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Over 560 schools disrupted in France on Friday as protests escalate into ‘urban violence’ – Europe live

French president Emmanuel Macron is ⁠scheduled to chair a videoconference with G7 leaders in the next half hour focused on the global energy situation, the Élysée Palace said. Macron has already spoken with US president Donald Trump and Canadian prime minister Mark Carney overnight to discuss the latest surge in fuel prices. Separately, EU ambassadors ⁠will also convene on Friday afternoon to discuss the global ⁠energy situation, the Irish Presidency of ⁠the EU said. “The ‌diesel ‌market is currently ‌very tight, leading to high prices for consumers across the ‌world. The Presidency is committed to maintaining close collaboration and coordination with ⁠all member states and the Commission,” a spokesperson for the ‌Presidency said. Earlier, EU representatives discussed a French proposal to release diesel stocks in response to US pressure to help cool surging fuel prices linked to the Iran war, three sources familiar with details of the discussion told ⁠Reuters. The proposal, discussed on a call involving EU governments, calls for European countries to release 50 million barrels of diesel and International Energy Agency members to release 50 million barrels of crude oil, the sources said.

Almost half of Fayed abuse accusers are potential trafficking victims, MPs told

Almost half of the women who reported allegations of sexual abuse by Mohamed Al Fayed to the Metropolitan police are potential victims of human trafficking, MPs have been told. In a briefing for the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) for the survivors of Fayed and Harrods in July, senior Met officers said a review earlier this year found 70 survivors’ accounts bore the hallmarks of trafficking. The Home Office has confirmed that at least five survivors were victims of international and domestic trafficking. The Met’s figures suggested the number of confirmed cases could climb much higher, said the Liberal Democrat MP Wendy Chamberlain, a co-chair of the APPG. “I can’t believe that wouldn’t increase,” said Chamberlain, who also compared the scale of Fayed’s abuse to Jimmy Savile’s. The Labour MP Dave Robertson, the APPG’s other co-chair, said: “The number of women who were trafficked by Mohammed Fayed and his trafficking ring is certainly much higher.” Some women were trafficked from Harrods to Fayed’s private offices and residence in Park Lane while others were taken out of the UK and abused overseas, senior police officers running the Met’s investigation, Operation Cornpoppy, told the APPG. But several survivors told the Guardian that the Home Office had not recognised them as victims of trafficking because they now live abroad. Amy, who lives in Italy, said she was trafficked from Harrods, where she initially worked on the shop floor, and her home to Fayed’s other properties. She said she was transferred to a PA role in his private residence and office at 60 Park Lane in London, where he allegedly sexually abused her, including groping her breasts and forced kissing. She said Fayed also took her in his private car and helicopter to his estate in Oxted, Surrey, where she was sexually assaulted in a lagoon-style swimming pool located behind a concealed door. “I would be removed from my home in Hammersmith and then be changed into clothes like Lacoste polo shirts and Bermuda shorts and boat shoes, which I absolutely hated,” said Amy. “That was robbing me of my actual identity. Whoever saw me leave my bedsit would say that’s not her. That’s a strong component of what trafficking is and was very calculating.” In a letter sent in June to the then minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls, Natalie Fleet, Amy raised concerns about the apparent exclusion of survivors living outside the UK from the Home Office assessment of potential trafficking victims, the National Referral Mechanism (NRM). She received a response from the Home Office in August, which said there was not a requirement that a potential victim be resident in the UK before being referred to the NRM by the police, or another first responder organisation. But last month Amy was informed by her contact officer at the Met that the Home Office had confirmed it would reject any referrals made for international residents. KP Law (KPL), which represents Amy and 277 other alleged survivors of Fayed’s abuse, said nearly a quarter of those women now lived overseas. Lucy Traynor, a senior associate at KPL, criticised the apparently inconsistent advice as to who was eligible to be recognised as a victim of trafficking. The lawyer said: “We are still seeing individuals whose experiences meet the threshold for trafficking struggling to secure recognition through these systems which are designed to identify and protect victims. Amy’s case is a stark example. Despite the nature of what she experienced, she continues to face barriers to recognition outside the UK. That disconnect between what the Home Office has committed to and what survivors experience in practice is simply not acceptable.” First responders including police forces and some charities can refer someone to the NRM if they suspect they are a victim of human trafficking. The Home Oﬃce then makes an initial “reasonable grounds” decision if it believes a crime may have occurred before investigating further and making a final “conclusive grounds” decision. So far it has confirmed that five women allegedly abused by Fayed were trafficking victims. Eleanor Lyons, the independent anti-slavery commissioner, said the Home Office’s statutory guidance explicitly stated that people needed to be in the UK to be referred to the NRM. Lyons said this was because the process involved getting access to support including a safe house and counselling, which officials believed would be difficult to provide to people who do not live in the UK. But she called on the Home Office to reconsider the requirement because many affected people she spoke to just wanted to be recognised as trafficking victims, adding that the situation was causing deep distress for alleged survivors of Fayed’s abuse. “The government should be doing everything it can to make it easier to identify these women and recognise them as potential victims of modern slavery,” Lyons said. “They’re doing directly the opposite right now, which is causing further harm to the survivors.” Survivors’ groups say more than 500 women have come forward about abuse that allegedly took place at Harrods, Park Lane, Fulham football club, the Ritz hotel in Paris, and other places owned by Fayed. The Met is investigating 165 victims who have contacted the force directly. A Met police spokesperson said: “We were previously making referrals to the Home Office for victims living in the UK and abroad, but those relating to victims living abroad were being rejected. As a result, we have paused any further such referrals. Should the Home Office position change, we will restart those submissions. Our support to victims continues, regardless of where they live.” A Home Office spokesperson paid tribute to “the incredible bravery” of survivors of Fayed’s alleged abuse. They added: “We are ensuring modern slavery survivors get the support they need to recover and move on with their lives.” A Harrods spokesperson said it “supports all survivors in their pursuit of justice and continues to work closely with the Met police on its investigation”.

