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Starlink access still not fully restored for Ukraine’s military, says Zelenskyy

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the Ukrainian military’s access to the Starlink satellite internet service has not yet been fully restored, as media reports suggested the order to throttle the service had come from within the White House. Zelenskyy met European leaders on Friday in Brussels, where he asked the EU for another €70bn (£60bn) next year to fund Ukraine’s defence against Russia. The meeting offered an important opportunity for Zelenskyy and Europe to align their strategies, as Zelenskyy once again found himself embroiled in a major quarrel with the US president, Donald Trump. Hours earlier, Trump had called Ukraine’s renewed strikes on Russian oil refineries “a disgrace” and criticised ⁠Zelenskyy, after a purported “energy ceasefire” between Russia and Ukraine failed to take hold. “All he’s doing is making the world oil price higher,” Trump told the Newsmax television channel. “Well, I think that’s a disgrace.” Energy analysts told the BBC that the US-Israeli war on Iran was having the biggest impact on diesel export volumes, although the Ukraine war was also significant. Trump’s administration is suspected of withholding intelligence from Ukraine on incoming Russian ballistic missile strikes, and of throttling Starshield, the military version of the Starlink satellite internet network, to prevent it from being used on drones flying faster than 100mph. Neither has officially been confirmed. Speaking after meeting EU leaders on Friday, Zelenskyy said that Starshield had not yet returned to normal. “Our defence ministry is in touch and my partners, they told me that there were signals from the White House that they would return these capabilities,” Zelenskyy said. “Have they returned to the previous speed limits? No. But is it coming back now? Yes.” Reuters on Friday reported that the order to throttle Starshield had come from inside the White House, according to two US officials and a western official briefed on the matter. They did not identify the White House official who had made the decision, but said the Pentagon had been informed that the SpaceX Starshield service for the Ukrainian military had to be slowed. Zelenskyy called it a “very dangerous and unpleasant surprise” that speeds had been reduced on Starlink, which Ukraine uses to support its most effective air defence systems against Russian jet-powered drones. Starlink is produced by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, but controlled by the US government. When Zelenskyy arrived for talks with EU leaders, he was applauded by the heads of state and government of the bloc’s 27 countries. Zelenskyy later said he had heard “only support”, when asked about reports that European leaders had asked him to dial down his criticism of Trump. According to a transcript of his remarks, he told EU leaders that the war would cost €155bn in 2027. “And we need at least €70bn more from you – for defence, for weapons, and for our resilience,” he said. “This is a realistic amount.” The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, agreed with Zelenskyy that “it is clear that we have a gap of €70bn that has to be covered” for 2027, although she expected Ukraine’s other partners – which she did not name – to cover part of the sum. The EU is currently giving Ukraine regular payments from a €90bn funding plan agreed last December that was intended to cover two-thirds of Kyiv’s civilian and military needs for 2026-27. The remaining third was to be filled by other “international partners”, such as the UK, Canada, Norway and Japan. The realisation that Kyiv again risks a financial crunch has put Russia’s €210bn assets frozen inside the EU back on the table. The EU takes the profits from those assets to support Ukraine, but last year decided against using the funds themselves, instead opting for an EU-backed €90bn loan. Belgium, which hosts the vast majority of the Russian funds, remains strongly opposed to using the frozen assets, fearing it will be left to carry the financial burden if the plan goes wrong. But Zelenskyy said there could be an alternative. “We need something like a special EU-controlled custodian to reduce the risk of them being unfrozen and divided up among those who clearly do not want what is best for Europe or an end to this war,” he said. The European Commission, a strong backer of last year’s rejected frozen assets plan, has been reluctant to propose new variants – such as an EU-controlled custodian – because it fears running into same opposition from Belgium and other sceptical member states. Before the summit, Belgium’s prime minister, Bart De Wever, said Zelenskyy would “probably look everybody straight in the eye and say: thank you for the €90bn, but that money is going to run out because a war is a very costly thing”. Von der Leyen said the EU had supported Trump’s energy ceasefire “but we have seen that Russia did not respect it, not a single minute” and instead had escalated its attacks. She said the EU intended to increase pressure on Russia, promising a 22nd round of sanctions and adding: “We will not lift any sanctions unless Russia stops the war.”

