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Western leaders at G20 say US peace plan for Ukraine ‘will require work’

Western leaders have said the US peace plan for ending the war in Ukraine “will require additional work” at the G20 summit in Johannesburg, which Trump boycotted. The draft plan, which was leaked earlier this week, endorsed some of Russia’s demands, such as handing over areas of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, limiting its military, and relinquishing its ambitions to join Nato. Washington has given Kyiv a deadline of Thursday to respond. European leaders met on the sidelines of the summit to discuss their response to the plan. In a joint statement they said the draft “includes important elements that will be essential for a just and lasting peace,” but it is “a basis which will require additional work”. They were clear that “borders must not be changed by force.” They added that any elements relating to the EU and Nato would need their agreement, and that they “are ready to engage in order to ensure that a future peace is sustainable”. The statement was signed by the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, Finland, Norway, and of the EU, as well as the prime ministers of Canada and Japan. Ukraine and the US will meet in Switzerland in the coming days to discuss Washington’s plan, a Ukrainian official wrote on social media. Speaking to reporters at the summit in Johannesburg, British prime minister Keir Starmer said the leaders were concerned about the US proposals to cap Ukraine’s military “because it’s fundamental that Ukraine has to be able to defend itself if there’s a ceasefire”. He described the Ukraine meeting on the sidelines of the summit as being between “mainly allies from the coalition of the willing,” and repeated that “the consensus was that there are elements in the 28-point plan which are essential to lasting peace, but it requires additional work, and we are going to engage on that.” Starmer added that he expected to talk to the US president “in the coming days”, though the main focus would be on Sunday’s talks in Geneva, where he said “senior US personnel, European NSAs (security advisers), including the UK NSA, and obviously Ukrainians [will be] there to work further on the draft.” More broadly, French president Emmanuel Macron called into question the efficacy of the G20, saying that the group of the world’s biggest economies is “at risk” because of its inability to find common ground and resolve major crises. “The G20 may be coming to the end of a cycle,” warned the French leader. “We are living in a moment of geopolitics in which we are struggling to resolve major crises together around this table, including with members who are not present today.” Washington boycotted the gathering of world leaders in South Africa due to a range of issues, including the widely discredited claim that the host country’s white minority are the victims of large-scale killings. The South African government has strenuously denied these allegations. Macron said the group of 19 countries was struggling to find consensus on issues such as humanitarian law and sovereignty. He pointed specifically to the US unilateral peace plan, and reiterated that “there can be no peace in Ukraine without Ukrainians, without respect for their sovereignty”. Macron said world leaders needed to recognise that “the G20 is at risk if we do not collectively re-engage around a few priorities”. He added: “We must absolutely demonstrate that we have concrete actions to re-engage this forum and provide responses for our economies collectively around this table.” Starmer agreed, saying the “road ahead is tough,” but that “we need to find ways to play a constructive role again today in the face of the world challenges”. Although peace in Ukraine was the main focus, the G20 leaders also called for peace in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the occupied Palestinian territory. There were concerns ahead of the summit that Trump’s absence, along with several other leaders including from Russia and China, would risk undermining the credibility of the G20 meeting, the first to take place on the African continent. But the summit’s host, president Cyril Ramaphosa, argued the group remained crucial for international cooperation. “The G20 underscores the value of the relevance of multilateralism. It recognises that the challenges that we face can only be resolved through cooperation, collaboration and partnership,” he said. The US will assume the G20 presidency in 2026, followed by the UK, which will host the global gathering in 2027.

US plan for Ukraine needs ‘additional work’, say Kyiv’s allies at G20 summit – as it happened