Friday briefing: How we covered the flydubai incident as it unfolded

Good morning. Shocking news of a cockpit stabbing. Graphic footage of bloodied crew members. Mid-air testimony from terrified passengers. This was the tenor of the heart-in-mouth reporting as the horrifying events unfolded onboard flight FZ 1073 to Tel Aviv: the early morning budget flight that plummeted 17,000ft in under two minutes before the courageous intervention of passengers and crew averted an apparent hijacking, potentially saving the lives of not just the 170+ passengers and crew on board, but many more. This morning, speculation and conflicting reports are continuing to emerge about this dramatic incident in the sky above the most geopolitically sensitive region in the world. So how does the Guardian report a swiftly developing story engulfed in misinformation, as accurately and responsibility as possible? I spoke to the reporters, bloggers and editors involved to find out. But first, this morning’s headlines. Five big stories UK politics | Ministers are working up sweeping plans for welfare changes including scrapping a key disability benefit for under-25s and replacing it with a multibillion-pound package of support to get into work. Northern Ireland | Talks aimed at resolving the Drumcree parade dispute have broken up without agreement, with Northern Ireland secretary Chris Bryant describing the situation as being between a “rock and a hard place”. US news | Tennessee’s governor has suspended all executions in the state and ordered an independent inquiry after a botched attempt to put a condemned inmate to death on Wednesday night. AI | When prompted, AI chat bots will edit images to remove the hijabs from Muslim women, a violation of one of the world’s most common and visible expressions of faith. Europe news | A fast-growing protest by high-school students over long hours, teacher shortages and decaying facilities has escalated into “urban violence”, the French government has warned. In depth: ‘It was very, very tricky to untangle what was happening’ International leaders have rushed to praise Smit Machchhar, the captain of flight FZ 1073. Bleeding heavily from multiple stab wounds, he somehow managed to release his cockpit door, allowing passengers and crew to gain entry and overpower his co-pilot turned assailant, an Omani national, who had attacked Machchhar in an apparent attempt to crash the plane. Other crew members were able to stabilise the flight and, just before 11am local time on Wednesday, the Boeing 737 Max made a safe emergency landing in Saudi Arabia. All 174 passengers on board escaped serious injury. Yesterday, as internationally coordinated investigations continued, the attacker’s motives remained unknown. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News it was “too early to say” if there was any Iranian involvement, while claiming the co-pilot had previously undergone radical Islamist indoctrination and was suicidal. Other senior Israeli figures have been more vehement, with ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, describing the incident as a “terror attack”. Two Israeli security sources later told Reuters that they had not yet found Iranian involvement. Saudi investigators detained the co-pilot upon landing and are cooperating with the United Arab Emirates, the US, Oman and Israel to determine his reasons and potential affiliations. William Christou, a Beirut-based reporter with the Guardian, tells me: “They’re examining whether it’s a terror attack, whether it had any previous planning or prior direction, and if it could be a lone wolf attacker, who was perhaps motivated by anti-Israel hate, but wasn’t necessarily linked to any larger organisation or state.” *** ‘The story changed moment to moment’ William began drafting his initial report as soon as he woke up to news alerts about a potential hijacking. The Israeli government originally minimised the incident, describing it as a fight between pilots, while another early report suggested the plane had to land because of a fight between Ukrainian and Russian co-pilots. “I was sifting through so much misinformation,” he says. “The story changed very quickly, and moment to moment.” Back in the UK, Oliver Holmes was looking at flight trackers. Now based at Guardian HQ, Oliver has reported extensively across the Middle East. What I didn’t know until we spoke is that he once trained as a pilot, which has left him with an enduring interest in aerospace and aviation. Flight tracking websites have transformed how we report in-air incidents, he