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Venezuela’s Maduro urges Trump to avoid Afghanistan-style ‘forever war’

Venezuela’s authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro, has urged Donald Trump not to lead the US into an Afghanistan-style “forever war”, as the American military buildup in the region intensified and Trump’s defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, vowed to purge the Americas of “narco-terrorists”. Speaking to CNN outside the Miraflores presidential palace in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, Maduro called on Trump to make peace, not war, after the world’s largest aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R Ford, arrived in the region. “No more forever wars. No more unjust wars. No more Libya. No more Afghanistan. Long live peace,” Maduro, 62, declared late on Thursday as he pushed his way through crowds to reach a pro-government rally. Hours after the Venezuelan leader spoke, Hegseth sought to pile further pressure on Venezuela’s leader, announcing what he called Operation Southern Spear. “The Western Hemisphere is America’s neighborhood – and we will protect it,” Hegseth tweeted. He said the Southern Command mission would defend “our homeland” and secure it from “the drugs that are killing our people”. It is unclear why Hegseth made the announcement now, 10 months after the US Naval Forces Southern Command declared the impending launch of the operation, which it said would use “a heterogeneous mix of robotic and autonomous systems to support the detection and monitoring of illicit trafficking” in the Caribbean. Hegseth’s comments could perhaps have been a headline-grabbing effort to rebrand Trump’s pressure campaign against Maduro, which has involved a series of deadly strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean and Pacific. Officially, the massive US deployment is part of the Trump administration’s “war on drugs” and designed to stop Latin America drug cartels “flooding” the US with cocaine and fentanyl. But Venezuela is not a cocaine producer – that work is done almost entirely in Bolivia, Colombia and Peru – nor is it part of the fentanyl smuggling network, which is focused on Mexico. As a result, many observers have come to see Trump’s deployment – the largest in the region since the 1989 invasion of Panama – as a political crusade devised to achieve something the US president failed to do during his first term: overthrow Maduro. CBS News reported this week that senior military officials had handed Trump “options for potential operations in Venezuela, including strikes on land”, although two sources insisted no final decision had been made. Venezuela’s foreign minister, Yván Gil, sent a defiant message to “the North American empire”. “Don’t you dare [attack]. We are ready,” he said. Amid growing speculation that an aerial attack on Venezuelan soil was imminent, Reuters said Maduro’s regime had drawn up plans for “a guerrilla-style response” to any US assault. Those plans reportedly envisage “small military units at more than 280 locations carrying out acts of sabotage and other guerrilla tactics” to repel foreign fighters. Under a second strategy, described as “anarchisation”, pro-regime groups including the intelligence services would sow chaos on the streets of Caracas “and make Venezuela ungovernable for foreign forces”, two sources told Reuters.

Dick Harris obituary

My father, Dick Harris, who has died aged 71, spent a lifetime working and volunteering in the disability sector, using his own experiences to encourage independent living. He was born in Wrexham, north Wales, to Edna Harris, an unmarried teacher, and never knew who his father was. Under the circumstances in those days he would normally have been given up for adoption, but he was born with cerebral palsy and at the time it was difficult to place disabled children with adoptive parents. Instead he grew up at Penhurst school, run by the National Children’s Home in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, and later at a Leonard Cheshire home in nearby Banbury. These were happy years but by today’s standards institutional. In 1979, Dick took the opportunity to move to a pioneering development of flats in Camden, north London, which had been purpose-built for people with disabilities to live independently. For many of those living in the accommodation, Dick included, this was the first time they had been able to make any choices for themselves, and the first time they were in control of their own money. He spent his first week’s food budget in one night in the pub. Around that time he became involved in voluntary groups, organising breaks