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Six dead and dozens wounded in Russian attack on Ukraine

Six people were killed and dozens were wounded by a Russian drone and missile attack on Ukraine. Nearly 600 drones and 36 rockets were fired into the country in an attack that its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said highlighted Ukraine’s need for western help with air defence, as well as other financial and political support. “We must work without wasting a single day to ensure that there are enough missiles for our air defence systems, and that everything necessary for our protection and for pressure on Russia is in place,” Zelenskyy said. Ukraine’s state emergency services said two people died in the overnight attack in Kyiv and 38 were injured. The attack cut power to the western half of the city, leaving at least 500,000 residents without electricity. Emergency crews have restored power to more than 400,000 households. Regional officials and police said one person had died in the region surrounding the capital, two in south-eastern Dnipropetrovsk region and one in a midday attack in Kherson region in the south. “While everyone is discussing points of peace plans, Russia continues to pursue its ‘war plan’ of two points: to kill and destroy,” Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, wrote on Saturday morning as Kyiv residents surveyed the damage after a heavy night of explosions that mostly targeted the capital. Two waves of attacks could be heard across the capital, the first starting at about 1am and the second at about 7am before an all-clear was given just before 9.30am. Ukraine’s military said it had struck the Afipsky oil refinery in Krasnodar Krai, one of the largest in southern Russia, causing a fire at the plant. The site supplies diesel and jet fuel to Russian forces fighting in Ukraine. Russia is engaged in a campaign to break Ukraine’s civil resistance this winter by attacking its energy infrastructure as the war heads towards its fourth year. The attacks come as a series of key Ukrainian political figures have been embroiled in a corruption scandal. On Friday, Andriy Yermak, Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, was forced to resign after his flat was searched by anti-corruption officials investigating a kickback scheme. Two other ministers have already been fired and the scheme’s alleged architect, an old friend of Zelenskyy, has fled the country. Zelenskyy said on Friday that he would restructure the office of the president – which Yermak ran as a gatekeeper to the leader – amid speculation as to who might lead it or how it could be reorganised. An opposition MP called for the president to appoint Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK and the former head of the armed forces. Liudmyla Buimister, a Ukrainian politician, wrote in a social media post that “a man trusted by the military, citizens and international partners is exactly what we need now”. Zaluzhnyi has been considered a potential political challenger to Zelenskyy, though allies of the ambassador said on Saturday they were unsure he would agree if asked. Overnight, Yermak told the New York Post: “I’m going to the front and am prepared for any reprisals.” However, it was unclear how he might serve the military. “I am an honest and decent person,” he added in a text message. Yermak led Ukraine’s negotiating team over the past fortnight as Kyiv responded to a pro-Russia 28-point plan released by the White House. It demanded that Ukraine withdraw from Donetsk province and agree to a general amnesty, and that the west drop sanctions imposed on Russia. Talks stalled this week during the US Thanksgiving holiday, but are expected to restart shortly. A Ukrainian delegation led by Rustem Umerov, secretary of the country’s national security council, has set out for Washington, Zelenskyy said. On Saturday a US official told Reuters that Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner would meet Ukrainian officials in Florida on Sunday. Ukraine has submitted a 19-point counter proposal, which has been shared with Moscow. Next week, Witkoff is due to arrive in the Russian capital, though few expect a breakthrough, since last week the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, described the Ukrainian leadership as illegitimate. Kyiv’s position is weakened by the corruption scandal, easily the most serious domestic political crisis of Zelenskyy’s presidency, while Russia hopes its continued bombing and a potential financial crisis for Ukraine will wear it down. Ukraine is hoping EU leaders will agree a €140bn (£122bn) loan secured against Russian central bank assets to shore up its budget from next year, but opposition from Belgium, where most of the money is held, has dimmed hopes of reaching an agreement by the end of the year.

