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Wednesday briefing: Why small boat crossings are here to stay

Good morning. You’d be forgiven for missing it. Earlier this month, the government quietly scrapped its “one in, one out” deal with France. The partnership was supposed to eliminate small boat crossings by deterring asylum seekers from making the treacherous journey across the world’s busiest shipping channel. The deal, which lasted just 423 days, was beset with problems, had a negligible impact, and now joins a long list of policies that have tried and failed to address highly visible, often tragic small boat crossings. This morning, the Home Office announced that it would be doubling the number of riot police along the French coast in lieu of the deal. Although small boat arrivals have actually decreased over the last year, the far right continues to weaponise these crossings. In its annual threat briefing yesterday, the head of MI5 warned that extremists with anti-immigration opinions are increasingly considering carrying out terrorist attacks. Today’s newsletter speaks to specialist reporter Diane Taylor and Daniel Trilling, author of If We Tolerate This, to situate the deal’s collapse within the wider context of policies that have exacerbated the sense of disorder they’re supposed to resolve – and asks what comes next. That’s after the headlines. Five big stories UK news | Extremists holding anti-immigration opinions are becoming increasingly likely to consider carrying out terrorist attacks against immigration centres and asylum hotels, the head of MI5 has warned. UK politics | Nigel Farage has denied that a Reform UK government would authorise lethal force against small boat crossings in the Channel. Ukraine | Andy Burnham will host Volodymyr Zelenskyy at Downing Street on Wednesday as the UK seeks to further underline its support for the Ukrainian president, in contrast to his difficulties with Donald Trump. US politics | Kimberly Guilfoyle is stepping down as US ambassador to Greece after weeks of reports that she sought payment from a Trump donor in exchange for access to administration officials. Pope Leo XIV | Pope Leo has lung cancer, the Vatican said late on Tuesday. Leo, 71, underwent an operation and had the lower lobe of his right lung removed, with tests confirming a diagnosis of lung adenocarcinoma, the Vatican said. In depth: ‘I’ve never seen as much suffering caused to refugees by government policy’ The one in, one out policy that was announced in a joint press conference between Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron in July last year was supposed to render small boat crossings pointless. A person arriving in a small boat to the UK could be forcibly returned to France in exchange for another person who would be brought legally to the UK. “In effect,” Diane Taylor wrote in a moving piece about the scheme in September, asylum seekers were “used as reluctant human shields to protect our borders from others in the same predicament.” The scheme was always limited in scale; of the 40,000 people who arrived in small boats while it was active, just 1,500 – roughly 4% – were returned to France. A report by British Future, a thinktank that championed the policy, recognised that it would have to be expanded twenty-fold to close down routes as a viable way to claim asylum. But it’s doubtful that, even at this far larger scale, it would have ever been effective. Diane reported in August that nearly 50 asylum seekers deported under the scheme returned to the UK a second time, and an unknown number arrived undetected. The government would have liked the scheme to continue, and its official explanation was that it was scrapped because it couldn’t be effectively scaled up. But it seems likely that political concerns in France also played a role. “At a time when immigration is going to be a major issue in the French presidential election, France doesn’t want to be seen to be taking in more unwanted people from the UK,” Rajeev Syal, the Guardian’s home affairs editor, tells me. *** The other side of one in, one out The deal was partially founded on a recognition of the need for safer routes to claim asylum in Britain. Starmer acknowledged when announcing it that “it is right that we offer a haven to those in most dire need”. But this flicker of humanitarianism was outweighed by the scheme’s arbitrary cruelty. Nearly 100 children were misidentified as adults and wrongly detained under the scheme, while some asylum seekers deported back to France were beaten by people smugglers. “I’ve been writing about asylum seekers for 25 years and I’ve never seen as much suffering caused to refugees by a UK government policy,” says Diane. It was also accompanied by the government’s fortification of security measures along the French border. To some extent, these security measures help to explain the drop in small boat crossings this year, together with an overall reduction in arrivals of asylum seekers to Europe. But they have also encouraged people to make even more unsafe crossings. The increased police presence in northern France has led to more trips in larger “mega-dinghies”, which became a subject of panicked headlines this summer, as smugglers attempt to transport more people in single crossings. Increased security has also encouraged people to take longer routes across the channel, sailing from Normandy and Belgium rather than Calais. Earlier this summer, far-right protests spread to Portsmouth, where people arriving on small boats had sailed from Normandy. “In effect, while the security measures seem on the surface to be working, they also contribute to boat journeys becoming far more dangerous, again adding to the sense of spectacle,” Daniel Trilling tells me. *** Why are so many people still crossing in small boats? The right frames small boat crossings as a failure to control immigration. Crucially, though, they’re a manifestation of ever-more draconian attempts to crack down on people trying to claim asylum