for disabled people with volunteer care workers in the UK and continental Europe. It was on one of these holidays that he met Angi Donnelly, who was there as a volunteer. They married in 1981 and moved to their own flat. I was born the year after, followed by my brother, Martyn. From 1984 to 1985 Dick worked as a volunteer co-ordinator at Islington Disabled Association in north London, until in 1987 we all relocated to Coventry, where he took up a job at the Spastics Society (later named Scope). Dick worked in various roles there for almost 20 years, until in 2005 he moved to Leonard Cheshire. His job interview had taken place at the home in Banbury he had lived in as a young man. He worked there in a number of positions, including on the marketing team, until retirement in 2020. He continued volunteering with disability groups in Coventry and Warwickshire until this year. Care arrangements often changed and there were times when Dick had to fight for the funding and resources needed for him to maintain an independent life. In the 1980s and early 90s, community service volunteers (often gap year students) spent six months at a time as carer-enablers. Later, the Access to Work scheme meant Dick was able to pay carers. All these people had to learn how, as Dick put it, to become his “arms and legs”, enabling him to work, volunteer and have a family life; and meaning that Angi could work (as a cashier) rather than being his full-time carer. Within the last year Dick was pleased to learn, via a DNA test, that he had a half-brother, Sandy, who had also grown up not knowing their shared father. Sadly they were unable to meet as Dick became ill very quickly after being diagnosed with kidney cancer in March. He lived a life defying the expectations of others, breaking rules and boundaries, working hard, and being a good friend and supportive colleague to many. He is survived by Angi, Martyn and me, three grandchildren, Rupert, Norah and Giles, and Sandy.

British-Egyptian activist stopped from flying to UK, says family

Alaa Abd el-Fattah, the British-Egyptian writer and human rights campaigner who was freed from jail in September, was stopped from flying to the UK by Egyptian passport control, his family has said. Abd el-Fattah was pardoned after more than 10 years in jail but his status, including his right to travel back and forth between Britain and Egypt, was left unclear and subject to discussion between the family and authorities. He had been due to travel to the UK on Tuesday in part to attend two conferences, including the Magnitsky human rights awards in London. Sanaa Seif, Abd el-Fattah’s sister, confirmed in a speech to the awards ceremony that her brother was stopped from flying to the UK by Egyptian passport control earlier in the week. He attempted to fly to London with Seif on Tuesday morning but was told at Cairo international airport that he was not allowed to travel. Abd el-Fattah was pardoned by President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi on 22 September and released from Wadi el-Natrun prison later that day, but it has not been clear whether he is able to travel to the UK to be reunited with his son, Khaled, in Brighton. Abd el-Fattah and his mother, Laila Soueif, were on Thursday awarded the Courage Under Fire award at the Magnitsky awards. Seif collected the award on behalf of her brother and mother. Speaking at the event, Seif said: “I wish my brother could be here tonight to accept this award. I wish he could be reunited with his son, Khaled, in Brighton. “But on Tuesday morning we went to Cairo airport together to come to London, and he was stopped by Egyptian authorities at passport control and they refused to allow him to travel with me.” Abd el-Fattah has conducted interviews about his experience of freedom in the British press, including the Guardian as well in the Egyptian dissident press. He had indicated he needed time to think about his future. His son, Khaled, is 13 and lives with his mother in Brighton where he attends a special educational needs school. When Abd el-Fattah was released, Khaled visited him in Egypt, but he has returned to Brighton. Soueif conducted a 287-day hunger strike to press for the release of her son, which she started on 29 September 2024 after Egyptian authorities failed to release him at the end of his latest five-year sentence. Abd el-Fattah had been imprisoned for “spreading fake news” after sharing a Facebook post about torture in Egypt. Soueif ended her hunger strike on Monday 14 July 2025 after 287 days without food. During this time she was in St Thomas’ hospital in London and came close to death on two occasions, in late February and June 2025.

