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Monday briefing: What will it take to turn around our struggling education system?

Good morning. I’m back, but don’t get too excited. I’ll just be making guest appearances here and there. Now, onto children, who – if the steady stream of warnings is anything to go by – are in serious trouble. There’s the pull of addictive screens, a sharp drop in children reading for pleasure, a global decline in academic performance, and a notable rise in youth mental health struggles. Together, these trends point to a wider crisis in learning. Much of the focus has been on phones and social media. A global study published last week found an association between increased screen exposure and lower academic achievement and poorer language development in children. In the UK, phones are already banned during the school day, and from spring of next year, under-16s will not be able to access major social media platforms such as TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram. But are we focusing on the wrong thing? Today, I speak to Jenny Anderson, award-winning journalist and author of The Disengaged Teen, about why so many young people are disengaging from learning, and what it might take to turn that around. That’s after the headlines. Weekend roundup Ukraine | Donald Trump has announced an energy ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia, apparently without consulting Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who said the deal to stop long-range attacks was “news to me”. Middle East | A projectile hit a passenger terminal at the airport in Riyadh on Sunday, the day after a deadly missile attack on the facility carried out by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebel group killed 13 people. UK politics | Andy Burnham is facing questions over plans to speed up sweeping changes to Britain’s electoral system amid speculation that some of his closest advisers are pressing for an early general election. Djibouti | At least 139 people, including 15 children, have died after a boat carrying 305 migrants capsized off the coast of Djibouti, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said. Brexit | Andy Burnham has said it is clear Russia interfered in the Brexit referendum, after seeking answers on the Kremlin’s involvement in the 2016 vote when he entered Downing Street. In depth: ‘We’re shuffling kids through a system that feels like prison’ There is a real and growing crisis in young people’s engagement with learning. According to recent research, fewer pupils now say they find school engaging. In 2020-21, 42% of students said they found what they learned interesting either “always/very often” or “quite often”. By 2023, that figure had fallen to just 28%. Nearly half of pupils do not take part in extracurricular activities, while severe absence – defined as missing more than 50% of school sessions – are on the rise in England. Pupils are also becoming less happy at school. The share of pupils who say they are happy at school dropped from 65% in 2020-2021 to 50% in 2023-2024. Perhaps most strikingly, survey data suggests pupils feel worse, physically and mentally, than they did during the Covid-19 pandemic. Jenny Anderson argues this points to something more complex than distraction from phones: a fundamental problem in how our schools are designed. “We’re shuffling kids through a system, which they tell us feels like prison,” Anderson explains, adding that young people are “bored to tears by content that feels irrelevant to them”. The consequences of disengagement can extend beyond the classroom. “If they can’t figure themselves out as learners, they often can’t figure themselves out as people. They often don’t feel they belong.” *** It’s not just the phones Much of the debate has centred on the addictive nature of smartphones, particularly the social media platforms that dominate them. In March, a US court found Meta and Google’s YouTube liable for deliberately designing addictive products used by millions of young people. A flurry of lawsuits against Meta followed, including one starting later this month in Los Angeles, around alleged social media addiction in young users. In August, as part of a landmark $18bn settlement, the company agreed to establish safeguards for teenage users, such as a daily usage limit of two hours and blocking social media use at night. “Phones have done tremendous damage,” Anderson says. “They are very risky to kids because they are clearly created with pathologically addictive algorithms.” Anderson argues that these algorithms displace the experiences kids need to build a sense of identity and purpose: time with friends, developing interests, and getting involved in their communities. The platforms are also built around “weaponised engagement”, Anderson adds, putting them in direct competition with the slower and more difficult work of learning. But while she welcomes the effort to rein in the damage caused by phones, she warns against treating phones as the sole issue in this education crisis. Anderson describes technology as an “exacerbator” – one which accelerates the disengagement that is already present in schools, rather than causing it in the first place. Phones offer an easy, addictive alternative to the hard work of learning, but simply taking devices away does not automatically re-engage students. “Focusing only on phones and tech misses the whole story. It distracts us from the conversation about what schools need to fix.” *** Four learning modes Anderson’s book investigates why so many young people dislike school, and what can be done about it. She identifies four modes in which students approach their education: • Passenger: Students who are coasting along and doing the bare minimum. This is about 50% of students. • Resister: Students who withdraw or act out. These are learners dubbed the “problem children”, but they are actually just children struggling with problems. • Achiever: Students who aim to get gold stars in everything without knowing why. They have the highest rate of mental health challenges of all the modes. • Explorer: Students who are curious, self-aware and driven. They have agency: the ability to set a goal, and the skills and will to go after it. While achievers may appear to represent the pinnacle of academic performance, Anderson argues that it’s actually the explorer mode. These dynamic modes aren’t fixed, Anderson argues. They work in tandem with a set of variables, such as how a student feels about a subject, whether they have had breakfast that morning, or whether they’re fighting with their family. According to her research, just 4% of children say they spend time at school in explorer mode. “The irony is that kids who are coasting and appear to be lazy and appear not to be doing what we want often need more autonomy, not less,” Anderson says. She points to research into what is known as “autonomy-supportive teaching”, which