in the UK. Before people crossed the channel in dinghies, they hid in lorries, or took flights to the UK using false passports. “When I first started reporting in Calais in 2014, it was still possible for refugees to stow themselves away on lorries without paying smugglers for access,” Daniel recalls. “But the more security that was placed around ports, the harder that became, and the more refugees had to rely on smugglers who could get access to secure lorry parks.” In 2020, when the pandemic temporarily grounded traffic between Calais and Britain, small boat crossings spiked dramatically. By the following year, these crossings had more than doubled. “There used to be really, really small numbers of boats arriving in Britain, and nobody paid attention to them,” Diane says. “And obviously, you didn’t get far-right influencers live-streaming arrivals at border control in Heathrow, or standing on the hard shoulder of the M25 waiting to film asylum seekers for their YouTube.” *** What happens next Part of the calculation behind the government’s latest decision to double the number of riot police in northern France is that, now the deal has ended, it has limited time in which to strengthen its partnership with the French government. If Marine Le Pen is elected in April next year, it’s plausible that her government could refuse to take any asylum seekers from Britain, further politicising the issue and causing a rise in crossings that would play into the hands of the far right here. Yet the decision is also yet another manifestation of the tendency to treat migration as a security issue rather than a reflection of an increasingly unstable world. No matter the increase in security or threats of deportation, people will keep trying to claim asylum. “As long as we have wars, instability and persecution, people will be displaced, and we need to work out ways to respond to that, rather than pretending that a policy tweak here or extra security measure there will simply make it disappear,” Daniel says. “At some point, you have to make a political argument for why asylum isn’t just an act of generosity, but a necessary response to the world as it is.” What else we’ve been enjoying This illuminating read explains how charity shops are facing a crisis as they compete with secondhand resale sites such as Vinted, a problem with unexpected consequences. Crucially, she outlines how we can all donate better. Craille Maguire Gillies, newsletters team Reading Morwenna Ferrier’s pest I’ll never forget made me reconsider the humble pigeon – which she describes as having encountered with such awe, aged 11. Poppy Noor, newsletters team Whatever side of the “will AI destroy society” debate you stand, read Leyland Cecco’s conversation with AI computer scientist turned sceptic Geoffrey Hinton: uncertainty, Hinton argues, is not a reason for complacency. Craille I loved our gallery of French photographer Jean-Pierre Laffont’s work – he spent two decades capturing protests, clashes and countercultural gatherings in America, and the images to come out are stunning and empowering. Poppy When species of birds decline, passing on the skill of singing becomes harder, even affecting their ability to breed. Rebecca Ratcliffe has this fascinating and warming look at how scientists are helping birds remember lost songs. Craille Sport Football | Pablo Barrios struck after 53 seconds and Leny Yoro was shown red as Atlético Madrid added to Manchester United’s woes with a 2-0 victory. Athletics | Ruth Chepngetich’s failed doping test, five months after she obliterated the record in 2024, left the sport deeply uneasy but powerless to act. Formula One | Formula One has confirmed Rwanda will join the calendar, with the first race set for the early 2030s. It will mark the first time F1 has raced in Africa since 1993. The front pages “M15 warns of rightwing shift from anti-migrant opinion to terrorism,” is the splash on the Guardian on Wednesday. “M15 chief: Russia did not sway Brexit vote,” says the Telegraph. “Putin’s Russia is biggest threat to Britain, M15 chief confirms,” says the i. “M15 chief: UK must not ‘play into hands’ of Putin,” has the Express, while the Mirror runs with: “Red Alert.” “Tax fears eased in Burnham’s ‘pro-business’ pitch to bosses,” is the lead story over at the FT. “Online tax crackdown to boost the high street,” says the Times. “4 out of 5 new jobs went to foreigners in the past decade,” has the Daily Mail, while the Metro goes with “Toxic water spills surge.” Finally, the Star with: “Tiger’s victim a child actor.” The Latest ‘I will not be silenced’: Trump critic Ilhan Omar defiant after home raided Democrats have described a raid on the home of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar as “deeply disturbing” and a “rogue abuse of power” by the Trump administration. The Democratic representative for Minnesota has long been a target of highly personal attacks by Donald Trump, who claims he was not involved in ordering the raid. Lucy Hough speaks to Guardian US political reporter Shrai Popat – watch on YouTube. Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings The Upside A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad Peter Lloyd spent most of his life unable to read or write, despite repeated attempts to learn. He struggled in school, left with no qualifications, and developed coping strategies that enabled him to work successfully as a lorry driver. During the Covid lockdowns, he found that it had become an overwhelming issue, particularly when he could not help home-school his son. Encouraged by his wife, he contacted the charity Read Easy and began lessons with a volunteer tutor. Over three years, he learned to read and now Lloyd serves as a Read Easy ambassador. Lloyd says: “I think it’s important to encourage others in my situation to seek help, especially men who might be too ashamed. I have three books on the go at the moment – I can’t believe how beautiful reading is!” 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