Friday briefing: Inside the dispute driving resident doctors back to the picket line

Good morning. Earlier this week, my colleague Karen McVeigh asked readers to send in suggestions for topics they’d like First Edition to cover, and straight into our inbox were several people asking about the upcoming doctors’ strike in England. Reader Fay asked: “I would like to see more about the coming strike and what it will mean for the NHS. With waiting lists so long and the likely impact on patients, what are the doctors’ justifications?” Lo and behold, that is the focus of today’s newsletter. I spoke to Denis Campbell, the Guardian’s health policy editor, about all of that, the political implications of the strike for the health secretary, Wes Streeting, and the government, and what a resolution might look like. But first, here are this morning’s headlines. Five big stories Politics | Rachel Reeves is set to abandon a plan to raise income tax in her budget with the chancellor reportedly “ripping up” the main measures in the wake of a week of extraordinary briefing wars in the party. US politics | Donald Trump is facing the prospect of a politically damaging congressional vote on releasing the Jeffery Epstein files after attempts to press two female members of Congress to withdraw their backing for it appeared to have failed. Economy | Hundreds of thousands of homeowners will lose their right to subsidies for eco-friendly heat pumps as a result of government plans to bring down energy bills at the budget. Cop30 | A row over the definition of the term “gender” threatens to bog down pivotal talks at the Cop30 climate summit. Before the UN talks in Brazil, hardline conservative states have pushed to define gender as “biological sex” over their concerns trans and non-binary people could be included in a major plan to ensure climate action addresses gender inequality and empowers women. UK news | Services in Surrey failed to identify that Sara Sharif was at risk of abuse, did not question unexplained bruising, and staff members visited the wrong address the day before her murder, a review has found. In depth: ‘I cannot see any resolution coming any time soon’ First off, this is not a new dispute. It began back in March 2023, when you would have heard it referred to as the junior doctors’ strike. They have since had a rebrand, and are now known as resident doctors. “There was a feeling,” Denis Campbell says, “that the name junior doctors did not really reflect the variety and sometimes seniority of the role.” *** What do resident doctors in England do? “While technically still in training, and below the level of consultant, resident doctors range from relatively freshly qualified doctors to some actually very experienced doctors who’ve got 13-14 years’ experience at the coalface of the NHS, treating patients in quite often senior roles,” Denis tells me. You are most likely to encounter them at outpatient appointments, making your diagnosis, or agreeing your pathway of care and treatment. “To a large extent they are the backbone of the NHS,” he says. *** Why are they going on strike? There have been nearly 50 days of stoppages since March 2023, initially over pay. “Resident doctors are very concerned that their incomes have been eroded significantly since 2008 by inflation and years of minimal pay rises,” Denis says. They originally sought a 35% increase, but have so far received just under 29% over three years. The British Medical Association (BMA) is now seeking a further 26% over the next few years, calling it “full pay restoration” – taking salaries back to their 2008 real-terms value. This chart (below) shows how the BMA views the erosion of pay in real terms. As they put it, “resident doctors are still working more than a fifth of their time for free” compared with 2008. But, Denis says, there is a new complication for the government. “The BMA has now made the dispute about a second matter: that many thousands of resident doctors are finding it impossible to get a place to start training in the medical specialty of their choosing, whatever it might be,” he says. “There is a real bottleneck in the availability of places. Early-career doctors are reaching the point when they’ve done their general training while moving around hospitals in England. They are now ready to start training to be a specialist, the way most doctors are, but are finding that pathway blocked. “This is a problem that has been building up, and is a new, very complicating factor in the strike because it’s now a pay-and-jobs dispute. And both of these issues are very, very hard to deal with. There is no magic wand for the government to wave to solve either problem.” *** What has been the impact on patients and waiting lists? Now we come to Fay’s question. Of course, doctors