EU’s support to Ukraine matters more than ever, von der Leyen says, as US relationship sours – as it happened

And, on that note, we will be closing the blog for today. Earlier, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy has asked the leaders for another €70bn next year to fund Ukraine’s defence against Russia as he joined a key EU summit in Brussels (10:10, 13:44, 15:13, 15:26, 16:00). EU’s Ursula von der Leyen and António Costa confirmed the bloc will look at the request (19:01, 19:14, 19:20), as they said the EU’s support to Ukraine “matters more than ever” given growing pressures from Russia. During a press conference in Brussels, Zelenskyy responded to US president Donald Trump’s criticism of his actions (13:51, 13:56, 14:04), and confirmed that Starlink satellite systems were back up, but with speeds not completely restored to previous levels (13:42). Zelenskyy smiled but offered no response to a suggestion he was being used as a “scapegoat” for Donald Trump’s domestic problems ahead of next month’s midterm elections (14:06). German chancellor Friedrich Merz said there was a “broad consensus” on the EU’s need to keep supporting Ukraine throughout this coming winter, acknowledging Kyiv’s request for further financial assistance (16:45), and appearing to back retaliatory strikes against Russian communication and energy supply systems (16:49, 16:54). Several other EU leaders offered their backing for Ukraine, (10:10, 10:21, 10:25, 10:36, 11:09, 11:23), with top EU figures saying the bloc would not lift any sanctions on Russia unless it stops the war (10:10), and criticising Trump’s diesel deal with Russia (10:10, 19:32). Zelenskyy declined to say if Ukraine will be targeting Russian refineries (13:47). EU’s Costa insisted the new EU budget needed to be agreed by the end of the year, despite calls to delay its adoption considering a number of big elections in the EU (19:27). The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, insisted the bloc needed a bigger budget with “flexibilities” to respond to various crises (19:12). Germany’s Merz conceded there were still “significant differences” between EU capitals on the budget, with talks expected to continue until the end of the year (16:43, 16:54, 16:59). Separately, Pope Leo spoke with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, this afternoon, expressing his grave concern for the humanitarian situation in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Oleshky (17:36). The Kremlin said Putin expressed his support for Leo’s ideas, but blamed Ukraine for the situation in the city (18:22). 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.

Brazil’s Lula says he now backs lowering age of criminal responsibility to 16

Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has announced that he now supports lowering the age of criminal responsibility for “heinous” crimes from 18 to 16, reversing a longstanding policy in what is widely seen as a desperate electoral gambit. The U-turn, which Lula announced during a Thursday night interview with TV Globo, comes with the presidential runoff in just over a week. The incumbent faces an uphill battle to overturn the first-round victory of his opponent, the far-right senator Flávio Bolsonaro, who remains slightly ahead at the polls. Both the senator and his father, the former president, Jair Bolsonaro, have long supported lowering the age of criminal responsibility – they want it reduced to 14 rather than 16 – but Lula and his party have always opposed the change. After repeated opinion polls, the latest of them this week, showed that 80% of the population supports lowering the age, Lula said: “My view, as a Brazilian citizen, is that for any and every heinous crime, I am in favour of lowering the age.” He answered “yes” when the reporter asked whether he meant lowering it to 16. The list of crimes classified as “heinous” under Brazilian law is extensive, ranging from murder and rape to the falsification of medicines and drug trafficking – the offence for which about a quarter of the 816,000 people serving prison sentences in Brazil were incarcerated. Human rights organisations and security experts have long criticised proposals to lower the age of criminal responsibility, arguing that they do little to tackle violence while increasing recruitment into organised crime in Brazil’s overcrowded prisons. On Thursday, before Lula’s interview, the proposal had been discussed in the senate. The Episcopal Conference of Brazil, a Catholic bishops’ organisation, had criticised it for “not addressing the causes of violence”, adding that placing young people “prematurely in the prison system tends to deepen cycles of violence and exclusion, undermining their rehabilitation”. The columnist Josias de Souza wrote in his UOL column that, by reversing his longstanding position, Lula “decided to change himself. It was no ordinary transformation. On public security, Lula turned himself inside out. He began defending what he had always rejected.” The incumbent has doubled down in recent days in an effort to overturn Bolsonaro’s 2.2 million-vote first-round lead by appealing to independents and undecided voters. He has secured congressional approval for a shorter working week – a proposal on which Bolsonaro himself U-turned and decided to support at the last minute, when it appeared ready to pass – and debt relief for microentrepreneurs, as well as promising free public transport on weekends.