Working the land but rarely owning it: life for New Zealand’s young farmers

On a farm south of Auckland, Cam Clayton breeds sheep and cattle – working alongside the dogs he’s trained since they were puppies. There, he looks out on knobbly hills and tree-filled gullies in Waikato, close to where he grew up. “I have the best office, with the best views,” says Clayton. The 30-year-old is part of a changing sector in New Zealand: data from the statistics agency shows the number of farms has been steadily declining: from 70,336 in 2002, to 47,250 two decades later – a drop of 33%. The land area taken up by farming has shrunk too, by 15% over the same period. Historically an agricultural country, dairy, meat, kiwifruit and apples are still major exports for New Zealand. While the number of farms has declined, some have grown from small holdings into big businesses. New Zealand’s farmer-owned dairy co-operative, Fonterra, has recently sold its consumer businesses to French dairy giant Lactalis for nearly NZ$4bn ($2.3bn). Yet while dairy fetches record prices, it’s difficult for young farmers like Clayton to follow the traditional path to farm ownership. In the past, young farmers would often run a farm owned by someone else in return for a share of the profits, while saving to purchase land of their own. But land is becoming more expensive; prospective farm owners have to save for longer, and look for other types of work to make money. “Someone buys the neighbour’s farm, then the next neighbour, suddenly you have a portfolio of five farms and Joe Bloggs the young farmer can’t buy a 150-cow farm to get started,” Clayton says, who leases the block he works on. “You have to be really passionate and in it for the long haul.” Cheyne Gilooly is chief executive of the Young Farmers club, a 98-year old institution that connects people across New Zealand. Finding a way to buy land is a frequent topic of discussion at the dozens of clubs throughout the country which are open to people aged under 31 – fewer and fewer of whom own their farms. “The big challenge at the moment is helping people finance their way into farm or land ownership as land gets more expensive,” says Gilooly. Cam Lowery, 27, and his partner Poppy Mitchell, 25, are one year into holding a lease for Lowery’s parents farm near Milton, south of Dunedin. They have 2,700 sheep, as well as some cows, calves and hoggets – young sheep who haven’t been shorn. After going to university, Lowery worked as a shepherd across the South Island. “I just couldn’t see a way into farm ownership through shepherding,” he says. Kiwisaver, a government-supported retirement saving scheme, can be used for first home payments, but can’t be used to buy a farm. “It’s hard to build equity off-farm,” Lowery says. For now, because the farm is owned by family, they are settled. Mitchell works as a physiotherapist in Dunedin during the week, an hour’s drive away. Lowery does all the farm work, with Mitchell’s help on weekends. “My days start at 7 or 8 am and I keep working until 7pm at the moment,” he says. The work is hard, but it feels worth doing, Mitchell adds. In Waikato, Clayton does a bit of everything: he helps on his parents’ dairy farm, manages a 600-hectare (1,480 acres) block of land, breeds and sells his cattle and sheep. It’s lots of casual work “just hopping around farms”. One day, he might be milking; the next, mustering ewes for a neighbour or inseminating cows. Clayton was a recent finalist at the Bay of Plenty-Waikato Young Farmer of the Year contest. He will now compete against other regions in challenges including identifying horse tack, grading different types of wool and demonstrating his ability to communicate with dogs. A written test includes questions about plant varieties, agricultural legislation and irrigation. “It’s a broad spectrum, looking at all things rural,” Clayton says. The long-term plan is to own a farm with his partner, Emma. There’s lots to learn, he says but loves the variety of life on the land. “I can’t get out of bed fast enough to see what challenges the day will throw at me,” he says.