The unilateral US plan to end the war in Ukraine “is a basis which will require additional work”, western leaders gathered in South Africa for a G20 summit said on Saturday. The leaders of key European countries as well as Canada and Japan said in a joint statement: “We are clear on the principle that borders must not be changed by force. We are also concerned by the proposed limitations on Ukraine’s armed forces, which would leave Ukraine vulnerable to future attack.” Ukraine and the US are launching talks in Switzerland on ways to end the war, a Ukrainian negotiator said on Saturday, after Washington sent Kyiv a plan which accepts some of Moscow’s demands. “In the coming days in Switzerland we are launching consultations between senior officials of Ukraine and the United States on the possible parameters of a future peace agreement,” the secretary of Ukraine’s Security Council, Rustem Umerov, who is on Ukraine’s negotiating team, wrote on social media. US officials have told Nato allies they expect to push president Volodymyr Zelenskyy into agreeing to a peace deal in the coming days, under the threat that if Kyiv does not sign, it will face a much worse deal in future. The US army secretary Dan Driscoll briefed ambassadors from Nato nations at a meeting in Kyiv late on Friday, after talks with Zelenskyy and taking a phone call from the White House. “No deal is perfect, but it must be done sooner rather than later,” he told them, according to one person who was present. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday that real peace is always based on guaranteed security and justice. “Our representatives know how to protect Ukraine’s national interests and what exactly is needed to prevent Russia from carrying out a third invasion, another blow to Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said in an evening address where he announced talks with Ukraine’s partners on steps to end the war, reports Reuters. Zelenskyy has said it is “important” that “all partners … are fully informed about the situation” following a phone call with Poland’s Donald Tusk. The call took place earlier today and the pair discussed the US-Russia ‘peace deal’. German chancellor Friedrich Merz said he had made clear to US president Donald Trump that Europe needs to be a part of any process to end the war in Ukraine in a long phone call on Friday evening. “If Ukraine loses this war and possibly collapses, it will have an impact on European politics as a whole, on the entire European continent. And that is why we are so committed to this issue,” Merz said after the G20 summit in Johannesburg. Italy will send an official to join Ukraine talks in Geneva on Sunday with national security advisors from the E3 countries and the European Union, as well as US and Ukrainian officials, diplomatic sources said. The sources said Fabrizio Saggio would represent Italy. Ukraine said it had received 31 civilians on Saturday who had been freed from jail in Belarus. “Women and men detained in Belarus and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment ranging from two to 11 years are returning to Ukraine,” Kyiv’s prisoner exchange coordination committee said on the Telegram messaging app. The G20 group of major world economies is “at risk” as it struggles to tackle international crises, French president Emmanuel Macron told a summit boycotted by the United States on Saturday. Macron was among two dozen world leaders at South Africa’s G20 summit marked by the absence of President Donald Trump, who is at loggerheads with South Africa on a range of issues. EU leaders will meet on Monday during an EU-Africa summit in Luanda to discuss a US-drafted peace proposal for Ukraine, European Council president Antonio Costa said on Saturday. “The US draft of the 28-point plan includes important elements that will be essential for a just and lasting peace,” Costa said in a post on X. Any peace plan for Ukraine must be accepted in Kyiv, Polish president Karol Nawrocki said, after the US signalled to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Ukraine must accept a US-drafted framework to end its conflict with Russia. Washington’s 28-point plan calls on Ukraine to cede territory, accept limits on its military and renounce ambitions to join Nato. It also contains some proposals Moscow may object to and requires its forces to pull back from some areas they have captured, according to a draft seen by Reuters. UK prime minister Keir Starmer will not visit Washington next week, it is understood, amid reports that European leaders are considering visiting Donald Trump to discuss his Ukraine peace plan, reports the PA news agency. France’s Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s Friedrich Merz and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni are among the leaders who are considering a trip, Sky News reported citing European diplomatic sources. But it is understood the UK was not involved in such discussions. The Russian defence ministry said on Saturday that its forces had captured two villages in eastern Ukraine. It said Russian forces had taken control of the village of Zvanivka in Ukraine’s Donetsk region as well as the settlement of Nove Zaporizhzhia in the Zaporizhizhia region. A Ukrainian drone attack targeted energy facilities in Russia’s Samara region, killing two people in the southern city of Syzran, the region’s governor said on Saturday. The attack was repelled by air defence forces, Vyacheslav Fedorishchev wrote on Russia’s state-backed Max messenger app, reports Reuters.

