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Exam fail: Indian students complain en masse about marking errors in key final exams

National outcry has erupted in India after more than 400,000 students have requested copies of their exam papers and answer sheets amid an outcry over marking errors in the country’s most important school-leaving exams. Within days of the grade 12 exam results being issued, students began reporting marking discrepancies they linked to a new digital marking system. The government-run Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) says it has received requests for 1.1 million answer sheet copies from more than 400,000 students to crosscheck the results. At least 1.7 million students sat the class 12 exams, which are key to university admissions. The board says the new on-screen marking (OSM) system is aimed at reducing human error and increasing efficiency. Instead, many students say it has resulted in wrong grades. In the new system, physical copies of answer sheets are scanned and uploaded to an online portal for teachers to evaluate, with a software then calculating the total mark. Some students said scanned answer sheets were incomplete or had missing pages, while others reported incorrect marking, blurry scans and mismatched answer sheets. One mother, Geetu Moza, posted on X that her daughter had lost at least 30 marks despite answers that “exactly matched the official answer”. “Do the authorities even understand what 30-35 marks can mean for a Class 12 student whose entire future and admission process depends on these scores?” she said. “This is playing with the careers, mental health and future of thousands of students.” The problem surfaced when Delhi student Vedant Srivastava said in a now viral post that the physics exam answer sheet sent to him after he requested it was not his. He said the handwriting differed and the paper contained answers he had not written. “I studied for an entire year. I sacrificed sleep, peace of mind, outings, everything for these exams,” he wrote. “And now I don’t even know whether my actual physics paper was checked.” Days later, the board emailed Srivastava what it called the “correct copy” of his answer sheet. Srivastava’s complaint triggered a flood of similar stories from students, many sharing screenshots they said showed incorrect marking, missing pages or papers that didn’t belong to them. The board announced the new marking system just eight days before exams began, leaving teachers scrambling to adapt to a major marking change. Education minister Dharmendra Pradhan acknowledged “some discrepancies” in the new system. “I take responsibility for this and assure you a solution will be found,” he said.

‘Essentially diving in coffee’: Australian diver among team rushing to rescue people trapped in flooded Laos cave

