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French police suspend use of stun grenades at school protests as minister rejects accusations of brutality

France’s interior minister has suspended the use of stun grenades by police at high school demonstrations but rejected mounting accusations of police brutality during two weeks of protests marred by often violent clashes that have injured hundreds. Laurent Nuñez told RTL radio on Wednesday that he had ordered a temporary halt on the use of the grenades “in the context of the high school students’ movement” after a 15-year-old boy lost a hand during a protest in Lens, northern France, on Monday. Authorities have not confirmed the exact circumstances – in particular, whether the boy had picked up the grenade or been struck by it – but said up to 200 protesters had been hurling projectiles at police when the riot squad intervened. Nuñez said he was suspending use of the grenades “until we know exactly what happened in this case”. But he later told MPs that accusations of “police repression” were “excessive” because officers “are not intervening if the protests are peaceful”. The injured boy’s mother said on Wednesday that her son’s hand had been amputated. She told BFMTV: “His life has been stolen. He’s a 15-year-old kid, how can children be treated like that?” She said her son had not tried to pick up the grenade. The education ministry said classes had been wholly or partially suspended in 429 of the country’s 3,700 lycées – high schools attended by pupils aged between 15 and 18 – on Wednesday, a significantly lower number than on Tuesday. However, 80 university campuses, including the prestigious Sciences Po in Paris, were blockaded in largely peaceful protests by students on Wednesday, unions said, and teachers’ and other unions said they backed further strike action on Thursday. Nuñez told parliament that 215 teenagers and 89 school staff had been injured since the start of the protests – which were triggered by chronic teacher shortages, crowded classes, dilapidated buildings and long school days – while 761 police officers had also been wounded. He said 18 internal police investigations had been launched over allegations of brutality during the demonstrations, including one incident in which a young protester lost multiple teeth and another in which a student lost the use of an eye. He said inquiries were always opened over accusations of “non-proportional” policing, but he insisted officers were there to protect the students. Rights groups and trades unions have repeatedly accused the police of using unnecessary force. On Tuesday at least 250,000 pupils, parents, teachers and unionists took to the streets in cities across France on the biggest day yet of the campaign, prompting the president, Emmanuel Macron, to hold an emergency cabinet meeting. Most marches passed off without serious incident but some, including in Paris, ended in sporadic vandalism and running skirmishes with riot police, with officers firing teargas and carrying out baton charges to disperse protesters. French security forces do not have orders to “confront” protesting high school students, the prime minister said on Wednesday, as allegations of police brutality mounted following days of protests. Hundreds of students, police and teaching staff have been injured since the movement demanding better conditions in high schools began. After rights groups, unions and the students accused authorities of using disproportionate force, the government said it would suspend the use of stun grenades by police at student-led demonstrations. The prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, said in a televised address on Wednesday night that the country could not be “indifferent” to the concerns of high school students, acknowledging that the “anger of young people does not come from nowhere”. But he too denied police had “orders to confront” the protesters. He promised the government would present an action plan focusing on replacing absent teachers, renovating school buildings and reorganising timetables by the end of October. Lecornu on Tuesday condemned the violence and told parliament it could not be tolerated, while also rejecting accusations that the government had ordered “police repression” against the protesters. Over the past two weeks, demonstrators have set dustbins on fire outside their schools, destroyed bus shelters and hurled projectiles at riot police, who have responded using batons, teargas and riot-control rounds. Twenty-four schools have been burned or ransacked, while more than 6,600 people have been arrested, almost all of them minors. More than 1,800 are being prosecuted, nearly 1,500 of them under 18, the justice ministry has said. Anne Savinel-Barras, the president of Amnesty France, on Wednesday welcomed the decision to suspend police use of stun grenades as “an important first step” but said the devices should be “permanently banned from the policing of all protests”. She added: “Protests should not be battlefields. Stun grenades are designed to shock, disorient and sow panic, often among dense crowds. Some can cause permanent hearing loss as well as life-changing mutilations due to the blast and shrapnel.” The protests, months before key presidential elections to choose Macron’s successor, have rattled a government trying to reduce a ballooning budget deficit amid mounting investor concern over France’s sky-high debt and weak economic growth. They have also sparked a heated political row, with the government accusing the radical-left La France Insoumise party of encouraging and even orchestrating the movement after numerous LFI MPs attended school blockades. The party’s veteran leader and presidential candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, has strongly supported the protests while urging non-violence.

