Navi Pillay named winner of 2026 Nobel peace prize for efforts to promote international law - live
And that ends the presentation. Anyone’s got Pillay’s phone number? Asking for a Norwegian friend.
How do human beings rationalize genocide? NAZA provides a chilling look | Omer Bartov
Werner Best, a senior SS official and jurist who helped organize the Nazi death squads that murdered hundreds of thousands of Jews, is also known for his statement: “We must destroy the enemy without hating him.” He belonged to a younger generation of Nazi technocrats, who despised the foul-mouthed, beer-bellied, brown-shirted “old fighters” of the Nazi party in the 1920s, and believed in organizing genocide neatly and dispassionately. After the fall of the regime, Best escaped justice for the rest of his long life, dying peacefully in Germany in 1989. His chilling statement came to my mind while I was watching the film NAZA. I grew up in Tel Aviv and have visited there often in recent years. That is why the interviews with 24 Israeli soldiers and intelligence officers, which make up this documentary, felt strangely familiar. The conversations are conducted at night on rooftops, and the camera scans the cityscape, lingering on apartment windows as their inhabitants watch TV and make dinner. The landscape was intimately recognizable, and I felt a natural affinity with those people living their lives. I also recognized the way the interviewees talked – their speech patterns and choice of words. They reminded me of my son, who served more than a decade ago in the intelligence unit many of them might have belonged to. But the dispassionate, technical and calm tone of the 24 men and women, as they describe in great detail the killing of people in Gaza, who are just as human as those in the surrounding buildings, brought back other associations – with men like Best and his ilk. It is the disjuncture between the familiar and intimate, on the one hand, and the coldly efficient and murderous, on the other, that makes this film unforgettable and an important statement about the world we currently inhabit. When modern societies engage in extreme violence, they rely on two types of people: those who beat, torture and kill at close quarters, and those who plan, organize and order the killing at a safe distance from the actual gore of it all. Many people prefer to believe the brutes and the sadists are responsible, largely because they are not like “us”. But modern genocide is the product of those who belong to the second category: the technocrats, bureaucrats and cold planners of extermination, who don’t get their hands dirty. This is by no means unique to Germany or Israel. It was also the case in the Cambodian genocide, in Rwanda, in the genocide of the Armenians, in the destruction of the Herero – there were always those who provided plans, orders, legitimizations, bureacratic apparatuses and technical means, and those who cracked skulls, wielded machetes and fired bullets point blank. The latter exist in any society. But a genocide cannot occur without the former. NAZA is the Hebrew acronym for nezek agavi, or collateral damage. As is the nature of acronyms, the term NAZA distances the operatives even further from what the term stands for, which is itself a mere euphemism. One does not ask how many human beings the operator may condemn to death by targeting a suspected enemy; one does not even ask how much collateral damage may be inflicted. One simply asks, “How many NAZA?” Most of what the film tells us was already known through investigative journalism from the last few years, published in outlets like the Guardian, +972 magazine, Local Call and the New York Times. But hearing from the very people who operated this sophisticated system of surveillance and targeting provides a crucial perspective. It is a perspective that is rarely seen – intelligence personnel are chosen for their ability to keep secrets, stay out of the public eye, focus on their tasks and keep their emotions at bay. The combat warriors are always more visible. The silent men and women directing the bombs in dark, air-conditioned rooms, get little attention. But perhaps more important is the fact that these 24 men and women expose what happens when the distance between them and the horrors they inflict breaks down: as they enter the homes of those they are about to kill by hacking their phones, hearing their voices, seeing the photos they took of their loved ones – briefly seeing them as normal human beings before they blow them up. For the viewer, the moments where they grapple with the scale of the killing they took part in are the most revealing. In Gaza, the amount of approved NAZA depended on the seniority of the target, reaching hundreds of innocent civilians, according to the interviewees. Even if 20 NAZA, which became a benchmark, was applied to each of Israel’s tens of thousands of targets, “you end up with all of Gaza”, one of the soldiers concedes. “I just don’t know what to do with this understanding,” he adds, confronted with the reality of what “accomplishing the task” actually implies after having disciplined his imagination not to dwell on this reality. Another operative, when asked if he thinks Israel committed genocide in Gaza, says: “Yes. Completely.” The killing, after all, was intentional and calculated. Trying to comprehend his own actions, he professes disappointment in himself for taking part in the system. How does he explain it? He admits that at the time, his “hormones were going crazy”. He called his work on airstrikes “insanely fun”; they provided “a sense of meaning”. Was he thinking about the people in the building being bombed? “Zero. Not at all. I’d move on to the next mission.” He rejects the idea that he did not consider the victims human. “We