Leaders of India’s Cockroach party jailed for violating ban on protest site

Two leaders of India’s youth-led Cockroach movement have been sent to jail for five days for violating a ban on protests at a site in central Delhi. A court ordered that Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das, leaders of the Cockroach Janata party (CJP) movement, spend five days in Delhi’s Tihar prison for jumping over police barricades, holding up slogans and waving the Indian flag at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar. CJP leaders said the action was taken to demonstrate against the brutal crackdown on youth protesters in Delhi over the weekend and the decision by the Delhi police to shut-down Jantar Mantar – a stretch of road surrounding an observatory in central Delhi – as the capital’s designated protest site, a status it has held for more than 30 years. “You cannot denotify the resistance,” said Abhijit Dipke, the founder of the CJP, in a social media post which showed three of his fellow leaders entering Jantar Mantar, before they were tackled and detained by police on Tuesday. On Saturday, the CJP – a movement with a substantial following among India’s youth – called for a protest in Jantar Mantar to demand the resignation of the election commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, who is accused of overseeing the mass disenfranchisement of millions of Indian voters. The CJP, alongside the opposition political parties and student groups, have accused Kumar of revising India’s electoral roll to advantage the ruling Narendra Modi government, a charge his Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) denies. The election commission has denied favouring any party and said wrongly deleted voters ‌can re-enrol. Police denied permission for the protest on Saturday to take place and instead imposed a sweeping security crackdown. About 30,000 police and paramilitary were deployed to prevent the demonstration in Jantar Mantar, which was blocked with barricades. More than 7,000 people were detained. In the aftermath, the police declared that protests would no longer be allowed at Jantar Mantar, provoking outrage among the CJP leaders. Prior to his arrest, Das posted: “Why is Narendra Modi scared of Jantar Mantar? Jantar Mantar belongs to the people of India.” Ranka and Das ‌were among about a dozen people who jumped the barricades on Tuesday to enter the grounds of the Jantar Mantar to wave flags and chant slogans. In response to their sentencing, CJP founder Dipke accused the Modi government of resorting to “cowardly tactics” to “crush dissent”. The response by the Modi government to the protests that have erupted nationwide – including the mass detentions – has drawn criticism from the UN human rights commissioner and human rights groups such as Amnesty. The Indian government hit back at the UN statement on the protests, calling it an “unwarranted and constitute an unacceptable interference in the internal affairs of the country”. It was also met with concern by a UK political delegation visiting Delhi, led by trade minister Jonny Reynolds who confirmed he had raised it with the Indian government. Kiran Stacey contributed reporting

Ukraine is littered with landmines on a scale last seen in Vietnam. How can they be removed?

Crouched over on her hands and knees in a field of weeds, Olena Kabanova is digging into the ground. With a shovel and a steady hand, the 58-year-old digs out a neat square around the spot where a mine detector has sensed a suspicious object. Four years ago, this field in eastern Ukraine was occupied by Russian soldiers. Now back under Ukrainian control, it is littered with landmines. Civilians such as Kabanova are trying to make the land usable again. Landmines are a scourge of conflict zones. Littered across contested territory, they leave land unusable for years after a war has ended. Removing them is an expensive and dangerous job. And the use of long-range drones in Ukraine, which is often described as the most mine-contaminated country in the world, is increasing the scale of the problem. “What we’re now seeing is the massive increase in the use of drone-delivered munitions,” says Paul Heslop, the programme manager for mine action at the United Nations Development Programme in Ukraine. “What already was a very high-intensity battle area is now potentially, through the use of drones on both sides, becoming a much wider area of contamination and a scale that we haven’t seen since the Americans were dropping cluster munitions on the Ho Chi Minh trail.” The task of clearing landmines from Ukraine is replete with challenges. Drone and missile attacks make working outdoors unsafe; humanitarian workers are sometimes directly targeted. And newer, deadlier threats are also appearing. They include the POM-3, a small cylindrical mine used by Russian forces that could be mistaken for an abandoned vacuum flask. It is detonated by the vibrations of approaching footsteps. POM-3 mines mean there are “specific villages that we just completely avoid”, says Anda Riza, a unit commander