At least 500 killed in south-east Asia floods and landslides

The death toll from devastating floods and landslides in south-east Asia reportedly climbed past 500 on Saturday as clean-up and search-and-rescue operations got under way in Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia. Heavy monsoon rain overwhelmed swathes of the three countries this week, killing hundreds and leaving thousands stranded, many on rooftops awaiting rescue. Rescuers in Indonesia were struggling to reach the worst-affected areas of Sumatra island, where at least 350 people have died and 279 are still missing. The death toll in North Sumatra rose to 166, while 90 people died in West Sumatra. Rescuers also retrieved 47 bodies in Aceh, said Suharyanto, head of the National Disaster Management Agency. More than 3,500 police were deployed to search for people still missing and help distribute aid to more than 28,400 who fled to temporary government shelters across the province. About 80,000 people have been evacuated and hundreds are still stranded in three provinces across Sumatra island, Indonesia’s western-most area, Suharyanto told a news conference, adding that a cloud-seeding operation would begin in West Sumatra to reduce the rainfall, most of which had already subsided by Saturday. In Thailand, more than 1.4 million households – 3.8 million people – have been affected by the floods, the department of disaster prevention and mitigation said on Saturday. In southern Thailand, water levels reached 3 metres in Songkhla province and killed at least 145 people in one of the worst floods in a decade. The country’s death toll across eight provinces has risen to 162, the government said on Saturday. Workers at one hospital in hard-hit Hat Yai moved bodies into refrigerated trucks after the morgue exceeded capacity. The prime minister, Anutin Charnvirakul, visited a shelter for evacuees in the district on Friday and told reporters he acknowledged the government’s shortcomings in flood management. “I really have to apologise to them for letting this happen during the time I am in government,” he said in footage broadcast on AmarinTV. “The next step is to prevent the situation from deteriorating,” he added, announcing a two-week timeframe for the district’s clean-up. The Thai government rolled out relief measures for those affected by the flooding, including compensation of up to 2m baht ($62,000, £46,800) for households that lost family members. As flood waters receded, shop owner Rachane Remsringam picked through rubbish strewn between the aisles of his general goods store, lamenting hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses. His store, Madam Yong, was looted and vandalised in the wake of the disaster, he said. There has been growing public criticism of Thailand’s flood response and two local officials have been suspended over their alleged failures. An MP from the opposition People’s party criticised the administration, saying it “wrongly estimated the situation” and made “errors in handling the flood crisis”. One victim of the flood, Amphorn Kaeophengkro, told Reuters she and seven members of her family spent 48 hours perched atop a table, a window frame and a washing machine on the second floor of her home in the city of Hat Yai, which received 335mm (13 inches) of rain last Friday – its highest single-day tally in 300 years. “We weren’t thinking about anything else except surviving,” the 44-year-old told Reuters by candlelight, as her family began to clean their dwelling after the water had receded. Two people were killed in Malaysia by flooding caused by heavy rain that left stretches of northern Perlis state under water. The annual monsoon season, typically between June and September, often brings heavy rain, triggering landslides and flash floods. A tropical storm has exacerbated conditions, and the tolls in Indonesia and Thailand rank among the highest in floods in those countries in recent years. Climate change has affected storm patterns, including the duration and intensity of the season, leading to heavier rainfall, flash flooding and stronger wind gusts. Reporting from Reuters and Agence France-Presse in Padang, Indonesia

Venezuela denounces ‘colonialist threat’ as Trump orders airspace closed

The Venezuelan government has responded defiantly to the heightened pressure by the US government, including Donald Trump’s recent statements on Saturday that the airspace above and surrounding Venezuela is to be closed in its entirety. In a statement, the Venezuelan government said Trump’s comments are a “colonialist threat” against their sovereignty and violate international law. The government also said it demanded respect for its airspace and would not accept foreign orders or threats. Trump on Saturday, in a Truth Social post said: “To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers, please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY.” Due to Trump’s announcement, all migrant deportation flights were “unilaterally suspended”, the Venezuelan government added. Deportation flights to Venezuela have been a significant point of contention for the Trump administration, as it continues to engage in its mass deportation program. The US defense department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. US strikes against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean have been under way for months, along with a US military buildup in the region, and Trump has authorized covert CIA operations in Venezuela. The president told military service members this week that the US would “very soon” begin land operations to stop suspected Venezuelan drug traffickers. Last week, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) warned major airlines of a “potentially hazardous situation” when flying over Venezuela due to a “worsening security situation and heightened military activity in or around” the South American country. Venezuela revoked operating rights for six major international airlines that had suspended flights to the country after the FAA warning. The Trump administration has accused the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, of involvement in drug trafficking, a charge he has denied. Maduro, in power since 2013, has said that Trump is seeking to oust him and that Venezuelan citizens and the military will resist any such attempt. US forces in the region have so far focused on counter-narcotics operations, although the assembled firepower far outweighs anything needed for them. They have carried out at least 21 strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific since September, killing at least 83 people.