just wouldn’t talk about those things.” “There aren’t really any Arab haters in my unit,” says another interviewee. “It’s an elitist unit, full of people from Tel Aviv.” There’s no “extreme dehumanization”, he said. These are not the sadists of the popular imagination of what genocide looks like. They are not the typical supporters of extremist ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. Many are upper-middle class graduates of the best schools who joined prestigious intelligence units, perhaps with the expectation of moving on after their army service to the hi-tech industry. But they, along with the fighter pilots, are responsible, it appears, for the vast number of civilian casualties in Gaza. What motivated them to rain down so much death and destruction? An officer ponders this question briefly: “All I can say is that we’re completing the mission. That was the mission.” The notion of killing as “fun” is crucial. Thirty years ago, Daniel Jonah Goldhagen described in his 1996 book, Hitler’s Willing Executioners, how German perpetrators enjoyed shooting people in the back of the neck and crushing babies against walls. They were the sadists. The “fun” recalled in NAZA is different – it has to do with the operatives performing at a high level, under great pressure, what they were trained to do, demonstrating their professionalism and efficiency. American drone operators sitting somewhere in the United States reportedly went through similar experiences as they dropped bombs on Afghanistan and Iraq. There are many explanations for their inability to imagine, in real time, the horrors they wreaked on fellow human beings. Hannah Arendt famously spoke about a bureaucratic banality of evil, exemplified by Adolf Eichmann’s inability, or refusal, to imagine the moral calamity of his actions. This is of course not a unique propensity among Israelis or Germans. Stanley Milgram, who conducted an experiment at Yale University on obedience to authority in the 1960s, noted the phenomenon. When people are told by a figure in a doctor’s gown – or in this case a superior officer – that this is what “the experiment requires” (in Milgram’s case, administering electric shocks to subjects who give the wrong answers) many, though not all, will do as they are told. “You must trust the system,” one man in NAZA recalls being told. During the Nuremberg Tribunal in 1945, German defendants argued that they had only been following orders. Indeed, within the system that they were part of, what they did was perfectly legal and could be richly compensated. The court, however, rejected this defense. There is such a thing as unlawful orders, it argued, and that notion has also been widely recognized, including in both the United States and Israel. It means that if an order appears blatantly contrary to ethics and morality, one is allowed to refuse it. Indeed, one must refuse it or become complicit in the crime. We should be glad that the 24 spoke out, even as they admit to having participated in the destruction of Gaza. Their testimony provides unique insight into how ordinary people get conscripted into a machinery of death. After all, in the end, even the most technical and detached form of distant killing is performed, at least for now, by human beings, who think and feel and mostly act just like the rest of us. Omer Bartov is the dean’s professor of holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University and the author, most recently, of Israel: What Went Wrong?
‘Self-imposed irrelevance’: why the EU is failing to act on growing public criticism of Israel
When the British government announced sweeping sanctions on trade with illegal Israeli settlements and condemned “ethnic cleansing” in the West Bank by state-backed “settler terrorists”, some EU diplomats hoped this dramatic shift in UK government policy towards Israel would have a galvanising effect on the rest of Europe. So far, it has not. Although France and Canada joined the UK in pledging to ban goods from illegal settlements and impose sanctions on “those who facilitate them or profit from them”, there has not yet been a wider ripple effect. A meeting of EU foreign affairs ministers on Monday is likely to showcase the bloc’s stasis in policy towards Israel – a stalemate that is at odds with rising public criticism in Europe of Israel’s government. A survey of 10 European countries, including Spain, France and Sweden, found large majorities of people had a negative opinion of Israel. Views had become more negative compared with the previous year, according to the Pew Research Center, mostly after the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran, which unleashed a new crisis in the Middle East and a global economic shock. In Poland, negative views jumped eight points to 70% of respondents, in Italy they increased by nine points to 75% and in Germany they also rose by nine points to 73%. Israel is facing ever deeper isolation in the theatre of public opinion. Five countries chose to boycott the Eurovision song contest this year over Israel’s participation, after organisers declined to exclude it over its conduct in the Gaza war and rising violence in the West Bank. Organisers have now decided that broadcasters will no longer be eligible to host the song contest if their state is involved in an armed conflict or sensitive geopolitical situation. More than 74,000 people, including at least 21,200 children, have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its war in retaliation for the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023, in which the terrorist group killed 1,209 people – including 36 children – and took 251 hostages, inflicting a nationwide trauma. Gaza remains a humanitarian catastrophe, with people facing acute shortages of