Brazilian police arrest Bolsonaro amid suspicions he was about to flee

Brazil’s former far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, has been arrested at his villa in the capital, Brasília, amid suspicions he was poised to abscond to a foreign embassy to avoid going to prison for masterminding a military coup. In a brief statement, federal police confirmed officers had executed a preventive arrest warrant at the request of the supreme court. The 70-year-old politician was taken to a federal police base, 7 miles from the presidential palace he occupied from 2019 until 2022, when he lost the election and tried to launch a military coup. The arrest of Bolsonaro, who had been living under house arrest since August, was ordered by the supreme court justice, Alexandre de Moraes, as a result of fears the former president might make a run for one of Brasília’s many diplomatic compounds to avoid punishment for the failed power grab. In September, Bolsonaro was sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison for masterminding a coup to stop the 2022 election winner, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, taking office. However, the court has yet to order Bolsonaro’s imprisonment for those crimes while a series of legal procedures and appeals play out. Amid growing speculation that Bolsonaro would be imprisoned in the coming days, supporters had been planning to hold a “vigil” on Saturday night outside the luxury condominium where their leader has been living under house arrest. The protest had been called by Bolsonaro’s senator son, Flávio Bolsonaro, in a social media video: “Are you going to fight for your country or are you going to watch everything on your mobile phone while sitting at home on your sofa?” He invited Bolsonaristas to “come and fight with us”. In his ruling ordering Bolsonaro’s arrest on Saturday morning, Moraes said it was possible the vigil could be used as a diversion to help the former president escape to a foreign embassy. Adding to those suspicions, Moraes said Bolsonaro’s electronic ankle monitor had been tampered with at 12.08am on Saturday. That suggested “the convict had planned to break the ankle monitor in order to ensure the success of his escape, aided by the confusion caused by the protest called by his son”. Moraes noted how Bolsonaro, who counts the US president, Donald Trump, among his international allies, lived about 15 minutes from the US embassy. In August, Bolsonaro was accused of seeking asylum in Argentina, where another rightwing ally, Javier Milei, holds power. In 2024, Bolsonaro mysteriously spent two nights inside the embassy of Hungary. Speculation that Bolsonaro’s arrest was imminent had reached fever pitch in recent days with allies voicing outrage at the prospect of the former president being sent to a maximum security prison in Brasilía called Papuda. Lula supporters have voiced satisfaction that the ex-president appeared jail-bound. “The message to Brazil, and to the world, is that crime doesn’t pay,” said Reimont Otoni, a Workers’ party (PT) congressman, noting how Bolsonaro’s plot included a conspiracy to assassinate Lula. Bolsonaro’s evangelical wife, Michelle Bolsonaro, responded to her husband’s arrest by posting an excerpt from Psalm 121 on social media. “The Lord will keep you from all harm – he will watch over your life; the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore,” it said. Congressman Sóstenes Cavalcante, one of Bolsonaro’s closest allies, called the arrest “the biggest [act of] political persecution in Brazilian history”. Bolsonaro’s lawyers voiced “profound perplexity” at their client’s detention in a sparsely decorated 12 sq-metre police bedroom and vowed to appeal against a decision they claimed would put the former president’s life at risk, given his “delicate” health. Talíria Petrone, a leftwing congresswoman from Rio, captured the joy among progressives, as Bolsonaro’s detractors were filmed opening bottles of sparkling wine and setting off fireworks outside the federal police HQ. “Today the alarm clock sounded different: it was the news of Bolsonaro’s arrest illuminating the morning,” she tweeted, adding: “Brazil smiles. A wonderful day.” Petra Costa, a film-maker and the director of documentaries about Bolsonaro’s attacks on Brazilian democracy, was also celebrating. “Brazil just succeeded where America failed. Bringing a former president who assaulted democracy to justice,” she wrote on Facebook.