on strike don’t just down tools and let people die. “It’s not that during strikes, 100% of resident doctors refuse to work. Many of them do so. But there is a significant impact on hospitals,” Denis explains. Across 12 walkouts so far, more than a million NHS appointments in England have been cancelled – mostly outpatient visits and some planned surgery. Consultants are drafted in to “act down”, Denis says, covering junior colleagues’ roles. Wes Streeting claimed during the last strike that the actual impact on patients was being minimised, and has urged the NHS to keep more planned care running, saying the health service “can’t put life on hold” during industrial action. Denis says that reflects the minister’s view that the strikes have become “a new normal” the NHS must endure until the dispute ends. *** Why is Streeting being so rude about the BMA? At a conference in Manchester this week, Streeting accused the BMA of “cartel-like behaviour”, saying its pay demands were “completely unreasonable” after doctors received almost 29% in rises over the past three years. He warned that ministers wouldn’t be “held to ransom” and went as far as to describe them as a threat to the NHS. Denis says the remarks “raised the temperature of what was already a pretty fractious dispute”. The strike is politically awkward for Streeting and the government. We may be many decades on from the industrial disputes of the 1970s, but the language in the rightwing and tabloid press of “greedy union barons” and Labour kowtowing to their “paymasters” every time they settle a dispute persists in 2025. Streeting was also, in opposition, scathing of the Conservative administration’s inability to resolve the dispute. “Streeting sort of gave the impression that the reason the Tories didn’t get the dispute resolved was an unwillingness to engage and a lack of effort on their part,” Denis says. “But actually, since Labour got in, they have put resident doctors’ pay up by the sort of rise that almost anyone else in the public sector would kill for. But he’s found he is up against a very implacable, energised and determined group of vital, valuable, important public sector workers.” *** What is the most likely resolution? I asked Denis whether he saw a resolution in the offing, and his reply was pretty downbeat. “We may quite realistically end up with strikes every month from the new year onwards,” he says. “Having spoken to people on both sides regularly and at length, I cannot see any resolution coming any time soon. “Streeting seems to be banking on enthusiasm for the strike waning due to it costing doctors money each time they don’t work, and public opinion turning against the strikers – and hoping the dispute will eventually fizzle out,” Denis says. “I have to tell him that, from having spoken to a number of people in the BMA this week, I think that is highly unlikely to happen. The doctors seem determined to just keep on going and going until they get full pay restoration. That’s what they want. They’re determined to get it. I think their plan, as far as I understand it, is to keep on striking until they do.” What else we’ve been reading Victor Raison speaks to farmers from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, about how gang warfare and the climate crisis – which together have displaced more than 1.4 million people to camps and the surrounding hillsides – are leading to environmental degradation and affecting the country’s landscape. Karen I long ago gave up caring how people pronounce my surname, not least because even my own extended family don’t agree on it. Emma Russell has a lovely piece talking to people with unusual names. Martin Bee-lamb or Bell-umm Adam Gabbatt looks at the growing use of AI-generated campaign videos, such as Andrew Cuomo’s misleading ad targeting Zohran Mamdani in the New York mayoral contest and why they might be here to stay. Karen I still very much miss seeing the Fall live. In Far Out, Ben Forrest looks at how Mark E Smith always remained firmly anchored to his Prestwich roots. Martin This special visual report categorises those who favour Reform into five groups, from working right to squeezed stewards to reluctant reformers, in a set of charts. By Guardian visual projects team, Ana Lucía González Paz and Ashley Kirk, based on the largest poll of supporters yet, from Hope Not Hate. Karen Sport Football | Goals from Bukayo Saka and Eberechi Eze secured a 2-0 victory for England against Serbia at Wembley. Cricket | England captain Ben Stokes announced his readiness for the Ashes with six wickets on the first day of their in-house warm-up game. Cricket | The 18 first-class counties have been criticised by the England and Wales Cricket Board for failing to make any progress in increasing the ethnic and gender