Houthi forces appear to make slow advance in south-west Yemen

Houthi forces appeared to be making slow advances on Wednesday in south-west Yemen, approaching the city of Taiz and firing a missile and an explosive towards the airport in Aden, the chief international hub of the Saudi-backed government. The explosive hit the key airport moments before a plane was due to land. The British ambassador to Yemen, Abda Sharif, said the attack could have endangered thousands of people. It forced the flight – from Cairo – to be diverted to Jeddah and led to a review about the safety of flights in Aden. Independent observers said there was a danger that the Houthis were on course to capture Yemen’s third city of Taiz, with some signs that forces linked to the Saudi Arabian-backed government were pulling back to secure Aden. Saudi warplanes had been using their air superiority to try to hit any Houthi accumulation of forces near the city, especially to the west. Houthi forces also claimed that they had fired missiles towards two airports in Saudi Arabia, including Riyadh. Saudi authorities initially said the attacks had been repelled, but then said three people had been killed and 36 people wounded. The Institute for the Study of War said it was adjusting its previous assessment that Houthi forces on the coastal plain were collapsing “in light of evidence in the last 24 hours indicating that the Houthis have stopped Yemeni government-aligned advances”. There has been widespread criticism on social media of some of the claims about Yemeni government advances issued at the beginning of the week. Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the reclusive leader of the Houthis, gave a lengthy address marking the third anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel, and singled out the Qatari-owned Al Jazeera for criticism of its coverage of the Yemen war. Trying to link the various conflicts in the Middle East, he urged Yemenis to investigate the Saudi role in the Palestinian cause, “stressing that whoever searches will only find it stabbing the nation in the back”, and said the formal positions taken by the Saudi regime did not in reality benefit the Palestinian people. The Houthi leader also stressed that the Saudi government was not content with complicity in Gaza, but played a key role in conspiring against the Islamic resistance in Lebanon, where it incited everyone against Hezbollah in a single front with the US and Israel. Southern Giant forces – a pro-government militia in Yemen – are still leading efforts to recapture the Bab al-Mandab strait, the narrow waterway at the bottom of the Red Sea that had been the first target of an offensive launched by the Yemen government on Monday. Their forces are now positioned in the military airport sector in the Dhubab district near the Bab al-Mandab strait.

Tropical Storm Isaias near Mexico is forecast to become a hurricane

Tropical Storm Isaias formed early on Wednesday in the warm waters off eastern Mexico and forecasters said it was expected to strengthen into the first hurricane of the belated Atlantic season, as early as Thursday, before hitting the US Gulf coast later in the week. Isaias succeeded Tropical Depression Nine as it strengthened overnight. It was located about 285 miles (460km) west of Progreso, Mexico, and about 580 miles south-west of where the Mississippi River spills into the Gulf of Mexico in Louisiana, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC). The storm on Wednesday morning had maximum sustained winds of 40mph (65km/h) and was moving east to north-east at 8mph. The first hurricane of the Atlantic season has not formed this late since 8 October 1905. Communities in the potential path of Isaias moved quickly to prepare for landfall, forecast as soon as Friday evening. Some Gulf oil wells paused production and an Alabama beach city canceled a weekend festival known to draw thousands of tourists. Florida’s governor declared a state of emergency for more than one-third of the state’s counties. Isaias could become a major category 3 hurricane, with winds of 111mph (178 km/h) or stronger, before it strikes land, said Michael Brennan, director of the NHC. “We’re expecting multiple dangerous, life-threatening impacts along portions of the northern Gulf Coast beginning Friday and continuing into the weekend,” Brennan said in a video briefing Wednesday. It was not immediately known where the storm may make landfall on the US Gulf coast. The NHC issued a hurricane watch from Bay St Louis, Mississippi, to Indian Pass, Florida. The watch means hurricane conditions are possible within 48 hours. The hurricane center’s initial projections said the center of Isaias could come onshore somewhere between eastern Louisiana and the western Florida Panhandle. People in those areas were urged to prepare for the storm. “There is an increasing risk of dangerous wind and storm surge impacts along portions of the northern Gulf Coast,” the hurricane center, based in Miami, Florida, said. “Residents from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle should closely monitor the latest forecast updates and ensure they have their hurricane plan in place.” Forecasters added that there was “uncertainty in where the system makes the northeast turn and how fast it moves toward the coast”. The direction of the storm could see it make landfall where Alabama meets Florida early on Saturday, but the NHC reiterated that the exact path was uncertain. In Gulf Shores, Alabama, the storm threat caused organizers to cancel the National Shrimp Festival that had been scheduled for Thursday through the weekend. The event drew an estimated 325,000 people last year. The storm comes as the Atlantic hurricane season has been unusually quiet this year owing to a particularly strong El Niño, which disrupts storm formation over that ocean. Storm activity in the Pacific has been above average. This year’s huge El Niño is causing climate chaos around the world. Temperate records have already been broken, with extreme heat reported from western Europe to California. Meanwhile, Bangkok is suffering massive flooding and the weather phenomenon is projected to cause a further 450,000 deaths globally by February. The Associated Press contributed reporting