tells me. “Before any government has made an announcement, these platforms can tell you something seriously wrong has happened.” Flight tracking website Flightradar24 recorded the aircraft rapidly descending from its cruising altitude of about 34,000ft to 17,000ft in less than two minutes, just as it reached to the Saudi-Jordanian border. Oliver suggests that investigators will look at whether this sudden and ferocious plunge was why the plane eventually landed with part of its tail missing. Oliver sent what he could interpret from the tracking data to his international desk editors, who asked him to work on a tick-tock piece – not, for once, a reference to social media, but an old-school print term for an article that sets out the hour-by-hour narrative of an unfolding news story. “It was very, very tricky to untangle what was happening,” says Oliver. Eventually there came a flood of footage purporting to show images from inside the plane – but was it real? Each clip that the Guardian incorporated into our reporting had to be verified, particularly given the potential for AI-generated fakes. (The Guardian’s head of photography Fiona Shields is fascinating here on how we assess AI images.) *** ‘Netanyahu was trying to present himself as Mr. Security’ But this wasn’t just an aviation disaster. “It was taking place in this hugely sensitive geopolitical situation,” says Oliver. “The plane landed in Saudi Arabia which does not officially have diplomatic relations with Israel.” The budget airline itself, flydubai, had by now suspended all its flights to and from Israel, but warned against “premature speculation” while multiple governments, and Israeli officials in particular, were doing just that. This incident has occurred at a moment of extreme instability across the region, with the strait of Hormuz still closed as a result of the US-Israel assault on Iran and the resurgence of conflict in Yemen. It is also weeks ahead of knife-edge Israeli elections, with polls showing Netanyahu’s current coalition unlikely to meet the threshold needed to form a government but no clear path to power for his rivals. Just days ago, Netanyahu warned Israel faced an unspecified attack risk during the election period – an assertion greeted with cynicism by political opponents. The Israeli military subsequently confirmed they had no specific intelligence of an anticipated attack. “Most people interpreted that as Netanyahu trying to stir up his base by presenting himself as Mr. Security,” says William. Nevertheless, Netanyahu’s supporters consider him vindicated. On Thursday, William tells me, the Israeli foreign ministry started briefing diplomats that the flydubai incident was an attempt to drive a further wedge between the UAE and Israel, a relationship already strained after leaks suggesting Netanyahu was personally alerted to the 7 October attacks by the UAE president a week before it took place, something the president has denounced as “an absolute lie”. *** ‘These stories can be incredibly powerful’ It’s a challenging time to report a story like this, says Taz Ali, who led our live blog which covered the incident unfolding in real-time on Wednesday. “Readers are making connections with what’s happening in the Middle East in general, and you’re trying to answer their questions, first with very scant detail and later with a deluge of information, much of which is proved to be inaccurate.” Taz, who has a decade of experience in reporting on global events, knows the human drama of a potential hijacking immediately grabs reader’s attention. “Often those stories can be incredibly powerful, involve emergency landings, and sometimes they end in great tragedies”. And with the recent 25th anniversary of 9/11, the incident had an even deeper resonance. “Especially with the anniversary happening so recently, those memories would have been so raw in people’s minds when they came to this story.” What else we’ve been enjoying A new Taschen book of images from the National Geographic’s archives charts a century of dramatic change. And this fantastic gallery shows a tantalising selection, from the burlesque clubs of Baltimore to a blimp crossing New York Harbour. Lucinda Everett, newsletters team I loved our piece on when book clubs get dramatic, featuring werewolf smut, bad book choices, and infuriation when people don’t actually read the book. Poppy Elle Hunt’s piece about the evolution and cultural significance of human hair tackles many questions I never knew I needed answering. Case in point: what on earth is the purpose of pubic