water, nutritious food and medical equipment and medicines, while contending with disease, unemployment, economic collapse and the threat of death or injury. Israel’s airstrikes continue: the death toll includes 1,400 Palestinians killed since a ceasefire was declared a year ago. The EU talks on the Middle East will focus on the conflicts in Iran and Yemen, but ministers will also discuss the situation in Gaza and the West Bank in the context of elections in Israel on 27 October and the first legislative elections in Palestine in 20 years, which are expected by late November. The discussion is expected to expose familiar fault lines in the 27-member EU. One group of countries are vocal supporters of the Palestinian cause: Spain and Ireland were the first to call for a review of whether Israel’s conduct in the Gaza war was in breach of the human rights requirements of its association agreement with the EU, which covers the €68bn (£58bn) trade relationship, cooperation in research, environment and energy. A second group consistently opposes targeting Israel’s government: Germany and Austria are close allies for historical reasons, while Czechia and Italy are ideologically aligned with Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration. Among a third, larger group of countries in the middle are several, such as France and the Netherlands, that are increasingly critical of the Netanyahu government’s conduct in Gaza and its plans to build the vast E1 settlement, which threatens to critically damage the two-state solution. Martin Konečný, the director of the Brussels-based European Middle East Project, thinks the EU has a diplomatic role to play as Israel advances with the controversial E1 plan. However, he does not see any sign of action. “The EU is basically staying in its usual self-imposed irrelevance,” he said. This is not an isolated view. More than 500 former senior EU officials and diplomats issued a statement this week condemning the bloc’s failure to take action over Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank. The signatories, which include former prime ministers of France, Italy and Sweden, as well as Josep Borrell, the EU’s former chief diplomat, singled out Germany and Italy for the first time in stark, uncompromising language. “Germany and Italy continue to systematically block the adoption of any EU measures, thus becoming de facto complicit in undermining both EU values and the two-state solution,” wrote the group, which includes a few dozen senior figures from those two countries. Given their size, Germany and Italy have been crucial in preventing the EU from forging a weighted majority to impose trade sanctions and ban commerce with illegal settlements. Michael Doyle, a former EU ambassador who co-organised the statement, told the Guardian the EU was not meeting the obligations of its treaties or international law. “Unfortunately our often-proclaimed EU values are set aside when it comes to the EU’s collective response to the dire plight of Palestinians,” he said. The widespread disquiet explained “why we get so many signatures from people who don’t normally sign such calls for action”. The statement was motivated by the absence of proposals from the European Commission, the guardian of EU law that initiates legislation for the 27-member bloc. The commission has declined to table proposals to ban trade with illegal settlements. The refusal to act has exasperated numerous lawyers and trade experts, who argue the ban is necessary for the EU to comply with a landmark advisory ruling from the international court of justice in 2024 on the illegality of the settlements. It told other countries to “take steps to prevent trade or investment relations that assists in the maintenance of the illegal situation created by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory”. Ursula von der Leyen, the commission’s president and a German Christian Democrat who is not afraid to take political risks, has argued the EU cannot act when member states disagree. In her annual state of the union speech last month, she lamented: “When Europe is divided, it cannot change the course of events.” A year earlier she presented proposals to suspend preferential trade with Israel but never found sufficient support from member states. Advocates of the EU taking a stronger approach are not convinced she cannot act. Konečný said: “It is not guaranteed that the qualified majority would be reached. But once the commission tables the proposal [on banning trade with settlements], that changes the dynamic.” The blocking European governments may be lagging behind public opinion. Large majorities in Italy (88%) and Germany (83%) say they do not have confidence in Netanyahu “to do the right thing regarding world affairs”, according to the Pew Research Center’s study. Meanwhile, the question of Israel-Palestine continues to roil the left. This week the Green party of England and Wales adopted a motion equating Zionism with racism, drawing widespread criticism. The motion from a small political party in the UK was strongly condemned by the head of the Jewish Greens in England and Wales (“a very bad motion”) and the European Greens, which stressed the importance of being “absolutely unambiguous” in the fight against antisemitism. Peace campaigners think it makes their job harder. The motion “hands ammunition to those who want to paint pro-Palestinian activism as illegitimate”, wrote Yachad, an organisation that seeks to build support among British Jews for a political resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Friday briefing: Burnham passes first test as Labour heads off Green challenge