Sri Lanka death toll from floods and landslides reaches 153

Torrential rains and floods triggered by Cyclone Ditwah have killed 153 people across Sri Lanka so far, with another 191 still missing, the country’s Disaster Management Centre (DCM) said on Saturday. The DMC director general, Sampath Kotuwegoda, said relief operations were under way with 78,000 people moved to nearly 800 state-run welfare centres after their homes were destroyed by the week-long heavy rains. Among the dead were 11 residents of a care home for elderly people that was flooded in the north-central district of Kurunegala district on Saturday afternoon. The weather system was moving away from the island towards India, the DMC said, but it had already left widespread destruction with more than 500,000 people affected nationwide. “Relief operations with the help of the armed forces are under way,” Kotuwegoda told reporters in Colombo. Thousands of police and military personnel are distributing food, clearing roads and moving trapped families to safety. The military rescued 69 bus passengers in a 24-hour operation on Saturday, including a German tourist, who had been stranded in the Anuradhapura district. One of the passengers, speaking to Agence France-Presse from the hospital, said navy personnel helped them climb on to the roof of a house after using ropes to guide them through the flood water. “We were very lucky … while we were on the roof, part of it collapsed … three women fell into the water, but they were helped back on to the roof,” said WM Shantha. A helicopter crew had to abort an initial rescue attempt because the downdraft from their rotors threatened to blow away the roof the group were perched on. They were later rescued by naval boats. The cyclone made landfall on Wednesday, triggering record rainfall across the island. The flooding situation in low-lying areas worsened on Saturday, prompting authorities to issue evacuation orders for those living along the banks of the Kelani River, which flows through Colombo into the Indian Ocean. The Kelani burst its banks on Friday evening, forcing hundreds of people to move to temporary shelters, the DMC said. One woman, Mallika Kumari, who lives by the river in Malwana, east of Colombo, was rescued by boat and transported to safety with her children. “I first heard about the flood warning on TV but we never expected the river to overflow so quickly. We just rushed out of the house without anything,” Kumari told Reuters. In the rush, Kumari left behind her cat, which was later picked up by a navy boatcrew. Other residents chose to remain in the upper floors of partially submerged homes, protecting their belongings. Rains have subsided in most parts of the country, including the capital, but parts of the island’s north have continued to experience showers due to the residual effects of the cyclone. The DMC said earlier that the death toll had climbed with the recovery of more bodies in the worst-affected central region, where most victims were buried alive as mudslides hit this week. Some regions had recorded 360mm of rain in the past 24 hours, the DMC said on Friday. VSA Ratnayake, 56, said he had to leave his flooded home in Kaduwela, near Colombo. “I think this could be the worst flood in our area for three decades,” Ratnayake said. “I remember a flood in the 1990s when my house was under 7ft of water.” Kalyani, 48, also from Kaduwela, said she was sheltering two families whose homes were flooded. At least 3,000 homes have been damaged by mudslides and floods. In Anuradhapura district in the north, a Bell 212 helicopter airlifted a man who had climbed a coconut tree to escape rising waters. Officials said India had rushed a planeload of supplies early on Saturday for the victims. The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, expressed his condolences over the loss of life in Sri Lanka and said New Delhi was ready to send more aid. “We stand ready to provide more aid and assistance as the situation evolves,” he said on X. DMC officials said they expected flood levels to be worse than in 2016, when 71 people were killed across Sri Lanka. This week’s weather-related toll is the highest since June last year. Dozens of stranded tourists were evacuated to Colombo from the tea-growing central areas of the island on Friday. The Sirasa TV network broadcast an appeal for help from a desperate woman. “We are six people, including a one-and-a-half-year-old child. If the water rises another five steps up the staircase, we will have nowhere to go,” she said by phone. Sri Lanka is in its north-east monsoon season, but rainfall has intensified because of Cyclone Ditwah, the DMC said. Sri Lanka depends on seasonal monsoon rains for irrigation and hydroelectricity, but experts have warned that the country faces more frequent floods owing to the climate crisis. The worst flooding Sri Lanka has experienced since the turn of the century occurred in June 2003, when hundreds of people were killed.