Israeli settlers attack olive farmers and Washington Post journalist in West Bank

Israeli settlers have attacked Palestinians across the occupied West Bank in a coordinated movement to disrupt the annual olive harvest, burning cars and trees and injuring Palestinians and a Washington Post photographer. Masked settlers wielding clubs and other weapons attacked people attempting to harvest their olives in West Bank towns on Friday. Palestinian authorities said they recorded attacks in eight villages, and injuries among at least 20 people. It was the latest series of attacks in a deadly campaign of Israeli settler violence against Palestinians in recent months, violence which has drawn accusations of “ethnic cleansing”, including from the British government. In the town of Abu Falah, near Ramallah, at least 80 settlers, some of whom were carrying firearms or clubs, gathered to stop Palestinians from harvesting their olives, using slingshots to hurl rocks at the farmers in view of Israeli military vehicles. When some of the Palestinians then picked up rocks to defend themselves, the Israeli military fired teargas in their direction. The Israeli Foreign Press Association said in a statement: “This is the latest in a long line of violent attacks by Israeli settlers against journalists and other civilians in the occupied West Bank. Yet our repeated calls for action to confront this lawlessness have been ignored by Israeli authorities.” Among those injured was the Washington Post photographer Heidi Levine, who was beaten by settlers in an attack that lasted more than 10 minutes, according to witnesses. Settlers stole her passport, phone, wallet and equipment. “I was attacked, pushed to the ground. Luckily, I had my flak jacket and helmet, otherwise I probably wouldn’t even be here, because they just kept kicking and kicking me,” Levine said from a hospital bed in Ramallah. She said the attack ended when her Palestinian colleagues intervened to save her. In a statement, the Washington Post said Levine had been wearing visible markings clearly identifying her as a journalist. The office of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said that the facts surrounding the attack on Levine were “unclear”, suggesting the attack was the fault of “200 Arabs and far-left activists” who confronted Israeli youths. The office added that it condemned “violence against anyone”. There has been a surge of settler violence against Palestinians over the past month. Settlers have carried out at least 170 attacks since 27 September, around the start of the annual olive harvest, according to Yesh Din, an Israeli rights group. Every year, settlers attack Palestinians trying to harvest their olives, but there has been a rise in violence this year as Israel’s elections approach at the end of October. At least four Palestinians had been killed and more than 100 others injured over the past month, Palestinian authorities said. Thousands of trees have been damaged. Israel imposed new rules on the olive harvest this year, barring Palestinians from harvesting their trees located in Area C, an area under the Israeli military’s control, which comprises most of the West Bank’s agricultural land. The new orders prohibit Palestinians from entering about 8,800 hectares (21,800 acres) of agricultural land – a 30% increase from the year prior – without the approval of the Israeli military. By contrast, the military gave Israeli citizens access to more land this year. The rights group Peace Now says the military decreased the amount of land Israeli citizens were prohibited, for the purpose of preventing settler violence, from entering from about 1,070 hectares in 2025 to 680 hectares in 2026. The olive harvest is an economic lifeline for Palestinians and has grown in importance since Israel revoked work permits for many Palestinians in the West Bank after the Hamas-led attack on 7 October 2023. Photos and videos showed large swathes of agricultural land with uprooted olive trees in Kufur Malek, outside Ramallah, where Israeli bulldozers razed trees. Settlers rarely face accountability for their violence, even when well-documented. Rights groups say settlers enjoy the protection of the Israeli military, which intervenes only if Palestinians try to defend themselves. Netanyahu, has on occasion condemned the violence, which he says is due to just about 100 settlers, but he has taken few steps to stop it. Settlements have rapidly expanded across the West Bank under his rightwing government, leading to international condemnation. The UN and most countries judge settlements to be in violation of international law. Friday’s attack in Abu Falah followed a similar attack hours earlier near the West Bank village of Turmus Ayya, where settlers burned three cars after attacking Palestinians harvesting olives. Videos shared by the Israeli rights group B’tselem showed hundreds of bags of olives “violently” stolen by Israeli settlers from Palestinians and taken to Israeli olive presses. Sarit Michaeli, an independent activist, said settlers were stealing Palestinians’ olive crop on a scale “never seen before in my 22-year history of working on this issue”. A spokesperson for the US embassy in Jerusalem said it was aware of reports of the attack and declined to comment further due to privacy laws.