included 35 randomised controlled trials across 18 countries. These studies suggest that giving students greater agency, can improve both academic performance and wellbeing. Anderson argues schools also need to adapt to how students engage with learning, particularly when the curriculum leaves pupils feeling overwhelmed and disconnected. “Students go through a packed out curriculum that culminates in preparing to sit for 25 exams over two months for their GCSEs,” she says. Part of the answer lies in giving pupils more agency – this time in the classroom. Rather than assigning every student the exact same essay, teachers could offer a choice of topics and let students pursue the angle that interests them most. The aim is not to lower standards, she argues, but to create forms of learning that compete more successfully for students’ attention. The pressures on schools may also grow as the climate crisis intensifies. Last week Daniel Kebede, the general secretary of the National Education Union , said schools should consider changing start and finish times, reordering holidays and moving exams from the summer months in an effort to adapt to the UK’s increasingly severe heatwaves. His comments followed school closures during June’s heatwave, which left at least 760,000 pupils in England and Wales missing lessons. *** Looking ahead Parents looking at recent headlines about education may feel powerless, Anderson says, but she believes they have a crucial role to play in helping children stay curious and engaged outside the pressures of the classroom. Her advice is simple: start by asking children what they’re actually interested in. “I really do think parents play a profound role here, and I think we feel trapped,” Anderson says. “We feel like we have to play the game of the system” – focusing relentlessly on grades, exams and measurable achievement – “but the system is not serving our kids. “So we have to ask: are we just going to shove them into that system, or help them succeed in that system while also helping them figure out who they are, what they care about, where they want to make an impact in the world?” When asked what advice she would give to education secretary Bridget Phillipson, Anderson highlights three priorities, starting with reforming the exam timetable. “Tests are an excellent way you figure out if kids are learning, but they do not have to be so high stakes,” she explains. “They can be adaptive.” Her second priority is making the curriculum more relevant to pupils’ lives outside school. “Kids ask all the time, ‘Why do I have to learn this?’ and we do not honour that question,” Anderson says. Schools need to help pupils see the bigger picture. Her third piece of advice advice would be to reinvigorate the arts and humanities. While she understands the economic case for the “relentless pursuit of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics)”, she believes that something vital has been lost. “What about the humanities? What about the arts, such as drama and music?” she asks. “That is the canvas on which many kids will show up and find their place in school.” Anderson accepts that learningmust be challenging and rigorous. But, she says, it doesn’t have to be dreary . “There’s a myth of misery, that school can only be good if it’s hard in that joyless way, and that teenagers are just [naturally] unhappy. “To borrow a Britishism, that’s poppycock.” The week to come Tuesday | MPs on the Business, Innovation, Science and Trade Committee will question AI bosses on regulation, security breaches and safety concerns. Thursday | The SNPs annual party conference kicks off in Aberdeen. Friday | Teddy Young, the Royal Navy sailor accused of spying for Russia, is due to appear at the Old Bailey in London. What else we’ve been enjoying I really enjoyed Alexis Petridis’ profile of “pop’s great survivors” Duran Duran, and in particular frontman Simon Le Bon comparing the creeping prevalence of AI in music to “really bad school dinners”. Sam Coare, newsletters team As the hostile ‘one in, one out’ scheme for refugees ends, people seeking asylum share their heartbreaking testimonies with Diane Taylor, while they wait to cross the Channel. Sundus Abdi, newsletters team Ed Pilkington’s deep dive into the future of capital punishment in the wake of Christa Pike’s botched lethal injection – and the unimaginable plan to livestream Nidal Hasan’s execution – is essential reading. Sam Sport Football | Manchester City beat 10-man Liverpool 3-0 in their first game since being found guilty on more than 100 charges of breaking Premier League financial rules. F1 | Delivering an emphatic reminder of how imperious he can be when he has the car beneath him, Max Verstappen was untouchable in victory at the Singapore Grand Prix. Rugby union | A hat-trick from Newcastle wing Christian Wade was not enough to stop Exeter claiming their first Gallagher Prem win of the season in a topsy-turvy game at Sandy Park. The front pages The Guardian splashes with “Heat pump subsidy to be cut to fund defence plan”. The Mail leads with “Boris blasts ‘sickening’ Trump deal with Putin”, the Telegraph says “Putin breaks Trump’s ‘ceasefire’” and the Financial Times has “US threatens block on Kyiv’s arms in push to halt Russian refinery attacks”. The Times leads with “Almost 2m on sickness benefit may not qualify”, the Mirror goes with “Horror at tiger park” and The i Paper has “Tax rises needed to plug £35bn gap, UK economists warn Chancellor”. Finally, the Sun goes with “BBC in strictly trans ban row”. Today in Focus ‘Gaza is a moral tear in the universe’: Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor Are we really living through ‘end-times fascism’? Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor think so. In a new series from the Guardian, the pair speak to Radical Thinking with Aditya Chakrabortty in an extended interview. From Trump 2.0 and the rise of the tech billionaires to Gaza and the climate emergency, Klein and Taylor argue we are not just lurching from crisis to crisis but are in a new and dangerous moment in history. But they haven’t given up hope of a fightback. You can watch the full interview with Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor here. Cartoon of the day | Pete Songi The Upside A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad Photographer Irina Werning grew up in rural Argentina surrounded by animals. It was there that she began her project capturing images at agricultural shows – “a kind of Darwinian theatre, looking for moments when humans and animals unexpectedly mirror each other.” Four years ago, she turned her lens towards shows across the UK. From dogs in Crocs to fancy horse competitions, Werning’s work is a “celebration of places where people still gather to see and celebrate” animals, while exploring our “changing relationship” with them “as they become less visible in the countryside”. 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