Zelenskyy faces ‘mini-revolution’ as Yermak’s fall reshapes Ukraine’s wartime power system

Ukraine’s political system is bracing for a “mini-revolution” as the county’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is forced to adapt to life without his closest adviser, chief enforcer and most loyal associate, Andriy Yermak, who resigned on Friday after his apartment was searched as part of a widening anti-corruption probe. Yermak’s resignation could have tremendous consequences for domestic governance, as well as for Ukraine’s negotiating position in talks over ending the war with Russia, where he had served as the head of Ukraine’s delegation to peace talks with the White House. “It’s a mini-revolution in the political system and the governance system,” said Kyiv-based political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko. “Yermak was the key element in the system of power that Zelensky had built.” Yermak, a former intellectual property lawyer, became a B-movie producer and then lawyer for Zelenskyy’s production company, back when Zelenskyy was still an actor. When his friend won victory in the 2019 presidential election, Yermak went with him into politics, first as a foreign policy adviser and then, a year later, as chief of staff. Yermak appeared to become untouchable as he got ever closer to the president during the years of full-scale war. He ran the most sensitive tracks of Ukraine’s foreign policy, speaking regularly with national security advisers from allied countries and was in charge of the team working on peace negotiations. He was also Zelenskyy’s chief political fixer, often giving orders to ministers, and was widely seen as the personification of the president’s will. It was Yermak who travelled to London to meet former army commander Valerii Zaluzhnyi, widely seen as the most threatening political challenger to Zelenskyy, and pitched Zaluzhnyi to join Zelenskyy’s team. Few people in the Ukrainian elite liked Yermak, but many expressed grudging admiration for his work ethic and his ruthless scheming. Some felt that the level of control, unusual in a democracy, was justified by the wartime context. Additionally, his role as a hate figure often helped to protect Zelenskyy. Even as Yermak’s apartment was searched on Friday, few expected it to push him out of office, as a broad understanding had developed that Zelenskyy was unlikely to sacrifice his most trusted aide at any cost. Although Yermak has not been charged with anything at this point, the anti-corruption investigation threatened to dominate the news agenda and lead to a full-blown crisis, amid growing public discontent over corruption. Zelenskyy’s approval rating had already taken a severe hit over the scandal. On Saturday, the Ukrainska Pravda outlet reported via sources that investigators had seized several laptops and mobile phones from Yermak’s apartment for analysis. “For Zelenskyy, it would have been a hard decision to take, he understood the political need but was psychologically dependent on Yermak,” said Fesenko, who suggested it was most likely that Yermak’s resignation had been his own decision and not a case of Zelenskyy ordering him to go. “I think Yermak understood that if he goes down, he’ll bring Zelenskyy down with him, and decided to sacrifice himself to save Zelenskyy.” As always after the downfall of a powerful political figure, the readjustment period could get messy. Some of Yermak’s loyal acolytes will now fear for their jobs, while many others in the elite will breathe a sigh of relief, and will be hoping to gain more direct access to the president. “Yermak was gatekeeping not only the president’s contacts with the outside world but also the information getting through to the president,” said Olena Prokopenko, senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund. Yermak was widely believed to control a network of Telegram channels that poured dirt on those who crossed him, and was known for the ferocious policing of access to Zelenskyy. “There were around five or six people who had direct access to the president, and Yermak attempted to systematically push them out,” said Fesenko. One of those who has managed to push back is the longstanding military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov, who has survived several reported Yermak-led attempts to fire him. Others who fell foul of Yermak or were seen to be growing too popular were unceremoniously fired. Zelenskyy is expected to announce a replacement imminently. Most of the names that have been floated so far are those from the president’s inner circle, but whoever is chosen is unlikely to have anything like the same power as Yermak, at least initially. This could prove challenging for a weakened Zelenskyy, especially if further revelations follow from the corruption investigation. Alternatively, it could give his presidency, already extended by more than a year from its planned endpoint because of the impossibility of holding elections during martial law, the influx of fresh ideas and more consensual decision-making that many have been calling for. “There’s a very strong demand in Ukrainian society for the revision of the social contract between the president and the people, and for restructuring the relationship between president and the cabinet and parliament,” said Prokopenko.