‘The French people want to save us’: help pours in for glassmaker Duralex

Drop a Duralex glass and it will most likely bounce, not break. The French company itself has tumbled several times in the past two decades and always bounced back, but never quite as spectacularly as when, earlier this month, it asked the public for money. An appeal for €5m (£4.4m) of emergency funding to secure the immediate future of the glassworks took just five hours and 40 minutes to reach its target. Within 48 hours, the total amount pledged had topped €19m. François Marciano, 59, the director general of Duralex, said the response had astonished everyone at the company. “We thought it would take five or six weeks to raise the €5m. When it reached nearly €20m we had to say stop. Enough,” he said. As a staff cooperative, €5m is the maximum Duralex can accept in public investment under financial rules. Beloved French brand Mention Duralex to any French person and they will be transported back to childhood and a school canteen. The brand evokes a mix of nostalgia and pride and is a symbol of French patriotism and industrial savoir faire. “We’re like Proust’s madeleines,” Marciano said. “The French people want to save us. They are fed up with factories closing and the country’s industries declining.” At the Duralex factory on an industrial estate in La Chapelle-Saint-Mesmin on the banks of the Loire just outside Orléans, Marciano says he and his colleagues are “floating on a cloud” after the appeal. Eighteen months ago, Marciano oversaw a staff buyout of the company, which had been placed in receivership for the fourth time in 20 years. Today, 180 of the 243 employees are “associates” in the company. Suliman El Moussaoui, 44, a union representative at the factory where he has worked for 18 years, said the appeal had prompted “a tsunami of orders, so many that we’re struggling to keep up. Every time the company is mentioned on the television or radio we have more orders. It’s been amazing.” Inside the factory, a simple but magical alchemy takes place. A mix of sand, soda ash and limestone, the exact proportions of which are a closely guarded secret, is heated in a vast overhead oven to 1,400C. Glowing globs of molten glass drop into iron casts that are blasted with a flame of gas. The red-hot glass is instantly pounded into shape, sprung from the mould, snatched by metal pincers and placed on a conveyor belt. The process has changed little since Duralex – which is said to take its name from the Latin expression Dura lex, sed lex, meaning “the law is harsh, but it is the law” – opened in 1945. When the Guardian visited, the production line was turning out small clear glasses in the Provence range. A worker brandishing tongs lifted a glass to the light to inspect it for faults. During a production run, more than a dozen samples of whatever is being made – glasses, plates, bowls – will be randomly removed and subjected to stress tests. In the quality control room, they will be heated to 150C then plunged into cold water to see if they resist a thermic shock, and dropped from the height of a kitchen counter on to a metal sheet to see if they shatter. They will be tested for stackability and then weighed and the glass thickness measured. If they pass, they are thrown in a bin and the production line is given a thumbs up. If they fail, everything stops and the machines are recalibrated. ‘The ultimate drinking vessel’ It is not known who invented the company’s trademark Picardie glass, the tumbler used in school canteens with a thick curved rim and semi-fluted shape that first appeared in 1954. The British design guru Patrick Taylor has ranked the Picardie alongside Levi’s jeans and the Swiss Army knife as an icon of modern design. Taylor describes it as: “An object whose form gives the impression it was discovered rather than designed. It is the ultimate drinking vessel created by man, and of its type cannot be improved.” Duralex says its glass is microwave, freezer and dishwasher-safe and will not turn cloudy or lose its colour, which is in the glass rather than on it. When they do break, Duralex glasses shatter into small pieces rather than shards, reducing the injury risk. Joël Cardon, 59, who has worked at the factory for 35 years, said the soaring cost of gas and electricity were the firm’s largest and most worrying expense. On his screen, the oven containing the liquid glass showed a temperature of 1,440C. It can never be allowed to cool or the glass will solidify. Another screen showed the factory was using 360 cubic metres of gas an hour. According to the regulator Ofgem, the average UK house uses 97.3 cubic metres of gas a year. Last weekend, potential investors were asked to come good on their promises on a first come, first served basis. They will be issued with securities that pay 8% interest over seven years but give no company voting rights. The maximum investment was set at €1,000. “We want to involve as many people as possible but with almost €20m in pledges obviously some people will be disappointed,” Marciano said. Since the company became a staff cooperative, turnover has increased by 22% and Marciano said he hoped Duralex would be breaking even by 2027. The €5m raised will be used to modernise the factory and develop new products. These include a partnership with the Élysée presidential palace shop to sell a set of three of its Gigogne glasses in red, white and blue, marked RF for République Française. Duralex plans to commission moulds to make “pint” glasses with a measure line for British pubs and bars and the US, both regions identified by the company as untapped markets. “Selling abroad is more difficult because there isn’t the same nostalgia for Duralex as there is in France,” said Vincent Vallin, the head of strategy and development. “Interest in the company is high and this is positive, but now we have to focus on increasing sales.”

US tells Nato if Zelenskyy does not sign peace deal Ukraine will face worse in future