diversity of their senior leadership. Something for the weekend Our critics’ roundup of the best things to watch, read, play and listen to right now TV The Beast in Me (Netflix) | ★★★★★ Even without two astonishing performances from the lead actors – Claire Danes and Matthew Rhys – the script, the sheer style and confidence of it all would be things of beauty. But add what that pair are doing, and this clever, taut eight-part psychological thriller moves seamlessly into top-tier television. They spark off each other through beautifully written scenes designed to immerse you in the world of two people discovering what it means to find someone who truly sees you and accepts you in your entirety, and how much of them you will accept in return. It is, they are, absolutely wonderful to watch. Awards will surely be given, and in the meantime you cannot look away. Lucy Mangan Film The Running Man | ★★★☆☆ Edgar Wright, that unstoppable force for good in cinema, has revived the sci-fi thriller satire last seen in 1987 with Arnold Schwarzenegger; it now stars Glen Powell and is adapted directly from the original 1982 novel written by Stephen King under his “Richard Bachman” pen-name. Powell plays Ben, an honest, hardworking guy who desperately needs cash to buy medicine for his sick daughter. In despair, Ben signs up for a top-rated reality TV show called The Running Man; he has to go on the run across the US, hunted by professional killers, and if he can survive for 30 days, he gets a billion dollars. The resulting film is never anything but likable and fun – though never actually disturbing in the way that it’s surely supposed to be. Peter Bradshaw Music Celeste: Woman of Faces | ★★★★☆ It’s far from a fanbase-confounding left turn – a Metal Machine Music for the jazz-inflected pop-soul set – but nor is Woman of Faces hugely commercial. Its sound manages to be both sumptuous and stark. Its opulence results from its orchestrations and modern classical flourishes. But there’s something austere about it, too. Its emotional tone is sombre; songs deal with the societal pressures placed on women and the deleterious effect of technology on our lives, and the overwhelming theme is the fallout from a broken relationship. Every song is individually stunning – excerpted on a playlist, they would stop you dead in your tracks. In that sense, at least, Woman of Faces feels like a thoroughly modern pop album. Alexis Petridis Podcast IMO: The Look This new spin-off of Michelle Obama’s IMO podcast coincides with the launch of a coffee-table tome about her fashion evolution. It’s a highly polished affair (aren’t all things Obama?), with guests including former Teen Vogue editor Elaine Welteroth and Jane Fonda. Like the woman herself, though, it also offers substance alongside its style, revealing much about the pressures she faced as the first Black woman to reside in the White House. Hannah J Davies The front pages “BBC apologises to Trump over Panorama but rejects £1bn claim” says the Guardian. The Telegraph smells more blood: “Second Trump clip doctored by BBC”. “84 in … 113 out” – the Metro keeps tabs on “Starmer’s asylum swaps with France so far” while the i paper has “UK to unveil stricter new ‘Denmark-style’ laws for migrants”. The Daily Mail splashes on “Fear of being seen as racist contributed to failures that doomed tragic Sara” while the Express has “Sara failed by officials ‘afraid to cause offence’” – both headlines refer to the murder of Sara Sharif. “Andrew ‘knew Epstein abused girls’” says the Daily Mirror. The Times runs with “Five days of NHS strikes opposed by most doctors”. Today in Focus The surprising truth about Reform voters The biggest survey of Reform voters to date reveals unexpected views. Aditya Chakrabortty reports Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings The Upside A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad It gave us Mike Leigh’s acerbic and acclaimed comedy drama Abigail’s Party and the gritty Liverpudlian series The Black Stuff. Now the revered BBC strand Play for Today, which ran on the BBC’s main channel and was watched by millions in the 1970s and 1980s, is back, writes Mark Lawson. He celebrates its award-winning hits and the new writers it introduced, including David Hare and Stephen Poliakoff. The new Channel 5 version will be a very different beast: less overtly political and not limited to one-off dramas. Four new plays, starting on 13 November, count women among their writers. The opener, Never Too Late (pictured above), stars Anita Dobson and Nigel Havers, and includes a plot twist that Lawson believes has the potential for a full series. 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

The UK wants to emulate Denmark’s hardline asylum model – but what does it actually look like?