India’s Cockroach Janta party leader detained amid crackdown on protests

The leader of the Cockroach Janta party (CJP) youth movement, Abhijeet Dipke, was detained by police on Friday as authorities cracked down on fresh anti-government protests in the Indian capital. Dipke was detained before a planned Friday evening demonstration he had called in central Delhi, urging supporters of the movement to come out and hold up the Indian flag. The Cockroach movement initially emerged back in May as online satire, but has since grown into one of the most substantial challenges to the powerful Modi government over its 12-year rule. Alongside student groups and opposition parties, its supporters have in the past month been out on the streets across India’s biggest cities calling for the resignation of the chief election commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, who is accused of overseeing a revision of India’s electoral rolls that allegedly favours the ruling Narendra Modi government with the deletion of 130m names. The election commission and Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) deny the claims. The authorities, particularly in Delhi, have met the recent protests with a draconian crackdown, including bans on public gatherings, the deployment of tens of thousands of police, and detentions of thousands last weekend. Friday’s protest was called by Dipke after the arrest and jailing of two of his fellow CJP leaders, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka. They were sentenced to five days in jail this week for jumping police barricades and holding a brief protest – including waving the Indian flag – at a site recently restricted by police for demonstrations in Delhi. At a press conference on Thursday, Dipke condemned the “repressive” attempts to silence the CJP movement and called on supporters to come out and show Narendra Modi “that we are not afraid”. He added: “If waving the Indian national flag lands you in jail, we are ready.” Delhi police had once again taken extreme measures to try to prevent Friday’s demonstration, due to be held at a park in a busy commercial centre in the heart of Delhi, from going ahead. Police were deployed en masse to the area and a police notice was sent to Dipke instructing him to call off the protest. The Delhi local authority also shut down the park where the protest was due to take place. When Dipke refused to call it off, police detained him en route, just as people began to assemble for the protest. In videos captured of his arrest, the CJP leader was seen holding an Indian flag aloft and saying: “I have not broken any law right now … how can you detain me?” as he was led away by dozens of police officers. In a post after his detention, the CJP posted on social media: “This government is so scared of the youth waving national flag.” Neha Bora, a student leader who has become a figurehead of the protests, was also detained on Friday as she began a march in the centre of the capital. Despite Dipke’s detention, about 2,000 protesters still gathered and unfurled flags at the protest around Delhi’s Connaught Place. Among them was 23-year-old Sanna, who said the brutal police crackdown on peaceful protests over recent weeks demonstrated that India was “on a pathway to dictatorship under the Modi government”. “We are only out here to peacefully hold up the Indian flag and they treat us as if we are criminals, not citizens exercising our democratic rights,” she said. “Gyanesh Kumar must resign, and no matter what the police do, detaining us or crushing our skulls, we still won’t stop protesting until he is gone.” Smaller protests also took place in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Patna on Friday. The BJP has claimed that the Cockroach movement and the political opposition alliance have been holding protests to cause “anarchy” in the country. “Their sole intention is to stage a coup in the country,” said the BJP’s national spokesperson, Sambit Patra. The authorities have also gone to unusual lengths to punish figures who have been seen at the recent protests calling for Kumar’s resignation. In Mumbai, the Bollywood actor Imran Khan was given a notice to leave the country after he was detained by police while attending a demonstration last weekend. Khan, who holds a US passport, was told to leave the country by the end of the month, an order he is now challenging in the courts.