Flávio Bolsonaro’s advance in Brazil’s election is grim jolt for climate campaigners

More fire, more ash, more crime, more death. And a globally important ecosystem driven ever more rapidly towards a point of no return. That is the prospect for the Amazon rainforest for at least the next four years if Flávio Bolsonaro holds on to the lead he established this week in the first round of Brazil’s presidential election. This appears to be of far more concern to the outside world than to voters in Latin America’s biggest, richest and most biodiverse nation. The far-right son of the former president and jailed coup-monger Jair Bolsonaro won 47% of the vote, putting him in pole position before the 25 October runoff with the incumbent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was backed by 44.2%. The result is an unnerving jolt to climate and nature campaigners. Taken out of context, this appears to be a vote against the forest. The current administration of Lula (as the veteran Brazilian president is best known) has reduced deforestation in the Amazon by almost 50%. But that success secured little noticeable electoral traction for either Lula or pro-forest candidates in other polls held the same day. The former environment minister Marina Silva lost a bid for the Senate and Joenia Wapichana, a former head of Brazil’s Indigenous affairs agency, Funai, failed to win a seat in Congress. Out of 57 Indigenous candidates, only two won. Flávio Bolsonaro is the heir to the political legacy of his father, Jair Bolsonaro, a former army captain whose four years in power resulted in a 59.5% increase in Amazon deforestation, roughly equivalent to destroying 2bn trees. If he wins, Bolsonaro has promised to free his father, who was imprisoned for plotting a military coup and attempting to annihilate democracy in Brazil. He has said that his father could have any position he wants in his administration. Flávio Bolsonaro has shown that he will be just as willing as his father to dismantle protections for climate and nature and allow illegal miners, loggers and land grabbers to invade Indigenous territories. As a lawmaker, he backed a 2019 bill to eliminate requirements for landowners in the Amazon to conserve a proportion of native vegetation. In his manifesto, he completely ignored the climate crisis. And he has courted support from some of the most predatory landowners in the rainforest. He is also part of a movement – Bolsonarism – that is geared towards maximising profits for extractive industries regardless of the environmental cost. Take its victorious candidate for the Amazonian state of Pará, Daniel Santos, who was fined $275,000 (£208,000) for deforestating 280 hectares (690 acres) of his land without authorisation and is now promising to waive such penalties. As a result of Sunday’s election, Bolsonarists now control seven of the nine states in the Brazilian Amazon, and could win an eighth in the runoffs. Bolsonarist influence in the legislature, which is dominated by agribusiness interests, is also growing. Flávio’s brother, Carlos, and mother-in-law, Michelle, were elected to the Senate, while an uncle and brother won seats in the lower house of deputies. Even before the election, Congress had been pushing hard to weaken environmental protections. Now it will be almost impossible to stop, particularly given the current chaos in the supreme court, which has been a partial check on untrammelled expansion by miners, ranchers and monoculturalists. Against these forces, Lula would struggle to govern even if he wins the runoff. As a result, it is not just the Amazon that is in peril, but all of Brazil’s biomes, its traditional peoples and the stability of the global climate. The question now is why voters paid so little heed to these concerns. That inquest is already under way. Many focus on the influence of social media, which has been used far more effectively by the far right. During the Bolsonaro administration, his sons were part of the “hate cabinet” that spread fear and disinformation via WhatsApp groups and other online channels – Bolsonaro’s second son, Carlos, was indicted by federal police for leading the group. Environmentalists were often the target. Another factor is the expansion of US-style Pentecostalism, which is steadily supplanting Catholicism across Brazil, particularly in the Amazon. The political and environmental consequences of that religious shift can be seen by comparing the pro-nature treatise of the past two popes with the sermons of many evangelical preachers who encourage followers to seek wealth today as much as, if not more, than following moral creeds to ensure a good afterlife. Lula, 80, has been slow to adapt. Although he is arguably the most iconic and successful Latin American politician of the 21st century, his messaging seems less attuned to the people than it was in his heyday. The Workers party has struggled in an era of weaker unions and in some ways been the victim of its own success – with education and social policies that raised millions out of poverty and created greater expectations for consumption and entrepreneurism; and huge subsidies to farmers, who now support the right wing because they chafe at environmental limits. Tied into those explanations are the geopolitics of the climate and nature crisis, which is exacerbating great power rivalry between the US and China and amplifying extreme ideologies as much as extreme weather. In this light, the Brazil election is just the latest in a broader pattern of the far right taking control to expand extractivism despite growing evidence that the capitalist economy is breaking planetary boundaries. In the past two years, Donald Trump has ripped apart environmental regulations in the US and treated the rest of the Americas as his sphere of influence. Argentina was already onboard. Venezuela has been invaded for its resources, while in Colombia, Peru and Chile there has been a sharp shift to the right. Will Brazil be the next domino to fall to Trumpism and its bonfire approach to nature? The Bolsonaro family certainly hope so. Jair went so far as to salute the US flag. His son Eduardo urged the US to apply tariffs on Brazilian people to “punish” the government for imprisoning his father. The Brazilian intelligence agency has warned that the US was trying to interfere in the election. That election isn’t over yet. Lula stands a small chance if he can win over the many millions of voters who chose not to mark their ballots for either candidate. But the odds are stacked against him. Most of the eliminated candidates were on the right so their supporters are more likely to switch to Bolsonaro. No first round leader has ever failed to win the runoff of a Brazilian presidential election. Voters, of course, are allowed to change their minds. Either on 25 October or, constitutionally, in four years’ time. But for how much longer will that be possible? If Bolsonaro wins, it won’t just be Lula that is finished, it could also be the Amazon and democracy itself.