Roman Abramovich aides falsified paperwork to disguise assets and dodge tax, records suggest

Aides of Roman Abramovich – including staff at the global accountancy firm Deloitte – falsified paperwork mapping the oligarch’s sprawling offshore business empire, records suggest, helping his businesses dodge tax and disguise assets. New analysis of leaked corporate records uncovers what appears to have been a long-running and carefully orchestrated strategy of backdating documents. The Russian billionaire’s closest aide, London-based Eugene Tenenbaum, appears to have been involved in the backdating and may also have given false evidence to the UK high court during a potentially costly lawsuit, the papers indicate. Abramovich’s personal and financial affairs are now restricted, owing to sanctions imposed by the UK and EU in response to Russia’s war on Ukraine. But the documents raise questions about how Abramovich was able to shield his financial affairs from the authorities for more than a decade, with the apparent assistance of apparatchiks and blue-chip advisers. The findings are based on the Cyprus Confidential leak, more than 500,000 documents, first released to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and analysed by organisations including the Guardian, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the BBC. The digital paper trail charts the reorganisation of billions of pounds that the former Chelsea FC owner obtained via the controversial acquisition of oilfields in the frozen wastes of Siberia, amid the break-up of the Soviet Union. From 1999 until at least 2013, a cadre of aides and accountants tasked with shifting the funds between offshore jurisdictions deployed tactics that experts say may have constituted fraud and tax evasion. This, it seems, involved backdating documents to create a convenient paper trail showing that agreements and transactions had taken place years earlier. Lawyers for Abramovich denied any wrongdoing and said he relied on the advice of his advisers and Deloitte Cyprus. Tenenbaum denied any wrongdoing and said he also relied on the specialist advice given by Deloitte Cyprus. Deloitte Cyprus said that it “acts in compliance with all applicable laws” and that it could no longer access the relevant material because of the time that has elapsed. The disappearing $2bn A crown jewel in Russia’s rich seam of natural resources, Sibneft’s oilfields fell into Abramovich’s hands during the chaotic post-Soviet privatisation era. The famously shrewd entrepreneur obtained the business for roughly $250m, reportedly spending as little as $19m of his own money. By the time he sold the last of his shares to Gazprom in 2005, Abramovich had raised $16bn, money he ploughed into investments, mansions, superyachts and Chelsea FC. One Cyprus-based company, Kravin Investments, was among several early vehicles through which that cash flowed. Kravin received a $3bn windfall in May 2003, of which it retained about $2bn. The money sat in Kravin’s bank account or was loaned to other companies, accruing interest that was, in theory, taxable in Cyprus. But Abramovich’s aides soon began devising plans to “eliminate” a tax liability that one financial adviser warned could be “very large”, records suggest. The gatekeeper to Abramovich’s fortune was Demetris Ioannides, who was the chair of Deloitte Cyprus before spinning out his own business Meritservus. That firm became Abramovich’s go-to financial advisory, serving him for nearly 20 years, before it was sanctioned by the UK in 2023, along with Ioannides, for its role helping Russian oligarch hide their wealth. “It will be necessary to change the [Kravin’s] financial statements and the accounting records accordingly for 2003 and 2004,” Ioannides wrote in August 2005 email, citing discussions with Deloitte Cyprus partners and erstwhile colleagues Antonis Taliotis and Nicos Charalambous. The following month, in an email copying in staff at Meritservus and Abramovich’s investment vehicle, Millhouse, Taliotis appeared to agree. “Certain changes will have to be made to the accounts […]” he wrote. Millhouse and Meritservus duly began producing paperwork showing that Kravin was simply holding and investing the Sibneft billions as a trustee for another business, the British Virgin Islands-based Kelvedon Worldwide. Documents detailing this supposed fact, including correspondence and trust agreements, were given dates between March and December 2003, despite being created at least two years later. The result was simple: although the billions had sat in Kravin’s accounts for years, it now appeared that the money had never really been Kravin’s at all. Deloitte Cyprus, apparently aware of the deception, duly signed off the accounts. History had effectively been rewritten, analysis of the documents suggests, disappearing $2bn from Kravin’s balance sheet – and with it any tax liability. Andrew Mitchell KC, a leading expert in financial crime and tax law, described the scheme as a “blatant move to protect from legitimate taxation assets which should otherwise have been subject to tax”. This, he claimed, would amount to “straightforward” tax evasion. Abramovich’s lawyers said: “Any suggestion that our client evaded tax, or sought to deceive the Cypriot authorities, is denied, and publication of the same would be defamatory of him. If an arrangement was proposed by professional advisers of Deloitte’s standing, it would have been entirely proper for companies linked to our client (in which he was not involved on a day-to-day basis) to rely on it.” The oligarch’s signature It was not the first time that Abramovich’s subordinates appear to have resorted to backdating to solve a money problem for their boss. In 2000, Tenenbaum and Ioannides, then still working for Deloitte Cyprus, met in London to discuss a delicate matter. Abramovich, it seemed, wanted to extract almost $100m from Cypriot companies that held stakes in Sibneft. According to Ioannides, it was essential that any transaction couldn’t reveal these Cyprus companies and that the money had to appear “earned”. The logic for these conditions was not explained. Deloitte Cyprus’s solution was a complicated but seemingly bogus arrangement, directly involving Abramovich, that appears to have relied on falsified, backdated consultancy agreements. These agreements appeared to show that Abramovich’s Sibneft-owning companies had paid an intermediary business $98m for “consultancy services”, namely advice on share purchases. That intermediary had then supposedly passed on 