An Australian cave diver is part of an international team that has brought one man out alive from a remote flooded cave in Laos, with the rescue operation continuing for six more men still trapped underground. One man was brought alive from the labyrinthine cave complex late on Friday. Four remain stranded on rocky ledge about 300m from the cave entrance, while two men are still unaccounted for, yet to be found. The men who have been found in the cave are weak with hunger, and some have injuries. The group entered the cave in Xaysomboun province, central Laos, to hunt wildlife and search for gold more than a week ago, but heavy rain blocked the cave entrance. Five of them were found alive this week, but they had lost contact with two others also in the cave system. The rescuers, some of whom were involved in the rescue of a young Thai football team in 2018, still need to extract the survivors from the inundated passageways. “The first one is out. Safe and sound!!!” Manat Artmongkron, a rescue technician for Saithan Saphanboon Foundation, a Thai rescue group, wrote in a Facebook post, when the first man was brought from the cave on Friday. Video posted on social media showed a man covered in mud clambering out of the cave to safety. He was met with some cheers and wrapped in an emergency blanket. The rescue effort is continuing. Kengkard Bongkawong, the head of operations for Metta Tham Rescue, a Thai group, said on social media that searching for the two missing men would be even more challenging, requiring teams to dive through a 30m narrow tunnel, checking along the way for any intersections. “The next mission will be harder,” he wrote. Extracting the survivors will also be challenging, due to low oxygen supplies, more rain and a lack of dive experience among the people who are trapped. Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email Divers with a specialised skill set to handle the extremely narrow conditions in the cave were flown in from around the world on Friday. They will be taken by a military helicopter to the remote and hostile jungle terrain where the men are stuck. Australian cave diver Josh Richards, who leads a cave exploration team in Australia called the Soggy Wombats, a marsupial known for its burrowing, flew in on Friday to help with the rescue operation. “It’s pretty awful, by the looks of things,” Richards said. “We’re predominantly dealing with clay and mud walls, which are particularly unstable and unpleasant. That mud and clay also [affects] the water; you’re essentially diving in coffee. You’re not going to be seeing anything through it. “It’s all being done by touch and feel, following the lines that have been laid through the mine.” Richards said he was not a “physically large guy”. He said his fellow international divers, who had been asked to support the rescue team, were “all fairly small, we’re all fairly light, and we’ve all spent a fair bit of time underground, squeezing into small places”. “I’m very comfortable underwater with a regulator in my mouth, twisting and turning and doing all those bits and pieces, contorting myself around in order to get into particularly nasty places,” he said. “And unfortunately, this mine sounds like it’s one of them.” Other diving specialists are reportedly arriving from Japan, Indonesia, Thailand and France. A diver from Malaysia joined the mission on Thursday. Richards said the rescue plan was now being developed among the divers, “that will be as safe as possible for everyone involved. There’s a lot of different ideas being thrown around”. As sections of the tunnel between the miners and the surface are completely flooded, the team on the ground was also trying to pump out as much water as possible in a two-pronged approach, Richards said. “If they’re not able to pump all that water out, and there are sections that are completely flooded, that’s … why we need to be there to potentially get these folks through short sections, where they’ll be using scuba equipment,” he said, “and they almost certainly have never used scuba equipment before in their lives.” For people who are familiar with the 2018 Tham Luang cave rescue in Thailand, Richards said there were similarities but also “glaring differences”. The Laos cave is a “considerably” smaller site in terms of length and the physical size of the tunnel itself. The Tham Luang cave is kilometres long, with numerous air chambers where rescuers could set up base stations. Thai rescuers could pump out huge amounts of water, but were also dealing with much more water. “This site is about 350m long. It is much, much smaller, but at the same time, the actual tunnels that we’re trying to squeeze down into are considerably smaller again,” Richards said. “So, there’s similarities in that you’ve got a group of folks who are not trained cave divers, but are stuck in a cave, and flooding is a concern, but it is a radically different environment that we’re dealing with, and also not dealing with kids is another factor.” Heavy machinery is being used to clear a route to the cave site, so that equipment can be transported more easily. Additional reporting by Rebecca Ratcliffe