Good morning. Labour has won the Holborn and St Pancras byelection, heading off a challenge from the Greens and confirming prime minster Andy Burnham’s ability to consolidate vibes into votes. Labour candidate Sagal Abdi-Wali – who is currently leader of Camden council – won 12,292 votes while her closest rival and Green party leader, Zack Polanski, received 8,928 in a byelection that was called after former prime minister Keir Starmer resigned from his London seat last month. This was a comfortable win for Labour in a contest that also saw the Greens triple their vote share. The victory will probably be framed by Labour as another bound in the Burnham bounce, while a Greens spokesperson this morning insisted that Polanski winning 33% of the vote share to Abdi-Wali’s 45% “shows just how far we’ve come”. Some, of course, will be blaming that ill thought out Zionism motion for the loss. This morning’s newsletter takes you beyond the party spin lines with our correspondents who live and report in the constituency. But first the headlines. Five big stories Europe news | High school students in France again blockaded schools and marched through cities, in the tenth day of protests that have left hundreds injured. UK news | Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has won his legal challenge against Thames Valley police over search warrants that led to his arrest, which have been ruled unlawful. US politics | Pete Hegseth has said the execution of the former army psychiatrist who killed 13 people at Fort Hood will be a public event. Ukraine | A Russian missile strike on a bus in the eastern city of Kramatorsk has killed at least 30 people, officials have said, in one of the worst attacks by Moscow on Ukrainian civilians this year. Business | Oil prices have risen sharply amid fears about escalating tensions in the Middle East and a squeeze on production from the threat of a hurricane off the US coast. In depth: Burnham shores up Labour’s left flank This vote was a test not just of Burnham’s bounce but also his breadth: after seeing off Reform in Makerfield in the victory that paved the way for him to become prime minister, Labour has shored up its left flank too after the prime minister delivered an unapologetically left wing prospectus to his party conference in Liverpool just a few weeks ago. Sagal Abdi-Walim, who arrived in the UK as a child refugee from Somalia, said her victory was “deeply personal”, telling supporters: “I hope this moment also says something about who gets to belong … I came here as a child and this place gave me so much.” Speaking to broadcasters after the declaration, Polanski stayed upbeat, insisting voters had been excited about Green policies, but conceding: “So many people on the doorstep told me they wanted to give Andy Burnham a chance – let’s see what he does with it.” Guardian reporter Sammy Gecsoyler, who was at the count in Camden council offices, described a fairly “low energy” affair, where it looked certain from early on in the night that Labour had come through. It’s worth reflecting that the turnout here was nothing like it was in Makerfield – or in Gorton and Denton in February, where the Green’s Hannah Spencer pushed Labour into third place. Turnout yesterday was 38.7%, the lowest for any byelection held in England during this parliament and 15.4% down from 2024. *** A constituency of contradictions The battle in Starmer’s former seat may have seemed fairly quiet from a distance, but not for those that live there. Guardian reporter Tobi Thomas, for example, estimates she’s had Green canvassers on her Camden doorstep four times a week since the start of September. She predicted a Labour win: “A lot of my neighbours are lifelong Labour supporters.” But she also observed the Greens were campaigning hard, “with talking points on the environment and Gaza.” As Tobi points out, Holborn and St Pancras is a wildly mixed constituency. It takes in everyone from media execs in their Primrose Hill mansions, to the Euston school leaders facing falling pupil numbers due to a lack of family council housing. Across the London constituency, 43% of people live in social housing, almost half are aged between 18 and 34, and around the same number were born abroad. Even before her selection as a candidate, Reform spokesperson for home affairs Zia Yusuf was keen to point out that Sagal Abdi-Wali happens to have been born in Somalia, in a dog whistle post on X that was later condemned as “straightforward racism” by Labour. While Reform has no foothold in the area, Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee – who lives in the constituency too – wondered if attacks like this might galvanise wavering Labour supporters otherwise tempted by the Greens. Polanski’s pitch has been that a vote for the Greens is a protest vote – but one with real power. According to analysis by Politico, the party has spent nearly £5,000 pushing Meta ads that promise a Green win would “keep the government in check”. Abdi-Wali, who says that she was spurred to join the Labour party in 2015 due to a the visible rise in homelessness in King’s Cross, has focused squarely on local issues in her campaign. But this local emphasis sits in tension with national scrutiny of the party. Out on the doorstep with Abdi-Wali in a social housing estate, Polly Toynbee described how warmly the Labour candidate was recognised for her community work. “She takes notes of people’s problems, from housing repairs to e-bikes blocking the road, her local campaign matching Burnham’s localism,” Polly wrote. “But we also meet a college lecturer, who had a run-in with their employer over Gaza, who will ‘never vote Labour again’.” *** Is Labour’s identity crisis over? It’s true that Gaza led many Labour voters to go Green in the English council elections earlier this year. Two years earlier, in Holborn and St Pancras, a constituency with a 20% Muslim population, Starmer’s