hair? Lucinda Guardian contributor Katherine Rowland went to Chicago for the United Astrology Conference and tells a captivating story about the battle over who gets to interpret the stars and how they should do it. Poppy Philip Oltermann’s interview with German artist and writer Philipp Ruch is a fascinating read. Ruch argues that “most of the theories we have to explain the rise of the Nazis don’t make sense – the data tells a far darker story”, one that could help us understand the rise of right-wing extremists today. Lucinda Sport Football | Wales ended their long wait for a Nations League win by beating Norway 2-1 in Cardiff, while Portugal maintained their perfect start with a 4-2 victory over Denmark in Copenhagen. Football | The United States is poised to host the first Women’s Club World Cup in January 2028, becoming the latest in a series of major Fifa tournaments staged in North America. Football | Andy Burnham’s intervention in the Manchester City debate has revived tensions between the Premier League and the prime minister. Something for the weekend Our critics’ roundup of the best things to watch, read, play and listen to right now TV Blue Lights (BBC One) | ★★★★☆ This Northern Ireland-set police drama has always been modern but never explicitly topical. Until now. Race riots, organised crime and institutional politics bring it bang up to date. Read Jack Seale’s full review. Music Meshell Ndegeocello: Synonym | ★★★★☆ In the jazz-soul singer’s ‘expression of queer liberation’, stars from Chaka Khan to Bill Callahan to Cynthia Erivo duet on equally varied songs from Cher to the Human League and beyond. Read Alexis Petridis’s full review. Film Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie (in cinemas now) | ★★★★☆ Alex Gibney’s documentary follows the celebrated author’s life up to and after the attack, but what shines through is Rushdie’s remarkable courage. Read Peter Bradshaw’s full review. Art Renoir and Love (National Gallery, London, from tomorrow) | ★★★★★ Grab your straw boater – and revel in the Impressionist’s light-as-souffle masterpieces that celebrate life’s pleasures, from picnics to dances to frolics in the bushes. Read Jonathan Jones’s full review. The front pages The Guardian splashes with “Welfare changes may axe disability benefit for young”. The Times leads with “Emergency diesel talks after Trump ultimatum” and the Telegraph says “Trump tells Europe to release diesel”. The Mail runs with “Labour frees first of 10 tidal waves of convicts”, while The i Paper has “Burnham leaving the door open to snap general election in 2027”. The Sun, on Andy Burnham’s Manchester City comments, says “Own goal”. The Financial Times goes with “Global bond sell-off leaves US trapped in vicious loop”, and the Mirror leads on an interview with a survivor of the Manchester synagogue attack, saying “He stabbed me 3 times but I had to stop him”. The Latest US woman on death row survives two lethal injections in Tennessee A woman convicted of murdering a schoolmate 30 years ago has been taken to hospital after surviving two rounds of lethal injections in Tennessee. Christa Pike would have been the first woman to be executed in the state in 200 years. Pike, 50, has spent three decades on death row after she was convicted of the murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in 1995. A last-minute appeal to stop the lethal injection was overturned by the supreme court, but the state governor, Bill Lee, has suspended executions in Tennessee for the rest of the year. Lucy Hough speaks to the attorney and anti-capital punishment campaigner Clive Stafford Smith. Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings The Upside A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad Eleven-year-old Bodhana Sivanandan has become the youngest ever ‘woman grandmaster’ at the Chess Olympiad in Uzbekistan – while playing on a car booster seat so she could reach the board. Sivanandan, who lives in Harrow, was taught to play by her father when she was five. Within a year, she was beating him and by eight she had beaten the former British champion Peter Lee. If she reaches a rating of 2,500 in the next 11 months, she will become the world’s youngest ever outright grandmaster. She fits her chess career around school, but takes everything in her stride. “Now that I’m in secondary school there might be more homework,” she says, “but I should be able to manage”. Her ultimate ambition, she says, is simply to be the best chess player in the world. 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