Ukraine war briefing: Russia preparing ‘massive new strike’, Zelenskyy says

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russia is preparing a “massive new strike” on the country, calling on the population to take action to “protect your lives”. Kyiv was hit particularly hard last weekend by a huge Russian bombardment attack – one of the largest since the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion in 2022. Moscow has warned foreign diplomats to leave Kyiv, threatening to escalate attacks as it seeks revenge for a Ukrainian strike on a dormitory and high school in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region, which Moscow says left 21 people dead. “We have intelligence information about Russia preparing a new massive strike,” Zelenskyy said in a social media message. “Please pay attention to air alerts, protect your lives. Our services are working efficiently and are prepared; the Air Force and other defenders of our skies will be on duty 24/7, as always.” Zelenskyy has reiterated his call to allies to allow and finance the supply of Patriot missiles, which can intercept Russian ballistic missiles. He wrote to Donald Trump and the US Congress earlier this week asking for Patriot systems to respond to the intensifying Russian air attacks. A Ukrainian drone attack killed two people in a car in Russia’s border region of Belgorod, officials said early on Saturday. The region’s operational headquarters, in a post on Telegram, added that two people were injured. The region has been a frequent target of Ukrainian attacks in war between the two countries. A Russian drone that smashed into a Romanian apartment building set off furious condemnation of Russia by Romania and its Nato allies. Two people were injured in the first drone hit on a building outside Ukraine since the start of the war. Romania called the incident a “serious and irresponsible escalation” by its neighbour. Vladimir Putin attempted to suggest, without evidence, that the drone might have been a stray Ukrainian weapon. The drone hit the roof of an apartment building in the centre of the city of Galati, close to the border with Ukraine, sparking a fire and sending a 14-year-old boy and 53-year-old woman to hospital with injuries, officials said. The Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, said the alliance was “ready to defend every inch” of its territory after the incident. “Russia’s reckless behaviour is a danger to us all,” Rutte wrote on social media after a call with the Romanian president, Nicuşor Dan. Romania summoned the Russian ambassador, and Dan convened a national defence council meeting on “the most serious incident to have affected our national territory” since Russia invaded Ukraine. The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said Russia’s “war of aggression” had “crossed yet another line”, pledging to increase deterrence on the EU’s eastern border. German chancellor Friedrich Merz said the incident showed Russia’s “willingness to escalate”, and Britain’s Keir Starmer condemned the “serious violation of Nato airspace”. Putin meanwhile said Russia has all the means necessary to destroy anyone who attempts to attack the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. Putin was responding to a question about remarks made by Lithuania’s foreign minister Kestutis Budrys this month who said Nato had to show Moscow it was capable of penetrating Kaliningrad. Separately, responding to a question about Russian intelligence reports alleging that Ukraine had sent drone operators to Latvia, Putin reiterated that any location that posed a threat against Russia was considered a legitimate target. The UN has added Russia and Israel to a blacklist for sexual violence in conflict, citing abuse by security forces, including the rape of male detainees.