99.9% of the money to Abramovich, as “commission” for having acted as its “agent”. But the share purchases in question had already happened a year earlier, meaning the intermediary company had to be at least a year old too, if backdated deals involving it were to appear legitimate. Ioannides found a suitable Cypriot off-the-shelf company called PB Mediapower Enterprises. With Tenenbaum’s authorisation, directors of Deloitte Cyprus signed the backdated documents and incorporated their content into PB Mediapower’s annual accounts. Abramovich’s commission was then converted into promissory notes – effectively IOUs – which he cashed in over the following three years. The leaked files contain 50 such notes. Unlike much of the paper trail tracing the Abramovich fortune, which kept his name out of it, each of the applications for repayment of the notes bore his signature. Lawyers for Abramovich and Tenenbaum denied that they had participated in any improper backdating or falsification of documents. Both also stressed that they relied on specialist advice from professional advisers such as Deloitte Cyprus as well as Cypriot corporate advisers. The ghost house One of Abramovich’s most prestigious assets was the Fyning Hill estate in West Sussex, an imposing mansion set in 424 acres of South Downs countryside. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, reportedly flew in for lunch here during his first UK state visit in 2003. Two years later, accounts show, the estate was listed among $650m of luxury assets – including a London penthouse, French chateau, helicopters, jets, yachts and a supercar – all held in a Cypriot company, Amiscan Investments. New Cypriot disclosure rules, introduced in 2003, meant that these would have to be included in Amiscan’s accounts. But by the time those accounts were filed, this vast billionaire’s toybox had vanished, thanks to Abramovich’s squad of financial fixers. In an October 2005 email, sent to Tenenbaum, Ioannides suggested it might be “more prudent not to disclose” them. Files show that Abramovich aides, including Ioannides, worked together to backdate contractual agreements, giving the false impression that Amiscan’s assets had been shifted to its BVI shareholder, Kelvedon Worldwide, at the start of 2003. Deloitte Cyprus staff took part in discussions about this disappearing act, emails show. Yet the auditor signed off Amiscan’s accounts, now showing no trace of three properties and a fleet of luxury vehicles. Lawyers for Abramovich and Tenenbaum denied wrongdoing of any sort, including improper backdating, falsification, or any sort of tax evasion. They each also said that their clients could not recall the context or detail of documents more than 20 years old, which had not been provided to them by the Guardian. Both said their clients had relied on expert advice, including from Deloitte Cyprus. Deloitte Cyprus, also answering on behalf of Taliotis and Charalambous, said that it “acts in compliance with applicable laws”. It said the correspondence were more than 20 years old and no longer accessible, meaning it could not comment on whether the material was complete or accurate. A lawyer for Demetris Ioannides said he was unable to comment for personal reasons. Lawyers for Tenenbaum said that documents could sometimes be backdated for legitimate reasons, such as to show when a transaction became effective. Rachel Sexton, a forensic accountant experienced in fraud investigations, agreed that this was possible but added: “From the evidence I have seen, this does not appear to be the case.” She said backdating documents to create a false impression “could be considered to be fraudulent misrepresentation.” Two more accounting experts, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the files did not appear to show legitimate reasons for backdating. Mitchell raised concerns about Deloitte’s apparent role in the tactic. “What you take away from it is that there are professionals who are prepared to bend and break the rules of their profession and therefore the law.” In one instance, backdating appears to have led to something else very serious: the misleading of a British court. The whole truth In 2008, Abramovich faced the prospect of a potentially costly lawsuit from Moscow businessman Chalva Tchigrinski, a former partner in their joint oil venture, Sibneft-Yugra. The partnership ended with Tchigrinski’s company, Sibir, ousted and left with nothing, leaving Abramovich free to sign the Sibneft deals that would make him Russia’s richest man. Tchigrinski’s lawyers claimed foul play. Abramovich, they claimed, had diluted his partner’s stake via a series of secret meetings that gave him full control and, as a result, the full financial benefit of the eventual sale to Gazprom. In a witness statement, Tenenbaum denied any knowledge of the project’s details before spring 2004, when Sibir’s made its complaints public. “I have searched my files, emails and documents from 2002 to 2004,” he told the court, “and I can confirm that I have in my possession no records or documents or other communications that relate to Sibneft-Yugra.” Files from the Cyprus Confidential leak appear to contradict this testimony. They show that Tenenbaum signed off on a string of agreements governing some of the very deals he claimed in court to know nothing about. They include the 2003 transfer of Sibneft-Yugra shares to an Abramovich-owned company called Ferenco Investment & Services, something Tenenbaum had told the court he knew nothing about. His testimony, according to the judgment, was “corroborated by” evidence submitted by Abramovich. The Guardian has not seen this evidence. What is more, documents submitted to the court in support of Abramovich’s case, which purported to justify Sibneft’s takeover of Sibir, appear to have been backdated. In other words, the documents – like Tenenbaum’s testimony – appear to have been false. Lawyers for Tenenbaum denied that his testimony misled the court, saying he had given evidence “honestly and in good faith” and denied “in the strongest terms” misleading the court. Lawyers for Abramovich denied that his corroboration of Tenenbaum’s testimony had misled the court. All in all, analysis of the Cyprus files suggest that more than 1,000 documents pertaining to the Abramovich empire were backdated. Often, it appears, this took place with the knowledge of those closest to the oligarch. Between them, that inner circle constructed a globe-spanning financial empire whose most important currency was, it seems, deceit.