‘No one disrespects Our Lady’: fears for Brazil’s patron saint grip country ahead of election

A row of Biblical proportions has erupted in the run-up to Brazil’s presidential election, with the country’s patron saint, Our Lady of Aparecida, emerging as an unlikely kingmaker in the deadlocked race. Ahead of Sunday’s vote, the two frontrunners – the leftwing president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and his far-right challenger, Flávio Bolsonaro – are level in the polls. But in recent days, speculation that Bolsonaro – son of the former president Jair Bolsonaro – might strip the widely cherished patroness of her position have caused a nationwide outcry, leaving some to question if it could tip the knife-edge election in favour of Lula, who is Catholic. “It could sway things one way or the other,” said Thomas Traumann, a political analyst who has been tracking the unusual election row. It remains unclear precisely how the commotion began, but debate over the issue exploded last week when a remark by Bolsonaro, whose movement includes many evangelical Christians, went viral online. In a recent broadcast, the former senator said one of his first acts as president would be to “decree that Brazil belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ”. Some Catholics took that as a sign that the Protestant politician planned to unseat Our Lady of Aparecida, although only the Vatican – which declared her Brazil’s patroness in 1930 – has the authority to do so. Those suspicions were reinforced by Bolsonaro’s reported links to JB Carvalho, an evangelical leader who has previously called for the patroness’s removal. In 2007, another Bolsonaro ally tried to introduce legislation to the same effect, although the bill was dropped. Bolsonaro has called claims he plans to unseat Our Lady of Aparecida “fake news”. He alleged the rumours were being spread by Lula supporters, as well as members of the Episcopal Conference of Brazil, a Catholic bishops’ organisation. The conference rejected the charge. Lula’s leftwing movement has taken advantage of the furore, keenly aware it could hurt the far-right candidate’s chances in a country where nearly 57% of the population is Catholic. With the result expected to be even tighter than the last one – when Lula beat Jair Bolsonaro by less than 2% – even a small number of votes could mean the difference between victory and defeat. Lula has appeared on the campaign trail holding statuettes of the Virgin Mary while his wife, Janja da Silva, has worn a pendant honouring Our Lady of Aparecida. “As long as I’m president, no one will disrespect Our Lady of Aparecida. No one. People need to learn to respect all religions,” Lula told a rally in the Amazon. Lula’s vice-president and running mate, a devout Catholic called Geraldo Alckmin, published a video describing how he had received messages from Catholics “worried about the direction of the country and the terrible news that has been circulating”. Alckmin assured voters he and Lula would preserve and protect “religious traditions, so sacred to Brazilian families”. The row speaks to the rivalry and tensions between Brazil’s once dominant Catholic church and the evangelical movement, which has grown rapidly since the 80s. Traumann said: “It touched a raw nerve, which is the growing power of the evangelicals. Evangelicals make up about 30% of the population, but their political power is much greater than 30% – and within Bolsonarismo it is even more significant”. Traumann believed that, irrespective of whether Bolsonaro really did intend to remove the patroness, the furore had tapped into “a genuine fear among Catholics of being pushed outside the system”. “I have no doubt that this is going to be important [in the election]. [Flávio Bolsonaro] knows it has landed badly,” he added. Luiz Antônio Simas, a historian and author of the book So Many Marys: Our Lady in Popular Culture, said the outcry “was a symptom of the popularity that Aparecida and the Virgin Mary in general have in the formation of our culture”. “For Brazilian popular culture, Our Lady of Aparecida transcends altars … She is extremely powerful as a defining element of what we envision Brazilian popular culture to be,” Simas said, noting how Brazil’s “Black Madonna” was present in samba parades, football culture and Afro-Brazilian faiths. While the debate flared up on the eve of the election, Simas said Our Lady of Aparecida was a long-running point of tension between Catholics and evangelicals, who oppose the Catholic veneration of saints and images. He recalled a major outcry in 1995 when a neo-Pentecostal pastor kicked a statue of Our Lady of Aparecida on TV. Simas believed religious racism was at the heart of the outcry, given that Our Lady of Aparecida was a black representation of the Virgin Mary. “When all of this comes into contact with a turbulent political context, in a country experiencing the tensions of a highly contested pre-election scenario, all these controversies come to the surface,” Simas added.

Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy says new ballistic missile used in combat

Ukraine used its FP-7 tactical ballistic missile in combat for ⁠the first time, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. Writing on Telegram on Thursday, the Ukrainian president said: “First combat use. Thank you for ⁠the result. Next – production.” He did not say where or how the FP-7 had been used. The missile’s manufacturer, Fire Point, says it is being developed as a ballistic interceptor within the European missile defence programme, called Freyja, launched this year. Ukrainian military analysts describe the FP-7 as a short-range missile with a range of about 200km (125 miles), likening it to the US army Tactical Missile System but much cheaper. Ukraine – whose missile production is well behind Russia’s – has viewed development of its own tactical ballistic missiles as an important element of its response to Russia’s frequent use of them in its attacks. Russian drones smashed into a school in Kyiv and an important bridge over the Dnipro River on Thursday, triggering fires ⁠in the capital, officials said. The ⁠school was struck early in the morning, but all the students were in a shelter and no injuries were reported, city authorities said. As Russian forces engaged in almost non-stop attacks on the city, Mayor Vitali ⁠Klitschko said two drones hit the Southern Bridge around noon. A new strike late in the evening damaged a support, part of the road surface and protective structures around the metro crossing the bridge. On Wednesday, Russian forces unleashed what Ukrainian officials described as the start of a cold-weather strike campaign against Ukraine’s power grid. Meanwhile, Ukraine is pressing on with strikes on Russian oil refineries, defying Donald Trump, who blames the attacks for exacerbating a global diesel shortage and pushing up fuel prices. Kyiv struck an oil facility in Russia’s southern Samara region overnight, Zelenskyy said on Thursday in a statement on social media. He added that a Russian vessel in the Black Sea was hit, as well as a launch and storage site for attack drones in the Oryol region. Ukraine ⁠also attacked the ⁠Russian ⁠city of Volgograd, home to a ⁠large oil refinery, with ⁠drones targeting industrial ‌facilities, ‌Governor Andrei Bocharov ‌said on Telegram on Friday. Ukraine’s campaign in recent months has knocked out more than 45% of Russia’s refining capacity, according to Ukrainian estimates, prompting fuel rationing in some regions and long queues at petrol stations. Europe has become increasingly dependent ‌on US fuel after banning Russian imports because of the war and after the US-Israeli war against Iran disrupted supplies from the Middle East. The Trump administration has told Germany and France to draw down emergency diesel inventories to help ease soaring ⁠global fuel prices or face a ⁠potential US diesel export ban, according to three people close to the discussions. At a Group of 20 meeting this week, trade ministers agreed it was “not acceptable” for countries to target food supplies in conflicts, France’s minister delegate for international trade, Nicolas Forissier said on Thursday, adding that European leaders took aim at Russia on the issue. Forissier’s comments come as trade ministers from the G20 met for a second day in the midwestern US city of Milwaukee, where European officials criticised Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s grain sector. Forissier said European leaders’ comments against “the aggression of Russia in Ukraine” on food exports merely constituted “the truth”. Moscow warned Nato that it would not hesitate to use nuclear weapons to defend Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave and seaport located on the Baltic Sea, should any members of the military alliance try to cut it off. Several Russian embassies in Europe this week issued statements that said Moscow has “information that Nato is preparing [an] air and naval blockade of Kaliningrad and [the] Kaliningrad region”. Asked on Thursday whether Russia was on the cusp of a war with Nato or whether both were trying to intimidate each other, Putin said: “It’s not intimidation, it’s a response to an attempt to intimidate us.” Putin said also on Thursday Russian assets of western companies that Moscow had seized could be returned in a “favourable scenario”. Last month, the Russian president ordered the seizure of businesses and assets of Swiss food giant Nestlé, French retailer Auchan, the former Leroy Merlin DIY chain and German wholesaler and food retailer Metro. He also said Russia ⁠would prefer to ⁠end the conflict ‌in ‌Ukraine through ‌talks and wanted Ukraine to be ‌a neutral country after the end of hostilities.