Power plant attacks reflect Russian blueprint to make Ukrainian cities unlivable

As Russian missiles and drones have systematically slammed into power plants in Kyiv and Kharkiv this week, the rolling blackouts and water outages have increasingly resembled a supposed Russian blueprint to destroy life in major Ukrainian cities seen by the Guardian. Even as Donald Trump unilaterally declared an “energy ceasefire” last week between Moscow and Kyiv, Russia continued with its methodical and devastating strikes on Ukraine’s power grid, in particular in Kyiv, in a strategy meant to punish Ukraine’s population and drive the country to capitulation. The potential goals of the Russian campaign, according to an assessment seen by the Guardian that Ukrainian intelligence said it intercepted from Russia last month, range from “degrading the quality of life” of Ukrainians through power outages to fully shutting off the water supply, which the document cooly predicts would cause the “deterioration of sanitary conditions and the forced outflow of residents from cities.” The document does not specify which Russian agency developed the assessment, which is titled Analysis of Ukraine’s Energy, Housing and Utilities Sectors, includes vulnerable Ukrainian energy grid targets and even contemplates strikes against high-risk sites, including the switchyards at several nuclear power plants. But several European officials familiar with the document have said it is likely to have been produced by analytical departments linked to the Russian military or intelligence agencies, and that copies have circulated in Ukraine in previous years. This year, however, Russia appears to be putting those plans into practice. On Tuesday night, Russian strikes hit three major power plants in the Kyiv region – Combined Heat and Power Plants 4 and 5, and the Trypillya Thermal Power Plant in the Kyiv region – as well as a major electrical substation that transfers electricity from two of the country’s main nuclear power plants to the capital. Those, along with other substations that make up the “Kyiv energy ring” that helps bring electricity from across the country to the capital, have all been targets of a Russian barrage that, if it succeeds, could threaten a humanitarian catastrophe in a city of 3 million people. Ukraine’s energy minister first briefed European allies last month about the plan, a copy of which was first reported on by the New York Times. Russia has stepped up its attacks on the Ukrainian power grid precisely as Washington and Kyiv are embroiled in a major political quarrel. The Guardian is withholding some specifics of the military assessment at the request of Ukraine’s energy ministry, which said it could aid in further strikes against the country. “There are two large documents, written very coldly and very clearly, with tables showing the number of weapons needed for each facility to destroy it,” Ukrainian energy minister Denys Shmyhal said last month. “The types of weapons range from ballistic missiles to jet-powered and conventional drones. We understand how they are going to act.” The leaked documents identify bottlenecks and prescribe the number of ballistic and hypersonic cruise missiles and jet-powered drones needed to knock out power plants and substations with brutal efficiency. If that was done, it could destroy more than 90% of the power that Kyiv is budgeted for each winter, the document predicts, plunging the city into the dark and cold. A worst-case scenario could lead to blackouts lasting up to 20 hours a day until damaged equipment is repaired, according to expert projections. The strikes on Ukraine’s energy system have become the country’s new frontlines – and the country is badly outgunned, as its stocks of US-provided PAC-3 missiles have dwindled. Zelenskyy this week castigated city authorities for poor planning for the winter and for failing to protect the city’s energy infrastructure. Protests over heat and electricity blackouts are also planned for Saturday, highlighting how the difficult conditions in winter could provoke a political crisis for the wartime government. Economic Pravda, a leading Ukrainian news site that covers business, reported on Thursday that the three major power plants in Kyiv no longer have the ability to generate electricity, leaving the city more reliant on electricity brought from elsewhere in the country (the government generally does not confirm specific damage to critical infrastructure). The outlets’ experts predicted that, given a moderate winter and quick repairs of damaged substations, Kyiv residents could face up to eight hours of blackouts a day. Its worst case scenario of frigid temperatures and frequent attacks would leave Kyiv in the dark for up to 20 hours a day. This is no accident for the Kremlin, which has increasingly turned to punishing Ukraine’s population in major cities as the frontlines of the conflict have frozen. “Last year, we were really on the brink,” said Volodymyr Fesenko, a Ukrainian political analyst. “But the risk this year will be even worse, so the plan [to attack Ukrainian infrastructure] does seem realistic. There’s a very high chance that Russia tries to break us this winter.” If the Kremlin believed in the chance of a clean military victory before now, he added, it may now believe that not to be possible, and focus on destroying Ukraine’s remaining infrastructure rather than trying to capture it. The secret plan, which officials here say was intercepted by Ukrainian intelligence and then briefed to senior European diplomats by Shmyhal last month, sets itself several goals: to destroy electricity generation, heating, water and sewage systems in such a way as to to make life in Ukrainian cities unliveable. Destroying electrical generation alone, it says, would lead to a “significant decrease in the quality of life of the population.” To do so, it specifies the number of weapons that should be allocated – Geran 4/5 jet-powered drones and hypersonic or cruise missiles – in order to destroy key infrastructure such as thermal power plants, substations, water pumping stations and more. Considering strikes against the basis of Ukraine’s water, sewage and heating systems, the document says it would create a “large-scale municipal infrastructure crisis.” When contacted by the Guardian, the Ukrainian Energy Ministry said that the document contained information that could aid in attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure. It did not reply to questions on how the current Russian bombing strategy matched with the proposals made in the document, or which Russian agency had developed the plans.