Melbourne Islamic leader silent on centre’s alleged Flydubai hijacker links in Facebook video

A leader of a Melbourne Islamic centre allegedly linked to the accused Flydubai hijacker has released a video extolling the virtues of staying silent, without directly commenting on the accusations from prosecutors in the United Arab Emirates. Dr Hamad Saif al-Shamsi, the attorney general of the UAE, on the weekend said that investigators had traced the ideological and professional background of the 29-year-old suspect and that their findings indicated his “drift towards extremism and terrorism” began while he was studying at RMIT University in Melbourne in 2017. He alleged the co-pilot, Omani national Hammam al-Hammami, had said that while studying in Melbourne he regularly attended a mosque affiliated with RMIT, and through those visits had become acquainted with people associated with a centre known as “MyCentre”. He allegedly said that the centre was managed by a man known as “Abu Hamza” but the UAE attorney general did not state whether the suspect had ever met Abu Hamza. There was no allegation that anyone at the centre was involved in radicalising al-Hammami or had kept in contact with him or had any knowledge of his intentions before the 30 September flight. On Sunday night, MyCentre’s leader, Samir Mohtadi – who also goes by Abu Hamza – appeared in a four-minute video released on the centre’s Facebook page. He refers to Islamic texts on the virtues of staying silent when being attacked by others but makes no reference to the alleged Flydubai hijack attempt, the UAE attorney general’s statement or to al-Hammami. Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email “You’ll find those who are righteous you’ll always find have been attacked, abused, accused, killed, imprisoned, and this is the way it is,” Mohtadi says in the video. He referred to the stories of Mariam, known to Christians as Mary, the mother of Jesus, being subject to criticism and attack but saying “I’m not going to speak to anyone” and “I’m going to fast from talking”. “There are circumstances, my beloved brothers and respected sisters, regardless how much you explain yourself to people, that’s it, they’re fixated with their ideas and that’s it, you can’t change them,” Mohtadi said. “So the best thing, sometimes, is not to say anything.” Mohtadi has been contacted for comment. RMIT has confirmed al-Hammami had studied engineering at the university, but left Australia before completing the qualification. He subsequently underwent flight training in New Zealand and became a qualified commercial pilot. Passengers and crew on the 30 September flight, which had 182 people onboard, intervened to stop the alleged attempt to hijack the plane and crash it into Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv in a “premeditated terrorist plot”, according to the UAE attorney general’s statement. According to the statement, al-Hammami allegedly told prosecutors he adopted ideas advocating violence and terrorism and drew inspiration from the 9/11 terrorist attacks of 2001. “The idea of carrying out a similar operation using an aircraft became firmly established in his thinking,” the statement said. Al-Hammami allegedly prepared himself psychologically and physically to carry out the alleged terror plot by intensifying his exposure to material promoting terrorism and training in boxing under a private coach. Australian security agencies launched an investigation after it emerged al-Hammami spent about two years in the country, with New Zealand authorities also examining his time there between November 2018 and May 2019. On Sunday, Australia’s home affairs minister, Tony Burke, said the co-pilot was allegedly radicalised online. He also said the government wanted to properly screen people at the border and in online settings.

Ukraine war briefing: Russia attacks multiple power plants after Trump energy ceasefire claim