Alan Ferguson obituary

My brother, Alan Ferguson, who has died aged 79, was a Scotsman who began his working life as a geography lecturer at Nairobi University in Kenya, before working with aid agencies in that country. Alan joined the university in 1972, but left after a couple of years to teach in Britain at Cambridge University, and then in the US at NorthEastern University in Chicago. However, Kenya had got a hold on him, and he returned to work there, first for Amref, a Dutch organisation, and then GTZ, a German body, mainly in family planning and public health. Eventually he went freelance, helping various aid agencies with their work in Kenya, until a serious accident incapacitated him, forcing him to retire to Scotland. Born in Glasgow, Alan was the son of Bill, an analytical chemist, and Jessie (nee Moncrieff), a shorthand typist. At the local Angus Oval primary school his hair was permanently unruly and his mum decided one day to plaster it with Brylcreem into a cow’s lick. Alan came back from school in a huff; clearly comments had been made. “But Prince Charles has a cow’s lick,” mum pointed out. “Prince Charles doesnae go to Angus Oval,” was the terse reply. After Queen’s Park senior secondary, Glasgow – where he and some friends formed a band, the V5, which played gigs around the west of Scotland – he moved on to Strathclyde University to study geography (1965-69) before completing a PhD at Bristol University. Alan went straight on to Nairobi University but eventually left after a disagreement over student grading, and decided to go back to the UK. Once he returned to Kenya, his work with aid agencies took him to remote rural parts of the country where he was often the first white man many of the locals had seen in the flesh, and where his hairy legs were a great novelty. He was different from many other foreign workers in that he spoke Swahili, integrated with the people and was curious about their lives. His attachment to Kenya was strengthened when he met a local registered nurse, Florence Miyawa, whom he married in 1982. They settled happily in Nairobi, where they had three daughters, Janice, Lynne and Iona. Sundays were an important day for Alan in Kenya, as the airmail edition of the Observer would be delivered to him. He would quickly settle down to tackle the cryptic crossword and would then wing his completed answers back to the UK, often winning the weekly prize. Having turned freelance, he was about to embark on a new project with the global health management consultancy Constella Futures in 2009 when he was knocked down by a bus while he was out jogging, sustaining serious head injuries that meant he was unable to drive or continue working. In 2014, fed up at having to renew his visa every few months as he did not have a job, he returned home to Glasgow with Florence. He is survived by Florence, their daughters, granddaughter Rowena, and by me.

Brazil attorney general says meddling ‘cannot be tolerated’ after Trump funding plans revealed

Brazil’s attorney general has said foreign meddling in his country’s institutions and democracy “cannot be tolerated” after a Guardian report revealed how the Trump administration was pushing to direct funds to a campaign against the Brazilian supreme court. Writing on X, Jorge Messias called the report “an important alert for Brazilian sovereignty”. “The information is especially serious in light of Brazil’s electoral process and the recent episodes of external pressure on our institutions,” Messias added. Brazil is three days away from its presidential election – the outcome of which Washington has been accused of trying to influence – where the leftwing incumbent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, will face off against his far-right rival, the Trump ally Flávio Bolsonaro. The pair are neck and neck in the polls. According to the Brazilian television network GloboNews, the attorney general’s office on Thursday filed a criminal complaint to investigate potential wrongdoing, in response to the Guardian story. Last year, the Trump administration used a campaign of sanctions and tariffs in a failed attempt to pressure Lula’s government and the supreme court over the coup trial of Bolsonaro’s father, the ex-president Jair Bolsonaro. Trump called Bolsonaro’s prosecution a “witch-hunt”, but he was convicted and handed a 27-year sentence for trying to seize power after losing the 2022 election to Lula. In recent months, the Trump administration has again been accused of meddling in Brazilian affairs by using tariffs and the designation of two Brazilian organised crime groups as foreign terrorist organisations to boost Flávio Bolsonaro’s campaign and weaken Lula. Writing on Thursday, Messias said: “Disagreements between governments are inherent to international relations. What cannot be tolerated is for foreign political interests to seek to interfere in the functioning of Brazilian institutions or to influence, directly or indirectly, choices that belong exclusively to the Brazilian people.” Messias added: “It is the right of each generation of Brazilians to freely decide their destiny, protect their institutions, and hand over to their children a country that does not accept decisions about Brazil being made outside of Brazil. Our democracy belongs to Brazilians. And so it must remain.” The attorney general’s comments came in response to a report that the Trump administration was pushing to direct more than $175m of the state department’s flagship human rights fund to a slate of awards that includes a $40m grant for an anti-communism fund, support for a group advancing white Afrikaner rights in South Africa and the campaign against Brazil’s supreme court. A $1m award titled “Countering lawfare and censorship in Brazil” would fund civil society groups opposing what it calls judicial overreach and censorship by Brazil’s supreme court. Bolsonaro’s far-right movement considers the supreme court – and in particular justice Alexandre de Moraes, who oversaw Jair Bolsonaro’s trial – its greatest foe. Moraes is widely seen to have played a key role in thwarting Jair Bolsonaro’s authoritarian plot, which culminated in the 8 January 2023 riots in Brasília, despite concerns about the judge overstepping his constitutional authority in his crusade to protect democracy. During the rightwing riots, hardcore Bolsonaro supporters trashed the presidential palace, congress and supreme court. The court sustained the most severe damage. Bolsonaro supporters continue to claim their leader’s imprisonment is unjust and that he is the victim of a politically motivated sham driven by a corrupt “judicial dictatorship”. Their criticism of Moraes and the supreme court has been bolstered by a recent scandal linking several judges, including him, to Daniel Vorcaro, the playboy banker at the centre of Brazil’s biggest banking scandal. Vorcaro has also been linked to the Bolsonaro family. The banker reportedly gave the family more than £9m, supposedly to produce a biopic about Jair Bolsonaro starring Jim Caviezel, who played Jesus in Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ. On the eve of Vorcaro’s arrest last November, Flávio Bolsonaro messaged him to say: “Brother, I’ll always be with you.” Vorcaro is being held in federal police custody in Brasília. His legal team has consistently denied wrongdoing. On Wednesday, his lawyers said he was not involved in “any kind of illicit activity or criminal practice”.