British man fined €3,000 for causing two-year-old son’s death in Cyprus

A British man has been fined €3,000 (£2,500) after his two-year-old son fell 10 metres (33ft) to his death from the fourth-floor window of a hotel in Cyprus. Joshua Foster thought the window was closed when he approached it with the boy to show him the view of a waterpark and “lost control” of him, the court previously heard. The 37-year-old appeared at Paphos district court on Friday for sentencing having pleaded guilty to a charge of causing death through a reckless, rash or dangerous act. In emotional scenes at the court, Judge Froso Christodoulidou ruled that Foster would not be jailed, before describing the incident on 12 July, the first day of the family’s holiday in Cyprus, as a “tragic event”. “Jail is not appropriate,” the judge said, telling the courtroom that as there was “clearly no intent to kill” she had decided against a custodial sentence and would instead order Foster to pay the fine. The Essex-born auditor, who had previously appeared in court visibly distraught, struggled to hold back tears as the sentence was handed down. As it dawned that the case was finally over, he hugged his lawyer before telling reporters: “Thank you for your support. I’m looking forward to going home and being with my wife and daughter.” The light sentence – the minimum for the charge – meant Foster could retrieve his passport and other documents he had been forced to surrender. More usually levelled in cases involving fatal traffic accidents, the charge carries a maximum penalty of four years in prison. Speaking outside the district court in Paphos, the defendant’s lawyer, Alexandros Alexandrou, said Foster, who works for one of the UK’s big four accounting firms, would finally be able to grieve. “He’s been through a lot and it’s been very emotional but he’s relieved it’s over,” he said of his client, who posted €30,000 in bail to return to the UK to attend the toddler’s funeral in August before being forced under threat of extradition to return to Cyprus for the proceedings. “This case should not have gone to court. We asked for the charges to be suspended. Unfortunately this was not accepted.” Alexandrou had appealed to the island’s attorney general, Cyprus’s top legal official, to discontinue the criminal procedure on humanitarian grounds, arguing that prosecution “does not serve the public interest”. The request was denied. The boy fell to his death from the window of the King Evelthon hotel within hours of the family arriving in Paphos. In mitigation on 5 October, Alexandrou recounted how Foster was making his way to a lift along the corridor when he stopped at the window and the “inconceivable” occurred. The Briton, he said, had not realised the window was ajar when, lifting the child, who was excitedly pointing to the hotel’s waterpark outside, he “lost control” and he slipped through his hands. The boy was pronounced dead at Paphos general hospital shortly after suffering severe cranial injuries when he hit a veranda below. Summing up, Christodoulidou said while the presence of alcohol had been detected in Foster’s blood it was not enough to suggest he was impaired to the point where he had “acted recklessly”. “It is no exaggeration to say that for the rest of his life he will have guilt for losing his child in such a tragic way,” she added. Mitigating factors presented by the defence, including the Briton’s lack of criminal record, as well as his guilty plea, had also played a role in her decision, she explained. In a country so dependent on tourism, criticism had mounted as Cypriot human rights defenders, media pundits and foreign diplomats all questioned the perceived lack of compassion with which officials approached the case. A former British colony, the eastern Mediterranean island attracts roughly 4 million visitors and is particularly popular with tourists from the UK. Alexandrou, the lawyer, said he had advised his client to admit the negligence charge to avoid a potentially drawn-out and disturbing trial when he and his family were still processing the grief of their “unimaginable loss”. Conceding the case had been “emotional” for the entire defence team, the lawyer added: “He can finally grieve. Now that the court proceedings are over, the explosion of his emotions at the loss of his child will be immediate.” In a statement issued after the sentencing, the Foster family said: “Today marks the end of the legal proceedings in Cyprus, and we are grateful to the court and Judge Christodoulidou for her decision to apply the maximum mitigation afforded to her. “We are relieved that this process is now over, but for our family, the consequences of this tragedy will never end. Our son was deeply loved and will be forever missed. His loss is something we carry with us every day. “Our focus now is on supporting one another and finding a way forward as a family. We ask that our privacy is respected as we do so.”