Israel has ‘de facto state policy’ of organised torture, says UN report

Israel has “a de facto state policy of organised and widespread torture”, according to a UN report covering the past two years, which also raised concerns about the impunity of Israeli security forces for war crimes. The UN committee on torture expressed “deep concern over allegations of repeated severe beatings, dog attacks, electrocution, waterboarding, use of prolonged stress positions [and] sexual violence”. The report, published on Friday as part of the committee’s regular monitoring of countries that have signed the UN convention against torture, also said Palestinian detainees were humiliated by “being made to act like animals or being urinated on”, were systematically denied medical care and subject to excessive use of restraints, “in some cases resulting in amputation”. The UN committee of 10 independent experts raised concern about the wholesale use of Israel’s unlawful combatants law to justify the prolonged detention without trial of thousands of Palestinian men, women and children. The latest figures published by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said that as of the end of September the Israel Prison Service was holding 3,474 Palestinians in “administrative detention”, meaning without trial. The new UN report, covering a two-year period since the beginning of the Gaza war on 7 October 2023, draws attention to the “high proportion of children who are currently detained without charge or on remand”, noting the age of criminal responsibility imposed by Israel is 12, and that children younger than 12 have also been detained. Children categorised as security prisoners, the report says, “have severe restrictions on family contact, may be held in solitary confinement, and do not have access to education, in violation of international standards”. It appeals to Israel to amend its legislation so that solitary confinement is not used against children. The UN committee, which was established to monitor implementation of the 1984 UN convention against torture, goes further, arguing that the daily imposition of Israeli policies in occupied Palestine, taken as a whole, “may amount to torture”. The report said 75 Palestinians had died in custody over the course of the Gaza war, during which detention conditions for Palestinians had undergone a “marked deterioration”. It found the death toll to be “abnormally high and appears to have exclusively affected the Palestinian detainee population”. It notes that “to date, no state officials have been held responsible or accountable for such deaths”. Israel’s government has repeatedly denied the use of torture. The UN committee heard evidence from representatives of the country’s foreign ministry, justice ministry and prison service who argued that prison conditions were adequate and subject to supervision. However, the committee pointed out that the inspector charged with investigating complaints on interrogations had brought “no criminal prosecutions for acts of torture and ill-treatment” over the past two years, despite widespread allegations of such practices. It said that Israel had pointed to just one conviction for torture or ill-treatment in that two-year period, an apparent reference to an Israeli soldier sentenced in February this year for repeatedly attacking bound and blindfolded detainees from Gaza with his fists, a baton and his assault rifle. In that case, the committee found that the seven-month sentence “appears not to reflect the severity of the offence”. The report was published on a day when three Israeli border police officers were released after questioning over the fatal shooting of two Palestinians who had been detained in Jenin. Video of the incident on Thursday evening showed the two men, Youssef Asasa and Mahmoud Abdallah, crawling out of a building. Asasa and Abdallah can be seen holding their hands up and lifting their shirts to show they are unarmed. The men, both claimed by Palestinian Islamic Jihad as fighters in its al-Quds Brigades, were detained for a few seconds by border police officers, including a bald-headed officer with a beard who appears in the video to take charge and kick both detainees before making a gesture, seemingly ushering them back inside the building. Seconds later Asasa and Abdallah were shot by the officers at a range of about 2 metres. According to Israeli media, the three border officers questioned on Friday about the incident claimed they “felt an immediate and tangible threat” to their lives. In their reported account of what happened the two detainees had refused to strip naked and had “put their hands in their pockets”, and then one of the men tried to “escape back into the building”. The video from the scene, the authenticity of which has not been disputed by the Israeli authorities, does not show any obvious resistance from the two men, nor does it show them with their hands in their pockets. They appear to be reluctant to re-enter the building under the apparent orders from the border police officer. The three border police officers were released after questioning on condition they did not discuss the case with others.