France school protests escalate into ‘urban violence’ as PM calls crisis cabinet meeting

A fast-growing protest by high-school students over long hours, teacher shortages and decaying facilities has escalated into “urban violence”, the French government has warned, as it said many schools would switch to online classes to protect teachers and pupils. The prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, called a crisis cabinet meeting on Thursday and told ministers to cancel travel plans to deal with the demonstrations, which erupted in the Paris region last week but have snowballed across the country. Lecornu’s office said: “This upsurge in violence makes it virtually impossible to maintain the continuity of public education and is exposing staff and students to danger.” The education minister, Édouard Geffray, is to meet pupil representatives on Friday. About 900 demonstrations, blockades and related incidents were under way outside high schools around the country, police said, with more than 160 shut down as a result. Access was also blocked to about 30 university campuses on Thursday, including in Paris and Marseille. Nearly 3,000 lycée students – aged between 15 and 18 – have been detained since the start of the protests, including 1,949 on Thursday alone, the interior ministry said. More than 300 police and dozens of firefighters, teachers and pupils have been injured. The pupils’ grievances range from overloaded timetables and overcrowded classes to insufficient teachers and unbearable temperatures during heatwaves earlier this year. Riot police have been deployed to confront the increasingly violent protests. Injuries have mainly been from hurled objects but also from police-fired riot-control projectiles, with the interior ministry announcing an internal police investigation after accusations of excessive force and brutality by officers against three pupils. Rubbish bins have been set on fire outside many schools and more serious arson attempts have been reported inside some buildings. Fire damage in one school in Nantes in the north-west was so extensive that it will stay closed for a month, authorities said. In the northern city of Caen, 16-year-old Maelle said she wished those setting bins on fire would protest “with words”. Students were protesting “against this government that doesn’t invest in heating, air conditioning, or teachers’ salaries”, she told AFP. In Strasbourg in the north-east, tram services were temporarily suspended to “restrict the movements of rioters and demonstrators”, the regional prefect said, after protesting students obstructed the tracks with crowd control barriers. “There are 35 of us per classroom,” one 17-year-old Strasbourg student said. “There aren’t enough toilets, and there are water leaks in some rooms. The building is falling apart, the cafeteria is too small. There’s zero budget, zero resources.” Several bin fires were also reported in the southern city of Toulouse; while in Lille, young people wearing black hoodies destroyed a bus stop. In Marseille, there were attempts to light fires inside two schools. In one, a teacher was splashed with petrol. While many teachers and several headteachers have reported being physically threatened and sometimes attacked, some support their pupils. Juliette Estiville, a high-school Spanish teacher in Paris, said that the police response had disgusted her. “I’m actually here just to provide protection, to form a barrier between the police and the students,” she said. “Today went well, it’s going well, but I think that the teachers who come to the blockades are really there to protect our young people.” The government has accused the radical left La France Insoumise (LFI) party of encouraging the protests, with several LFI MPs and mayors, including Bally Bagayoko, the LFI mayor of the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, cheered at demonstrations. The party’s candidate for the 2027 presidential election, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, insisted on Thursday that LFI backed “non-violent methods of struggle” and added that his “greatest worry is an unbearable level of police violence against these young people”.