Trump claims to be on verge of peace deal but Iran signals no agreement reached

Donald Trump has claimed he could approve an Iran peace deal on Friday that contains major concessions from Tehran, including the opening of the strait of Hormuz and the elimination of the country’s nuclear programme. However, top Iranian officials signalled a final agreement had not been reached. The two versions indicate Trump may once again be practising his “art of the deal” as he seeks to talk his way out of a war that has disrupted global energy supplies and rocked the world economy. Trump emerged from the White House situation room after spending more than two hours with senior aides but did not immediately announce his decision. The New York Times, citing a senior administration official, reported that Trump had not made a decision on the peace deal. Describing the terms of the purported deal on his Truth Social platform, the US president said Iran “must agree that they will never have a Nuclear Weapon or Bomb”, open the strait of Hormuz for all traffic without tolls, eliminate mines in the waterway and allow the US to unearth and destroy highly enriched uranium from a secure nuclear site in Iran. He also said the deal would preclude the transfer of frozen assets to Iran. Trump also said he would lift the US naval blockade against Iran, although it was not immediately clear whether that would be subject to the agreement being confirmed. “I will be meeting now, in the Situation Room, to make a final determination,” he wrote. The virtual wishlist of US demands in the negotiations was presented as a completed deal and would indicate that Iran had capitulated on key positions, including its right to exact tolls from ships traversing the strait of Hormuz, the release of the frozen assets and an insistence on the country’s right to maintain its nuclear programme. But Iranian officials signaled defiance after Trump’s announcement, and those close to the government denied that a deal has been reached. The semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on Friday that no final understanding had been reached between Iran and the US and that Trump’s post was “in line with his usual pattern of making unilateral and egotistical statements”. The foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei told state media: “Regarding the understanding, as I said while speaking to you, exchanges of messages are continuing, but no final agreement has been reached yet.” Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said he and his Omani counterpart had discussed the “future administration [of the strait of Hormuz] in line with our sovereign responsibilities and international law”, indicating Iran was not likely to open the waterway under the same system it had been using before the war. A White House official told AFP on condition of anonymity: “The Situation Room meeting has concluded and lasted approximately two hours. President Trump will only make a deal that is good for America and satisfies his red lines. “Iran can never possess a nuclear weapon.” A meeting in Washington between the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and Pakistan’s foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, ended without any public comment on the negotiations, of which Pakistan is a key mediator. Tasnim reported that there had been no discussion about the nuclear issue, and that Trump’s reports of lifting the US’s own blockade in the strait of Hormuz should be met with “scepticism”. Iran’s Fars news agency said Trump had published a “mixture of truth and lies” about the terms of an agreement, which did not include provisions for the opening of the strait of Hormuz without fees, or the destruction of Iran’s nuclear material. On Friday, Iran’s top negotiator, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, wrote that Iran had “no trust in guarantees or words – only actions are the measure”. Ghalibaf also sent out a defiant message that Iran was ready for another round of fighting if talks to extend the ceasefire and end the war failed. “We seize concessions not through dialogue, but with missiles; in negotiations, we merely make them understand,” he wrote. “The winner of any agreement is the one who is better prepared for war from the day after.” The US vice-president, JD Vance, hinted on Thursday night that an agreement was close, but Trump was reported to need more time to decide whether to back a negotiated agreement that would defer many of the difficult issues, including the fate of Iran’s remaining stockpile of nuclear materials, into subsequent negotiations. Senior Iranian officials repeated there was no plan to allow the export of its uranium, but observers have suggested that does not rule out downblended uranium that is further from weapons grade. Trump may need time not just to reflect, but to persuade a reluctant Benjamin Netanyahu to accept the need for a ceasefire in Lebanon as part of the agreement. The Israeli prime minister has been using the past few days to step up attacks on Hezbollah positions throughout Lebanon, including in the capital, Beirut. Netanyahu did not immediately comment on the Iran deal, saying: “Our forces have crossed the Litani and advanced into strategic areas. We are operating in Beirut, in the Bekaa valley, and across the entire front, and we are directly targeting Hezbollah.” Baghaei has said the “silence and the indifference of international institutions” will provoke Israel to “further embitterment”. He also described the US as “an accomplice and partner in all of Israel’s crimes” in Lebanon, the Palestinian territories and the entire region. Ebrahim Rezaei, the spokesperson for the Iranian parliament’s national security and foreign policy commission, suggested Iran was in no mood to back down on its plans to change the management of the strait of Hormuz. He claimed Iran’s management of the waterway had been recognised worldwide, which is “why countries obtain permission, pay the costs, and, with the guidance of the IRGC Navy, pass their vessels through. The only one who hasn’t believed it, or doesn’t want to believe it, is Trump; every now and then he sends his army to open the strait, they come and get beaten and go back.” In a televised interview, Rezaei questioned whether it was necessary for Iran in the agreement to renounce any desire to acquire nuclear weapons. “Why should we commit to America that we will not build a nuclear weapon?” he said. “This matter is none of America’s business.” At the same time, Ebrahim Azizi, the chair of the parliament’s national security and foreign policy commission, denied reports about the possible transfer of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpiles to a third country or mediator, saying the Islamic Republic has no intention of handing over or transferring these materials. Earlier, the Iranian president, Mahmoud Pezeshkian, adopted a more conciliatory tone, thanking Pakistani mediators for their effectiveness toward reaching an agreement. He spoke by phone with the Pakistani prime minister, Shahbaz Sharif.