US officials have told Nato allies they expect to push president Volodymyr Zelenskyy into agreeing to a peace deal in the coming days, under the threat that if Kyiv does not sign, it will face a much worse deal in future. The US army secretary, Dan Driscoll, briefed ambassadors from Nato nations at a meeting in Kyiv late on Friday, after talks with Zelenskyy and taking a phone call from the White House. “No deal is perfect, but it must be done sooner rather than later,” he told them, according to one person who was present. The mood in the room was sombre, with several European ambassadors questioning the content of the deal and the way in which the US had conducted the negotiations with Russia without keeping allies informed. “It was a nightmare meeting. It was the ‘you have no cards’ argument again,” said the source, referring to Trump’s claim that Zelenskyy had no cards to play, during a contentious White House meeting back in February. The deal now on offer contains a number of provisions that are likely to be unacceptable to Kyiv, including the need to give up territory Russia has occupied, as well as surrendering further territory Kyiv still controls. It also suggests there would be an amnesty for all war crimes committed during the conflict. On Friday, Zelenskyy gave a video address to the country saying it was “one of the most difficult moments of our history”. Ukraine faced a choice, he said: “losing our dignity or losing a key ally.” Driscoll, a close friend of the US vice-president, JD Vance, who has only recently been put on the Ukraine portfolio, declined to go into detail about whether the deal on the table matched a 28-point plan that had been published in the press. “Some things matter, some are window dressing – and we most focused on the things that matter,” he said, according to the source. The announcement of the US plans earlier this week blindsided other Ukraine allies, who had been kept in the dark over the content and format of the plan. There is concern in Europe that Russia has had too much say in negotiating a draft agreement, which is being presented to the Ukrainians as a done deal. Driscoll defended this, saying it kept the process more manageable. “President Trump wants peace now. The more cooks in the kitchen, the harder it is to handle,” he said, according to the source present. Julie Davis, the US chargée d’affaires in Kyiv, was also present at the meeting and told the other diplomats that although the terms of the deal were punishing for Ukraine, it had little choice but to accept or face worse in future. “The deal does not get better from here, it gets worse,” she said. Trump is keen for Zelenskyy to agree to the deal by Thanksgiving, which is on Thursday. Earlier this week, Davis told reporters Trump was pursuing an “aggressive timeline” to get the deal agreed. “We have witnessed an absolutely remarkable pace of diplomatic activity,” she said, speaking on the sidelines of a reception for Driscoll and his US army delegation, attended by senior Ukrainian military figures, at the ambassador’s residence in Kyiv. She said the diplomacy was the “most ambitious” she had seen in her foreign service career. Asked why Kyiv should be forced to give up territory in the east that Russian troops have been unable to capture for 11 years, a US official said the deal “was beneficial to Ukraine”. They said they envisaged Trump and Zelenskyy sitting down together and signing a document “for peace”. The plan was reportedly drafted by Trump aide Steve Witkoff and Kremlin adviser Kirill Dmitriev, a relationship that has emerged as a key back channel between Washington and Moscow. Driscoll is expected to head to Russia soon to discuss the plan. On Friday, Vladimir Putin said Moscow had received a copy of the plan. “I believe that it can be used as the basis for a final peaceful settlement,” he told senior security officials.

Greek secondary school teachers to be trained in using AI in classroom