Impasse over EHRC single-sex spaces guidance ‘distracting from other issues’

The ongoing impasse over guidance from the UK’s human rights watchdog on access to single-sex spaces is distracting from other pressing issues, including the rise of the far right, insiders have told the Guardian. Some members of staff at the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) are described as “desperate for regime change” ahead of the new chair, Mary-Ann Stephenson, taking up her post in December. It comes as Labour backbenchers and equalities experts say that the appointment of up to four new board members to the EHRC should be an opportunity to broaden its approach and potentially appoint the watchdog’s first trans commissioner. The EHRC is waiting for UK ministers to approve its official guidance on how public bodies, businesses and other service providers should respond to the supreme court’s April ruling that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex. The new guidance is expected to closely reflect interim advice stating that transgender people should not be allowed to use toilets of the gender they live as, published by the EHRC immediately after that ruling. It has been criticised by trans rights campaigners and some inside the commission as overly literal. The current chair, Lady Kishwer Falkner, who will leave her post on 30 November, has expressed frustration at the time ministers are taking to approve the crucial new guidance. But equalities minister Bridget Phillipson has insisted they are “taking the time to get this right” and that the final draft must be considered “thoroughly and carefully”, with other ministers denying any deliberate delays. For Women Scotland, the campaign group that brought the original case resulting in the supreme court ruling, also warned that “all the wrangling over the code of practice is obscuring the critical point that the law stands irrespective of any guidance”. The Guardian has previously reported on significant disquiet among rank and file commission staff at the manner in which the response to the supreme court ruling has been handled. An EHRC source said: “It’s been stall, stall, stall but we’re at a risk of not being quorate or functional soon. I understand the tactic but not much use if we can’t do any work until they get recruitment sorted.” Meanwhile, the government is advertising for up to four new commissioners to join Stephenson. The EHRC, which is required by statute to have between 10 and 15 commissioners, now has just eight, all but one of whom was appointed during the last Conservative government. Deputy chair and Scotland commissioner Lesley Sawers and commissioner Joanne Cash will also finish their terms on 30 November. Akua Reindorf ends her term on 31 December. It is understood that some Labour MPs as well as figures in the wider policy sector believe the current impasse is a distraction from other pressing issues, including the rise of the far right and its impact on the communities served by the EHRC. They have been encouraging applications for the commissioner roles from those they feel take a more nuanced approach to trans inclusion. One Labour backbencher said: “As these posts are coming up, it’s important to have that broad range of experience and expertise on the board, and within those discussions we’ve been saying please do encourage people from the trans community to consider it, or have you thought of applying? “That broad range was essential from when EHRC was first set up but may have been narrowed with more political appointments under the Conservatives. “When a group of us met some of the current board members and the current chair, we felt very strongly that an understanding of the impact of the supreme court ruling on the trans community wasn’t there.” Another Labour backbencher said they hoped more people would apply: “We need commissioners with real world experience of the issues they grapple with.” Stonewall said the arrival of the new chair and commissioners was an opportunity “to rebuild an EHRC that re-establishes fairness, balance, and respect at its core”. CEO Simon Blake said: “We are living in a time of uncertainty and turbulence for many; this is an opportunity to review the strategic approach of our National Human Rights Institute so everyone – including trans people – can benefit from the rights and freedoms the EHRC is constituted to protect and defend.” But Susan Smith of For Women Scotland called on Phillipson to “stop prevaricating” over approving the EHRC guidance. “Trying to frustrate the release of the code or attempting to force the EHRC to misrepresent the legislation will not change the supreme court’s judgment,” she said. “If MPs are unhappy they have the capacity to amend or repeal the Equality Act, but as the majority of voters supported the ruling, they may realise this would impact their prospects for re-election. “The minister needs to stop prevaricating and put this to bed once and for all. During this period of 16 days of activism against gender-based violence, the government should remember that women are half the population and our human right to dignity, privacy, and safety matters.” An EHRC spokesperson said: “Appointments to our board of commissioners are made by the minister for women and equalities through the standard public appointment process. “Our commissioners come from all walks of life and bring with them a breadth of skills, expertise and experience. “This diversity helps us make impartial and independent decisions, and ensures we continue to uphold the rights of all people in Britain, including trans people.”