Russian strikes hit multiple Ukrainian power plants after Donald Trump claimed both sides had agreed to stop hitting each other’s energy infrastructure, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. The Ukrainian president said on social media a drone had hit a power plant in Kyiv on Sunday, leading to power outages in the capital. Shortly after, he said there had been a strike on the CHP-5 power plant in the eastern city of Kharkiv, adding:“Ukrainian skies have been infested with Russian ‘shaheds’ [drones] all day.” Trump said earlier that “effective immediately, there is an energy ceasefire in the war between Russia and Ukraine”. “Both parties have agreed. Do not break it!” the US president wrote on his Truth Social platform on Sunday morning in Washington, without further details. Zelenskyy expressed surprise at the announcement, saying the deal was “news to me” and he was seeking further details. Russia has yet to confirm it agreed. The ceasefire appeared to garner support on Sunday from Ukraine’s key western allies, including the UK, France, Canada and the European Commission. British prime minister Andy Burnham said a sustained energy ceasefire was “the best route to get energy and fuel back into world markets”. French president Emmanuel Macron said Paris supported a “real energy ceasefire” between Russia and Ukraine. Ukrainian officials said Russian ⁠attacks killed six people ⁠in two Ukrainian ⁠cities on Sunday, including a strike ⁠on a grocery store in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, where ‌three people died ‌and 20 were ‌injured. Two children were ‌among the injured, regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said. In a separate attack in western Ukraine, officials said ‌a Russian strike killed three people. Trump’s energy truce claim came two days after he announced a controversial agreement to buy Russian diesel fuel while temporarily easing US sanctions, prompting outrage from Ukraine and its European allies, who said it would embolden Moscow. Canadian prime minister Mark Carney added to the chorus of disapproval after a Sunday call with Zelenskyy, saying the diesel deal “is in direct opposition to the efforts of Ukraine, Canada and our allies to create peace and stability in Europe”. EU chief Ursula von der Leyen also backed Zelenskyy “as he leads the fight for his people’s freedom”, while Germany foreign minister Johann Wadephul said Berlin continued to “fully support” him. Trump lashed out at Zelenskyy when asked about criticism of the Russia diesel deal, saying it was “time for Ukraine to get a new president” who would finally settle the war. Zelenskyy pushed back, telling US ABC News on Sunday: “First of all, with all respect to President Trump, it’s up to our society, up to our people to choose one or another leader.” The Trump administration is threatening to stop the procurement system that provides Ukraine with weapons in order to press Kyiv to halt its deep strikes on Russian energy infrastructure, the Financial Times quoted officials in Europe as saying. The US was lobbying European capitals and Kyiv in an attempt to end the attacks on Russian oil refineries, they said. A Ukrainian ⁠drone killed one ⁠person in Russia’s ⁠border Belgorod region on Sunday, ⁠officials said. The operational headquarters ⁠in Belgorod region said the drone struck a car on a road ‌near the border. In the part of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region ⁠held by Russian forces, Moscow-installed officials said one person ‌had been killed in a Ukrainian attack. Russia’s military ⁠said it ⁠struck ⁠a logistics centre in southern Ukraine’s ⁠Mykolaiv region and a cargo vessel ⁠in the Black ‌Sea. The logistics centre in the town ‌of Ternivka was used to store military and dual-use cargoes for the ⁠Ukrainian military, the ‌Russian defence ministry ‌claimed on Sunday.

Indonesia looks to mosque loudspeakers to double as earthquake warning systems

Scientists working on an early warning system in earthquake-prone Indonesia have taken the spiritual path to designing a network of alarms that will reach even the remotest communities: they hope to use mosques to save lives. A five-year trial is assessing whether the ubiquitous loudspeakers used to broadcast the call to prayer can double up as warning klaxons for earthquakes. “Every community has a mosque,” says project lead Dr Inoue Hiroshi, speaking to the Guardian from Indonesia. The pilot scheme was the brainchild of the Japanese disaster scientist, who says he came up with the idea nearly two decades ago while researching deadly quakes in Sumatra, Indonesia. Inoue, of the Disaster Prevention Research Institute at Kyoto University in Japan, is working with the Indonesian government to assess whether the country could implement an early warning system similar to Japan’s. “I thought if Indonesia had the same service and people received the warning before the shaking came, then many people among those few hundred wouldn’t have died,” he says of a devastating 2009 quake in western Sumatra which killed at least 1,000 people. Indonesia’s disaster agency has to grapple with huge distances and hard-to-reach territories, but it has the benefit of an already established network of regularly serviced loudspeakers, something many other countries do not. With the largest population of Muslims worldwide, Indonesia has hundreds of thousands of mosques, which broadcast the call to pray five times a day. The pilot scheme has already hooked up several mosques to its seismic sensor network. For an earthquake early warning system to save lives, there are two critical factors – it needs a network of alarms, and they need to work. “The advantage of a mosque speaker is that they’re existing and well maintained,” says Inoue. “For any disaster infrastructure, maintenance is the big challenge … but the mosque speaker is maintained by the people”. Many modern disaster preparedness strategies work using mobile phones, although those are vulnerable because earthquakes can disrupt communication infrastructure. The country has a tsunami early warning system dating back to 2008, but the earthquake initiative could be a “breakthrough”, says Andi Eka Sakya, senior researcher at the Indonesian government-affiliated National Research and Innovation Agency and the Indonesian head of the joint research team. While tsunamis affect coastal areas and can be predicted in minutes or even hours, earthquake waves move through the ground at incredible speeds, and Sakya says a village 50km from the epicentre could have only five to 10 seconds to respond. “It’s still a prototype, and they don’t issue warnings to the public yet,” he says. “The ultimate goal is actually to alert the people so that they can respond as early as possible.” The project, which runs until 2030, is also looking at installing alarm systems in school loudspeakers and using radio and television transmissions. Indonesia and Japan both lie on the Pacific Ring of Fire and are frequently affected by earthquakes. Researchers are looking at how behaviours and survival strategies differ between Japan and Indonesia. In Japan, official disaster guidelines focus on the widely used “drop and cover” strategy – taking immediate shelter, for example, under a table and staying indoors. In contrast, low-rise homes in some developing countries like Indonesia are frequently built from unreinforced masonry that is highly vulnerable to collapsing, and so people have survived by escaping outside. In some cases, two-storey buildings in Indonesia have seen the first floor crushed and the second floor remain relatively intact. “The way people react is they quickly escape out of the room,” says Inoue. “They know how to survive.” Because standard international advice does not always suit fragile buildings, project researchers are conducting simulations and human experiments to establish guidelines grounded in science. “This is actually one of the main research topics,” says Inoue. Other countries in the Muslim world have looked at similar systems. When the United Arab Emirates government planned to start its Barakah nuclear power plant, an official on the project said mosque loudspeakers would be part of a broader network of alarms in the event of a radiation leak. A far more extensive mosque loudspeaker project is going on in Uzbekistan, where the Ministry of Emergency Situations announced a pilot project this year for devices to be installed in 272 mosques. The alarms would alert people to floods, mudflows, landslides and avalanches. “The selection of mosques is not incidental,” the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which partnered in the initiative, said in a statement. “They are traditionally perceived as authoritative social institutions with significant influence on local communities.”