majority fell from 27,763 to 11,572, and an independent candidate who described him as “terrible on Gaza” came in second with 18.9% of the vote. This morning’s results will now be scrutinised to assess the impact of Burnham’s significant shift of position. The new prime minister has apologised for Labour’s initial response to Israel’s military action in Gaza, saying that the UK was too slow to call for a ceasefire. More recently, foreign secretary Ed Miliband announced sanctions on trade with illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank (but, Labour is still yet to act on the proscription of Palestine Action). Speaking on the BBC earlier this morning, polling expert John Curtice said that the result largely reflected shifts in national polls, with the Greens “notably weaker” than in the spring, when they were at an historic high of close to 20%. But he warned: “45% of the vote is four points down on what Keir Starmer got in 2024. Bear in mind that the vote for Starmer fell precipitously in 2024. And compared with what Labour was getting in this constituency in 2019 or 2017, Labour’s vote is still well down.” Curtice’s up-sum was that Labour are in a much better position than they were six months ago, but still not as popular as they were in 2024. Calling a general election now – which, to be fair, Burnham ruled out before Labour conference – would still be “an extremely risky project for them”, Curtice said. The results also show the Greens “are more significant players than they have ever been”, though they have lost a significant portion of the ground the gained during the early months of Polanski’s leadership. Meanwhile, the snap analysis from Peter Kellner, the former head of YouGov, was that Labour had defied its “truly dreadful record defending its own seats when it is in government and faces a by-election challenge from the left”. Most importantly, the result confirms Burnham’s ability to hold together Labour’s broad coalition: from the older, anti-immigration, Eurosceptic voters that made up a large proportion of voters in the Makerfield byelection, to the comparatively younger, more diverse and progressive left-leaning constituents of Holborn and St Pancras. Some might say this result cements a glorious union of north with south, but, I’ll say it for the umpteenth time: Makerfield is not in the north, it’s in the middle. *** Is the grass still Greener? At this point, it feels a bit rude to mention Gorton and Denton again. In politics-time, it might feel like a century ago now, but reporter Matthew Pearce tells me that the Greens were still celebrating it at their conference last weekend. It was a “sliding doors” moment for Labour, Matthew says, and many Green strategists see Polanski’s early success as a direct cause of Starmer’s downfall – and Burnham’s subsequent ascension. “It’s clear Polanski played a role,” says Matthew, “but the question now is whether that role will diminish because of Labour’s new direction.” Polanski has said from the outset of his campaign to be an MP that he would remain as Green party leader even if he lost – so take any early morning pundit speculation with a heavy salting. That said, former Green leader Caroline Lucas was quick out the traps shortly after the polls closed, saying he made a “mistake not to show leadership” over the Zionism policy vote. According to Matthew, the Greens are now focused on the impact of the New Labour prime minister. “In his conference speech, Burnham addressed so many issues that the Greens have been using to distinguish themselves from Labour,” he explains. When Polanski became leader he said many times he ultimately wanted the Greens to replace Labour. But in his speech at conference, he returned to a new phrasing: “Vote Green, watch Labour move”. “They know they have to adapt to the new political spectrum,” says Matthew. What else we’ve been enjoying Yet one more consequence of the AI boom? Robin Buller investigates the cost of renting in the industry’s home city of San Francisco, and meets some of the “folks living on the edge”. Charlie Lindlar, newsletters team Our photo gallery today was incredible – vibrant, surprising, informative – my unexpected favourite was looking at the Milwaukee Brewers celebrating after a big win. Poppy Noor, newsletters team Leah Harper is completely fascinating in this piece on the end of hosting at home. From house shame to cost of living to simply having no friends, it’s a social crisis with many causes. Charlie This week’s you be the judge – on the contentious topic of who gets to keep things when you split the purchase and then move on, left me with nowhere to go! I kind of agree with both parties here? Poppy Sofia Coppola is typically cool and candid in her interview with Guardian readers – especially in her answer to what Bill Murray whispers to Scarlett Johansson at the end of Lost in Translation. Charlie Sport Basketball | The launch of NBA Europe will be delayed until 2028, with a pre-qualifying competition planned for next year to find four temporary members to join the 16-team league’s inaugural season alongside 12 permanent franchises. Football | Women’s Super League clubs have agreed to a major funding increase for match officials but the wait for full-time referees in the English top tier is set to continue until 2029. Rugby league | Runaway Championship winners London Broncos have been graded below even Barrow Raiders for next season – but they are still set to become the 15th team in an expanded Super League next season. Something for the weekend Our critics’ roundup of the best things to watch, read, play and listen to right now Film The Social Reckoning (in cinemas now) | ★★★☆☆ Jeremy Strong’s slow-talking Facebook founder turns into a cameo, background to a thriller about a