Canada to indefinitely bar mental illness as sole reason for access to euthanasia

Canada’s federal government said Wednesday it would advance legislation to prevent people whose sole health condition is mental illness from accessing euthanasia, an effort by the ruling Liberal party to address a clash in the country over who has access to physician-assisted death. Under the current rules, people whose sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness have been barred from accessing medical assistance in dying (Maid) to end their lives. But that ban – due to be lifted in March – has divided lawmakers over whether to permit this expansion of the Maid program. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, the justice minister, Sean Fraser, said his government would indefinitely bar people whose sole condition is mental illness from accessing the program. He said that while there was no “perfect consensus” on this issue, upcoming legislation reflected the “correct” approach. Earlier this year, a government committee concluded the government should expand access to Maid and should “indefinitely exclude persons whose sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness from eligibility for medical assistance in dying”. That report also flagged the need for “increased and more equitable access” to mental health services. Canada’s medical assistance in dying (Maid) laws, drawn up after a 2015 supreme court decision, initially only permitted those who are terminally ill to be eligible for the procedure. But in 2019, a Quebec judge ruled that restricting access to those who had a “reasonably foreseeable death” was unconstitutional, forcing federal lawmakers to amend and expand the existing laws. In 2021, the law was updated so adults could receive an assisted death if two doctors confirmed an irremediable physical condition causing immense suffering that cannot be relieved. Given the uncertainty surrounding mental illness, lawmakers in 2021 initially put a temporary exclusion in place for people who suffer solely from a mental illness. They renewed that pause in 2023 and 2024. According to the latest government figures, the vast majority of Maid deaths – 95.6% – involved people whose natural death was considered “reasonably foreseeable”. Only 4.4% were cases in which death was not considered reasonably foreseeable. Those include people with conditions such as multiple sclerosis and incurable neurological disease that can causes profound disability and immense suffering. The Liberal party’s legislation is also an effort to ward off a private member’s bill that would amend the section of the criminal code covering Maid so that “a mental disorder is not a grievous and irremediable medical condition”. Advocates for expanding Maid to include mental illness alone say the current rules violate their constitutional rights and access to healthcare. Fraser acknowledged to reporters that a federal case, led by the advocacy group Dying With Dignity Canada, to challenge the government’s previous decision to delay access to Maid for people with mental illness, could affect the upcoming bill. Fraser said lawmakers would also work to decriminalize what are known as advanced requests, effectively giving people suffering from some illnesses such as Alzheimer’s the chance to choose Maid before their illness deprives them of the capacity to consent. At present, Quebec is the only jurisdiction that permits the use of these requests. Fraser gave no specifics on the timing of the legislation but said that provinces will decide whether to provide advance requests. While the province of Alberta has already said it will not permit advance requests, the jusice minister said the bill attempts to ensure “the doctors who provide the services will not be treated as criminals for doing so”. In Canada, Crisis Services Canada can be contacted at any time on 1.833.456.4566, or via text on 45645 from 4pm-12am ET. In the US, you can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