Secondary school teachers in Greece are set to go through an intensive course in using artificial intelligence tools as the country assumes a frontline role in incorporating AI into its education system. This week, staff in 20 schools will be trained in a specialised version of ChatGPT, custom-made for academic institutions, under a new agreement between the centre-right government and OpenAI. “We have to accept that AI does not exist in a parallel universe. It is here,” the education minister, Sofia Zacharaki, said ahead of the pilot programme launch. The initiative, which is to be expanded nationally in January, makes Greece one of the first countries to pioneer the use of generative AI in the classroom. Workshops will initially focus on teachers mastering the new technology to assist lesson planning, research and personalised tuition, before ChatGPT Edu is gradually integrated into schools. Next spring, when older secondary school students are allowed to use the tool, access will be tightly monitored, officials say. Greece follows Estonia in its embrace of the technology. Prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s pro-business government has ambitions for Greece to become a technological hub, with Athens hosting one of Europe’s first AI factories. Although Mitsotakis has warned of “significant social unrest” if the AI revolution is seen only to enrich tech companies, his administration is among the first to devise a national strategy to prepare Greeks “for the developments that all kinds of applications of this technology will bring”. In schools where the majority of pupils already use apps such as ChatGPT, the government has been guided by the belief that “if you can’t beat the bot, befriend the bot.” But among some Greeks the response has been less enthusiastic. Secondary school pupils, citing the pressures of an education system overly concentrated on exams, express fears of being “outsmarted and controlled” by AI if it is allowed to develop unrestricted. “It terrifies me,” said 17-year-old Aristidis Tolos, attending a demonstration in central Athens, held in part to protest against the direction of education reforms. “They’re asking so much of us, and now this. AI doesn’t have a soul, it’s a machine.” OpenAI’s chief global affairs officer, Chris Lehane, says Greece’s commitment to test-run the chatbot amounts to a “new educational chapter” for the country. Under the deal, the US company has pledged to oversee that “best practices for safe, effective classroom use” are applied. Sceptics are concerned that Greece is becoming a laboratory for a technology whose inherent risks include the erosion of critical and creative thinking. In the downtown offices of the federation of secondary school teachers, Olme, the prospect of its introduction has ignited consternation. “At our recent congress it was the main issue of discussion, with many voicing disquiet,” said top official Dimitris Aktypis, adding that there is concern about whether these changes could ultimately lead to “teacherless” classes. Educators also worry the new technology will exacerbate screen addiction in a country that will soon become the first in Europe to block social media access for children under 15. “After 40 years of teaching, I can honestly say that screens have destroyed children,” said Dimitris Panayiotokopoulos, who retired as a primary school headteacher this year. “AI is not a panacea. It poses a huge threat to critical thinking if kids are spoon-fed answers.” The government, he said, should instead focus on improving facilities in a nation where the education sector is allotted less than 5% of the budget, despite demands for increases going back decades. “In the winter you see kids shivering in classrooms because we are only allowed to put the heating on for a single hour,” said Panayiotokopoulos. “They talk about the digital age, but often basic things like electricity and plugs don’t work. It’s an atrocious situation that needs to be urgently tackled.” Olme represents 85,000 teachers, most of them permanent staff, who speak of an ingrained culture in classrooms of rote-learning. “We shouldn’t be technophobic. AI, after all, can help educators be more effective,” said Panos Karagiorgos, a secondary school physics teacher. “But it’s problematic when AI is used in a system whose sole aim is to produce pupils who can pass exams. There’s no interest in schools producing well-rounded kids, which in itself stifles creativity.” Until now, AI has been exclusively used in private schools in Greece. Athens College, the alma mater of several Greek leaders, including Mitsotakis, was among the first to use AI to aid course design and instruction. “I don’t think Greece should miss this passing train,” said Alexis Phylactopoulos, chair of the school’s board of directors, adding that he wholeheartedly supported AI’s integration into the national curriculum if critical thinking and creativity was safeguarded. “There’s no easy answers with AI. It has to be used as a tool in education and with a lot of guardrails.”