whistleblower that somehow never mentions Trump. Read Peter Bradshaw’s full review. TV Carrie (Prime Video) | ★★★★☆ This witty, smart remake takes bullying and telekinetic violence to new extremes. Even the shower scene is more excruciating than the original. Read Lucy Mangan’s full review here. Music Troye Sivan: She’s the Best | ★★★★☆ Adored by the A-list and filling arenas, but without huge smash hits, the Australian singer treads his own distinctive path through pop via shoegaze, Balearic and the Smiths. Read Alexis Petridis’s full review here. Game Silver Pines | ★★★★☆ Abandoned shops, ruined apartment buildings and rotting sewer networks make up a dark landscape in which you play a private eye searching for a missing singer-songwriter. Read Keith Stuart’s review here. The front pages The Guardian splashes on “Stark warning over rising demand for NHS autism and ADHD care”. The Times has “ADHD label risks ‘harm for life’ for youngsters” and the Daily Mail says “Rush to diagnose autism can damage children”. The Telegraph leads with “Bank chief: Don’t risk repeat of Truss chaos” and top story at the Financial Times is “Open AI’s $20bn cut to annualised revenues damps investor optimism”. The Independent headlines on “Andrew wins legal fight over police raid on his homes”, Sun runs with “Andy cops: No sweat” and the Mirror has “It’s not over”. The Latest Will they, won’t they? EU flirts with UK rejoining Andy Burnham is pressing ahead with his Brexit U-turn, using a visit to Germany to make a ‘commitment to deeper EU cooperation’. The prime minister has promised closer ties on issues such as security, youth mobility and immigration. The move has been welcomed by senior European officials, including the French finance minister, who invited the UK ‘to come all the way back’ to the EU. With public polling now shifting against Brexit, is the door open for the UK to decide if it wants to rejoin? Lucy Hough speaks to Europe correspondent Jon Henley. Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings The Upside A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad Can hope save the planet? Helen Pilcher ponders that question in this column centred on a new biodiversity report, The Science of Hope, which shows how 32 species of bird (including New Zealand’s kākāpō, pictured above) and 16 types of mammal have been saved from extinction since 1993. Pilcher writes that far from “hopium” (that is, misleading tales of false hope), the report shows the importance of telling the positive stories in the fight against climate change and habitat loss. “That’s the kind of hope we need: pragmatic, resilient and open to revision. We need our governments to be honest about the scale of the challenge we face. Because when they withhold information, they don’t just rob us of knowledge. They also rob us of hope,” she writes. Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday Bored at work? And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow. Quick crossword Cryptic crossword Wordiply
Houthis claim attack on Riyadh airport as airlines suspend flights to Saudi capital
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis say they have struck Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh airport with a ballistic missile, badly damaging a plane and leading some airlines to suspend flights to the capital. The group provided no evidence, and Saudi Arabia did not immediately comment on the claim. However, three people briefed on the matter told Reuters that shrapnel from an interception or another projectile left a Saudia Airlines commercial plane heavily damaged after catching fire while parked at a terminal on Thursday. They said no passengers were believed to have been on the plane at the time but they could not rule out any injuries. Witnesses heard explosions in Riyadh, including a large blast at the King Khalid international airport. One witness told the Associated Press that fire and ambulance crews were deployed. A thick black column of smoke and flames were shown rising from the airport in a video verified by Reuters. The witness, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that outgoing flights were halted, and that passengers were instructed to evacuate the airport. Lufthansa and Air India confirmed they were suspending flights to Riyadh. According to data compiled by aviation analytics company Cirium, almost half of departures from the airport had been cancelled by 1500 GMT on Thursday, with 31 more cancellations expected for Friday in all Saudi airports. It comes after Saudi authorities said on Wednesday that three people had been killed this week in strikes on Riyadh airport and Abha airport, in the country’s southwest. The Houthis escalated their campaign of strikes against Saudi Arabia on Thursday, attempting to shut down the kingdom’s airspace and warning workers to stay away from energy plants, which would be targeted. Separately, Saudi officials said debris from an intercepted missile had hit a kindergarten and medical complex in Riyadh. The Houthis say they are targeting the kingdom over its support for government forces in Yemen’s reignited civil war. Saudi Arabia says it is backing an offensive by Yemen’s UN-recognised government to take back territory from the Houthis. The Houthis have made a lightning advance across Yemen’s coastal plain over the last month, appearing to gain ground in the country’s south-west on Wednesday as the group approached the city of Taiz. Independent observers said earlier this week there was danger the group was on course to capture Taiz, with some signs that forces linked to the Saudi Arabian-backed government were pulling back to secure the major port city of Aden. Riyadh is due to host a major meeting of energy policymakers, the WPC Energy Congress, this week.