Just 14% of Albertans want independence from Canada. Can a conference in a Calgary ballroom change that?

The debate began with a simple question in a dark Calgary hotel ballroom: does Alberta need Canada? By the time the audience was asked to vote at the end, more than three-quarters had answered no – a decisive measure of the convictions of a room packed with some of Alberta’s most ardent independence supporters, some of whom had paid C$900 (£480) for a “visionary” weekend pass. But outside the comfort of the ballroom, the debate is far from settled. Across the province, the forthcoming 19 October referendum on separatism has divided communities, prompting accusations of treason and grift and, at times, bitter feuds between former allies. One recent poll shows support for independence at only 14%. You wouldn’t know it from the WeUnify’s Reclaiming Alberta conference though. “This is a matter of survival,” conservative activist and broadcaster Faytene Grasseschi told the crowd, which erupted into applause after she said Alberta’s oil resources had been “usurped” by the federal government and the Canada she had been born into “doesn’t exist any more”. In the main halls outside the ballroom, attendees milled around the vendor stalls. A handful donned a $6,500 (£4,925) helmet that resembles white colanders hastily attached to a bike helmet, bathing the user’s head in red LED light supposedly for treatment of “Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, dementia, traumatic brain injury, [and] brain fog”. Others took in sales pitches about the need for gold and silver as paper money “fails”. But the busiest stall belonged to the group Let’s Talk Alberta. It says it is neither a political party nor a campaign organisation but its five bound pamphlets include a 52-page volume titled Every Argument to Stay is a Reason to Leave. The pamphlets were written by its founder, Chris Scott, a cafe owner who attracted widespread attention during the Covid-19 pandemic after he was arrested for violating public health orders. After a lengthy legal battle, he was acquitted. On stage, Scott told the crowd the push for independence would be a “wake-up call” for the rest of the country and reflected a fight against what many in the movement see as an entrenched political elite – a fight that needed to happen “come hell or high water”. After initial efforts to bring a referendum question on independence were derailed by First Nations groups, Albertans will now be voting on the question of whether Alberta should remain part of Canada or whether the provincial government should begin the legal process to hold a second, binding referendum on separation. With just days to go, the foot soldiers and the faithful of the independence movement have begun their final pitches for what they envision will one day be a wealthy, “anti-woke” nation – one unshackled from the control of the federal government, or even a vassal of the United States. The conference, which was organised by the WeUnify movement, brought together Alberta separatists, veterans of the pandemic-era “freedom movement” and conservatives united by a distrust of established institutions. Speakers reserved their harshest words for Justin Trudeau, who, despite resigning as prime minister more than a year ago, remains a bugbear for the separatist movement. Sheane Meikle, a volunteer with Let’s Talk Alberta, said the independence movement was gaining support. “We’re getting far fewer Trudeau salutes when we wave flags on the side of the road,” he said – a reference to the raised middle finger. Meikle, 58, has spent months travelling the province with Scott, adding more than 32,000 miles to his van as part of a quest to convince sceptical Albertans of the benefits of separation. The referendum had been “longtime coming” for the movement, he said. “Even if the results don’t go our way, it doesn’t mean we’re done. This is a movement now that’s sustained.” Not everyone agreed the conference was the best idea, though. Keith Wilson, one of the principal intellectual and legal architects of Alberta’s modern separatist movement, admitted in an interview that he regretted participating. “It’s just an echo chamber in there – I’m not changing any minds that are already made up for separatism. I shouldn’t be here. I should be out campaigning.” In September Wilson brought together 45 unnamed contributors to publish the Alberta Transition Plan, a 214-page blueprint for turning Alberta from