of the Halo Trust, the largest international humanitarian demining organisation in Ukraine, which employs Kabanova in the field in Kharkiv. The types of landmines are “constantly developing and evolving”, says Valeriia Shumska, Riza’s colleague. But the technological innovation that is emerging from the conflict is also helping deminers to come up with new ways of working, which they hope are quicker and safer than the traditional hands-and-knees approach. The advances are being supported by the $1.5bn funding that has poured into Ukraine’s demining sector since the start of the full-scale invasion. Take Kabanova’s job. Digging out a patch of land could take up to 45 minutes. But a new machine can do it in five. Called the DMR-7, it is a small, tank-like vehicle fitted with a hosepipe that shoots out jet flows of compressed air. The tank is operated by a human using a remote controller who stands at a safe distance away. The operator manoeuvres the tank into place and then, with a loud mechanical whirring and plumes of dirt billowing skywards, the DMR-7 uses the force of compressed air to blast away a small patch of soil. It is a bulky, expensive alternative to a shovel, but it’s one that deminers hope can make one of the most dangerous parts of the demining process quicker and safer. The DMR-7 is just one of a host of new pieces of kit that the Halo Trust is experimenting with in Ukraine. Other technologies include AI-powered image analysis, ground-penetrating radar and devices that can detect explosive material, not just metal. Just as drones have transformed the battlefield, they have also created new opportunities for humanitarians. Before 2022, much of Halo’s surveillance work – looking for signs of explosives – was done with binoculars and maps. Now it is done with drones, and satellite imagery, which can be analysed with the help of AI. But war has also led to innovations in anti-drone technology. Drone jamming systems, used by both Russian and Ukrainian forces, can interfere with humanitarian work. Halo has lost several drones to jamming and spoofing attacks. And the advances in new technology are not spread equally between providers. In a field adjacent to one that Kabanova is working in, staff from the state emergency services are also clearing mines. Under the glare of the late summer sun, Mykyta Shulzhenko, the head of the mechanised demining unit, says his colleagues have started using drones for surveillance. But they are not yet able to use AI to analyse the drone-captured imagery. “I really hope this kind of technology will be implemented soon in our work,” he says. The Halo Trust alone spent nearly £50m in Ukraine in the year to 31 March 2025, dwarfing the state’s annual budget of £28.6m for a programme to clear agricultural land of mines and unexploded ordnance. And there are dozens of other demining organisations with overlapping responsibilities and approaches. Responsibility for the sector is split across multiple government agencies. Attempts to reform the country’s mine action law to bring it in line with international standards have faltered. Ihor Bezkaravainyi, a deputy economy minister who leads the country’s work on demining, wants to streamline the policymaking process to create one cabinet-level office to oversee the whole sector. But progress has been slow. Asked why, he offers a weary shrug: “Because, people.” “When we’re talking about a new law, it will mean that some government bodies will lose responsibility, and, they think, power,” Bezkaravainyi says. One person who has worked in Ukraine’s demining sector puts it more bluntly: “The biggest barrier to demining Ukraine is the government of Ukraine.” Bezkaravainyi says: “When we’re talking about an ordinary situation with mine action … the conflict has ended, and the government does not exist … in Ukraine, it’s the opposite situation.” That leads to a host of regulatory and bureaucratic barriers. For example, deminers are often prevented from using vehicles that are driven directly by a person, with health and safety standards requiring that the vehicles are operated remotely. Riza says: “We know for a fact that doing it remotely is much slower than having a person in the cab. That continues to be our biggest challenge.” Heslop argues that the Ukrainian authorities are overly broad in their categorisation of land as being contaminated by mines, an approach that risks wasting time and money on clearing land that wasn’t dangerous in the first place. “Just because it was occupied by the Russians doesn’t necessarily mean it was contaminated,” he says. “Land is only contaminated if it’s got fucking explosives in it.” But deminers across the sector agree that technological advances will accelerate their ability to release Ukraine’s richly fertile land for civilian use at a much faster rate than has been possible in the past. “This is the cutting edge of technology,” says Heslop. “This is where the humanitarian mine action sector is going through the biggest pivot in the last 30 years.” Additional research by Illia Dyadik and Artem Mazhulin