India’s ‘Cockroach’ party accuses government of mass detention of members ahead of weekend protest
India’s Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), which began as a satirical movement but is now emerging as a political force among gen Z’s, says authorities have begun detaining its members en masse days before a major anti-government protest in Delhi. Opposition parties, their student units, and the “Cockroach” youth movement have been holding almost daily demonstrations seeking the resignation of chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over a controversial revision of voter lists. Thousands are expected to march to Jantar Mantar, the designated protest site in the capital, New Delhi, on Saturday, amid mounting anger in the world’s largest democracy. A spokesperson for the CJP, Ashutosh Ranka, said in a post on X on Thursday that “at least 10,000” people from CJP demonstrations, student organisations, affiliated grassroots groups and political parties had been detained across the country. Police authorities didn’t immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comments. Videos posted on social media platform X showed activists being taken away in vans. The CJP said that among those detained was a group of students from the western city of Pune who were headed for the 10 October protest in Delhi. It said they were being taken away in a bus to an unknown location. The nationwide voter list review, known as the special intensive revision, has been carried out in most of India’s states and federally administered territories. More than 130 million names have been removed so far, a number larger than the populations of countries like Japan and Mexico. Millions of people have appealed against the deletions. The opposition says the removals disproportionately affect voters who support them, while voters more likely to back prime minister Narendra Modi’s party have been preserved or added to the lists. The election commission and the government reject the allegations, saying the revision is aimed at removing duplicate and ineligible entries. The campaign has been led in part by the “Cockroach” movement, which began as an online youth campaign in May and has since organised street protests across the country. The protests present a new political challenge to Modi midway into his third term, just months after similar demonstrations led by the CJP forced the resignation of his education minister over exam paper leaks. In the lead up to Saturday’s planned demonstration, hundreds of supporters of the CJP youth movement protested in tech hub Bengaluru on Thursday. Many of the protesters held posters that said, “Every name counts, Every vote matters” and “Stop the Murder of Democracy”. “I think voting right is the most basic point of democracy … People who actually want to vote, who actually care about the future of India, they are just being (denied) voting rights,” said Khushi Shrivastava, a 22-year-old architecture student who attended the Bengaluru protest. There were also protests over police action against congress party leaders and the voter lists revisions. On Wednesday, the opposition Congress party accused police of using “brute force” to briefly detain party leader Rahul Gandhi, his sister Priyanka Vadra, and other lawmakers as they tried to reach the Jantar Mantar protest site in New Delhi. Delhi Police said the allegations were being used to “defame” the force. BJP spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia said the allegations were “being levelled by an irresponsible, anarchist opposition”. The claims had “no base, not an iota of evidence”, he told reporters at a media briefing on Thursday. Police have barricaded the area in Delhi ahead of Saturday’s planned demonstrations.
Running out of royals: why calls are growing to let Japan’s princess Aiko take the throne
Her face is splashed across magazine covers. Fans flock to online stores to snap up her outfits. At official engagements, huge crowds wait in the crushing heat to catch a glimpse of a woman revered for her ‘regal dignity, beauty and aura’. Princess Aiko, 24, is the most popular member of Japan’s imperial family, but according to law she will never be empress and, as the country runs out of royals, more and more Japanese people are asking why. The debate has gathered momentum in the years since Aiko, the only child of Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako, has transformed from a shy primary school pupil into a young woman at ease with public and media attention. Under a law established almost 140 years ago, women are forbidden from ascending to Japan’s Chrysanthemum throne. But the regulation defies public support for changes that would allow a woman to become empress regnant and avert a looming succession crisis. The imperial family is facing the same demographic winds buffeting the rest of the country: three decades ago it had 30 members; now there are just 16, only five of them men. Japanese citizens support a change, irrespective of their political loyalties. In a poll conducted in April by the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper, 72% favoured the idea of a woman becoming emperor, while just 10% opposed it. Pressure to change the male-only succession law, passed in 1947 but based on legislation introduced during the Meiji era in 1889, is intensifying, forcing the conservative government of Sanae Takaichi to address the dearth of male heirs to the 1,500-year-old imperial throne. Just three men comprise the current line of succession – Emperor Naruhito’s younger brother, Crown Prince Akishino; his son, Prince Hisahito; and the emperor’s uncle, Prince Hitachi, who is 90. If Prince Hisahito, a 20-year-old university student, and the first male born into the imperial family for four decades, does not have a son, the line of succession will come to an end within a generation. Previous governments have tried to solve the succession question by considering legislation that would finally bring gender equality to the rarefied corridors of the imperial palace in Tokyo. But pressure from conservative MPs – and Hisahito’s birth in 2006 – brought the debate to an abrupt end. Takaichi triggered anger this summer when her party and its conservative allies pushed through amendments that will safeguard the male-only succession for generations. The changes, which go into effect later this month, allow women to retain their royal status after marrying non-royals, and resurrects male-line descendants belonging to 11 “collateral branches” of the family that left the imperial fold after the end of the second world war. In theory, that means a