Tense calm in far north as Israel prepares to ‘finish the job’ against Hezbollah

Noam Erlich looks out over what was his beer garden. Beyond the disordered chairs and tables and the sign instructing neighbours and friends to “pay whatever you like”, the ridge falls away to fields, then a fence, then hills littered with the skeletal ruins of shattered Lebanese villages. The 44-year-old brewer is standing in front of the house his grandfather built when the Manara kibbutz was founded in the 1940s in the very far north of Israel. The building was hit repeatedly by missiles fired by Hezbollah during the conflict, which ended a year ago, and will now almost certainly be demolished, along with most of the neighbouring houses. “Wars destroy things, but bring opportunities too,” Erlich said. There is a bipartisan consensus in Israel this weekend that a fresh military offensive to “finish the job” of destroying Hezbollah’s military capabilities is imminent. The left-leaning Haaretz newspaper told readers last week that the “immediate flash point” was “now in Lebanon, not Gaza”, while Amit Segal, a journalist close to the ruling coalition government of the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said that “a dramatic escalation against Hezbollah” was “more likely than not”. On the border, there is a tense calm. Israel’s air defence systems protected local communities from most of the rocket barrages launched by Hezbollah in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza, but 47 civilians in Israel and 83 Israeli soldiers died, with hundreds more wounded, and tens of thousands displaced. Israel’s major offensive in autumn last year delivered a series of devastating blows to Hezbollah but also killed an estimated 3,800 people in Lebanon, including many civilians, and forced 1.2 million from their homes. Damage was estimated at $8.5bn (£6.5bn). Erlich, like many along the Israeli side of the border, is sanguine about the future. Though he has lost his home and the microbrewery that provided his income when forced to evacuate Manara, he switched production to large commercial breweries in central Israel and now sells ten times more. “The war was a blessing in disguise,” he said. Most of those Israelis who evacuated in the first days of the war have now returned to border communities, or others are taking their place. Metula, the northernmost town in Israel, was turned into an army base during the war and 80% of its houses were damaged by missiles launched by Hezbollah from positions inside Lebanon, but just hundreds of metres away. The pre-war population was 1,670. It is now 900. In the war, “some won, some lost,” said David Azoulay, Metula’s mayor. The town’s 130-year-old synagogue is being reconstructed, the road repaved and the town hall’s roof replaced. “We didn’t have funds to fix many of the buildings that needed work before the war … Now we are going to make the whole of this town way better than it was … We can build up luxury facilities, cultural opportunities, better health and childcare, build a new neighbourhood,” said Azoulay. But it is clear that whatever the new investment in some communities along Israel’s northern border, there are some former residents who will not come back. Those with young families have children in school elsewhere in Israel, others have found new jobs, or simply enjoy the convenience and attractions of big cities such as Tel Aviv, almost 125 miles (200 kilometres) away. Students who used to rent cheaply in Metula have stayed away too, but there has been a new influx: 40 families of nationalist and religious Israelis who see the reconstruction of Metula as a worthy cause. “Metula will stay secular [but] we can’t tell them not to come,” said Azulai. “They are Zionists and Jews like us. Personally, I have no problem with them.” The social consequences of the conflict are obvious in Kiryat Shmona, the “capital city” of the north, which is still missing around a quarter of its pre-war population. In a small mall on the northern outskirts, a third of shops and restaurants remain closed, and those that have reopened struggle. “I have to work my ass off to make ends meet,” said Sergio Helman, who kept serving humus and salad in his Blue Bus cafe throughout the war, despite rocket attacks. But Helman’s children, sent away during the conflict, have got used to life elsewhere in Israel and are in no hurry to return. “Things are slowly getting back to normal but the war created inner conflicts within communities here. There are kids who went to three schools in two years,” said Helman. Residents of Kiryat Shmona have long complained of being economically disadvantaged and forgotten by national politicians. “This city is important strategically for Israel. It anchors all our defences across the north … but it’s a ghost town. If people are going to come back we need to give them confidence that we can stop the enemy reaching our children’s beds,” said Yamit Malul Yanai, a local commentator and lawyer. Like many along Israel’s northern border, Malul Yanai frequently refers to the surprise Hamas raid into Israel in October 2023 which killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 250 hostage, triggering the war in Gaza. “We need a buffer zone to push the enemy back from our towns, but we are making the same mistakes all over again,” she said. From Metula, the de facto border between Israel and Lebanon runs south and then west along across forested ridges to the Mediterranean. Known as the “blue line”, it has not been formally recognised internationally. Since the ceasefire, Israeli forces have held five hill-top bases between up to a mile and a half inside Lebanon, and are building sections of high walls. The United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon (Unifil) has said at least one is within Lebanese territory, a charge denied by Israel. At Shtula, another Israeli border community evacuated during the war, residents have also been slow to return. A row of damaged homes faces Lebanon, many as yet unrepaired. The Israeli military has built a high concrete barrier just to the north and positioned tanks. “We are fortifying the border … We want a barrier and the military between civilians and the enemy. We also have cameras, weapons systems, soldiers monitoring,” said a senior Israeli officer based close to the border. “We have learned the lessons of Gaza. We understand that the wall is part of the system, not the [whole] system, which was the mistake in Gaza.” From an outpost near Shtula, one of the new Israeli bases inside Lebanon is clearly visible, beyond slopes cleared of forest by the military during its invasion last year. Across a swath of the dry brown hills lies the scattered rubble of destroyed houses in now-deserted villages, starkly white against under the clear blue winter sky. “As long as [the] Lebanese army is not there, then we will have to be there,” the officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said. Israel has accused Hezbollah of trying to rearm since a US-backed ceasefire last year, and has launched more than 1,000 attacks in Lebanon since the 2024 ceasefire, killing hundreds of people. Fresh Israeli airstrikes have hit targets across southern Lebanon in recent days. Hezbollah says it has complied with ceasefire requirements for it to withdraw from the border region near Israel, and for the Lebanese army to deploy there. Hezbollah’s leader, Naim Qassem, has refrained so far from ordering the movement’s tens of thousands of fighters to launch any military response to the Israeli strikes. Some analysts say talk of a fresh Israeli offensive may be designed to increase pressure on the Lebanese army to move more aggressively to disarm Hezbollah, but suggest it could also be intended to reinforce support for Israel’s rightwing ruling coalition. Israeli military officials said they were “committed to the ceasefire agreement, but also to Israel’s security”. Azoulay is unconcerned by the prospect of a new attack by Hezbollah. “We will deal with it if it happens,” he said. “All the [Lebanese Shia] villages around us, they are destroyed and basically uninhabitable. If you ask what is our victory, it is that we have been rebuilding for a year and they haven’t put a single pipe back in the ground.”