’How do you explain the deletion of 130 million names?’ Why Indian voters are on the streets

Born into a small village in West Bengal, Shahida Fakir had always taken her vote for granted. That was, until it was suddenly taken away. She presented officials with her Indian birth certificate and family land documents from the village going back to 1962. Both her parents had been on the electoral roll going back decades, so she showed proof of that too. But when the final revised voter list came out in April, Fakir was not on it. The 38-year-old migrant worker, born into a poor Muslim family, was not alone. Since last year, 130 million names – more than the population of Japan – have been removed from India’s electoral roll through a process known as SIR, or special intensive revision. In the nearly eight decades since India’s independence, never have the voter rolls shrunk by such a huge amount over such a short time. The Narendra Modi government has called SIR a legitimate exercise to clean up the electoral rolls. Overseen by the election commission, tens of millions of dead and duplicate names have been removed. Yet so have the names of millions of living Indian citizens. Critics allege that the pledge to “purify” India’s voter roll of illegal immigrants has instead been used for more sinister purposes – disenfranchising tens of millions of Muslims, other minorities, and poor and lower caste communities, who are largely not BJP voters. In a matter of weeks, nationwide anger at SIR has boiled up and spilled out on to the streets of India’s biggest cities, presenting a formidable challenge to the government. Over the weekend, Delhi was transformed into a high-security fortress of barricades, roadblocks and tens of thousands of police and paramilitaries who detained thousands of people, as they attempted to stop youth-led protests calling for the man who oversaw SIR, the chief election commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, to step down immediately. On Monday, opposition parties – who have decried SIR as a “weapon for vote theft” by the Modi government – drew tens of thousands of supporters as they marched through the capital and presented a petition to the supreme court, demanding Kumar’s resignation. The youth-led Cockroach Janta party (CJP) movement, who were behind the call for Saturday’s action, have vowed to “fight on” in their protests against SIR. Opposition and civil society leaders allege that SIR has already given the BJP an electoral advantage in states such as Bihar and West Bengal, claims the party denied. Others say the exercise has had even more concerning implications: under changes to SIR unilaterally implemented by Kumar, the election commission has become the arbiter of Indian citizenship, a sweeping overreach of its remit. The consequences are already playing out in West Bengal, where Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) recently came to power and began a crackdown on “illegal” immigrants, complete with several new detention centres. Civil society groups say Muslims excluded by SIR are being targeted. Fakir was among them. Just three months after the voter list was published – and while her hearing to challenge her exclusion was pending – she was picked up by police and accused of being an illegal Bangladeshi immigrant. In July she was pushed over the border to Bangladesh, a country she had never been to nor had any connection with, and remains stuck there. “I have all the documents to prove I am an Indian citizen,” she said in a tearful phone call from the Bangladesh border village where she has been sheltering. “I fell on their feet and begged the police not to send me to Bangladesh but they pushed me over the border.” A Bangladesh border guard officer confirmed Fakir’s account. “We checked all her documents and are convinced that she is an Indian citizen,” they said. In September, her family submitted a petition to the supreme court challenging her deportation. The Indian government was given a month to respond. “All I want is to return to my family and my home in India. I am waiting desperately for that day,” she said. The backlog of millions of voters in West Bengal challenging their exclusion means it could be years before Fakir’s case is heard. Those across West Bengal who have been stripped of their votes speak of their terror of being accused of being an alien in their own land. Some have had benefits taken away. Mohammad Hedayet Ullah Siddiqui, 80, from the North 24 Parganas district, said his grandfather had been a freedom fighter for Indian independence and three generations of his family were on the voter rolls. Yet after SIR, Siddiqui described his “humiliation” on finding his name gone. “With my name erased from the voter list, I am in constant terror. What if they send me to a detention camp?” he said. “I cannot bear to think about being separated from my children and grandchildren at this age, especially when all my ancestors have been buried in India.” Critics say the problems began in 2023, when the Modi government changed the process for appointing the three-body election commission, giving majority control to the government for the first time. Within a matter of months, the Modi-led panel had appointed Kumar as the election commissioner in spite of opposition objections. “For decades, the election commission was one of our more credible, independent bodies, but now that has been eroded,” said Ronojoy Sen, a senior fellow at the South Asian Studies Programme, National University of Singapore. By the following year, the new election commission body had begun SIR, starting in Bihar, where it immediately raised concerns among human rights groups after more than 6 million names were removed. Not long after the revisions, the BJP won a landslide victory in the Bihar state elections. Despite concerns over SIR rumbling on for months, it did not spark national protests until the Indian Express newspaper last month revealed that two members of the election commission had raised 14 objections to how voters were being excluded from the rolls, but they were unilaterally overruled by Kumar. “India has always been a flawed democracy but at least citizens felt they had the right to vote and that elections were regular and fair,” said Sen. “SIR has taken away that right. From how it has been conducted, it’s difficult to see how the motive was anything other than to enhance the election prospects of the BJP.” Three former election commissioners have openly criticised SIR as a “hostile exercise” that has undermined the sanctity of the country’s electoral rolls by focusing on the exclusion – rather than inclusion – of voters. OP Rawat, a former chief election commissioner, described changes to the voter registration form as “wrong and illegal”. Ashok Lavasa, who was an election commissioner between 2018 and 2020, called for the SIR to be scrapped. “An unfair procedure has been imposed on millions of people in the country, and you have the judiciary which has validated that,” he said last month. “How do you explain the deletion of 130 million names?” None have been more vehement in their opposition than SY Qureshi, who was chief election commissioner between 2010 and 2012. “This is a national harassment exercise designed to throw Muslims off the electoral roll,” he claimed. “The only way to restore the credibility of India’s elections is to restore those deleted voters.” The BJP has denied any political involvement or motive in the SIR process, accusing the opposition Congress party of “jealousy” over its recent electoral victories and saying any deleted voters can simply re-enrol. The BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi said the allegations were “disinformation” and part of an opposition campaign “being orchestrated to create an atmosphere of division and anarchy”. Nonetheless, the election commission has appeared to accept some flaws in the process. Late last week, it belatedly put a cap on the number of voter deletion forms – which allow people to submit objections on behalf of others – after incidents in which people submitted thousands of forms targeting legitimate Muslim voters. Public anger, meanwhile, has continued to build. In Delhi, where the SIR exercise left millions of people off the draft list, protests are expected to continue this week. A Delhi resident for 30 years, Prashant Tandon, 60, said he could not believe it when a notice came to his door, questioning his life as a voter. “If someone doubts my citizenship, they should produce evidence against me,” he said furiously, adding that he would be protesting alongside the young people. “I should not have to prove that I am an Indian citizen.” Additional reporting Aakash Hassan