distant male relative could be “adopted” into the heart of the family provided he is single and aged over 15. If he marries and his wife gives birth to a son, that child would then join the line of succession. The fate of Japan’s imperial family has attracted international attention. In 2024, the UN women’s rights committee urged the Japanese government to allow a female emperor. Tokyo dismissed the intervention as “regrettable” and “inappropriate,” saying the imperial succession was a matter of “fundamental national identity”. The UN and Japanese public opinion have crashed against the hard rock of conservative ideology espoused by Takaichi – Japan’s first female prime minister. During the succession revision debate, she told lawmakers: “The unparalleled historic fact that the imperial line has been maintained through the male line for 126 generations is the foundation of the emperor’s authority and legitimacy.” Takaichi has also said that the revisions were intended only to ease the succession crisis, not to settle the debate over female emperors. But Prof Makoto Okawa, an expert on imperial lineage and succession at Chuo University in Tokyo, said the recent amendment “clearly points towards maintaining the male-line succession”. Aiko’s popularity could force a rethink, however, given the “growing sense of unease among members of the public about excluding someone from the possibility of succeeding to the throne solely because she is a woman”. “Many people in Japan have watched Princess Aiko grow up. The composure, dignity and grace she has displayed in recent diplomatic and other official engagements have contributed to the strong public support she enjoys. Many people see her as embodying and carrying forward Emperor Naruhito’s understanding of the role of the emperor as a symbol of the nation who remains close to the people.” Jin, an Aiko fan who manages an Instagram account devoted to the princess, said the government had ignored the overwhelming consensus behind a change to the male-only succession law. In her eyes, Aiko is more than qualified to succeed her father. “She is the emperor’s only direct descendant, and her character and dignity are of the highest caliber. Aiko is someone who is clearly worthy of serving as a symbol of Japan.” Aiko – or another future female member of the imperial family – would not be the first female to ascend the throne. Japan has had eight female monarchs, although their role was to sustain the imperial line until a male heir was born. Go-Sakuramachi, who ruled from 1762 to 1770, was the most recent. Japan’s royals, who are forbidden from commenting on politics, have employed typically nuanced language to communicate their unease with the status quo. At a press conference in June, the emperor said of the succession debate in parliament: “I hope discussions on how to secure the number of imperial family members … gain the understanding of the people.” His younger brother, Akishino, went further, telling reporters: “It is important for society to keep progressing … I believe the duty of the imperial family is to act in response to the requests of society … I do not think there are any differences between women and men.”
Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy criticises US, calls for more Starlink access, amid deadly Russian assault
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused the US of being unwilling to help Ukraine after a Russian bomb attack on Thursday killed at least 35 people in the east, sending the two-day death toll from Russian strikes to more than 70. Hours after the strike on the embattled city of Kramatorsk tore through two buses, Zelenskyy criticised Washington’s effort to pursue economic ties with Russia while also seeking to mediate the more than four-year war. Speaking to reporters in Pryluky, the Ukrainian leader urged the US to accede to his requests to expand Ukraine’s access to the Starlink satellite service to help it target Russian ballistic-missile launchers. “Open Starlink for Ukraine. You did open it when you were responding to Iran ... I’ve said quite openly – give it to us, help us defend our skies and dominate there. And then Putin will sit down at the negotiating table,” he said. UN rights chief Volker Turk said he was appalled by Thursday’s “horrifying strike”. “I am appalled by the wave of attacks killing civilians across Ukraine over the past four days, including today’s horrifying strike hitting two public buses,” he said in a statement. “The scale and manner of these attacks – killing and injuring people on buses, at their homes and work in different areas of the country – is reprehensible. In the last two days, 78 people were killed and 215 wounded by strikes across Ukraine, Zelenskyy said. Ukrainian negotiators will travel to the US on Friday and Saturday for talks, Zelenskyy said, urging US president Donald Trump to increase sanction pressure on Russia. Ukraine’s president told reporters that he expected Kyiv’s European partners to join the talks with the US. Zelenskyy said his chief of staff, Kyrylo Budanov, as well as Ukraine’s top officials: Rustem Umerov, Sergiy Kyslytsya and David Arakhamia will take part in the talks in Florida. The US-led peace efforts to end the Ukraine war have largely stalled, with Washington focused on its conflict with Iran. But US officials said they were making a fresh effort in an enlarged format, following visits to Moscow and Kyiv last month by Witkoff, Trump’s business friend-turned-roving envoy, and the president’s son-in-law Kushner. US officials said the envoys would discuss “security guarantees for Ukraine, a postwar prosperity plan, and other aspects of the conflict”. Witkoff and Kushner “will discuss new ideas and proposals that American negotiators began developing with the Russians and Ukrainians during their recent visit to the region,” a source familiar with the talks said. Nato said it would start its annual ‘nuclear deterrence’ exercises in Italy from Tuesday amid mounting concerns about Russia. The drills will run from 13-23 October and involve 17 nations. “The exercise is a long-planned, routine training activity that is part of Nato’s efforts to maintain readiness and test procedures that contribute to the alliance’s deterrence and defence,” said a Nato statement. South Korea will recall its ambassador to Ukraine, the foreign minister said on Thursday, following a dispute over Zelenskyy’s announcement that two North Korean prisoners of war were being transferred to Seoul. The two sides have been locked in a dispute after Seoul accused Kyiv of breaching a confidentiality agreement over the transfer of the captured soldiers.