Riyadh airport hit again after deadly Houthi missile attack, Saudi authorities say

A projectile hit a passenger terminal at the airport in Riyadh on Sunday, the day after a deadly missile attack on the facility carried out by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebel group killed 13 people. An unidentified projectile hit terminal 4 at King Khalid international airport, starting a fire, killing one person and injuring 11, according to Saudi civil aviation authorities. Air defences also intercepted a cruise missile in the vicinity of the airport. It was the latest of several attacks on the airport in the past week. The escalating attacks threatened to draw more countries into the Yemen conflict and further widen the regional fallout of the US-Iran war, which has already spread to Lebanon and Iraq. In a post on X, the British embassy in Saudi Arabia advised against all but essential travel to the cities of Jeddah and Dammam and to avoid almost all airports. After Saturday’s strike on Riyadh airport, the US president, Donald Trump, said he was weighing whether to join the Saudi military campaign in Yemen, telling reporters: “We’re going to look into it.” The Iran-allied Houthis claimed to have launched several attacks on the airport, including the attack on Saturday, which killed 13 people and injured more than 300 – the deadliest attack on a Gulf country since the war with Iran started in March and an apparent escalation in the Houthis’ war with Saudi Arabia and the Yemeni government that Riyadh sponsors. In response to the attack, Saudi authorities extended the closure of the airport and said schools would be moved online until Thursday. The Houthis claimed that Saudi Arabia struck the airport in Yemen’s rebel-held capital, Sana’a, on Sunday, without providing more information on damage or casualties. Videos circulated on social media showing travellers walking through debris-strewn ground in the Riyadh airport as sirens blared. Four Saudi citizens, two Bangladeshi nationals, a Palestinian, a US citizen, an Egyptian, a Jordanian, a Syrian and a Sudanese were killed in the missile strike. On Sunday evening, Saudi authorities also confirmed King Fahd international airport in the eastern city of Dammam had been attacked, with the country’s civil aviation authority saying on X: “The assessment of the damage and verification of the safety of airport facilities were still under way, in coordination with the relevant authorities.” On Saturday night, the spokesperson for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, Maj Gen Turki al-Maliki, said the coalition would “respond firmly” to the attack, offering few other details. The Houthis said a Saudi airstrike on Sana’a on Sunday hit a home and killed a child, as well as injuring six others. The Houthis doubled down on their threats on Sunday, warning airlines, passengers and staff to stay away from Saudi airports. The group said “the worst is yet to come” if Saudi military action in Yemen continued. “We renew our warning to all airlines, experts, employees, workers and travellers against using Saudi airports and airspace, as they are vulnerable to attack and have become a theatre of operations for our forces,” the Houthis said on X. Trump said on Saturday night that he would speak to the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, after the previous attack on the airport. The US has already been assisting with intelligence cooperation and targeting, with about 200 US military advisers stationed in Saudi Arabia to help with the campaign. Until now, the US has not directly taken part in fighting against the Houthis. Direct US involvement could lead the group to resume its targeting of ships passing through the Bab al-Mandab strait, through which about 10% of global maritime goods transit. It would also further entangle the US in Middle East wars as the American public grows increasingly frustrated with the continuing Iran conflict. Trump is facing the midterm elections in November with an unpopular war and soaring prices at home threatening his party’s performance at the polls. Saudi Arabia is already carrying out airstrikes against the Houthis in Yemen. The Houthi government’s health ministry said coalition airstrikes over the last six weeks had killed 91 Yemenis and wounded 168, 60% of whom it said were women and children. Saudi-backed government forces in Yemen launched a campaign to push the Houthis back from the areas the group conquered over the past month. Despite claiming initial successes, the government forces have not been able to loosen the Houthis’ grip over areas closest to the Bab al-Mandab strait such as Perim Island. The Indian embassy in Saudi Arabia said one of its citizens died on Sunday after being wounded in the Riyadh airport attack a day earlier. The Egyptian woman killed in the attack on the airport was a flight attendant identified as Azza Ramzy, 28, who worked for the Saudi airline Flynas, according to Egyptian state-run TV. The Syrian woman was a widowed mother of four who had been living in Saudi Arabia for five years, a relative told the Associated Press. The Syrian embassy in Riyadh identified her as Buthaina Ahmad Oweida. Her niece, Nisreen Oweida, said her aunt was 56, from Syria’s northern Idlib province, and had left during the country’s civil war. She was living in Mecca and had been returning from a visit to her sister in Riyadh when she was killed, the niece said. The airport attack was met with a wave of international condemnation, including from the UN secretary general, António Guterres, and the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. “Attacks by Iran’s proxies are pushing the region into a spiral of violence,” von der Leyen wrote on X. “They are destabilising crucial global transport and energy nodes.” The increasing intensity of Houthi attacks against Riyadh and its energy infrastructure has brought more foreign involvement in the Yemen war. Governments are facing pressure over oil prices, already high from the US-Iran war since March. On Monday, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey issued a joint statement saying they would move quickly to implement their mutual defence pact, including by speeding up the deployment of military forces in the kingdom. The UK said it would assist with defensive military support of Riyadh, providing refuelling for aircraft working to intercept Houthi missiles. Saudi Arabia has asked for further assistance from France, Egypt, the UK and Pakistan as its stock of interceptor missiles are running low. The Houthis launched a military campaign to take Yemen’s Red Sea coast in early September after months of escalating tensions with the Yemeni government and its Saudi patron. The campaign interrupted years of relative calm in the country after a 2022 UN-brokered ceasefire froze frontlines between the Houthis and the government. Despite the Saudi-supported counteroffensive, the group seems to have held on to its recent gains. It is unclear what further Saudi military action would look like against the Houthis, who resisted years of strikes by an international coalition, as well as by the US. Saudi Arabia led an international coalition that intervened against the Houthis in Yemen in 2015 after the group took over Sana’a and toppled the Yemeni government. Recent Houthi attacks against Saudi energy infrastructure, as well as Houthi military advances, have pulled Saudi Arabia back into the Yemen war.