a province into an independent country. “We have everything. Alberta is an economic powerhouse. But we’re also on the ground with our face in our dirt and our arms tied behind our backs because of Ottawa,” he said, referring to a longstanding belief that the federal government continues to exert unfair influence over the oil-rich province. “That’s how many Albertans feel, and that’s why they want change.” His blueprint, however, has drawn criticism for leaving major questions about the costs and practicalities of independence unresolved. The University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy recently estimated that the costs associated with separation could cost Alberta between C$50bn and C$170bn over its first five years and warned substantial annual deficits were possible. Nor have the secessionists built the political machinery that could bring it about. The campaign has no official leader, nor an organised movement under the guise of a political party. No elected officials have campaigned for independence. Unlike Quebec, where independence parties have run explicitly on the idea and won, Alberta has only ever elected a separatist candidate once, and he lost his seat months later. In previous elections, separatist parties have won an average popular vote of 1%. In the absence of coherent leadership, prominent figures have been thrust into the limelight, often with chaotic results. Jeff Rath, a bombastic lawyer linked to the Alberta Prosperity Project, is embroiled in legal battles over allegations that millions of dollars in disputed First Nations trust funds were mishandled. Mitch Sylvestre, head of the Alberta Prosperity Project and owner of a sporting goods store, told the Toronto Star he fears King Charles will have him assassinated. David Parker, a longtime rightwing political organizer, was at the centre of a voter-data scandal that exposed the personal information of nearly 3 million Albertans and remains under investigation. But for Meikle and others, the movement is “grassroots” and would only be damaged by the presence of elected officials. “We just need our politicians to get out of the way and stop being so biased towards this movement,” he said. “They shouldn’t be using taxpayer money to campaign against us.” For many here, the coronavirus pandemic remains an animating force. Some of the panellists and speakers were prominent lawyers who challenged and in some cases won cases against the government for overreach in shutdown laws. It was the pandemic – and the political atmosphere that followed it – that got Betty Field, a retiree who worked in the oil sector, interested in the independence movement. Her husband, Gord Pick, chimed in that even supporters of federalism should vote against unity “to put a little fear of God into Ottawa”. But the lack of a leader has led to divergence over messaging and strategy. In early October, the Globe and Mail reported on ties between the Alberta separatists movement and Republican operatives, and meetings between those unelected Albertans and White House staff. Among items allegedly discussed were oil revenues that could be directed to the US in exchange for assistance establishing a new country, as well as Alberta’s fresh water resources. “We wouldn’t want to be part of the US,” said Pick. “Why trade one overlord in Ottawa for another in Washington?” Outside, fresh off their weekly dinner of liver and onions – “just the best in Calgary, hands down!” – friends Vera Patten and Lisette Bourget stand in the waning sun, smoking a cigarette. When a conference attender offers to hold the door for them, Patten says politely: “Oh we’re not with you.” “I hope they lose,” she adds after a small crowd, also out for a smoke, returns back inside. “It’s just disgusting. I can’t believe how they’re trying to break up this country.” A veteran of the oil industry, Patten has lived in Calgary for decades and says only damage can come from separation. “This needs to stop, and I’m hopeful that after the vote – that they lose.” Wilson said the movement had other plans. “The separatist movement in Alberta started before my parents were born – and they’re dead,” he said. “Because if you’re a separatist, you see a better opportunity for your friends, neighbours and your grandkids. And you never give up on that. Even if the vote goes poorly, it will not end. In the same way that winters won’t end and springs won’t end, this movement won’t end either. It’s here to stay.”