Of all the measures introduced to deter people from seeking asylum in Denmark over the last decade, it is the impermanence of refugees’ status that is often cited as the most effective. Before 2015, refugees in Denmark were initially allowed to stay for between five and seven years, after which their residence permits would automatically become permanent. But 10 years ago, when more than a million people arrived in Europe fleeing conflict and repression, largely from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Eritrea, the Danish government dramatically changed the rules. Since then, temporary residence permits have only been granted for one to two years at a time and there is no longer any guarantee of getting a permanent visa. In order to gain permanent status, refugees have to be fluent in Danish and are also required to have had a full-time job for several years. “It’s about the attitude and feeling of being here as a visitor on a temporary basis. You don’t know where your future is going to be,” said Michala Clante Bendixen, who runs the refugee advisory group Refugees Welcome Denmark and is Denmark’s country coordinator for the European Commission’s Migrant Integration Hub. “Even a speeding ticket can push that permanent stay many years into the future.” Denmark’s immigration policies have come into renewed focus after it emerged Britain’s Labour government was seeking to emulate their approach in an attempt to make the UK a less attractive destination for people seeking asylum. Despite attracting criticism from the UN and human rights organisations, the restrictions – among the harshest in Europe – appear to have had the effect politicians were hoping for. In 2014, a total of 14,792 asylum seekers arrived in Denmark, with the largest numbers coming from Syria and Eritrea. By 2021, that figure had dropped to 2,099 and in 2024 it was 2,333. Of nearly 100,000 residence permits that were granted in Denmark last year, just 1% were recorded as going to refugees. The 99% included 9,623 refugees from Ukraine, who are categorised separately, migrants from other parts of the European Economic Area, family reunification and people on work and study permits. But the reduction has come at a cost, critics say, to Denmark’s reputation and sense of self. The incorporation of populist rightwing ideas into nominally centre-left politics have, they suggest, eaten away at some of the ideals that Denmark is internationally best known for. “The argument against it is that you get extremism in the centre – you have no strong position from which you can legitimise human rights and protection of minorities,” said Rune Lykkeberg, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Information. When Denmark’s Social Democratic prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, came to power in 2019, toppling the centre-right government amid a collapse in support for the far-right Danish People’s party (DPP) and the Liberal Alliance, she said she wanted to cut the number of asylum seekers in Denmark to zero. The path had been laid for Frederiksen by her predecessor, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, who was then leader of the centre-right Venstre party and is now the foreign minister. The 2015 change to temporary residence permits came under his watch, as did the “paradigm shift” of 2019, a series of rules that focused official efforts and rhetoric on repatriation rather than integration. Six years later, Frederiksen is still in office as a centre-left leader who has capitalised on an uncompromising approach to migration and doubled down on the idea that Denmark is no place for refugees. “What Denmark has been doing is a policy of deterrence, scaring people from choosing Denmark,” said Bendixen. Denmark has regularly attracted criticism from the UN high commissioner for refugees about its asylum practices, but many of its integration policies have also attracted international criticism. Most controversial is the so-called law against “ghettoes” (now known as “parallel societies”), which allows the state to demolish apartment blocks in areas where at least half of residents have a “non-western” background. In February, a senior adviser to the EU’s top court found that the law constitutes direct discrimination on the basis of ethnic origin. The criticism has done nothing, however, to shift the political agenda; in fact, lately, domestic debate has become more extreme. The far-right DPP, which is not in government but has seen an increase in support, is calling for “remigration” – the mass deportation of people with immigrant backgrounds living in Denmark. Eva Singer, the director of asylum and refugee rights at the Danish Refugee Council, said it was politicians, not the public, driving anti-immigrant sentiment: “The politicians say they follow the popular mood, but maybe the popular mood is coming from what the politicians are saying, which is not based on fact.” Next year’s general elections could give a clue as to whether or not the Social Democrats’ approach is still popular with voters. Immigration is likely to be one of many hot-button issues. Others include Donald Trump’s threats to Greenland, a former Danish colony that remains part of the Danish commonwealth, upheaval at two of Denmark’s biggest companies and the threat of hybrid war from Russia. Lykkeberg said the Social Democrats’ handling of immigration followed a Danish playbook dating back more than half a century. “The politics of it is part of what you could call the Danish model: you don’t try to burn the so-called populists, you try to steal their fire. You keep the so-called extremists from the centre of power and thus defend the old political order.” The reality on the ground, critics say, is the government’s hardline policies are often contradictory. “We hear from municipalities it is quite frustrating that, on one hand, they have to tell refugees everything they need to do to integrate and at the same time hare to remind them how temporary this is. They run counter to each other,” said Singer. The temporary nature of refugee status is “poison for integration”, said Bendixen, because it does not give people time to change their language career and establish their lives in a new country. Martin Lidegaard, the leader of the Social Liberal party and Denmark’s former foreign minister, believes some elements of the country’s integration policies, such as helping new arrivals to access education and find work and “ensure they will be a full member of Danish society”, are worth imitating. “Other parts of our politics I am not so proud of,” he said. As their populations age, all European countries, the UK included, are facing a growing dilemma, Lidegaard added: “We lack labour; we lack people. Because we get fewer children, our fertility is declining. Our economy and our labour market desperately needs some immigration. On the other hand, it is clear we have populist rightwing parties who want to fight against it and people coming to countries with different ethnic backgrounds. “All of us need to balance this in a clever way. No one can afford to walk into the future without labour.” The Danish ministry of immigration and integration declined to comment.