Middle East crisis: Riyadh airport hit again as Houthis claim attacks, including strike that killed 12 – as it happened

Following yesterday’s attack on Riyadh international airport that killed 12 people and injured hundreds, the site was hit again on Sunday. Authorities said an “unidentified projectile” struck Terminal 4 at King Khalid International Airport. Air defenses also “intercepted and destroyed a cruise missile” in the vicinity of the airport. An Egyptian flight attendant, a Syrian woman, and an Indian national were among the 12 killed in yesterday’s Saudi airport attack. The Egyptian woman killed was identified as Azza Ramzy, 28. The Syrian woman was identified as Buthaina Ahmad Oweida. The Saudi General Authority of Civil Aviation said in a statement that today’s attack on King Khalid international airport in Riyadh “resulted in injuries” but did not specify how many. Yemen’s Houthis have claimed responsibility for both Saturday and Sunday’s attacks on Riyadh Airport. The group said on Sunday they had targeted Riyadh’s airport several times as well as Saudi energy facilities, a day after Saturday’s deadly attack. The United Arab Emirates issued a statement in solidarity with Saudi Arabia, expressing support for “all measures aimed at safeguarding the kingdom’s security and stability”. The UAE message is significant given the major rupture in relations this year. The Houthis this morning issued a warning to travelers and airlines to stay away from Saudi airports following yesterday’s attack. A Houthi military spokesman warned the public to “take our warning seriously” and also claimed that “Saudi Arabia bears responsibility for any failed interceptions”. The attacks on Riyadh airport came just before a major oil summit, the World Petroleum Congress, scheduled for this week. The repeated attacks have temporarily halted oil flows and driven up global oil prices. The CEOs of major companies Shell, ExxonMobil, BP, TotalEnergies had been due to attend the summit but given the attacks, it’s unclear if executives will take the risk.

Steve Jones obituary

My friend Steve Jones, who has died aged 77, had a working life devoted to humanitarian causes, with a particular focus on Bangladesh and India. In retirement he then dedicated a sizeable portion of his time to charity work, helping people with the lung disease pulmonary fibrosis get the help and treatment they needed. Steve was born in London to John and Lettie, who were both teachers and shared the surname Jones. After secondary school in Crawley, West Sussex, he studied geography at Bristol University, worked for a short time as an economist for a company that became part of British Airways and then embarked on further studies at Cambridge University, where he gained a certificate in anthropology and began a PhD. While there he became involved with Operation Omega, a group that smuggled humanitarian aid across the border from India to Bangladesh during its war with Pakistan in 1971. This led him to cut short his studies so that he could begin work as a consultant economist and project planner. Over the years he worked on many projects, including for the University of New South Wales from 1984 to 1986 in the Solomon Islands on a smallholder project and a post-cyclone survey. In 1989 his work took him back to Bangladesh, where he was employed by the World Bank to develop a flood action plan. Fourteen years of his life, from 1992 to 2006, were then spent with the Department for International Development, working on ways to help tackle the social and economic problems related to rural poverty in India. He was also particularly proud of a cyclone recovery and reconstruction project he worked on in 2007 for the World Bank, which led to the building of cyclone shelters in Bangladesh. In 2006 he became a trustee and then chair of trustees of the Humanitarian Centre in Cambridge, which later became the Centre for Global Equality. Two years later he had to leave work after being diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis, but eventually he was lucky enough to receive a lung transplant that prolonged his life considerably. That allowed him to focus on being a trustee, chair and patient president of the charity Action for Pulmonary Fibrosis, giving over the last decade of his life to fighting on behalf of people with the disease so that they can be provided with better diagnosis, care and treatment. He was also president of the European Pulmonary Fibrosis Federation. In 1976 he met Hilary Gretton, a nurse, and they married five years later. She survives him, along with their children, Rosie, David and Euan, and seven grandchildren.