UN adds Israel and Russia to blacklist for sexual violence in conflict

The UN has added Israel and Russia to a blacklist for sexual violence in conflict, citing abuse by security forces, including the rape of male detainees. The UN verified sexual abuse of 31 Palestinian men, women and children from the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank between 2023 and 2025. Israeli attacks included repeated gang-rapes and the use of sexual violence as a form of torture, the report said. Other violations included rape with objects, attempted rape, attacks on genitals, targeted shooting of genitals, touching of breasts and genitals, forced nudity and threats of rape. These cases were “indicative of incidents and patterns” rather than a comprehensive summary of conflict-related sexual violence by Israelis, because of restrictions on UN investigators. Israel barred UN experts from detention centres, blocked travel to Gaza, and has threatened Palestinian detainees if they report abuse after their release. Russia also obstructed investigations into “systemic” sexual violence against Ukrainians, barring monitors from accessing prisoners of war and civilians in detention, the UN said. Despite these challenges, investigators verified 310 cases of Russian abuse, including rape and gang-rape, genital mutilation and applying electric shocks to genitals. Most victims were men, with 26 women and four girls also abused. Russia deployed systematic sexual torture against Ukrainians, both civilians and prisoners of war, in “almost all” detention centres, the UN had previously found. In two-thirds of cases, Russian forces used multiple forms of sexual violence, and more than half of survivors endured repeated sexual attacks, the report said. Most were interviewed in Ukrainian-held territory after their release. Israel and Russia both deny the use of sexual violence by their military. Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, said the country had cut ties with the UN secretary general, António Guterres, in response to the blacklisting. Danon said in a social media post that “Israel submitted evidence, documents, and detailed responses to every claim”. He did not share any evidence publicly. Israel has not allowed the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit detainees since October 2023. Details of the report, which lists 77 countries and armed groups, were shared by Israeli diplomats at the UN before its release, and the full report was posted online by the US news site PassBlue. Worldwide, the report found that conflict-related sexual violence had risen sharply from 2024, “marked by extreme brutality, and overwhelmingly targeted [at] women and girls”. Israel and Russia, however, diverge from this trend by also targeting men. The UN documented nine cases of rape by Israeli forces, mostly of men or boys from Gaza, who were targeted in detention centres or during interrogation. One attack took place in a police station in the Gush Etzion settlement in the occupied West Bank, the report said. Perpetrators included Israeli soldiers, prison officers and members of an elite police counter-terrorism unit. A “systemic lack of accountability” for sexual violence helped create a culture of impunity, the UN said, citing the assault and rape of a detainee from Gaza that was filmed on security cameras and reported to police by Israeli medics. The prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, described the alleged perpetrators as “heroic” and an attempt to prosecute them, which failed, as “criminal”. The victim was never charged or tried and has since been released. Over the past three years, violence, including rape, extreme hunger and humiliation, has been normalised in Israeli jails. Rights groups say detention centres have become “torture camps” for Palestinians. The far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has boasted of a “prison revolution”, caused a diplomatic crisis last week by publishing footage of Israeli security forces abusing international activists detained while trying to sail to Gaza with aid. The forms of abuse captured in the video have been routinely used against Palestinian prisoners in Israel. After the activists’ release, at least 15 said they had been sexually assaulted in custody, including a rape. The UN had already added Hamas to the sexual violence blacklist for the October 7 attacks in Israel and for abuse of hostages in Gaza. The militant group has not recognised any cases of sexual violence or held any alleged perpetrators responsible. Ukrainian forces have also committed conflict-related sexual violence, with 31 incidents, including beating of genitals, applying electric shocks and forced nudity, verified since 2022, most before 2025. The Ukrainian government had allowed access to independent monitors and lawyers and was taking steps to strengthen laws to address sexual violence, the report said.

Alarm at Mexico bill allowing elections to be annulled for ‘foreign interference’

Amid fierce criticism from opposition groups, Mexico’s senate has passed ‌a constitutional amendment to include “foreign interference” as grounds to annul election results in the country. The bill, which was presented by the country’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, defines foreign interference as “illicit financing, propaganda, the systematic ⁠dissemination of misinformation, digital manipulation, and ⁠the intervention of foreign governments ⁠or agencies”. But critics say that the broadness of the bill’s language means virtually anything could be used to annul the results of an election: an article in a British newspaper, a statement from a US official, a report from an international NGO. “This is one of the most egregious, alarming and retrograde pieces of legislation in Mexico’s young democratic history,” said Arturo Sarukhan, a former Mexican ambassador to the US, on X. “This law doesn’t prevent foreign interference. It hands the government a veto over election outcomes it doesn’t like.” The amendment has already been passed by the lower house of congress and now needs to be ratified by a majority of Mexico’s 32 states. Sheinbaum’s Morena controls 24 statehouses. The bill comes as Mexico has faced increased pressure from the US on security, with Donald Trump repeatedly threatening to invade the country and tackle cartels. Last month, the US justice department indicted 10 current and former officials from the state of Sinaloa, including the governor, for ties to a powerful drug-trafficking group. The indictment of Rubén Rocha Moya, the governor of Sinaloa and a close ally of former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (known as Amlo), sent shock waves across Mexico’s political establishment. Sheinbaum has called for more evidence from the US before considering extradition. The Mexican president also doubled down on the importance of sovereignty and non-intervention since the indictment was made public. “All Mexicans should agree that there should be no foreign interference in elections in Mexico,” Sheinbaum said at a news conference on Thursday. “We must all agree that in Mexico, we Mexicans decide who governs us.” The bill comes as Mexico faces midterm elections next year, which could see the governing Morena party lose its stranglehold on power: it currently controls the presidency and both the upper and lower chambers of congress. The bill would allow Mexico’s electoral court to toss out election results if it determines there was interference from an overseas organization, a foreign government or citizen. But the court was stripped of its independence under Amlo and is now largely aligned with Morena. “If [Morena] wanted, they could allege foreign intervention and the court would rule in their favor,” said Carlos Bravo Regidor, a political analyst. “The truth is, I don’t see any point in [the bill], any merit, any validity. This is an abuse.” The Mexican opposition has been equally critical of the proposed change. “It’s a trap so that Morena can literally annul any election they want,” Ricardo Anaya, a senator from the opposition Pan party, told reporters. “What they want to ensure is total control.”