Minister denies police brutality as student protests continue across France – Europe live, as it happened

French interior minister Laurent Nuñez rejected allegations of police brutality in their response to on-going student protests, saying officers only intervene when there is damage or violence. Addressing French lawmakers, he said the protest movement was “unprecedented” because of “very serious violence,” Nuñez said a total of 6,629 people have been arrested since the protests began. Meanwhile, 761 police officers and gendarmes have been injured, alongside 215 students and 89 members of teaching staff. France PM Sébastien Lecornu listed five key areas the government will address: replacing absent teachers, improving school facilities, organising the school day, and revising Parcoursup, France’s web portal and pre-enrolment platform, to make it more user-friendly. He added the government’s initial decisions “will be presented at the end of October.” On the protests, he said: “The police have not been instructed to confront high school students.” A new Elabe poll for BFMTV shows that 55% of French people support the high school protests. While 35% oppose the movement, 10% say they have no clear view. US secretary of state Marco Rubio called for the nations of the West to return to their civilizational roots and restore the values that drove the rise of Europe and North America to global dominance for centuries in a speech in Athens. Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Russia’s military of deliberately killing civilians and bombing residential buildings as a macabre gift for Vladimir Putin, who celebrates his 74th birthday on Wednesday. Ukraine’s president described Russia’s overnight drone and missiles strikes, which killed at least 24 people, as “despicable”. “The Russians wanted to strike painfully and demonstratively,” he said. A knife attack at a vocational school in Ostrołęka, Poland left at least seven people injured, including two seriously, as reported by Poland’s RMF FM radio.