An eerie trip inside Thailand’s oldest amusement park, deserted after flooding

With its mouth agape, the giant lion’s head is frozen in a roar. No water rushes down the log flume that descends from its heights, while at ground level, the vast amusement park stands empty of noise and activity except for leaves blowing in a light breeze. Welcome to Siam Amazing Park, billed as the longest-running amusement park in south-east Asia, and certainly in Thailand. Up to a million people rush in every year for thrills on rides like the Boomerang, an orange rollercoaster that loop-the-loops at 80km/h (50mph), or to splash around under the tropical sun in one of the world’s largest wave pools. It now stands empty, after being closed late last month when it started raining in Bangkok and did not stop for days. It could take more than six months for the park to reopen. Managing director Wuthichai Luangamornlert sits in an airconditioned conference room at the park’s entrance. Below his office, rows of turnstiles stand empty where just days before, thousands of tourists and local visitors were eagerly pushing through. He was not too alarmed when the rains began at the end of September. The area on the outskirts of Bangkok has seen heavy rains before – the megacity itself is built on floodplains and has a network of muddy canals and pumps to drain water. “When it rains a lot, it will dry off and the water will go away by the next morning,” he says. But the next morning came and it was still raining, and the day after, it was still raining. “The water level keeps rising. So that’s when we knew that it was not normal.” After three days, the sewers filled up and much of the park turned into a giant lake, with the water level reaching around knee height. Many of the motors and electrical systems that power the rides were damaged. Buildings around the park are still marked with lines of silt – the markers a flood leaves behind. Wuthichai’s father, Chaiwat, who opened the park in 1980, is famous in Thailand for his rags-to-riches tale, and kept prices discounted so the average Thai family could afford a rare visit. The son is now managing things, and says it is odd how rapidly his mindset changed from that of little concern to the reality of having the park closed for six months, or longer. “It happened within a few hours,” he says. This story of unstoppable rising water is one told across the city, where the government declared a flood disaster across all 50 districts. For days, people were forced to use boats to get to their destroyed homes, and those who did not have boats used inflatable pool toys. Weeks later, only puddles are left, although many canals are full and the rainy season is not over. Climate scientists warn the world is indeed experiencing a slow-moving crisis as the planet bakes due to human-induced heating, although it is too early to attribute Bangkok’s rains to climate breakdown, and the picture is complicated by an abnormally strong El Niño, a cyclical weather pattern that brings violent extremes. In the water section of the amusement park, dry water slides drop directly into murky flood waters, while deck chairs stand abandoned. Small fish have entered the once-chlorinated waters, making their home in waters turned green with algae which were previously bright azure. The wider park – which was built to be bursting with children, laughter and blaring music – remains spectacularly eerie. Stalls offering rice and spicy meat as well as American-style food such as hotdogs stand empty, although their price boards remain outside. Wuthichai says the park’s primary concern was their several hundred staff. The business is not as strong as it was before the Covid pandemic, he says, when they were forced to close but did not make redundancies. Several rollercoasters are foreign-made and need specialised parts and labour from Europe or Japan that could take months to arrive. At least the double-decker carousel at the park entrance is bespoke and locally made, he adds. The owners expect the cost of repair, and the lost revenue from being closed, to reach millions of US dollars. Short of cash, they have asked for a debt holiday from banks, help from the government, and are also considering offers to buy the park. “There are people who are still interested, still making appointments all the time,” says Wuthichai, who sits next to his adult son, the third generation of the family business. “We have not made a decision yet.”

Russia arrests Japanese journalist on allegations of spying

Russia has arrested a Japanese journalist on the far east island of Sakhalin and accused him of spying, in the latest sign of rising tensions between Moscow and Tokyo. Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova identified the reporter as Yuki Imai, from the Hokkaido Shimbun newspaper, adding that he had been accused of “conducting espionage activities on Russian territory”. Imai, a reporter at the newspaper’s bureau in the city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk on Sakhalin, was reportedly preparing to return to Japan when he was arrested for allegedly collecting information on Russia’s defence capabilities, according to Russia’s Tass news agency. Russia’s FSB security agency claimed the journalist had intended to pass the information on to Japanese intelligence. The FSB published a video showing masked officers storming a hotel room, pushing a man to the floor and handcuffing him. The man was flown to Moscow, where a court ordered he be held in pre-trial detention. It did not say when the arrest or court hearing occurred. The charges carry up to 20 years in prison. Japan’s foreign ministry urged Moscow to extend “fair and impartial treatment” to the detained journalist. “The Japanese embassy … in Moscow and the consulate general in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk lodged a request with the Russian authorities for the prompt provision of information, as well as for humanitarian consideration and fair and impartial treatment,” an official told Agence France-Presse. The Hokkaido Shimbun said in a statement that it was aware of the announcement by Russian authorities but it was “still confirming the details”. “Ensuring the safety of the journalist is our top priority, and we are responding accordingly,” it said. Imai’s arrest comes amid rapidly deteriorating ties between Japan and Russia, triggered by Tokyo’s support for Ukraine and a longstanding dispute over sovereignty of islands belonging to the Kuril chain near Sakhalin that are known in Japan as the Northern Territories. Japan claims the four islands closest to its territory – the nearest is less than 4km from Hokkaido. Russia regards Japan as an “unfriendly” country because it has joined western sanctions over its war ⁠in Ukraine. Russia has arrested several citizens of “unfriendly” countries in recent years, accusing them of working for western intelligence services. In 2023, US journalist Evan Gershkovich was arrested on espionage charges, later sentenced to 16 years in prison before being released in a 2024 prisoner swap. The FSB said it had “opened a criminal case against the Japanese national”, and that he had been placed in pre-trial detention, Russian news agencies reported, citing the agency. Russian media reported he would remain in custody until 12 December. “Attempts by Tokyo to use its correspondents in Russia … to gather information aimed at undermining the security of our state is regrettable,” Zakharova said, alleging this was “not an isolated case”. The Kurils have been under Russian control since the end of the second world war, when Soviet forces seized the islands in the final days of the conflict, forcing about 17,000 Japanese citizens to leave and, over time, replacing them with a similar number of Russians. In 2022, Moscow scrapped a programme that allowed former residents to travel to the islands to visit the graves of their ancestors in protest at Japan’s support for Ukraine. Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, visited one of the disputed islands in August, causing an uproar in Japan. Tokyo has ‌said it would continue implementing sanctions against Russia and supporting Ukraine. With Agence France-Presse and Reuters

Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy decries ‘absolutely unjust’ lack of warning from allies after Kyiv plant strike

A Russian ballistic missile struck a power plant in Kyiv on Tuesday evening without Ukraine receiving advance warning from its western allies, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. The president said Ukraine’s systems picked up the missiles only as they were nearing the city. “This is absolutely unjust: when they are destroying our infrastructure, and Ukraine is not even receiving early warnings about ballistic missile launches,” he added. US officials made explicit threats over the weekend to their Ukrainian counterparts that the Trump administration was on the brink of halting intelligence sharing with Kyiv. Donald Trump has denied intelligence sharing had stopped, telling reporters on Tuesday: “We are helping them, and we are sharing intel. We want the war to end, so we’re working with them and Russia on getting the war to end.” Trump has demanded that Ukraine stop attacking Russian oil refineries and has blamed Zelenskyy for the rise in fuel prices in the US. On Friday the US president announced a deal with Vladimir Putin to import diesel from Russia, dropping previous US sanctions. Two people also died in a strike on a high-rise apartment building in the capital on Tuesday night, according to Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko, who said apartments were on fire and being evacuated. A further 21 injuries were reported. Emergency ‌crews were battling fires in apartments throughout the building and residents were being ‌evacuated. Zelenskyy has said he has proposed new talks with ⁠US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. The proposal follows talks in the US last week ‌at which Witkoff and Kushner told ‌a Ukrainian delegation that a deal allowing Russian diesel exports was aimed at drawing Moscow back to negotiations. In a video ‌address on Tuesday night, Zelenskyy also reiterated that Ukraine supported president Donald Trump’s proposed energy truce as long as Russia observed it. “Our team has sent the American side the ⁠relevant proposals regarding possible next meetings and conversations,” he said. Trump is facing cross-party calls on Capitol Hill to ditch his controversial diesel deal with Russia. A group of six Republican and six Democrat senators has jointly warned that the lifting of sanctions to allow Moscow to sell the fuel is “a gift to our adversary and a betrayal of our allies”. The US president has defended the decision as he seeks to increase supply and so bring down soaring pump prices ahead of critical stateside elections next month, which will decide control of Congress. The EU has opened new areas of negotiations with Ukraine, marking a key step in Kyiv’s long path to join the bloc. Ukraine took a step forward in ⁠its membership bid on Tuesday, opening talks ⁠on internal market and competitiveness standards, Irish minister of state for ⁠European affairs Thomas Byrne said, after Hungary dropped its objections. The move came after Ukrainian lawmakers passed legislation protecting the rights of the Hungarian-speaking minority in western Ukraine, which has long caused tensions with Budapest. Hungary had blocked Ukraine’s EU membership bid, officially submitted days after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Suspected Russian drones struck two cargo ships off Bulgaria on Tuesday, sinking one vessel and leaving 11 sailors missing in the latest spillover from the Ukraine war in the Black Sea. Bulgarian prime minister Rumen Radev summoned the Russian ambassador after drones struck a Ukrainian-owned cargo ship, the Chelsea 3, while another vessel, the Guinea-Bissau-flagged cargo ship Dignity, was also hit and sank farther north off the coast. Radev called the attacks “absolutely unacceptable” and said Bulgaria was seeking Nato and EU assistance. EU chief Ursula von der Leyen called the attacks “another front of escalation of the Russian war in Ukraine”. The Russian Defence Ministry on Tuesday said its air defences overnight shot down 604 Ukrainian drones across the country and the Sea of Azov. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said 417 drones targeted the Moscow region. Most were downed far away, while 65 were intercepted as they approached the Russian capital. A school, two private houses and a car were damaged in the attack in the Kaluga region southwest of Moscow, governor Vladislav Shapsha said.