Lula says Brazil will not be treated like ‘tinpot country’ after US designates gangs as terrorists

Brazil will not be treated as a “tinpot country,” the country’s president, Luiz Inácio da Silva, said on Friday after the United States designated Brazil’s two largest criminal gangs, the First Capital Command (PCC) and the Red Command, as foreign terrorist organisations. The announcement, made by Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, on Thursday, is being widely seen in Brazil as a setback for Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the president who had strongly opposed the designation – and a boost for Lula’s main challenger in October’s presidential election, the far-right senator Flávio Bolsonaro. Chosen to run in place of his father, Jair Bolsonaro – the former president who is barred from running because he is in house arrest after being convicted of attempting a coup – Flávio spent this week in the US, where he met with Donald Trump and Rubio. Lula said he was “very saddened” by the news that “the United States secretary, from North America, a certain Marco Rubio, said that our criminals here are terrorists and that Americans can intervene”, he said during a speech at an event in the state of Sergipe. “We do not accept being treated like little boys. We do not accept being treated as if we were some tinpot country,” he added. In a statement, he also called the Bolsonaro family “traitors” and “false patriots”. “It is deplorable that members of the Bolsonaro family once again travel to the United States to advocate foreign intervention in Brazil, as they did over the tariffs, which caused so much damage to our country,” wrote the president. Flávio Bolsonaro was at his lowest point in the campaign, after revelations that he had been caught on tape asking a banker accused of corruption for $26.8m (£20m) to fund a film about his father caused a significant drop in his poll numbers. Announcing the designation, Rubio wrote that the groups were “two of the most violent criminal organizations in Brazil. Their reach extends throughout our region and into our country”. Both groups emerged inside Brazilian prisons, originally as a response to torture and abuse. They are now among the largest criminal organisations in Latin America, exporting cocaine produced in neighbouring Colombia, Peru and Bolivia primarily to the US and Europe, while expanding into other parts of the world. The Red Command is the older of the two, emerging in the 1970s from interactions between political prisoners jailed by the military dictatorship and common criminals in a prison in Rio de Janeiro. The PCC was founded in the 1990s in a São Paulo prison, months after 111 prisoners were killed when police crushed a rebellion at another prison. The two groups compete for control of drug distribution and trafficking routes, but operate in distinct ways: while the Red Command has a more decentralised leadership structure and resembles the more overtly violent and conspicuous crime factions of Mexico and Colombia, the PCC functions almost like a corporation, with well-defined hierarchies and a low-profile, businesslike approach. Lula had opposed the US proposal to classify the groups as terrorist organisations, describing the move as an affront to Brazilian sovereignty and arguing that the country already actively combats them. Just hours before the US announcement, Brazil’s federal police launched a new operation targeting PCC infiltration into the country’s financial sector. In his statement on Friday, the president said that “any international cooperation to combat criminal factions will be welcome ... But we will not accept arbitrary measures imposed from abroad being used as a pretext to attack our sovereignty and our economy ... National sovereignty is non-negotiable.” On Thursday, Flávio Bolsonaro immediately celebrated it. “On a trip as a presidential candidate, we did more for Brazil and for the security of Brazilians than Lula,” he said. Months earlier, commenting on US attacks against boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that have killed 196 people, he said he felt “jealous” of those countries and suggested the US could do something similar in Rio’s Guanabara Bay. “Wouldn’t you like to spend a few months here helping us combat these terrorist organisations?” he wrote to Pete Hegseth, the US secretary of defence. The US decision to classify the organisations as terrorist groups – following similar designations of organisations in Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela – had been widely anticipated for months, but was not mentioned during Trump’s meeting with Lula at the White House three weeks ago. Lula said on Friday that Rubio had not been present during his three-hour meeting with Trump. “Mr Marco Rubio was not there, possibly because he was busy helping the son of a Bolsonarista who is running for election in this country, someone who has no shame in betraying our homeland by going to the United States and asking for American intervention in Brazil,” the president said. Flávio’s visit to the White House last Tuesday was not listed on the president’s public schedule and, unlike Trump’s meeting with Lula – during which the US president even praised the Brazilian leftist – was not mentioned by Trump even in a social media post. The following day, Flávio posted a photograph of a meeting with Rubio and wrote: “We continue strengthening international relations, defending freedom, democracy and the values that unite millions of Brazilians and Americans.” The secretary of state is widely regarded as the Bolsonaro family’s main connection to Trump. There is still little clarity about the practical consequences of the designation. Analysts fear it could have financial repercussions even for innocent Brazilians, but the move is already being widely interpreted as another example of the growing pressure exerted by the White House across the region as part of its so-called “war on drugs”. A report published this week by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project found that US pressure drove an 18% increase in clashes between security forces and armed groups across Latin America and the Caribbean in 2025.