German court orders detention of former intelligence chief after spying arrest

A formal arrest warrant has been issued against Germany’s former top spy, with a judge ordering him to be held in pre-trial detention, a day after he was arrested on suspicion of treason and spying on behalf of an overseas intelligence agency. August Hanning, 80, is accused of buying secret documents from a former colleague and using them to advise a foreign intelligence service, according to the office of the federal prosecutor. Hanning’s arrest on Tuesday, along with that of his former office head, referred to as Manfred D. It has sent shock waves through Germany’s political and intelligence community, with analysts calling it potentially the country’s biggest espionage scandal since the end of the cold war. It has raised questions in Berlin over how Germany’s foreign intelligence service can uphold its reputation internationally, particularly at a time of heightened security concerns. Also under scrutiny is the sustainability of rules governing the conduct of retired senior officials and their ability to earn extra income based on their insider knowledge and professional networks. Hanning was head of Germany’s foreign intelligence service (BND) between 1998 and 2005. A lawyer for Hanning denied he had been involved in any wrongdoing on Wednesday, telling the conservative daily newspaper Die Welt: “While it is true that he ‌was in possession of confidential documents, the allegation that he passed on information contained therein to the detriment of Germany, let alone for payment, is incorrect.” Manfred D, who was also placed under formal arrest on Wednesday by the judge in Karlsruhe, has yet to respond to questions via his lawyer. Hanning is alleged to have agreed in 2010 to pay for information from Manfred D, who allegedly then smuggled it out of the BND. Manfred D, 64, had worked under Hanning and went on to serve subsequent BND bosses after Hanning, before retiring in March this year. Hanning is believed to have received about 2,000 documents from Manfred D until June 2022, some of which were classified, according to prosecutors. He is alleged to have used the information in his papers for his private consulting work. Prosecutors were alerted to Hanning’s alleged criminal activities by investigators gathering evidence in a separate child kidnapping case involving a steakhouse restaurant dynasty, which the former spy chief is accused of participating in using his former contacts with Israeli intelligence. Christina Block, an heiress to the business, allegedly paid Hanning and a retired police officer more than €100,000 (£85,000) for their roles in the alleged abduction of her two children from her ex-husband. A report in Der Spiegel on Wednesday said investigators were looking into a possible connection to the foreign intelligence service of Azerbaijan as one of the agencies Hanning may have been passing information to. Azerbaijan’s media and broadcasting council denied any connection to Hanning or the investigation. “The malicious intent of the forces behind this disinformation operation is to damage Azerbaijan-Germany relations,” the council said in a statement. The scandal has awakened memories of the Günter Guillaume affair, when an East German Stasi spy and his wife posing as refugees infiltrated the government of the then chancellor Willy Brandt, leading to Brandt’s resignation in 1974. Marc Henrichmann, the head of the parliamentary committee overseeing the intelligence services, which has repeatedly raised questions about the post-career consulting activities of intelligence agency employees but has been told legal obstacles stood in the way of challenging them, said he was “fairly flabbergasted” by the affair, but stressed it was as yet unclear the breadth and extent of the alleged wrongdoing. “As yet we don’t know exactly what happened,” he told the public broadcaster Deutschlandfunk, while acknowledging the need to “restore broken trust” in the BND. On Wednesday, politicians and intelligence analysts called for stricter regulation around allowing former security employees to make use of their influence and knowledge after retiring. The scandal comes at a time when Germany is attempting to make its intelligence agencies, including the BND and its domestic sibling, the BfV, more robust, efficient and independent from those of its allies, in particular boosting their powers of surveillance to more effectively tackle sabotage and hacking attacks, amid rising threats from external powers such as Russia and Iran. The scandal is yet another blow to the BND’s reputation. Not only is it notoriously dependent on information from foreign agencies to foil terror attacks on German soil, but it has faced other cases of its staff allegedly spying for other countries. It has also been reeling from the case of a department head, Carsten L, who was accused in December 2022 of spying for Russia. His trial is now being heard by Berlin’s higher regional court. Sensitivities over the country’s past, when dictatorships misused their powers of surveillance to spy on their own people, have made reform of the agencies hard to pursue. Hanning, the son of a brickyard owner, rose through the ranks of the intelligence service to become its head. After the attacks of 11 September 2001, he oversaw the investigation into some of the terrorists who had studied in Hamburg. He initiated wide-reaching reforms of the BND including bringing it closer to politics, becoming a close adviser to the then interior minister Wolfgang Schäuble. He spoke out against a “culture of leaks” and was deeply critical of the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, calling him an “internal offender”. Once his civil service career was over, Hanning continued to hold a role as a respected behind-the-scenes negotiator, and frequently intervened in government security policy debates. At the same time he built up his consultant business, founding an agency with his wife, Ruth, called Hanning Consult, and worked for various other global consulting agencies. He even produced a “spy cookbook” with his wife, called “Top(f) Secret” (Topf being the German word for saucepan).

The US has backed Libya’s Haftar clan. The UK should not make the same mistake | Letters

Patrick Wintour’s report (Libyan unity talks upended as warlord’s son linked to drone attacks on fuel facilities, 3 October) should not surprise anyone concerned with the attempts to end conflict and seek the unification of Libya. Saddam Haftar, like his father, Khalifa, has been backed by the US to support its aims and ambitions in Libya. There is no logic, if democratic elections are the goal, to be backing a member of the Haftar clan for any role in the future of Libya. The Libyan population want nothing more than peace, security and to use constructively the wealth that could be generated from their extensive natural resources for the improvement of their society. Instead, their resources are being dissipated in corruption and conflict, a state of affairs that benefits only the warmongers. As a result of representations received from Libya set out in a 9BR Chambers report, Libya: The Voice of the Tribes, the UK’s present and previous governments and successive ambassadors to Libya have been offered a role in brokering a peace and unification conference in this country. All it required from the UK was to formally issue visas and invite the political leaders from east and west Libya, who would attend with the legitimate military commanders from both sides, rather than the bad actors. There has been no take-up by either Tory or Labour governments, with neither showing any confidence to do anything contrary to the policies of the US, which are doomed to failure. The benefits to the UK to be seen to be acting independently and in a role consistent with its status as a member of the UN security council would undermine the current perception of it being a declining power. It would also be an opportunity for the UK to assist in the reconstruction and development of an important economy with obvious benefits in its own search for trade. Steven Kay 9BR Chambers • Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.