Allies did not warn Kyiv of Russian ballistic missile strikes, says Zelenskyy

Ukraine received no early warning from its partners about a second night of Russian ballistic missile strikes on civilian infrastructure in Kyiv, including a critical power plant struck after dark, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday. The Ukrainian president had earlier described an attack involving five missiles on Monday as “particularly vile”. He emphasised that receiving intelligence from Ukraine’s western allies “helps saves lives, and this is one of the most critical issues”. “This is precisely what helps prevent people from being killed – when there is an early warning about ballistic missiles,” he wrote on social media. He did not apportion blame for the lack of warning, calling it unfortunate. More ballistic missiles were then launched at Kyiv on Tuesday night, striking a key power plant in the capital despite a purported energy ceasefire claimed by Donald Trump. One person also died in a strike on a high-rise apartment building, according to the mayor, Vitali Klitschko, who said apartments were on fire and being evacuated. A further 13 injuries were reported. “Once again, ‌no advance warning from our partners. The main target was energy infrastructure, specifically thermal plant No 4,” Zelenskyy wrote on the social media app Telegram, again without explaining why he thought there had been no warning. US officials made explicit threats over the weekend to their Ukrainian counterparts that the Trump administration was on the brink of halting intelligence sharing with Kyiv. On Tuesday, however, Trump denied intelligence sharing had stopped. He told reporters: “We are helping them, and we are sharing intel. We want the war to end, so we’re working with them and Russia on getting the war to end.” Trump has demanded that Ukraine stop attacking Russian oil refineries and has blamed Zelenskyy for the rise in fuel prices in the US. On Friday the US president announced a deal with Vladimir Putin to import diesel from Russia, dropping previous US sanctions. Asked on Tuesday whether Russia could use proceeds from the sale to purchase more bombs, Trump sidestepped the question. “That’s a diesel ‌deal, not for us. That’s being released into the world. That’s not being released to us,” he said. Earlier the president claimed Moscow and Kyiv had agreed an “energy ceasefire”, something Zelenskyy described as “news to me”. Ukraine’s leader said his military had not struck Russian oil refineries or energy facilities in the two days following Trump’s Sunday announcement. The Kremlin, however, had ignored the “ceasefire” and continued to bomb Ukraine’s energy infrastructure as before, with multiple attacks, he said. “Russia did not heed the president … the Russians sent absolutely clear signals that they have no intention of refraining from strikes,” he noted on Tuesday. Ukrainian commanders say American intelligence is not needed to identify targets for deep strikes on Russia, with oil refineries marked on Google Maps. But they say it plays a crucial role in warning of Russian ballistic missile launches, and the takeoff of long-range bomber aircraft. “It is deeply unfair that they are destroying our energy infrastructure while Ukraine receives no warnings about ballistic missile launches,” Zelenskyy said in a statement after the Tuesday strikes. “It is vital that the world does not remain silent about this. And it is crucial that America clearly sees what is happening and who is responsible for the continuation of the war.” The blasts could be heard in central Kyiv as Ukraine’s air defences failed to stop the high-speed Russian missile targeting the capital. The missile strikes on Ukraine’s left bank targeted a thermal power plant, Zelenskyy said, and also struck an apartment building leaving both dead and injured in the latest strike on the capital. Zelenskyy warned on Tuesday evening that Russia was planning further strikes with ballistic missiles, telling Ukrainians: “Please take care of yourselves tonight and tomorrow.” In recent months Russia has dramatically stepped up its bombardment of Ukrainian towns and cities. It has particularly stepped up its attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure ahead of the winter, cutting power and water in large parts of Ukraine’s capital as emergency workers race to restore basic utilities. Ukraine, meanwhile, has struggled to shoot down incoming missiles and jet-powered drones and has appealed to partners to boost its dwindling supplies of US-made Patriot missiles. According to the Financial Times, the Trump administration has also threatened to suspend the procurement scheme under which Ukraine’s European allies buy advanced US systems, which are then sent to Kyiv, including badly needed Patriots. The Kremlin’s systematic campaign against Ukraine’s power grid has led to widespread blackouts in Kyiv and other cities. Putin’s apparent goal is to shut off heating and electricity for millions of civilians this winter, and to trigger a new wave of refugees into neighbouring EU states. Speaking in Warsaw, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, indicated that cooperation with the US was continuing and said the lack of warning about the Kyiv attack was due to a “special type” of Russian weaponry. On Monday, Russia also bombarded the city of Kharkiv, destroying a residential building. Sharing footage from the scene, Zelenskyy said four people had been killed and 41 injured. Rescuers spent the entire night searching for people trapped under the rubble, he added. Meanwhile, 11 sailors were missing after their ship was sunk by a drone attack off the coast of Bulgaria. The incident prompted Bulgaria to summon Russia’s ⁠ambassador. Two cargo ships were hit ⁠by drones overnight and one was sunk, Bulgarian officials said. Bulgaria stopped short of explicitly accusing Russia of carrying out the attacks but the prime minister, Rumen Radev, said their outcome “benefits the Russian Federation”. The row between Washington and Kyiv is the most serious since last year, when Trump threw Zelenskyy out of the White House. Ukraine’s president has said he is willing to stop hitting Russian oil refineries – but only on a reciprocal basis and with “real guarantees” that Moscow will cease its attacks on Ukraine’s own energy sites. “Direct or indirect support for Russia, delaying aid to Ukraine and complicating protection of lives from ballistics – this is what will definitely not work for peace. A strong America, a strong Europe, strong partners are needed,” he said on Tuesday.