Nato says drone that crashed in Romania was ‘of Russian origin’ despite Moscow’s denials – as it happened

… and on that note, it’s a wrap for today! The Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, has said the alliance is “ready to defend every inch” of its territory (9:37) after a Russian drone hit an apartment building in Romania (9:30), a member state, during an overnight attack on neighbouring Ukraine, leaving two people injured. Nato has confirmed that the drone was of Russian origin (18:38), despite Vladimir Putin (17:56) and the Russian foreign ministry’s attempts to question its responsibility for the incident (15:29). In response, Romania’s president Nicușor Dan has declared a Russian consul in the southeastern seaside city of Constanța “a persona non grata” (13:52) prompted Russia’s immediate threats of retaliation (13:55). Nato allies have also offered to temporarily relocate some air defence equipment to Romania to help it deal with similar incidents as it builds up its own capacity to deal with drones, Dan said (13:52). The incident comes amid Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s warnings about a possible “new massive attack” on Ukraine from Russia in the coming days (13:27). Elsewhere, The EU is to release more than €16bn to Hungary that had been frozen under the rule of Viktor Orbán (14:11, 14:11, 14:14, 14:20), with Ursula von der Leyen hailing the “winds of change” in the country since the election of Péter Magyar last month. During a joint press conference in Brussels, von der Leyen and Magyar spoke about the planned reforms as they signed off on a political deal to reset tricky relations between Budapest and Brussels (14:09, 14:17, 14:29, 15:10). Budapest has to complete all the agreed reforms and investments by 31 August for the money to be paid out (17:45), with some major questions on Ukraine and defence projects yet to be fully answered (17:49). Earlier today, Hungarian police have said they will not ban next month’s Budapest Pride parade, signalling a shift in policy under the new prime government (11:15). If you have any tips, comments or suggestions, email me at jakub.krupa@theguardian.com. I am also on Bluesky at @jakubkrupa.bsky.social and on X at @jakubkrupa.