliament that intelligence assessments suggested Russia might launch an attack with drones or missiles on Nato territory in the coming months, as part of efforts to prove that “article 5 is more theoretical than practical”. Egypt, one of the world’s largest importers of wheat, is diversifying its source of wheat imports towards France ⁠and other European suppliers, moving away from Ukraine and Russia where supplies have been ⁠disrupted, supply minister ⁠Sherif Farouk was quoted as saying on Sunday. The minister’s remarks were quoted by television ⁠host Ahmed Moussa and later confirmed by a ministry spokesperson. An overnight Russian attack on the Kyiv region ⁠killed four people, including three children, Kyiv regional authorities said on Sunday. Drone attacks persisted in Kyiv and the surrounding ⁠region throughout the day. Drone fragments fell in various districts in the capital. Outside the capital, a mother and ⁠her two 3-year-old children were killed in Kyiv region when a Russian drone strike hit a private home, the emergency service ⁠said. Kyiv region governor Tymur Tkachenko said a girl died in hospital after a separate drone strike in another district. Tkachenko ‌said the region endured ‌more than a day of hostile attacks over several areas.