Two hours a night: Japan PM’s sleep schedule prompts concerns about work-life balance

Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, has said she gets by on just two to four hours sleep a night – prompting concern over her commitment to a better work-life balance among the country’s fatigued employees. Pointing to the bags beneath her eyes, Takaichi told MPs that she survives on minimal sleep – a habit she shares with her political hero Margaret Thatcher – after being asked how she would tackle Japan’s notoriously long working hours. Takaichi caused a stir last week after she summoned aides to her office for a 3am meeting to prepare for a budget committee hearing that was due to start six hours later, weeks after she celebrated becoming Japan’s first female leader by promising to “work, work, work, work and work”. “I sleep about two hours now, four hours at the longest,” she told MPs at a legislative committee meeting this week. “It’s probably bad for my skin,” Japan has struggled to change a corporate culture that expects employees to work long hours, and often socialise with colleagues in the evening. Punishing hours have been blamed for a rise in karoshi, or death from overwork, and for making it harder for exhausted couples to do their bit to raise the country’s low birthrate. There is concern that Takaichi expects employees to work longer hours to promote economic growth, as her administration discusses possibly raising a cap on overtime. She has said that any changes in working conditions would prioritise workers’ health. “If we can create a situation where people can properly balance childcare and caregiving responsibilities according to their wishes, and also being able to work, enjoy leisure time, and relax – that would be ideal,” she said. After she was elected president of the Liberal Democratic party (LDP) in early October – a victory that later saw her installed as prime minister – Takaichi said she would dispense with the idea of a “work-life balance for myself”, but also urged her LDP colleagues to “work like a horse”. Her heavy workload drew expressions of concern from political friends and foes alike. Ken Saito, a former LDP economy minister, said he was “honestly worried” about Takaichi’s health, while Katsuhito Nakajima, an opposition MP, urged her to get more sleep, eliciting a nod and a smile from the prime minister. She is not alone among Japanese people in failing to get enough sleep, although few of her compatriots can match her maximum four hours a night. A study released on World Sleep Day in March found that people in Japan average seven 7 hours, 1 minute of sleep on weekdays – 38 minutes shy of the international average and less than people in the US, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Canada. Takaichi has, admittedly, had little time to relax since becoming Japan’s first female prime minister at the end of October. She had been in office only a matter of days when she attended an Asean summit in Malaysia, before welcoming Donald Trump for a state visit and meeting Xi Jinping at the Apec summit in South Korea. A deepening row with China over her recent suggestion that Japan could become militarily involved in a conflict in the Taiwan Strait could give her yet more sleepless nights.