New Caledonia activist says France is impeding travel home after prison release

A pro-independence leader from the French overseas territory of New Caledonia has accused the French government of “deliberately dragging out” his passport application, preventing him from flying home after his release from prison. Christian Tein, an Indigenous Kanak leader, was arrested in New Caledonia in June 2024 over allegations that he had instigated the deadly pro-independence protests that had taken place on the island a month earlier. He was charged with various offences, including complicity in attempted murder and organised theft with a weapon, all of which he denied. Tein was then flown to France, 10,600 miles away, on a private chartered plane and incarcerated until June of this year. In October, he was cleared to return home by a Paris appeals court after most of the charges against him were dropped. However, Tein says he is unable to return because French authorities have not re-issued him with a passport. “It’s been a while since I submitted my passport application,” Tein said in an interview in Montpellier. “But we can see that [the French government] are deliberately dragging it out.” “A year in solitary confinement, it was very, very hard,” Tein said of his stint in prison. “Psychologically, you never come out of this kind of situation unscathed,” added Tein, who is now living in Alsace in north-east France. He remains under formal investigation for conspiracy and organised robbery, both of which he denies. New Caledonia, also known by its Indigenous name, Kanaky, is a group of islands in the south-west Pacific Ocean about 750 miles east of Australia. Ruled from Paris since 1853, it is one of several overseas territories that remain an integral part of France. In May last year, unrest and rioting erupted after Emmanuel Macron’s attempt to change voting laws to allow thousands of mostly white French residents who had lived on the islands for 10 or more years to vote. Kanaks – who make up about 41% of the population – said the proposal would permanently derail any hope for independence. Paris said the measure was needed to improve democracy. Fourteen people – most of them Kanak – were killed in the worst violence on the islands since the pro-independence protests of the 1980s. The French president responded by declaring a state of emergency, temporarily shutting down the borders and flying in thousands of military police. The prison in the capital, Nouméa, was partly burned down, so dozens of incarcerated Kanaks were transferred with little or no notice to the mainland. At the time, Tein was the leader of the Field Action Coordination Cell, the pro-independence movement which had led calls for peaceful protests against the electoral law change. His arrest, as well as those of six other Kanak activists, caused protests to flare up again. “Many in New Caledonia saw it as a ‘deportation’, like that of so many others in colonial history,” said Johann Bihr, of the International Prison Observatory. Magistrates who questioned Tein concluded there was no proof that he was preparing an armed uprising against the New Caledonian government – the same government Tein was employed by and was forced to resign from because of his imprisonment. “We have forgotten the values of human rights, the values that, when we charge someone, it’s based on evidence, on charges that are well-founded, but they did everything they could to isolate me from my country,” Tein said. “I hope that [the French justice system] will find the ways and means to clear us of this injustice that we have suffered.” Macron’s planned voting law change was eventually scrapped and in July he announced an agreement known as the Bougival accord, which granted the territory more sovereignty but kept it under French control. It was signed by some Kanak pro-independence figures. But Tein – who was elected president of the Kanak National and Socialist Liberation Front while in prison – was not among them. “We reject Bougival, but I need to be at the table to discuss the future of the country,” Tein said, alluding to his inability to return home. Concerns have also been raised about the alleged mistreatment of other Kanak independence figures and activists. Among the six Kanak activists flown on the private chartered plane to France with Tein in June 2024 was 31-year-old Guillaume Vama, a Kanak agroforestry expert who spent a year in a French jail in Bourges. Vama said of his arrest that he initially thought he was being abducted by loyalists who wanted to remain part of France. A man armed with a machine gun ordered him to raise his hands, while another pointed a rifle at him and placed a hood over his head. “I thought my life was going to end,” he said. He added that after being told by a judge that he was being transferred to France, he was handcuffed for 96 hours and struck on the knee by gendarmes, and did not receive any treatment for the injury while in prison. “I felt completely dehumanised, treated like an animal,” Vama said of his flight to France. “To me, it was a clear message that the [French] state had no limits.” Naïma Moutchou, France’s overseas territories minister, and Gérald Darmanin, the justice minister, have been approached for comment. Urko Aiartza, a co-president of the European Association of Lawyers for Democracy & World Human Rights, said the delay to the issuing of Tein’s passport “may amount to an unlawful restriction on his right to freedom of movement”. Tein’s legal team said the same administration that rapidly issued him with a temporary passport before being ordered to prison in France was now delaying the issuing of a new passport. Until his imprisonment, Tein had never travelled to mainland France. “I always refused because I said I would come when my country was independent,” he said, laughing. Asked about his plans if he makes it back to New Caledonia, he said: “I am 57 years old and I don’t think I have the right to pass this problem on to future generations. [Independence] is our only ambition.”