‘Reframes history’: fears Māori knowledge diluted in plan to revise New Zealand curriculum

As cows grazed sleepily in a nearby paddock, then-14-year-old Leah Bell watched as a local Māori elder cried. She was standing at the site of the massacre at Rangiaowhia, where Māori were deliberately burnt to death by the British crown in 1864. The site was just down the road from her Waikato high school. But she had never heard about it; in history, they’d been learning about the American civil war. That “shameful” realisation led Bell and her classmates to organise a 13,000 strong petition to parliament in 2015, as part of a groundswell of young people pushed for the teaching of accurate New Zealand history, including the wars over land, in schools. This was made compulsory in 2023. Now, the government wants to rewrite the history curriculum, removing and revising Māori history content and cutting some Māori words and references to the country’s foundational document, the Treaty of Waitangi (Te Tiriti o Waitangi) from the overall syllabus. Teachers, principals and academics are among the critics of the government’s planned reforms, which they say erases Māori knowledge and re-introduces rigid and outdated education methods. “It’s deeply alarming,” says Bell, 26, who is of Pākeha (European New Zealand) – descent and is now a masters student in Māori and indigenous studies at Waikato University. “Why are they trying to reframe this history? We need to grapple with it.” The proposed curriculum covers students in primary to junior high, aged between 5 and 14 years old. Those who have helped to write or oversee the changes say it’s a long-awaited move to a “discipline-driven” approach, which will lift school results and “rebalance” the curriculum. Yet many see the changes as politically-driven and part of what they say is a wider attack on Māori language and culture in schools. It comes as more than 200 schools petition the government to reinstate a rule for school boards to ensure Māori was included in classrooms, and after Māori words were scrapped from some early readers. ‘Eurocentric’ focus Work on a new curriculum had begun under former prime minister Jacinda Ardern, and a “refreshed” English and maths curriculum was released late last year. But the release of a final version of these subject areas last month-along with drafts of overarching documents and social sciences, which includes history-has caused distress. Māori educators who worked on drafts say it is “unrecognisable,” dropping Māori themes, words, and references to the country’s foundational document. New Zealand history will still be taught, but has been re-written in a way that’s eurocentric, says Nepia Mahuika, an associate professor in history at Massey University. “It doesn’t critique nationalism as you would expect in social sciences histories, it removes Māori content and replaces it with a world focus. We’ve always been skeptical of when you work with the state and what happens to indigenous histories, and you can see why.” Teachers and unions say the draft, out for consultation for six months, contains too much prescriptive content, with higher academic expectations at younger year levels. Education minister Erica Stanford told the Guardian she “absolutely rejected” assertions it was sidelining Māori.” “Social science needs to include New Zealand history, world history, geography, civics and financial literacy. It’s quite a big learning area … what we found was that the previous government’s history curriculum was so encompassing that there was no time to do anything else.” Overall the curriculum was too vague, lacked consistency, and was not “knowledge-rich,” she said. New Zealand pupils had “tanked” in OECD education rankings over the last 20 years, and this was designed to lift attainment, she said. Māori knowledge remained throughout, improved results showed her structured literacy approach was already working. “The core tenet of the treaty is that we raise Māori achievement, and nobody has been able to do that. That is my responsibility.” But part of the coalition government’s agreement with the libertarian ACT party included a policy to “rebalance” the curriculum. In a statement on social media, ACT leader David Seymour applauded the changes, saying the curriculum had been “fixed.” “The Marxist ‘big ideas’ such as ‘Māori history is the foundational and continuous history of Aotearoa New Zealand’ and ‘The course of Aotearoa New Zealand’s histories has been shaped by the use of power’ are GONE. In their place is a new and balanced History Curriculum.” Paul Moon, a professor of history at Auckland’s University of Technology, agreed the re-write was more holistic. “There was a monolithic view of what colonisation is, which was Pākeha coming here and taking over the political institutions of the country and dominating pretty much everything. The very broad brushstroke good v bad view of things is not helpful, because it’s not real. It’s not as simple as it was made out.” ‘Going back to the past’ For many on the frontline, still negotiating pay and conditions and now tasked with introducing a new curriculum next year, there is disillusionment. At Mt Cook School in Wellington, principal Adrianne McAllister, of Te Aitanga o Mahaki descent, said it felt as if they were battling a barrage of change that amounted to an erasure of Māori. She was worried about students at her school, who she said learned best when they saw themselves reflected. “Whose knowledge is this? We want kids to be critical thinkers, to dissect information. We know this one-size fits all approach doesn’t work. It’s like going back to the past, and it didn’t work then. It’s just draining, and it breaks my heart.” Others see this as a deliberate step backwards, one that has happened before. “We were finally breaking the cycle of historical amnesia about our country’s past,” pre-eminent historian Vincent O’Malley said. “And now we’re putting it all at risk.”